[Truthorlies2012]

Is there anyone out there that has ventured down this road of Gnostics or something along the line of what the guy on  youtube channel Tosentv is talking about?  I take and interest in learning all that I can learn because I feel through knowledge we will all become more obedient to GOD.  We have to fail at something in order to learn how to succeed.  I failed when I entered the WMS but I succeeded on my exit.  But the road has been so bumpy because now I will not return to a church.  If I did return it would be a more social event and it would be as if I am bearing witness to the activity. 

If any of you have a belief that is not the norm(other than satanists) I am interested to learn or read about it.  WMS has made me a person that must seek the truth.  I come here to the forum from time to time hoping for more evidence to the falsehood of the WMS and at the same time we should speak truth here so the people reading may find the reason to leave because critism and exposing doesn't always intrigue the sheep.

[Park_In]

[Park_In]

Why they say my sheep listen to my voice? That means we are not their sheep right?

[ttr]

Hal wrote:

Gnostisism is as close to the early church as you will find. They along with the coptics tend to be more true believers of what is written through the orginal greek writings than incorrect translations.

Gnosticism is a distortion of Christianity as well as other religions:

http://www.newadvent.org/cathen/06592a.htm

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gnosticism

Copts are Orthodox and split from Catholicism far earlier than other branches, and therefore retain more of the original deposit of faith left with the Apostles:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Copts

If you want to see what the first Christians believed, you should study their writings.  In Catholicism we call them the "Church Fathers".  They were leaders in early Christianity.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Church_Fathers

http://www.newadvent.org/fathers/

Some of these Church Fathers were direct disciples of the Apostles.  For instance, St. Ignatios of Antioch was a student of John the Apostle:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ignatius_of_Antioch

These early Christians wrote lots of material which gives us insight into the practices and beliefs of the early Christian church.

[Simon]

My question has always been how do we know the ECFs are authentic and not forgeries

[ttr]

Simon wrote:

My question has always been how do we know the ECFs are authentic and not forgeries

A great question.  The authenticity of ancient texts is a science in itself.  This is what historians do for a living.  🙂

There are many methods for determining which documents are authentic and which are forgeries.  One set of methods is referred to as "historical criticism":

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Historical_criticism

[Rahab]

I have recently been venturing into Christian apologetics to help me in my studies.

[Rahab]

I have recently been venturing into Christian apologetics to help me in my studies.

[Elievalkyrie]

Wikipedia is not really that reliable, which I experienced firsthand, so if you want to convince someone, please give a more "trusted" source.

[Elievalkyrie]

Wikipedia is not really that reliable, which I experienced firsthand, so if you want to convince someone, please give a more "trusted" source.

[Simon]

wikipedia has been proven reliable as any printed source people are just paranoid which is understandable but the evidence still disagrees.

[Simon]

wikipedia has been proven reliable as any printed source people are just paranoid which is understandable but the evidence still disagrees.

[jellybean]

What Elievalkyrie is referring to is that Wikipedia is a website were anyone can write anything without the appropriate research. For example college teachers do not allow you to quote Wikipedia for their assignments because is not reliable.

[jellybean]

What Elievalkyrie is referring to is that Wikipedia is a website were anyone can write anything without the appropriate research. For example college teachers do not allow you to quote Wikipedia for their assignments because is not reliable.

[Elievalkyrie]

Thank you for that jellybean. ^____^ Yeah, don't believe everything you read in wikipedia, especially the ones that have "citation needed" Anyway I have just commented on this "wikipedia" thing because I saw TTR post about Ignatius being a disciple of Apostle John. His so-called "writings" are widely disputed by scholars and is being criticized as being fabricated or inautheticated. Here is one comment about Ignatius:

"Of his origin, birth, and early life we know nothing at all … a tradition credits him with having been a disciple of Apostles; but any further information about his early career is non-existent … The remainder of his history is scarcely less obscure … An impenetrable silence lies over the whole forty years of his pastorate." – Early Christian Writings, p63-64."

When a convenient time arrived, Ignatius "letters" miraculously came out. Textual critic scholars says that eight of the fifteen letters of Ignatius are definitely not authentic. The fact that many of Ignatius' writings were forgeries and corruptions casts a suspicious eye upon all his writings. In the end, we simply cannot have any certainty as to the purity of their content. Oh, and Ignatius doesn't even believe in the concept of "three-in-one" God.

[Elievalkyrie]

Thank you for that jellybean. ^____^ Yeah, don't believe everything you read in wikipedia, especially the ones that have "citation needed" Anyway I have just commented on this "wikipedia" thing because I saw TTR post about Ignatius being a disciple of Apostle John. His so-called "writings" are widely disputed by scholars and is being criticized as being fabricated or inautheticated. Here is one comment about Ignatius:

"Of his origin, birth, and early life we know nothing at all … a tradition credits him with having been a disciple of Apostles; but any further information about his early career is non-existent … The remainder of his history is scarcely less obscure … An impenetrable silence lies over the whole forty years of his pastorate." – Early Christian Writings, p63-64."

When a convenient time arrived, Ignatius "letters" miraculously came out. Textual critic scholars says that eight of the fifteen letters of Ignatius are definitely not authentic. The fact that many of Ignatius' writings were forgeries and corruptions casts a suspicious eye upon all his writings. In the end, we simply cannot have any certainty as to the purity of their content. Oh, and Ignatius doesn't even believe in the concept of "three-in-one" God.

[Simon]

Wikipedia on a whole is reliable. unless you wanna argue Britannica is not

[Elievalkyrie]

Okay, so what is the "basis" of your reliability? How do you know it's reliable? There must be proof or enough evidence for you to state that it's reliable.

[ttr]

Elievalkyrie wrote:

Wikipedia is not really that reliable, which I experienced firsthand, so if you want to convince someone, please give a more "trusted" source.

I'm sorry you had a bad experience with wikipedia.  Here's another source which cites to Eusebius' Church History as well as a number of other texts if you will accept it:

http://www.newadvent.org/cathen/07644a.htm

and two more:

http://www.ccel.org/ccel/schaff/anf01.v.i.html

http://www.earlychristianwritings.com/ignatius-intro.html

 

Elievalkyrie wrote:

His so-called "writings" are widely disputed by scholars and is being criticized as being fabricated or inautheticated.

i have never heard of his writings being widely disputed.  i would be interested to hear more on this.

 

Elievalkyrie wrote:

 

"Of his origin, birth, and early life we know nothing at all … a tradition credits him with having been a disciple of Apostles; but any further information about his early career is non-existent … The remainder of his history is scarcely less obscure … An impenetrable silence lies over the whole forty years of his pastorate." – Early Christian Writings, p63-64."

When a convenient time arrived, Ignatius "letters" miraculously came out. Textual critic scholars says that eight of the fifteen letters of Ignatius are definitely not authentic. The fact that many of Ignatius' writings were forgeries and corruptions casts a suspicious eye upon all his writings. In the end, we simply cannot have any certainty as to the purity of their content. Oh, and Ignatius doesn't even believe in the concept of "three-in-one" God.

there are many books by the name "Early Christian Writings".  could you please provide the ISBN and/or the author?  also, is the second paragraph a quote from the same source?  does this author cite any sources for these claims?

thank you

[Elievalkyrie]

You can find it in these websites. 

http://www.angelfire.com/space/thegospeltruth/trinity/history/ignatius.html

http://www.reformation21.org/miscellaneous/window-on-the-past-apostolic-fathers-ignatius-polycarp-and-clement-of-rome-recen.php

http://www.jesusneverexisted.com/ignatius.html

I just copy and pasted the words seen on these websites to point out that his writings are in doubt and until now still unproven to be authentic. I am not saying that his writings are false but that it is corrupted and I am not going to name the "corruptors" because it would start a debate that would not be related to this forum anymore. LOL.

[ttr]

Elievalkyrie wrote:

You can find it in these websites. 

http://www.angelfire.com/space/thegospeltruth/trinity/history/ignatius.html

i don't see anything you copied from this site.  this site seems to be a random web page hosted on angel fire that is not connected to any larger web site?  the anonymous author does not cite any sources for their claims, and unfortunately i do not have time to go through and research each of them.  they do refer to the fact that there are multiple copies of the letters and this is explained under the "Collections" section here:

http://www.newadvent.org/cathen/07644a.htm

 

Elievalkyrie wrote:

http://www.reformation21.org/miscellaneous/window-on-the-past-apostolic-fathers-ignatius-polycarp-and-clement-of-rome-recen.php

this one is pro-Ignatius.  i don't believe you quoted from this one either.  this site argues the letters are authentic and uses them to make arguments for beliefs in Christianity.

 

Elievalkyrie wrote:

You can find it in these websites.

http://www.jesusneverexisted.com/ignatius.html

this is an anti-Christian site.  I see you copied the first paragraph I asked about from this site.  this site appears to argue against everything in Christianity.  regarding Ignatius, I was able to trace down the quote to the work Early Christian Writings by Maxwell Staniforth, Penguin Classics 1978.  While I don't have a copy of this work handy, I believe this is a pro-Christian work and so it probably is not going to say what the author wants it to say.  Actually, upon closer examination of the quote itself even, it doesn't say anything about the authenticity of his works, it simply says we know very little about his personal life.  

In all, it appears the "dispute" you are referring to refers to the multiple copies of the letters.  again, an explanation of this can be found under the "Collections" section here:

http://www.newadvent.org/cathen/07644a.htm

Another reason I like that site is because they cross-reference with multiple works of antiquity, rather than relying on a single source.

Thank you for the discussion, it has been helpful.

[Elievalkyrie]

Opps, sorry about the http://www.reformation21.org/miscellaneous/window-on-the-past-apostolic-fathers-ignatius-polycarp-and-clement-of-rome-recen.php. That was my other reading, I have so many windows opened in my desktop. Here's what I meant:

http://www.ccel.org/ccel/schaff/hcc2.v.xv.vii.html

There is still a controversy. In all of his 15 writings, only seven are considered to be genuine.

Hmmm… When you said that you didn't saw anything I copied from the angelfire site, did you read everything or did you just scanned it? Personally, I don't care if its from a Christian or non-Christian, its reliability should just be taken into consideration but until proven false, we should keep our opinions to ourselves.