Post by malcolm on Feb 11, 2015 19:13:41 GMT -8
How can we take any part of the Bible seriously when so much that was written by divine inspiration was tossed out after the 6th century CE. That is not all that long ago, so if several gospels were accepted as God's word for some 4 centuries we can only assume that the Church itself decided that God's word in these gospels was either untrue or not worthy of the God.
From Tony Bushby's "The Crucifixion of Truth" page 200:
" "A fact not mentioned in articles written to support the authenticity of the story of Jesus Christ, namely that New Testaments of the fourth, fifth and sixth centuries existing today, include as canonical, major writings since rejected. Those texts are the Shepherd of Hermas, the Epistle of Barnabas and the Psalms of Solomon, and they fail to reference Jesus Christ or any Christian characters.
The very orthodox Dr. Constantine Tischendorf recognized the early respect for those now-ignored writings that were a major part of the preaching of the evolving church. In a comment carried in one of his books entitle 'When were our Gospels Written?' Tischendorf said, 'As late as the fifth century many good Christians assigned to the Epistle of Barnabas and the Shepherd of Hermas as much authority as Christians do the books now called inspired'.
Presbyters previous to the Council of Nicaea regularly orated the Shepherd of Hermas to the rabble and distinctively claimed it to be 'inspired'. Bishop Irenaeus called it 'scripture', Clement of Alexandria said it was 'divine revelation', and Origen cited it as 'holy scripture'. A version was found in the Latin Vulgate Bible in the 15th century and it is part of the canon of the oldest known Bible in the world today, the Codex Sinaiticus. Yet it is highly probable that most people have never heard of a Christian text called the 'Shepherd of Hermas'. That strange writing was, at one time, 'publicly read out loud', to the congregations and was held in high repute by presbyters.
It was a Gospel pretended to have been written by two resurrected GHOSTS, Charinus and Lenthius, who described in some detail what they saw in Hell after death, and reflected the curious original beliefs of Christianity. The early priesthood was fascinated by mythical ghost stories and literal belief in them provided the genesis of Christian teachings."
From Tony Bushby's "The Crucifixion of Truth" page 200:
" "A fact not mentioned in articles written to support the authenticity of the story of Jesus Christ, namely that New Testaments of the fourth, fifth and sixth centuries existing today, include as canonical, major writings since rejected. Those texts are the Shepherd of Hermas, the Epistle of Barnabas and the Psalms of Solomon, and they fail to reference Jesus Christ or any Christian characters.
The very orthodox Dr. Constantine Tischendorf recognized the early respect for those now-ignored writings that were a major part of the preaching of the evolving church. In a comment carried in one of his books entitle 'When were our Gospels Written?' Tischendorf said, 'As late as the fifth century many good Christians assigned to the Epistle of Barnabas and the Shepherd of Hermas as much authority as Christians do the books now called inspired'.
Presbyters previous to the Council of Nicaea regularly orated the Shepherd of Hermas to the rabble and distinctively claimed it to be 'inspired'. Bishop Irenaeus called it 'scripture', Clement of Alexandria said it was 'divine revelation', and Origen cited it as 'holy scripture'. A version was found in the Latin Vulgate Bible in the 15th century and it is part of the canon of the oldest known Bible in the world today, the Codex Sinaiticus. Yet it is highly probable that most people have never heard of a Christian text called the 'Shepherd of Hermas'. That strange writing was, at one time, 'publicly read out loud', to the congregations and was held in high repute by presbyters.
It was a Gospel pretended to have been written by two resurrected GHOSTS, Charinus and Lenthius, who described in some detail what they saw in Hell after death, and reflected the curious original beliefs of Christianity. The early priesthood was fascinated by mythical ghost stories and literal belief in them provided the genesis of Christian teachings."