Why are Protestants afraid of Christian history?

[Mannyfit75]

BrianH:

I did not ask if some scholars thought they were authentic Manny. Did I? I asked WHERE they were found, when was the translation they found written?

The St. Ignatius writings were rediscovered by Armenian Benedictines (founded by Mechitar).

These monks were well know to have kept records of ancient manuscripts. Let me quote the Catholic Encyclopedia.

It has been principally by means of the Mechitarists’ innumerable periodicals, pious manuals, Bibles, maps, engravings, dictionaries, histories, geographies and other contributions to educational and popular literature, that they have done good service to the Armenian Church and nation.

Following are the most valuable of their contributions to the common cause of learning. First, there is the recovery, in ancient Armenian translations, of some lost works of the Fathers of the Church. Among them may be noted “Letters (thirteen) of St. Ignatius of Antioch” and a fuller and more authentic “History of the Martyrdom of St. Ignatius”; some works of St. Ephrem the Syrian, notably a sort of “Harmony of the Gospels” and a “Commentary on the Epistles of St. Paul”; an exceptionally valuable edition of “Eusebius’s History”.

The publication of these works is due to the famous Mechitarist Dom J. B. Aucher, who was assisted in the last of them by Cardinal Mai. To Aucher also we are indebted for a German translation of the “Armenian Missal” (Tübingen, 1845) and “Dom Johannis philosophi Ozniensis Armeniorum Catholici (A. D., 718) Opera” (Venice, 1534). Two original historical works may also be noted: “The History of Armenia”, by P. Michel Tschamtschenanz (1784-6) and the “Quadro della storia letteraria di Armenia” by Mgr. Pl. Sukias Somal (Venice, 1829).

If you dont know, say it or just ignore me. I am asking for facts, not a scholars opinion please. UNLESS that scholar is giving an opinion of exactly when they were found etc etc I know some scholars consider them real but some also consider them interpolated. Based upon that, I am asking when and where did the translations come from.
Thanks

Before these monks, Eusebius, the Christian history collected his letters.

the oldest collection of the writings of St. Ignatius known to have existed was that made use of by the historian Eusebius in the first half of the fourth century, but which unfortunately is no longer extant. It was made up of the seven letters written by Ignatius whilst on his way to Rome; These letters were addressed to the Christians.

Source: newadvent.org/cathen/07644a.htm

St. Jerome also noted the existence of these letters as well.

Ignatius’s writings can be found in Martyrium Colbertinum.

I also like to add the following,
Blog by the Sea:

Unfortunately, in the fourth century, Ignatius’ epistles were edited, by interpolation and by the addition of spurious epistles. The original, authentic writings of Ignatius were lost until the seventeenth century, when Archbishop Usher of Armagh discovered two manuscripts of a Latin translation of the original epistles. The Greek text was discovered not long afterward. The letters are widely regarded as authentic

.

[Source; Blog by-the-Sea

))

Unfortunately, I could not find the source where it was found, but I was able to find who discovered it during my research.

 

[Sabda]

**I have not experienced dialogue with protestants that seemed afraid of Church history. BUT, i have found many that do not care. **Whether they are part of the historical church or not has absolutely no bearing on which church they belong to. To them the truth has to do with what they feel is correct based on their own study of scripture and not on the teachings of an organization.
I think that approach ignores the fact that wide spread literacy is a new phenomenon and that there was no guarantee that what you were learning was authentic. Even for those reading writings and scripture, there was no guarantee of it being authentic or truly inspired. And if it was authentic and God inspired there was no guarantee that they could interpret it the way God intended.

So my question is: Why did Jesus have apostles? Was there anything special about them?

This is exactly what I have run into as well. They don’t care and don’t feel it’s important. Only their opinion is what matters. However, I think history, in general, gets shoved aside. Seriously, how many American students today really learn that much about American history? They learn the bare basics and that’s about it. In order to truly learn from our past we must know it first. Other wise we are doomed to repeat the same mistakes.

 

[Mannyfit75]

Of the Letters from St. Ignatius only these Letter were consider not authencitic.

*  to Mary of Cassobola (Pros Marian Kassoboliten);
* to the Tarsians (Pros tous en tarso);
* to the Philippians (Pros Philippesious);
* to the Antiochenes (Pros Antiocheis);
* to Hero a deacon of Antioch (Pros Erona diakonon Antiocheias). Associated with the foregoing is
* a letter from Mary of Cassobola to Ignatius.

It is extremely probable that the interpolation of the genuine, the addition of the spurious letters, and the union of both in the long recension was the work of an Apollonarist of Syria or Egypt.

The letters that were consider genuine are:

*  of Ephesus (Pros Ephesious);
* of Magnesia (Magnesieusin);
* of Tralles (Trallianois);
* of Rome (Pros Romaious);
* of Philadelphia (Philadelpheusin);
* of Smyrna (Smyrnaiois); and
* to Polycarp (Pros Polykarpon).

These letters have been varified by St. Polycarp’s own Epistle.

 

[estesbob]

I did not ask if some scholars thought they were authentic Manny. Did I? I asked WHERE they were found, when was the translation they found written? If you dont know, say it or just ignore me. I am asking for facts, not a scholars opinion please. UNLESS that scholar is giving an opinion of exactly when they were found etc etc
I know some scholars consider them real but some also consider them interpolated. Based upon that, I am asking when and where did the translations come from.
Thanks

John 20:27

 

[BrianH]

John 20:27

So you equate a person asking for proof of the date of a nonbiblical letter with Thomas examining the nail prints in the hands of Christ? Really?

 

[Mannyfit75]

John 20:27

He asking about where was the Letters of St. Ignatius was found… correct if I’m right, Brian.

 

[BrianH]

He asking about where was the Letters of St. Ignatius was found… correct if I’m right, Brian.

Yep, and I will use the stuff you gave me to look it up later…working on another thread.

 

[NachoMama]

Simply put, there’s only ONE truth in the world… The Word of God.

Rom 3:4
God forbid: yea, let God be true, but every man a liar; as it is written, That thou mightest be justified in thy sayings, and mightest overcome when thou art judged.

Yet, not all the Word was written.

 

[Subrosa]

Well, I guess you cannot answer my question Manny. And the long post that STILL does not answer my question.

Hi Brian -
Let me help answer the question(s) that you put to Manny. They are good questions and deserve to be answered properly.

Maybe you can answer this question. When is the letter from Ignatius from?

Polycarp, in his Letter to the Philippians states that he has these letters and is sending them to the Church at Philippi along with his own letter. This places the Ignatious letters squarely in the first generation of Christians after the Apostles - about the year 107. Ignatius himself was a disciple of the Apostle John.

Where was it found? What century was it found and when have they dated it from?

The originals are lost. Several copies that were in fact interpolated were found in the fourth century. In the seventeenth century Archbishop James Ussher, Anglo-Irish prelate of the Anglican church, found Latin copies of the original letters. These manuscripts did, indeed, contain five of the forged letters as well; but the remarkable thing was that the text of the genuine seven had not been interpolated. Ussher published his text in 1644.

While you contend that Ignatius was writing in 107 AD, I understand this version that was found dates hundreds of years after the fact and is open to interpolation or outright forgery.

The forgeries have been identified apart from the originals. Manny has given you an authentic document.

My source of this information is the library at Calvin University, a pre-eminant Protestant educational institution.
ccel.org/ccel/richardson/fathers.vi.ii.ii.html
ccel.org/ccel/richardson/fathers.vi.ii.iii.vi.html
ccel.org/ccel/richardson/fathers.vi.iii.iii.html

Subrosa

 

[Publisher]

I am not afraid of church history. I simply don’t accept the “white washed” version that so many want to present.

Some books on church history I enjoy are “The Gnostic Gospels” by Elaine Pagels. I enjoy Bart Erhman’s books…“Lost Christianities” and “Lost Scripture”, “Who Wrote the New Testament” by Burton Mack and one of my favorite about St. Paul…“The Mythmaker”, by a Jewish writer I forget at the moment…I believe is Hyam Macoby…or something similar.

What I have found in getting a different point of view…Christianity as a whole was not a monolithic organization…but very fragmented with many different “Christianities”. The Book of Acts is a “mythic history”.of the “orthodox” version…which gained prominece eventually. The “orthodox” became the largest group and aligned itself with the Roman government then all other groups were…outlawed.

In the synoptic gospels we see Paul’s influence, especially in the Eucharist. The story is almost verbatitm from his version in 1 Cor…and since 1 Cor was written before any of the synoptics, the writers used his version of the last supper. John reflects another 'version" of Christianity that developed along side the Pauline version…John’s Gospel was disputed for a time as too gnostic…but finally won it’s inclusion in the canon as an authentic gospel…it has no “last supper” and words of institution which the synoptics do.

The Didache, an early document, presents a completely different understanding of the “eucharist”…it predates John and may even predate some of they synoptic gospels as it presented it’s version of Christianity. The Didache reflects an early version of Christianity not tied to Paul.

We find the writings of Nag Hamaddi an example of some of the writings of “other” people who called themselves “Christians”.

The Early Church Fathers fought tooth and nail to restrict the spead of the “heresies”, aka “those Christianities which disagreed with their understanding” of what the apostles taught.

The Ebionites, a group of Jewish Christians led by James in Jerusalem seems to have reflected a closer “Christianity” as it kept it’s Jewish roots.

I understand that in Orthodox/Catholic belief, it was the ECF who preserved the true gospel which eventually found itself among those who held “catholic” or “universal” understood beliefs…it wasn’t truly “universal”…it was just “majority rules” with eventually the backing of the Roman government.

It does put a little different slant on early church history I know…but these alternative histories, IMO, shed much light on the development of the early Christian church into what later became organized as Roman Catholic,Eastern Orthodox and Coptic to name a few…

 

[manualman]

The practice of history is a tricky thing. Laymen are almost totally reliant upon the honor and honesty of the professionals. Professionals must be so rigorous that they can only focus on a few tiny issues in a lifetime if they wish to be totally thorough in their research.

In MY limted experiences with evangelical protestants, I didn’t so much find them afraid of church history as they were indifferent to it. In their view, the bible is the role rule of faith and therefore it is of little benefit to the average believer to care what happened in history and how the gospel was adhered to by some and distorted by others.

Naturally the problem not contemplated here is WHY do they believe the bible to be the sole rule of faith? If this were God’s will, isn’t it strange that St. John, the last living apostle, didn’t write a conclusion outlining which writings were inspired and verifying that this canon of scripture would be the final arbiter for all time? On the contrary, the Scriptures show the apostles acting with authority, USING the keys of the kingdom, appointing replacement apostles, making difficult decisions that SEEM to be in conflict with scripture, but aren’t (no Mosaic Law for gentiles).

In my limited experience, it is hard to get an evangelical protestant interested in early church history unless you first get him to honestly questioning where the bible came from and what its function was really intended to be. Once he has these questions welling up inside him, he becomes INTERESTED in what the church looked like before there was a bible, what the proteges of the apostles wrote, how the early doctrinal disputes were settled, how the church discerned inspired writings from spurious ones (or genuine, but non-inspired).

Once he realizes that the questions about the Trinity and scriptures were resolved by men who believed in the sacramental real presence of Jesus in Communion, things get interesting!

 

[Contarini]

Manny
Maybe you can answer this question. When is the letter from Ignatius from? Where was it found? What century was it found and when have they dated it from. While you contend that Ignatius was writing in 107 AD, I understand this version that was found dates hundreds of years after the fact and is open to interpolation or outright forgery. Do not give me one of your long cut and paste, just an answer, no one has been able to, maybe Edwin can?

Brian,

I thought I’d answered this–I thought many people had. You keep bringing it up, but it’s been pointed out to you many times that the scholarly community as a whole is convinced that the shorter versions of the seven letters are authentic. There are people who doubt this (the strongest arguments in my opinion are based on improbable features of the narrative that seems to lie behind the letters, such as why Ignatius was being sent to Rome at all, but I think these arguments are too speculative to be of much use).

You can find some scholars who doubt nearly anything. Mannyfit is perfectly in his rights to cite the commonly accepted dating of this letter as a given. If you have studied the matter deeply and have some strong reason for rejecting it, then fine. You have the right to your opinion.

BTW, most manuscripts of ancient writings exist in copies written centuries later–some of them much, much later. For instance, there have been people who argued that the works of the Roman historian Tacitus (2nd century) are a Renaissance forgery. This is a crackpot theory, but it’s the sort of thing you get if you take a uniformly skeptical approach. The problem is that people usually apply skepticism to ancient writings according to their ideological prejudices. For instance, you get people who cast doubt on the authenticity of the Biblical manuscripts because they exist for the most part in much later copies (we have some fragments that in some cases date from pretty close to the time some of the NT books were written). You don’t follow them because your presuppositions don’t lead you to.

Edwin

 

[Contarini]

Why are Protestants afraid of Christian history?

Why have you stopped beating your wife?

My wife (whom I do not beat ) showed me a list of logical fallacies today, and I learned from it that your post commits the fallacy of the “complex question.” In other words, you have first to establish that most or all Protestants are afraid of church history. Given the number of church history courses taught in Protestant seminaries and the number of church history books written by Protestants, this is an improbable argument from the start.

If you are speaking only of certain fundamentalists, then go sit in a corner and argue with them.

Edwin

 

[BrianH]

Brian,

I thought I’d answered this–I thought many people had. You keep bringing it up, but it’s been pointed out to you many times that the scholarly community as a whole is convinced that the shorter versions of the seven letters are authentic. There are people who doubt this (the strongest arguments in my opinion are based on improbable features of the narrative that seems to lie behind the letters, such as why Ignatius was being sent to Rome at all, but I think these arguments are too speculative to be of much use).

You can find some scholars who doubt nearly anything. Mannyfit is perfectly in his rights to cite the commonly accepted dating of this letter as a given. If you have studied the matter deeply and have some strong reason for rejecting it, then fine. You have the right to your opinion.

BTW, most manuscripts of ancient writings exist in copies written centuries later–some of them much, much later. For instance, there have been people who argued that the works of the Roman historian Tacitus (2nd century) are a Renaissance forgery. This is a crackpot theory, but it’s the sort of thing you get if you take a uniformly skeptical approach. The problem is that people usually apply skepticism to ancient writings according to their ideological prejudices. For instance, you get people who cast doubt on the authenticity of the Biblical manuscripts because they exist for the most part in much later copies (we have some fragments that in some cases date from pretty close to the time some of the NT books were written). You don’t follow them because your presuppositions don’t lead you to.

Edwin

I do not believe it jives with the pattern described in Paul’s letters, the Shepherd of Hermes, Polycarp’s letter, and Clement. It appears to reflect a system of church government that is later than early 2nd century. I do not have it mentioned in many of my books, for whatever reason and I what I find on the net, seems to have come from the same source, although reworded.
I wonder the basis for the scholars view, I think I should find a book on this topic.
BH
I did not know your Ph.D was from Duke, my sister in law has hers from Duke as well!

 

[DianJo]

The Didache, an early document, presents a completely different understanding of the “eucharist”…it predates John and may even predate some of they synoptic gospels as it presented it’s version of Christianity. The Didache reflects an early version of Christianity not tied to Paul.

I don’t think anyone puts the Didache before 100AD. So it couldn’t have been written before John or the synoptic gospels. Not sure where you get your dates from.

I’m also not sure how you come up with the ideas that these teachings did not reflect true Christianity.Those who wrote the Didache were trying to protect the truth taught to them by an Apostle.

You seem to think that these people had a very cavalier attitude about protecting and passing on the teachings of Jesus. On the contrary, I would say, these men were promised by Christ Himself that He would send the Holy Spirit to help them remember everything He taught them. To pass on that truth was a very serious job, one that was protected by Christ. The other “brands” of Christianity were full of falsehoods (Nag Hammadi, Gnostics, etc.), that’s why those writings were condemned - because they did not match up with the teachings of Jesus and the Apostles.

I feel sorry for those who always think the worst of the Church and her priests, bishops in protecting the truth of Jesus. It sounds like you’d rather use all your energy concocting conspiracy theroies instead of investing in real truth.

Maybe I misunderstand. It just seems that whenever I hear (read, in this case) stuff like your above post, there’s always this misplaced animosity that colors their opinions.
Like I said, maybe I misunderstood. I apologize if I’ve offended.

 

[Publisher]

It was from a new translation I just happened upon…true…the version we have is around 100 AD…but it is beleived an earlier version existed…most likely predating some of the gospels…not conclusive…but then dating so many of the first century documents are.

Conservative believers see some of the gospels written as soon as the 40’s…more liberal see the first written 60-70’s. The Didache falls into the same boat…some of our more conservative bretheren will date it quite late…that’s ok…the Didache WAS used as scripture by some churches…it just never reached “universal” acceptance…

 

[Contarini]

I don’t think anyone puts the Didache before 100AD. So it couldn’t have been written before John or the synoptic gospels. Not sure where you get your dates from.

Actually this is a fairly commonly held opinion. I don’t have a reference off the top of my head, but I have encountered it quite frequently.

Edwin

 

[Contarini]

I do not believe it jives with the pattern described in Paul’s letters, the Shepherd of Hermes, Polycarp’s letter, and Clement. It appears to reflect a system of church government that is later than early 2nd century.

You might want to look at Walter Bauer, *Orthodoxy and Heresy in Earliest Christianity *(which it turns out is available online).Bauer argues that Ignatius was simply the leader of one faction in Antioch and was trying to assert his authority with the backing of Rome–in other words, that he was claiming as fact the state of affairs that he was trying to bring about through ecclesiastical politicking. I find Bauer’s arguments basically unpersuasive, but they’re worth looking at and have been very influential among the more skeptical scholars of early Christianity (the book was written in 1934, so of course it’s outdated in many respects). But note that Bauer does not challenge the authenticity of the letters themselves, only the accuracy of the picture they paint.

Edwin

 

[rtconstant]

Simply put, there’s only ONE truth in the world… The Word of God.

Rom 3:4
God forbid: yea, let God be true, but every man a liar; as it is written, That thou mightest be justified in thy sayings, and mightest overcome when thou art judged.

The Word of God = Jesus

Within Sacred Scripture only Christ is designated with this title. So if this was an attempt to push SS try again. We do have the Word of God and He is indeed the Truth. I fail to see though how that makes history irrelavent. Unless of course you don’t believe that Jesus is an historical figure.

 

[BrianH]

I will add Edwin, if I held to the majority of scholarship I would:
deny the Virgin Birth
deny a physical resurrection
well you get the point, the denials would outway the things traditional Christianity accepts.
Sometimes I find the minority view rather compelling. For quite sometime, and Lord knows what I think now, I held the two gospel theory after reading William Farmers book.
Maybe its just my personality, I am not sure.