On what authority did you accept this compilation + doctrine?

[radhead]

1. How did you come to accept the compilation of writings known at the Nicene Bible**? I believe that every fundamentalist Christian who accepts the "Inerrant" Nicene Bible has done so before they ever opened it and read a single book within its pages.
**(Roman Catholic or Protest version. Your choice.)

2. What about the evangelical doctrine known as the "4 Spiritual Laws"? How did you come to accept this 20th century evangelical statement of belief? These "laws" are presented in order to convert people. But in my opinion this belief does not even come from the Bible. They are just random, unrelated statements "pieced" together. But they say what people want to hear. Because the idea of many people suffering for eternity is good news to them.

3. How did you come to the conclusion that this compilation was Inerrant before reading it in its entirety?

The Four Spiritual Laws were pieced together in the same way that Dispensationalism was pieced together to create an entire end-times scenario. In other words, if I hear someone say they are "pretrib" or "premillenial" it tells me that their belief did not come from personal exploration of the Bible. But rather, it came from hearing certain unrelated verses presented in a certain piecemeal fashion, either by a preacher or a book. And it takes an extremely fundamentalist/literalist mind to even begin to believe in such things.

Fundamentalist Christians won't even discuss anything in the Bible if it violates their Four Spiritual Laws. Because that nonbiblical dogma was the first thing they accepted. If something in the Bible deviates from that, they will either dismiss it or explain it away in some fashion. But they are never willing to discuss it.

 

[_-iconoclast-_]

Nicene Bible

Hey friend.

Whats that?

 

[StTruth]

Hey friend.

Whats that?

He means the Bible as compiled at the Council of Nicea, ie the books that we now call canonical.

I am...

St Truth

 

[Norbert L]

He means the Bible as compiled at the Council of Nicea, ie the books that we now call canonical.

I am...

St Truth

I did a quick search, the wiki says, "There is no record of any discussion of the biblical canon at the council. The development of the biblical canon took centuries, and was nearly complete (with exceptions known as the Antilegomena, written texts whose authenticity or value is disputed) by the time the Muratorian fragment was written."

From what I understand, a discussion on canon is large enough on its' own to take a whole thread. It's about authenticity, how you would verify that what is written is documentation from witnesses of the events surrounding the life, death and resurrection of Jesus.

 

[radhead]

Hey friend.

Whats that?

I trust the Pentecostal approach above anything I wrote in my original post. Because I believe the Holy Spirit communicates directly with every person.

 

[_-iconoclast-_]

Because I believe the Holy Spirit communicates directly with every person.

Well thats me out God bless

 

[Tolworth John]

Fundamentalist Christians won't even discuss anything in the Bible if it violates their Four Spiritual Laws.

Really, you must be mixing with some really extreme Christians.

As has been already posted there is no 'nicean' bible.

So could you explain what you mean?

Why do I believe the bible? Because it is accurate in how it discribes people.

4 spiritual laws are an evangilisation tract written by campus crusade for christ. A tool for explaining the gospel.

 

[radhead]

Really, you must be mixing with some really extreme Christians.

As has been already posted there is no 'nicean' bible.

So could you explain what you mean?

Why do I believe the bible? Because it is accurate in how it discribes people.

4 spiritual laws are an evangilisation tract written by campus crusade for christ. A tool for explaining the gospel.

Are you aware that the word gospel means "good news"? How is it good news to hear that you are in danger of being condemned by God? That's not good news, and to call it such is a lie.

 

[Tolworth John]

Are you aware that the word gospel means "good news"? How is it good news to hear that you are in danger of being condemned by God? That's not good news, and to call it such is a lie.

Yes when your doctor tells you, that you have a fatel condition and you need this treatment. That is not good news.
At least it is not 'good news' to those who call the doctor a 'quack' and seek alturnative medicine to cure them.

For those who follow the doctors advice and take the treatment that cures them, it is good news.

From your post you know that only 'unrepentant sinners' are condemned. The question is are you ready to accept Jesus as Lord and Saviour.

 

[radhead]

Yes when your doctor tells you, that you have a fatel condition and you need this treatment. That is not good news.
At least it is not 'good news' to those who call the doctor a 'quack' and seek alturnative medicine to cure them.

For those who follow the doctors advice and take the treatment that cures them, it is good news.

From your post you know that only 'unrepentant sinners' are condemned. The question is are you ready to accept Jesus as Lord and Saviour.

Fine. But you still haven't answered, on what authority did you believe that to be true?

There is only one authority: yourself. Which means that you should have just "known" it before anyone told you.

 

[Hieronymus]

Nice, starting a discussion with an unsupported statement...
You seem to be annoyed by something.
Maybe better to turn your view into verification questions.
I mean, you might be wrong, right?

 

[ViaCrucis]

1. How did you come to accept the compilation of writings known at the Nicene Bible**? I believe that every fundamentalist Christian who accepts the "Inerrant" Nicene Bible has done so before they ever opened it and read a single book within its pages.
**(Roman Catholic or Protest version. Your choice.)

Calling it a "Nicene Bible" gives the false impression that the Council of Nicea played a role in its formation, which is a common misunderstanding. The Council of Nicea didn't play a role in the formation of the biblical Canon. Of the several topics discussed at the council, the Biblical Canon wasn't one of them. The Council chiefly met to discuss and debate and reach some conclusion on the Christological debate concerning whether the Son was homoousios, heteroousios, or homoiousios with the Father (that is, whether the Son was of the same Being, a different being, or a similar being with the Father respectively); other points of discussion involved standardizing the Paschal calculations so that the Paschal Feast would be celebrated at the same time throughout the churches, and also addressed points of pastoral discipline, largely reaffirming previous decisions on these matters, such as prohibiting bishops from living with women that aren't their immediate family in order to avoid the appearance of impropriety or scandal.

The Biblical Canon was not settled at Nicea, but continued to be discussed and debated in some way for centuries afterward, just as there had been discussion and debate in the centuries prior; that there had been no definitive conclusion is one reason for the difference between Catholic, Orthodox, and Protestant Canons. The Roman Catholic Canon was settled at the Council of Trent, the Protestant Canon is affirmed by the individual confessional texts of the various Protestant bodies (it's worth noting that the Lutheran Churches do not have an official statement on the Canon, and thus from the Lutheran POV the Canon is, at least technically speaking, open). As far as I know the Orthodox position is one in which there remains some mild fluidity in differing opinion here and there, as there hasn't be a definitive pan-Orthodox decision reached, though there is for all practical concerns a consensus.

There's no such thing as a Nicene Canon of the Bible; the history and evolution of the Biblical Canon predates Nicea and postdates Nicea equally; as Nicea never addressed the issue and the development of the Canon continued afterward as it had before. The list of Canonical books given by St. Athanasius differs from the Council of Carthage on the one hand and the Council of Laodicea on the other; examples of two regional synods that did discuss the matter and which were influential, but not ecumenical. The definitive council, in the West, was the Council of Trent, which is recognized only by the Roman Catholic Church as authoritative.

But as for why I accept the Canon as it has been received over the last two thousand years (even if it is not "settled" and there is room for ongoing discussion on the canonical status of the Deuterocanonical books, and to a lesser extent the Antilegomena), it's because it is what has been received and passed down over the last two thousand years. These books are what have been received and passed on to us from the apostles and fathers and which have been read in the churches, and which are received in the Church as Sacred and Holy Scripture.

Also, worth adding here, that I'm not an inerrantist.

-CryptoLutheran

 

[StTruth]

Fine. But you still haven't answered, on what authority did you believe that to be true?

There is only one authority: yourself. Which means that you should have just "known" it before anyone told you.

Your question is in the past tense. It's applicable to me. I have been an altar boy since I was 5 and after hearing the reader saying 'This is the word of the Lord' after each reading, I naturally thought that the Bible was REALLY God's word and hence authority.

I have been an altar boy for over ten years but now, I know better. Since then, I have read three super-duper scholastic books on the canon - FF Bruce, Bruce Metzger and MacDonald - and the scales fell off my eyes.

There are major problems with the Bible:

1. The Canon Problem.

Folks, it's not like that at all. Even the way they went about getting the books is dubious. For example Hebrews was accepted into the canon because the Western part of the church thought it was a Pauline epistle. The eastern church which is wiser knew better and never used it. Origen convinced the eastern part to accept it for the sake of unification. Nobody knows who wrote it and they just accepted it into the Canon because one half of the church wrongly thought it was God's word. What was wrongly thought to be God's word became God's word because of habit!!!

And why should something be God's word just because Paul wrote it? That doesn't make sense. I'm a good CHristian and I've always been a Christian. I never persecuted or killed Christians and I've served the church since I was a toddler. If I write an epistle, will you guys quote use it as God's word? St Truth 5:24 says this.

2. The Forgery Problem

Let's now look at pseudepigraphical books especially in the NT. Every unbiased scholar today knows James didn't write James and Peter didn't write Peter and 2 Peter particularly is universally accepted even by evangelical scholars not to have been written by Peter. Some epistles of Paul are also pseudepigraphical. Why do we call these books by such a strange name? A book or epistle that is pseudepigraphical is one whose author pretends to be another person (usually someone famous and important, eg an apostle). In other words, a psedepigraphical epistle is a FORGERY.

If a cheque is a forgery, no bank will honour it. The bank will call the police. The church is the only institution in the world that accepts a forgery as the word of God. Shocking?

But the Holy Gospels aren't forgeries. Matthew didn't write Matthew and Mark didn't write Mark and John didn't write John but the names were ascribed to the Gospels only by Holy Tradition of the church. The authors never claimed to be these people. Scholars say they were most probably Hellenistic Christians (from Paul's churches) and there is evidence for this, such as their ignorance of the Hebrew Bible, getting their OT quotations wrong because they used the notoriously poorly translated Septuagint.

Now, when I hear 'This is the word of the Lord' after a reading, I just clasp my hands and bow my head like a good altar boy and mouth the response but MY HEAD knows better. Ho Ho Ho!!!

Truth and I go hand in hand because I'm...

St Truth

 

[radhead]

St Truth, I'm not even sure what you are trying to say. I would like to hear more, but I'm not going to try to read that again. Don't expect me to understand when you are using comedy, because I would really like to know what you are saying. But I'm not going to begin to speculate in case I'm totally off base.

 

[StTruth]

St Truth, I'm not even sure what you are trying to say. I would like to hear more, but I'm not going to try to read that again. Don't expect me to understand when you are using comedy, because I would really like to know what you are saying. But I'm not going to begin to speculate in case I'm totally off base.

I was doing a comprehensive answer. I explained why all of us including me misunderstand the Bible and assume it's so terribly authoritative when a proper study of it will reveal it's flaws and weaknesses. I gave 2 examples of serious consideration which will erode its apparent authority.

I don't know why you think it's comedy. It's what I've found after ploughing through volumes of scholastic books.

Cheers

St Truth

 

[Tolworth John]

Fine. But you still haven't answered, on what authority did you believe that to be true?

There is only one authority: yourself. Which means that you should have just "known" it before anyone told you.

No there are many authorities. In the illistration of sickness we accept the authority of medical staff.
In legal matters we listen and follow the advice given by those legaly qualified.
In the case of the bible we listen to those who have expertise in the biblical languages, who know the culture, archeology and how the bible has been written, translated etc

The verdict of experts in the bible is that it is trustworthy and worthy following its teaching.

 

[anonymous person]

Are you aware that the word gospel means "good news"? How is it good news to hear that you are in danger of being condemned by God? That's not good news, and to call it such is a lie.

Well, to correct you, it is not that we are in danger of being condemned, it is that we are condemned already.

The good news of course comes in when we hear that God loves us and wants us to be free from the penalty of sin. Loved us so much in fact that He did something about it and gave His Son for us, so that He might take our place.

To call this good news is the understatement of the ages.

 

[radhead]

No there are many authorities. In the illistration of sickness we accept the authority of medical staff.
In legal matters we listen and follow the advice given by those legaly qualified.
In the case of the bible we listen to those who have expertise in the biblical languages, who know the culture, archeology and how the bible has been written, translated etc

The verdict of experts in the bible is that it is trustworthy and worthy following its teaching.

Well, then you are mistaken. You listen only the ones who you agree with. Because the vast majority of scholars are not fundamentalist believers.

 

[radhead]

Well, to correct you, it is not that we are in danger of being condemned, it is that we are condemned already.

The good news of course comes in when we hear that God loves us and wants us to be free from the penalty of sin. Loved us so much in fact that He did something about it and gave His Son for us, so that He might take our place.

To call this good news is the understatement of the ages.

Then why would it cause me and so many other Liberal Christians such depression? The first gospel I accepted as a child was Jesus and his message of love. As far as I'm concerned, the other one is false because it contradicts the first one I knew.

 

[anonymous person]

Then why would it cause me and so many other Liberal Christians such depression?

I'm not quite sure what you mean by liberal Christian. If you can explain, I'd be glad to listen.

The first gospel I accepted as a child was Jesus and his message of love. As far as I'm concerned, the other one is false because it contradicts the first one I knew.

Maybe it's not a contradiction. Maybe it's like a coin with two sides. Maybe one aspect of the gospel that you think contradicts the message of Jesus and His love is actually just another aspect of the overall picture.