The first Christians weren't Bible Christians

[Phatt Matt s]

I'm onn a cell and can't type much. To clarify I didnt say no christians owned a bible. It would have been less than 1%. When bibles had to be handwritten it would cost someone ten of tousands of dollars to own one

I'll talk more when internet works again

[*Deidre*]

Aractus' post is very informative and accurate.

Simply put, if you are a Christian, your faith causes you to believe that the Bible came from original "sacred" texts written by the apostles and prophets, themselves. And thus, the Bible is the word of God translated into one's native tongue.

Historians and Bible scholars wrestle even with agreeing as to what to accept and not accept, and what is literal etc...

The Catholic Church teaches that the Pope has the ability to interpret the Bible with infallibility.
He's more special than the rest if us mere mortals, I guess. lol

As an atheist, it seems ridiculous. As a Christian, you do believe it to be the word of God with the writers as his messengers to tell the story.

[Phatt Matt s]

The Catholic Church teaches that the Pope has the ability to interpret the Bible
He's more special than the rest if us mere mortals, I guess. lol
[/quote]
The catholic church teaches that the pope has the keys of the kingdom and the power of binding and loosing given to peter. So he is guided from error when defining a dogma excathedra from the chair of st. Peter. This almost never happens. Many popes never exercize this authority. The church does not teach that the pope is infallible in all his acts

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Instead of saying almost all christians couldnt own a Bible I should have said most. To me 99% and almost all are synonymous but mos t is the better word to use

[Phatt Matt s]

There was much doubt and hundreds of years of debate before a decision was made about what was and was not the inspired Word of God, and prior to that, these prospective writings were scattered throughout the world.

We find in the New Testament many references to Christian Doctrine as derived from oral teaching. The Thessalonians are taught to hold fast to the traditions they were taught whether by word or epistle (2Tess 2:15)

Timothy, who had been ordained Bishop of Ephesus St. Paul is instructed to “Hold fast the form of sound words which he had heard from his teacher “to continue in the things learnt and to commit the same to faithful men who shall be able to teach others.(1Tim 1-11; 4:11-16; 6:20; 2 tim 1:6, 13; 2:2, 3:10, 14; 4:2, etc.)

all of which stands in favor of the Doctrine of Apostolic authority in a line of successors for an oral transmission of the Faith , and against the idea of substituting the Bible as the sole and adequate guide to salvation.

The Bishops were universally regarded as the authoritative successors to the Apostles responsible for the preservation of Christian Doctrine.

The New Testament was not completed until 65 years after Peter and Paul and most of the other Apostles were dead; many of their immediate successors had been martyred, and it is likely that the third or fourth successors of the several Apostles were converting souls without the Bible when St. John completed his writings.

In fact, the whole Roman Empire was Christian, and the Church was enjoying her golden age, before anybody ever saw the New Testament bound up into one volume. For four centuries people received their faith only by hearing it preached in Catholic Churches.

The Bible was not given from Christ as the Christian’s sole rule of Faith yet Christianity is full of that "Johnny Come Lately" Unchristian Solascriptura BS. Christ did not write the New Testament; and the Apostles were not ordered to write it as a text book. Tradition is also a rule of faith; for “faith cometh by hearing” (Rom 10:17).

If the Bible was to be the sole rule of Faith than Christ would not have left the first Christians without one.

See how the denominations differ and how zealous Bible readers do not agree on the correct interpretation of many Scriptures.

Is anyone foolish enough to believe that the changeless and eternal Holy Spirit is directing those hundreds of denominations, telling one Yes and another NO; declaring a thing to be black and white, false and true, at the same time?

If the Bible were intended as the guide and teacher of man, would Peter have declared that “In the Scriptures are things hard to be understood, which the unlearned and unstable twist to their own destruction” (2 Peter 3:16)

If the Bible is the authority for everything, how is it that people in favor of this nonsense cannot quote the Bible in favor of the “private judgment” theory? “No prophecy of Scripture is made by private interpretation” (2Peter 1:20)

Paul warned Titus not to concede to anyone the right of private judgment (Titus 3:9-11). Individual opinions have divided Christianity, and occasioned more infidelity, bigotry, war, persecution, scandal, and confusion than anything else. It has been most abundantly proven that from Scripture, honest and able men have derived and do derive arguments in support of the most opposite opinions.

From a letter to a fallen away Catholic

[BrianSoddingBoru4]

TC, you seem to be making the point that since the Bible wasn't available to the earliest Christians, they wouldn't have been 'Bible Christians.' Could we possible get you on Mastermind? Your special subject could be 'The Ridiculously Fucking Obvious.'

Additionally, if you're going to copy-and-paste entire passages verbatim from other websites, have the decency to source them. Otherwise, people might come to the erroneous conclusion that you're some kind of pig-ignorant slug who wouldn't know an original thought if it jumped up and bit you on the arse.

Boru

[Phatt Matt s]

TC, you seem to be making the point that since the Bible wasn't available to the earliest Christians, they wouldn't have been 'Bible Christians.' Could we possible get you on Mastermind? Your special subject could be 'The Ridiculously Fucking Obvious.'

Additionally, if you're going to copy-and-paste entire passages verbatim from other websites, have the decency to source them. Otherwise, people might come to the erroneous conclusion that you're some kind of pig-ignorant slug who wouldn't know an original thought if it jumped up and bit you on the arse.

Boru

It was called a letter to a fallen away Catholic. I know from memory that the councils of Rome, Carthage, and Hippo, decided the Canon of Scripture in the late fourth century.

I was also addressing it to some of the Bible Christians who posted on this thread.

More from that letter:

The Majority of Christians did not have the Bible before the Fifteenth Century

Not only was the Bible not the Christian’s written Rule of Faith during the first four centuries, but it was not during the next thousand years, for the simple reason that there was no widespread use of paper to print on until the thirteenth century, and the moveable-type printing press itself was not invented until the year 1450, more than one thousand years after the collection of books which were considered inspired was determined.

It required several years of work, distributed over many hours of the day to produce one copy of the Bible.
For more than a thousand years Not one in 50,000 Christians had a Bible.

Would our Divine Lord have left so many souls without that book if it were necessary to man’s salvation?

Now, this is not for atheists or Catholics or orthodox Christians or Muslims. I'm writting this for Christians who beleive the Bible to be the sole rule of Faith. If you aren't infected with that disease please don't read these posts. Thank you!

[Aractus]

Instead of saying almost all Christians couldn’t own a Bible I should have said most. To me 99% and almost all are synonymous but mos t is the better word to use

Well that's just not accurate. It's true that for a time the RCC prohibited the laity from owning private copies of the Bible - but besides that period in history the Bible was feely available to the laity, and that goes all the way back to the Jewish traditions before Christianity even existed. In Judaism scribes could make copies of any of the scriptures, and were able to correct any errors in their copies by comparing them to the temple scrolls. Since Hebrew was a dying language even in the first century, some of the books had also been translated into Greek and continuing this tradition the Christian texts were translated into every available language too. That meant that those speaking Latin, German (there's about 1,000 manuscripts in German that date prior to the 15th century), French, etc, meaning that not only did Christians have the New Testament Bible in the original Greek but they also had it translated into languages that the laity could read in the same way that we have the Bible translated into English and every other major Language today. Anyone who wanted their own copy of the Bible would not have had much trouble acquiring one so long as they could a. cover the cost (or could scribe their own), and b. could read.

Due to the cost of creating ancient codices prior to the printing press is why we find so many ancient manuscripts cover only the NT text and not the OT, and that shouldn't surprise anyone.

[*Deidre*]

My question is...were there ''gospels'' left out (deliberately) of the Bible? (Gnostic gospels) I read many conflicting things, and it's always been a curious thing for me.

[Aractus]

There was much doubt and hundreds of years of debate before a decision was made about what was and was not the inspired Word of God, and prior to that, these prospective writings were scattered throughout the world.

The most important part of that claim has been long since disproved. We don't find any ancient codices that contain heretical books, for instance.

We find in the New Testament many references to Christian Doctrine as derived from oral teaching. The Thessalonians are taught to hold fast to the traditions they were taught whether by word or epistle (2Tess 2:15)

The epistles were intended to be read aloud, thus most received the messages in the NT books from listening to it being read to them by the early priests.

Timothy, who had been ordained Bishop of Ephesus St. Paul is instructed to “Hold fast the form of sound words which he had heard from his teacher “to continue in the things learnt and to commit the same to faithful men who shall be able to teach others.(1Tim 1-11; 4:11-16; 6:20; 2 tim 1:6, 13; 2:2, 3:10, 14; 4:2, etc.)

I think you mean Paul instructs Timothy. We actually do not know whether Timothy was a Priest or an Elder or a Bishop. It is unlikely that he was a Bishop or Priest to Ephesus because Paul is clearly expecting Timothy to come back to Rome, and he has sent Tychicus to Ephesus. (2 Timothy 4:13: "Luke alone is with me. Get Mark and bring him with you, for he is very useful to me for ministry. Tychicus I have sent to Ephesus. When you come, bring the cloak that I left with Carpus at Troas, also the books, and above all the parchments.").

The New Testament was not completed until 65 years after Peter and Paul and most of the other Apostles were dead; many of their immediate successors had been martyred, and it is likely that the third or fourth successors of the several Apostles were converting souls without the Bible when St. John completed his writings.

Well this is clearly wrong. Luke's two books alone account for 27.5% of the New Testament. Paul quotes from Luke, and Luke is believed to have been written at about the same time as Matthew and after Mark, thus you can add these books together with James since everyone agrees James is an early epistle (Matt + Mark + Luke + Acts + Paul's Epistles + James), and it equals 73.7% of the volume of the New Testament. What's left over is the Gospel of John, Hebrews, 1-2 Peter, 1-3 John, Jude and Revelation.

So your claim would be that these books are written 65 years after the death of Peter and Paul? Paul dies around 63-67AD, and Peter at about the same time. So your claim is that the last NT book is written c. 128-132AD. The Author of Hebrews is unknown, but it is likely to be derivative of Paul's teachings or by one of his associates such as Luke. So it shouldn't be dated much later than Paul's writings. The Gospel of John we have more early manuscripts for than any other NT book which turns the theory that it's the last to be written on its head because if that's the case why are there more early copies of it? The earliest copy (P52) is written c. 125AD - it can't have been copied before the autograph copy, and there has apparently been another late 1st/early 2nd century John manuscript discovered not yet published; thus even the most sceptical of scholars can no longer date John into the second century.

So, this leaves you with: 1-2 Peter, 1-3 John, Jude and Revelation. Anyway you look at it, the bulk of the Christian text has been completed well before the end of the first century - this is a fact now near universally recognized (although it's true that the more sceptical scholars will date these books later into the first century).

It's true there is some limited evidence for late authorship of these remaining books - but the weight of evidence certainly doesn't prove it. People who base their opinion of the Bible on this are literally clutching at straws. What the Muslims teach - that all the Biblical books have been altered from the original and that the original text and original meaning is lost - has been long since disproven, both for the NT and for the OT (famously with the DSS). Because of this sceptical scholars have ot go to great lengths to explaining why it isn't merely their assumption that the NT books are unreliable, as well as it forces them to believe all the gospels are written after AD70 since there's absolutely no proof that the Siege of Jerusalem prophecies were inserted later into the Gospels.

In fact, the whole Roman Empire was Christian, and the Church was enjoying her golden age, before anybody ever saw the New Testament bound up into one volume. For four centuries people received their faith only by hearing it preached in Catholic Churches.

Wrong. Very wrong! The Christians used codices extensively, and I believe over 90% of early Christian texts are codices, whereas only 10% of non-Christian texts of the time were codices. We don't know who invented the codex, but it could very well have been an early Christian, but in any case Christians adopted it almost exclusively.

Whether or not all 27 books were bound together at the time is entirely irrelevant. During the 2nd or the 3rd century "the" LXX translation of the book of Daniel was rejected and replaced with the Theodotion translation of the book, and the LXX version was nearly lost entirely.

Get your timeline right to begin with:

Jesus dies on a cross c. 30-34AD.

First NT books are written c. 40-51AD. One of these is 1 Thessalonians, penned by Paul according to Luke in Acts 15 we date it 49-51AD, only a small number of scholars dispute this date and it is just about the most reliably dated book of the NT. As pointed out by many scholars, James can be written very early since it doesn't mention the issues raised at the Jerusalem Council (Acts 15, c. 48-49AD). The other book that could have been written early is the Gospel According to Mark. It's easiest to date Mark to c. 55AD, but it could have been written earlier too.

Finally, as clearly recorded in Acts it was decided at the Jerusalem Council to bring the doctrines in written form. In 1 Corinthians 15 Paul records an early Christian creed that has been taught to him, that he received and can be traced right back to the resurrection itself:

• "For I delivered to you as of first importance what I also received: that Christ died for our sins in accordance with the Scriptures, that he was buried, that he was raised on the third day in accordance with the Scriptures, and that he appeared to Cephas, then to the twelve. Then he appeared to more than five hundred brothers at one time, most of whom are still alive, though some have fallen asleep. Then he appeared to James, then to all the apostles. Last of all, as to one untimely born, he appeared also to me."

Not only does he record it, but he states very clearly that most of the 500+ saints that were eye-witnesses to the resurrected Christ are still alive. They can be questioned themselves. The most important aspect of the creed is "Christ died for our sins" - compare to Luke 24 in which Jesus himself delivers this same message to his disciples: "Thus it is written, that the Christ should suffer and on the third day rise from the dead, and that repentance and forgiveness of sins should be proclaimed in his name to all nations, beginning from Jerusalem. You are witnesses of these things." Now let's go back to 1 Cor 11:

• For I received from the Lord what I also delivered to you, that the Lord Jesus on the night when he was betrayed took bread, and when he had given thanks, he broke it, and said, “This is my body which is for you. Do this in remembrance of me.” In the same way also he took the cup, after supper, saying, “This cup is the new covenant in my blood. Do this, as often as you drink it, in remembrance of me.” For as often as you eat this bread and drink the cup, you proclaim the Lord's death until he comes.
  
  Whoever, therefore, eats the bread or drinks the cup of the Lord in an unworthy manner will be guilty concerning the body and blood of the Lord. Let a person examine himself, then, and so eat of the bread and drink of the cup.

Paul is delivering a written message that he has been taught. It has not been distorted, and it traces back to the Last Supper itself prior to the crucifixion of Christ. Now I bring this up because just like the creed he teaches in 1 Cor 15, this account can also be verified by the Gospels. Also his account agrees more with Luke's than with Mark's/Matthew's even though it's written before the Gospel of Luke, and this is what we'd expect if Paul is a companion of Luke. As you know, 1 Corinthians is written from Ephesus, and thus dates pretty reliably to 53-57AD. This is before Luke or Matthew's Gospel, and possibly also before Mark's.

If you're going to claim that the New Testament distorted the oral teachings, then you need to show some evidence - and what we have above in 1 Cor 11 and 1 Cor 15 is clear evidence that what is written down has not been distorted.

The Bible was not given from Christ as the Christian’s sole rule of Faith yet Christianity is full of that "Johnny Come Lately" Unchristian Solascriptura BS. Christ did not write the New Testament; and the Apostles were not ordered to write it as a text book. Tradition is also a rule of faith; for “faith cometh by hearing” (Rom 10:17).

But as I pointed out, the decision was made during the Jerusalem Council and recorded in Acts 15!

If the Bible were intended as the guide and teacher of man, would Peter have declared that “In the Scriptures are things hard to be understood, which the unlearned and unstable twist to their own destruction” (2 Peter 3:16)

You've taken that out of context. Compare to Matt 23.

[Phatt Matt s]

I'm honored that you would take that much time to respond to the snarky ramblings of an intellectually backward cunt like myself...and do such a thorough job

I need to do further research about codices and your claims. Honestly It's not the first on my "to do" list. But I am pleasantly surprised by your knowledge of the History of Scripture and your zeal in defending it so thoroughly. What would make you so passionate about this along with the point you're trying to make does escape me at times. But that is because I'm a smug and insolent douchebag who doesn't think the truth is thoroughly able to be obtained even by those who seek it most diligently.

I stick to my point however that the first Christians were not "Bible Christians" or SolaScriptura.

Do you disagree?