What happened to the Sabbath?

Leaf473 said:

I would be happy to talk with Peter and Paul if they were present.

Paul wrote a letter to the church at Laodicea. We do not have it today. At least, that's not what it's called.

In Thessalonians, Paul is talking about the word of God which was heard. It doesn't tell us which books that had already been written to that point were scripture.

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Indeed - now, we do have a fake letter to the Laodiceans, which St. Jerome included in the Vulgate, not because he believed it was Scripture, but rather, like Ezra 4, “lest they perish entirely” - he did not see it as being his role to determine whether or not it was canon. But because it was translated into Latin, into the Vulgate, many Catholic monks felt they had a duty to include it in manuscripts during the Medieval period despite the fact that it was not canonical, but since, like the Apocalypse of Peter, it was not mentioned in the Decretum Gelasianum as being anathema, it occupied a grey area where what to do with it was … undefined. Nonetheless, the epistle in question is very short and says nothing not repeated elsewhere, and was regarded by most in the early church to be a pious forgery, perhaps a well-meaning but misguided attempt to prevent heretics from composing a fake Epistle to the Laodiceans, just as they composed other fake epistles such as of Barnabus, and fake Acts such as of Thomas, Andrew and John, and fake Gospels such as those of Mary, Judas, Philip and so on, and fake Revelations and Apocalypses.

It was among the psuedepigraphical works, like 1 Barnabas, widely included in ancient manuscripts, and at risk of making it into the canon, but thankfully, St. Athanasius said “no” with Patriarchal authority (previously, Eusebius of Caesarea in Syria Palestina, whose views on the canon were similar to those of St. Athanasius, but who was not the primate of an autocephalous church, but rather the bishop of a city which became dramatically less important to the faithful with the rebuilding of Jerusalem, becoming a Metropolis less important than even Caesarea in Cappadocia, the episcopal see of St. Basil the Great (who therein would build the first recognizable hospital, along with a hospice and hostel for travellers, using the Church Treasury - this act of generosity along with that of St. Nicholas of Myra made the two bishops among the most venerated in the Eastern churches and also jointly the inspiration for Santa Claus, for in some Eastern countries St. Basil and St. Nicholas both are celebrated as living in the manner Christ directed, through generous giving, as is done with St. Nicholas in the West among pious Christians who, rather than allowing their children to believe in Santa Claus as a magical figure, tell them the truth, that St. Nicholas was an important bishop, who saved three girls from poverty using the church treasury, making it possible for them to marry, and did other good and proper things, and also who suffered for confessing the faith under Emperor Diocletian; and those who are Orthodox or Catholic or some high church Anglicans and Lutherans might add that his relics are still intact in Bari, Italy, having been taken (technically stolen) from the Byzantine Empire during its decline, but continued to stream myrrh before and after their, shall we say, enforced translation, and this myrrh is given to pilgrims whether Orthodox or Catholic (or others of apostolic faith).

Leaf473 said:

I remember thinking that if I didn't know it wasn't scripture, I would think that it was!

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Fun fact: that canticle is in King James Version - at least, a full version, as The Song of the Three Children (to save money, because the Church of Scotland and their American brethren did not use the deuterocanonical books, and neither did most of the Non-Conformists, most Bible printers stopped including the deuterocanonical books in the 18th century, but any complete KJV will have them, because the Anglicans use them.

Benedicte Omni Opera in my view is more important and more portocanonical than some books of the Minor Prophets and some parts of the historical books which lack obvious direct spiritual signifigance, indeed, there’s even a small amount of Nehemiah, an important book, which is arguably less important, that being a description of the fortifications St. Nehemiah the Prophet had installed in Jerusalem - the two largest denominations regard it as Scripture (Roman Catholic and Eastern Orthodox, also the fifth largest denomination, the Oriental Orthodox, which has around 70 million members regards it as canonical; third largest denomination (the Anglicans) and the fourth largest (the Lutheran churches of the LWF and ILC - who, because the Church of Latvia and a few others are members of both, are interconnected and can be counted together) use it as a canticle during Matins or Morning Prayer (in the Anglican Book of Common Prayer and various Lutheran service books and hymnals). Also the Assyrian Church of the East regards it as Scripture, and, although they are quite small overall, they are one of the ancient churches (along with the closely related Ancient Church of the East; the two are basically the same church, divided over a minor administrative schism dating from the 1960s that involved … politics), and account for the majority of Aramaic speakers in the world, not just Aramaic speaking Christians, but Aramaic speakers in toto, around a million;, it would not be a stretch to say that they are instrumental in keeping vernacular Aramaic alive, for they outnumber all other vernacular Aramaic speakers, even combined (these including some Muslims, some Jews, the Mandaics, and other Christians such as some of the Syriac Orthodox who speak Turoyo, a West Syriac Dialect, some who speak another West Syriac Dialect also used in variant form by Jews and Muslims in the Christian Quarter of Jerusalem, East Jerusalem and the West Bank, and some Antiochians, such as those in Maaloula in Syria who suffered an occupation for nine months, after their church was desecrated and local nuns held hostage, by Al Nusra, an Al Qaeda affiliate).

My view is that if it looks like Scripture, and the ancient churches regard it as Scripture, and the Anglicans either regard it as scripture or use it as a canticle, and the Lutherans, who have an open canon, also use it as a canticle, - which means it is read or sung in church, which many liturgiologists including my bishop use as the definition for whether or not something is really protocanon or not (anything not being read in church being deuterocanonical), well, then it probably is Scripture.

After all, there is nothing in the Old Testament which says we are beholden to the Masoretic canon. I think the Septuagint should be the go to reference for Christians concerning the Old Testament, as it was the version most frequently quoted in the New Testament, and was also the only translation of the Old Testament in widespread use by Christians until the Vulgate and Peshitta were partially translated from Hebrew and Aramaic sources; also, since then, we’ve found, with the Dead Sea Scrolls, Hebraic fragments which align with Septuagint readings. The Septuagint is usually more obvious in terms of Christological readings; there are a few rare exceptions where the Masoretic has a more obvious reading (very few; the only one I can think of off the top of my head is Psalm 12). Also other Septuagint readings tend to be more spiritual, for instance, Esther in the Septuagint features prayer, whereas it does not feature prayer as a major component in the surviving Hebraic version (which only western Christians historically used; those in the East were only using the Septuagint version; on this basis I am sympathetic to Martin Luther’s desire to delete Esther, although in my view a better approach would be to simply use the LXX version).

BobRyan said:

No. It is because the NT as 27 books and the 39 books of the OT were already being read by the Christian church many centuries BEFORE Athanasias.

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Either with other books lost, or recognized as not Scriptural, or with some books missing, or both - the complete Bibles we have predating St. Athanasius either have or at one time had, before they were violently ripped out, books later rejected by St. Athanasius, or in other cases, such as the case of the Peshitta, which was very conservative in terms of its canon (probably because every book in it had to be translated, and the Syriac monks translating it did not wish to waste time translating books whose canonical status was disputed), were missing books now regarded as Scripture (later, the Syriac Orthodox Church added the missing books from a translation by Mor Thomas of Harqel, but they were never added to the Eastern Peshitta used by the Church of the East). Have you read the Peshitta or studied Syriac Christianity or the history of the Mar Thoma Christians in India? Since the Syriac Church provides us a definite example of an ancient church not under Roman Catholic control, which acts as an independent witness to many things people assume were imposed by St. Constantine or Roman Popes.

]
Athanasias did not write a single book of scripture nor did he "Discover any". His statement reflected what the church was already doing for over 300 years.

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Strawman fallacy - I never said that he did. What he did do was finalize the canon - making the definitive cut that was accepted by all other churches (even the Church of the East, although they never bothered to update their version of the Peshitta).

Nobody was claiming to not know about NT scripture for 300 years. It was known it was being read. Origen published his list over a century before Anasthasias. And Origen did not claim to "discover it" either.

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The canon had not been finalized - the first person to say “the canon includes these 27 books, and only these 27 books” was St. Athanasius, who also was Pope and Patriarch of Alexandria and All Africa (at the time, the Roman bishop was not styled Pope; that said, St. Athanasius did not claim Papal supremacy, rather, that doctrine emerged sometime in the late 10th or early 11th century and was the primary contributor to the East-West schism of 1054, since canons 6 and 7 of Nicaea and other canons of later councils guaranteed other churches including Alexandria, Antioch, Jerusalem, Cyprus and Constantinople, among others, the same rights and privileges as the Roman Church).

Then, because St. Athanasius was so influential, his New Testament canon, which was the first to have the exact 27 books we now use, was adopted by other Patriarchates - of Jerusalem, Constantinople, Rome, and finally, Alexandria’s old rival, Antioch, and also the autocephalous church of Cyprus and the churches of Edessa, Armenia, Georgia and Ethiopia, which were the first four nations to adopt Christianity as their state religion - something that did not happen in Rome until 380 AD (the Edict of Milan in 314 legalized Christianity, but it was later persecuted by the Arian Emperors, albeit much less severely by Valens, who succeeded Julian “the apostate”, a title which always amuses me since he was already, well, technically he apostasized from heresy by converting to Neo-Platonism, and then persecuting both Christians and Arians, so I suppose the title makes sense, however, his two predecessors, Constantius I and Constantius II, and his successor, were not Christians but Arian heretics.

Cleaver posts about rejecting books of the NT that are still not in it to this very day, do not change the facts for the NT

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Cleaver? You mean clever? That’s also a fallacious argument - my writing being clever does not modify the fact that it is factual - since evidence in the form of manuscripts and earlier proposed canons supports my argument that before the Athanasian canon was universally adopted, all Bibles we have that predate it and all canons we have that predate it either include books that St. Athanasius excluded, such as The Shepherd of Hermas or 1 Barnabas, or excluded books which he included, such as 2 Peter, 2 John, 3 John, Jude and Revelation, among others (indeed, some proposed canons were missing some or all of the Pastoral Epistles, (including 1 Timothy, 2 Timothy, Titus and Philemon) or Hebrews, since in the case of Hebrews, the author of it does not identify himself, and it is not written in the same idiosyncratic Greek as the other Pauline epistles, leading many, such as Eusebius of Caesarea, to express a view that the provenance of it would never be known with certainty, however, the early church attributed the book to St. Paul and it has remained attributed to him to this date, as a matter of tradition.

Indeed the canon and the Creed are both traditions - examples of sacred tradition, of the sort we are prescribed in 1 Corinthians 11:2, 2 Thessalonians 2:15 and 2 Thessalonians 2:37, as opposed to the false manmade interpretations of the Pharisees, Docetics and legalists, which were condemned by our Lord in Mark ch. 7 and in Revelation (vis a vis the Nicolaitans).

(interesting that "what happened to the Sabbath" threads like this one get hijacked into "what books NOT in the NT today, were being rejected in the first 500 years of church history" as if some rejected book is why some people either do or do not keep the Bible Sabbath.

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My point is what it was at the outset - Sabbatarians should not criticize traditional Christians for worshipping on Sunday, since the Holy Apostles (as shown from Acts, 1 Corinthians, and the four canonical Gospels), the Ante Nicene and Nicene Fathers, including all of those who contributed to the development of the Canon, including St. Ignatius, St. Justin Martyr, St. Irenaeus of Lyons, Origen, St. Gregory the Illuminator, St. Gregory the Wonderworker, the 318 Holy Fathers at Nicaea, in 325, and the 150 holy fathers at Constantinople in 381, who collectively ensured the Christian faith was not replaced by Arianism and gave us the Symbol of Faith, the Nicene Creed, which provides us with the normative definition of Christianity (for one who agrees with the Creed is a Christian and one who doesn’t is not a Christian), all worshipped on Sunday. As did St. Athanasius, who finalized the canon, and those before him who began the process of whittling it down.

It would be a strange thing to use only the 27 book New Testament canon that was introduced by St. Athanasius while regarding him as defective in his Christianity for worshipping on every day of the week, and for leading public worship on the Sabbath and the First Day.

Now, this does not mean Sabbatarians must worship on Sunday, but rather, they should simply not criticize traditional Christians for doing so, especially those of us who also observe the Seventh Day - which would include all Orthodox Christians and all Roman Catholic clergy, among others. The idea that worship on the Sunday is sinful is not found in Scripture, so even if we accept that one must still worship on Saturday, well…

The Liturgist said:

Indeed - now, we do have a fake letter to the Laodiceans, which St. Jerome included in the Vulgate, not because he believed it was Scripture, but rather, like Ezra 4, “lest they perish entirely” - he did not see it as being his role to determine whether or not it was canon. But because it was translated into Latin, into the Vulgate, many Catholic monks felt they had a duty to include it in manuscripts during the Medieval period despite the fact that it was not canonical, but since, like the Apocalypse of Peter, it was not mentioned in the Decretum Gelasianum as being anathema, it occupied a grey area where what to do with it was … undefined. Nonetheless, the epistle in question is very short and says nothing not repeated elsewhere, and was regarded by most in the early church to be a pious forgery, perhaps a well-meaning but misguided attempt to prevent heretics from composing a fake Epistle to the Laodiceans, just as they composed other fake epistles such as of Barnabus, and fake Acts such as of Thomas, Andrew and John, and fake Gospels such as those of Mary, Judas, Philip and so on, and fake Revelations and Apocalypses.

It was among the psuedepigraphical works, like 1 Barnabas, widely included in ancient manuscripts, and at risk of making it into the canon, but thankfully, St. Athanasius said “no” with Patriarchal authority (previously, Eusebius of Caesarea in Syria Palestina, whose views on the canon were similar to those of St. Athanasius, but who was not the primate of an autocephalous church, but rather the bishop of a city which became dramatically less important to the faithful with the rebuilding of Jerusalem, becoming a Metropolis less important than even Caesarea in Cappadocia, the episcopal see of St. Basil the Great (who therein would build the first recognizable hospital, along with a hospice and hostel for travellers, using the Church Treasury - this act of generosity along with that of St. Nicholas of Myra made the two bishops among the most venerated in the Eastern churches and also jointly the inspiration for Santa Claus, for in some Eastern countries St. Basil and St. Nicholas both are celebrated as living in the manner Christ directed, through generous giving, as is done with St. Nicholas in the West among pious Christians who, rather than allowing their children to believe in Santa Claus as a magical figure, tell them the truth, that St. Nicholas was an important bishop, who saved three girls from poverty using the church treasury, making it possible for them to marry, and did other good and proper things, and also who suffered for confessing the faith under Emperor Diocletian; and those who are Orthodox or Catholic or some high church Anglicans and Lutherans might add that his relics are still intact in Bari, Italy, having been taken (technically stolen) from the Byzantine Empire during its decline, but continued to stream myrrh before and after their, shall we say, enforced translation, and this myrrh is given to pilgrims whether Orthodox or Catholic (or others of apostolic faith).

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Fascinating! I always wondered why books which even the early church considered not to be trustworthy were still copied.

The Liturgist said:

Fun fact: that canticle is in King James Version - at least, a full version, as The Song of the Three Children (to save money, because the Church of Scotland and their American brethren did not use the deuterocanonical books, and neither did most of the Non-Conformists, most Bible printers stopped including the deuterocanonical books in the 18th century, but any complete KJV will have them, because the Anglicans use them.

Benedicte Omni Opera in my view is more important and more portocanonical than some books of the Minor Prophets and some parts of the historical books which lack obvious direct spiritual signifigance, indeed, there’s even a small amount of Nehemiah, an important book, which is arguably less important, that being a description of the fortifications St. Nehemiah the Prophet had installed in Jerusalem - the two largest denominations regard it as Scripture (Roman Catholic and Eastern Orthodox, also the fifth largest denomination, the Oriental Orthodox, which has around 70 million members regards it as canonical; third largest denomination (the Anglicans) and the fourth largest (the Lutheran churches of the LWF and ILC - who, because the Church of Latvia and a few others are members of both, are interconnected and can be counted together) use it as a canticle during Matins or Morning Prayer (in the Anglican Book of Common Prayer and various Lutheran service books and hymnals). Also the Assyrian Church of the East regards it as Scripture, and, although they are quite small overall, they are one of the ancient churches (along with the closely related Ancient Church of the East; the two are basically the same church, divided over a minor administrative schism dating from the 1960s that involved … politics), and account for the majority of Aramaic speakers in the world, not just Aramaic speaking Christians, but Aramaic speakers in toto, around a million;, it would not be a stretch to say that they are instrumental in keeping vernacular Aramaic alive, for they outnumber all other vernacular Aramaic speakers, even combined (these including some Muslims, some Jews, the Mandaics, and other Christians such as some of the Syriac Orthodox who speak Turoyo, a West Syriac Dialect, some who speak another West Syriac Dialect also used in variant form by Jews and Muslims in the Christian Quarter of Jerusalem, East Jerusalem and the West Bank, and some Antiochians, such as those in Maaloula in Syria who suffered an occupation for nine months, after their church was desecrated and local nuns held hostage, by Al Nusra, an Al Qaeda affiliate).

My view is that if it looks like Scripture, and the ancient churches regard it as Scripture, and the Anglicans either regard it as scripture or use it as a canticle, and the Lutherans, who have an open canon, also use it as a canticle, - which means it is read or sung in church, which many liturgiologists including my bishop use as the definition for whether or not something is really protocanon or not (anything not being read in church being deuterocanonical), well, then it probably is Scripture.

After all, there is nothing in the Old Testament which says we are beholden to the Masoretic canon. I think the Septuagint should be the go to reference for Christians concerning the Old Testament, as it was the version most frequently quoted in the New Testament, and was also the only translation of the Old Testament in widespread use by Christians until the Vulgate and Peshitta were partially translated from Hebrew and Aramaic sources; also, since then, we’ve found, with the Dead Sea Scrolls, Hebraic fragments which align with Septuagint readings. The Septuagint is usually more obvious in terms of Christological readings; there are a few rare exceptions where the Masoretic has a more obvious reading (very few; the only one I can think of off the top of my head is Psalm 12). Also other Septuagint readings tend to be more spiritual, for instance, Esther in the Septuagint features prayer, whereas it does not feature prayer as a major component in the surviving Hebraic version (which only western Christians historically used; those in the East were only using the Septuagint version; on this basis I am sympathetic to Martin Luther’s desire to delete Esther, although in my view a better approach would be to simply use the LXX version).

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Fascinating again! (Also, I hope that the irony in my post about "know that it wasn't scripture" came through.)

The Liturgist said:

Either with other books lost, or recognized as not Scriptural, or with some books missing, or both - the complete Bibles we have predating St. Athanasius either have or at one time had, before they were violently ripped out, books later rejected by St. Athanasius, or in other cases, such as the case of the Peshitta, which was very conservative in terms of its canon (probably because every book in it had to be translated, and the Syriac monks translating it did not wish to waste time translating books whose canonical status was disputed), were missing books now regarded as Scripture (later, the Syriac Orthodox Church added the missing books from a translation by Mor Thomas of Harqel, but they were never added to the Eastern Peshitta used by the Church of the East). Have you read the Peshitta or studied Syriac Christianity or the history of the Mar Thoma Christians in India? Since the Syriac Church provides us a definite example of an ancient church not under Roman Catholic control, which acts as an independent witness to many things people assume were imposed by St. Constantine or Roman Popes.



Strawman fallacy - I never said that he did. What he did do was finalize the canon - making the definitive cut that was accepted by all other churches (even the Church of the East, although they never bothered to update their version of the Peshitta).



The canon had not been finalized - the first person to say “the canon includes these 27 books, and only these 27 books” was St. Athanasius, who also was Pope and Patriarch of Alexandria and All Africa (at the time, the Roman bishop was not styled Pope; that said, St. Athanasius did not claim Papal supremacy, rather, that doctrine emerged sometime in the late 10th or early 11th century and was the primary contributor to the East-West schism of 1054, since canons 6 and 7 of Nicaea and other canons of later councils guaranteed other churches including Alexandria, Antioch, Jerusalem, Cyprus and Constantinople, among others, the same rights and privileges as the Roman Church).

Then, because St. Athanasius was so influential, his New Testament canon, which was the first to have the exact 27 books we now use, was adopted by other Patriarchates - of Jerusalem, Constantinople, Rome, and finally, Alexandria’s old rival, Antioch, and also the autocephalous church of Cyprus and the churches of Edessa, Armenia, Georgia and Ethiopia, which were the first four nations to adopt Christianity as their state religion - something that did not happen in Rome until 380 AD (the Edict of Milan in 314 legalized Christianity, but it was later persecuted by the Arian Emperors, albeit much less severely by Valens, who succeeded Julian “the apostate”, a title which always amuses me since he was already, well, technically he apostasized from heresy by converting to Neo-Platonism, and then persecuting both Christians and Arians, so I suppose the title makes sense, however, his two predecessors, Constantius I and Constantius II, and his successor, were not Christians but Arian heretics.



Cleaver? You mean clever? That’s also a fallacious argument - my writing being clever does not modify the fact that it is factual - since evidence in the form of manuscripts and earlier proposed canons supports my argument that before the Athanasian canon was universally adopted, all Bibles we have that predate it and all canons we have that predate it either include books that St. Athanasius excluded, such as The Shepherd of Hermas or 1 Barnabas, or excluded books which he included, such as 2 Peter, 2 John, 3 John, Jude and Revelation, among others (indeed, some proposed canons were missing some or all of the Pastoral Epistles, (including 1 Timothy, 2 Timothy, Titus and Philemon) or Hebrews, since in the case of Hebrews, the author of it does not identify himself, and it is not written in the same idiosyncratic Greek as the other Pauline epistles, leading many, such as Eusebius of Caesarea, to express a view that the provenance of it would never be known with certainty, however, the early church attributed the book to St. Paul and it has remained attributed to him to this date, as a matter of tradition.

Indeed the canon and the Creed are both traditions - examples of sacred tradition, of the sort we are prescribed in 1 Corinthians 11:2, 2 Thessalonians 2:15 and 2 Thessalonians 2:37, as opposed to the false manmade interpretations of the Pharisees, Docetics and legalists, which were condemned by our Lord in Mark ch. 7 and in Revelation (vis a vis the Nicolaitans).

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The Liturgist said:

My point is what it was at the outset - Sabbatarians should not criticize traditional Christians for worshipping on Sunday, since the Holy Apostles (as shown from Acts, 1 Corinthians, and the four canonical Gospels), the Ante Nicene and Nicene Fathers, including all of those who contributed to the development of the Canon...

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Thus the relevance to the thread topic.

The Liturgist said:

...including St. Ignatius, St. Justin Martyr, St. Irenaeus of Lyons, Origen, St. Gregory the Illuminator, St. Gregory the Wonderworker, the 318 Holy Fathers at Nicaea, in 325, and the 150 holy fathers at Constantinople in 381, who collectively ensured the Christian faith was not replaced by Arianism and gave us the Symbol of Faith, the Nicene Creed, which provides us with the normative definition of Christianity (for one who agrees with the Creed is a Christian and one who doesn’t is not a Christian), all worshipped on Sunday. As did St. Athanasius, who finalized the canon, and those before him who began the process of whittling it down.

It would be a strange thing to use only the 27 book New Testament canon that was introduced by St. Athanasius while regarding him as defective in his Christianity for worshipping on every day of the week, and for leading public worship on the Sabbath and the First Day.

Now, this does not mean Sabbatarians must worship on Sunday, but rather, they should simply not criticize traditional Christians for doing so, especially those of us who also observe the Seventh Day - which would include all Orthodox Christians and all Roman Catholic clergy, among others. The idea that worship on the Sunday is sinful is not found in Scripture, so even if we accept that one must still worship on Saturday, well…

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Leaf473 said:

Fascinating again! (Also, I hope that the irony in my post about "know that it wasn't scripture" came through.)

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Please forgive me - I had a lack of sleep last night due to arthritis which disabled irony. It comes through now that you mentioned it… Rather amusing.

When I don’t sleep my sense of humor (such as it is) becomes ahh even more contrived and stilted than the usual detached droll.

The Liturgist said:

Please forgive me - I had a lack of sleep last night due to arthritis which disabled irony. It comes through now that you mentioned it… Rather amusing.

When I don’t sleep my sense of humor (such as it is) becomes ahh even more contrived and stilted than the usual detached droll.

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It's all good, my brother in Christ †

Edit: I found the ASCII code for an orthodox cross ☦

Leaf473 said:

It's all good, my brother in Christ †

Edit: I found the ASCII code for an orthodox cross ☦

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Lovely. By the way there are actually several Orthodox cross variants, such as the Greek cross, with equal proportions, the three-barred cross commonly used on Eastern Orthodox churches, the St. Thomas Cross used by the Indian Orthodox and Syriac Orthodox, the Jerusalem Cross and the similar Coptic Cross (well one of them at least) and several others - and we also use the standard Cross as well, and the crucifix (albeit in bas relief or with a flat icon). But for you to go to the trouble to find an Orthodox cross really touches me.

BobRyan said:

as they do also the rest of the Scriptures.

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The word translated as "scriptures" simply means "writings".

prodromos said:

The word translated as "scriptures" simply means "writings".

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2 Peter 3:20 But know this first of all, that no prophecy of Scripture is a matter of one’s own interpretation, 21 for no prophecy was ever made by an act of human will, but men moved by the Holy Spirit spoke from God.

1. IT is not true that the NT church believed that "all writings" are "God speaking"

Acts 17:11 "they studied THE SCRIPTURES daily to SEE IF those things spoken by Paul, WERE SO"

2. it is not true that any and all "writings"were "the test" of whether Paul spoke the truth.

Luke 24:27 Then beginning with Moses and with all the prophets, He explained to them the things concerning Himself in all the Scriptures.

"Moses, and all the prophets" is their definition / limit / scope / range for 'The scriptures"
==========

Which of course is not the Sabbath topic of this thread

The Liturgist said:

The canon had not been finalized - the first person to say “the canon includes these 27 books, and only these 27 books” was St. Athanasius, who also was Pope

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Origen's list comes more than a 100 years earlier.

so then 2 Peter 3 refers to 'Paul's writings and "THE REST OF SCRIPTURE"' a term the first century church knew about long before either Origen or Athanasius.

Origen had no Pope instructing him.

The Liturgist said:

My point is what it was at the outset - Sabbatarians should not criticize traditional Christians for worshiping on Sunday

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All those claiming the "solo scriptura" test for all doctrine, must wrestle with the fact that not one text in all of the 66 books of actual scripture say "week day one is the Lord's day", or "week day one is the new Christian Sabbath" or "we gather every week day one in memorial of the resurrection" or 'The Commandments of God no longer include the Sabbath" or "The Sabbath commandment has been edited in some way"

The Liturgist said:

, since the Holy Apostles (as shown from Acts, 1 Corinthians, and the four canonical Gospels)...all worshiped on Sunday.

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Not according to the actual Bible.

1. 1 Corf 16:1-3 does not mention a worship service of any kind and does not use any term other than "week day 1" as the day fro each individual to set aside by himself alone, some funds.

2. Acts 20 does not claim to speak of anything happening weekly.

The Liturgist said:

It would be a strange thing to use only the 27 book New Testament canon that was introduced by St. Athanasius

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Origen predates AThansius by more than 100 years and needed no Athanasius to tell him about that list

The Liturgist said:

while regarding him as defective in his Christianity for worshipping on every day of the week, and for leading public worship on the Sabbath and the First Day.

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Nothing about that weekly first day event in the actual Bible. Certainly not in 1 Cor 16 or Acts 20 as any reader of those chapters can see for themselves.

The Liturgist said:

Now, this does not mean Sabbatarians must worship on Sunday,

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In fact it does not mean anything at all because you never found scripture for your speculation about the practice of the first century church

BobRyan said:

Origen predates AThansius by more than 100 years and needed no Athanasius to tell him about that list

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The list produced by Origen also differs from the list produced by St. Athanasius so this is a red herring argument.

BobRyan said:

In fact it does not mean anything at all because you never found scripture for your speculation about the practice of the first century church

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On the contrary, we found numerous scriptural evidence, you simply chose to ignore it.

The Liturgist said:

On the contrary, we found numerous scriptural evidence, you simply chose to ignore it.

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hardly. You quoted not one single text. Rather you claimed that some place in 1 Corinthians and Acts 20 you might have a case but quoted nothing and when the inconvenient details actually in those chapters was pointed out. simply "declared success" over your speculation.

Hint actually quote the text that you claim is saying that week day 1 is a weekly day of worship or is the Lord's day or replaced the Sabbath commandment or ... in other words make an actual case for your speculation. Rather than simply "declaring success" over your speculation

The Liturgist said:
since the Holy Apostles (as shown from Acts, 1 Corinthians, and the four canonical Gospels)...all worshiped on Sunday.

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yeah , that speculation (about a NT text saying they met every Sunday/weekDay1 for worship, did not turn out well. Not a single reference to support it.

BobRyan said:

hardly.

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That’s simply false - I provided ample Scriptural references and directly quoted Acts 2 in response to a member who tried to claim the Third Hour did not refer to the third hour after sunrise - roughly 9 AM, and other sections. And likewise @boughtwithaprice and other members provided ample references and quotations in support of our position. These were ignored, or alternately in the case of Pauline epistles, disregarded via 2 Peter 3:16, even where the meaning of it was not ambiguous, and in a logically fallacious manner in the case of Colossians 2:16, which is a special case of numerous other quotations of our Lord and from the Gopsel of St. James saying “judge not, lest yet not be judged.”

It would be fine if you said “we disagreed with your interpretation” but to say we didn’t supply any Scriptural references in this and other threads is a misrepresentation.

BobRyan said:

yeah , that speculation did not turn out well. Not a single reference to support it.

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So you deny the risen Christ was worshipped when encountered on the First Day, or that worship happened on Pentecost in Acts chapter 2?

References to the above have been continually supplied, by myself and other members.

This in addition to the overwhelming historical evidence. But of course, you tried to claim the canon of Origen was the same as the canon of St. Athanasius, which is false (any historian familiar with the development of the NT canon can confirm that the first definitive canon of the current 27 books we use was that of St. Athanasius, which finally settled the issue of canonicity or lack thereof of certain disputed books like 2 Peter, the Apocaylpse and the Shepherd of Hermas, and which was adopted by the other churches in the following decades.

BobRyan said:

so then 2 Peter 3 refers to 'Paul's writings and "THE REST OF SCRIPTURE"'

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As I said before, it does not say what the rest of the graphe contained - graphe being a word which meant writings - it did not inherently refer to Holy Scripture. All we know from 2 Peter is that the early church held the writings of St. Paul in high esteem and some people (which we know were Docetists and later, after the death of St. Peter, Marcionists) were misinterpreting them.

There is no table of contents in the New Testament, that, and the Nicene Creed, and the versification, are all examples of authoritative tradition, the tradition made authoritative by 1 Corinthians 11:2.

boughtwithaprice said:

There is nothing in scripture which justifies competing Churches.

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If you think the various Orthodox jurisdictions are competing Churches then you have no understanding of the Orthodox Church.

boughtwithaprice said:

There is only one Church
Christ prayed to the Father that they be one as we are one. To demand separate aka auto cephalic churches would seem to go against that prayer and deny the very Lord you profess to serve.

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Just as each person of the Holy Trinity is 100% God, so each bishop celebrating Divine Liturgy surrounded by his flock is 100% the Church. Just as each person of the Holy Trinity is in communion with the others, so each Orthodox Church is in communion with the others.

boughtwithaprice said:

I gave you references and you ignored them.

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You did not provide a single reference for "they meet every Sunday/weekDay1 for worship" in either NT or OT.
Were we simply "not supposed to notice"??

boughtwithaprice said:

According to scripture, the Sabbath is to have a perpetual sacrifice

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according to scripture there is "no sacrifice" for the Sabbath in Gen 2:2-3j
according to scripture there is "no sacrifice" for Sabbath in the actual Sabbath commandment of Ex 20:8-11
according to scripture "they met EVERY SAbbath" for worship and gospel preaching in Acts 18:4 without a single sacrifice

You would think that if you were going to show us "Every Sabbath sacrifice" in the NT you would "Quote something."

boughtwithaprice said:

To be a proper Sabbath, the Sabbath must contain the perpetual sacrifice which the Holy Mass does.

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That works better with an actual quote of something

boughtwithaprice said:

I gave you references and you ignored them. According to scripture, the Sabbath is to have a perpetual sacrifice, and during the day of atonement, which is today, scripture specifically says the first and the eighth day are Sabbaths for you. I quoted the scriptures but you still insist that your interpretation is correct, but it is not scriptural

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If you are going to impose the Sabbath having to have sacrifices than you have to apply that same standard to all days- you can't pick one part of the Bible and isolate it from all of the other Scripture and than impose something that was for a certain time that the bible clearly explains.

According to your own logic why are you not following this?

Daily Offerings​

Num 28:1 Now the Lord spoke to Moses, saying, 2 “Command the children of Israel, and say to them, ‘My offering, My food for My offerings made by fire as a sweet aroma to Me, you shall be careful to offer to Me at their appointed time.’

3 “And you shall say to them, ‘This is the offering made by fire which you shall offer to the Lord: two male lambs in their first year without blemish, day by day, as a regular burnt offering. 4 The one lamb you shall offer in the morning, the other lamb you shall offer in the evening, 5 and one-tenth of an ephah of fine flour as a grain offering mixed with one-fourth of a hin of pressed oil. 6 It is a regular burnt offering which was ordained at Mount Sinai for a sweet aroma, an offering made by fire to the Lord. 7 And its drink offering shall be one-fourth of a hin for each lamb; in a holy place you shall pour out the drink to the Lord as an offering. 8 The other lamb you shall offer in the evening; as the morning grain offering and its drink offering, you shall offer it as an offering made by fire, a [a]sweet aroma to the Lord.