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Saturday, April 14, 2007

Do-It-Yourself-Orthodoxy

ORTHODOX SAID:

“And still the premise is not true, since the scriptures were read every day in church all that time.”

Two problems:

i) As usual, Orthodox offers no evidence to substantiate his claim.

ii) I have cited specific counterevidence from both The Blackwell Dictionary of Eastern Christianity and the Historical Dictionary of the Orthodox Church to prove that the Orthodox laity did not hear the Scriptures read in the vernacular throughout Orthodox church history.

“Oh I forgot, they all would have been protestants if only the LXX was more accurate.”

Orthodox must now resort to bald-faced lies. Both Jason and I have explained that this is not our claim.

“Which means the entire canon is now up for grabs again.”

i) I’ve been over this ground with Orthodox several times now. He’s merely repeating himself instead of addressing the counterargument.

ii) Orthodox cannot tell us what is the official canon of his own communion. The Greek Orthodox has one, while the Russian Orthodox has another. So, according to his own adopted tradition, it’s still up for grabs.

“And yet you have no hope - no hope whatsoever, of proving that your particular 66 books is the correct set other than by pointing in some way to a consensus.”

I don’t invoke consensus to establish the canon. I’ve given my arguments. Try again.

“So everybody is doomed to a tiny step above "sheer ignorance" unless you are highly literate and educated, you have a private copy in Greek and Hebrew, and you understand the original languages.”

i) Orthodox is such a child. Let’s walk him through the argument one more time.

He is the one who appeals to what pre-Reformation Christians believed about the Bible.

Okay, this appeal raises an obvious follow-up question: if you’re laying claim to what pre-Reformation Christians believed about the Bible, then what percentage of pre-Reformation Christians either read the Bible or heard the Bible in the vernacular?

This is a question that follows from *his* argument, not *mine*. He is the one who’s appealing to what Christians always believed about Scripture before the Reformation came along.

So, on the basis of *his own argument*, it’s only natural to ask what access pre-Reformation Christians had to the Bible.

He then does a lot of whining about the consequences when I cited evidence from standard reference works on Eastern Orthodoxy and/or Eastern Christianity that such access was spotty.

But these are consequences which flow from *his own argument*. If the consequences are unacceptable, then they invalidate his position, not mine.

ii) And, yes, there are degrees of Biblical literacy. In varies from person to person. It varies in time and place. That’s just a fact of life.

From a Reformed perspective, all that’s necessary is that the remnant in each generation come to a saving knowledge of the faith. One doesn’t need to be a Bible scholar or theologian to be saved.

“The issue is that the Orthodox Church is the one the apostles set up, and we do not change.”

Another one of his thumb-sucking assertions.

“What sort of a rule is worth anything unless it is agreed on?”

He continues to peddle his manmade, aprioristic definition of what constitutes the rule of faith.

“How well would the bible work as a rule of faith in your church if one man considered the book of Mormon as canonical, and the next man included the Koran?”

Is he trying to be obtuse, or does this come naturally?

i) If the Bible is the rule of faith, then, by definition, the Koran or the book of Mormon is not the rule of faith.

ii) A denomination (including his own) is a voluntary association of like-minded believers. If a member bucks the system, he can be excommunicated.

“Right, and I want to be on the side of the body of Christ in the Church he set up.”

Orthodox has never been able to explain how he is in any position to know that the Orthodox Church is the body of Christ.

“The issue is that protestantism as a religion, cannot ever agree on anything.”

Hyperbole. And self-refuting hyperbole at that. If we don’t agree on anything, then there’s no such thing as Protestantism, in which case Orthodox is unable to identify the target of his attack.

“You’ve got no hope of ever knowing for sure how to resolve these problems.”

Two problems:

i) I’ve already discussed the relation of probability to providence. He ignores the argument.

ii) Orthodox has never shown how he can “ever know for sure” what he believes is true.

“Certainly, and those people tend to end up outside the Church.”

Yes…people like Orthodox, who substitute their idolatry for the NT church.

“The issue is not whether the bible is designed to make everyone agree.”

So Orthodox is now recanting his former thesis. The validity of Scripture as the rule of faith is not dependent on common consent. Thanks for retracting your central objection to sola scriptura.

“The issue is that God's will is that HIS CHURCH should agree.”

If that is God’s will, then why the disagreement? Apparently, Orthodox is an open theist who regards the will of man as overpowering the will of God.

“So according to you, the sign of a good rule of faith is that everyone disagrees as much as possible? I guess if you can draw a circle so small that only you can stand in it, you will have a really excellent rule of faith.”

I don’t define the rule of faith by desirable or undesirable consequences. The rule of faith is simply whatever God says it is. The results are in his hands.

“However, when the Church found that they couldn't decide something from the scriptures in Acts 15, they didn't cheer at the disagreement, they came together in council and made a ruling.”

i) Under the inspiration of the Holy Spirit. That was the apostolic age. The age of public revelation.

But the apostles have come and gone—leaving us the NT.

ii) And notice that we only know about this event because it was recorded for posterity in Scripture.

“It doesn't say ‘They went off and studied the scriptures privately and formed separate denominations, praise God’.”

As a matter of fact, Peter, James, and Paul did study the scriptures privately. Each of them studied the Bible for himself. And that is why, when they came together, they were each in a position to quote Scripture and discuss Scripture.

“You assume that chain consists of people who fit your criteria - i.e. Exegetical scholars who have private copies of the bible and read them in the original languages. However the real chain is that of the Church which passes on the teachings.”

No, you’re backing down on your original claim, according to which pre-Reformation believers always knew the Bible because they always heard it read aloud in church. You then oppose this mythical consensus to the Protestant faith. Try to keep track of your own argument.

“I don't know what group Steve is thinking of who didn't have a bible in a sufficiently vernacular translation.”

Why doesn’t he know that when I cited specific examples from standard reference works on Eastern Orthodoxy and/or Eastern Christianity?

“But I can guarantee that they believed and passed on the same teachings as their predecessors who were reading it in the vernacular.”

And how can he guarantee that? Where’s the evidence?

“What is more important? To pass on accurate copies of the scriptures, but not know what it means, or to pass on the teachings accurately, never changing anything because of the latest scholarly fad?”

A false dichotomy. Moreover, in my last reply to Orthodox, I cited two examples (one on higher criticism, the other on lower criticism) in which contemporary Orthodox scholarship is revising traditional views on the composition and transmission of Scripture.

Orthodox doesn’t believe in the real, concrete manifestation of the Eastern Orthodox Church, as it either existed in the past or today. Rather, he has put his faith in an ahistorical idealization which only exists in his airtight imagination, like dried flowers or butterflies under glass.

“All I can say is ** HUH ** ???”

Yes, that’s all he can say. I cited the Orthodox capitulation to the documentary hypothesis as an example of how Orthodoxy is not etched in stone. It is revisable—going from bad to worse.

“The Gospels are in large part a translation. Jesus wasn't generally walking around talking Greek.”

Actually, it’s quite likely that Jesus was, at the very least, bilingual. What language he used would depend on the audience.

“And yet we are willing to accept that translation because the apostles had some link to it.”

Speak for yourself. I accept it because it is an inspired translation. And even (or especially) an inspired translation must accurately render the sense of the original.

“Similarly, the apostles approved of the LXX translation by their use of it.”

Up to a point, although they don’t always quote it verbatim. And, of course, they quote it when addressing Greek speaking Gentiles or Hellenistic Jews of the Diaspora.

“But it is the LXX form of the text, not the Masoretic, that the Church used.”

Which church? The NT church was a multilingual body. The LXX was not the edition of the Bible favored by Palestinian Messianic Jews.

“Why is it so important to you that there be a canonical edition?”

You keep attacking the Protestant rule of faith on the grounds that we supposedly can’t be sure of the canon, or the text of Scripture, or the interpretation of Scripture, &c.

Presumably you regard Orthodoxy has offering a positive alternative to the alleged deficiencies in Protestantism. But if, by your own admission, you can’t do any better on the very examples you level against Evangelicalism, then you do really have ask why it’s so important? It’s important to your own argument. Pity you can’t follow your own argument.

“You are the one who is proposing that we can't really understand the scriptures unless we have them in their original, unadulterated form.”

More hyperbole. There are degrees of understanding.

What I’m saying is self-evident. Someone who reads Dante in Medieval Italian will understand him better than someone who reads him in translation. Someone who reads Racine in French will understand him better than someone who reads him in translation. Someone who reads the church fathers in Greek and Latin will understand them better than someone who reads them in translation.

This isn’t an all-or-nothing affair. You can learn a lot from a good translation. You can learn from less from an archaic translation.

The fact that Orthodox takes umbrage that the most elementary truisms just goes to show how utterly insecure he is.

“This is elite scholarship gone off the rails again.”

It’s very amusing to have a high-churchman rail against elitism. Nothing is more elitist that Orthodox ecclesiology. It’s a quintessentially hierarchical, authoritarian, top-down polity. Bishops, patriarchs, metropolitans, &c.

But there’s a big difference. In Orthodoxy (as well as Catholicism), it’s an authoritarian form of elitism.

By contrast, “elite” evangelical scholars are answerable to the laity. They have to reason with the laity. They have to make a case for their exegesis, by appeal to the evidence, rather than a blind appeal to raw authority.

“Unless you can point me very specifically to exactly where I can find the authentic people of God...”

The “authentic” people of God are God’s elect. God knows who they are.

“In short, you have no basis for a canon, so you have no basis for anything.”

More of his fact-free denials.

“The trouble is you are working with a flawed understanding of Orthodoxy, as if some unbroken chain of exegetes represents the true church.”

The trouble is that you never make a case for your own position. You think that by supposedly poking holes in the opposing position, that somehow exempts you from having to defend your own.

If your lifeboat is taking on water, then lobbing a grenade into the lifeboat beside you does nothing to prevent your own lifeboat from sinking.

Jason, I, and others have done three things in the course of this thread: (i) We’ve presented positive arguments for our own position; (ii) we’ve responded to your counterarguments, and (iii) we’ve argued against your position.

All you’ve ever done is to hurl assertions against our position, while failing to answer our counterarguments.

“Which will have limited success when it no longer exists.”

One doesn’t have to have the original to reconstruct the original with a high degree of certainty.

“I don't have to duck it, because I am not the one claiming a perfect original language bible is required to exegete a rule of faith.”

Aside from his evasive hyperbole, if the LXX is the official OT of the Orthodox Church, and if allegedly Orthodoxy offers a level of certainty absent from Evangelicalism, then, yes, indeed, he’s required to tell us where we can find the official text of the LXX.

“Again, it doesn't matter a great deal because scripture is only a part of the Tradition. Protestants have to obsess over the canon, because that's all they have and it is their only starting point. Actually, both canons are a part of the Tradition of the Christian church, but unlike Protestants, we would not be coming up with any innovative doctrines because one book or another might be in or out.”

This is a backdoor admission that Orthodoxy has no official canon of Scripture.

“Possibly the Church will at some point decide what to do with the discrepency, but the important thing is the doctrines and teachings.”

So, according to Orthodoxy, the canon is now up for grabs.

“I find your accusation disgusting and offensive. You ought to be ashamed of yourself.”

One will find a number of Jew-baiting remarks by Orthodox in an earlier thread:

http://triablogue.blogspot.com/2007/03/sola-ecclesia.html

“Are you actually in submission to any elders in your church, or are you just a loan gun?”

I’m remunerated for my black bag operations by nonsequential C-bills in unmarked manila envelopes. I can’t tell you who I report to in the NSA because that’s classified. But if you need confirmation, I have Dick Cheney on speed-dial.

My cover job is driving an ice cream truck. But I don’t sell kosher fudgsicles on pain of excommunication from the one true church.

BTW, pop-goes-the-weasel is actually a cypherpunk code, used by my fellow spooks in the NSA.

“Amazing that before accusing someone of being a Nazi you are too lazy to actually read the Quinisext canons yourself, but have to rely on some bible dictionary.”

This is funny in more than one respect:

i)”A bible dictionary”? What I quoted from was The Blackwell Dictionary of Eastern Christianity, which is prefaced by a commendatory forward by a bishop of the Greek Orthodox church. If Bishop Ware recommends a reference book on Eastern Christianity, then why shouldn’t I regard this as a reliable source of information?

Who speaks for Orthodoxy? A Greek Orthodox bishop? Or some anonymous layman?

ii) There’s nothing wrong with quoting from secondary sources. They often supply the historical context or contemporary interpretation. This reference work says that “Quinisext is held by Eastern Orthodox to have an ecumenical status and authority” (396).

It was in light of this statement that I proceeded to quote its summary of canon 11. However, just to call his bluff, I went ahead and posted the actual canon:

http://triablogue.blogspot.com/2007/04/official-orthodox-anti-semitism.html

It’s not as if the wording of the canon is any improvement over the summary.

So, according to this “ecumenical” and “authoritative” canon, a Christian should not have Jewish friends. Or a Jewish physician. A Christian should never have lunch at a Jewish deli.

There should be segregated locker rooms for Jews and Gentiles so that Christian athletes don’t have to shower with Jewish athletes.

“Very clearly, you have lost this debate.”

Uh-huh. Explain to us how you deal with canon 11 of Quinisext.

>Poor little Orthodox isn’t even conversant with
>the state of Eastern Orthodox Bible scholarship.

“Irrelevant. The bible scholars can do what they like and good luck to them. But we won't be changing the faith because of the latest theories, and we don't need the finest textual critical speculation before we have a rule of faith.”

I was quoting directly from the Historical Dictionary of The Orthodox Church. And what I quoted was not merely a descriptive statement of critical scholarship, but an approving statement.

Who are the contributors to this reference work? Here’s a little bit of their curriculum vitae:

“This Historical Dictionary of the Orthodox Church is the result of a joint effort by several eminent authorities. The body was written by Michael Prokurat and Alexander Golitzin,” ibid. ix.

“Michael Prokurat (M.Div., St. Vladimir’s Orthodox Theological Seminary [&c.])…is an archpriest in the Orthodox Church in America…Dr. Prokurat has occasionally represented the Orthodox Church in America nationally and internationally at inter-Orthodox and ecumenical convocations, holding various ecclesiastical offices during a twenty-year pastorate…He also serves on the board of trustees of the Orthodox Institute in Berkeley under the jurisdiction of the Patriarchate of Constantinople,” ibid. 439.

“Alexander Golitzin (M.Div., St. Valdimir’s Orthodox Theological Seminary [&c.])...has taught Eastern Orthodox history and theology at…St. Vladimir’s Seminary…He is an ordained priest of the Orthodox Church in America and a monk of the Monastery of Simonos Petras, Mount Athos. Dr. Golitzin is a member of a number of scholarly societies, among them the Byzantine Studies Conference for North America, the North American Patristics Society, the International Society of Neoplatonic Studies, the Church History Society of America, and the Orthodox Theological Society of America,” ibid. 439.

Now, who is a more creditable representative of Orthodoxy? Orthodox clergymen with degrees from St. Vladimir’s, &c., or a tinny-voiced layman who only speaks on condition of anonymity?

Did the Greek fathers believe that the Pentateuch was composed by anonymous redactors during the Babylonian exile? Or by Moses? Clearly there’s a sea change here.

“Yes, the canon of the post-Christian Hebrew people did not contain it.”

He hasn’t offered a particle of concrete evidence to substantiate that claim. He hasn’t quoted any post-Christian Jewish sources. He hasn’t even quoted any church father to that effect.

“Your responses have got so weak now that they can be ignored.”

Yes, it’s terribly weak of me to quote from a reference work endorsed by a Greek Orthodox bishop when responding to an Orthodox layman.

Orthodox is to Orthodoxy what Matatics and Sungenis are to Catholicism. They pay lip service to the hierarchy, but as soon as you start to quote the hierarchy against them, they turn crypto-Protestant on a dime.

What Orthodox is giving us is a classic specimen of do-it-yourself-Orthodoxy. He’s a self-anointed high churchman, dismissing anyone in the chain-of-command whose representations run counter to his own.

“Merely throwing out random barbs and ignoring that facts presented.”

You haven’t presented any “facts.” Just your ipse dixit.

For a presentation of the facts, read chapter 9 of David deSilva’s Introducing the Apocrypha (Baker 2004).

“If Origen, who knew more about the Jews than anybody in the Church couldn't get it right (by Protestant reckoning) about what the Jewish canon was, then what hope do you have 1800 years later?”

You haven’t quoted Origen. And Jews like Josephus trump Origen on the Jewish canon.

“Oh, but your 2000 years after the fact scholarship is all knowing and all wonderful. Yeah right.”

More of his self-reinforcing ignorance. The Jewish evidence isn’t 2000 years after the fact.

20 comments:

  1. Orthodox said, “It doesn't say ‘They went off and studied the scriptures privately and formed separate denominations, praise God’.”

    In one of my comments on a previous post, I showed that the early fathers encouraged the private reading of Scripture. For someone who claims to believe in the traditions of the fathers as his epistemological base, Orthodox is quite inconsistent. Of course, this is quite necessary for a false religion.

    [Quoting from a comment of Orthodox in a previous post:]
    "And if you're holding up the Fathers as examples of those who followed a straight forward meaning, I say great, because Orthodoxy is based on the interpretation of the Fathers."

    This is an ipse dixit which is contrary to the quotations of the fathers that Jason and I have provided.

    "Which of us believes in a straight forward understanding of scripture? Which of us believes "this is my body, this is my blood" straightforwardly?"

    First of all, when I said "straightforward" I meant its grammatico-historical context. I did not mean a naive interpretation of everything including figurative language.

    Secondly, if Orthodox were to be consistent in his interpretation of Scripture, he would believe that Jesus was part of the plant kingdom (John 15:1).

    Thirdly, many of the church fathers would disagree with your view of the eucharist and especially your interpretation of John 6. Although Chrysostom, for example, believed in a literal transformation of the elements, he interpreted John 6:47-58 in a Protestant manner:

    “His meaning is, “Ye must hear spiritually what relateth to Me, for he who heareth carnally is not profited, nor gathereth any advantage.” It was carnal to question how He came down from heaven, to deem that He was the son of Joseph, to ask, “How can he give us His flesh to eat?” All this was carnal, **when they ought to have understood the matter in a mystical and spiritual sense**. “But,” saith some one, “how could they understand what the ‘eating flesh’ might mean?” Then it was their duty to wait for the proper time and enquire, and not to abandon Him. That is, they are divine and spiritual, have nothing carnal about them, are not subject to the laws of physical consequence, but are free from any such necessity, are even set above the laws appointed for this world, and have also another and a different meaning. ***Now as in this passage He said “spirit,” instead of “spiritual,” so when He speaketh of “flesh,” He meant not "carnal things," but "carnally hearing," and alluding at the same time to them, because they ever desired carnal things when they ought to have desired spiritual***. For if a man receives them carnally, he profits nothing. “What then, is not His flesh, flesh?” Most certainly. “How then saith He, that the flesh profiteth nothing?” ***He speaketh not of His own flesh, (God forbid!) but of those who received His words in a carnal manner***. But what is “understanding carnally”? It is looking merely to what is before our eyes, without imagining anything beyond. This is understanding carnally. But we must not judge thus by sight, but must look into all mysteries with the eyes within. This is seeing spiritually. He that eateth not His flesh, and drinketh not His blood, hath no life in him. How then doth “the flesh profit nothing,” if without it we cannot live? ***Seest thou that the words, “the flesh profiteth nothing,” are spoken not of His own flesh, but of carnal hearing?***”
    -John Chrysostom, Homilies on the Gospel of John, Homily XLVII (v.63 and 64)

    "Who is the one who has to try and weasel around "hold to the traditions, whether written or word of mouth"?"

    I believe that Steve and Jason have been over this one several times. From the context of the passage, it is clear that Paul is talking about the kerygma, the proclamation of the gospel, not some verbal-only tradition that is passed down from bishop to bishop.

    "Who is the one who has to get around "I will draw all men unto myself"?"

    In the culture of the day (and from the context of John 12 itself), such would have been understood as "both Jew and Gentile", meaning all races of men. Context, context, context.

    "Who is the one who has to downplay "I pray that they may be one as we are one"?"

    Again, I have fellowship with my Arminian brother and love for him eventhough we don't agree on everything. A spiritual unity is so much more than an external facade of unity that is apparent in the RCC and EOC.

    "Who is the one who has to get around the authority of the Church council in Acts 15?"

    Modern bishops are not God-breathed men.

    "(Which BTW, was headed by James the brother of the Lord, who was apparently not an apostle)"

    First, whoever said that you needed to be inspired in order to make authoritative statements?

    Second, just because he wasn't an apostle doesn't mean that he wasn't inspired. There were men in the early church who were given the gift of prophecy and made authoritative statements from God.

    "For anyone who care to take an objective look they can see who has to continually abandon the straight forward meaning of the text."

    Indeed, anyone can see who is reading their post-apostolic, pagan, Greek influenced traditions into the text.

    ReplyDelete
  2. >i) As usual, Orthodox offers no evidence to
    >substantiate his claim.

    The Liturgy, which includes scripture readings, has not changed in 1600 years. If you don't know that, you have much research to do.

    >ii) I have cited specific counterevidence from
    >both The Blackwell Dictionary of Eastern
    >Christianity and the Historical Dictionary of the
    >Orthodox Church to prove that the Orthodox
    >laity did not hear the Scriptures read in the
    >vernacular throughout Orthodox church history.

    So for what period of history and for how many churches was it supposedly not in the vernacular? We aren't told. Let's say for the sake of argument it was only 1000 years of history. Is your argument really helped much? I think not.

    >i) I’ve been over this ground with Orthodox
    >several times now. He’s merely repeating himself
    >instead of addressing the counterargument.

    The supposed counter argument being that Steve can prove to us which books are apostolic. Except that he can't do any such thing. Which is why many scholarly books simply assume it is proven that 2 Peter was written around 180AD, and can't possibly be by Peter. Steve can't prove that view wrong, he would have necessity have to label these sources as unbelieving and liberal to overcome his lack of evidence. But when I do the same to argue for the Traditions, it is no good.

    Of course Steve won't let himself be drawn into this level of detail, because he knows he would lose.

    >>“Similarly, the apostles approved of the LXX >>translation by their use of it.”
    >
    >Up to a point, although they don’t always quote
    >it verbatim. And, of course, they quote it when
    >addressing Greek speaking Gentiles or
    >Hellenistic Jews of the Diaspora


    Up to a point? Up to what point? Is this where you start inserting your protestant traditions into the equation again?

    And what of Hebrews 1:6 which is a quotation of LXX Dt 32:43? "let all the angels of God worship him". That doesn't even exist in the Masoretic text.

    Or what of Mt 21:16 which is a quote of the LXX Psalm 8:2: "Out of the mouths of children and nursing infants you have prepared praise for yourself'?" Jesus doesn't even make sense anymore if you read the Masoretic version.

    Or there's Heb 11:21 which reads " leaning upon the top of his staff" whereas the Masoretic pointing reads of Ge 47:31 reads "leaning upon the bed head".

    These are a taste of the kind of problems with uncritically abandoning the text of the early church on the unfounded assumption that Hebrew must always = good, translation = bad leads to.

    >Which church? The NT church was a multilingual
    >body. The LXX was not the edition of the Bible
    >favored by Palestinian Messianic Jews.

    Reference please.

    >Presumably you regard Orthodoxy has offering a
    >positive alternative to the alleged deficiencies in
    >Protestantism. But if, by your own admission,
    >you can’t do any better on the very examples you
    >level against Evangelicalism, then you do really
    >have ask why it’s so important?

    You are the one who claims we need to do exegesis on the original language Hebrew to make a rule of faith, and that Orthodoxy is deficient because we don't. And yet for all your scholarship and exegesis, Protestantism is continually breaking further and further apart. We just pass on the Teachings, and we believe the same thing we did a thousand years ago. Whose rule of faith is deficient?

    >What I’m saying is self-evident. Someone who
    >reads Dante in Medieval Italian will understand
    >him better than someone who reads him in
    >translation. Someone who reads Racine in French
    >will understand him better than someone who
    >reads him in translation. Someone who reads the
    >church fathers in Greek and Latin will understand
    >them better than someone who reads them in
    >translation.

    Someone who had extensive discussions with Dante personally, or who received his understanding by oral tradition may well understand him better no matter what the translation.

    >This isn’t an all-or-nothing affair. You can learn
    >a lot from a good translation. You can learn from
    >less from an archaic translation.
    >
    >The fact that Orthodox takes umbrage that the
    >most elementary truisms just goes to show how
    >utterly insecure he is.

    Really. Except that all scholars who actually know what they are talking about recommend reading the New Testament in conjunction with the LXX. Go read Dt 32:43 in your Masoretic text and see how much light it throws on Heb 1:6.

    >It’s very amusing to have a high-churchman rail
    >against elitism. Nothing is more elitist that
    >Orthodox ecclesiology. It’s a quintessentially
    >hierarchical, authoritarian, top-down polity.
    >Bishops, patriarchs, metropolitans, &c

    The top down aspect of Orthodoxy is only half the story, but I'm not running a night school in Orthodox ecclesiology.

    >By contrast, “elite” evangelical scholars are
    >answerable to the laity. They have to reason with
    >the laity. They have to make a case for their
    >exegesis, by appeal to the evidence, rather than
    >a blind appeal to raw authority.

    Oh dear. You really ARE that ignorant of Orthodox ecclesiology. I'll give you a pointer in the right direction, and let you do your own research:

    From Timothy Ware (Now Metropolitan Kallistos)'s book "The Orthodox Church", P251

    "Among us, neither Patriarchs nor Councils could ever introduce a new teaching, for the guardian of religion is the very body of the Church, that is the people (laity, laos) itself" (quoted from the Orthodox Patriarchs' letter to Pope Pius IX).

    "The Pope is greatly mistaken in supposing that we consider the ecclesiastical hierarchy to be the guardian of dogma. The case is quite different. The unvarying constancy and the unerring truth of Christian dogma does not depend upon any hierarchial order, it is guarded by the totality, by the whole people of the Church, which is the body of Christ".

    There is a pattern in all the ramblings on this blog: Protestants who approach Orthodoxy as nothing more than Rome without a pope. Don't make that mistake.

    >So, according to Orthodoxy, the canon is now up
    >for grabs.

    Hardly. The Churches will stick to their respective canons until such time as the Holy Spirit leads it to make adjustments. Just like in the early church. The important thing is to be in the actual Church that the apostles founded, believing the apostolic teachings. That there are discrepencies in the canon is of no more concern to us than it was for the first four hundred years of Christendom.

    For you however, where dogma is always up for grabs, always up for re-evaluation depending on the latest scholarship on the text, your lack of any real basis for a canon ought to be of great concern to you.

    >“If Origen, who knew more about the Jews than >anybody in the Church couldn't get it right (by >Protestant reckoning) about what the Jewish
    >canon was, then what hope do you have 1800 >years later?”
    >
    >You haven’t quoted Origen.

    I didn't realise that you were so ignorant, posing as you are as a scholar who can prove the canon. Eusebius in his Ecclesiastical History, vi. 25 lists Origen's as saying ""The twenty-two books of the Hebrews are the following"... whereupon he includes the Epistle of Jeremiah. Cyril of Jerusalem also says the same about this epistle.

    >And Jews like Josephus trump Origen on the
    >Jewish canon.

    So Josephus, whose stands in opposition to the truth of Christ, trumps the Church?

    Except that it doesn't help you, because Josephus only refers to a Hebrew 22 book canon, and as I keep pointing out, everybody's list of what is within those 22 books differs.

    Try and get it through your head. Thereis no pre-Christian, or contemporary with Christ source for a full listing of the canon. It simply doesn't exist. It's not there. Nada, Zip, Zilch. Josephus won't help you. All you have is your Protestant tradition, it is based on nothing but some very late after the fact Jewish remnant who rejected the NT books as heretical.

    ReplyDelete
  3. Orthodox writes:

    "Which is why many scholarly books simply assume it is proven that 2 Peter was written around 180AD, and can't possibly be by Peter. Steve can't prove that view wrong, he would have necessity have to label these sources as unbelieving and liberal to overcome his lack of evidence. But when I do the same to argue for the Traditions, it is no good."

    Orthodox is giving us another form of an argument he's used in the past and which we've refuted in the past, repeatedly. He offers no documentation for his latest assertions about 2 Peter, and he's repeatedly failed to offer evidence for his "Traditions" comparable to or better than what we offer for our canon. In a previous response, I referred Orthodox to Evangelical scholarship on 2 Peter, such as Thomas Schreiner's recent commentary. Steve has cited such works as well in his previous responses to Orthodox. Both of us have repeatedly explained to Orthodox how we would make a historical case for a canon of scripture, and we've explained why an appeal to such historical evidence isn't equivalent to an appeal to Eastern Orthodox tradition.

    Where has Orthodox offered a comparable case for Eastern Orthodoxy? He hasn't. To the contrary, when I asked him in a previous discussion for evidence that the earliest bishops were Eastern Orthodox, he had none. At first, he made a vague reference to belief in apostolic succession in some sources from the second century and later. When I explained that citing some sources from the second century or later doesn't address the earliest bishops, and I documented that different sources defined apostolic succession in different ways, including ways contrary to Orthodox's definition, and I explained that apostolic succession isn't a concept unique to Eastern Orthodoxy (it can't single out Eastern Orthodoxy), he didn't even attempt to make a further case for his initial claim that the earliest bishops were Eastern Orthodox. His assertion that the earliest bishops (or the earliest Christians more generally) were Eastern Orthodox is something he's never demonstrated. He just asserts it.

    As we've explained to Orthodox before, why are we supposed to think that something significant in support of his position would be established if we were to conclude that there's no good reason to accept the canonicity of 2 Peter? Would it therefore follow that we have no good evidence for any other book of the New Testament? No. Would it follow that we have no canon? No. Would it follow that we have good reason to accept Eastern Orthodoxy? No. And if it's acceptable for Eastern Orthodox to disagree with each other about their canon of scripture, as long as they agree with each other on some other elements of their rule of faith, then why isn't it acceptable for Evangelicals to disagree with each other about 2 Peter, as long as they agree with each other on some other elements of their rule of faith?

    ReplyDelete
  4. >Both of us have repeatedly explained to Orthodox
    >how we would make a historical case for a canon of
    >scripture

    Ah huh, but what you're doing is accepting the tradition of the canon of scripture and then retro-fitting as good an historical argument you can muster. You don't start with a blank sheet of paper, examining a bunch of candidate books with two trays in front of you, putting books into each tray as you examine them. Your starting point it your tradition, the historical argument is mere apologetic afterthought.

    >and we've explained why an appeal to such
    >historical evidence isn't equivalent to an appeal
    >to Eastern Orthodox tradition.

    The difference is a lot less than you make out. I can make an historical argument about why a widespread belief in the church is indicitative of an apostolic tradition, just like you would point to a widespread belief about the authorship of a book as indicative of apostolic authorship.

    And just like you, it would be retrofitting the apologetic to my rule of faith, it wouldn't be starting with two trays.

    >To the contrary, when I asked him in a previous
    >discussion for evidence that the earliest bishops
    >were Eastern Orthodox, he had none.

    The question is foolish, as if I could convince you of such a thing in a few paragraphs of a blog. I might just as well ask you to prove that the apostles believed the same as protestants do. Go on, prove that the apostles believed what your church believes.

    >that there's no good reason to accept the
    >canonicity of 2 Peter? Would it follow that we
    >have no canon? No.

    LOL. So if you have no good reason to accept books in your canon, how is it that you have a canon. Talk about double speak.

    >Would it follow that we have good reason to
    >accept Eastern Orthodoxy? No.

    LOL, reductionist sillyness again. Yes obviously, the discovery that you have no canon does not make you automatically Orthodox. But it should make you automatically not a protestant, with a task in front of you of finding who if anyone has enough authority to give you a canon. Your first step is to realise you have no canon before starting the new search.

    >And if it's acceptable for Eastern Orthodox to
    >disagree with each other about their canon of
    >scripture, as long as they agree with each other
    >on some other elements of their rule of faith,
    >then why isn't it acceptable for Evangelicals to
    >disagree with each other about 2 Peter, as long
    >as they agree with each other on some other
    >elements of their rule of faith?

    LOL, just for starters, we don't care about this issue. A Greek can go to a Russian church and not be offended if someone wants to refer to 3 Esdras. If a Greek is in Russia they are not going to stay out of the Church because they are all offended by 3 Esdras.

    On the other hand, you would not go to a Presbyterian church unless as a last resort because you don't believe their position on baptism. Presumably you have range of other complaints about Anglican, Lutheran and most of the other denominations. You tolerate them, you'll visit them on occasion, but you would have major problems in actually joining them.

    That's one reason this whole "you are the same as us" argument doesn't wash. Your actions speak loudest that you are not one Church.

    ReplyDelete
  5. Orthodox said:

    "Ah huh, but what you're doing is accepting the tradition of the canon of scripture and then retro-fitting as good an historical argument you can muster. You don't start with a blank sheet of paper, examining a bunch of candidate books with two trays in front of you, putting books into each tray as you examine them. Your starting point it your tradition, the historical argument is mere apologetic afterthought."

    The validity of an argument doesn't depend on the means by which the arguer came upon it. Even if what you're describing were true of all Protestants, you'd still have to address the historical argument they advocate.

    And we've explained to you, more than once, that we don't deny that people accept a canon of scripture for a variety of reasons. Some people go by an intuition they have regarding the trustworthiness of a canon they've been given. Others may trust what their parents, a pastor, or some other source tells them about the subject. But since we're having a discussion in which objective argumentation is expected, I've presented a historical case for the canon as an objective means of justifying that canon.

    It's commonplace for people to accept something for one reason initially, then develop other reasons later. People might accept a canon of Josephus' writings or a canon of Abraham Lincoln's writings, for example, based upon trust in a historian, friend, or other source who gives them that canon. Later, they may develop better reasons for accepting that canon after studying the issue further. The initial reasons may have had some merit, and they may not have. But a lack of merit in the initial reasons doesn't justify our ignoring the additional reasons that were learned later. Sometimes a lack of initial reasons is relevant, such as when we're addressing the honesty or potential motives of the person involved. But in this context, what's the relevance of your assessment of Protestants' initial reasons for accepting their canon?

    You write:

    "I can make an historical argument about why a widespread belief in the church is indicitative of an apostolic tradition, just like you would point to a widespread belief about the authorship of a book as indicative of apostolic authorship."

    We've seen your "historical argument" about widespread beliefs, and we've explained why it's wrong. You've failed to interact with those explanations. Instead, you repeatedly ignore what we write and leave discussions.

    As I told you earlier, the historical argument for a canon isn't just an appeal to "widespread belief". It also involves the earliness of widespread belief, the nature of the sources involved, the atmosphere in which they made their judgments, the internal evidence of the documents involved, etc. The fact that praying to the deceased or the veneration of images became popular in later church history doesn't logically lead us to the conclusion that such things are apostolic.

    If prayers to the deceased, for example, are absent in thousands of years of history addressed by scripture, scripture condemns any attempts to contact the deceased, and prayers to the deceased are widely absent or contradicted in the earliest patristic sources, then that's a significantly different situation than what we see with something like the canonicity of 2 Peter or Revelation. Unlike praying to the deceased, the canonicity of 2 Peter and Revelation wasn't widely absent or contradicted in places where we would expect it to be mentioned for thousands of years. Unlike praying to the deceased, the earliest references we have to the canonicity of 2 Peter and Revelation suggest that their canonicity was disputed only by a minority of the relevant people. Unlike praying to the deceased, there is no inconsistency between the canonicity of 2 Peter and Revelation and the remainder of Divine revelation. Etc.

    Furthermore, Evangelicals don't make claims about the canon comparable to what you've claimed about the beliefs of Eastern Orthodoxy. We don't claim to be the one true church, the only church that existed for the first millennium of church history, which has held the same beliefs on these issues since the time of the apostles. We don't make the sort of claims you're making, so we don't carry the same burden of proof.

    You write:

    "The question is foolish, as if I could convince you of such a thing in a few paragraphs of a blog."

    You're being inconsistent again. You initially attempted to show that the earliest bishops were Eastern Orthodox. Your attempt failed (the appeal to apostolic succession that I described earlier). Now that your attempt has failed, you're dismissing the request for evidence as "foolish". If it's "foolish", then why did you initially attempt to answer the request?

    If blogs aren't sufficient for a discussion of this nature, then why are you here? And if you can't make your case in one post, then why not make it over multiple posts? Why don't you begin by documenting that the earliest bishops believed in praying to the deceased, for example?

    You write:

    "I might just as well ask you to prove that the apostles believed the same as protestants do. Go on, prove that the apostles believed what your church believes."

    This is an Evangelical blog with thousands of pages of material written by multiple Evangelical authors. The topical index for Steve Hays' material alone contains far more documentation for the apostolicity of our beliefs than you've ever attempted to offer for the alleged apostolicity of your own. We've already done enough. You're the anonymous poster who has no previous body of work to point us to, who keeps demonstrating that he's highly ignorant of and mistaken about the issues we're discussing. And I asked you for documentation of your claims before you asked me for documentation of mine. Even if we didn't have something like the archives of this blog to point to, there would still be a higher priority on your providing documentation than there would be on our doing it. So, where's your documentation that the earliest bishops were Eastern Orthodox?

    You write:

    "LOL. So if you have no good reason to accept books in your canon, how is it that you have a canon. Talk about double speak."

    I was referring to what would be the case if we had no good reason to accept 2 Peter. I didn't say that we do, in fact, have no good reason to accept it. To the contrary, I pointed you to the arguments of Evangelical scholars such as Thomas Schreiner.

    Furthermore, 2 Peter is just one book. We would still have other books, even if we rejected 2 Peter.

    You write:

    "Yes obviously, the discovery that you have no canon does not make you automatically Orthodox. But it should make you automatically not a protestant, with a task in front of you of finding who if anyone has enough authority to give you a canon. Your first step is to realise you have no canon before starting the new search."

    How would the fact that I have no good reason to accept 2 Peter, if true, prove that I have no good reason to accept Genesis, Isaiah, or Romans either? It wouldn't.

    You write:

    "LOL, just for starters, we don't care about this issue. A Greek can go to a Russian church and not be offended if someone wants to refer to 3 Esdras. If a Greek is in Russia they are not going to stay out of the Church because they are all offended by 3 Esdras."

    You "don't care" whether a document is God-breathed scripture?

    If you "don't care" about agreeing on a canon, then why have you been criticizing Protestants over the possibility that they wouldn't agree about a canon if they were to reject a document like 2 Peter? Earlier, you asked, "What sort of a rule is worth anything unless it is agreed on?" If one Eastern Orthodox believes in a rule of faith that includes a particular book of scripture, while another Eastern Orthodox believes in a rule of faith that doesn't include it, then how can you claim that they "agree on" the canon? Here's an example of your previous comments:

    "What sort of a rule is worth anything unless it is agreed on? How well would the bible work as a rule of faith in your church if one man considered the book of Mormon as canonical, and the next man included the Koran? You're talking foolishness here." (http://triablogue.blogspot.com/2007/04/byzantine-jew-haters-r-us.html)

    If the two Eastern Orthodox you refer to above have different canons of scripture, and scripture is part of their rule of faith, then "What sort of a rule is worth anything unless it is agreed on?"

    You write:

    "On the other hand, you would not go to a Presbyterian church unless as a last resort because you don't believe their position on baptism. Presumably you have range of other complaints about Anglican, Lutheran and most of the other denominations. You tolerate them, you'll visit them on occasion, but you would have major problems in actually joining them. That's one reason this whole 'you are the same as us' argument doesn't wash. Your actions speak loudest that you are not one Church."

    First of all, I reject your characterization of my having a "major problem" with Presbyterians. I don't.

    Second, Steve has already documented examples of Eastern Orthodox having "problems" with one another, so it isn't as if all of you get along well.

    Third, you're once again changing your argument in mid-discussion. You suggested that disagreeing with other people about part of our rule of faith is acceptable if there's agreement on other parts of the rule of faith. But when I point out that Protestants could agree with each other about part of their rule of faith, even if they disagree about another part of it, you change the subject by objecting that Protestants have a larger degree of disagreement over their interpretation of an agreed upon rule of faith (whether scripture supports infant baptism, etc.). Previously, you objected to the possibility that two Protestant denominations would disagree over the canon of scripture. After I pointed out that Eastern Orthodox disagree with each other about their canon, you changed the subject by objecting to disagreements among Protestants who have the same canon (disagreement over infant baptism, etc.). Why do you so often change the subject in mid-discussion?

    ReplyDelete
  6. “ORTHODOX SAID:

    “The Liturgy, which includes scripture readings, has not changed in 1600 years. If you don't know that, you have much research to do.”

    Two problems:

    i) As I’ve pointed out on more than one occasion, merely hearing the Bible read aloud doesn’t tell us anything about what the listeners thought it meant. It doesn’t give us their interpretation of what they heard.

    ii) As I’ve also documented, Orthodox believers did not hear the Bible in the vernacular throughout EO church history.

    “So for what period of history and for how many churches was it supposedly not in the vernacular? We aren't told.”

    I quoted specific examples from the two standard reference works.

    “Let's say for the sake of argument it was only 1000 years of history. Is your argument really helped much? I think not.”

    The question at issue isn’t my argument, but your argument. You are the one appealing to an interpretive consensus.

    I don’t have to specify for which periods or churches. All that’s needed to overthrow your argument are gaps in the hearing of the Word in the vernacular. *Any* discontinuities will torpedo your appeal to the uniformity of access (in time and place) to the Bible.

    “The supposed counter argument being that Steve can prove to us which books are apostolic. Except that he can't do any such thing. Which is why many scholarly books simply assume it is proven that 2 Peter was written around 180AD, and can't possibly be by Peter. Steve can't prove that view wrong, he would have necessity have to label these sources as unbelieving and liberal to overcome his lack of evidence. But when I do the same to argue for the Traditions, it is no good.”

    i) I don’t discount liberal arguments because they’re liberal, but because they’re bad arguments.

    ii) Orthodox doesn’t cite “many scholarly books” which simply assume that 2 Peter was written around 180. Indeed, he doesn’t cite any such books. Not a single one.

    iii) As a matter of fact, even more liberal commentators like Bauckham and Davids, who deny apostolic authorship, nalso deny that 2 Peter can be dated to the second half of the 2C.

    Rather, they regard the outer limit as the 1st half of the 2C, due to the literary dependence of the Apocalypse of Peter (c.110-140).

    Moreover, they themselves date 2 Peter to the second half of the 1C, not the second half of the 2C.

    A fine example of Orthodox’s sloppy scholarship. This is what happens when you try to take shortcuts.

    iv) Then there are the stated reasons for the liberal denial of apostolic/Petrine authorship. These are mainly stylistic.

    But the stylistic objections have been handily disposed of by Nigel Turner and E. E. Ellis.

    The remaining objections have been handily disposed of by Guthrie, Carson/Moo, Schreiner, Wallace, Kruger, &c.

    “Of course Steve won't let himself be drawn into this level of detail, because he knows he would lose.”

    The details are available in the works I’ve cited. And some of this material I’ve transcribed and posted.

    >>“Similarly, the apostles approved of the LXX >>translation by their use of it.”
    >
    >Up to a point, although they don’t always quote
    >it verbatim. And, of course, they quote it when
    >addressing Greek speaking Gentiles or
    >Hellenistic Jews of the Diaspora

    “Up to a point? Up to what point? Is this where you start inserting your protestant traditions into the equation again?”

    Once again, are you playing dumb, or are you really that dobtuse?

    The fact that various NT writers, in various situations, frequently paraphrase the LXX rather than citing it verbatim is a well-established fact.

    I don’t have to specify up to what point since that would involve an exhaustive study of every NT citation of the LXX. That’s what commentaries are for. There are also monographs written on how various NT writers cite the OT. For example:

    Ellis, E. Paul’s Use of the Old Testament (Baker 1981)

    Gundry, R. The Use of the Old Testament in St. Matthew’s Gospel (Brill 1967).

    Howard, G. “Hebrews and Old Testament Quotations,” NovT 10 (1968), 208-16.

    Longenecker, R. Biblical Exegesis in the Apostolic Period (Eerdmans 1999)

    Stanley, C. Paul and the Language of Scripture: Citation Technique in the Pauline Epistles and Contemporary Literature (Cambridge 1992)

    Thomas, K. “The Old Testament Citations in Hebrews,” NTS 11 (1964-65), 303-25.

    It isn’t necessary for me to spell out “up to what point,” in every single case, as if one has to prove everything to prove anything. Actually, you’d only need a handful of examples to establish this point.

    If Orthodox would rather be an ignoramus, and deny a huge body of detailed documentation to the contrary, he’s more than welcome to his obscurantism.

    “And what of Hebrews 1:6 which is a quotation of LXX Dt 32:43? ‘let all the angels of God worship him’. That doesn't even exist in the Masoretic text.”

    i) This is another good example of what happens when someone tries to take shortcuts. No, Heb 1:6 is not a direct quotation of the LXX. Rather, the wording corresponds exactly to a liturgical version of the Song of Moses, preserved in the Book of Odes. And this textual variant is, in turn, attested in the DSS.

    For the documentation, see the commentaries by Ellingworth, France, and Lane.

    ii) In addition, Orthodox continues to act as if Evangelical scholarship is exclusively tied to the MT, although I specifically corrected him on that misattribution.

    “Or what of Mt 21:16 which is a quote of the LXX Psalm 8:2: ‘Out of the mouths of children and nursing infants you have prepared praise for yourself'?’ Jesus doesn't even make sense anymore if you read the Masoretic version.”

    Three more blunders:

    i) As France has argued (JOT, pp251-52), this Septuagintal gloss is, in fact, in keeping with the sense and context of the original.

    ii) There’s such a thing as audience adaptation. When addressing native Greek speakers, Jesus, the Apostles, and other NT writers will often use the LXX.

    iii) Apropos (ii), as Keener points out, “Greek was the first language of the Jerusalem aristocracy,” A Commentary on Matthew (Eerdmans 1999), 502. That’s the target audience in this particular instance.

    “Or there's Heb 11:21 which reads ‘leaning upon the top of his staff" whereas the Masoretic pointing reads of Ge 47:31 reads ‘leaning upon the bed head’.”

    A straw man argument since no one is claiming that the NT writers were using the MT. The unpointed Hebrew text can be rendered exactly as the author of Hebrews had quoted it.

    Orthodox is confounding the interpretive pointing of the Massoretes with the preservation of the consonantal text itself.

    “These are a taste of the kind of problems with uncritically abandoning the text of the early church on the unfounded assumption that Hebrew must always = good, translation = bad leads to.”

    Orthodox is rewriting church history. There was no “one text” in use by the early church. Jerome favored the Hebrew text while Origen compiled the Hexapla.

    And there was no single Septuagintal text in use in the early church. Among Christian recensions there was the Antiochene text (i.e. the Lucianic recension), the Hexaplaric text, the (according to Jerome) Hesychian text, and the Catena group.

    In addition, there were three Jewish recensions by Aquila, Symmachus, and Theodotion. Cf. K. Jobes & M. Silva, Invitation to the Septuagint (Baker 2005), chapters 2 & 6.

    >Which church? The NT church was a multilingual
    >body. The LXX was not the edition of the Bible
    >favored by Palestinian Messianic Jews.

    “Reference please.”

    Hanhart, R. “Introduction,” M. Hengel, The Septuagint as Christian Scripture (Baker 2004).

    “Someone who had extensive discussions with Dante personally, or who received his understanding by oral tradition may well understand him better no matter what the translation.”

    i) A lame example since someone who had extensive personal discussions with Dante would be speaking with Dante in his native tongue.

    ii) And, of course, you have never established oral apostolic tradition in the subapostolic era.

    “Go read Dt 32:43 in your Masoretic text and see how much light it throws on Heb 1:6.”

    You’re a dim bulb whose wattage lowers with each successive comment. As I’ve explained on several occasions now, only you’re too dense to absorb the point, a critical edition of the Hebrew OT will involve an eclectic text. It is not purely the MT.

    “I'll give you a pointer in the right direction, and let you do your own research: From Timothy Ware (Now Metropolitan Kallistos)'s book "The Orthodox Church", P251.”

    All you’ve done is to cite a propagandistic statement. But the business end of Orthodoxy works very differently.

    In the meantime you’re undercutting your original appeal to ecumenical councils and apostolic succession by your new-found populism.

    “Hardly. The Churches will stick to their respective canons until such time as the Holy Spirit leads it to make adjustments.”

    Until such time as…

    So, once again, the Orthodox canon is up for grabs. Thanks for continuing to confirm my point.

    “That there are discrepencies in the canon is of no more concern to us than it was for the first four hundred years of Christendom.”

    It’s a matter of dire concern when you claim that uncertainties over the scope of the canon invalidate Protestantism. Your objection cuts both ways.

    “I didn't realise that you were so ignorant, posing as you are as a scholar who can prove the canon.”

    The question at issue is not what I know, but what you know. You shoulder your own burden of proof to cite your sources.

    Okay, you have a secondhand source for Origen’s opinion of the OT canon. Why should we assume that Origen is right?

    The letter of Jeremiah couldn’t be canonical because it’s pseudonymous, and it’s pseudonymous because it dates to a time long after the demise of Jeremiah:

    “There were ten or eleven writings not found in the Pharisaic-rabbinic canon which the church recognized, although only slowly and halfheartedly. These were the additions to Daniel and Esther, Tobit, Judith, Susanna, Baruch, Epistula Jeremiae, Sirach, Wisdom, 1-4 Maccabees; of these 3 and 4 Maccabees were not ‘received’ in the West at all, and in the East only conditionally. They had a great deal in common,” M. Hengel, The Septuagint, 91.

    “They all belong to the Graeco-Roman period, i.e. they originated between the third century BCE and the first century CE; Tobit, Susanna, other additions to Daniel, and the Epistula Jeremiae may come from the third century,” ibid. 91.

    “So Josephus, whose stands in opposition to the truth of Christ, trumps the Church?”

    A non-sequitur. Josephus and other Jewish sources are primary witnesses to the OT canon. What you’re pleased to call “the Church,” such as one of the later Greek Fathers like Cyril of Jerusalem, is hardly in the same epistemically advantageous position.

    “Except that it doesn't help you, because Josephus only refers to a Hebrew 22 book canon, and as I keep pointing out, everybody's list of what is within those 22 books differs.”

    Scholars like Beckwith don’t simply quote Josephus, but analyze his list to determine the breakdown.

    “Try and get it through your head. Thereis no pre-Christian, or contemporary with Christ source for a full listing of the canon. It simply doesn't exist. It's not there. Nada, Zip, Zilch. Josephus won't help you. All you have is your Protestant tradition, it is based on nothing but some very late after the fact Jewish remnant who rejected the NT books as heretical.”

    This simple-minded denial ignores many internal and external lines of argument for the Jewish canon of the OT, such as:
    Beckwith, R. The Old Testament Canon of the New Testament Church (Eerdmans 1986)

    Ellis, E. The Old Testament in Early Christianity: Canon and Interpretation in Light of Modern Research (Baker 1992)

    Hanhart, R. “Introduction,” M. Hengel, The Septuagint as Christian Scripture (Baker 2004)

    Sailhamer, J. Introduction to Old Testament Theology: A Canonical Approach (Zondervan 1995)

    Steins, G. Die Chronik als kanonisches Abschlussphänomen (Beltz Athenäum1995)

    Spawn, K. “As it is Written” and Other Citation Formulae in the Old Testament (Walter de Gruyter 2002)

    ReplyDelete
  7. >Others may trust what their parents, a pastor, or
    >some other source tells them about the subject.

    That's right! That's what 99% do. They hold to a Tradition, because it is simply the only practical and possible thing to do, even more so for people before the modern era. But for some reason you can't bring yourself to realise that the reality is how God intended, you still have to resort back to your modern scholarship position as the true rule of faith.

    >But since we're having a discussion in which
    >objective argumentation is expected, I've
    >presented a historical case for the canon as an
    >objective means of justifying that canon.

    You've thrown the claim out there, but you won't back it up by proving that say 2 John or 2 Peter is apostolic. As such it is merely an empty claim.

    >It's commonplace for people to accept something
    >for one reason initially, then develop other
    >reasons later.

    Then you should have no objections to Orthodox accepting the Traditions, since you've just validated the legitimacy of that approach.

    >But a lack of merit in the initial reasons doesn't
    >justify our ignoring the additional reasons that
    >were learned later.

    Who said there must be a "later"? You've already acknowledged it is ok to start off accepting the Tradition, who said one has to go beyond? 99% of protestants don't move beyond canon as a tradition.

    And yet you ignore the limited merit of the evidence supporting all the books you consider canonical in your "later" learning. Strange.

    >We've seen your "historical argument" about
    >widespread beliefs, and we've explained why it's
    >wrong. You've failed to interact with those
    >explanations. Instead, you repeatedly ignore
    >what we write and leave discussions.

    Blogger.com is an especially inappropriate forum for carrying on very long back and forth discussion, it's kinda silly already how many back and forths go on here. And you havn't explained why Orthodox historical argument is wrong, any more than I could have explained to you why 2 Peter is "wrong".

    >As I told you earlier, the historical argument for
    >a canon isn't just an appeal to "widespread
    >belief". It also involves the earliness of
    >widespread belief, the nature of the sources
    >involved, the atmosphere in which they made
    >their judgments, the internal evidence of the
    >documents involved, etc. The fact that praying to
    >the deceased or the veneration of images
    >became popular in later church history doesn't
    >logically lead us to the conclusion that such
    >things are apostolic.

    I could just as easily retort "The fact that 2 Peter (or 2 John, or 3 John, or James, or Jude, or Revelation) became popular in later church history, doesn't logically lead us to the conclusion that they are apostolic.

    You're making a personal judgment on the level of evidence that you will find convincing, but there is no guarantee that your criteria, or your level of required evidence is the correct amount.

    >If prayers to the deceased, for example, are
    >absent in thousands of years of history
    >addressed by scripture, scripture condemns any
    >attempts to contact the deceased, and prayers to
    >the deceased are widely absent or contradicted
    >in the earliest patristic sources, then that's a
    >significantly different situation than what we see
    >with something like the canonicity of 2 Peter or
    >Revelation.

    As I already explained, only after the resurrection did the dead go to a place where communication with them became a possibility. So that argument is as fruitful as me pointing out that for thousands of years 2 Peter wasn't scripture. As for it being widely condemned in patristics, I dispute that it is widely condemned. It may be condemned by one or two here and there.

    >Unlike praying to the deceased, the earliest
    >references we have to the canonicity of 2 Peter
    >and Revelation suggest that their canonicity was
    >disputed only by a minority of the relevant
    >people.

    Firstly, the earliest references to 2 Peter are conspicuous in their non existence, because the first to mention it was Origen, sometime around I suppose AD 230, and he refers to it as disputed.

    Now if Origen was uncertain about this book, how could its apostolicity become MORE certain over time? From your historical perspective, that is completely illogical. We cannot be more certain later on of an historical question that is earlier unknown.

    And it is certainly misleading to say that 2 Peter was "only disputed by a minority of people". It was certainly a sizable minority, since as late as Eusebius, he rejected the book. Is a mere 51% enough to be a criterion of truth for you? What percentage do you need?

    And Eusebius says that it was not quoted by the ancient elders. So it's not as if we've simply lost the writings that would have referred to it through the later centuries. They never existed.

    So where's your big evidence? It seems that all you have to present to us is that a majority accepted it. Apparently the standard of evidence we need to convince you is dropping rapidly.

    >We don't claim to be the one true church, the
    >only church that existed for the first millennium
    >of church history, which has held the same
    >beliefs on these issues since the time of the
    >apostles. We don't make the sort of claims you're
    >making, so we don't carry the same burden of
    >proof.

    You do claim that your scriptures are the only ones since the apostles which are God-breathed, which is a claim of the same type, and which you have equal if not greater problems proving.

    >If blogs aren't sufficient for a discussion of this
    >nature, then why are you here? And if you can't
    >make your case in one post, then why not make
    >it over multiple posts? Why don't you begin by
    >documenting that the earliest bishops believed
    >in praying to the deceased, for example?

    I make a few posts in an attempt to present the Orthodox position. I don't make any promise to keep a blog thread going for absurd lengths.

    As for the earliest indisputable documentation for prayer to saints, you probably know as well as I do it would be from around AD 350 with Ephraim the Syrian, Athanasius, Basil the Great, Cyril of Jerusalem, Gregory the Theologian etc etc.

    And if you have a problem with the AD 350 date, I have to ask why it is of a completely different nature to the refernce of Origen to 2 Peter around 230AD, and Eusebius around 300AD. Is the issue that my credible cut off date is simply a little later than yours? That's hardly a firm foundation for starting out your own religion.

    >You're the anonymous poster who has no
    >previous body of work to point us to, who keeps
    >demonstrating that he's highly ignorant of and
    >mistaken about the issues we're discussing.

    Firstly, this is your blog, not mine. I am by necessity a mere commentator on the topics that are controlled by the bloggers. Secondly you have yet to prove I am mistaken about anything whatsoever. All you have done is presented your viewpoint which you have now raised to the level of infallible dogma. Thirdly, if I am "highly ignorant", God help 99.99% of people of all denominations who must be truely ignorant in your eyes.

    >So, where's your documentation that the earliest
    >bishops were Eastern Orthodox?

    >Furthermore, 2 Peter is just one book. We would
    >still have other books, even if we rejected 2
    >Peter.

    Thin end of the wedge. Once you throw that out there are a ton of arguments waiting in the wings against lots of other books. Then it is pot luck what is left in your canon when all is said and done. And then there are those poor sods, the 99.99% of other Christians who you regard as ignorant, and yet you are happy to advocate they examine their canon using history. God knows what canon they would end up with if they actually took your advice seriously. Of course, your advice is sheer madness to 99% of Christians.

    >How would the fact that I have no good reason to
    >accept 2 Peter, if true, prove that I have no good
    >reason to accept Genesis, Isaiah, or Romans
    >either? It wouldn't.

    All you've got left is probabilities. High probabilities for these books. But falling rapidly for others. You'll be able to preach in the streets "There is a 72.5% probability that doctrine XYZ is true. Repent!"

    >You "don't care" whether a document is God-
    >breathed scripture?

    It's an interesting question, but is about as relevant as all the sermons you've heard in protestant land on Esther lately.

    >If you "don't care" about agreeing on a canon,
    >then why have you been criticizing Protestants
    >over the possibility that they wouldn't agree
    >about a canon if they were to reject a document
    >like 2 Peter?

    I told you already. There seems to be a pattern here where you ignore what I say then triumphantly proclaim how smart you are and how ignorant others are.

    The reason it is different is that doctrine is always up for grabs in protestant land from "exegesis" of scripture. If your set of books isn't quite right then your evaluation of the evidence might be unduly skewing your beliefs towards heresy. If Revelation isn't scripture, then protestants have certainly expended millions of words arguing about nothing.

    The same goes for textual variants. Some have argued that variants at John 1:18 and John 1:34 lead to a different Christology. From an Orthodox point of view, such things aren't up for discussion. From your point of view, you've got some difficult questions to answer that you can't necessarily prove 100% according to your understanding. Was Christ "an only-begotten God", and was he "chosen" from among many? There's a lot of people you won't convince when your rule of faith is scripture alone.

    >First of all, I reject your characterization of my
    >having a "major problem" with Presbyterians. I
    >don't.

    It's major enough that you would never join them unless it was because your favoured denomination didn't exist in your area, then that sounds pretty major to me.

    >Second, Steve has already documented examples
    >of Eastern Orthodox having "problems" with one
    >another, so it isn't as if all of you get along well.

    Some political squabbles is not the issue at hand here. The issue is what churches are doctrinally one church, such that doctrinally one church is equal to another when it comes to picking one to join.

    >But when I point out that Protestants could agree
    >with each other about part of their rule of faith,
    >even if they disagree about another part of it,
    >you change the subject by objecting that
    >Protestants have a larger degree of disagreement
    >over their interpretation of an agreed upon rule
    >of faith

    You yourself have set the boundaries for acceptable variation in the rule of faith by avoiding joining Presbyterian churches.

    ReplyDelete
  8. Orthodox said:

    "That's right! That's what 99% do. They hold to a Tradition, because it is simply the only practical and possible thing to do, even more so for people before the modern era. But for some reason you can't bring yourself to realise that the reality is how God intended, you still have to resort back to your modern scholarship position as the true rule of faith."

    If "holding to a Tradition" is "the only practical and possible thing to do", then should children of Satanist parents remain Satanists? Should people living under a Communist government remain Communist?

    If we should just follow the "Tradition" of our parents, religious leaders, government, etc., then why are you in this forum arguing for Eastern Orthodoxy? Why shouldn't Protestants just uncritically accept their "Tradition"? Why are you appealing to (erroneous) historical arguments, such as your claims about Ezekiel 11, John 16, apostolic succession, etc.?

    You write:

    "You've thrown the claim out there, but you won't back it up by proving that say 2 John or 2 Peter is apostolic. As such it is merely an empty claim."

    I've repeatedly addressed standards of canonicity in my responses to you, and you've often ignored what I've said or have responded in an unreasonable manner (making assertions about the evidence for books without supporting those assertions, claiming that historical evidence is equivalent to Eastern Orthodox Tradition, etc.). Given your behavior in the canonical discussions we've had so far, and given the fact that not including a book like 2 Peter in our canon wouldn't lead us to your conclusions, there's no good reason for me to make a case for every Biblical book you decide to ask about from post to post. You mention 2 John and 2 Peter now, and you've mentioned other books in other posts. Once I address one, you'll just move on to another. Meanwhile, you continue to ignore so many of the questions I've asked you.

    You write:

    "Then you should have no objections to Orthodox accepting the Traditions, since you've just validated the legitimacy of that approach."

    As I said before, a child of Satanists might initially accept Satanism without giving the validity of that belief system much thought. Would you suggest that it's wise for him to continue to uncritically accept it? Or are we supposed to only be uncritical about Eastern Orthodoxy?

    You write:

    "You've already acknowledged it is ok to start off accepting the Tradition, who said one has to go beyond?"

    No, that's not what I said. I said that people often do it, and I said that there's sometimes some merit to the initial trust that people put in what a parent, historian, friend, or other source tells them. Other times, there isn't good reason to trust the source in question. Apparently, you would be an uncritical Nazi follower of Adolf Hitler if you had been born in a different place and time.

    You write:

    "I could just as easily retort 'The fact that 2 Peter (or 2 John, or 3 John, or James, or Jude, or Revelation) became popular in later church history, doesn't logically lead us to the conclusion that they are apostolic."

    The problem with your comparison is that the evidence for the canonicity of such books isn't comparable to the evidence for beliefs such as praying to the deceased and the veneration of images. I explained why in my last post.

    You write:

    "You're making a personal judgment on the level of evidence that you will find convincing, but there is no guarantee that your criteria, or your level of required evidence is the correct amount."

    As if your personal judgments about the existence of God, whether Jesus is the Messiah, the meaning of John 16, apostolic succession, why Eastern Orthodoxy is true and Roman Catholicism isn't, etc. aren't personal judgments? And why do we need a "guarantee"? Historical judgments are matters of probability. We rely on such judgments every day of our lives, in many contexts. There's no "guarantee" that Tiberius Caesar or George Washington existed, but we can still be confident that they did. What's your "guarantee" that the ecumenical councils actually occurred and actually taught what you think they did?

    You write:

    "As I already explained, only after the resurrection did the dead go to a place where communication with them became a possibility."

    What you "explained" is a gratuitous assertion. I addressed it and refuted your other arguments for prayers to the deceased in one of the many previous threads that you left:

    http://triablogue.blogspot.com/2007/03/in-another-thread-orthodox-wrote.html

    You write:

    "So that argument is as fruitful as me pointing out that for thousands of years 2 Peter wasn't scripture."

    You're ignoring part of what I said. And the fact that you would formulate your response in such a manner reflects how unprepared you are to have canonical discussions. As I explained earlier, the issue is whether something is absent where we would expect to see it. Expecting to see 2 Peter's canonicity mentioned before Peter was born or in a patristic document that had no reason to discuss the subject, for example, wouldn't make sense. In contrast, the subject of prayer and the prayer life of believers is addressed in hundreds upon hundreds of Biblical and patristic passages. The concept that Biblical and early patristic believers prayed to the deceased, yet they happened to never mention it, while prayers to God get mentioned hundreds of times and are discussed explicitly and in depth during that same timeframe, is absurd. Praying to the deceased is something that, by its nature, ought to be mentioned far more often than something like the canonicity of 2 Peter.

    And, as I've explained to you repeatedly, I don't make claims about the canonicity of 2 Peter that are comparable to your claims about the teachings of Eastern Orthodoxy. I don't claim that there was one worldwide denomination that all Christians belonged to, which was being led by the Spirit in the sense of John 16:13 in the manner you claim, that was passing on all of the same teachings in every generation, etc.

    You write:

    "And it is certainly misleading to say that 2 Peter was 'only disputed by a minority of people'. It was certainly a sizable minority, since as late as Eusebius, he rejected the book."

    How does the size of a minority make it misleading for me to refer to a minority? And why would Eusebius' view of 2 Peter overturn what I said about the majority view? You're raising objections that don't refute anything I said.

    You write:

    "And Eusebius says that it was not quoted by the ancient elders."

    Where does Eusebius say that? He comments that the earliest sources don't refer to 2 Peter's authorship (Church History, 3:3:1-4), but authorship is a different issue than quotation. As Daniel Wallace explains, Robert Picirilli has shown that “The possibility clearly exists that 2 Peter is reflected in several passages in the Apostolic Fathers [earliest church fathers].…real possibility obtains in at least twenty-two places, the level of likelihood ranging from merely possible to highly probable” (cited at http://www.bible.org/page.asp?page_id=1363). The earliest patristic sources don't refer to Paul's authorship of Philemon, for example, yet that letter is accepted as genuine across the scholarly spectrum.

    Again, I've explained my canonical standards in previous posts, and you've largely ignored or distorted what I've said. I'm not going to get into a discussion of the canonicity of every book you want to ask about, for reasons such as the ones I've explained above. I've already given far more evidence for my canon than you've given for the Eastern Orthodox rule of faith.

    You write:

    "It seems that all you have to present to us is that a majority accepted it."

    That's another example of how you distort what people have said. I've repeatedly explained that more than majority acceptance is involved. I've discussed the significance of internal evidence, data from non-Christian sources, the atmosphere in which authorship attributions were made (the status of pseudonymity among the relevant sources, for example), etc. You keep ignoring such factors, probably largely because you don't understand them.

    You write:

    "As for the earliest indisputable documentation for prayer to saints, you probably know as well as I do it would be from around AD 350 with Ephraim the Syrian, Athanasius, Basil the Great, Cyril of Jerusalem, Gregory the Theologian etc etc."

    And that would be much too late for prayers to the deceased to begin appearing, if it was something practiced by Biblical and early patristic believers. Again, I've addressed those later sources and the earlier ones in other threads that you've left, threads in which you ignored or distorted much of what I said. For example:

    http://triablogue.blogspot.com/2007/03/in-another-thread-orthodox-wrote.html

    You write:

    "And if you have a problem with the AD 350 date, I have to ask why it is of a completely different nature to the refernce of Origen to 2 Peter around 230AD, and Eusebius around 300AD. Is the issue that my credible cut off date is simply a little later than yours?"

    I specifically addressed the comparison between 2 Peter's canonicity and prayers to the deceased in my last post. You aren't interacting with what I said. Your question above ignores the reasons I gave for distinguishing between the canonicity of 2 Peter and prayers to the deceased. For you to ignore what I said, then present a misrepresentation of my position and ask if that's what I believe, is ridiculous.

    You write:

    "And then there are those poor sods, the 99.99% of other Christians who you regard as ignorant, and yet you are happy to advocate they examine their canon using history. God knows what canon they would end up with if they actually took your advice seriously. Of course, your advice is sheer madness to 99% of Christians."

    There are many people who exercise much better judgment than you do, even if they have less information than you have on some subjects. And as I've explained to you repeatedly, I haven't argued that making a historical case for a canon of scripture is necessary. What I've said is that it's a method of objectively arguing for a canon in a forum such as this one. Similarly, if you want to make an objective historical case for Eastern Orthodoxy, then, according to your own standards, it's "sheer madness to 99% of Christians". Thus, your appeals to Ezekiel 11, Matthew 16, John 16, apostolic succession, ecumenical councils, etc. are "sheer madness to 99% of Christians". Since farmers in China and factory workers in Mexico don't understand Chalcedonian Trinitarian doctrine and don't know much about the ecumenical councils, should we conclude that Eastern Orthodoxy is "sheer madness to 99% of Christians"?

    You write:

    "All you've got left is probabilities. High probabilities for these books."

    My high probabilities for a canon of scripture are better than your low probabilities for the Eastern Orthodox rule of faith.

    You write:

    "You'll be able to preach in the streets 'There is a 72.5% probability that doctrine XYZ is true. Repent!'"

    And you'll be able to preach in the streets that there's an even lower chance that Eastern Orthodoxy is true. If you're to be consistent with your reasoning, why preach in the streets at all? If we should just uncritically accept whatever parents, religious leaders, or other sources tell us (what you called "Tradition"), then why not just let Buddhists remain Buddhists, Jehovah's Witnesses remain Jehovah's Witnesses, etc.? The church in the book of Acts didn't follow that course. They appealed to an empty tomb (2:29), eyewitness testimony (2:32), fulfilled prophecy (17:2-3), and other physical and historical evidence that often involved judgments based on probability. They didn't tell Jews to uncritically accept whatever "Tradition" they received from their non-Christian parents and their non-Christian society, nor did they tell pagans to uncritically accept their pagan "Traditions". You may choose to change your arguments in mid-discussion again, but the fact is that you've repeatedly suggested that it's appropriate for people to accept whatever "Traditions" they're given. You've repeatedly criticized people for relying on historical judgments that involve probability. Yet, all of us do it every day of our lives, and the early church did it frequently, as we see in Acts and elsewhere. The early Christians wanted people to critically examine the "Traditions" they received, not just accept them uncritically.

    You write:

    "The reason it is different is that doctrine is always up for grabs in protestant land from 'exegesis' of scripture. If your set of books isn't quite right then your evaluation of the evidence might be unduly skewing your beliefs towards heresy. If Revelation isn't scripture, then protestants have certainly expended millions of words arguing about nothing."

    And if your Eastern Orthodox rule of faith isn't what you think it is, based on your fallible judgment, then you've "certainly expended millions of words arguing about nothing".

    You write:

    "You yourself have set the boundaries for acceptable variation in the rule of faith by avoiding joining Presbyterian churches."

    Just as I prefer a credobaptist church to a paedobaptist church, you would prefer some Eastern Orthodox churches to others. When two Eastern Orthodox churches have different canons of scripture, you can't agree with both.

    You keep assuming that a rule of faith must not allow for the existence of multiple denominations. Over and over again, you assume that there must be only one denomination. You never prove it. You just assume it. And you assume, without justification, that Eastern Orthodoxy is the one denomination we should follow. All that you're doing is giving us your unsupported personal preferences.

    ReplyDelete
  9. >If "holding to a Tradition" is "the only practical and
    >possible thing to do", then should children of
    >Satanist parents remain Satanists? Should people
    >living under a Communist government remain
    >Communist?

    Back to the reductio ad absurdum?

    Obviously I am only talking about the Holy Tradition handed down in Christ's church. Paul said to hold to the traditions. Obviously it is only the apostolic traditions. How do we know the Holy Tradition? From the Church, just the same as your tradition of the canon (or the historical evidence for the canon, if you must persist with that farce) comes from the Church and is passed down ("traditioned") by the church.

    >Why shouldn't Protestants just uncritically accept
    >their "Tradition"?

    LOL, for a start Protestants claim not to have traditions. The trouble is they are wrong as we have seen.

    But the issue is what church can legitimately claim to have passed on the Traditions (including the canon). Certainly can't be a church that was formed less than 500 years ago. It doesn't take brainiac to figure that out. That's not comparable to the discernment required to figure out who wrote 2 Peter, which you can't know from an historical examination.

    >You mention 2 John and 2 Peter now, and you've
    >mentioned other books in other posts. Once I
    >address one, you'll just move on to another.
    >Meanwhile, you continue to ignore so many of
    >the questions I've asked you.

    Weasel words. The fact is you won't adequately defend ANY book.

    >The problem with your comparison is that the
    >evidence for the canonicity of such books isn't
    >comparable to the evidence for beliefs such as
    >praying to the deceased and the veneration of
    >images. I explained why in my last post.

    Actually, it's worse for 2 Peter because the evidence for it, when it crops up, is far narrower than for prayer to saints. Just one example: Chrysostom quotes the New Testament in his writings something like 50,000 times, but not once does he quote 2 Peter. However he does teach prayer to saints. Just one example of how the breadth of witness of prayer to saints is far better attested than 2 Peter.

    >Historical judgments are matters of probability.
    >We rely on such judgments every day of our
    >lives, in many contexts.

    That's interesting, your fellow Baptist James White has a major problem with your probability methodology:

    http://www.aomin.org/index.php?query=probability&amount=0&blogid=1

    "The apostles did not say, "Well, we are pretty certain Jesus rose. I mean, no one can be totally certain, of course, but we think that on the balance, the best data we can give you points to the greater probability that He rose than that He didn't." My point was that the apostles did not speak in such a fashion."

    >What's your "guarantee" that the ecumenical
    >councils actually occurred and actually taught
    >what you think they did?

    I have the guarantee from Christ that his Church is the pillar and foundation of the truth.

    >What you "explained" is a gratuitous assertion. I
    >addressed it and refuted your other arguments
    >for prayers to the deceased in one of the many
    >previous threads that you left:

    I guess we have a different standard for what represents a refutation. If you were actually consistent, you would have ripped 2 Peter out of your bible by now.

    >Praying to the deceased is something that, by its
    >nature, ought to be mentioned far more often
    >than something like the canonicity of 2 Peter.

    Forget mentioning the "canonicity of 2 Peter"... how about just mentioning 2 Peter AT ALL or clearly quoting 2 Peter? Not till the 3rd century does anyone mention it. The Patriarch Chrysostom never quotes it. Eusebius excludes it.

    What we have here is hypocrisy, pure and simple.

    >And, as I've explained to you repeatedly, I don't
    >make claims about the canonicity of 2 Peter that
    >are comparable to your claims about the
    >teachings of Eastern Orthodoxy. I don't claim
    >that there was one worldwide denomination that
    >all Christians belonged to, which was being led
    >by the Spirit in the sense of John 16:13 in the
    >manner you claim, that was passing on all of the
    >same teachings in every generation, etc.

    Not comparable in what way? You're presumably preaching to people to repent, believe, and follow scripture as the rule of faith. Then you're presumably presenting to people that you know what the canon is. Except that you don't really know, you've just admitted all you have is probabilities. What probability do you claim for 2 Peter BTW? And are you telling new converts about your analysis of the probability to set them off well on their personal historical journey to figure out the canon?

    >How does the size of a minority make it
    >misleading for me to refer to a minority?

    It sounded like you were trying to dismiss it as a mere minority. But if 49% disputed the book, why mention it? What milage do you claim you got by mentioning this factoid?

    >And why would Eusebius' view of 2 Peter
    >overturn what I said about the majority view?
    >You're raising objections that don't refute >anything I said.

    Who cares what you said about the majority view? Is there some argument here you consider important? What if I start appealing to majorities in Eusebius' time, will that wash with you?

    >And Eusebius says that it was not quoted by the
    >ancient elders."
    >
    >Where does Eusebius say that?

    Ok, he didn't quite say that. What he said was that 1 Peter was quoted by the ancient elders and in contrast 2 Peter does not belong to the canon. (History Book III, Ch 3.1). The strong implication being that 2 Peter was not quoted by the ancient elders.

    >He comments that the earliest sources don't
    >refer to 2 Peter's authorship

    I can't see where he says that. He refers to "the ancient elders used freely in their own writings" of 1 Peter in contrast to 2 Peter. That means 2 Peter was not used "in their own writings".

    >Robert Picirilli has shown that “The possibility
    >clearly exists that 2 Peter is reflected in several
    >passages in the Apostolic Fathers

    Oooh, possibility. Wow. So the possibility exists that there is a chance that it might be true that you could see your way clear to there being a prospect that there is most definitely a likelyhood that there is a decent shot and fair speculation that you could by happenstance HAVE A CANON OF SCRIPTURE. That's just great.

    "real possibility obtains in at least twenty-two places, the level of likelihood ranging from merely possible to highly probable”

    Which all assumes that there wasn't a forger of 2 Peter stealing phrases from some writings of Church Fathers in order to pad out his pseudopigraphal work. Still, you've got your lottery ticket for maybe having a canon. You've got to be in it to win it!

    >I'm not going to get into a discussion of the
    >canonicity of every book you want to ask about

    Be honest now, you're not going to get into a discussion about ANY book, lest it be revealed that your standard of canonicity are lower than that of many apostolic traditions, like apostolic succession.

    >There are many people who exercise much better
    >judgment than you do, even if they have less
    >information than you have on some subjects.

    LOL, what you mean is people who just happen to land in the lap of churches with your traditions, but wouldn't be able to tell you the first thing about the history of 2 Peter.

    >And as I've explained to you repeatedly, I haven't
    >argued that making a historical case for a canon
    >of scripture is necessary. What I've said is that
    >it's a method of objectively arguing for a canon
    >in a forum such as this one.

    WHOA!!!! I havn't seen this before. So this whole historical argument garbage is just something you trot out to try and win debates in internet forums. Presumably you don't feed this junk to your brothers and sisters in the church that they need to make a reasoned decision about forming their own canon from the historical evidence. You and I know 99% of Christians think that is garbage, and now you're telling me you only trot this out because you can't otherwise win internet debates.

    >Similarly, if you want to make an objective
    >historical case for Eastern Orthodoxy, then,
    >according to your own standards, it's "sheer
    >madness to 99% of Christians".

    But it isn't sheer madness. Many people convert to Orthodoxy because of the facts of history. I've yet to meet a Christian who made their own canon by examining the evidence for each book.

    >My high probabilities for a canon of scripture are
    >better than your low probabilities for the Eastern
    >Orthodox rule of faith.

    Wow, so we're in the running now with some probability now are we? How many percentage points difference is there that I need to make up?

    >The church in the book of Acts didn't follow that
    >course. They appealed to an empty tomb (2:29),
    >eyewitness testimony (2:32), fulfilled prophecy
    >(17:2-3), and other physical and historical
    >evidence that often involved judgments based on
    >probability.

    Oh dear. What was it that James White said?

    http://www.aomin.org/index.php?query=probability&amount=0&blogid=1

    "The apostles did not say, "Well, we are pretty certain Jesus rose. I mean, no one can be totally certain, of course, but we think that on the balance, the best data we can give you points to the greater probability that He rose than that He didn't."

    >Just as I prefer a credobaptist church to a
    >paedobaptist church, you would prefer some
    >Eastern Orthodox churches to others

    Not because of doctrine I wouldn't. One Orthodox church is as good as another doctrinally.

    >When two Eastern Orthodox churches have
    >different canons of scripture, you can't agree
    >with both.

    Nobody is going to prefer one Orthodox church to another based on the canon. I defy you to find someone who does.

    >Over and over again, you assume that there must
    >be only one denomination. You never prove it.
    >You just assume it.

    How many denominations did the apostles set up in each city? If the answer is one, then it's NOT an assumption, it is biblical.

    >And you assume, without justification, that
    >Eastern Orthodoxy is the one denomination we
    >should follow.

    I contend that it's not without justification. The problem is you are yet to accept that you need to follow the traditions passed down. If you accepted that premise you would have to decide between Rome and Orthodoxy, and you would pick one or the other, and I'm sure you would find justifications. The problem is, you're stuck at an earlier problem.

    ReplyDelete
  10. Orthodox writes:

    "How do we know the Holy Tradition? From the Church, just the same as your tradition of the canon (or the historical evidence for the canon, if you must persist with that farce) comes from the Church and is passed down ('traditioned') by the church."

    People won't be looking for a church of Christ unless they first hold a high view of Christ. And making an objective case for the Christian view of Jesus requires sorting through some controversial issues. Once a person arrives at a high view of Jesus, he would then need to come to the knowledge that Jesus founded a church, go through the process of identifying that church, discern what the church has and hasn't taught with all of the relevant qualifications, etc. If 99% of people are poorly prepared to make such historical judgments, as you've repeatedly suggested, then your criticism is applicable to your own belief system. If it's unreasonable for me to make a historical case for the Protestant rule of faith, because 99% of people supposedly are poorly prepared for it, then it's likewise unreasonable for you to make a historical case for Eastern Orthodoxy.

    You write:

    "The trouble is they are wrong as we have seen."

    If you have to raise historical arguments against Protestantism in order to supposedly show that Protestantism is wrong, then you're relying on probability judgments. You're making historical judgments based on probability, which is something you've repeatedly criticized as unacceptable. You can't have it both ways, although you've tried. You can't say, on the one hand, that we shouldn't appeal to historical probabilities, then say, on the other hand, that you've arrived at Eastern Orthodoxy by means of historical arguments, which involve probability judgments.

    You write:

    "But the issue is what church can legitimately claim to have passed on the Traditions (including the canon). Certainly can't be a church that was formed less than 500 years ago."

    As I've explained to you before, the term "church" is defined in different ways in different contexts. The fact that a Presbyterian denomination comes into existence in the eighteenth century, for example, doesn't prove that its members aren't part of any church that's older. Their denomination originated in the eighteenth century, but the church Paul refers to in Ephesians 4-5, of which all believers are a part, has existed since the time of the apostles. The Presbyterians in question can belong to a young denomination while being part of an older church.

    Concerning the canon, apparently you need to be reminded that Eastern Orthodox disagree with each other about the canon. If Eastern Orthodoxy hasn't decided on a canon, then how can Eastern Orthodoxy have "passed on the Traditions (including the canon)"?

    Unlike you, I don't make "passing on the canon" a requirement. The thief on the cross and the Philippian jailer probably didn't know much about a canon of scripture or many other subjects related to Christianity, but they knew enough to become Christians, and they were thus part of the church. Similarly, I wouldn't exclude people like Melito of Sardis, Tertullian, and Athanasius from the Christian church just because they believed in the canonicity of books I don't believe in or rejected some books I accept (Tertullian's acceptance of 1 Enoch, etc.).

    You write:

    "Just one example: Chrysostom quotes the New Testament in his writings something like 50,000 times, but not once does he quote 2 Peter. However he does teach prayer to saints. Just one example of how the breadth of witness of prayer to saints is far better attested than 2 Peter."

    As usual, you offer no documentation. But, even assuming the truthfulness of it, why should we think that your example has much significance? As I explained before, prayer is something that, by its nature, is discussed often and has the potential to be mentioned in hundreds of Biblical and patristic passages, including in the Old Testament. If prayers to the deceased are absent and contradicted through thousands of years of Biblical and early patristic documents, then the fact that the practice appears in some fourth century sources is far outweighed by the earlier absence and contradictions. Assuming the truthfulness of your claim that John Chrysostom never quotes 2 Peter (allusions, not just quotes, would be relevant as well), Chrysostom wrote after sources like Eusebius and Athanasius referred to widespread acceptance of 2 Peter's canonicity. As I mentioned earlier, and as Steve mentioned, 2 Peter is quoted and alluded to as early as the second century. The fact that one source of the fourth century supposedly doesn't cite the book at all isn't of much significance. Justin Martyr doesn't explicitly discuss the writings of Paul, but we don't therefore ignore the earlier sources who do explicitly discuss those writings (Clement of Rome, etc.). Your argument is ridiculous.

    You write:

    "That's interesting, your fellow Baptist James White has a major problem with your probability methodology"

    I'm not a Baptist. I'm also not James White.

    Are you suggesting that historical arguments aren't matters of probability? Are you saying that it's not even possible that your conclusions about Augustus Caesar or Abraham Lincoln, for example, are wrong? Are historians mistaken in thinking that their profession involves probability judgments?

    You write:

    "I have the guarantee from Christ that his Church is the pillar and foundation of the truth."

    And if you're going to make an objective case for the Christian view of Jesus, then you have to appeal to historical probabilities. You also have to appeal to probabilities in order to argue for the Pauline authorship of 1 Timothy and your interpretation of 1 Timothy 3:15. You would then need to appeal to more historical probabilities in order to argue that Eastern Orthodoxy fulfills 1 Timothy 3, whereas Roman Catholicism, for example, doesn't.

    On the other hand, if you want to avoid the probabilities involved in making a historical case, and you want to make a subjective appeal to "childlike faith" in Eastern Orthodoxy instead (as you've done before), then any other person can do the same with their belief system. A Roman Catholic can make a subjective appeal to "childlike faith" in the Roman Catholic Church, for example.

    You write:

    "Eusebius excludes it [2 Peter]."

    And he mentions that most churches recognize it. Eusebius was in the minority on this issue.

    I wonder why you keep emphasizing Eusebius in this thread. In another thread, in response to his opposition to the veneration of images, you dismissed him as "pretty much an Arian" (http://triablogue.blogspot.com/2007/04/unity-of-one-true-church.html).

    You write:

    "Then you're presumably presenting to people that you know what the canon is. Except that you don't really know, you've just admitted all you have is probabilities."

    As I've explained to you repeatedly, I appeal to a historical case for the canon as a means of making an objective case for the canon in a forum such as this one. It doesn't therefore follow that I'm denying that people can arrive at a canon in any other way. I've repeatedly explained to you that my historical case is one approach among others. The Holy Spirit can work in people's lives without any such historical case. You keep ignoring what I've said on this subject.

    But even if I only offered probabilities, why would that be unacceptable? We rely on probabilities every day of our lives (the probability that the food you eat is safe to eat, the probability that the bridge you're going to drive across is going to hold up under the weight of the vehicles on it, the probability that a co-worker is trustworthy to carry out a task you want him to do for you, etc.). No reasonable person would dismiss the historicity of Tiberius Caesar or the historicity of the Holocaust as unreliable just because probabilities are involved.

    You write:

    "What probability do you claim for 2 Peter BTW?"

    I haven't assigned a particular number, just as I don't assign numbers before believing that Tacitus wrote the Annals, that George Washington lived, that the juice in my refrigerator is safe to drink, etc. Do you assign numbers to all of your probability judgments?

    Why do these things have to be explained to you? Why do you keep raising objections to my belief system that would be applicable to yours as well? You don't seem to have given these issues much thought.

    You write:

    "And are you telling new converts about your analysis of the probability to set them off well on their personal historical journey to figure out the canon?"

    If you object to a "personal historical journey to figure out the canon", then do you also object to a "personal historical journey to figure out whether Jesus is who Christianity claims He is" and a "personal historical journey to figure out whether Eastern Orthodoxy is the church founded by Christ"? If such personal examination of historically controversial issues is unacceptable to you, then you need to criticize people who make a historical case for Jesus or a historical case for Eastern Orthodoxy as well, not just the people who make a historical case for the Protestant canon.

    You write:

    "Who cares what you said about the majority view? Is there some argument here you consider important? What if I start appealing to majorities in Eusebius' time, will that wash with you?"

    As I've explained to you repeatedly, I don't just refer to a majority. I also address many other factors. You're the one who keeps singling out the majority issue, which is why I was discussing it. I was responding to what you had said.

    You write:

    "I can't see where he says that. He refers to 'the ancient elders used freely in their own writings' of 1 Peter in contrast to 2 Peter. That means 2 Peter was not used 'in their own writings'."

    First of all, as I explained earlier, we possess many of the early documents, and we've found quotations and allusions to 2 Peter in those documents. It's not as if we can only go by what Eusebius said.

    Secondly, your quotation of Eusebius is misleading. In fact, it's so misleading as to warrant the term "deceptive". You cut off Eusebius' words just before he added a qualifier that supports my reading and runs contrary to yours. Here's the full section of Eusebius you've cited:

    "One epistle of Peter, that called the first, is acknowledged as genuine. And this the ancient elders used freely in their own writings as an undisputed work. But we have learned that his extant second Epistle does not belong to the canon; yet, as it has appeared profitable to many, it has been used with the other Scriptures." (Church History, 3:3:1)

    You left out the phrase "as an undisputed work". In other words, Eusebius isn't just addressing whether the early sources used 1 Peter in any way. Rather, he's addressing whether they used it as "an undisputed work". An early source could quote or allude to 2 Peter, as some did, without thereby using it "as an undisputed work". By leaving that phrase out of your quotation of Eusebius, you've changed the meaning of his comment.

    You write:

    "Oooh, possibility. Wow. So the possibility exists that there is a chance that it might be true that you could see your way clear to there being a prospect that there is most definitely a likelyhood that there is a decent shot and fair speculation that you could by happenstance HAVE A CANON OF SCRIPTURE. That's just great."

    After the portion of Robert Picirilli's comments that you quoted, he goes on to explain that some of the references to 2 Peter are in the "highly probable" category. Why would you cut off the quote after he mentions "possible" references in order to make your comments above? And why would you refer to "having a canon of scripture"? I haven't argued that quotations and allusions to 2 Peter in the Apostolic Fathers are the only evidence we have for 2 Peter. And we would have a canon of scripture without 2 Peter, so the issue isn't whether we'll have a canon. Your response to Robert Picirilli's comments is ridiculous.

    You write:

    "WHOA!!!! I havn't seen this before. So this whole historical argument garbage is just something you trot out to try and win debates in internet forums."

    You've done this before. In a previous discussion, you claimed that I had never said that people could arrive at a canon by some means other than the historical case I was advocating. I then gave you a citation of one of our previous discussions in which I had said that there are other ways of arriving at a canon. Yet, here you are repeating the same false claim you made previously. Maybe you're being dishonest. Maybe you haven't been reading some portions of my posts written in response to you. Maybe you have a bad memory. I don't know. But I've repeatedly told you that I make a historical case for the canon as an objective argument while acknowledging, at the same time, that there are other means of arriving at a canon. If you keep ignoring or forgetting what I've said, that's your problem, not mine. It doesn't speak well for your credibility.

    You write:

    "Many people convert to Orthodoxy because of the facts of history. I've yet to meet a Christian who made their own canon by examining the evidence for each book."

    If people "convert to Orthodoxy because of the facts of history", then they're converting on the basis of personal judgments about historical probabilities. Yet, you've repeatedly criticized Protestants for doing the same. You're being inconsistent again.

    And why should I be concerned with whether you've "met" a Christian who accepts a canon as a result of historical evidence? If somebody can study the historical evidence in order to conclude that Jesus is who Christianity claims He is, that 1 Timothy was written by Paul, that 1 Timothy 3:15 means what you think it means, that Eastern Orthodoxy is the church referred to in that passage, etc., then why is it unreasonable for me to suggest that somebody can come to one of those historical conclusions in that process (that Paul wrote 1 Timothy)? Are you suggesting that a historical case for the canon is unreasonable because of the combining of multiple books? Is it reasonable to make a historical case that Paul wrote 1 Timothy, for example, such as in your historical case for Eastern Orthodoxy described above, but it's not reasonable to conclude that the other books of the canon are canonical as well? If so, why?

    If a historical case for the canon of scripture is unacceptable, then is the same true of a historical case for the canon of the Eastern Orthodox rule of faith? You as an Eastern Orthodox have to decide which traditions are Tradition (capital "T") and which aren't. As Steve has mentioned in some recent posts, even Eastern Orthodox scholars acknowledge that such a process is difficult. Should we conclude, then, that it's unreasonable to make a historical case for the Eastern Orthodox rule of faith?

    You write:

    "Oh dear. What was it that James White said?"

    You're not interacting with what I cited from the book of Acts. Quoting James White doesn't refute anything I said.

    People frequently speak of probable conclusions without using the language of probability. If I think that it's probable that George Washington existed and was the first President, I might say that "Washington was the first President". I don't have to say "It's 84% likely that George Washington was President". People don't normally speak that way. Probabilities are involved, but we don't use the language of probability to express every probable conclusion we're asserting. I shouldn't have to be explaining these things to you.

    You write:

    "Nobody is going to prefer one Orthodox church to another based on the canon. I defy you to find someone who does."

    You're changing your standard yet again. Now you tell us that having different canons is acceptable as long as you don't think that anybody would "prefer one church" over another as a result of it. This is just the latest in a long series of frequently changing arguments that you keep putting forward. You're still assuming that everybody must be part of one denomination. You criticize disagreements among Protestants, but assert that disagreements are acceptable among Eastern Orthodox as long as the people who disagree exist within a single denomination. As I've told you repeatedly, I reject your denominational standard of unity, and you've failed to justify it. You just assert it over and over again without evidence.

    You write:

    "How many denominations did the apostles set up in each city?"

    Given your reference to "thousands" of Protestant denominations, you would have to classify even minor differences among churches as constituting a denominational difference. And there were differences among the Christians of the apostolic era, as we see in Romans 14, Revelation 2-3, etc. We aren't given numbers for "each city".

    But let's assume, for the sake of argument, that every church of the apostolic era had agreed on every conceivable issue, even the issues addressed in passages like Romans 14 and 1 Corinthians 8. And there are "thousands" of denominations today. A person in the twenty-first century who's deciding what church to join has to choose a church, not a movement, such as Protestantism. If he thinks that a Presbyterian church most closely aligns with apostolic teaching, then it would make no sense to refrain from becoming a Presbyterian just because the Presbyterian church in question is part of the larger Protestant movement, and that movement consists of multiple denominations. You don't refrain from joining a church just because a larger movement that church is involved in has more denominations than existed during the time of the apostles.

    For example, Eastern Orthodoxy can be classified as part of "Eastern Christianity", along with other Christian groups that have existed in the East. Those groups aren't one denomination. The category "Eastern Christianity" consists of multiple denominations, with Eastern Orthodoxy being just one of them. Should somebody refrain from joining an Eastern Orthodox church because that church can be classified as part of a larger movement that consists of multiple denominations?

    People join individual churches. Those individual churches often can be classified as part of a larger movement, such as Protestantism, or multiple larger movements. Telling us that one of those larger movements (Protestantism) involves more denominations than existed during the time of the apostles doesn't give us any reason to not join the church in question.

    ReplyDelete
  11. >If 99% of people are poorly prepared to make such
    >historical judgments, as you've repeatedly
    >suggested, then your criticism is applicable to your
    >own belief system. If it's unreasonable for me to
    >make a historical case for the Protestant rule of
    >faith, because 99% of people supposedly are poorly
    >prepared for it, then it's likewise unreasonable for
    >you to make a historical case for Eastern
    >Orthodoxy.

    Well, prior to the tragic schisms, no such decision would have needed to be made. So the early Christians at least had no such decisions to make, unless you want to consider the heretical groups, Marcionites, Gnostics that had no apostolic succession. So apostolic succession at least held the church in good stead for a long time.

    Then tragically there was schism. This added some complexity to the situation. But I put it to you, that had you lived any time prior to the schism, you would most likely never have ever considered the position you now hold, and had someone suggested it to you, you would have rejected it out of hand. If you don't believe this, it would be because you have never experienced a one-Church culture, and you really have no feel for it.

    Now because of these schisms which put Christians in the unfortunate position of having to choose, what makes you then presume that EVERYTHING is up for grabs?

    >You can't have it both ways, although you've
    >tried. You can't say, on the one hand, that we
    >shouldn't appeal to historical probabilities, then
    >say, on the other hand, that you've arrived at
    >Eastern Orthodoxy by means of historical
    >arguments, which involve probability judgments.

    Does it? Do you think that I think there is a possibility that the early church had a papacy ruling the whole church? Do you think that I think there is a possibility that the early church believed that the pope could issue ex-cathedra infallible statements? I think there is a zero chance that this is the case.

    But what of 2 Peter? If my only basis for evaluating 2 Peter was the historical evidence I could easily say that the probability it was written by Peter was quite a bit less than 50%. And that's just one book. Multiply the probabilities for all the disputed books, and the odds we have exactly the right canon may be only a few percent. This is not good.

    So I don't think you can equate the two. I don't think they're even nearly comparable.

    I suppose you are going to say next that there is a small chance the early church was venerating icons. As I've said, you don't NEED to believe that to believe there is one church who is LED to the truth. Secondly, if you reductio to this position, I have no church and you have no canon, and nobody wins. Christianity is dead.

    >The fact that a Presbyterian denomination comes
    >into existence in the eighteenth century, for
    >example, doesn't prove that its members aren't
    >part of any church that's older. Their
    >denomination originated in the eighteenth
    >century, but the church Paul refers to in
    >Ephesians 4-5, of which all believers are a part,
    >has existed since the time of the apostles.

    An airy fairy invisible church cannot tell you what the canon is. You need an actual church to tell you. And if that actual church was founded 200 years ago, why believe them?

    >Concerning the canon, apparently you need to be
    >reminded that Eastern Orthodox disagree with
    >each other about the canon. If Eastern Orthodoxy
    >hasn't decided on a canon, then how can Eastern
    >Orthodoxy have "passed on the Traditions
    >(including the canon)"?

    Orthodoxy does not claim that passing on the Tradition means that everyone always agrees. It can take centuries or more for the wrong ideas, the false traditions to get weeded out.

    You're uncomfortable with this. But it's how you got your canon. If 1 Clement was in your bible today, you'd be arguing with me vigorously how Clement knew the apostles and thus it is equally as valid as Mark or Luke. Many in the early church regarded it as canon. But you don't argue that because you accept the weeding out process that took many centuries, whether you'll admit to it or not. Either the Church is led into truth, or you have no canon. Now the fact that Orthodox churches still have a one book discrepency, well it's going to take some more time. In the mean time, both canons are a part of the Christian Tradition, and can rightly said be authoritative in that sense. And since the Church has never considered all books of the bible to be on the same level anyway, it's pretty much a non-event.

    >Unlike you, I don't make "passing on the canon"
    >a requirement. The thief on the cross and the
    >Philippian jailer probably didn't know much
    >about a canon of scripture or many other
    >subjects related to Christianity, but they knew
    >enough to become Christians, and they were
    >thus part of the church.

    I never made passing on the canon a requirement! Whether you are in the church has nothing to do with passing on the canon. However without a church to pass it on, you wouldn't even have a starting point for considering a canon. Imagine the church had split into a thousand denominations going their own way in the 1st century!!! You would have NO HOPE now of coming up with a canon. There'd be a thousand competing voices.

    >As I explained before, prayer is something that,
    >by its nature, is discussed often and has the
    >potential to be mentioned in hundreds of Biblical
    >and patristic passages, including in the Old
    >Testament.

    And I explained to you that the Tradition says that they couldn't hear such prayers until after the resurrection. The fact that you reject the Tradition is merely symptomatic of your bigger problem.

    >then the fact that the practice appears in some
    >fourth century sources is far outweighed by the
    >earlier absence and contradictions.

    It's a lot more than "some 4th century source". It is a consensus of all the famous and great fathers of the church. The fact that they all accept it with no controversy at all is a major factor in witnessing its earlyness, because changes can neither happen fast nor easily. Of course your aim here is not to scholarly weigh up the pros and cons and merely come up with your own opinion, your aim is to play down anything that disagrees with you with the purpose of supporting your polemical thesis, that the Orthodox church is thoroughly corrupt. If you truely held to your "mere probabilities" and "invisible church" thesis, you would at least be considerably more Orthodox-friendly.

    >Chrysostom wrote after sources like Eusebius
    >and Athanasius referred to widespread
    >acceptance of 2 Peter's canonicity.

    Again, so what? That the Patriarch of Constantinople is against the book being canon, (which he was, I don't have the reference on me), then the majority was weak at best. And since when do you care about majority opinion anyway? This was a church which did things purely because of Tradition - a criteria you reject. So to appeal to useage of a church which bases its criteria on something you reject is invalid.

    >As I mentioned earlier, and as Steve mentioned,
    >2 Peter is quoted and alluded to as early as the
    >second century.

    No it ISN'T quoted. Even if we accepted the allusions, that doesn't prove it is scripture does it? Otherwise I will beat you over the head with deuterocanonical references in the NT, and you lose again.

    >I'm not a Baptist

    Really. I thought everyone here was Baptists. What are you then?

    >Are you suggesting that historical arguments
    >aren't matters of probability? Are you saying that
    >it's not even possible that your conclusions
    >about Augustus Caesar or Abraham Lincoln, for
    >example, are wrong?

    How would Paul have answered? Might it be possible his Damascus road experience was a delusion? How do you think he would answer?

    >I wonder why you keep emphasizing Eusebius in
    >this thread. In another thread

    LOL, because he and Origen are all you've got for 2 Peter! After that you have to go to the 4th century icon venerating, saint praying fathers who you are loath to consult. Ok, let's dump Eusebius, then you lose even more.

    >It doesn't therefore follow that I'm denying that
    >people can arrive at a canon in any other way.
    >I've repeatedly explained to you that my
    >historical case is one approach among others.
    >The Holy Spirit can work in people's lives without
    >any such historical case.

    Wow. So we can umm and ahh over the historical probabilities, or we can admit the Holy Spirit witnessing to the Truth. I know which one I want to go with.

    But if we're going to admit the Spirit working in people's lives, how do approach that? Are we going to just look at our own opinion? That doesn't seem very satisfactory. How do I know how much the Spirit is leading me? I think rather than just hoping the Spirit is leading little old me, I'd rather look at how the Spirit is leading the people of God. But who is the people of God? An invisible church won't do, I can't observe an invisible church.

    >>What probability do you claim for 2 Peter BTW?"
    >
    >I haven't assigned a particular number, just as I
    >don't assign numbers before believing that
    >Tacitus wrote the Annals, that George
    >Washington lived, that the juice in my
    >refrigerator is safe to drink, etc. Do you assign
    >numbers to all of your probability judgments?

    I can pop up a number that represents my feelings, certainly. In the case of juice in my fridge I would approximate it to one if fresh, dropping from there depending how old.

    >If you object to a "personal historical journey to
    >figure out the canon", then do you also object to >a "personal historical journey to figure out
    >whether Eastern Orthodoxy is the church
    >founded by Christ"?

    You pretend these issues are the same, but when we look closer they are not. I would be unsurprised if an Orthodox priest suggested a potential convert make sure that they believe that Orthodoxy is the Church. I would be quite surprised if a potential protestant convert was asked by their pastor to examine the evidence and check that their personal canon lines up with the Westminster confession of faith, or whatever confession is used. Protestants are worse than Orthodox at just assuming what they teach is true, but they don't have the ecclesiology underpinning it for that to be a consistent position.

    >First of all, as I explained earlier, we possess
    >many of the early documents, and we've found
    >quotations and allusions to 2 Peter in those
    >documents. It's not as if we can only go by what
    >Eusebius said.

    Where? No-one prior to Origen quoted it at all. If you disagree, cough up the quote.

    And as I pointed out, a quotation, let alone an allusion doesn't prove authorship, especially when we are deep into the 3rd century.

    >You're changing your standard yet again. Now
    >you tell us that having different canons is
    >acceptable as long as you don't think that
    >anybody would "prefer one church" over another
    >as a result of it. This is just the latest in a long
    >series of frequently changing arguments that you
    >keep putting forwar

    Your misunderstanding of what I'm saying does not represent any change of argument.

    >As I've told you repeatedly, I reject your
    >denominational standard of unity, and you've
    >failed to justify it. You just assert it over and
    >over again without evidence.

    Tell us then what the standard of unity is. It was either you or someone else claimed that paedo versus adult baptism is not part of the standard of unity. Yet your respective confessions of faith specify you must confess a particular position?

    And on a more general level, what is the standard? Scripture? But you're supposedly willing to allow people to form their own opinion from the historical facts. Are you perfectly happy with people joining your church who dispute the pastoral epistles, Hebrews, 2 Peter, James, Jude, Revelation, 2 and 3 John and possibly others too as not being scripture?

    Do you have ANY basis for unity AT ALL?

    How many denominations did the apostles set up in each city?"

    >Given your reference to "thousands" of
    >Protestant denominations, you would have to
    >classify even minor differences among churches
    >as constituting a denominational difference. And
    >there were differences among the Christians of
    >the apostolic era, as we see in Romans 14,
    >Revelation 2-3, etc. We aren't given numbers for
    >"each city".

    So let's say the Church in Corinth believed something a little different to the church in Thessalonica. So we now have 2 denominations according to you? This is silly.

    >But let's assume, for the sake of argument, that
    >every church of the apostolic era had agreed on
    >every conceivable issue,

    I don't see why we need to assume such a thing.

    >If he thinks that a Presbyterian church most
    >closely aligns with apostolic teaching, then it
    >would make no sense to refrain from becoming a
    >Presbyterian just because the Presbyterian
    >church in question is part of the larger
    >Protestant movement, and that movement
    >consists of multiple denominations.

    The opinion of an individual congregation is no basis or authority for having a canon. Let alone a congregation that is only 200 years old. You need a catholic church for that.

    ReplyDelete
  12. Orthodox writes:

    "Well, prior to the tragic schisms, no such decision would have needed to be made. So the early Christians at least had no such decisions to make, unless you want to consider the heretical groups, Marcionites, Gnostics that had no apostolic succession."

    That argument has already been refuted in one of the many previous discussions that you left:

    http://triablogue.blogspot.com/2007/03/pre-reformation-disunity.html

    And your claims about apostolic succession have already been refuted in another thread you left:

    http://triablogue.blogspot.com/2007/03/unity-apostolic-succession-and.html

    You write:

    "Now because of these schisms which put Christians in the unfortunate position of having to choose, what makes you then presume that EVERYTHING is up for grabs?"

    If "EVERYTHING is up for grabs" because I rely on a personal judgment about what rule of faith to follow, then the same is true of you. Your judgments about the truthfulness and scope of the Eastern Orthodox rule of faith are just that: your judgments. They're fallible judgments. Just as I could be wrong in my judgments about a rule of faith, you could be wrong in yours.

    You write:

    "Does it? Do you think that I think there is a possibility that the early church had a papacy ruling the whole church? Do you think that I think there is a possibility that the early church believed that the pope could issue ex-cathedra infallible statements? I think there is a zero chance that this is the case."

    All that you're doing is applying language of certainty to a judgment you've made based on historical probabilities. If you're going to claim that your historical judgments are matters of certainty, not probability, then you need to explain how you've attained a level of certainty that historians don't claim to have. The fact that you're confident in your historical judgments doesn't prove that your judgments are based on certainties.

    You write:

    "I suppose you are going to say next that there is a small chance the early church was venerating icons. As I've said, you don't NEED to believe that to believe there is one church who is LED to the truth."

    Part of what you've claimed about your denomination is that its teachings, such as the veneration of images, have been held in every generation. If that assertion you've made is incorrect, then you've made a false claim about your denomination. And the way we judge your historical claim is by making historical judgments. Those judgments are matters of probability. Similarly, your judgments about what John 16:13 means and its applicability to Eastern Orthodoxy (not Roman Catholicism, Mormonism, Copts, Anglicanism, etc.) are judgments based on probability.

    You write:

    "An airy fairy invisible church cannot tell you what the canon is. You need an actual church to tell you."

    A church doesn't have to be Eastern Orthodox or infallible in order to not be "airy fairy". And, as we've explained to you repeatedly, there's more involved in canonical judgments than what Christians said about the books in question. We also have internal evidence, manuscript evidence, data from non-Christian sources, etc.

    You write:

    "I never made passing on the canon a requirement!"

    You're mistaken. You often change your arguments in mid-discussion, but here's what you said earlier:

    "But the issue is what church can legitimately claim to have passed on the Traditions (including the canon)."

    If your church hasn't passed on a canon, then how can you claim that Protestants have gotten their canon from Eastern Orthodoxy?

    You write:

    "And I explained to you that the Tradition says that they couldn't hear such prayers until after the resurrection."

    Where has "the Tradition" said that? The issue isn't whether "the Tradition" supports praying to the deceased. Where does "the Tradition" give you your interpretation of the relationship between Jesus' resurrection and praying to the deceased? You keep claiming that "the Tradition" agrees with your interpretations of scripture, but you don't give us any documentation. When I asked you for documentation regarding your interpretation of Acts 15, you only quoted one source, John Chrysostom, and, as I documented, he didn't agree with everything you were claiming about that passage. Apparently, all that you're doing is assuming that if any such source agrees with you on an issue, then your interpretation is part of "the Tradition". But your conclusion doesn't follow from the evidence.

    Secondly, why should we be concerned if "the Tradition" agrees with you on this subject if that tradition postdates the apostles by hundreds of years and contradicts the earlier and more reliable data?

    You write:

    "It's a lot more than 'some 4th century source'. It is a consensus of all the famous and great fathers of the church. The fact that they all accept it with no controversy at all is a major factor in witnessing its earlyness, because changes can neither happen fast nor easily."

    I've refuted your appeal to post-Nicene sources in the thread I linked to earlier:

    http://triablogue.blogspot.com/2007/03/in-another-thread-orthodox-wrote.html

    You write:

    "Of course your aim here is not to scholarly weigh up the pros and cons and merely come up with your own opinion, your aim is to play down anything that disagrees with you with the purpose of supporting your polemical thesis, that the Orthodox church is thoroughly corrupt. If you truely held to your 'mere probabilities' and 'invisible church' thesis, you would at least be considerably more Orthodox-friendly."

    You keep ignoring what I've said. As I told you before, I agree with Eastern Orthodox on the large majority of issues. When we were discussing Irenaeus in a previous thread, I pointed out that his definition of the apostolic tradition involved doctrines that Protestants and Eastern Orthodox agree about. I also commented, elsewhere, that anybody who holds a conservative view of the Bible, including Eastern Orthodox, would agree with the church fathers on most issues. I didn't claim that Eastern Orthodoxy is "thoroughly corrupt".

    You write:

    "This was a church which did things purely because of Tradition - a criteria you reject. So to appeal to useage of a church which bases its criteria on something you reject is invalid."

    You're mistaken. To begin with, as I've explained to you before, I don't make canonical judgments based only on what Christian sources reported. And the Christian sources in question didn't just appeal to "Tradition". They discussed historical evidence for the books. Origen discusses the linguistic evidence relevant to Hebrews, Dionysius of Alexandria discussed internal and external evidence related to the book of Revelation, etc. Part of the problem here seems to be that you don't know much about the canon. You're making ignorant assertions based on misconceptions.

    You write:

    "No it ISN'T quoted. Even if we accepted the allusions, that doesn't prove it is scripture does it?"

    Again, I didn't say that quotations or allusions alone would prove canonicity. The fact that I address some aspect of the evidence for a book doesn't mean that I consider that aspect of the evidence to be the only aspect that exists.

    Regarding whether 2 Peter is quoted, you've given us no reason to accept your conclusion. I and Steve Hays have already cited multiple scholars who support our conclusion. You've done nothing to interact with their data.

    You write:

    "I thought everyone here was Baptists. What are you then?"

    Why should we tell you about our background when you keep refusing to tell us about yours? You'v been asked whether you're a convert from another church, for example, and you didn't respond. You also haven't told us what your name is, for example.

    Why would you assume that everybody here is a Baptist? That makes no sense.

    If you want to know more about our backgrounds, you can read our Blogger profiles, and some of us have other web sites. I'm part of the Evangelical Free church.

    You write:

    "How would Paul have answered? Might it be possible his Damascus road experience was a delusion? How do you think he would answer?"

    How is that relevant? You didn't experience the founding of the church or any of the ecumenical councils in the manner in which Paul experienced his own conversion. You're relying on historical judgments about things you didn't experience. But as far as Paul's "answer" is concerned, I think he'd speak like other humans speak. Even when he's making a probability judgment, he won't necessarily use probability language. If he thinks something is highly probable, he'll refer to it as true. He won't attach some probability percentage to it (99%, 82%, etc.) every time he mentions it. But it would still be a matter of probability.

    You write:

    "LOL, because he and Origen are all you've got for 2 Peter! After that you have to go to the 4th century icon venerating, saint praying fathers who you are loath to consult."

    You're mistaken. Here we see, yet again, that one of the problems in this discussion is your ignorance of the issues we're discussing. Origen and Eusebius aren't the only sources who address 2 Peter in the timeframe in question.

    You write:

    "But if we're going to admit the Spirit working in people's lives, how do approach that? Are we going to just look at our own opinion? That doesn't seem very satisfactory. How do I know how much the Spirit is leading me? I think rather than just hoping the Spirit is leading little old me, I'd rather look at how the Spirit is leading the people of God. But who is the people of God? An invisible church won't do, I can't observe an invisible church."

    When you appeal to a historical church, you're making probability judgments. And if you're making probability judgments about history, then we're back to making a historical case for the canon.

    You write:

    "Protestants are worse than Orthodox at just assuming what they teach is true, but they don't have the ecclesiology underpinning it for that to be a consistent position."

    Some of the best-selling apologetics books of our day are written by Evangelicals with an Evangelical audience primarily in mind. Lee Strobel, for example, is an Evangelical. Some of the most popular apologetics sites on the web are Evangelical (Glenn Miller's site, J.P. Holding's site, etc.). Why should we think that Eastern Orthodoxy does more to encourage people to examine the reasons for why they believe what they believe? You're not giving us any reason to accept your conclusion. You're the one who kept telling us, earlier, that your "childlike faith" in Eastern Orthodoxy is sufficient. You're the one who keeps making false claims about church history and keeps criticizing Protestants for making probability judgments based on historical research. Yet, now you tell us that Protestants generally "assume that what they believe is true", whereas Eastern Orthodox don't do that as much. You keep contradicting yourself.

    You write:

    "Where? No-one prior to Origen quoted it at all. If you disagree, cough up the quote."

    Steve Hays and I have repeatedly cited works by multiple scholars that address the subject. You've done nothing to refute that data. Do you even know what quoting 2 Peter means? I'm not referring to a discussion of authorship. That's another issue, as I explained to you earlier. A document can be quoted or alluded to without the person doing the quoting or alluding discussing the authorship of his source.

    You write:

    "Tell us then what the standard of unity is."

    I already have. See my previous comments on 1 Corinthians 15, Galatians 1, etc. Why do you so often ignore what you've already been told?

    You write:

    "So let's say the Church in Corinth believed something a little different to the church in Thessalonica. So we now have 2 denominations according to you? This is silly."

    Then you're dismissing your earlier arguments as "silly". Earlier, you argued that there are "thousands" of Protestant denominations, and you criticized Protestants for disagreeing over issues as minor as how often they celebrate communion. The only way you can arrive at the conclusion that there are "thousands" of Protestant denominations is by including minor differences as constituting different denominations. If doing so is "silly" in first century Christianity, then it's "silly" when you do it with twenty-first century Christianity as well.

    ReplyDelete
  13. >That argument has already been refuted in one of
    >the many previous discussions that you left:
    >
    >http://triablogue.blogspot.com/2007/03/pre-
    >reformation-disunity.html

    Ahh yes, you said you felt justified in excluding groups from the Church, because we exclude Marcionites and gnostics and other wacky groups. Except you aren't consistent. You write confessions of faith that exclude other protestants, then out of the other side of your mouth claim unity.

    >And your claims about apostolic succession have >already been refuted in another thread you left:
    >
    >http://triablogue.blogspot.com/2007/03/unity-
    >apostolic-succession-and.html

    Vague pontifications and quotes from favorite scholars hardly constitutes a valid argument.

    >Just as I could be wrong in my judgments about
    >a rule of faith, you could be wrong in yours.

    At least I'm following a consistent and historical position that the Church defines the rule of faith. Your sola scriptura rule of faith is both novel and self refuting as not being in scripture.

    >Part of what you've claimed about your
    >denomination is that its teachings, such as the
    >veneration of images, have been held in every
    >generation. If that assertion you've made is
    >incorrect, then you've made a false claim about
    >your denomination. And the way we judge your
    >historical claim is by making historical
    >judgments. Those judgments are matters of
    >probability.

    My personal opinions about the development of icons are probability, but that the Church is led into all truth and is the pillar and foundation of the truth is not a probability, unless one wants to say there is no Christian religion, no canon, no truth, which implies no God.

    >And, as we've explained to you repeatedly,
    >there's more involved in canonical judgments
    >than what Christians said about the books in
    >question. We also have internal evidence,
    >manuscript evidence, data from non-Christian
    >sources, etc.

    The scholars tell us that internal evidence speaks against many books. Which scholar to believe? Manuscript evidence? That proves nothing more than a Tradition, which you repudiate as invalid evidence. Non-Christian sources? Very thin on the ground and are always dependant on the Christian sources anyway.

    >>"I never made passing on the canon a >>requirement!"
    >
    >You're mistaken. You often change your
    >arguments in mid-discussion, but here's what
    >you said earlier:
    >
    >>"But the issue is what church can legitimately
    >>claim to have passed on the Traditions (including
    >>the canon)."

    It is a requirement for the catholic church as a whole to pass on the traditions. It is not a requirement for individuals.

    >>"And I explained to you that the Tradition says
    >>that they couldn't hear such prayers until after
    >>the resurrection."
    >
    >Where has "the Tradition" said that?

    http://orrologion.blogspot.com/

    "according to the teaching of almost all the Eastern Fathers, the preaching of the Saviour [ when he descended into hell] was extended to all without exception and salvation was offered to all the souls who passed away from the beginning of time, whether Jews or Greek, righteous or unrighteous’

    >Where does "the Tradition" give you your
    >interpretation of the relationship between Jesus'
    >resurrection and praying to the deceased?

    I could research that I suppose. To me it is obvious. The OT saints were in hades. Christ preaches to them in hades as all the church fathers taught. They are then raised to life (cf Mt 27:52). Now the people of God can talk to them, whereas previously, as you have observed, they did not. Even if I could not prove that the link is a tradition, the tradition clearly provides a more than plausible solution.

    >>I've refuted your appeal to post-Nicene sources >>in the thread I linked to earlier:
    >
    >http://triablogue.blogspot.com/2007/03/in-another-thread-orthodox-wrote.html

    No mention of any post-Nicean fathers or sources here.

    >I didn't claim that Eastern Orthodoxy is
    >"thoroughly corrupt".

    That wasn't you? Someone here said something to the effect that Orthodoxy was a dead church or some such. So is Orthodoxy part of your invisible church?

    >You're mistaken. To begin with, as I've explained
    >to you before, I don't make canonical judgments
    >based only on what Christian sources reported.

    Of course you do. Even if you accept book "B" because you think internal evidence indicates the author is the same as book "A", you are still reliant on Christian sources to tell you who wrote book "A".

    >And the Christian sources in question didn't just
    >appeal to "Tradition". They discussed historical
    >evidence for the books.

    Right, they didn't just appeal to tradition, however tradition was the major component of their criteria. If most churches were using a book, it was a substantial reason for retaining the book.

    However, you lacking the main criterion, ought to come up with a different result, being as there is, not enough evidence to get the same canon from historical criteria.

    >Dionysius of Alexandria discussed internal and
    >external evidence related to the book of
    >Revelation

    And he came to the conclusion it wasn't apostolic!!!

    Thankyou for proving my point. Historical analysis is no foundation for the protestant canon.

    >Part of the problem here seems to be that you
    >don't know much about the canon. You're
    >making ignorant assertions based on
    >misconceptions.

    When you are the one who selectively cherry picks the evidence, how is it that I am ignorant and don't know much?

    >>"No it ISN'T quoted. Even if we accepted the
    >>allusions, that doesn't prove it is scripture does
    >>it?"
    >
    >Again, I didn't say that quotations or allusions >alone would prove canonicity.

    Be honest, it proves nothing at all. Fathers quoting 1 Clement would not shift you one bit.

    >Regarding whether 2 Peter is quoted, you've
    >given us no reason to accept your conclusion. I
    >and Steve Hays have already cited multiple
    >scholars who support our conclusion. You've
    >done nothing to interact with their data.

    I don't have access to your scholars. I suppose that means I am deficient in learning? But I think it's a metaphor for the problems of your historical canon thesis.

    >>"I thought everyone here was Baptists. What are >>you then?"
    >
    >Why should we tell you about our background
    >when you keep refusing to tell us about yours?

    I'm not asking your background, I'm asking your religion, not your life's story.

    >You'v been asked whether you're a convert from
    >another church, for example, and you didn't
    >respond. You also haven't told us what your
    >name is, for example.

    Is my name relevant? Is my life's story relevant? What religion you are NOW is relevant in understanding your point of view. What my life's story is can have no bearing on anything here. And given the polemical tone with which I was mocked, I can only assume this is a no-win situation. If I am cradle orthodox, then I'm a slave to my presuppositions. If I am a convert, there was some other mock coming my way.

    >Why would you assume that everybody here is a
    >Baptist? That makes no sense.

    Several people said they were baptists.

    >You're mistaken. Here we see, yet again, that one
    >of the problems in this discussion is your
    >ignorance of the issues we're discussing. Origen
    >and Eusebius aren't the only sources who
    >address 2 Peter in the timeframe in question.

    The other sources address 2 Peter as a questionable book.

    >When you appeal to a historical church, you're
    >making probability judgments. And if you're
    >making probability judgments about history,
    >then we're back to making a historical case for
    >the canon.

    If it's a probability, then I consider that Christ founded a church that the gates of hell will not prevail against, as a probability approaching one.

    >Why should we think that Eastern Orthodoxy
    >does more to encourage people to examine the
    >reasons for why they believe what they believe?

    I didn't say that. I said the opposite of that. I said that you and I both preach our point of view as fact. Only we have an ecclesiology in which that makes sense.

    >Steve Hays and I have repeatedly cited works by
    >multiple scholars that address the subject.
    >You've done nothing to refute that data.

    I don't have that data. I suppose it is locked up in Harvard theological library?

    >>"Tell us then what the standard of unity is."
    >
    >I already have. See my previous comments on 1 >Corinthians 15, Galatians 1, etc. Why do you so >often ignore what you've already been told?

    So is this the scenario where if you believe in Jesus, you have unity with them?

    Then how come on the Evangelical Free Church web site, in the statement of faith... just to pick one example, it says:

    "We believe in the personal and premillennial and imminent coming of our Lord Jesus Christ".

    So Jonathan Edwards wouldn't be allowed in your church, being a post-millenialist. James White wouldn't be allowed in as an a-millenialist.

    You see, your rhetoric doesn't match your actions. You claim you have unity with everyone who believes in Jesus, and then set up a standard of faith that has much much more.

    ReplyDelete
  14. "In essentials, unity. In non-essentials, charity. In all things, Jesus Christ." -- Chrysostom

    (From the Evangelical Free Church web site).

    So am I to understand that the Evangelical Free Church is charitable towards icon venerating, saint praying people like Chrysostom? It doesn't seem like that is what we are witnessing here in this blog.

    ReplyDelete
  15. Orthodox said:

    "Ahh yes, you said you felt justified in excluding groups from the Church, because we exclude Marcionites and gnostics and other wacky groups."

    Maybe you're being dishonest. Maybe you have a bad memory. I don't know. But you're mistaken in your characterization of what I said. In the thread you're referring to, I provided documentation from Hippolytus, Cyprian, and other sources who weren't comparable to the Gnostics or Marcionites. You've been corrected on this point repeatedly.

    You write:

    "You write confessions of faith that exclude other protestants, then out of the other side of your mouth claim unity."

    And you've called Roman Catholics "Christian", even though you disagree with them on many issues and don't include them in your denomination. As I've told you before, people can have unity in one context while not having it in another.

    You write:

    "Vague pontifications and quotes from favorite scholars hardly constitutes a valid argument."

    I wasn't vague. I addressed the details of what sources like Irenaeus and Tertullian wrote. And the scholar I cited went into detail and provided documentation.

    You write:

    "At least I'm following a consistent and historical position that the Church defines the rule of faith."

    You made that comment in response to what I said about how both of us rely on our own fallible judgment about what rule of faith to follow. How does your response refute anything I said? It doesn't. And you've failed to demonstrate that there's a "consistent and historical position" of following the Eastern Orthodox rule of faith.

    You write:

    "My personal opinions about the development of icons are probability, but that the Church is led into all truth and is the pillar and foundation of the truth is not a probability, unless one wants to say there is no Christian religion, no canon, no truth, which implies no God."

    That doesn't make sense. How would the fact that your interpretations of John 16:13 and 1 Timothy 3:15 involve probability judgments prove that "there is no Christian religion, no canon, no truth, which implies no God"? How do you know that John wrote the fourth gospel? How do you know that Paul wrote 1 Timothy? If you're going to use such passages to (erroneously) argue for an infallible church, then you can't appeal to that alleged infallible church in order to justify those interpretations. You have to make a historical case for accepting documents such as the fourth gospel and 1 Timothy (or the portions of those documents containing the passages in question, for example), and such a historical case involves probability judgments. Why do these things have to be explained to you? Why do you continue to misunderstand and misrepresent them even after they're explained to you repeatedly?

    You write:

    "Manuscript evidence? That proves nothing more than a Tradition, which you repudiate as invalid evidence"

    As I've explained before, you've given us no reason to believe that manuscripts are equivalent to "Tradition".

    You write:

    "Non-Christian sources? Very thin on the ground and are always dependant on the Christian sources anyway."

    Another assertion without evidence. How could you possibly know that non-Christian sources relied only on Christian sources of information? You don't know that, and it's logically unlikely that enemies of Christianity would only go to Christians for their information. Celsus, a second century critic of Christianity, consulted Jewish sources for much of his information. He didn't just accept whatever Christians told him.

    You write:

    "It is a requirement for the catholic church as a whole to pass on the traditions. It is not a requirement for individuals."

    Individuals are members of churches. If the church that men like Melito of Sardis, Tertullian, and Athanasius belonged to was passing on one canon, then why do such men disagree with each other and disagree with you about the canon they advocate? And if Eastern Orthodoxy has been passing down a canon, then why do Eastern Orthodox disagree with each other about the canon?

    You said:

    "The OT saints were in hades. Christ preaches to them in hades as all the church fathers taught. They are then raised to life (cf Mt 27:52). Now the people of God can talk to them, whereas previously, as you have observed, they did not. Even if I could not prove that the link is a tradition, the tradition clearly provides a more than plausible solution."

    First of all, you've failed to justify your assertion that "all the church fathers" taught what you're describing. Many of the fathers never even commented on the subject. There were many who believed in some form of an afterlife involving Hades and Christ's releasing people from it, but different fathers defined the concepts in different ways. And what does any of this do to prove that we should pray to the people in question? Do you even know what Hades was thought to be? It was just a different realm of what would commonly be called "Heaven" today. It's not as if men like Abraham and Noah were thought to be in Hell or something close to it. People like Hippolytus and Tertullian continue to refer to people going to Hades, even after Jesus' resurrection. How does a belief that some deceased believers were transferred to another area of the afterlife prove that we can and should pray to those deceased believers? Your argument doesn't make sense.

    And if praying to the deceased is acceptable after Jesus' resurrection, why is the practice not only absent from the Old Testament, but also the New Testament? Why is it also absent among the earliest church fathers? Why do some of the early fathers condemn the concept, and why do men like Tertullian, Origen, and Cyprian write entire treatises on the subject of prayer without even mentioning prayers to the deceased? Why, instead, do they refer to pray as something to be offered only to God?

    You write:

    "No mention of any post-Nicean fathers or sources here."

    I explained why your post-Nicene sources are too late to have the relevance you want them to have. And I've told you about fourth century sources who opposed praying to the dead, such as Lactantius and Vigilantius. Again, if praying to the deceased is absent and contradicted for thousands of years of Biblical and patristic history, then becomes popular in later centuries, it makes no sense to justify the practice by citing that later popularity.

    You write:

    "I don't have access to your scholars."

    If you don't want to go to a library or purchase books, whose fault is that? It's not our problem.

    You write:

    "Is my name relevant? Is my life's story relevant?"

    Yes, since your unwillingness to use your name and your unwillingness to answer questions about your church background are relevant to why you're behaving so irresponsibly in this forum. You seem to realize that your behavior is shameful, and you apparently don't want to be held accountable.

    You write:

    "What religion you are NOW is relevant in understanding your point of view."

    And your church background is relevant to understanding your point of view and why you do things like using material from Catholic Answers tracts, even though you claim to be Eastern Orthodox.

    You write:

    "Several people said they were baptists."

    And you thus concluded that everybody here is a Baptist? That makes no sense. But it is another illustration of your irrationality and why we should be doubtful of your judgment.

    You write:

    "The other sources address 2 Peter as a questionable book."

    What other sources? Name them. Give us documentation. Who are these sources of the third century or earlier who do what you're claiming?

    Thomas Schreiner writes:

    "Origen noted that some doubted the authenticity of 2 Peter (Eusebius, Hist. eccl. 6.25.11), but in his own writings he cited it six times, and we can conclude from this that the doubts of others were not compelling to him. It is also likely that Irenaeus knew and used 2 Peter...The evidence is disputed, but it seems likely that Clement of Alexandria wrote a commentary on 2 Peter (Hist. eccl. 6.14.1). Such a commentary would indicate a high estimation of the letter and would cast doubt on a late forgery since it is unlikely that Clement would have no information about its pseudonymity if the letter were written in the second century....It is also quite likely that Apocalypse of Peter was dependent upon 2 Peter. If so, 2 Peter was in circulation in the early part of the second century." (1, 2 Peter, Jude: The New American Commentary [Nashville, Tennessee: Broadman & Holman, 2003], p. 263)

    Schreiner also cites other sources, including manuscript evidence, and goes into more detail. And, as I said earlier, the testimony of Eusebius doesn't just tell us how he viewed 2 Peter. Eusebius also tells us how other people in his day viewed it, and it seems that a majority of the churches accepted 2 Peter at the time.

    You write:

    "If it's a probability, then I consider that Christ founded a church that the gates of hell will not prevail against, as a probability approaching one."

    Concluding that "a church" is involved doesn't single out Eastern Orthodoxy. And a probability "approaching one" is still a probability. You have to appeal to probabilities to make a historical case for Jesus' authority to begin with, so probabilities are also involved before we even get to a passage like Matthew 16. How do you know when the gospel of Matthew was written, who wrote it, that Matthew 16 has the meaning you think it has, etc.? Such issues involve probability judgments.

    You write:

    "So am I to understand that the Evangelical Free Church is charitable towards icon venerating, saint praying people like Chrysostom? It doesn't seem like that is what we are witnessing here in this blog."

    Since you criticize Epiphanius and other church fathers you disagree with, should I conclude that you're "uncharitable" toward them? Since you criticize Roman Catholics and belong to a different denomination than they do, should I conclude that you're "uncharitable" toward Roman Catholics?

    ReplyDelete
  16. >You seem to realize that your behavior is shameful,
    >and you apparently don't want to be held
    >accountable.

    How is it shameful? Because I disagree with you and agree with a 2000 year old church?

    What I "realize" is that that I'm dealing here with a child who throws temper tantrums when everyone won't agree with him. I don't see any reason to answer your questions under the current conditions. And it's this very juvenile behaviour from the bloggers here which is exactly why I'm not going to be baring my soul to anyone here. Get back to me if you want to grow up and learn something about other Christian traditions than your own.

    Verse for today: 1 Cor 13:2

    ReplyDelete
  17. Orthodox wrote:

    "How is it shameful? Because I disagree with you and agree with a 2000 year old church?"

    No, your behavior is shameful because you've made many false claims, have often repeated false claims even after being corrected, rarely support your arguments sufficiently, often contradict yourself, etc.

    You write:

    "What I 'realize' is that that I'm dealing here with a child who throws temper tantrums when everyone won't agree with him. I don't see any reason to answer your questions under the current conditions. And it's this very juvenile behaviour from the bloggers here which is exactly why I'm not going to be baring my soul to anyone here. Get back to me if you want to grow up and learn something about other Christian traditions than your own. Verse for today: 1 Cor 13:2"

    So, it's not "juvenile" for you to frequently post "LOL" before your responses to people, for you to keep contradicting yourself, for you to keep failing to support your assertions, etc.? It seems to me that you're "throwing a temper tantrum" and acting "juvenile" more than anybody else.

    ReplyDelete
  18. Hi, sorry to intrude into the discussion. Im an EO layman (recent convert from Evangelicalism) and interested in the topics you are discussing.

    In the post, it was stated that "Mr. Orthodox" (as I will refer to him to help clear up confusion and distinguish him from Orthodoxy as a whole) had a problem with his canon argument, namely

    "ii) Orthodox cannot tell us what is the official canon of his own communion. The Greek Orthodox has one, while the Russian Orthodox has another. So, according to his own adopted tradition, it’s still up for grabs."

    The content of official Orthodox tradition is, as far as I know, to be found primacily in ecumenical councils. The Quinsext Ecumenical Council teaches a full official canon that all Orthodox Christians are obligated to adhere to. If one national church fails to do so, that is their own problem. Orthodoxy has one canon of Scripture. Im not sure an official list of books is necessary for a canon argument against Protestantism, but I'll grant that assumption here.

    The canon argument that Mr. Orthodox has been trying to make could perhaps better be stated as follows:

    1. In order for the Bible to be binding on all Christians and to serve the authoritative role usually ascribed to it, the canon of Scripture must be a part of the official, public, divinely-inspired, infallible Christian revelation.

    2. The canon of Scripture was recognized and made binding and authoritative by the Church.

    3. Therefore, the Church must have those properties necessary for it to be capable of making the canon of Scripture recognized, binding, and authoritative.

    4. If the Church is capable of making the canon recognized, binding, and authoritative, the Church must be (in some sense) infallible, divinely inspired, and capable of making official and public declarations about its teaching.

    5. If Protestantism is true, the Church does not have the property of infallibility in a way that would ential the possibility of the Church issuing infallible, divinely-inspired public declarations about its teaching.

    6. Therefore, if Protestantism is true, then the biblical canon was not recognized and made binding and authoritative by the Church.

    Hence, it seems that if Protestantism is true, there is no authority that is part of the public Christian revelation on which the canon of Scripture stands. How would the Protestants out there respond to that argument?

    For an intelligent Orthodox blogger who is well-known for his intelligence and argues with Catholics and Protestants, see Perry Robinson's blog at

    www.energeticprocession.wordpress.com

    ReplyDelete
  19. MG SAID:

    “The content of official Orthodox tradition is, as far as I know, to be found primacily in ecumenical councils. The Quinsext Ecumenical Council teaches a full official canon that all Orthodox Christians are obligated to adhere to.”

    I don’t see a listing for the canonical books at Quinsext.

    http://triablogue.blogspot.com/2007/04/do-it-yourself-orthodoxy.html

    Am I missing something?

    “If one national church fails to do so, that is their own problem.”

    i) The problem is who speaks for Orthodoxy. Both the Greek Orthodox and Russian Orthodox churches are acquainted with, and claim to be in submission to, the ecumenical councils, do they not?

    So if they issue editions of the Bible with disparate canonical books, then which Orthodox church is correctly (or incorrectly) interpreting Orthodox tradition in the Orthodox witness to the canon?

    ii) Moreover, isn't an Orthodox believer a member of some national Orthodox church or another? And isn't he subject to the ruling body of the national church to which he belongs?

    If he's going to pull rank on the national church and go directly to the councils, then isn't he acting like his own Patriarch?

    “Orthodoxy has one canon of Scripture.”

    Which is what, in your opinion? And which ecumenical council specifies that particular canon?

    ***QUOTE***

    The canon argument that Mr. Orthodox has been trying to make could perhaps better be stated as follows:

    1. In order for the Bible to be binding on all Christians and to serve the authoritative role usually ascribed to it, the canon of Scripture must be a part of the official, public, divinely-inspired, infallible Christian revelation.

    2. The canon of Scripture was recognized and made binding and authoritative by the Church.

    3. Therefore, the Church must have those properties necessary for it to be capable of making the canon of Scripture recognized, binding, and authoritative.

    4. If the Church is capable of making the canon recognized, binding, and authoritative, the Church must be (in some sense) infallible, divinely inspired, and capable of making official and public declarations about its teaching.

    5. If Protestantism is true, the Church does not have the property of infallibility in a way that would ential the possibility of the Church issuing infallible, divinely-inspired public declarations about its teaching.

    6. Therefore, if Protestantism is true, then the biblical canon was not recognized and made binding and authoritative by the Church.

    Hence, it seems that if Protestantism is true, there is no authority that is part of the public Christian revelation on which the canon of Scripture stands. How would the Protestants out there respond to that argument?

    For an intelligent Orthodox blogger who is well-known for his intelligence and argues with Catholics and Protestants, see Perry Robinson's blog at

    www.energeticprocession.wordpress.com

    ***END-QUOTE***

    Several issues:

    1. Jason and I have often tangled with Robinson. Robinson has a habit of picking a fight with us, then bailing out of the discussion when the debate isn't going in his favor. When someone as bright and erudite as Robinson continually backs out of a fight which he initiated, that bodes ill for the cogency of his own position.

    2. You're using the aprioristic methodology which all high churchmen deploy, which is to stipulate a desired result, then reason backwards from your axiomatic postulate to a process which can yield this foregone conclusion.

    By contrast, Jason and I favor an a posteriori method whereby we study the way that God has actually governed the covenant community during the age of public revelation (OT; NT).

    One of the problems with your apriorism is that by seeking an ecclesiastical short-cut, you cease to study the way in which the rule of faith actually functioned in the life of God's covenant community.

    3. You're indulging in some sweeping, historical overgeneralizations.

    4. In what sense, even according to you, did the church make the canon authoritative? Are you saying that the canonical books lack any intrinsic authority, so that their (derivative) authority must be artificially imposed by an exoteric body?

    Could the church authorize any set of books, such as Gnostic apocrypha?

    5. Appealing to an authoritative church to authorize the canon only pushes the question back a step. If Scripture is not self-authenticating, then what authenticates the church?

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  20. Steve--

    Quinisext ratifies the following disciplinary canons:

    1. Canons of the Council of Laodicea
    2. Canons of the Council of Carthage
    3. The 85th Apostolic Canon
    4. The Canons of Athanasius
    5. The Canons of St. Gregory the Theologian
    6. The Canons of Saint Amphilochius of Ikonion

    Each of these contain different but non-conflicting lists of books to be included in the biblical canon. The last one states the list of divinely inspired books, which is the equivalent of the Protestant Old and New Testaments. Thus the Quinisext publicly promulgates and establishes the biblical canon.

    (i) This may be a problem for an individual national church itself in the sense that it isn’t keeping up after the exact manner of canon law. However, I don’t think its actually a problem for (1) the ability of the Church to have consensus on the biblical canon, or (2) our ability to recognize the contents of the canon. The reasons are as follows:

    First of all, I believe that Quinisext lays out a specific biblical canon. However, the actual nature of that biblical canon is different from what Protestants normally mean when they say “canon”. Not all of the canon is divinely inspired; some of it is just “respectable” or “holy”.

    Second of all, if the council didn’t actually state the canon or there were other problems, I could still say the following: the fact that the canons of two parts of the church don’t agree on one or two books just means that there isn’t implicit ecumenical consensus about one or two books. Thus they aren’t part of the canon that is mandatory for all parts of the church to possess. The rest of the books, however, have been received by the entirety of the Church understood as canon, and have implicit ecumenical consensus. Hence, those books that all the parts of the Church agree on constitute the canon of the Church. Individual parts of the church may still be anticipating a time when they can add those books to the canon (by getting everyone to be in consensus); but for now they can just be included with the Bibles of those who choose to include them, without other parts of the church being required to do so (cuz they aren’t part of the official canon of the whole Church).

    (ii) I think what was stated above can help resolve this issue. There would never be a need to do this because there’s no problem with some parts of the Church including different books in addition to the canon that is established by ecumenical consensus.

    1. That’s interesting that you’ve interacted with Perry before. Could you point me to some specific posts? (I’d like to see the arguments on both sides)

    2. I’m not sure that what you’re saying about me using an aprioristic method invalidates my argument. Your criticism sounds like an expression of dislike; but what about the argument I’ve made is bad? After all, sometimes we come across an argument for our position by assuming our position is true and looking around us to see what validates or invalidates it. That seems to be at the root of a lot of apologetics; the apologist assumes Christianity is true, then tries to look for what might support that. The actual way that I came to believe in the validity of the canon argument is by being convinced by an Orthodox person. It was one of the things that urged me to move from Protestantism to Orthodoxy; so at the very least it isn’t something that I did to validate a position I already believed in at the time.

    Perhaps I’ve misunderstood your criticism (in which case I apologize); would you care to explain it a little bit more?

    3. What sweeping historical overgeneralizations are you referring to exactly?

    4. I’m saying that the Church makes the canon authoritative through an infallible ecumenical consensus of the hierarchy to recognize the books of the Old and New Testaments as being the literature that expresses the content of the Christian revelation. The books have intrinsic authority in the sense that a bill being made in the Senate may have intrinsic authority prior to its approval: it might state what is true and have commands that express moral duties. However, it is the actual declaration of the governing body to publicly recognize and enforce the bill by its authority that binds the consciences of men to recognize the truthfulness and demands of that bill. The Bible was inspired (true and carrying divine authority) prior to the approval of the canon by the Church; however, the Church was the mechanism by which God revealed the inspiration and authority of the Bible.

    This would be similar to how Israel was the means by which God revealed his will (enshrined in the Mosaic law) to the nations. The disanalogy is that the Mosaic law was directly revealed by God and so it was part of public revelation even prior to Israel’s acceptance of it and proclamation of it. (and I’m also not sure Israel can meaningfully be spoken of as “infallible”) However, the New Testament isn’t part of public divine revelation until the Church accepts it. It seems like it would only be private until then.

    The question of whether the Church could authorize the Gnostic apocrypha can be answered:

    Yes, if God were very different and had acted in a way so that the contents of the Gnostic apocrypha were true, and that it was in fact inspired.

    No, if God acted the way the Old and New Testaments describe Him, and if He inspired the Old and New Testaments.

    Depending on how God is, He would have revealed himself accordingly (I assume).

    5. I would say that the Church’s authority seems to be grounded in the fact that the Jesus publicly entrusted the Church with the truth and declared that the Church would be led into all truth. At least this seems to be what grounds the Church’s authority (maybe another suggestion could be offered).

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