...interpretations, or heresies, regarding the bible formed. Although the heresy of Marcionism was outlandish and heavily disputed against, it actually aided in the emergence of the Catholic Church. According to John Knox, of the University of Chicago, “Among the creative personalities of early Christianity few are so interesting and important as Marcion, who was expelled from the Roman community… and whose activities gave rise to the most vigorous heretical movement within the ancient church”(p.1). According to the article, Marcion and Scripture: The Impact of a Second Century Heretic on the New Testament, Marcion’s early life was filled with disgrace. “At some point later, however, he was “excommunicated by his own father” for having seduced a consecrated virgin and “degraded both her and himself.” Most modern historians think that the story of Marcion's seduction of a virgin may be a symbolic tale in which the virgin represents the church and Marcion's seduction represents his introduction of heretical teaching”(p.1-3). After being excommunicated from the Church, he took his odd beliefs to Asia Minor. Adolf von Harnack, the author of Marcion The Gospel of the Alien God, explained the bishop of Smyrna, Polycarp’s views as “Polycarp sharply...
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...Clay Crumpler September 9, 2014 CHHI 301 Paper 1 The Foundation of Orthodoxy and the Canon How did we get the New Testament? That is a good question. Well we know that the New Testament is twenty-seven books ranging from AD 45 to approximately AD 100. (1) The New Testament was not written as one continuous book. Many different people at differing times and different locations wrote the books and then they were compiled much later. Who, then, decided which books should be included in the New Testament canon and which ones were to be left out?(2) In the Bible in 2 Timothy chapter 3 verses 16-17 "All Scripture is breathed out by God and profitable for teaching, for reproof, for correction, and for training in righteousness, that the man of God may be complete, equipped for every good word.” This is telling that God breathed out the message he wanted in the Bible so that all of us may learn from it and get to know him more. Even Jesus said in Matthew chapter 5 verse 18 “For truly I tell you, until heaven and earth disappear, not the smallest letter, not the least stroke of a pen, will by any means disappear from the Law until everything is accomplished” He talks about how the word of God was inspired to be the way it is and no one should change it because it is how God breathed it to be. The Cannon is a permanent list of authoritative book recognized as scripture. The word of God was written in three languages Hebrew, Aramaic, and Greek. (3) We do not have the original...
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...The Biblical Canon: The Movement, Methodologies, and People Who Influenced It Thomas Gainey CHHI 301: History of the Christian Church I February 7, 2016 Introduction In Christianity one of the key factors of its faith is the belief that the Bible is inerrant. Many great Christian leaders have expressed the importance of the Bible. Norman Geisler once stated “The inerrancy of Scripture is the foundational doctrine in which all other doctrines rest, and the Psalmist rightly said, ‘If the foundation be destroyed, then what can the righteous do?’” In his statement he expresses the truth behind the fact that the Christian faith resides on the fact that the Bible is inerrant. Interesting enough the Bible of today with its 66 books, 39 Old Testament, and 27 New Testament are very similar to the bible of the early church. In the words of Herman Ridderbos, "the history of the Canon is the process of the growing consciousness of the Church concerning its ecumenical foundation.” People have often wonder why certain books made into the Bible, but others did not. In this paper will look how we got the Bible we have today and what movements, people, and doctrines effected. Old Testament Canon The Old Testament known to Christians in the Bible is what is known to Jews as the Tanakh. This is made of the writings of the Laws, the Prophets, and the Psalms. Jesus Christ stated in Luke 24:44 “Everything must be fulfilled that is written about me in the Law of Moses, the Prophets and...
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...Mackenzie Rice Corn REL 250 28 November 2011 Gnosticism and Marcionism vs. Christianity What and where is heaven and hell? Many Christians today can answer these questions based on the beliefs they’ve obtained through the church. Most Christians would answer that heaven is a place in the sky where an obedient person’s soul goes after they die, and hell is a place in the ground where a misbehaved soul goes. These beliefs of afterlife are often taught in Christian churches; however, these beliefs weren’t always this way. This change was important because it answered the critical question in Christianity about the Last Judgment Day. This change took place after the church had to create specific writings of the beliefs of the Christian religion to refute the popular beliefs of Gnosticism and Marcionism. The ideas about heaven and hell came out of neo-platonic philosophy, which played the major role of influence in the Christian religious cults Gnosticism and Marcionism, who then prevailed with the same ideas that were adopted by the Christian orthodox. Another importance of this change in the history of the church is that the Christian orthodox today still practices these neo-platonic ideas that were first present in the Gnosticism and Marcionism. The Christian orthodox beliefs about heaven and hell would not be the same without the Gnostic and Marcionic influences on the church. Neo-platonic philosophy about heaven and hell show up in the beliefs of Gnostics and Marcionites...
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...CHHI 301, Research Paper 1 The New Testament Canon I have asked myself many times the question of where the bible came from. Was it divine prophesies, or was it simply a mish mash of letters, writings, and books all crammed together into one volume. How and when it was decided which books and letters was would be included, and who decided that? In this paper we will discuss how the New Testament was put together and the origins of the New Testament Canon. The New Testament is a very young document that dates from around 1,900 to 2000 years old. This may seem like a long time ago, but compared to the age of the Old Testament, and other recorded ancient writing it is really pretty recent. It is commonly accepted by most rational thinking people that the Bible as we currently have it today, didn’t just appear one day, but was put together by many different writers, and by many different scholars. So this begs the real question how did the current New Testament come to being and who besides God was behind the publication of the New Testament Canon. I will try in this research paper to paint a picture of how the New Testament Canon came to be, who was involved and what the process was that was used to select the books that were ultimately used. Most scholars agree that the early writers were not aware, or even intended to have books or letters published in the New Testament, they were simply writing to a specific audience. As an example when Paul wrote...
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...Lent-The 40 days prior to Easter.. Begins on Ash Wednesday, a time of penance Remembrance of Jesus’ fast and prayer in the desert, and his Christianity module 3 Marcion-2nd Christian who wanted to reject the Hebrew Bible, separating Christianity from its Jewish roots God of the NewT isn’t the same God of the Hebrew Bible. The former is loving; the latter is vengeful./Thus, Jesus is not the fulfillment of the Hebrew Bible, nor is he the Messiah/ jesus was sent from an “unknown” God—Marcion here uses Paul’s language He also wanted to leave out much of the NewT, at least any parts that seemed Jewish in content and context Therefore, he wanted no nativity, no genealogy, etc.)/Christianity as Minority Religion Rome had an imperial cult (emperor worship) that was the state religion; but most individuals also had their own traditional Practices/Most Christians in Asia Minor and Greece/Did not want to worship emperor/blamed for the Empire’s failings Emperor Julian attempts to ban Christianity in 360/Was not a religio licitia, a protected religion/Usually practiced in secret, primarily in private homes (“house” churches)/Developed strong networks and a kind of welfare systemChristianity as Minority Religion-Sunday becomes the day of worship: it was the first day of creation (the Sabbath is the last day created), and also the day on which Jesus was resurrected/Pliny and Trajan on Christians/Pliny to the Emperor Trajan: I have never participated in trials of Christians...
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...Testament were written in __Aramaic____ (2). 11. The New Testament was written in __Greek____ ______(2). 12. New greek______ ______was the language of the common people during the first century AD (2). 13. Why do you think God allowed the autographs to vanish (3)? To avoid biliolatry 14. In spite of the absence of the autographs, approximately 5,000 Greek manuscripts and an additional 13,000 fragments of the New Testament documents exist, providing significant manuscript evidence for New Testament scholars (3). compared to early writings 15. Motivators for canonizing the New Testament include the heretic _marcion_______ and the heretical movement, ___gnostisism_______ (3). 16. Marcion was a ___church bishop__________ who held a negative view of God as presented in the Old Testament (3). 17. Marcion rejected the Old Testament and as a consequence, he only accepted the Gospel according to Luke and ten Pauline epistles (3)....
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...Introduction to Gospels Life and teachings of Jesus Four Gospels – 3 Synoptic gospels plus John Jewish Sources – Josephus, 2 references; one authentic Talmud: Jesus a rabbi who practiced sorcery and led Israel astray Roman sources – Pliny the Younger letter to Emperor Trajan Tacitus – wrote that Nero blamed the fire in Rome on Christians Suetonius – expulsion of Jews from Rome by Claudius, AD 49 after disturbances initiated by “Chrestus.” NT Apocrypha – stories and sayings (reported) of Jesus - other gospels Difficulties in achieving biography of Jesus – He left no autobiographical material, none of the NT sources were written during his lifetime but later; material which exists is not in biographical form; gospels differ in details and content; sources written first such as writings of Paul contain almost nothing about the life of Jesus. Gospels are each interpretation of the life of Jesus. Nevertheless, gospels present Jesus as Christ or Messiah, God’s anointed. Jesus Seminar – quest for historical Jesus Core elements in life of Jesus – kerygma 1. Baptized by John the Baptizer 2. Was a Galilean who preached and healed 3. He called disciples and spoke of 12 4. Confined his activity to Israel 5. Engaged in controversy about the Temple 6. Was crucified outside Jerusalem by Rome authorities 7. Following his death, the followers of Jesus continued as an identifiable movement 8. Some Jews persecuted some parts of the new movement Gospels were written from...
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...1 (a) Explain the arguments surrounding the dating of Luke’s Gospel. There has been arguments predicting the date of Luke's gospel and the possible dates are the AD60’s, AD80’s (middle late first century), AD180’s (late second century). The argument for the dating to be the AD60’s is that the book of acts had to have been written before AD62 as the book suddenly ends with the imprisonment of the apostle Paul. The book of acts ended with Paul’s imprisonment which was unexpected as it did not include any of the other important events that happened after the imprisonment took place for example: James martyrdom the brother of Jesus and the leader of Jerusalem which happened in AD62, also Paul’s martyrdom and the persecution of emperor Nero etc. Another example of evidence that Luke’s gospel was written before AD62 is that there is no mention of the fall of Jerusalem in the book of acts which happened in the AD70’s this was quite a big event that took place and was still not mentioned. The book of acts only seems to focus on the events that were relevant before the fall of Jerusalem. If the book of acts was written before AD62 then the gospel of Luke was written a short time before this. Luke’s purpose was to present the progression of the gospel from Jerusalem and Rome. Another possible date that is argued is the AD80’s as Luke’s knowledge of the great fall of Jerusalem as an event of the past is more apparent compared to Matthew and mark. Luke depended on marks gospel which...
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...Bible put together? Since the argument is extremely complex and much of the details are lost or were never recorded, we will be exploring the different events that drove the movement, along with several different opinions of when the Bible was Complete or Canonized. There were two particular movements during the second century that made the Church realize a need to have a compilation of books that were universally accepted. The first movement, although not as well know, was Marcionism. This heretical sect was started by Marcion who was born into Christianity but had a deep dislike for Judaism and the material world. He believed that the God and Father of Jesus are not the same as the creator Yahweh, and it was the Father's purpose to only have a spiritual world. But, Yahweh messed up and placed mankind there also. Therefore since Yahweh was who inspired the Hebrew Scriptures Marcion didn't believe in the Old Testament. It was this belief that led Marcion to come up with his own collection of scriptures that he considered to be truly Christian, but with all the Old Testament references removed. These...
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...terms for the first time on the exam, but they will not be obscure. You will be able to choose the four that you can best identify from a list of 8-10. Finally, I will ask you to write one of the following essay questions. If you prepare an outline in advance for each of the questions, you will be well prepared for the exam. (40 pts.) 1. In the theological debate inaugurated by the priest, Arius, the interpretation of Proverbs 8:22 ("The Lord created me and before the ages He established me...") plays a key role. Explain how Arius understood this passage and what implications it had for his Christology. What was the response of his theological opponents, and what was the outcome of the debate for Arius, and for the Church? 2. Marcion initiated an important debate that has been held responsible for the impetus in the Church to establish a New Testament canon. Explain Marcion’s view of Christian scriptures. What position did he take concerning the Hebrew Bible or Old Testament? Why? What did his position imply concerning the nature of the Old Testament God, and the relationship between Judaism and Christianity? How did the Church respond? 3. Roman and North African churches were beset by conflict during the third century concerning the Church’s ability to forgive certain egregious sins, which entailed a larger concern for moral requirements for membership in the Church. Explain how the controversy between Hippolytus and Callistus, and between Novatian, Cornelius, and...
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...as canon to a lesser degree. The heretical teachers from Asia Minor author of Roman Canon of sacred books did not believe that the New Testament books superseded the Old Testament others were omitted and did not recognize 10 Pauline Epistles but accepted 13 Epistles. [2] The Latin Greek word Kanon (kav’wv) defined as a measuring rod or index list centuries later the secondary word for the Church to recognize the Scripture of the Bible. The disciples and the Jews used a Septuagint from Alexandria Egypt is the early Greek translation of the Old Testament dating to BC 250. In the 3rd Century BC included the deuteron canonical books. The New Testament books were not in existence until after 300 the death of Christ. The person known as Marcion tried to develop a New Testament Canon and it conclude the Gospel. His goal was to have the Jews reject their Jewish Heritage. The Council of Nicaea was very un-inspirational calling to order in 325 AD with Athanasius an Assistant Bishop who opposed and denounced the Trinity this caused a divide in the Churches in which a Nicene...
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...The question is traditionally referred to as the formation of the canon. To begin our investigation we will need to have a sound understanding of the terminology. Our English word "canon" is a loan-word from the Latin canon, which in turn was derived from the Greek kanon. For our purposes it is important to trace the linguistic development of the term. While the Greek word kanon does occur in the New Testament it cannot be translated by "canon" in English. In each case it is more suitably translated "rule" or "standard" (2 Cor.10:13,15,16; Gal.6:16; Phil.3:16). It will be noted that all the occurrences of the word are in Paul's writings, and in none of these instances is he referring to the canon of Scripture. That was to be a much later development. Movement in this direction occurred when "in the second century in the Christian church kanon came to stand for revealed truth, rule of faith." 1 Here we are distinguishing the redemptive-historical idea of the Canon, in which we may take note of three main elements: 1. That of exclusive authority, according to the authorization of the apostles by Christ himself; 2. That of a qualitatively closed unity, according to the unrepeatable and unique character of the apostolic witness; 3. That of fixation and stabilization, according to its destination as foundation and depositum custodi of the Church. At the same time, it should be stated that this concept of the Canon cannot be harmonized with the idea that the Canon...
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...Foundation: The Orthodoxy and the Canon 4/25/2016 Submitted To- Professor C Paul King CHHI-301 2 Foundation: The Orthodoxy and the Canon Many in today’s culture follow this sad, but dangerous view: there is no truth that can be deemed as absolute truth. A few years back, I can recall sitting in a classroom at a Union County High school here in Tennessee, as the teacher begins to introduce himself and his stance on philosophy. The teacher, in his introduction states an ignorant statement in a very arrogant manner: “There is no such thing as absolute truth, just personal opinion.” He continued by stating, “Because there is no absolute truth, there is no absolute truth in the matter of what is right and wrong.” A few students were shocked by this statement and raised their hands to ask about whether certain issues were right or wrong–– such as stealing, murder, drug use, abortion, and similar issues. He attempted to shoot all their examples down, with a sense of arrogance on his face. I slowly slipped my hand up and asked him the following statement: “What about incest, where relatives molest and rape their children?” I will never forget the look on his face, his smirk swiftly dropped to the floor. As he stumbled through his incoherent response, I thought about the importance of absolute truth. Christians need to realize the importance of what our Canon represents: a book of absolute truth given to us by our God. We are living in a generation where...
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...compared to Protestants. These include Tobit, Judith, Wisdom, Sirach, 1 and 2 Macabees and Baruch. During the Reformation, Luther felt some books of the Bible were irrelevant since and thus removed them. This is the origin of the Protestant Bible. Orthodox Bibles have extra books such as 3 and 4 Macabees, and 1 and 2 Esradas which is similar to Ezra and Nehemiah. Some books here are named differently from the Protestant and Catholic Bible such as 1 and 2 Kingdoms which is called 1 and 2 Samuel in the Protestant and Catholic Bibles. The order of the books is different too with Jeremiah and Daniel having other books within it. Thus the Orthodox Bible has 53 books, while Protestants have 39 and Catholics have 46. Interestingly, a Christian named Marcion wanted to highlight the differences between Judaism and Christianity. Hence, he suggested removing the entire Old Testament in the Bible. Orthodox Christianity firmly opposed this movement and emphasised the importance of the Old Israel. However the New Testament is still exactly the same as Protestants. The New Testament is made up of the gospels and letters or epistles. Gospels are derived from the old English word ‘godspell’ which is means ‘good news’ in Greek. The gospels are a short biography of Jesus, written by eye-witnesses such as Matthew, Mark, Luke and John. The reason why four gospels were chosen was mainly from Bishop Irenaeus of Lyons who suggested the four corners of the earth and four winds. These gospels were chosen because...
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