Egypt

[Goodbook]

Apparently alexandria had the biggest library in the world at the time, but, many say thats where the corrupted Bibles manuscripts came from. They had a huge fire that wiped it out.

Thats interesting about the coptic christians. Ive heard of many in Ethopia, but not about the egyptian christians, which I gather would be underground groups like it is in China.

 

[DawnStar]

Whether that has now become reality with the suez canal i guess depends on your interpretation. Before that the only way you could get from a to b or egypt to canaan was crossing the red sea.

The Suez Canal was built as a maritime waterway to get from the Red Sea and Indian Ocean to the Mediterranean Sea. In ancient times it was possible to get from Eqypt to Canaan without crossing the Red Sea. Northern Eqypt was not divided from the Sinai (Canaan) by any waterway. Moses and the Israelites did not take that route and therefore HAD to cross the Red Sea into the Sinai.

 

[dzheremi]

Apparently alexandria had the biggest library in the world at the time, but, many say thats where the corrupted Bibles manuscripts came from. They had a huge fire that wiped it out.

I'm not sure what you mean by 'the corrupted Bibles manuscripts'. The earliest extant portions of the Bible written in Coptic (bilingual Coptic/Greek portions in the Bodmer Papyri collection, dated to c. 150 AD) predate the standard Greek and Latin NT codices by several centuries, and do not show any significant deviation from these more standard texts. The standard OT Greek text used in Christ's own time and down to today in the majority of Eastern Christian churches, known as the Septuagint, was produced by a group of Hellenized Jewish scholars in Alexandria around the 3rd century BC.

Thats interesting about the coptic christians. Ive heard of many in Ethopia

It was our father HH St. Athanasius the Apostolic, the twentieth bishop of Alexandria (served from 328 until his death in 373), who sent Ethiopia her first bishops after the conversion of King Ezana of Axum around 330 AD. The Church in Ethiopia would be administered by Egyptians until around the middle of the 20th century, when they attained autocephaly during the time of Yusab II (r. 1946-1956). In recognition of this historical relationship and the Coptic Church's place as the first church of Africa (being the only church founded on the African continent during the apostolic period), when the Eritreans successfully won their war of independence from Ethiopia in 1993, they sought to have their own bishop installed to be the organizational head of their own national church, and for that purpose a group of five abbots went to Egypt to be ordained bishops by the hand of HH Pope Shenouda III (d. 2012), the senior bishop of the Church of Egypt at that time. (NB: the title "Pope" originally applied starting in the mid-3rd century to the Bishop of Alexandria, not of Rome, and in the Egyptian church it does not carry with it any connotation of authority over any other church, or any idea of 'infallibility', or any of the other stuff that Roman Catholics claim about their own popes. The bishop of Rome would not be referred to as 'Pope' in any exclusive sense until the sixth century, and even then only in the West by the Greco-Roman churches; we never stopped using that title to refer to our own bishops.)

but not about the egyptian christians, which I gather would be underground groups like it is in China.

No, no...Egyptian Christians are quite 'above ground', and there are hundreds of churches and monasteries all over Egypt that you could visit if you go there. Christianity is not treated equally to Islam in Egypt, obviously, but basically all Egyptians recognize that Christianity is much older in Egypt than Islam is, even if they don't necessarily respect it or Christian people as equal citizens (because they're not; article 2 of the Egyptian constitution makes Islam the state religion, and says that Islamic law is the source of all legislation).

 

[Goodbook]

Apparently the alexandrian manuscripts were different from the other manuscripts but thats a scholarly dispute I havent actually seen them myself so dont quote me Im not an expert!

They may have been older physically but the ones that were used were copied many times and handed down and thats why the older ones were preserved more cos they werent used. The reason why they werent used, and scholarship bears this out, was cos scriptures were omitted ie. they werent usable copies.

 

[Goodbook]

The greek septugint OT was fine as a translation, i think it might have been the NT ones sthat were in question.
Anyway the KJV was translated from the original tongues..eg OT hebrew. So bypassed the septugint even though that was the version quoted in the NT.

 

[Goodbook]

In the bible, it does say the first christians were called that from Antioch.

The NT doesnt really mention where all the twelves disciples went after they were sent out, aside from John and Paul. But I think fox book of martyrs gives a detailed account of this.

 

[Goodbook]

Acts 2:10 mentions egyptians as those present in the upper room at pentecost when the holy spirit was first given to the church.

 

[James of Arc]

Yes, OP, there are many Christians in Egypt today. It's obviously not a Christian society anymore (Christians were probably a numerical minority there by the turn of the millennium, roughly 350 years after the Arab Muslim invasion in the 640s), but the Christian population that is there has deep roots. St. Mark the Evangelist (writer of the Gospel according to St. Mark) started the Church there within about 10-15 years of Christ's ministry. According to tradition, St. Mark was a Hellenized Jew from Libya who went to neighboring Egypt to preach the gospel of Christ there c. AD 46 (though some sources place him there a bit later, c. AD 51; there is much more agreement about the date of his martyrdom in Egypt, in AD 68).

I am Coptic Orthodox (Coptic = Egyptian), though not an ethnic Egyptian person, so I've never been there. Pretty much everyone I know has been, though, and still go back regularly to visit family who still live there (for weddings, baptisms, etc). Most Copts still live in Egypt, though there is not a reliable estimate of the number of Copts in Egypt, since that is a politically-sensitive question in Egyptian society. The government figure of between 5 and 6 million is almost certainly an underestimation, while some Coptic advocacy groups in the West throw around crazy numbers like 15 to 20 million. That's too high. The real number is probably somewhere in between, say 8 to 10. (If we add in the diaspora as well as the neighboring countries' Christians which have traditionally been within the Coptic Orthodox Church, as in Sudan and Libya, that definitely increases the total by several million, but then we're not talking just about Egypt anymore.)

One thing it might interest you to know is that the Coptic Orthodox Church still uses the Coptic (Egyptian) language in its services. It is not spoken outside of church anymore, but it was also never completely lost since the Church kept using it even after the Coptic people stopped speaking it natively in the 14th-15th century or so. It sounds like this:

(In this video, the hymn is sung in alternating verses of Coptic and English, since this service was recorded in New York, not in Egypt. In America, we use English, Coptic, and Arabic in the liturgy, while in other countries we will use whatever the native language is plus Coptic and Arabic; the Arabic is mainly for the older generation or very recent immigrants who might not know enough English to participate in church services in the language.)

Wow, cool stuff, thanks for sharing, I enjoyed what you said.

 

[James of Arc]

Isaiah 19:19-20
In that day there will be an altar to the LORD in the midst of the land of Egypt, and a pillar to the LORD near its border. 20It will become a sign and a witness to the LORD of hosts in the land of Egypt; for they will cry to the LORD because of oppressors, and He will send them a Savior and a Champion, and He will deliver them.

Cool verse but what is it saying? Is this end times stuff or when?

 

[timewerx]

Cool verse but what is it saying? Is this end times stuff or when?

It reminds me of the Great Pyramids of Egypt.

There's a black pyramid relic where in a message says, the Son of the Creator comes from here. Many people thought the constellation engraved was the Orion nebula, but is in fact, a different constellation that points to a distant but a very large and very unique galaxy in our Universe.

 

[Goodbook]

Im not really sure what that chapter is referrring to if its Jesus time or the second coming. Im a bit hazy about the egyptians linking up with the assyrians. But definitely the suez canal now links up those countries.

And they dont actively worship those ancient gods/idols anymore.
I asked an elder from church about this and he said well egypt isnt the great power it used to be anymore they defintiely know their place after God plagued them in Moses time.

 

[Rhamiel]

my dad was in Egypt back in 1991
he was in the U.S. Navy and the Navy had some battle ships and aircraft carriers

they did not have any Catholic Churches near where he was stationed
so the Catholics were invited to the Coptic Church and were even allowed to receive the Eucharist at their churches

my Dad only has good things to say about the Egyptian people

 

[Goodbook]

Did he go through the Suez Canal?

Thats interesting about the catholics. Most churches are open to believers having communion/Lords Supper/eucharist with them in fellowship it really only the catholics that bar non-catholics from partaking in their 'mass' version of it.

 

[dzheremi]

I'm sorry, but that's not true at all, Goodbook. Under normal circumstances, the Coptic Orthodox Church does not allow anyone outside of the Oriental Orthodox communion (Copts, Armenians, Ethiopians, etc.) to partake of its sacraments (this is not the same as being barred from the service entirely; visitors from other traditions are certainly welcome and may participate the same as any other layperson does, they just can't take communion or receive any other sacrament in the Church without joining it first): no Catholics, no Eastern Orthodox, no Protestants, etc.

Exceptions may be made on an individual basis depending on the situation, as apparently happened for Rhamiel's father, but these are understood to be exceptions to the rule, and do not establish any sort of precedent. Case in point: at my old parish, St. Bishoy Coptic Orthodox Church in New Mexico, we had regular visitors from Jordan who were some type of Catholic (it was a brother and sister who came to liturgy together for several months in a row), who came to our liturgy because they said it was the most "Eastern" of any of the churches in the city (I still don't know what that means). We love them both dearly and treated them as fellow Christians in every way, but they were never allowed to commune with us, or do any of the readings during the liturgy, or any of the other things that are only for baptized Orthodox Christians in our church. (They also never asked to do any of those things, since I guess they knew better.) Before I was baptized, when I was just an inquirer, I was likewise not allowed to do any of those things.

This is the standard practice in both the Oriental Orthodox Church and the Eastern Orthodox Church, though interestingly perhaps not necessarily the Catholic Church, as I understand they would allow Orthodox Christians (both Oriental and Eastern) to receive from them, assuming our respective bishops would allow us to. No Orthodox bishop worth his salt would allow it, though, so it's a moot point, and I know at least in the Coptic Orthodox Church (can't speak for the Eastern Orthodox like the Greeks and Russians, though I assume they are probably like us in this regard), anyone who receives any sacrament in another church is automatically excommunicated (meaning they too can still show up to liturgy and do all the things laypeople do, but they cannot receive any sacraments anymore, as they have placed themselves outside of the Church by uniting themselves to another). There were maybe half a dozen Copts I knew in New Mexico who had married Catholics, Protestants, and one who married a very nice Jewish lady -- all of them attended liturgy on occasion, but never approached for communion. I'm sure there's some way to be readmitted in that case, but I don't know about it, and I imagine it would probably only come with the baptism of the spouse, since that's what they should have done in the first place (since we're not supposed to marry outside of the Church).

To a lot of churches and individual Christians this probably seems extreme or mean, but it's the historical norm, hence it is upheld by the three major families of apostolic Christianity (i.e., the Oriental Orthodox, the Eastern Orthodox, and the Catholics).

 

[Goodbook]

It wasnt me it was rhamiel who said this.

As far as i know catholics dont allow non catholics to fellowship with them at their lords supper. Dont know about orthodox but I suspect its the same.

As I dont speak the language its not likely I would ever be invited anyway. To orthodox gatherings in my country.

 

[Goodbook]

Historic norm doesnt mean a thing if the practice is unbiblical.

 

[Goodbook]

If you can speak in tongues, you can fellowship, see acts 2. In which egyptians and medeans and persians and romans all fellowshipped and broke bread together.

 

[blackribbon]

Did he go through the Suez Canal?

Thats interesting about the catholics. Most churches are open to believers having communion/Lords Supper/eucharist with them in fellowship it really only the catholics that bar non-catholics from partaking in their 'mass' version of it.

There are a lot of churches that won't allow you to participate unless you have gone through their preparation classes...mostly because they consider it that holy and don't want someone to participate without knowing exactly what it represents and are Christian who takes it seriously enough to be honestly to be internally addressing their sins with God . I grew up Lutheran but we left the church before I finished my confirmation class and I can not participate in communion at many Lutheran churches. I always ask when I visit as a guest so that I don't violate their beliefs.

 

[timewerx]

my Dad only has good things to say about the Egyptian people

Ahh, you're an American.... Egyptians love the Americans.

My experience with the Egyptians in the Middle East is somewhat mixed. They discriminate non-Arabs, non-Caucasians, and non-Muslims. So if you're an American, they will respect you as their own even if you're a Christian.

It took some time before I finally earned the respect of my Egyptian boss in the Middle East.

 

[dzheremi]

It wasnt me it was rhamiel who said this.

Yes, I was responding to the part of your post where you wrote "Most churches are open to believers having communion/Lords Supper/eucharist with them in fellowship it really only the catholics that bar non-catholics from partaking in their 'mass' version of it." That's not true.

As far as i know catholics dont allow non catholics to fellowship with them at their lords supper. Dont know about orthodox but I suspect its the same.

They don't allow Protestants, but as far as I've been able to find out, they will allow Orthodox if the Orthodox want to, but Orthodox aren't supposed to.

As I dont speak the language its not likely I would ever be invited anyway. To orthodox gatherings in my country.

That really doesn't have anything to do with this question. Who can receive the sacraments in the Church has to do with who is a baptized, practicing Orthodox Christian, not who speaks what language. I don't know Arabic very well (I took a year of classes in college years before I knew anything about the Church of Egypt, so I can read it and understand about 10-20% of any given conversation), but I still receive the sacraments in an Egyptian church where everyone speaks Arabic natively (just not very much in the liturgy, since we're in America and the church is not an ethnic social club). If I were in Armenia, where the national church is the Armenian Apostolic Church (another Oriental Orthodox Church), I would receive from the Armenians, even though I don't understand a word of Armenian.

A lot of people have this idea that because the churches are national churches they are closed to people not of a given nationality or ethnicity, but that's not really the case -- at least not by design. It is the result of history that certain forms of Christianity developed among certain people and came to be identified with them, while others practiced other kinds. Protestants also have this phenomenon, in the so-called "Mainline" churches, which is a term that traditionally applied to churches identified with particular immigrant groups in America: the Lutherans (Scandinavians), Presbyterians (Scots), Anglicans and Episcopalians (English), etc. And of course among the Catholics, certain national groups are heavily identified with Catholicism for historical reasons, such as the Irish, Maltese, and Croatians.