A Protestant Learns About Greek Orthodoxy (Video)

LizaMarie

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Interesting-except the part about the Bible, I don't think the Orthodox think the Bible is just the product of human authors, do they? It's almost like it was edited to be taken out of context, or is my understanding of What Father Chris said wrong?(I realize that he was trying to say the Church assembled the Bible during the council of Nicea but the typical Protestant watching this who doesn't even know what the councils are are not going to get this.)
This part was shortened and not explained well.
 
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TheLostCoin

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Interesting-except the part about the Bible, I don't think the Orthodox think the Bible is just the product of human authors, do they? It's almost like it was edited to be taken out of context, or is my understanding of What Father Chris said wrong?(I realize that he was trying to say the Church assembled the Bible during the council of Nicea but the typical Protestant watching this who doesn't even know what the councils are are not going to get this.)
This part was shortened and not explained well.

I don't believe that's correct - that the Bible was "assembled at Nicaea" - that's an idea propagated by Evangelicals who claim that Constantine "created a new religion" and "paganized Christianity," despite the fact that the same evangelicals are literally creating a new religion based on their 19th century onward Western understanding of documents thousands of years old, said documents made legitimate after Constantine supposedly created his new religion.

In reality, the Old Testament was simply taken from 2nd Temple Judaism, and several local councils of the Churches in various regions declared what was Canonical and what wasn't in the New Testament around the 4th century (I know that the "Council of Hippo" declared a list for the North African Churches, as did the "Council of Rome" under Pope Saint Damasus for the Roman Church - I can't name Eastern Councils off the top of my head), coming to more or less similar conclusions of what was canonical - and the increased communications between these local Churches led to a more definitive list of what New Testament books were, in fact, inspired.

From what I remember - I could be wrong - the Eastern Churches didn't even initially accept the Apocalypse of John as canonical, while Rome did, and Rome didn't accept one of the New Testament Epistles as canonical, while the Eastern Churches did - although eventually, both sides would accept both as canonical.

A Western list would be dogmatized by Rome post-schism, and the Bible Protestants use was formulated by Martin Luther, who wanted to remove "superstitious" Jewish books from the Bible like Tobit. I believe he also even wanted to initially remove the Book of James, because it contradicted his Sola Fida theology, but it wasn't accepted as legitimate by his followers, so they kept James.
 
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TheLostCoin

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Yes Luther was not fond of the book of James or even Revelation for that matter, as I have read.

Okay, cool.

I have to be careful with memories about Luther, because growing up Catholic, a lot of slanderous things about him has been taught to me - like claiming Luther claimed Jesus was an adulterer - and I have to make sure I'm teaching fact from falsehood.

But anyways, I think the point Father was making in the video was that the Bible wasn't given to the Apostles by Angels in a dream - rather, they were explicitly declared official by the Church by various Bishops.
It was the Church that legitimized the Bible, not the Bible that legitimized the Church.

"Ye fools and blind: for whether is greater, the gold, or the temple that sanctifieth the gold?"
 
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LizaMarie

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yes, Gotcha. I get what you mean about Luther/Catholics. I've seen a lot of it from both sides.
From the Protestant side a lot of terrible things said about the RCC and from the Catholic side a lot of untrue and false things said about Martin Luther. I'm thinking of CAF. I had to stop posting there and it really turned me off, some of the anti-Luther posts. At the same time, Luther had his faults, no doubt about it. Some of the things he said have been taken out of context, but he also said some things I don't support. I love the Large and small catechism, though, and much of his writings. I think he would be appalled at the state of Protestantism today.
For myself I've always considered Catholics and the Catholic church to be brothers and sisters in Christ as they have the correct teachings about the Trinity, ect, and have the sacraments rightly administered, but I do think at this point that they have added some things that at first glance seem to be unscriptural.
At the same time, I have not believed in Sola Scriptura for a number of years and I think Protestantism is lacking, or lacks the fullness of the faith.
For this reason I have been looking both at the RCC and EO.
Since I grew up in Western Protestantism, the Eastern Orthodox way of looking at some things such as original sin, the atonement, ect are very different from what I've been taught.
But it's my head that may need changing!
 
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FireDragon76

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Interesting-except the part about the Bible, I don't think the Orthodox think the Bible is just the product of human authors, do they? It's almost like it was edited to be taken out of context, or is my understanding of What Father Chris said wrong?(I realize that he was trying to say the Church assembled the Bible during the council of Nicea but the typical Protestant watching this who doesn't even know what the councils are are not going to get this.)
This part was shortened and not explained well.

Orthodox seminaries in the US teach higher criticism, among other tools. Orthodox priests education and attitudes about the Bible are not necesasrily that different from modern Catholics or mainline Protestants.
 
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Orthodox seminaries in the US teach higher criticism, among other tools. Orthodox priests education and attitudes about the Bible are not necesasrily that different from modern Catholics or mainline Protestants.
Sadly true. So lame.
 
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LizaMarie

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Orthodox seminaries in the US teach higher criticism, among other tools. Orthodox priests education and attitudes about the Bible are not necesasrily that different from modern Catholics or mainline Protestants.
I was wondering about that. I do know that mainline Protestants denominations teach higher criticism I wasn't so sure about either Roman Catholicism or the Eastern Orthodox.
 
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FireDragon76

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Okay, cool.

I have to be careful with memories about Luther, because growing up Catholic, a lot of slanderous things about him has been taught to me - like claiming Luther claimed Jesus was an adulterer - and I have to make sure I'm teaching fact from falsehood.

But anyways, I think the point Father was making in the video was that the Bible wasn't given to the Apostles by Angels in a dream - rather, they were explicitly declared official by the Church by various Bishops.
It was the Church that legitimized the Bible, not the Bible that legitimized the Church.


Which is why in many respects it's not close to the way Evangelicals in the US approach the Bible, which is more the result of unquestioned assumptions from modernity, especially Scottish Common Sense Realism.
 
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straykat

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I was wondering about that. I do know that mainline Protestants denominations teach higher criticism I wasn't so sure about either Roman Catholicism or the Eastern Orthodox.

I don't think Orthodox are nearly immersed as RCs. Just look at the difference in the NAB and the Orthodox study bibles, for example. The OSB is solid and mostly sticks to Christological commentary. The NAB commentary sound like the Oxford Annotated or something (like mainline Protestants who lost the faith and question everything).
 
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FireDragon76

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I don't believe that's correct - that the Bible was "assembled at Nicaea" - that's an idea propagated by Evangelicals who claim that Constantine "created a new religion" and "paganized Christianity," despite the fact that the same evangelicals are literally creating a new religion based on their 19th century onward Western understanding of documents thousands of years old, said documents made legitimate after Constantine supposedly created his new religion.

In reality, the Old Testament was simply taken from 2nd Temple Judaism, and several local councils of the Churches in various regions declared what was Canonical and what wasn't in the New Testament around the 4th century (I know that the "Council of Hippo" declared a list for the North African Churches, as did the "Council of Rome" under Pope Saint Damasus for the Roman Church - I can't name Eastern Councils off the top of my head), coming to more or less similar conclusions of what was canonical - and the increased communications between these local Churches led to a more definitive list of what New Testament books were, in fact, inspired.

From what I remember - I could be wrong - the Eastern Churches didn't even initially accept the Apocalypse of John as canonical, while Rome did, and Rome didn't accept one of the New Testament Epistles as canonical, while the Eastern Churches did - although eventually, both sides would accept both as canonical.

A Western list would be dogmatized by Rome post-schism, and the Bible Protestants use was formulated by Martin Luther, who wanted to remove "superstitious" Jewish books from the Bible like Tobit. I believe he also even wanted to initially remove the Book of James, because it contradicted his Sola Fida theology, but it wasn't accepted as legitimate by his followers, so they kept James.

There's alot of propaganda out there about Luther.

Luther actually translated Tobit into German later in his life. But, he put those books in an appendix in the Bible, what we call the Apocrypha. Lutherans are free to read those books in our liturgy for the purposes of instruction or edification (and indeed, we have done so in our congregation, on All Saints day we had a beautiful reading from the additions to Daniel ), however, they are not sources of dogmatic theology for us.
 
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