Jayda:
• “Fathers agree upon a cannon.”
Which Fathers, who were they and where did this take place?
• “Nearly identical”
On what points does it differ?
hola Al Habeshi,
More generally all of the early patriarchs, specifically: St. Justin Martyr, Origen, St Irenaeus, St. Athanasius, Eusebius and St. Augustine among others.
the gospels differ in that some contain stories that others do not and in the stories that they tell there are small differences in unimportant details, they do not contradict the narratives nor lessons.
I think I understand the concept of continuation I the chain.
Having considered the above, whilst I understand the claim, I also think most groups would have claimed the same. Everyone would have claimed a successive chain to Jesus or his disciples, how would we, or how do you verify the catholic chains?
We agree then that without the succession, the chain, then we should not rely upon the text.
the chains of succession are recorded and documented as a matter of Church history, it is 'in house' and has been open common knowledge since the beginning. we know such and such a bishop held his position during our life time and we know from our parents and our community that another man held it before, going back to the beginning. furthermore it is under the guidance of the Holy Spirit.
and yes, without succession we do not consider a priest, bishop, book or word to be valid.
I am guessing that there are supposed chains for all the NT gospels. I have heard of some through Papias, are those such that you accept? Any chance we could list them here.
we only accept the canon that is before us today, for all intents and purposes it was closed by the end of the 3rd century. i vaguely recall st. papias attempting to rearrange the gospel narrative into something chronological, but he wrote 100 years after the death of the last apostle and was not, himself, an apostle.
• “universal”
All Christians? I think this should be changed to all ‘orthodox’ Christians. Since according to orthodox writers there were ‘heretics’ (Eusibus against heresy) out there which didn’t accept ‘your’ theology or books. Of course, though, they saw themselves as ‘orthodox’, the right ones and ‘you’ as the ‘heretic’, the deviant.
no, universal, the fullness of the One, Holy, Catholic and Apostolic Church is found in the Roman Catholic Church and those Churches in full communion with the See of Rome.
• Barnabas:-
Not accepted universally: of course, just as some of your books were not accepted by others. This is the battle between, perceived, heretics and orthodox.
no not accepted at all. the assertion that the 'gospel' of Barnabas is legitimate is patently absurd. it's a battle between reality and those attempting to substantiate their religious views against Christianity.
Tradition: Well how would we find out of there was any apostolic tradition? If there was one it would have been dismissed as false by those you deem Orthodox because the apostles could not have said such a thing, it would be theologically wrong according to your theology. If the chain was considered false, due to the theological implications of the book, then can we really expect that chain to reach us? I mean, even Papia’s work, which is used for his witness about the gospels, even his book was lost, only surviving parts are here because they were quoted by later Christians! So how can we expect the chains or even mentions of such books to come down to us?
it's a living tradition, it is here today because it was there yesterday and we can look behind us and see it. it will be there tomorrow as well... it is true that we have lost writings and theologians to time and destruction, we do not try to speculate, we only preserve what remained after them in the knowledge that nothing important was lost.
• Acts
How accurate is it? Who wrote it, and how can we trust it? Who were his, or her sources? How is all the above verified?
they had no sources, the author was an apostle, a primary source, luke. he wrote around 15 years after the death and resurrection of Christ speaking to and about his community, the early Christians.
• On Q
With regards to not being any tradition, should we expect some?
“a collection of sayings…” the author of any possible Q document would be difficult, impossible, I would say, to be traced. I do not know who has presupposed an apostolic authorship as definite, I have only seen hypothesis with regards to such things.
Q would need to have been included in tradition for its veracity to be decided. in this case tradition = primary source. if there is no apostle present... it didn't come from a primary source. but the most important thing is that this would have been the single most important document in early christianity (it wasn't, the acts and didache were), and it is not mentioned anywhere in Church or secular history. it's a ghost...
No evidence? Have you seen the statistics of common verses between Matt and Luke, which are not in Mark? I think Q is the most probable and best explanation for such evidence.
why? Q is an unnecessary middleman. all the common verses between matt and luke prove is that they come from a singular source... the gospels themselves answer that question 'i got this from eyewitness accounts.' why is it so hard to believe the eyewitnesses who followed around a man they believed to be God would have very good memories of the things he said and did?
instead these people install a fictional and unprovable document in between the gospel writers and the original events... where is their evidence that specifically proves Q and not 'Q or something else'?
Existing manuscripts/fragments
A document which is absorbed by others and then the latter is copied out and used more often usually renders the former document to be lost or cast aside. Why would people copy Q if they could copy Matt or Luke? And if people did copy Q, then those that came later would only disregard it anyway.
Not mentioned, well then we would have to look at when things are normally mentioned and by whom, did these people mention every book or did they only speak of some? Did they mention only what interested them or not? Etc.
right, but we are talking about a lack of manuscripts or fragments... ever... nor even a fragment of an evolving text from which to extrapolate Q. furthermore we don't have any record of anyone referencing anything that even resembles a Q - the very name 'Q' comes from a german word to describe a concept rather than a thing because the thing has yet to prove its existance.
• maintained the highest level of scrutiny
I have to disagree, I have not seen any evidence of that, please show us. What I have read, although I cannot remember where, is that a lot of the variants and changes occurred early on. Also guarding them from heresy could actually be translated as guarding them from orthodoxy, depending on what theological view you personally subscribe to. Changes made so as to not provide adoptionists with any evidence from scripture are, according to those adoptionists, changes not to guard against heresy but rather to corrupt the message, and so on.
I do agree that secular scrutiny should not be assumed as being objective, but we should all try to be as objective as possible, just as some scholars from a faith background are bias, some secular ones are too, but this should not, always, cause us to reject all their work, and definitely not lead us to stop research our self in an objective manner, as much as possible.
Well the discoveries are discoveries of writings which you might see as heretical, and these should aid to see what Christianity was like in the early days, or at least how diverse it was. And it might not change what the fathers knew, but it can change just how reliable we view these fathers, how unique their claims were, amongst other things.
Whether we believe the Fathers are trustworthy and reliable and have transmitted things unchanged or whether we believe the opposite we should have reasons for doing so.
unfortunately if you are going to say that they did not employ the highest levels of scrutiny you are going to need to qualify that with something better than 'i read it once in an unnamed book i forgot about somewhere.'
what we have today is the result of the trustworthy Church Fathers gave to us... nothing more. secular sources are almost completely non existant from the first three centuries, although they are interesting in that they only support the tradition of our Church, Josephus is such a person even with Testimonium Flavianum set aside.
more contemporary secular sources would be great, however they simply don't exist... and we cannot manufacture them in the 21st century, so the Church history is all we have, and for believers it is all that we need.
que Dios te bendiga
