Sunday, August 30, 2009
Orthodoxy and Scripture 1: Septuagint vs. Masoretic
My newest YouTube video.
This video is part one to a series of videos I'm doing on Holy Scripture (inspired by my debate with Rhology). In this video, I discuss the Old Testament, paying special attention to why the Orthodox use the Septuagint instead of the Masoretic, as Protestants and Jews use.
If you're interested in reading the Septuagint for yourself, click here.
For more information on the Septuagint, including a complete list of quotes from the Septuagint in the New Testament and a comparison with the Masoretic, click here.
For a scholarly site with lots of info on the Septuagint, click here.
To watch more of my videos, check out my YouTube channel here.
Friday, August 28, 2009
More Councils of the Orthodox Church
My newest YouTube video.
This video is a supplement to my previous video on the Ecumenical Councils. In this video I address four additional important Councils: the Quinisext Council, the Fourth and Fifth Councils of Constantinople, and the Council of Jerusalem.
To read the canons of the Quinisext Council, click here.
For more on why the Fourth and Fifth Council of Constantinople are often considered the Eighth and Ninth Ecumenical Councils, click here.
For more on the Fourth Council of Constantinople, click here.
For more on the hesychast controversy, St. Gregory Palamas, and the Fifth Council of Constantinople, click here.
To read the statements of the Council of Jerusalem, click here.
For a complete list of all the Councils of the Orthodox Church and a summary of the decisions of each, click here.
To see more of my videos, check out my YouTube channel here.
Monday, August 24, 2009
Sola Scriptura debate opening statement
Before I begin, I want to thank Rhology for agreeing to this debate and acknowledge that he did the most work in planning out the schedule and topic. My hope is that this debate will remain both serious and friendly.
During this debate, Rhology will defend the position that Scripture is the sole infallible authority for Christians. In his attempts to provide substantiation for Sola Scriptura, Rhology will have to bring forth arguments which essentially attempt to evade the point, as Sola Scriptura is so clearly untenable.
Rhology will argue, against the explicit testimony of history, that there was a period in which what was “really” the canon all along came to be finalized and recognized by Christians. He will have to admit, however, that during this period, which must have lasted for at least the first 500 years of Christianity, Sola Scriptura was impossible; therefore, it is impossible that the Apostles taught it, so Scripture does not teach it.
I, though, will present the indubitable history of Scripture, which itself demonstrates the unhistorical nature of Sola Scriptura. The development of the Christian canon of Scripture spanned several hundred years and was largely undertaken as a reaction to the writings and canons of heretics, especially Marcion, who compiled the earliest Christian canon, which included only edited versions of the Gospel of Luke and ten of St. Paul’s letters. Forming an Orthodox canon was one means by which early Christians fought heretics like this, but such a canon was never intended to be the sole infallible authority for the Church. We know this because none of the individuals who took part in forming this canon introduced such an idea. The canon of Scripture was not set over the Church; it was intended to be used by and within the Church, under the Church’s authority.
Reading the Christians of the first four centuries, we can watch as the canon of Scripture is formed. Taking the gospels as an example, we read in the earliest fathers various sayings and activities of Christ (some of them not recorded in the four gospels we have!) but rarely is a particular source cited; most of these were preserved in oral tradition. Later, St. Justin the Philosopher (AD 150) mentions an unspecified number of “memoirs of the Apostles.” It is with St. Irenaeus of Lyons in AD 180 that we find a four-gospel canon for the first time and his lengthy defense of it, involving a comparison with the four winds and other natural sets of four, shows that the idea of four gospels was a novelty in his time.
As late as 325, the historian Eusebius lists James, Jude, 2 Peter, 2 and 3 John, and the Apocalypse, all of which are in our New Testament, alongside several writings which are not, as “disputed.”
The earliest date at which we find our current New Testament with all 27 of its books and no others is in 367, in a letter by St. Athanasius of Alexandria. Debates about the contents of the New Testament, though, continued long after this. The three oldest complete (or nearly complete) Bibles which we have, Codex Vaticanus, Codex Sinaiticus, and Codex Alexandrinus, all date from around the time of Athanasius as well, and the New Testament of each differs both from each other and from Athanasius’, including in them books which we do not include and excluding books which we do include.
This shows that Sola Scriptura would have been impossible for the first several hundred years of Christianity. This is important because the Scripture tells us, in Jude 1:3, to “contend earnestly for the faith which was once for all delivered to the saints.” If the Apostles and early Christians weren’t even capable of practicing such a thing, it is clearly not part of “the faith which was once for all delivered to the saints.” And, as St. Paul tells us in Galatians 1:8, anyone who teaches a Gospel different from that which the Apostles taught is “accursed.”
In addition to the above tactic, Rhology, in an attempt to make the illogical heresy of Sola Scriptura appear logical, will produce an even more muddling argument, namely, that there are in fact two canons, the one which is divinely inspired and the other which is man’s knowledge of what the first consists of. All of this is simply an attempt to evade what is an undeniable fact of history: the Church decided what Scripture is and duly preserved it for us.
Protestants are forced to trust the Church in regards to the preservation and canonization of Scripture. Other than a few fragments, we have no older texts of the New Testament than the 4th century; Protestants are forced to trust that the Church reliably chose and preserved Scripture.
They are also forced to admit a point which demonstrates just how illogical Sola Scriptura really is. Nowhere in Scripture does Scripture actually lay out the canon of books contained in Scripture! The authorial attributions of many of the books of the New Testament are also nowhere to be found in Scripture. Protestants are forced to admit that the Church infallibly decided the canon of Scripture and has authority in this matter. If the Church was not infallible in deciding the canon of Scripture, then the canon of Scripture is fallible and Scripture is errant, unworthy of being called the sole authority for the Church and, obviously, incapable of being called an infallible authority. If the Church did not have this authority, the canon of Scripture is still open and things can be added and subtracted (this is the logical conclusion that Martin Luther, the inventor of the Sola Scriptura heresy, reached, as he added words and deleted entire books to support his views). And if, as must be admitted, the Church did indeed act infallibly and with authority in choosing the canon of Scripture, the Protestant must answer the question: Why was the Holy Spirit able to guide the canonization of Scripture but, according to you, no other decisions of the Church?
The scheme that Rhology will introduce, positing canon1 and canon2, is nothing more than a deceptive plot to get around the clear truth. He will state that while canon1 has always been the sole infallible authority for the Church, canon2 is our knowledge of what canon1 consists of, which knowledge has not always been complete. In the end, even if this argument were true, it would still lead back in a circle to the original question: how do we know that canon2 now matches canon1 (perhaps they better matched in the 3rd century, when The Shepherd of Hermas, Epistle of Barnabas, and Epistles of Clement were included in Scripture)? The answer in the end remains the same: because the Church, which is the true sole infallible authority has made the decision.
Rhology will also take Scripture verses out of context in order to support his position. As Scripture nowhere includes the words “Scripture only” or anything even remotely resembling the doctrine of Sola Scriptura, Protestants have found it necessary since their beginning to twist and mangle and invent strained interpretations for the words of Holy Scripture (or even alter the words of Scripture itself when they posed too great a problem) to find support for their beliefs.
Sola Scriptura is ultimately self-refuting. If only Scripture is a binding authority on matters of faith, and Scripture nowhere contains the doctrine of Sola Scriptura, then it cannot be true. Sola Scriptura is not only outside the self-understanding of the Scriptures; it even directly contradicts this self-understanding.
Whereas the reliance on “Scripture only” is nowhere found in Scripture, Scripture frequently points its readers outside of itself and certainly never understands itself as a coherent whole or closed canon. Such an attitude would have been foreign to the minds and times of Scripture’s authors.
The Epistle of Jude, for instance, quotes from two books which are not part of the canon of Scripture as if they were Scripture. In verse 9, Jude paraphrases from the Assumption of Moses; in verses 14-15 Jude quotes verbatim from 1 Enoch. Both of these Old Testament Apocryphal books are not included in the canon of Scripture and yet Jude clearly understands them to be Scripture. Scripture, then, is speaking of books which are not Scripture as if they were Scripture; coherency and canonization, requirements for a doctrine like Sola Scriptura, are clearly not in play here.
St. Paul, in his letters, also makes reference to 1 Enoch, taking his readers’ acceptance of it for granted. In both Ephesians 1:21 and Colossians 1:16, Paul uses the words of Enoch to describe the heavenly hosts.
Paul also draws on Jewish oral traditions, again unquestioningly accepting their validity as part of God’s revelation under the Old Covenant. In 1 Corinthians 10:4, for example, he speaks of the rock that Moses struck with his staff and brought forth water from as having “followed [the Israelites].” The Old Testament makes no mention of this Rock moving anywhere; Jewish oral tradition, though, taught that it followed the Israelites throughout the desert. It is this tradition which Paul is referencing.
Paul also quotes frequently from the early Christian Liturgy. For example, historians and textual critics have long recognized that Paul is quoting early Christian hymns in Philippians 2:6-11 and also in Galatians 3:27. In fact, the latter is still sung at every Orthodox baptism to this day.
Paul also points his readers even to that very thing which Sola Scriptura was invented to undermine: Tradition. In 1 Corinthians 11:2 he applauds the Corinthians for “keep[ing] the traditions just as I delivered them to you.” In 2 Thessalonians he twice refers to Tradition. In 2 Thess. 3:6, Paul commands Christians to “withdraw from” those who do not walk according to the tradition which he and the other Apostles taught. Earlier, in 2 Thess. 2:15, he admonishes the Thessalonians to “stand fast and hold the traditions which you were taught, whether by word or our epistle.”
Note that: “by word or our epistle.” What is preserved in the New Testament? Epistles; spoken words, obviously, are not. Paul is pointing his readers to oral tradition. Scripture is clearly pointing outside of itself. This verse makes clear that observance of oral tradition is an Apostolic commandment.
In addition to pointing us to oral tradition, Scripture also points outside of itself in regards to interpretation and authority. In 2 Peter 1:20, we are told that “no prophecy of Scripture is a matter of private interpretation.” The story of the Apostle Philip and the Ethiopian eunuch in Acts 8:26-40 also confirms that we cannot properly understand Scripture “unless someone guides [us]” (Acts 8:31).
So, if Scripture forbids that Scripture be interpreted individually, who, then, is to interpret it for us? Scripture points us to the authority: the Church. Christ promised the Church infallibility, assuring us “the gates of Hades will not prevail against it” (Matthew 16:18). He also gave authority to the Church, telling the Apostles, the original Bishops from whom all Orthodox Bishops since derive their succession via laying on of hands, that “whatever you bind on earth will be bound in heaven, and whatever you loose on earth will be loosed in heaven” (Matt. 18:18). As we can see, it is clear from Scripture that the Church, not Scripture, is the sole infallible authority for Christians.
Of note also is that Paul grants the authority to interpret Scripture (“rightly dividing the word of truth”) only to a newly-ordained fellow-Bishop (2 Timothy 2:15).
The Christian “faith … was once and for all handed down to the saints.” It is our job to “contend earnestly” for this faith, as any different teaching is “accursed.” Sola Scriptura is clearly not a part of this faith as it would have been impossible for the Apostles and early Christians to hold such a position. Sola Scriptura is illogical and it is in disobedience to Scripture. Orthodox Christians obey the commandment of Scripture and reject it.
[word count: 1999]
Post comments here
During this debate, Rhology will defend the position that Scripture is the sole infallible authority for Christians. In his attempts to provide substantiation for Sola Scriptura, Rhology will have to bring forth arguments which essentially attempt to evade the point, as Sola Scriptura is so clearly untenable.
Rhology will argue, against the explicit testimony of history, that there was a period in which what was “really” the canon all along came to be finalized and recognized by Christians. He will have to admit, however, that during this period, which must have lasted for at least the first 500 years of Christianity, Sola Scriptura was impossible; therefore, it is impossible that the Apostles taught it, so Scripture does not teach it.
I, though, will present the indubitable history of Scripture, which itself demonstrates the unhistorical nature of Sola Scriptura. The development of the Christian canon of Scripture spanned several hundred years and was largely undertaken as a reaction to the writings and canons of heretics, especially Marcion, who compiled the earliest Christian canon, which included only edited versions of the Gospel of Luke and ten of St. Paul’s letters. Forming an Orthodox canon was one means by which early Christians fought heretics like this, but such a canon was never intended to be the sole infallible authority for the Church. We know this because none of the individuals who took part in forming this canon introduced such an idea. The canon of Scripture was not set over the Church; it was intended to be used by and within the Church, under the Church’s authority.
Reading the Christians of the first four centuries, we can watch as the canon of Scripture is formed. Taking the gospels as an example, we read in the earliest fathers various sayings and activities of Christ (some of them not recorded in the four gospels we have!) but rarely is a particular source cited; most of these were preserved in oral tradition. Later, St. Justin the Philosopher (AD 150) mentions an unspecified number of “memoirs of the Apostles.” It is with St. Irenaeus of Lyons in AD 180 that we find a four-gospel canon for the first time and his lengthy defense of it, involving a comparison with the four winds and other natural sets of four, shows that the idea of four gospels was a novelty in his time.
As late as 325, the historian Eusebius lists James, Jude, 2 Peter, 2 and 3 John, and the Apocalypse, all of which are in our New Testament, alongside several writings which are not, as “disputed.”
The earliest date at which we find our current New Testament with all 27 of its books and no others is in 367, in a letter by St. Athanasius of Alexandria. Debates about the contents of the New Testament, though, continued long after this. The three oldest complete (or nearly complete) Bibles which we have, Codex Vaticanus, Codex Sinaiticus, and Codex Alexandrinus, all date from around the time of Athanasius as well, and the New Testament of each differs both from each other and from Athanasius’, including in them books which we do not include and excluding books which we do include.
This shows that Sola Scriptura would have been impossible for the first several hundred years of Christianity. This is important because the Scripture tells us, in Jude 1:3, to “contend earnestly for the faith which was once for all delivered to the saints.” If the Apostles and early Christians weren’t even capable of practicing such a thing, it is clearly not part of “the faith which was once for all delivered to the saints.” And, as St. Paul tells us in Galatians 1:8, anyone who teaches a Gospel different from that which the Apostles taught is “accursed.”
In addition to the above tactic, Rhology, in an attempt to make the illogical heresy of Sola Scriptura appear logical, will produce an even more muddling argument, namely, that there are in fact two canons, the one which is divinely inspired and the other which is man’s knowledge of what the first consists of. All of this is simply an attempt to evade what is an undeniable fact of history: the Church decided what Scripture is and duly preserved it for us.
Protestants are forced to trust the Church in regards to the preservation and canonization of Scripture. Other than a few fragments, we have no older texts of the New Testament than the 4th century; Protestants are forced to trust that the Church reliably chose and preserved Scripture.
They are also forced to admit a point which demonstrates just how illogical Sola Scriptura really is. Nowhere in Scripture does Scripture actually lay out the canon of books contained in Scripture! The authorial attributions of many of the books of the New Testament are also nowhere to be found in Scripture. Protestants are forced to admit that the Church infallibly decided the canon of Scripture and has authority in this matter. If the Church was not infallible in deciding the canon of Scripture, then the canon of Scripture is fallible and Scripture is errant, unworthy of being called the sole authority for the Church and, obviously, incapable of being called an infallible authority. If the Church did not have this authority, the canon of Scripture is still open and things can be added and subtracted (this is the logical conclusion that Martin Luther, the inventor of the Sola Scriptura heresy, reached, as he added words and deleted entire books to support his views). And if, as must be admitted, the Church did indeed act infallibly and with authority in choosing the canon of Scripture, the Protestant must answer the question: Why was the Holy Spirit able to guide the canonization of Scripture but, according to you, no other decisions of the Church?
The scheme that Rhology will introduce, positing canon1 and canon2, is nothing more than a deceptive plot to get around the clear truth. He will state that while canon1 has always been the sole infallible authority for the Church, canon2 is our knowledge of what canon1 consists of, which knowledge has not always been complete. In the end, even if this argument were true, it would still lead back in a circle to the original question: how do we know that canon2 now matches canon1 (perhaps they better matched in the 3rd century, when The Shepherd of Hermas, Epistle of Barnabas, and Epistles of Clement were included in Scripture)? The answer in the end remains the same: because the Church, which is the true sole infallible authority has made the decision.
Rhology will also take Scripture verses out of context in order to support his position. As Scripture nowhere includes the words “Scripture only” or anything even remotely resembling the doctrine of Sola Scriptura, Protestants have found it necessary since their beginning to twist and mangle and invent strained interpretations for the words of Holy Scripture (or even alter the words of Scripture itself when they posed too great a problem) to find support for their beliefs.
Sola Scriptura is ultimately self-refuting. If only Scripture is a binding authority on matters of faith, and Scripture nowhere contains the doctrine of Sola Scriptura, then it cannot be true. Sola Scriptura is not only outside the self-understanding of the Scriptures; it even directly contradicts this self-understanding.
Whereas the reliance on “Scripture only” is nowhere found in Scripture, Scripture frequently points its readers outside of itself and certainly never understands itself as a coherent whole or closed canon. Such an attitude would have been foreign to the minds and times of Scripture’s authors.
The Epistle of Jude, for instance, quotes from two books which are not part of the canon of Scripture as if they were Scripture. In verse 9, Jude paraphrases from the Assumption of Moses; in verses 14-15 Jude quotes verbatim from 1 Enoch. Both of these Old Testament Apocryphal books are not included in the canon of Scripture and yet Jude clearly understands them to be Scripture. Scripture, then, is speaking of books which are not Scripture as if they were Scripture; coherency and canonization, requirements for a doctrine like Sola Scriptura, are clearly not in play here.
St. Paul, in his letters, also makes reference to 1 Enoch, taking his readers’ acceptance of it for granted. In both Ephesians 1:21 and Colossians 1:16, Paul uses the words of Enoch to describe the heavenly hosts.
Paul also draws on Jewish oral traditions, again unquestioningly accepting their validity as part of God’s revelation under the Old Covenant. In 1 Corinthians 10:4, for example, he speaks of the rock that Moses struck with his staff and brought forth water from as having “followed [the Israelites].” The Old Testament makes no mention of this Rock moving anywhere; Jewish oral tradition, though, taught that it followed the Israelites throughout the desert. It is this tradition which Paul is referencing.
Paul also quotes frequently from the early Christian Liturgy. For example, historians and textual critics have long recognized that Paul is quoting early Christian hymns in Philippians 2:6-11 and also in Galatians 3:27. In fact, the latter is still sung at every Orthodox baptism to this day.
Paul also points his readers even to that very thing which Sola Scriptura was invented to undermine: Tradition. In 1 Corinthians 11:2 he applauds the Corinthians for “keep[ing] the traditions just as I delivered them to you.” In 2 Thessalonians he twice refers to Tradition. In 2 Thess. 3:6, Paul commands Christians to “withdraw from” those who do not walk according to the tradition which he and the other Apostles taught. Earlier, in 2 Thess. 2:15, he admonishes the Thessalonians to “stand fast and hold the traditions which you were taught, whether by word or our epistle.”
Note that: “by word or our epistle.” What is preserved in the New Testament? Epistles; spoken words, obviously, are not. Paul is pointing his readers to oral tradition. Scripture is clearly pointing outside of itself. This verse makes clear that observance of oral tradition is an Apostolic commandment.
In addition to pointing us to oral tradition, Scripture also points outside of itself in regards to interpretation and authority. In 2 Peter 1:20, we are told that “no prophecy of Scripture is a matter of private interpretation.” The story of the Apostle Philip and the Ethiopian eunuch in Acts 8:26-40 also confirms that we cannot properly understand Scripture “unless someone guides [us]” (Acts 8:31).
So, if Scripture forbids that Scripture be interpreted individually, who, then, is to interpret it for us? Scripture points us to the authority: the Church. Christ promised the Church infallibility, assuring us “the gates of Hades will not prevail against it” (Matthew 16:18). He also gave authority to the Church, telling the Apostles, the original Bishops from whom all Orthodox Bishops since derive their succession via laying on of hands, that “whatever you bind on earth will be bound in heaven, and whatever you loose on earth will be loosed in heaven” (Matt. 18:18). As we can see, it is clear from Scripture that the Church, not Scripture, is the sole infallible authority for Christians.
Of note also is that Paul grants the authority to interpret Scripture (“rightly dividing the word of truth”) only to a newly-ordained fellow-Bishop (2 Timothy 2:15).
The Christian “faith … was once and for all handed down to the saints.” It is our job to “contend earnestly” for this faith, as any different teaching is “accursed.” Sola Scriptura is clearly not a part of this faith as it would have been impossible for the Apostles and early Christians to hold such a position. Sola Scriptura is illogical and it is in disobedience to Scripture. Orthodox Christians obey the commandment of Scripture and reject it.
[word count: 1999]
Post comments here
Sunday, August 23, 2009
Seven Ecumenical Councils
My newest YouTube video. You can watch all my videos at my YouTube channel here.
This video discusses the importance of the Seven Ecumenical Councils of the Orthodox Church and briefly discusses each council and the heresies it was called to repudiate.
For a complete list of the writings and canons issued by each council, click here.
For more information about the councils, click here and here.
If you have any advice I can use to make this videos better or some ideas for topics I can address in future videos, please let me know! Also, if you like the videos I've been doing, help me get the word out there and pass these on to others you think might like them. Thanks!
[Off-topic: I'll be posting my opening statement for the debate with Rhology about Sola Scriptura tomorrow. His has been up for a couple of days now, so, if you haven't read it yet, check it out here. I'll also follow his example and shut off comments for the debate posts, but create a moderated combox for any comments on the debate. This should be a very interesting and informative exchange, so check back often to follow the progress!]
Saturday, August 22, 2009
Rhology's opening statement posted
Rhology has posted his opening statement for our debate on Sola Scriptura; you can read it here. My opening statement will be up (extra early) in a few days.
Friday, August 14, 2009
Sola Scriptura debate
Rhology (at Rhoblogy), whom I met through David Bryan's blog, and I have agreed to have a formal debate on the topic of Sola Scriptura. The resolution and schedule of entries for the debate is as follows:
Resolved: "The Holy Scripture is the only sufficient, certain, and infallible rule of all saving knowledge, faith, and obedience." [This taken verbatim from the 1689 "Baptist Confession of Faith" and aptly summarizing the doctrine of Sola Scriptura]
[I, obviously, will be taking the negative position on this thesis and he taking the affirmative.]
1a) Rhology's opening and position statement. 2000 words limit DUE: Saturday, 22Aug
1b) David's opening and position statement. 2000 words limit DUE: Saturday, 5Sept.
2a) Rhology's 1st rebuttal. 1600 words limit. DUE: Saturday, 19Sept
2b) David's 1st rebuttal. 1600 words limit. DUE: Saturday, 03Oct
3a) Rhology's 2nd rebuttal. 1200 words limit. DUE: Saturday, 17Oct
3b) David's 2nd rebuttal. 1200 words limit. DUE: Saturday, 31Oct
[We've decided to skip the usual third rebuttal in order to trim down the length of the debate a bit.]
CROSS-EXAMINATION
4a) Rhology poses David a question. 400 words to formulate. DUE: Saturday, 07Nov
4b) David answers. 1600 words to answer. DUE: Saturday, 14Nov
5a) David poses Rhology a question. 400 words to formulate. DUE: Saturday, 21Nov
5b) Rhology answers. 1600 words to answer. DUE: Saturday, 05Dec
6a) Rhology poses David a question. 400 words to formulate. DUE: Saturday, 12Dec
6b) David answers. 1600 words to answer. DUE: Saturday, 19Dec
7a) David poses Rhology a question. 400 words to formulate. DUE: Saturday, 02Jan
9b) Rhology answers. 1600 words to answer. DUE: Saturday, 06Feb
10) Final statements: 1500 words, posted simultaneously at agreed-upon time. DUE: Saturday, 20Feb
He and I will each be posting our entries at our respective blogs. I'll make sure that each of my entries includes links to all prior entries, both his and mine, at the bottom of the post. I'm looking forward to debating with him and I welcome your prayers for both he and I as we debate this very important topic.
Resolved: "The Holy Scripture is the only sufficient, certain, and infallible rule of all saving knowledge, faith, and obedience." [This taken verbatim from the 1689 "Baptist Confession of Faith" and aptly summarizing the doctrine of Sola Scriptura]
[I, obviously, will be taking the negative position on this thesis and he taking the affirmative.]
1a) Rhology's opening and position statement. 2000 words limit DUE: Saturday, 22Aug
1b) David's opening and position statement. 2000 words limit DUE: Saturday, 5Sept.
2a) Rhology's 1st rebuttal. 1600 words limit. DUE: Saturday, 19Sept
2b) David's 1st rebuttal. 1600 words limit. DUE: Saturday, 03Oct
3a) Rhology's 2nd rebuttal. 1200 words limit. DUE: Saturday, 17Oct
3b) David's 2nd rebuttal. 1200 words limit. DUE: Saturday, 31Oct
[We've decided to skip the usual third rebuttal in order to trim down the length of the debate a bit.]
CROSS-EXAMINATION
4a) Rhology poses David a question. 400 words to formulate. DUE: Saturday, 07Nov
4b) David answers. 1600 words to answer. DUE: Saturday, 14Nov
5a) David poses Rhology a question. 400 words to formulate. DUE: Saturday, 21Nov
5b) Rhology answers. 1600 words to answer. DUE: Saturday, 05Dec
6a) Rhology poses David a question. 400 words to formulate. DUE: Saturday, 12Dec
6b) David answers. 1600 words to answer. DUE: Saturday, 19Dec
7b) Rhology answers. 1600 words to answer. DUE: Saturday, 09Jan
8a) Rhology poses David a question. 400 words to formulate. DUE: Saturday, 16Jan
8b) David answers. 1600 words to answer. DUE: Saturday, 23Jan
9a) David poses Rhology a question. 400 words to formulate. DUE: Saturday, 30Jan8a) Rhology poses David a question. 400 words to formulate. DUE: Saturday, 16Jan
8b) David answers. 1600 words to answer. DUE: Saturday, 23Jan
9b) Rhology answers. 1600 words to answer. DUE: Saturday, 06Feb
10) Final statements: 1500 words, posted simultaneously at agreed-upon time. DUE: Saturday, 20Feb
He and I will each be posting our entries at our respective blogs. I'll make sure that each of my entries includes links to all prior entries, both his and mine, at the bottom of the post. I'm looking forward to debating with him and I welcome your prayers for both he and I as we debate this very important topic.
Thursday, August 13, 2009
Holy Tradition
My newest YouTube video:
This video is a general explanation of the place of Holy Tradition in the Orthodox Christian Church, as well as a definition of what Tradition is and what it consists of. Holy Tradition is the deposit of Faith passed down from Christian to Christian since the time of Christ and his Apostles to this very day. Tradition includes Holy Scripture, the way we worship, the writings and lives of the Fathers and Mothers of the Church, iconography, and much more.
To learn more about Holy Tradition, click here.
Check out my YouTube channel by clicking here.
This video is a general explanation of the place of Holy Tradition in the Orthodox Christian Church, as well as a definition of what Tradition is and what it consists of. Holy Tradition is the deposit of Faith passed down from Christian to Christian since the time of Christ and his Apostles to this very day. Tradition includes Holy Scripture, the way we worship, the writings and lives of the Fathers and Mothers of the Church, iconography, and much more.
To learn more about Holy Tradition, click here.
Check out my YouTube channel by clicking here.
Wednesday, August 12, 2009
One True Church?
This is a video response to some comments I received on my video "What is the Orthodox Church? (A Short Overview)." In this video I discuss the three primary methods I used when researching the claim of the Orthodox Church to be the one true Church of Christ founded by the Apostles in the year AD 33. Those three methods are: 1. reading the writings of the early Church Fathers and comparing their Faith with that of modern Christian groups; 2. following the Church throughout its 2000 years of history from AD 33 to today; and 3. visiting an Orthodox Church for myself.
- Read the Didache here
- Read the letters of St. Ignatius of Antioch here
- Read the writings of St. Irenaeus of Lyons here
Some online resources for Church history:
OCA - The Orthodox Faith
A Time Line of Church History
OrthodoxChurchHistory.com (Dr. Macdonald is also a member of the same parish as I am [St. John the Forerunner in Cedar Park, Texas] -- I highly recommend his great website!!!)
Some offline resources for Church history:
History of the Church by Eusebius (the "Father of Church history" wrote his book in the early 4th century)
The Orthodox Church by Timothy Ware (now Metropolitan Kallistos)
The Law of God by Archpriest Seraphim Slobodskoy
Find an Orthodox Church to visit in your area: http://www.orthodoxyinamerica.org
See more of my videos by visiting my channel on YouTube.
Tuesday, August 11, 2009
The lost writings of an Apostolic Father
Tom Schmidt, at Chronicon.net, recently put up a page which contains all of the known fragments from or about St. Papias of Hierapolis, a fascinating and, unfortunately, mysterious figure from the early Church. St. Papias was a disciple of St. John the Apostle, a close friend of St. Polycarp of Smyrna, and, maybe, one of St. Irenaeus of Lyons' teachers. He wrote a series of five books entitled Interpretations of the Sayings of the Lord, which may be the earliest exegesis of the sayings of Christ. Some of the sayings of Christ and activities of the Apostles that he records in his books are not preserved anywhere in the New Testament. Unfortunately, it only survives in fragments quoted or summarized by later Fathers of the Church. Check out Mr. Schmidt's page on Papias here.
Monday, August 10, 2009
The Filioque: An Orthodox Perspective
An explanation of the history of the Filioque ("and the Son") and its illegitimate insertion into the Nicene Creed, the ensuing Great Schism in which the Roman Catholic Church broke from the Orthodox Church, and a short look at the Filioque from an Orthodox perspective.
To read more about the Filioque's history and why the Orthodox reject it, I suggest you read this article.
To see more of my videos, check out my channel on YouTube.
Please let me know how I'm doing with these videos and if you have any suggestions on how I could improve them and/or topics to cover.
Sunday, August 9, 2009
Biblical inerrancy
David Bryan, at Oh Taste and See, has a great post on Orthodox Christianity and Biblical inerrancy, which is a response to some objections his friend, Rhology, raised in this post about Orthodoxy and Scripture. Unfortunately, I haven't had time to respond fully to his friend's original post, but I did respond to David's (more specifically, I responded to some of the objections which people raised in the comments to his post). Here is my response (slightly edited [or, de-funked, as it were] to make sense [instead of being a semi-literate babble as my online posts often are]):
I think that it should be pointed out that Biblical errancy/inerrancy was a matter on which the Fathers of the Church disagreed with each other; there are multiple opinions to be found in the early Church writers. I agree with David, though, that the Fathers' ideas of inerrancy were much different from the modern Protestant concept.
While I accept that Sts. Gregory of Nazienzen, Justin the Martyr, and Athanasius of Alexandria all supported Biblical inerrancy, more or less, I question those Orthodox who quote from Augustine to defend this position. Augustine was hardly a bastion of Orthodoxy; whether or not he personally was a heretic I'll leave for the Church to decide but more than a few of his ideas were heretical. Several of his ideas, in their Calvinist form, were officially declared heresies by the Church at the Council of Jerusalem in 1672. One modern Orthodox scholar has referred to him as the "Father of all Western heresies." And you'd be hard-pressed to find him celebrated as a Saint in the Orthodox Church before about 1950, which is, not ironically, around the same time that Patriarch Athenagoras of Constantinople began his rapproachment with Roman Catholics.
Nonetheless, for Augustine, inerrancy extended only to the originals of Scripture, not to recopies or translations:
To quote an undoubtedly Orthodox Father, though, St. John Chrysostom (in his Homilies on the Gospel of St. Matthew, 1:6) has this to say on the matter of internal contradictions in the Gospels:
Scripture itself also argues against inerrancy.
"How can you say, "We are wise, for we have the Law of the LORD," when actually the lying pen of the scribes has handled it falsely?" - Jeremiah 8:8. The Prophet Jeremiah is here endorsing, in words attributed to God, what was a widespread concern amongst early Jews and Christians especially in the era of 300 BC - AD 300, namely, that the "pen[s] of the scribes" were intentionally changing Scripture (see, for instance, the warning by St. John the Apostle at the end of his Apocalypse not to add to his words). Some Protestant apologists for inerrancy have tried to reinterpret this passage to mean that the scribes were wrongly interpreting Scripture, but this is distorting the clear meaning of the passage in its historical context. There are NO midrashic interpretations that survive from Jeremiah's era (600s BC); they came much later. A scribe's job was to act as a copyist, not an interpreter.
A chapter before that, Jeremiah is even more shocking: "For in the day that I brought your ancestors out of Egypt, I did not speak to them or command them concerning burnt offerings and sacrifices." - Jeremiah 7:22. Jeremiah seems to be saying, if we look at these two passages together, that the ordinances of the Torah concerning animal sacrifice are not from God but were added by the scribes. Perhaps the Alexandrian school of Biblical exegesis, featuring St. Clement and Origen, was really on to something in their "spiritual" re-interpretations of these Old Testament passages, but I'll save that for another post.
Christ himself, as recorded in the Gospel of St. Mark 10:5, states that the Old Testament regulations on divorce (contained in Deuteronomy 24:1-2) came from Moses "because of the hardness of [the Jews'] hearts," and not from God.
St. Paul the Apostle, in 1 Corinthians 7:12 makes it clear that he is stating his own opinion and not God's in at least one instance: "To the rest I say this (I, not the Lord): 'If any brother has a wife who is not a believer and she is willing to live with him, he must not divorce her.'"
In other words, at least some of Scripture, according to St. Paul, Christ (via St. Mark), and the Prophet Jeremiah, is the words of men, not of God.
The passage of Scripture that is most often proof-texted to support Biblical inerrancy, 2 Timothy 3:16, which states that Scripture is "God-breathed" must also be taken out of its historical context to support this point of view. The first thing that needs to be noted about this passage is that St. Paul is here referring to what we call the "Old Testament;" he's certainly not referring to his own letters (who would have the hubris to refer to his own writings as "Holy Scripture?") and, as at least two of the Gospels (Luke and John) date from after his death, he's definitely not referring to the Gospels.
The writings which make up our New Testament were not considered "Scripture" until much later. Even as late was the 120s, St. Justin the Martyr refers to the Gospels as "memoirs of the Apostles," and seems to actively avoid using the word "Scripture" to describe them or attribute Divine inspiration to them. And, of course, the first time that we find our whole 26 book New Testament (with no additions or subtractions or editorial comments reffering to something as "doubtful") is very late, in 367, in a canon written by St. Athanasius of Alexandria in his Paschal greeting to the Churches that year.
Also, according to Scripture, in Genesis 2:7, man's life is also God-breathed, and I doubt that anyone would like to try to attribute inerrancy to human beings.
One of the things that most disturbs me about Protestant ideas like Sola Scriptura and Biblical inerrancy (as well as other "essential" features of Protestantism like iconoclasm) is their resemblance to (and, more than likely, influence by) similar Muslim ideas. Comparing the Islamic ideas regarding the Koran (that it is entirely inerrant and has existed in heaven with God since before Creation) with Protestant notions on Scripture is a little unsettling to say the least, but I'll save that also for another time.
I hope you've enjoyed reading my post here and I recommend again that you read David Bryan's great post on the same subject. I'd also enjoy reading your thoughts (whether you agree with me or not), so don't hesitate to comment!
I think that it should be pointed out that Biblical errancy/inerrancy was a matter on which the Fathers of the Church disagreed with each other; there are multiple opinions to be found in the early Church writers. I agree with David, though, that the Fathers' ideas of inerrancy were much different from the modern Protestant concept.
While I accept that Sts. Gregory of Nazienzen, Justin the Martyr, and Athanasius of Alexandria all supported Biblical inerrancy, more or less, I question those Orthodox who quote from Augustine to defend this position. Augustine was hardly a bastion of Orthodoxy; whether or not he personally was a heretic I'll leave for the Church to decide but more than a few of his ideas were heretical. Several of his ideas, in their Calvinist form, were officially declared heresies by the Church at the Council of Jerusalem in 1672. One modern Orthodox scholar has referred to him as the "Father of all Western heresies." And you'd be hard-pressed to find him celebrated as a Saint in the Orthodox Church before about 1950, which is, not ironically, around the same time that Patriarch Athenagoras of Constantinople began his rapproachment with Roman Catholics.
Nonetheless, for Augustine, inerrancy extended only to the originals of Scripture, not to recopies or translations:
For I confess to your Charity that I have learned to yield this respect and honour only to the canonical books of Scripture: of these alone do I most firmly believe that the authors were completely free from error. And if in these writings I am perplexed by anything which appears to me opposed to truth, I do not hesitate to suppose that either the manuscript is faulty, or the translator has not caught the meaning of what was said, or I myself have failed to understand it.Also, while we're quoting semi-orthodox "Fathers," there's this, from Tertullian (in Against Marcion, IV:2): "Never mind if there does occur some variation in the order of the [gospel] narratives. What matters is that there is agreement in the essential doctrine of the Faith."
To quote an undoubtedly Orthodox Father, though, St. John Chrysostom (in his Homilies on the Gospel of St. Matthew, 1:6) has this to say on the matter of internal contradictions in the Gospels:
“But the contrary,” it may be said, “hath come to pass, for in many places they are convicted of discordance.” Nay, this very thing is a very great evidence of their truth. For if they had agreed in all things exactly even to time, and place, and to the very words, none of our enemies would have believed but that they had met together, and had written what they wrote by some human compact; because such entire agreement as this cometh not of simplicity. But now even that discordance which seems to exist in little matters delivers them from all suspicion, and speaks clearly in behalf of the character of the writers.In essence, Chrysostom's argument is that internal contradictions amongst the Gospels on small, insignificant matters lends credibility to them, rather than detracting trustworthiness. If they all agreed in every little detail, one might very well conclude (as some modern Biblical "scholars" strangely do anyway) that they were all forgeries from a common source. As it is, though, they are more trustworthy as they show they were written by different witnesses, each witnessing the event as an individual and relating it from his own perspective. What really matters, he says, is that they agree in the essential (and salvific) aspects of our Faith. What the sign hung on the Cross of Christ said matters very little, if at all, to our salvation, whether or not he was the Son of God and Resurrected from the dead matters very much; on the former matter, the Gospel writers disagree amongst each other, on the latter they speak in unison.
But if there be anything touching times or places, which they have related differently, this nothing injures the truth of what they have said. And these things too, so far as God shall enable us, we will endeavor, as we proceed, to point out; requiring you, together with what we have mentioned, to observe, that in the chief heads, those which constitute our life and furnish out our doctrine, nowhere is any of them found to have disagreed, no not ever so little.
But what are these points? Such as follow: That God became man, that He wrought miracles, that He was crucified, that He was buried, that He rose again, that He ascended, that He will judge, that He hath given commandments tending to salvation, that He hath brought in a law not contrary to the Old Testament, that He is a Son, that He is only-begotten, that He is a true Son, that He is of the same substance with the Father, and as many things as are like these; for touching these we shall find that there is in them a full agreement.
And if amongst the miracles they have not all of them mentioned all, but one these, the other those, let not this trouble thee. For if on the one hand one had spoken of all, the number of the rest would have been superfluous; and if again all had written fresh things, and different one from another, the proof of their agreement would not have been manifest. For this cause they have both treated of many in common, and each of them hath also received and declared something of his own; that, on the one hand, he might not seem superfluous, and cast on the heap to no purpose; on the other, he might make our test of the truth of their affirmations perfect.
Scripture itself also argues against inerrancy.
"How can you say, "We are wise, for we have the Law of the LORD," when actually the lying pen of the scribes has handled it falsely?" - Jeremiah 8:8. The Prophet Jeremiah is here endorsing, in words attributed to God, what was a widespread concern amongst early Jews and Christians especially in the era of 300 BC - AD 300, namely, that the "pen[s] of the scribes" were intentionally changing Scripture (see, for instance, the warning by St. John the Apostle at the end of his Apocalypse not to add to his words). Some Protestant apologists for inerrancy have tried to reinterpret this passage to mean that the scribes were wrongly interpreting Scripture, but this is distorting the clear meaning of the passage in its historical context. There are NO midrashic interpretations that survive from Jeremiah's era (600s BC); they came much later. A scribe's job was to act as a copyist, not an interpreter.
A chapter before that, Jeremiah is even more shocking: "For in the day that I brought your ancestors out of Egypt, I did not speak to them or command them concerning burnt offerings and sacrifices." - Jeremiah 7:22. Jeremiah seems to be saying, if we look at these two passages together, that the ordinances of the Torah concerning animal sacrifice are not from God but were added by the scribes. Perhaps the Alexandrian school of Biblical exegesis, featuring St. Clement and Origen, was really on to something in their "spiritual" re-interpretations of these Old Testament passages, but I'll save that for another post.
Christ himself, as recorded in the Gospel of St. Mark 10:5, states that the Old Testament regulations on divorce (contained in Deuteronomy 24:1-2) came from Moses "because of the hardness of [the Jews'] hearts," and not from God.
St. Paul the Apostle, in 1 Corinthians 7:12 makes it clear that he is stating his own opinion and not God's in at least one instance: "To the rest I say this (I, not the Lord): 'If any brother has a wife who is not a believer and she is willing to live with him, he must not divorce her.'"
In other words, at least some of Scripture, according to St. Paul, Christ (via St. Mark), and the Prophet Jeremiah, is the words of men, not of God.
The passage of Scripture that is most often proof-texted to support Biblical inerrancy, 2 Timothy 3:16, which states that Scripture is "God-breathed" must also be taken out of its historical context to support this point of view. The first thing that needs to be noted about this passage is that St. Paul is here referring to what we call the "Old Testament;" he's certainly not referring to his own letters (who would have the hubris to refer to his own writings as "Holy Scripture?") and, as at least two of the Gospels (Luke and John) date from after his death, he's definitely not referring to the Gospels.
The writings which make up our New Testament were not considered "Scripture" until much later. Even as late was the 120s, St. Justin the Martyr refers to the Gospels as "memoirs of the Apostles," and seems to actively avoid using the word "Scripture" to describe them or attribute Divine inspiration to them. And, of course, the first time that we find our whole 26 book New Testament (with no additions or subtractions or editorial comments reffering to something as "doubtful") is very late, in 367, in a canon written by St. Athanasius of Alexandria in his Paschal greeting to the Churches that year.
Also, according to Scripture, in Genesis 2:7, man's life is also God-breathed, and I doubt that anyone would like to try to attribute inerrancy to human beings.
One of the things that most disturbs me about Protestant ideas like Sola Scriptura and Biblical inerrancy (as well as other "essential" features of Protestantism like iconoclasm) is their resemblance to (and, more than likely, influence by) similar Muslim ideas. Comparing the Islamic ideas regarding the Koran (that it is entirely inerrant and has existed in heaven with God since before Creation) with Protestant notions on Scripture is a little unsettling to say the least, but I'll save that also for another time.
I hope you've enjoyed reading my post here and I recommend again that you read David Bryan's great post on the same subject. I'd also enjoy reading your thoughts (whether you agree with me or not), so don't hesitate to comment!
Saturday, August 8, 2009
What is the Orthodox Church? (A Short Overview)
The second video for my new YouTube channel. The sidebar I mention is the one on YouTube, not the one on this blog.
Friday, August 7, 2009
Holy Sites in Jerusalem
Check out this website with panorama pictures of some of the Holy Sites in Jerusalem, including St. Savvas, the Sepulchre, and Golgotha. The things you randomly find sometimes online! What would we do without Google?
Thursday, August 6, 2009
Intro Video
My first video on YouTube. The sidebar I'm talking about is, of course, the one on YouTube, not the one on this blog.
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