[poll] Christianity-Helping or Hurting?

granolagoddess

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« Reply #45 on: July 13, 2006, 11:51:11 am »

How many Christians know:

1. From when to when was the Bible written—the Holy Bible as we know it today?
I am not sure of the answer, because I do not know a as in a date, but I do know the pentatuch was written by or at least attributed to Moses.
2. What collection of books, (early bible), did Christians commonly read before the bible, as we know it today, was put together?
Well, they read the torah, insofar as it was available and insofar as they could read. They also read letters and other writings by the disciples, but most likely oral tradition was used to pass down inrormation over the years. How were the Gospels written? The exciting events of the early Church were
shared orally at first. Next they were complied from oral sources into a
collection of sayings, and other materials. Then the oral kerygma and
didache and other materials were committed to writing.

It should be understood that in those times oral remembrance and tradition
were often counted as more accurate than writing. This was because
forgeries could not be detected as easily as in our day and for other
reasons. In addition as the New Testament itself notes the writing was
during the life times of people who were still alive and who could refute
any errors, or support what was said as witnesses to what was said and done.
Why are there so many possibilities for the human authorship of these books
of the New Testament? There are many reasons. The first is that apart from
the Bible there is little that is known about the early or primitive Church
for the first several centuries of its life. For much of the first 300
years Christians were hiding from persecution. In addition most early
Christians were people who were poor, or not the sort to produce
literature. The absence of evidence allows scholars, and others who have
various motives, to write speculative books on the subject. Many of these
works commit the fallacy of ad ignorantum. That is, they are arguments from
silence.

3. What happened to this collection of books that early Christians regarded & accepted as the bible?

The New Testament was not written all at once. The books that compose it appeared one after another in the space of fifty years, i.e. in the second half of the first century. Written in different and distant countries and addressed to particular Churches, they took some time to spread throughout the whole of Christendom, and a much longer time to become accepted. The unification of the canon was not accomplished without much controversy (see CANON OF THE HOLY SCRIPTURES). Still it can be said that from the third century, or perhaps earlier, the existence of all the books that to-day form our New Testament was everywhere known, although they were not all universally admitted, at least as certainly canonical. However, uniformity existed in the West from the fourth century. The East had to await the seventh century to see an end to all doubts on the subject. In early times the questions of canonicity and authenticity were not discussed separately and independently of each other, the latter being readily brought forward as a reason for the former; but in the fourth century, the canonicity was held, especially by St. Jerome, on account of ecclesiastical prescription and, by the fact, the authenticity of the contested books became of minor importance. We have to come down to the sixteenth century to hear the question repeated, whether the Epistle to the Hebrews was written by St. Paul, or the Epistles called Catholic were in reality composed by the Apostles whose names they bear. Some Humanists, as Erasmus and Cardinal Cajetan, revived the objections mentioned by St. Jerome, and which are based on the style of these writings. To this Luther added the inadmissibility of the doctrine, as regards the Epistle of St. James. However, it was practically the Lutherans alone who sought to diminish the traditional Canon, which the Council of Trent was to define in 1546.

4. Who decided which books were chosen to go into the bible as we know it today?
See above
5. Were the people who chose which books went into the bible--the bible we know today, inspired by God?
We don't really know that, because we cannot see into their hearts...but they were scholars...
6. What was the motive of the people who chose the books of the bible—the bible as we know it today?
To make a consistent document that supported traditional views of christianity.
7. What was the general process of how a book was deemed to go into the bible—the bible as we know it today?
(1) The different readings attested for the same word were first noted, then they were classed according to their causes; involuntary variants: lapsus, homoioteleuton, itacismus, scriptio continua; voluntary variants, harmonizing of the texts, exegesis, dogmatical controversies, liturgical adaptations. This however was only an accumulation of matter for critical discussion.

(2) At first, the process employed was that called individual examination. This consists in examining each case by itself, and it nearly always had as result that the reading found in most documents was considered the right one. In a few cases only the greater antiquity of certain readings prevailed over numerical superiority. Yet one witness might be right rather than a hundred others, who often depend on common sources. Even the oldest text we have, if not itself the original, may be corrupt, or derived from an unfaithful reproduction. To avoid as far as possible these occasions of error, critics were not long before giving preference to the quality rather than to the number of the documents. The guarantees of the fidelity of a copy are known by the history of the intermediate ones connecting it with the original, that is by its genealogy. The genealogical process was brought into vogue especially by two great Cambridge scholars, Westcott and Hort. By dividing the texts, versions, and Patristic citations into families, they arrived at the following conclusions:

(a) The documents of the New Testament are grouped in three families that may be called Alexandrian, Syrian, and Western. None of these is entirely free from alterations.

The text called Western, best represented by D, is the most altered although it was widely spread in the second and third centuries, not only in the West (primitive Latin Version, St. Irenæ St. Hippolitus, Tertullian, St. Cyprian), but also in the East (primitive Syriac Version, Tatian, and even Clement of Alexandria). However, we find in it a certain number of original readings which it alone has preserved.
The Alexandrian text is the best, this was the received text in Egypt and, to a certain extent, in Palestine. It is to be found, but adulterated in C (at least as regards the Gospels). It is more pure in the Bohaïric Version and in St. Cyril of Alexandria. The current Alexandrian text however is not primitive. It appears to be a sub-type derived from an older and better preserved text which we have almost pure in B and N. It is this text that Westcott and Hort call neutral, because it has been kept, not absolutely, but much more than all the others, free from the deforming influences which have systematically created the different types of text. The neutral text which is superior to all the others, although not perfect, is attested by Origen. Before him we have no positive testimony, but historical analogies and especially the data of internal criticism show that it must be primitive.
Between the Western text and the Alexandria text is the place of the Syrian, which was that used at Antioch in Cappadocia and at Constantinople in the time of St. John Chrysostom. It is the result of a methodical "confluence" of the Western text with that received in Egypt and Palestine towards the middle of the third century. The Syrian text must have been edited between the years 250 and 350. This type has no value for the reconstruction of the original text, as all the readings which are peculiar to it are simply alterations. As regards the Gospels, the Syrian text is found in A and E, F, G, H, K, and also in most of the Peschitto manuscripts, Armenian Version, and especially in St. John Chrysostom. The "received text" is the modern descendant of this Syrian text.
(b) The Latin Vulgate cannot be classed in any of these groups. It evidently depends on an eclectic text. St. Jerome revised a western text with a neutral text and another not yet determined. The whole was contaminated, before or after him, by the Syrian text. What is certain is that his revision brought the Latin version perceptibly nearer to the neutral text, that is to say to the best. As to the received text which was compiled without any really scientific method, it should be put completely aside. It differs in nearly 8000 places from the text found in the Vaticanus, which is the best text known.

(c) We must not confound a received text with the traditional text. A received text is a determined type of text used in some particular place, but never current in the whole Church. The traditional text is that which has in its favour the constant testimony of the entire Christian tradition. Considering the substance of the text, it can be said that every Church has the traditional text, for no Church was ever deprived of the substance of the Scripture (in as far as it preserved the integrity of the Canon); but, as regards textual criticism of which the object is to recover the ipsissima verba of the original, there is no text now existing which can be rightly called "traditional". The original text is still to be established, and that is what the editions called critical have been trying to effect for the last century.

(d) After more than a century's work are there still many doubtful readings? According to Westcott and Hort seven-eighths of the text, that is 7000 verses out of 8000, are to be considered definitely established. Still more, critical discussions can even now solve most of the contested cases, so that no serious doubts exist except concerning about one-sixtieth of the contents of the New Testament. Perhaps even the number of passages of which the authenticity has not yet had a sufficient critical demonstration does not exceed twelve, at least as regards substantial alterations. We must not forget, however, that the Cambridge critics do not include in this calculation certain longer passages considered by them as not authentic, namely the end of St. Mark (xvi, 9-20) and the episode of the adulteress (John 8:1-11).

(3) These conclusions of the editors of the Cambridge text have in general been accepted by the majority of scholars. Those who have written since them, for the past thirty years, B. Weiss, H. Von Soden, R. C. Gregory, have indeed proposed different classifications; but in reality they scarcely differ in their conclusions. Only in two points do they differ from Westcott and Hort. These latter have according to them given too much importance to the text of the Vaticanus and not enough to the text called Western. As regards the last-mentioned, modern discoveries have made it better known and show that it is not to be overmuch depreciated.
General Questions:

A. Why are many Christians, (just about every one I have ever met), completely unable to answer these most profound, fundamental, basic, & truly inherent questions about their very own faith?

Because the church tries never to explain itself.

B. Why do many, (literally every one I have ever met in my life in person, not on this board), Christians find such intrinsic questions as heretical, as showing a lack of faith, and just wrong?

Because they are ignorant to the point of thinking education is a sin....

C. In your opinion would Jesus find a person who is sincerely, from their heart, asking/researching/contemplating the above questions to be backslidden, weird, heretical, or showing a lack of faith?

No....