Were first-century Christians Sola Scriptura?

[Albion]

It's not in Scripture...

That's right. And that's why I called it an invention.

What books and letters did the Apostles rely on?

2/3 of the Bible was in use at that time and the first of the NT writings were produced within only a few years.

Do you have any support that the New Testament is a comprehensive account of every single teaching Christ passed on during his ministry of several years?

No, and I didn't claim anything like that. However, I do know (because it's in the Gospel of John) that what IS recorded is sufficient for God's purposes and our instruction. See John 20:30-31.

 

[Albion]

No, it's fact. Since the Apostles, along with others, wrote the New Testament, and had the teachings prior, they must have had a period where they didn't have the New Testament to rely upon.

Even if we agreed on that, it doesn't give any one license to simply invent teachings and then proclaim "the Apostles must have passed this on to later generations." That is simply a functional myth used to justify turning speculation legend, and custom into doctrine, proclaiming it to be another infallible revelation from God, and making it the equal of Scripture. All of that is just conjecture and without a basis in either Scripture or the Fathers.

 

[Constantine the Sinner]

That's right. And that's why I called it an invention.


2/3 of the Bible was in use at that time and the first of the NT writings were produced within only a few years.


No, and I didn't claim anything like that. However, I do know (because it's in the Gospel of John) that what IS recorded is sufficient for God's purposes and our instruction. See John 20:30-31.

No, Paul didn't start writing a couple of decades after Christ's ministry, and he certainly didn't write all of his Epistles within a couple of years. Neither did he compile his Epistles into a volume to use as a source, he sent different ones to different churches.

But what you're referencing is a lack of record of his miracles, and it's in relation to the Gospel of John, and in relation to something being sufficient as a witness of Christ being the Messiah. Following your logic, the Gospel of John alone is sufficient, and the rest of Scripture unnecessary.

 

[Constantine the Sinner]

Even if we agreed on that, it doesn't give any one license to simply invent teachings and then proclaim "the Apostles must have passed this on to later generations." That is simply a functional myth used to justify turning speculation legend, and custom into doctrine, proclaiming it to be another infallible revelation from God, and making it the equal of Scripture. All of that is just conjecture and without a basis in either Scripture or the Fathers.

The Gospel of Luke and Acts were not written by an Apostle, are you saying that Luke just invented them? What about the Gospel of Mark?

 

[Albion]

2 Thessalonians 2:15.

Ironically, it has more of a Scriptural basis than Sola Scriptura

Thessalonians is certainly the "go-to" justification for the use of so-called Tradition, but it does not deal with the manmade theory of custom being the equal of Scripture. It deals with actual traditions, such as keeping up the religious celebrations or who knows what. It does not say that folklore is the equal of the Bible. The EO and RC churches merely had applied the term "Holy Tradition" to that concept they invented.

The verse in Thessalonians has nothing to do with that, and, even if it did, tell me what traditions are being referred to there? What traditions are to be maintained? You do not know. No one knows. It's not revealed to us.

But the church has invented a bunch and merely deemed them to be what the Apostles supposedly transmitted and what the church chose to call "Holy Tradition." All of that is without any basis.

 

[Albion]

No, Paul didn't start writing a couple of decades after Christ's ministry.

All the Gospels were written within a decade after the date of Christ's crucifixion.

 

[Constantine the Sinner]

Thessalonians is certainly the "go-to" justification for the use of so-called Tradition, but it does not deal with the manmade theory of custom being the equal of Scripture. It deals with actual traditions, such as keeping up the religious celebrations or who knows what. It does not say that folklore is the equal of the Bible. The EO and RC churches merely had applied the term "Holy Tradition" to that concept they invented.

The verse in Thessalonians has nothing to do with that, and, even if it did, tell me what traditions are being referred to there? What traditions are to be maintained? You do not know. No one knows. It's not revealed to us.

But the church has invented a bunch and merely deemed them to be what the Apostles supposedly transmitted and what the church chose to call "Holy Tradition." All of that is without any basis.

If your Church does not keep to the traditions commanded by this verse, nay, even claims to not know what they are, then how can you claim to be a Scriptural Church? Scripture says to keep this, you aren't keeping it. My Church claims to keep to it, to be faithfully following this injunction ever since it was given.

 

[Albion]

If your Church does not keep to the traditions commanded by this verse

You've yet to identify the traditions that are mentioned in that verse, so do that and I'll have something to reply to.

 

[Constantine the Sinner]

All the Gospels were written within a decade after the date of Christ's crucifixion.

Galatians was written during Paul's Ephesian ministry.

 

[Constantine the Sinner]

You've yet to identify the traditions that are mentioned in that verse, so do that and I'll have something to reply to.

The fast days of Wednesday and Friday (attested to in the Didache), the method of instruction, how absolution of sins is to be conducted, how to deal with images seen in prayer, etc. Too many things to definitively list

 

[Albion]

The fast days of Wednesday and Friday (attested to in the Didache), the method of instruction, how absolution of sins is to be conducted, how to deal with images seen in prayer, etc. Too many things to definitively list

The verse says only "keep the traditions." NONE ARE SPECIFIED.

"15 Therefore, brethren, stand fast, and hold the traditions which ye have been taught, whether by word, or our epistle."

All you are doing is verifying what I said before, which is that all sorts of manmade inventions have been added to the body of faith and justified by waving the word "traditions" at them and stipulating that it's infallible divine revelation.

 

[Constantine the Sinner]

The verse says only "keep the traditions." NONE ARE SPECIFIED.

"15 Therefore, brethren, stand fast, and hold the traditions which ye have been taught, whether by word, or our epistle."

All you are doing is verifying what I said before, which is that all sorts of manmade inventions have been added to the body of faith and justified by waving the word "traditions" at them and stipulating that it's infallible divine revelation.

They were specified, just not in Scripture. We still follow them. You don't. The Traditions were imparted, and we took great care in looking after them.

The very idea of Sola Scriptura for something so profound as spirituality boggles my mind. If you wanted to be a great solider, you would not say all teaching outside of a single manual is wrong, you'd learn from a teacher in a long tradition. If you wanted to be a great football player, you wouldn't say, "Only what's in this manual, no learning outside of it, reading it is all that is required." But for spirituality, you think the spiritual school established by God himself, which wrote the manual, you think it superfluous, that teachers and the traditions of teachers whose school traces back to the teachers trained personally by God, have no business teaching anything except what's in the manual, basing this on the entirely unsupportable position that the manual is an exhaustive record of every single thing God training and developed his students in. Christ was not a manual, he was a teacher, and being a teacher is a lot more than just spouting doctrines. If Holy Tradition isn't exhaustively recorded in Scripture, it's because it can't be. Holy Tradition isn't just simple rules, it's an indescribable method and mindset that takes years for a teacher to impart to his student.

 

[samir]

No, the first century Church was not sola scriptura.
In fact, Sola Scriptura fails its own test as the Bible never says all right doctrine must be based solely on it, so Sola Scriptura would be forced to reject the doctrine itself as unscriptural.
Sola Scriptura bases itself anyway on the Church Tradition of which books are canon and which aren't, which was only fixed much later.

Well said. I agree no one believed sola scriptura during the first three centuries after Christ because the Church didn't decide upon the canon until the 4th century.

Tradition alone can veer far off course like various heretical groups, gnostics etc. clearly attest.

The root cause of heresy is pride. Heretical groups are formed when people reject Tradition in favor of their own personal interpretations, putting that above the constant teaching of the Church that Christians have believed from the beginning.

Besides, Sola Scriptura doesn't reject Church Tradition

Yes it does. For example, Church Tradition says baptism saves, regenerates believers, and is necessary for salvation. All Christians everywhere have believed that Tradition from the beginning. Yet sola scriptura says you can reject that Christian teaching if it doesn't agree with your own personal interpretation of scripture.

it just holds that if Church tradition and Scripture seem to conflict, to trust Scripture on the point.

That is a rejection of Tradition because you're only following what agrees with your own opinions instead of trusting the Tradition given to us by Christ.

 

[Gregory Thompson]

Sola Scriptura is overrated, it was a response to other abuses of power in the church that lead to further abuses of power.

 

[Deadworm]

Here are 4 texts that challenge the claim that the NT authors believed in our NT canon as Sola Scriptura:

(1) Jude 14-15 quotes 1 Enoch as a prophetically inspired book: "And behold! He comes with ten thousands of His holy ones to execute judgment upon all (1 Enoch1:9)."
"And Enoch also, the seventh from Adam, prophesied of these, saying, Behold, the Lord comes with ten thousands of his saints to execute judgment upon all...(Jude 14)."

(2) Jude 9 reads: "But Michael the archangel, when he disputed with the devil and argued about the body of Moses, did not dare pronounce against him a railing judgment, but said, ‘The Lord rebuke you!’”

The truth of this claim depends on the supposed supernatural revelation of the Assumption of Moses, of which only excerpts survive, but the respected early church fathers, Clement of Alexandria, Origen, and Didymus of Alexandria all agree that Jude is referring to the apocryphal Assumption of Moses.

(3) Origen identifies the lost Apocalypse of Elijah as the source of the beloved promise in 1 Corinthians 2:9, "As it is written, eye has not seen, nor ear heard, neither has any human heart conceived the things that God has prepared for those who love Him." The authoritative introduction, "As it is written," is the standard NT way of introducing biblical citations.

(4) In Moses' contest with Egyptian magicians in Exodus 7:10-12, the Egyptian magicians are not named. But Origen finds the allusion to Jannes and Jambres in 2 Timothy 3:8 in the apocryphal Book of Jannes and Jambres, which was apparently known at Qumran. An Ethiopic translation survives, though the Book of Jannes and Jambres was originally written in Greek and Greek fragments of it are present in Chester Beatty Papyrus XLV.

 

[Constantine the Sinner]

Here are 4 texts that challenge the claim that the NT authors believed in our NT canon as Sola Scriptura:

(1) Jude 14-15 quotes 1 Enoch as a prophetically inspired book: "And behold! He comes with ten thousands of His holy ones to execute judgment upon all (1 Enoch1:9)."
"And Enoch also, the seventh from Adam, prophesied of these, saying, Behold, the Lord comes with ten thousands of his saints to execute judgment upon all...(Jude 14)."

(2) Jude 9 reads: "But Michael the archangel, when he disputed with the devil and argued about the body of Moses, did not dare pronounce against him a railing judgment, but said, ‘The Lord rebuke you!’”

The truth of this claim depends on the supposed supernatural revelation of the Assumption of Moses, of which only excerpts survive, but the respected early church fathers, Clement of Alexandria, Origen, and Didymus of Alexandria all agree that Jude is referring to the apocryphal Assumption of Moses.

(3) Origen identifies the lost Apocalypse of Elijah as the source of the beloved promise in 1 Corinthians 2:9, "As it is written, eye has not seen, nor ear heard, neither has any human heart conceived the things that God has prepared for those who love Him." The authoritative introduction, "As it is written," is the standard NT way of introducing biblical citations.

(4) In Moses' contest with Egyptian magicians in Exodus 7:10-12, the Egyptian magicians are not named. But Origen finds the allusion to Jannes and Jambres in 2 Timothy 3:8 in the apocryphal Book of Jannes and Jambres, which was apparently known at Qumran. An Ethiopic translation survives, though the Book of Jannes and Jambres was originally written in Greek and Greek fragments of it are present in Chester Beatty Papyrus XLV.

Do you accept apocryphal books as Scripture?

 

[Norbert L]

How could they be when even after all of the NT canon was finished, toward the end of the first century, most likely no single church had copies of every book in it? Also no church would know which writings weren't canon, since there were probably a ton of epistles going around, and there is not record of an epistle listing all the books of the New Testament and saying, "This is all you need."

I find the comparison of the first century "this is all you need" to a present day type of "this is all you need" misleading. It doesn't take into account one very important component of the first century.

They had LIVING apostles and somewhere around 500 witnesses to the events of Jesus life, death and resurrection. The needs of the the first century Church was met by them. But when it comes to this present day and the scriptures, "It's all we have" of their first century life.

Obviously because our life span is short, as the witness numbers declined, Luke explains, "Now many have undertaken to compile an account of the things that have been fulfilled among us, like the accounts passed on to us by those who were eyewitnesses and servants of the word from the beginning" Luke 1:1-2 It is through those scriptures the people of today may attain the same faith.

"I am not praying only on their behalf, but also on behalf of those who believe in me through their testimony, that they will all be one," John 17:20-21

 

[Deadworm]

No, but some of them are important to grasp the thought world of Jesus and the early Christians. For example, the Wisdom of Solomon played a role in shaping early Christological hymns and in buttressing the Jewish consensus about the preexistence of souls (8:19-20). Ecclesiasticus (= Sirach) influenced Jesus' teachings in important ways: e.g. the influence of 28:2 on shaping the Lord's Prayer and the stress on the need for a healthy self-image as an assumption for Jesus' principle "Love your neighbor as yourself." (= bad advice for a [bless and do not curse][bless and do not curse][bless and do not curse][bless and do not curse][bless and do not curse][bless and do not curse][bless and do not curse][bless and do not curse][bless and do not curse]!)

 

[Winken]

The Bible set in order all those things that were being discussed, promulgated, promoted, observed, demanded, exaggerated, imagined...... all those products of intellect, rumor, magnification, and personal glorification examined and subsequently accurately presented in One Book, itself. It is in and of itself THE sole Spiritual context, from Genesis 1 through Revelation 22.

The OT explored and revealed the struggle that God had with humanity, even after He selected the Chosen People, those called Hebrews, and in other terminology, Jews. The NT explores and reveals the introduction of Jesus, that Most Holy One called to explain and define the Old, appealing to God's Chosen to receive Him in the Grace promised in the Abrahamic Covenant. Some did, most did not, due to the blasphemy of their leadership. At the Cross Jesus closed the books on the ritualistic, paying the price for ALL who would believe, minus the impossible criteria of the Law. At the Cross Jesus set in motion the calling of the evil Pharisee, Saul, providing Grace through Faith through his ministry as Paul. Paul, in Romans 10:8-13, laid the foundation of Grace for everyone, Jew, non-Jew. Romans 8:1, among numerous other scriptures, reveals the Truth that confession of Jesus as Savior is solid, permanent, impossible to undo.

Where does that leave all the probabilities promoted by "tradition" or "holy tradition," which in fact conflict with Scripture? Denominations. Belief "systems." Organized religion. Christianity is none of those. It is THE one-to-one relationship with our Savior, Jesus, the GIFT of God. Those who walk in that Truth are saved for eternity. Here is a comment made in this thread that is utterly in error:

"For example, Church Tradition says baptism saves, regenerates believers and is necessary for salvation. All Christians everywhere have believed that Tradition from the beginning. Yet sola scriptura says you can reject that Christian teaching if it doesn't agree with your own personal interpretation of scripture."

No authentically Spiritually birthed Believer in Jesus Christ as Savior and Lord will EVER lean to his or her own understanding. Scripture is God-breathed, interpreted and applied by the Holy Spirit and none other. Faith comes by hearing the Holy Spirit, and hearing by the Word of God. Period.

It has been a tradition in our entire family to attempt to assemble at some point during the Christmas season. Does that make it a required observance? Do we have to assemble on a date certain? What about those who can't attend? When we sit around discussing Christmas past do our discussions have to be flawless? Do we have to recall everything that happened even during the season last year? Dare we pass along everything that happened as truth?

"John sure drove a beautiful Chevy this time." "No, it was a Ford." "The color was blue." "No, it was gray." "Maybe it was the year before he drove the Chevy." "Nope. He traded in a Dodge." "I remember the first car Mom and Dad owned..... a Chrysler." "Actually, I clearly remember it was a Pontiac." "We've got photos of them with the Chrysler!" "Impossible."

Try writing a family diary.

Sola Scriptura. Don't venture outside the Word.

 

[Constantine the Sinner]

I find the comparison of the first century "this is all you need" to a present day type of "this is all you need" misleading. It doesn't take into account one very important component of the first century.

They had LIVING apostles and somewhere around 500 witnesses to the events of Jesus life, death and resurrection. The needs of the the first century Church was met by them. But when it comes to this present day and the scriptures, "It's all we have" of their first century life.

Obviously because our life span is short, as the witness numbers declined, Luke explains, "Now many have undertaken to compile an account of the things that have been fulfilled among us, like the accounts passed on to us by those who were eyewitnesses and servants of the word from the beginning" Luke 1:1-2 It is through those scriptures the people of today may attain the same faith.

"I am not praying only on their behalf, but also on behalf of those who believe in me through their testimony, that they will all be one," John 17:20-21

But much of the NT is authored by Paul, who didn't witness Christ's ministry.