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Post by jimmie on Oct 31, 2017 5:15:48 GMT -8
Today, October 31, 2017 is the 500th anniversary of Martin Luther nailing his 95 thesis to the church door in Wittenberg Germany. Ever wonder why he choose October 31, to nail them to the church door. Well there were going to be a lot of people, at the church that day celebrating All Hollow’s Eve or as we call it Halloween. Since about half of his theses were dealing with indulgencies, or the purchasing of oneself or a dead loved one out of purgatory, what a great way to get the word out to the people that the church was stilling from, than when they were there to buy the indulgencies.
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Post by garrett on Nov 1, 2017 14:12:25 GMT -8
I guess that's a pretty clever way for him to get the message out.
I'm glad about the Reformation and how Martin Luther spear-headed it. Especially the fact that he was instrumental with putting people in the position to read scripture and hear scripture in their own language. It began the unraveling of the church monopoly over the scriptures.
I still have such a sour taste in my mouth about the very intentional, descriptive and detailed writings he wrote against the Jews in his later life, his old age. He had not gotten the impact he hoped to have with them. His writings were brutally anti-semitic. What a strange dichotomy!
I have heard many say that Luther was possibly dealing with some form of dementia as he neared the end of his life, when he wrote those terrible things. Mark my words, I spent several years doing hospice care and in-home care, primarily for the elderly. I have been around scores of people with varying degrees and forms of dementia and I can assuredly say that no one with this condition can so eloquently write the written page as Luther did, especially with specific regard to how he thought the Jews should have been treated.
His huge contributions combined with his late-life hatred towards those that delivered him the scriptures has always puzzled me...I've never been able to get very excited about him.
Oh well.......
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Post by alon on Nov 1, 2017 17:23:56 GMT -8
... Mark my words, ... I have been around scores of people with varying degrees and forms of dementia and I can assuredly say that no one with this condition can so eloquently write the written page as Luther did, especially with specific regard to how he thought the Jews should have been treated. ...  j/k
One has to wonder about people like Luther. But I know Christians who are otherwise good people but who hate the Jews. After becoming Messianic I was called a "Judaizer" and worse by long time family friends. We've probably all been there. Christians like trophy Jews who graft themselves completely onto the Gentile tree. But even today there is a lot of latent hatred for anything Jewish by most Christians. And while a Jew that looks and acts like a Gentile is great to them, a Gentile who decides to take on any part of Judaism is a blood traitor, defector, profaner and all around bad person!
Dan C |
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Post by Elizabeth on Nov 2, 2017 20:15:31 GMT -8
I was raised Lutheran and it kind of turns my stomach. I haven't looked into the specifics of what He said, but I know there was evil behind it. At the same time, he did some good. I was also Catholic for a while and I remember the looks I got when, after I first converted, I asked people when they have their Bible studies. They didn't have bible studies. It took me forever to figure out why.
I just think hasatan did what hasatan does. He saw things going in a positive direction and found a vulnerable weakness in Luther that undermined what could have been.
Before I started identifying with Messianic Judaism but was being drawn to Torah , there was that terror attack several years ago on the Chabad house in India. I was talking with my mom, who is Lutheran, and I was pretty emotional going on about why it's always the Jewish people. I hadn't talked much at all up to this point about my interest in Torah and Judaism, but my mom wasn't thrown by my emotion a bit. She must have been in the Spirit because she didn't miss a beat to put my heart to rest bringing G-d back to my mind. In conviction she said, "They are G-d's chosen people, it will be this way to the end." As sad as that statement is, it spoke to G-d's faithfulness and prophetic plan and so was a source of hope that just helped me kind of gather things together.
She likely helped me come to terms with a lot of the confusion and questions I was having at that time, but honestly things start running together on this subject for me. I just know her statement gave me peace in that moment.
I just want you to see there is some hope and truth that G-d has preserved. Luther's hatred and ignorance didn't trickle down to all the Lutherans, but I do think they have covered it up too much as I never heard anyone address it all the years I was in or my family has been associated with the church.
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Post by rakovsky on May 16, 2022 14:07:01 GMT -8
I would like to continue my discussion on the "Speaking Hebrew" thread with Alon here because it fits this topic better. "Luther and Protestantism seem to me to make a pretty sharper version of Paul's "take" than I am comfortable with. But in the English-speaking world, we are typically bombarded mostly with Protestant versions of Christianity, and both you and I came from Protestant backgrounds." Luther too was "just a beginning" in my view. No one really asked the obvious, "If these be wrong, could there be other errors as well?" Much of the catholic doctrine was (and is) still just accepted, while the Prods were content to just argue and modify Luther's points. I have said before that Luther is the Protestant Mishnah, and the denominational views are their Gemara.
Yes. My upbringing was (as you know) Southern Baptist, but my mothers family is Pentacostal. So I am well familiar with them and their doctrines. I agree with them on many things, even some that differ from the Baptists from before I was MJ. But I definitely disagree with their take on tongues. Do a search on "tongues," specifying only my posts and you will find pages of them listed where I definitely debunk the contemporary tongues movement. A couple months ago I got really into trying to see how exactly Luther defined "Sola Scriptura", since I was baptized Lutheran and retain some sentimentality for it. In his Smalcald Articles, he asserted that the Bible Alone is the only establisher of any and all "articles of faith", by which he seemed to mean dogmas. Elsewhere, and in the Formula of Concord, he and the foundational Lutherans respectively asserted that the Bible Alone is the only judge of all teachings and teachers. Then in his writings he made assertions like the Church Fathers should only be used to get into the Bible and find the Bible's meaning. So his Sola Scriptura concept was aimed at trying to reduce as much as reasonably possible the role of nonBiblical Tradition. However, Luther was not really consistent about Sola Scriptura in my opinion, because of how much he seemed to promote nonBiblical Tradition at times. For example, he included the Apocrypha in his 1534 Bible and wrote a Commentary on Tobit, even though he considered the Apocrypha to be noncanonical. At times, the most sympathetic way to characterize Luther seems to be to call him a blowhard polemicist, like when he rants about Jews in ways that go beyond the Fathers. Then the "Radical Reformers" went beyond Luther to try to get rid of nonBiblical tradition even more. I recall John Knox either dismantled one of his churches or else all the artwork in it. I agree with what you said about how Protestants in effect treat Luther and other Protestant writings rather like Jews treat Oral Tradition. This similarity comes up in a few ways: (1) De facto, Protestants have their own set of non-Catholic incontrovertible dogmas like Luther's Five Solas, although they would justify treating them as dogmas by asserting that their dogmas are "Biblical." Protestants would not say, "You controverted Luther and the Five Solas, so you are wrong," but rather, "You controverted the of Biblical teaching of (Five Solas, etc.), so you are wrong." (2) When it comes to understanding what the Bible says, they turn to Luther and Protestant writings like Jews turn to Oral Tradition (Mishnahs, etc.). Relying on commentaries is not necessarily in conflict with the limits of Luther's "Sola Scriptura" concept, but it goes against Luther's assertions that the Bible is everywhere easy to understand. (3) Luther's Sola Scriptura theory was that you should only use the Bible to "establish" dogmas. But in practice, Protestants also use other texts like Luther's writings to establish their own dogmas, like how Jews use both Written and Oral  to establish teachings. This is because when you use other writings like Luther to find out the Bible's indirect, implicit meaning (like whether to baptize infants) then in effect you are also using other writings to establish dogmas. The idea that the "Bible Alone" is establishing your dogmas when you use commentaries to establish dogmas that the Bible doesn't specifically talk about is a logical fallacy. (4) The same issue comes up as in #3 above when it comes to evaluating teachings. How can you use the Bible Alone to evaluate every single religious teaching in the world? Luther's Reductionist answer for this mental challenge was that if you use the Bible to verify every teaching, then in effect it is the Bible Alone that judges them all. If you use the Bible to verify Augustine's teachings as true, then no longer are you using the Bible and Augustine to verify everything, but the Bible Alone, as Augustine was verified by the Bible. Of course, this is circular reasoning, because the Bible is verified in Apologetics by non-Biblical writings and arguments, and because verifying Augustine doesn't keep Augustine from verifying other writings. What you are alluding to is that in practice, if some theological challenge comes up in Protestant sermons, or else in your discussions with them, they are typically going to want to quote a Bible verse favoring one side of a debate, and then provide some Reasoning relating that verse to the debate, and maybe quote some famous Protestant theologian like MacArthur to favor it too. In effect, they are treating Protestant tradition (eg. Spurgeon or the Reasoning that they've heard in the past) rather like Jews treat Tradition. But some qualifications should be made. Protestants justify their use of Protestant theological traditions with the fallacy that the traditions are just Biblical and aren't evaluating anything, even though in reality they are using Spurgeon etc. to evaluate the debate. Additionally, my sense is that some Jews and Protestants may be more beholden to Oral and Protestant traditions, respectively than others. Some observant Jews may disagree with the rabbis, whereas some Protestants may disagree with Protestant consensus positions about what's Biblical. I think maybe even a majority of Protestants don't really know how Luther defined "Sola Scriptura", since very different versions can be found among Protestants who acclaim "Sola Scriptura", ranging in reality from adherents of Prima Scriptura to Scriptura Nuda / Solo Scriptura. When you say, "No one really asked the obvious, 'If these be wrong, could there be other errors as well?'," I take it that you mean that the Reformers didn't question enough whether the Catholic Church got away from Christianity's important Jewish elements. One area where a big majority of Protestants followed the Catholic Church, and where a more Jewish direction would have been helpful is Augustine's theories of the guilt inheritance of Original Sin and of Total Depravity. It has given Protestant theology a rather darker side in its view of humanity than in Judaism. The Orthodox Church however follows the ancient Jewish theology on this topic, so that effects of side and degradation from the corruption of the world impact humanity, but guilt is not past down biologically. On the other hand, I think that your statement is incorrect (to put it tactlessly), and that in fact over the centuries Protestants have "asked the obvious". But the answers that they've come up with may or may not be correct. Certainly Protestants like Zwingli and the Anabaptists questioned whether Luther and the Catholics were right to perform infant baptism, and it's been a big debate among Protestants ever since. My expectation, not knowing the answer as to how Messianic Jews answer that issue, is that they probably have a range of answers. There are "Hebrew Catholics" who I'm sure practice infant baptism. One of Calvin's arguments for infant baptism was based on : that the Jews circumcised infants on the 8th day, and this argument has been one of those used by non-Calvinists as well. My sense is that Messianic Jews are trying to recover the "lost" ways of the 1st century (and later) Nazarenes, including by bringing elements of Judaism, and that in some ways they succeed. One form of success I think is in reverence to the concept of Tradition and Mitzvot instead of Luther's 5 Solas, which seems to go in the direction of downplaying the roles of Tradition and Mitzvot. Even if you sympathetically put Luther's "Sin Boldly" command in a letter to one of his friends into its polemical "Sola Fide" context, it still shows a disregard for righteous living when compared to what we find in Judaism or Patristics. The doctrinal problem for me in Luther's statement above is that Luther put "let your sins be strong" in the imperative, even if the rest of his paragraph is theologically "orthodox." If I am to give a constructive critique of the Messianic Jewish movement on the whole, it does seem to ask the question that you pose. It does seem partly a Post-Reformation movement to return to Hebrew/Jewish roots of Christianity. However, it's certainly not a wholly post-Reformation attempt. We can occasionally find attempts at this throughout the centuries of Christianity, as St John Chrysostom's complaint in about the 4th century "Against the Judaizers" implies. Conversely, Christianity never gave up its Jewish roots per se. The fact that the Catholic Church fought so much to keep the Jewish Deuterocanon/Apocrypha is one sign of this, since the Protestant paradigm practically entailed that if the Deuterocanon got labeled noncanonical, then one would not give it credence for establishing doctrines or dogmas. At least, this was part of Luther's argument against Purgatory: A Catholic polemicist argued that Purgatory was in Maccabees, and Luther responded that Maccabees wasn't canonical, as if its noncanonicity should put an end to attempts to use Maccabees to establish it in the debate. Similarly, Luther's retention of the Apocrypha in his Bible implies loyalty to that Jewish written heritage. Further, he and other Christians who put the Deuterocanon outside of the canon have argued that the Jewish establishment doesn't consider it to be canon. I think that trying to reconstruct an ancient movement like the quite  -Observant faction or collective of Yeshua's followers is naturally quite challenging at times. I have a sense that much of the Messianic Jewish movement might use (A) more from Post-Second Temple rabbinical Tradition and (B) from the Reformation than the 1st century Nazarenes would agree with or follow. Correct me if I'm wrong, however. To give an example of each: (A) Prayer shawls were in use in 1st century Judea, Temple priests had mitres, and the rabbinical practice is for men to cover their heads, especially in synagogue. However, Paul/Shaul writes to recommend that men don't cover their heads, and that women should cover their heads. In the normal medieval and EO Christian tradition that we have familiarity with, it's only women, mitred clergy, and monastics who cover their heads in church. Did Yeshua and the apostles cover their heads? The Messianic Jewish practice seems to me to include Kippah, but I don't know if that is ubiquitous. (B) Some Messianic Jewish services seem to use guitar bands with melodies that remind me of modern pop Contemporary "Praise and Worship" bands at morning church services, rather than what one would find in a 1st century synagogue/ecclesia, or a Patristic-era service, or in a modern Orthodox synagogue. I don't know if one can find Contemporary Worship at modern synagogues or if the Corinthians' informal or impromptu style gatherings that Paul described are very analogous. Probably you are aware of all these kinds of issues. If someone converts from Protestantism to Orthodoxy, they might either take some Protestant baggage with them, or else could become a bit "Hyperdox." This kind of challenge could be even more the case with much of Messianic Judaism, because one would be trying to reconstruct a Tradition instead of just taking an established Tradition and bringing converts into it. If we are just talking about -Observant MJ "Hebrew Catholics" or -Observant EOs who come from Jewish backgrounds, it's not as much of a challenge, because they just add -observance into their current EO/RC practices instead of trying to create separate Messianic Jewish synagogues. Yes. My upbringing was (as you know) Southern Baptist, but my mothers family is Pentacostal. So I am well familiar with them and their doctrines. I agree with them on many things, even some that differ from the Baptists from before I was MJ. But I definitely disagree with their take on tongues. Do a search on "tongues," specifying only my posts and you will find pages of them listed where I definitely debunk the contemporary tongues movement. Putting aside Christian theology about miracles, my personal impression as a regular person, probably influenced by my classical Protestant background, when I hear about or see Pentecostal tongues is that it's false, a let-down, or mental illness. I heard that historically the Pentecostals thought that they could speak or write Chinese, and then they got some reliable Chinese sources (like actual people who spoke Chinese), and it turned out that what the Pentecostals thought was Chinese was not in reality. This is what I mean about it being false and a let-down. It would be neat if it was real Chinese. I don't want to be disparaging or rule out that a missionary could go to some foreign country, especially with some limited knowledge of a foreign language, and then try to speak to the people with some success in a mix of super-positive happy inspired guesswork, foreign phrases, and their own native non-foreign language, and get some of their message across. I have heard stories about this. Probably if I was a missionary or stuck in some tough situation in a foreign country I would try to do the same thing. I tried to put together a comparison of Orthodoxy, modern Rationalist Skepticism, and Modern Charismatism regarding Charismatic elements in the early Christian period in my article "Modern Charismatic Movement Similar to Charismaticism in the Early Church?" (2015, Ancient Faith Blog). You can find it online under that title, and expect that you would find it interesting. |
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Post by alon on May 17, 2022 12:16:20 GMT -8
I would like to continue my discussion on the "Speaking Hebrew" thread with Alon here because it fits this topic better. That works. But you got the quotes turned around. They should be:
rakovsky Avatar: rakovsky said: "Luther and Protestantism seem to me to make a pretty sharper version of Paul's "take" than I am comfortable with. But in the English-speaking world, we are typically bombarded mostly with Protestant versions of Christianity, and both you and I came from Protestant backgrounds." A couple months ago I got really into trying to see how exactly Luther defined "Sola Scriptura", since I was baptized Lutheran and retain some sentimentality for it. In his Smalcald Articles, he asserted that the Bible Alone is the only establisher of any and all "articles of faith", by which he seemed to mean dogmas. I don’t really like the term:Dogma- A doctrine or a corpus of doctrines relating to matters such as morality and faith, set forth in an authoritative manner by a religion.I guess it’s the “authoritative” part I have an aversion to. I do not like allowing someone else that kind of control over what I believe. I do recognize the need for leadership to oversee doctrine:Doctrine: A principle or body of principles presented for acceptance or belief, as by a religious, political, scientific, or philosophic group; dogma.But since the dictionary had to put “dogma” there as an example, I suppose I will just have to learn to deal with it. Still, ‘doctrine’ has a somewhat softer connotation to it than ‘dogma.’
Elsewhere, and in the Formula of Concord, he and the foundational Lutherans respectively asserted that the Bible Alone is the only judge of all teachings and teachers. Then in his writings he made assertions like the Church Fathers should only be used to get into the Bible and find the Bible's meaning. So his Sola Scriptura concept was aimed at trying to reduce as much as reasonably possible the role of nonBiblical Tradition. However, Luther was not really consistent about Sola Scriptura in my opinion, because of how much he seemed to promote nonBiblical Tradition at times. For example, he included the Apocrypha in his 1534 Bible and wrote a Commentary on Tobit, even though he considered the Apocrypha to be noncanonical. At times, the most sympathetic way to characterize Luther seems to be to call him a blowhard polemicist, like when he rants about Jews in ways that go beyond the Fathers. Then the "Radical Reformers" went beyond Luther to try to get rid of nonBiblical tradition even more. I recall John Knox either dismantled one of his churches or else all the artwork in it. Not that familiar with Knox, other than that he was a Scottish theologian and was instrumental in forming the Presbyterian Church. They are much like you describe Luther as being. I do know that the early Presbeterian Church was instrumental in the founding of this US. I don’t think they they kept Easter nor Christmas. And I don’t think they allowed statues. So if by “dismantled artwork” you mean removed statues, that would make sense. Other than that (and really even that since my knowledge of he or his church is sketchy), I wouldn’t know. I agree with what you said about how Protestants in effect treat Luther and other Protestant writings rather like Jews treat Oral Tradition. This similarity comes up in a few ways: (1) De facto, Protestants have their own set of non-Catholic incontrovertible dogmas like Luther's Five Solas, although they would justify treating them as dogmas by asserting that their dogmas are "Biblical." Protestants would not say, "You controverted Luther and the Five Solas, so you are wrong," but rather, "You controverted the of Biblical teaching of (Five Solas, etc.), so you are wrong." (2) When it comes to understanding what the Bible says, they turn to Luther and Protestant writings like Jews turn to Oral Tradition (Mishnahs, etc.). Relying on commentaries is not necessarily in conflict with the limits of Luther's "Sola Scriptura" concept, but it goes against Luther's assertions that the Bible is everywhere easy to understand. (3) Luther's Sola Scriptura theory was that you should only use the Bible to "establish" dogmas. But in practice, Protestants also use other texts like Luther's writings to establish their own dogmas, like how Jews use both Written and Oral to establish teachings. This is because when you use other writings like Luther to find out the Bible's indirect, implicit meaning (like whether to baptize infants) then in effect you are also using other writings to establish dogmas. The idea that the "Bible Alone" is establishing your dogmas when you use commentaries to establish dogmas that the Bible doesn't specifically talk about is a logical fallacy. (4) The same issue comes up as in #3 above when it comes to evaluating teachings. How can you use the Bible Alone to evaluate every single religious teaching in the world? Luther's Reductionist answer for this mental challenge was that if you use the Bible to verify every teaching, then in effect it is the Bible Alone that judges them all. If you use the Bible to verify Augustine's teachings as true, then no longer are you using the Bible and Augustine to verify everything, but the Bible Alone, as Augustine was verified by the Bible. Of course, this is circular reasoning, because the Bible is verified in Apologetics by non-Biblical writings and arguments, and because verifying Augustine doesn't keep Augustine from verifying other writings. Good points.
What you are alluding to is that in practice, if some theological challenge comes up in Protestant sermons, or else in your discussions with them, they are typically going to want to quote a Bible verse favoring one side of a debate, and then provide some Reasoning relating that verse to the debate, and maybe quote some famous Protestant theologian like MacArthur to favor it too. In effect, they are treating Protestant tradition (eg. Spurgeon or the Reasoning that they've heard in the past) rather like Jews treat Tradition. But some qualifications should be made. Protestants justify their use of Protestant theological traditions with the fallacy that the traditions are just Biblical and aren't evaluating anything, even though in reality they are using Spurgeon etc. to evaluate the debate. Additionally, my sense is that some Jews and Protestants may be more beholden to Oral and Protestant traditions, respectively than others. Some observant Jews may disagree with the rabbis, whereas some Protestants may disagree with Protestant consensus positions about what's Biblical. I think maybe even a majority of Protestants don't really know how Luther defined "Sola Scriptura", since very different versions can be found among Protestants who acclaim "Sola Scriptura", ranging in reality from adherents of Prima Scriptura to Scriptura Nuda / Solo Scriptura. True. We humans do love our traditions; and hate when they are questioned. And most pastors when preparing sermons go to the commentaries they were taught from. These commentators follow church ‘dogma’ like it is scripture, and for the reasons you state. But because they follow the traditions handed down by the early church fathers they are full of errors! Errors that are not questioned; that are sacred traditions, not to be messed with!
Sunday worship is a good example. I have argued this is unbiblical with several pastors, and invariably their defense is “apostolic succession.” The fathers could change the day because of authority handed down by the church, which they say came from the apostolic leadership. They don’t (won’t) see that they just gave the RC Church authority over them! And I’ve read writings by contemporary RC leadership where they boast of this!
Apostolic succession depends on the biblical practice of a shaliach tzibur, a representative of the assembly (an apostle) being able to make halacha- rulings on the minutia of how we keep Torah. Their problem is no shaliach, even Yeshua Himself was ever given authority to change Torah:
Matthew 5:18 For truly, I say to you, until heaven and earth pass away, not an iota, not a dot, will pass from the Law until all is accomplished.When you say, "No one really asked the obvious, 'If these be wrong, could there be other errors as well?'," I take it that you mean that the Reformers didn't question enough whether the Catholic Church got away from Christianity's important Jewish elements. One area where a big majority of Protestants followed the Catholic Church, and where a more Jewish direction would have been helpful is Augustine's theories of the guilt inheritance of Original Sin and of Total Depravity. It has given Protestant theology a rather darker side in its view of humanity than in Judaism. The Orthodox Church however follows the ancient Jewish theology on this topic, so that effects of side and degradation from the corruption of the world impact humanity, but guilt is not past down biologically. I would agree with the latter view, and is one of the problems I do see in mainstream Christianity as a whole.
On the other hand, I think that your statement is incorrect (to put it tactlessly), and that in fact over the centuries Protestants have "asked the obvious". But the answers that they've come up with may or may not be correct. Certainly Protestants like Zwingli and the Anabaptists questioned whether Luther and the Catholics were right to perform infant baptism, and it's been a big debate among Protestants ever since. My expectation, not knowing the answer as to how Messianic Jews answer that issue, is that they probably have a range of answers. There are "Hebrew Catholics" who I'm sure practice infant baptism. One of Calvin's arguments for infant baptism was based on : that the Jews circumcised infants on the 8th day, and this argument has been one of those used by non-Calvinists as well. You are of course correct. My statement was a huge generality. It would be better to say that “they never questioned much of what Luther believed, nor did they (and this is the important point) question many of the traditions and ‘dogmas’ (here the correct term, stated for effect) of the RC Church.” But that is a bit unwieldy.
One of the things they did question, Christmas. It was outlawed for a time in England, and was illegal in many places in the US. It was not declared a holiday here until the late 19th cen. So yes, like most all vast generalizations my statement was incorrect. But the point is true- as we both say here they have their traditions and dogmas which do not rely on scripture, but rather on some church authority; an unquestionable holdover from Roman Catholicism.
My sense is that Messianic Jews are trying to recover the "lost" ways of the 1st century (and later) Nazarenes, including by bringing elements of Judaism, and that in some ways they succeed. One form of success I think is in reverence to the concept of Tradition and Mitzvot instead of Luther's 5 Solas, which seems to go in the direction of downplaying the roles of Tradition and Mitzvot. Even if you sympathetically put Luther's "Sin Boldly" command in a letter to one of his friends into its polemical "Sola Fide" context, it still shows a disregard for righteous living when compared to what we find in Judaism or Patristics. Yes, MJ does look to recover the ‘Judaism’ of the Notsarim, the sect of the Nazarenes. And some (like the parent synagogue here) look to contemporary Jewish practices more than others (like where I worship). Like Judaism, we too look to sources other than canon. However we do not look to extra biblical sources for doctrine. And we are not bound by the rulings of either Rabbinical Judaism nor and church. We do borrow from both where the practices are right and not in violation of scripture. There are after all a lot of “historical holes” to be filled in recreating a 1st can form of worship. The differences are mostly in how much we borrow from each, and the specifics of what we borrow.The doctrinal problem for me in Luther's statement above is that Luther put "let your sins be strong" in the imperative, even if the rest of his paragraph is theologically "orthodox." My guess is he was saying “let your sense of sin and the awareness of its enormity” be strong. I’m no fan of Luther, but I can’t see him saying “sin strongly.” Again, we have to try and think as his contemporaries would have read this.
If I am to give a constructive critique of the Messianic Jewish movement on the whole, it does seem to ask the question that you pose. It does seem partly a Post-Reformation movement to return to Hebrew/Jewish roots of Christianity. However, it's certainly not a wholly post-Reformation attempt. We can occasionally find attempts at this throughout the centuries of Christianity, as St John Chrysostom's complaint in about the 4th century "Against the Judaizers" implies. There have been many attempts to go back to a more Hebraic and biblical form of worship. And there is evidence the Notsarim still existed and practiced as they did in the 1st cen well into the 16th. However the contemporary movement did not really take off until the late 1960’s or early 1970’s. And a true Messianic questions everything; passes it through the fire many times. What is true will remai
Conversely, Christianity never gave up its Jewish roots per se. Clement of Alexandria- All the churches were Greek religious colonies. Their language was Greek, their organization Greek, their writers Greek and their ritual Greek. Thus the church at Rome was but one of a confederation of Greek religious republics rounded by Christianity.” He said this between 150-200 AD. In his own words, the "churches" (plural) were thoroughly pagan Greek and in no way Jewish.Constantine- “Let us then have nothing in common with the detestable Jewish crowd; for we have received from our Savior a different way.”(Eusebius, Life of Constantine, Vol III Ch. XVIII). Constantine changed God’s Sabbath to Sunday and outlawed all of God’s Feast Days to distance Gentile believers from Jewish believers who he referred to as “that detestable Jewish crowd.” Had they still been alive, this would’ve included men like Matthew, Mark, Luke, John, Peter, and Paul. But the Roman Emperor Constantine did NOT receive his “different way” from Yeshua. For Israel’s Messiah, our Savior, scripture never changes! Constantine moderated the 1st Council of Nicea, 325 CE, the ecumenical council which 1st tried to obtain consensus among church leaders. He primarily wanted stability in his empire, so his interests were not so much scriptural truths as what helped control the people. He was in fact not “converted,” not saved nor baptized at this point. He was both as emperor and now as a leadership figure in the church, which was just forming at this point able to insert his anti-Semitic views into the church simply by supporting pastors/priests/leaders who were themselves anti-Semites.
I have many more quotes, but the point is that from its inception the church tried in almost every way to be different, to distance themselves from Judaism. It is only very recently that some churches, mostly Evangelicals have started to look back to their “Jewish roots.” Their problem is their roots belong to a pagan tree. I won’t go further here because it inevitably brings up the question of salvation. As I’ve said many times, I won't say who is/is not saved; but the further one gets from Yeshua or His Torah, the more danger you are in. And most all still give Torah short shrift.
The fact that the Catholic Church fought so much to keep the Jewish Deuterocanon/Apocrypha is one sign of this, since the Protestant paradigm practically entailed that if the Deuterocanon got labeled noncanonical, then one would not give it credence for establishing doctrines or dogmas. The Apocrypha is not deuterocanon. Deuterocanon means ‘secondary canon,’ which are books with no discernible problems scripturally, but were not listed as canon in most Protestant churches. The Apocryphal writings, while they do have many good points, also contain some problematic parts. And if we are going to be literal or precise it is important to note that different churches have different canons. I have a book of just the Apocrypha and the added books of the Ethiopian canon on my shelf, and it is as thick as any of my Bibles, including my study Bibles.
At least, this was part of Luther's argument against Purgatory: A Catholic polemicist argued that Purgatory was in Maccabees, and Luther responded that Maccabees wasn't canonical, as if its noncanonicity should put an end to attempts to use Maccabees to establish it in the debate. Similarly, Luther's retention of the Apocrypha in his Bible implies loyalty to that Jewish written heritage. Further, he and other Christians who put the Deuterocanon outside of the canon have argued that the Jewish establishment doesn't consider it to be canon. I think that trying to reconstruct an ancient movement like the quite Torah-Observant faction or collective of Yeshua's followers is naturally quite challenging at times. I have a sense that much of the Messianic Jewish movement might use (A) more from Post-Second Temple rabbinical Tradition and (B) from the Reformation than the 1st century Nazarenes would agree with or follow. Correct me if I'm wrong, however. Yes, and no. Like I said, some follow a very traditional contemporary form of Jewish worship. Some less so, and some just borrow from both Christian and Jewish practices to varying degrees, while also forming their own from the biblical accounts. Some won’t keep Chanukkah or Purim because they are not in Torah, wile others (like me) celebrate both. Most do reject Christmas, Easter, and especially Halloween. As to the difficulty, it’s a process. You can make it very difficult, or you can go a step at a time and make it a joyous journey into the Living Word and worship as was commanded by God Himself. Trust me, the latter method is better.
To give an example of each: (A) Prayer shawls were in use in 1st century Judea, Temple priests had mitres, and the rabbinical practice is for men to cover their heads, especially in synagogue. However, Paul/Shaul writes to recommend that men don't cover their heads, and that women should cover their heads. In the normal medieval and EO Christian tradition that we have familiarity with, it's only women, mitred clergy, and monastics who cover their heads in church. Did Yeshua and the apostles cover their heads? The Messianic Jewish practice seems to me to include Kippah, but I don't know if that is ubiquitous. My assembly does not wear kippot, and some women cover their hair, some do not. Everyone is at a different place in their walk. Most men do wear tzitzyot, but many on their belt loops. I wear a tallit katan under my shirt, which is usually not tucked. Some allow women to put tzitzyot on their prayer shawls, and some even allow them to wear tallitot; most forbid these practices. Again, different interpretations. (B) Some Messianic Jewish services seem to use guitar bands with melodies that remind me of modern pop Contemporary "Praise and Worship" bands at morning church services (which I severely dislike), rather than what one would find in a 1st century synagogue/ecclesia, or a Patristic-era service, or in a modern Orthodox synagogue. I don't know if one can find Contemporary Worship at modern synagogues (sometimes) or if the Corinthians' informal or impromptu style gatherings that Paul described are very analogous (usually very factual in application). Probably you are aware of all these kinds of issues. If someone converts from Protestantism to Orthodoxy, they might either take some Protestant baggage with them, or else could become a bit "Hyperdox." This kind of challenge could be even more the case with much of Messianic Judaism (Eee-yep!), because one would be trying to reconstruct a Tradition instead of just taking an established Tradition and bringing converts into it. If we are just talking about Torah-Observant MJ "Hebrew Catholics" or Torah-Observant EOs who come from Jewish backgrounds, it's not as much of a challenge, because they just add Torah-observance into their current EO/RC practices instead of trying to create separate Messianic Jewish synagogues. What usually happens if they try to do that is they are labeled “Judaizers” and disfellowshiped. And the reality in most cases is as soon as one either becomes Hebrew Roots or especially Messianic this is the case. Yes. My upbringing was (as you know) Southern Baptist, but my mothers family is Pentacostal. So I am well familiar with them and their doctrines. I agree with them on many things, even some that differ from the Baptists from before I was MJ. But I definitely disagree with their take on tongues. Do a search on "tongues," specifying only my posts and you will find pages of them listed where I definitely debunk the contemporary tongues movement. Putting aside Christian theology about miracles, my personal impression as a regular person, probably influenced by my classical Protestant background, when I hear about or see Pentecostal tongues is that it's false, a let-down, or mental illness. I heard that historically the Pentecostals thought that they could speak or write Chinese, and then they got some reliable Chinese sources (like actual people who spoke Chinese), and it turned out that what the Pentecostals thought was Chinese was not in reality. This is what I mean about it being false and a let-down. It would be neat if it was real Chinese. I don't want to be disparaging or rule out that a missionary could go to some foreign country, especially with some limited knowledge of a foreign language, and then try to speak to the people with some success in a mix of super-positive happy inspired guesswork, foreign phrases, and their own native non-foreign language, and get some of their message across. I have heard stories about this. Probably if I was a missionary or stuck in some tough situation in a foreign country I would try to do the same thing. I have only heard of first hand accounts of true speaking in tongues which I would consider true. One was a missionary who spoke to a gathering in a language of which he had no knowledge. The other was a woman who spoke in a regional Russian dialect to another woman in the US but from that region in Russia. Others were present, but this message was strictly for her. It was a warning against starting an affair with a man studying to become a rabbi. The man was present, but did not understand until she later recounted the incident to him. The speaker did not understand what she had said, but the message was given fluently and flawlessly.
As to trying, I doubt that would work. Tongues is an act of the Spirit, given to specific people at specific times and for a specific reason. Now some can easily learn and take up different languages, which I consider a gift of tongues. In that sent you could "try."
I tried to put together a comparison of Orthodoxy, modern Rationalist Skepticism, and Modern Charismatism regarding Charismatic elements in the early Christian period in my article "Modern Charismatic Movement Similar to Charismaticism in the Early Church?" (2015, Ancient Faith Blog). You can find it online under that title, and expect that you would find it interesting. If I have the time and am coherent enough. Thanks. |
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Post by rakovsky on May 17, 2022 16:06:52 GMT -8
Conversely, Christianity never gave up its Jewish roots per se. "All the churches were Greek religious colonies" is not true because (A) there were non-Greek based Christian "colonies" in India, Assyria, Edessa/Osroene, the Caucasian mountains, etc., and (B) Judea was not a religious "colony", but rather the "Mother church". On the other hand, Greek language was common even among Jews in the Mediterranean, and speaking of the Mediterranean, the apostles planted "colonies", and the language among the gentiles there seems to have been Greek at an early stage. When we read Paul's letters, he names lots of gentile converts. My understanding is that the late 1st century AD Roman church leader Clement's (mentioned in Paul's writings) epistles were written in Greek. Further, he doesn't saying that they were "pagan and in no way Jewish". wI imagine that in Clement of Alexandria's text, he used the same Greek word for Hellenistic as Greek. Hellenistic/Greek and Jewish could be overlapping. For instance, the Maccabees could be called "anti-Hellenistic" in religion, yet the book of II Maccabees is considered to have been written in Greek. Cleary Constantine was not being very precise when he said to have nothing in common with them. The word for the Easter ("Paschal") season in Greek and Latin is a version of the word Pesach. I don't see Constantine as actually giving up Christianity's Jewish roots per se despite his phrase. Eusebius the major Christian historian of Constantine's era in his Life of Constantine seems to set out a list of comparisons between Constantine and Moses. There is a chart called "Comparison Chart of 14 Moses/Constantine Shadows, Types, Antitypes and Similarities" that one can find online. Probably a lot of "anti-Jewish" polemics from that patristic period arise from conflicts between the two major religious polities of the rabbis and Christians, and they don't actually deny or eliminate Christianity's Jewish roots per se, which is what the Gnostic Marcion tried to do. I don't want to misportray the issue: He would have openly denied regulatory and ritual observance of a level with which the rabbis practiced it. With Christianity there has always been a dialectical relationship with Judaism since its founding, and probably to some extent as a result of the growth of Christianity, this dialectic is at least implicitly mutual. Just look at all the places that Protestants have tried to post the 10 Commandments, which are perhaps the keystones of . Even to say that Christianity has set aside or left behind the regulatory aspects of observance might be a simplification. The whole push-pull dialectical relationship between Christianity and /Law goes back to Jesus, Peter, Paul, etc. in the NT and is a fundamental issue long before Constantine's time. The Apocrypha is not deuterocanon. Deuterocanon means ‘secondary canon,’ which are books with no discernible problems scripturally, but were not listed as canon in most Protestant churches. The Apocryphal writings, while they do have many good points, also contain some problematic parts. And if we are going to be literal or precise, it is important to note that different churches have different canons. I have a book of the Apocrypha and the added books of the Ethiopian canon on my shelf, and it is as thick as any of my Bibles, including my study Bibles.
The Orthodox Church would agree with your statement above that "The Apocrypha is not Deuterocanon". I recently found out while learning more about the "Deuterocanon" that some EO theologians do not consider the Deuterocanon to be "canonical", but they still do not consider it "Apocryphal". For them, "Apocrypha" has kind of a shady, negative feeling, and it's for books outside of Church Tradition, like the apocryphal "Gospel of Thomas." In Matthew, Yeshua said that the prophets lasted to John the Baptist, and He complained that the pharisees did not accept John. However, the common rabbinical and Protestant idea seems to be that prophecy stopped with Malachi. It seems to me that in figuring out what would be the Christian/Nazarene canon, one would not have to be bound by the standard rabbinical view on the topic, but rather should try to look to what Yeshua, Nazarenes, and 1st century Christians thought. The earliest Christian "canon" that I found was the Muratorian Canon, often dated to about the 170's AD. It accepts the "Wisdom of Solomon" as canon, but the section of the fragment is missing where it would talk about the rest of the OT books. ... -Observant EOs who come from Jewish backgrounds, it's not as much of a challenge, because they just add -observance into their current EO/RC practices instead of trying to create separate Messianic Jewish synagogues. What usually happens if they try to do that is they are labeled “Judaizers” and disfellowshiped. And the reality in most cases is as soon as one either becomes Hebrew Roots or especially Messianic this is the case. There is a "Hebrew Catholic" website. After Vatican II, the Catholic Church has become much more flexible/tolerant/inclusive. Pope Francis gave some Lutherans in the Vatican communion, one factor probably being the commonality in their Eucharist theology. As for EOs, there is a former Jews for Jesus member (IIRC) who still keeps some observance and serves as an EO priest. There is also a portion of the EO Church in Isr.Palestine that is Hebrew-speaking, uses Hebrew liturgy, is led by a Jewish convert who keeps some observance, etc. |
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Post by alon on May 18, 2022 11:22:00 GMT -8
Clement of Alexandria- All the churches were Greek religious colonies. Their language was Greek, their organization Greek, their writers Greek and their ritual Greek. Thus the church at Rome was but one of a confederation of Greek religious republics rounded by Christianity.” He said this between 150-200 AD. In his own words, the "churches" (plural) were thoroughly pagan Greek and in no way Jewish. "All the churches were Greek religious colonies" is not true because (A) there were non-Greek based Christian "colonies" in India, Assyria, Edessa/Osroene, the Caucasian mountains, etc., and (B) Judea was not a religious "colony", but rather the "Mother church". The Greeks were pagans, as were their forms (pl) of worship. To say "All the churches” is a form of speech in most languages, including English, Hebrew, and (especially) Greek. “In those days a decree went out from Caesar Augustus that all the world should be registered.” Luke 2:1. Even regions bordering Roman territory were not registered by Rome. Also, as I have pointed out there were no “Christian” churches at that time, since the “church” was not yet formed. And there was no “Mother Church.” There were many “churches” who may have believed in Yeshua to one extent or another. But all had their own beliefs, and all committed the sin of Nadav and Avihu: they brought strange fire before the Lord. In other words, they mixed their pagan practices of worship with worship of God, usually to the extent of wholly doing away with all “Jewish” practices.
The only true worshipers of the God of Israel at the time were the sect of the Nazarenes, a wholly Jewish sect. Gentiles who joined became proselytes to this sect of Judaism. This is important, as “You worship what you do not know; we worship what we know, for salvation is from the Jews.” John 4:22.Jesus in His discourse about the Good Shepherd v. thieves who enter by another way said “ And I have other sheep that are not of this fold. I must bring them also, and they will listen to my voice. So there will be one flock, one shepherd.” John 10:16. Only one flock, one way, one qahal, one ecclesia: one church, if you prefer. But that one was the sect of the Notsarim; the Nazarenes. And still is.God may wink at the ignorance for those taught another way, I don’t know. But when you really seek the truth, as we Messianics do, then you must acknowledge this to be true that we are to worship El Elohe Yisroel as He said, not as the church fathers said. And that is the way of the Notsarim. 12th cen church father Bonacursus in his “Against the Heretics” said, referring to the Notsarim as ‘Pasagini': “Let those who are not yet acquainted with them, please note how perverse their belief and doctrine are. First, they teach that we should obey the Law of Moses according to the letter - the Sabbath, and circumcision, and the legal precepts still being in force. Furthermore, to increase their error, they condemn and reject all the Church Fathers, and the whole Roman Church.” This Jewish sect, still in existence and still following biblical precepts were labeled “perverse” by a pagan Roman Church.
Note too it says "they condemn and reject all the Church Fathers, and the whole Roman Church.” Telling, I'd say.On the other hand, Greek language was common even among Jews in the Mediterranean, and speaking of the Mediterranean, the apostles planted "colonies", and the language among the gentiles there seems to have been Greek at an early stage. History was skewed by later church tradition. When we read Paul's letters, he names lots of gentile converts. There were always Gentile converts to Judaism. However they were not admitted to the Nazarene sect wholesale until the second half of Acts. My understanding is that the late 1st century AD Roman church leader Clement's (mentioned in Paul's writings) epistles were written in Greek. Further, he doesn't saying that they were "pagan and in no way Jewish". Biblically there are two types of people: pagans and Hebrews/Jews. Per Paul those accepting the God of Israel and looking to the promised Messiah are grafted onto the rootstock of the olive tree of Israel. Those Jews rejecting Yeshua are cut off. wI imagine that in Clement of Alexandria's text, he used the same Greek word for Hellenistic as Greek. Hellenistic/Greek and Jewish could be overlapping. For instance, the Maccabees could be called "anti-Hellenistic" in religion, yet the book of II Maccabees is considered to have been written in Greek. Funny you should mention Clement.
So here we see the disconnect in church history (read that an outright lie) which is perpetuated to this day in church teachings from Catholicism to most Protestant denominations. This debunks the church’s claim to apostolic succession, and casts doubt on all the church’s historical claims and teachings. Being himself a “church father” (albeit a more honest one than most), I would expect he did write in Greek. As to mention by Paul, such mention is in no way an endorsement of his religion or practices. He was a Hellenist philosopher, his “Hebraic” influences being Jewish esotericism and Gnosticism. Not very “Pauline.”Further, he doesn't saying that they were "pagan and in no way Jewish". wI imagine that in Clement of Alexandria's text, he used the same Greek word for Hellenistic as Greek. Hellenistic/Greek and Jewish could be overlapping. For instance, the Maccabees could be called "anti-Hellenistic" in religion, yet the book of II Maccabees is considered to have been written in Greek. “Considered” by the same church that later lied about early history; the same one that claims Greek primacy in NT scripture. Sorry, I cannot take their word for this any more than I can on apostolic succession.Cleary Constantine was not being very precise when he said to have nothing in common with them. The word for the Easter ("Paschal") season in Greek and Latin is a version of the word Pesach. I don't see Constantine as actually giving up Christianity's Jewish roots per se despite his phrase. Eusebius the major Christian historian of Constantine's era in his Life of Constantine seems to set out a list of comparisons between Constantine and Moses. There is a chart called "Comparison Chart of 14 Moses/Constantine Shadows, Types, Antitypes and Similarities" that one can find online. I have already shown that a lack of precision can be meaningless. And any comparisons of Constantine to Moses would be coincidental and therefore meaningless. Moses was a prophet, the only man to speak with God face to face. Even the priests who entered The Presence once a year did not speak directly with God. Constantine, considered a church father because of sponsorship and control of church councils was a pagan, a worshiper of Sol Invictus until his “conversion” on his deathbed.Probably a lot of "anti-Jewish" polemics from that patristic period arise from conflicts between the two major religious polities of the rabbis and Christians, and they don't actually deny or eliminate Christianity's Jewish roots per se, which is what the Gnostic Marcion tried to do. I don't want to misportray the issue: He would have openly denied regulatory and ritual Torah observance of a level with which the rabbis practiced it. Marcion is considered by many to be the first true church father. Later excommunicated, he still probably had the most influence on church doctrine and practices than anyone else. It was he who introduced the idea of an overbearing, judgmental God of the OT v. the kind, forgiving and merciful God of the NT. And Christian denominations today are rife with this idea. With Christianity there has always been a dialectical relationship with Judaism since its founding, and probably to some extent as a result of the growth of Christianity, this dialectic is at least implicitly mutual. Just look at all the places that Protestants have tried to post the 10 Commandments, which are perhaps the keystones of Torah. Even to say that Christianity has set aside or left behind the regulatory aspects of Torah observance might be a simplification. The whole push-pull dialectical relationship between Christianity and Torah/Law goes back to Jesus, Peter, Paul, etc. in the NT and is a fundamental issue long before Constantine's time. Not really. I have found that so many misunderstandings and so much bad doctrine could have been cleared up by going to the local synagogue and asking. Being Jews, they would have loved to even argue the various points (your dialectic in practice). But the church preferred to burn the synagogues and kill the Jews. There was no give and take, no discussion other than some 'debates' forced on the Jews and controlled by the church and Christian rulers. No, the church did not want any Judaic ideas polluting their new religion. Since they claim the Bible as their authoritative teaching some similarities would be unavoidable. But for the most part they have doctrines based on mischaracterizing scripture, and in particular the Jewish people.
The Apocrypha is not deuterocanon. Deuterocanon means ‘secondary canon,’ which are books with no discernible problems scripturally, but were not listed as canon in most Protestant churches. The Apocryphal writings, while they do have many good points, also contain some problematic parts. And if we are going to be literal or precise, it is important to note that different churches have different canons. I have a book of the Apocrypha and the added books of the Ethiopian canon on my shelf, and it is as thick as any of my Bibles, including my study Bibles.
The Orthodox Church would agree with your statement above that "The Apocrypha is not Deuterocanon". I recently found out while learning more about the "Deuterocanon" that some EO theologians do not consider the Deuterocanon to be "canonical", but they still do not consider it "Apocryphal". For them, "Apocrypha" has kind of a shady, negative feeling, and it's for books outside of Church Tradition, like the apocryphal "Gospel of Thomas." In Matthew, Yeshua said that the prophets lasted to John the Baptist, and He complained that the pharisees did not accept John. (Some, not all, or even most.) However, the common rabbinical and Protestant idea seems to be that prophecy stopped with Malachi. I have never heard that taught. Indeed, it is a tenet of all faiths I am familiar with that “And it shall come to pass afterward, that I will pour out my Spirit on all flesh; your sons and your daughters shall prophesy.” Joel 2:28a Malachi is the last book in the Nevi'im (Prophets) in the TNK (2 Chron is actually the last book). It is also the last book in the OT in our Bibles. But this is not to say prophecy ended there. Indeed, many churches believe in modern day prophecy to an unhealthy extent. I do have a problem with this type of doctrinal application. It seems to me that in figuring out what would be the Christian/Nazarene canon, one would not have to be bound by the standard rabbinical view on the topic, but rather should try to look to what Yeshua, Nazarenes, and 1st century Christians thought. This is what we (Messianics) try to do. And as I’ve said, we do not consider ourselves bound by later rabbinical teaching or decree. The earliest Christian "canon" that I found was the Muratorian Canon, often dated to about the 170's AD. It accepts the "Wisdom of Solomon" as canon, but the section of the fragment is missing where it would talk about the rest of the OT books. ...Torah-Observant EOs who come from Jewish backgrounds, it's not as much of a challenge, because they just add -observance into their current EO/RC practices instead of trying to create separate Messianic Jewish synagogues. What usually happens if they try to do that is they are labeled “Judaizers” and disfellowshiped. And the reality in most cases is as soon as one either becomes Hebrew Roots or especially Messianic this is the case. There is a "Hebrew Catholic" website. After Vatican II, the Catholic Church has become much more flexible/tolerant/inclusive. Pope Francis gave some Lutherans in the Vatican communion, one factor probably being the commonality in their Eucharist theology. As for EOs, there is a former Jews for Jesus member (IIRC) who still keeps some Torah observance and serves as an EO priest. There is also a portion of the EO Church in Isr.Palestine that is Hebrew-speaking, uses Hebrew liturgy, is led by a Jewish convert who keeps some Torah observance, etc. As I think I said earlier, there is more acceptance (up to a point) in many churches today of the study of Hebrew Roots. And if I recall correctly, it was Vatican II that decided to try to befriend all (or most) Christian based faiths with the idea of absorbing them back into the catholic fold. However the end of this could only be a conversion back to Roman Catholicism. And wasn’t it Pope Francis who called these other churches “separated brethren?” I could be wrong, but definitely these were things said and done by the RC Church in an attempt to regather others to bolster an otherwise weakening church. |
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Post by rakovsky on May 19, 2022 7:30:51 GMT -8
Clement of Rome: James was called the "bishop of bishops, who rules Jerusalem, the Holy Assembly of Hebrews, and all assemblies everywhere”Clement himself wrote that there was no bishopric set up in Rome in his lifetime! According to "The Oxford Dictionary of the Christian Church," Pope Clement of Rome held that office from 88-99 CE. Interesting he was said to be Pope of Rome, when he himself said there was no Bishop of Rome; said office being by definition the Papacy.
Where did Clement say that there was no bishop in Rome his whole life? I think that your information might instead refer to Clement failing to openly identify himself as bishop of Rome openly in his surviving letters. |
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Post by alon on May 19, 2022 10:00:14 GMT -8
Where did Clement say that there was no bishop in Rome his whole life? I think that your information might instead refer to Clement failing to openly identify himself as bishop of Rome openly in his surviving letters.
While Clement does mention Peter’s martyrdom, there is no mention of Peter ever being in Rome nor his ever leading the church. To my knowledge Clement the 1st never mentions one singular Bishop of Rome/Pope. Neither of course does the Bible say Peter held that office, nor even mention the existence of that office. In fact, other than church tradition and questionable 'history' there is no record Peter ever went to Rome!
Josephus mentioned Peter in Rome, however his self-aggrandizing works are pitifully inaccurate, often outright lies and always foolish. My dog is a better ‘historian,’ as she has a long and very accurate and unbiased memory. Also some later church fathers mention him in Rome, to which I reply “they would, as they were vested in establishing a false succession in order to promulgate the idea of the authority of apostolic succession in the church.” But there are no credible sources which ever place Peter in Rome or holding the office of Bishop of Rome/Pope.
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Post by rakovsky on May 21, 2022 6:34:59 GMT -8
Josephus mentioned Peter in Rome, however his self-aggrandizing works are pitifully inaccurate, often outright lies and always foolish.
FYI, Josephus Flavius, whose writings we discussed at length on a few threads, didn't mention Peter in particular, just the Disciples in general. |
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Post by rakovsky on May 21, 2022 19:18:17 GMT -8
The issue that you are getting into with Peter in Rome seems to be part of a Catholic-Protestant dialectic, since otherwise it doesn't seem to have much practical importance. The Catholic idea is that Yeshua in the Gospels appointed Peter to be the shepherd of His sheep (John 21) and called Peter the "Rock" (Petros) on which Yeshua will build His Qahal (assembly) in another passage. Then the Catholic Church takes this idea a step further and applies this status to a line of the shepherds/"overseers" that Peter appointed to follow him. Then the Catholic Church makes an assertion that Peter was in Rome, was martyred there, and chose the line of bishops there to be those who took on his status as shepherd of the Church.
Some Protestants get into a dialectic antithesis relationship with this and just want to deny every step in this long chain of Catholic reasoning, so they try to deny as much as possible the concept of shepherds/overseers, deny that Peter was in Rome, etc. etc.
I find the Catholic argument to be very tenuous, requiring lots of logical leaps. Even if most of the Catholic logic steps are correct, it doesn't follow automatically that they are all correct. Just because Peter was in Rome, it doesn't entail that only the overseers whom Peter appointed in Rome are the ones to take on his special status. And just because he had a special status from Yeshua, it doesn't follow that Peter was the only one of the leading disciples to hold this kind of special leadership status.
So I don't see it necessary to deny each step in the chain of Catholic reasoning to "win the argument" for the Protestants. EOs also object to the RC claim of the Pope to have a special status over the whole Church, but they don't deny every log-step in the Catholic argument.
Peter refers to himself as being in "Babylon" (1 Pet. 5:13), which is a code/figure for Rome at that time. There is a lot of early Christian tradition about Peter being in Rome. The Acts of Peter are apocryphal, but they are early enough in time (2nd century) and talk about Peter at enough length to serve as evidence that it was a common tradition and commonly held information that he was there. One Church father said that we have Peter's and Paul's "trophies" as martyrs in Rome to prove that they were there, referring to their tombs or memorial markers.
However, we don't have information from that early period that Peter only appointed the bishops of Rome to have his special status after him. Peter had also been bishop in Antioch, and maybe elsewhere like Alexandria, another major Christian center. Further, Paul wrote that James, Peter, and John appeared as three pillars of the church, not that Peter was the top head. In fact, Peter bowed to James' judgment in one episode that Paul refers to, when James told Peter to stop eating with gentiles. That's hardly the picture of Peter being practically James' "bishop"/overseer in the mold of late medieval Roman Popes. Then there is the time when Peter made a suggestion at the Council of Jerusalem and James talked as if James (not Peter) was making the decision on the topic (circumcision of gentiles).
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Post by alon on May 22, 2022 7:42:58 GMT -8
Good points. I see several other issues with the RC claim of apostolic succession:
1. As I’ve said many times, there was no “catholic church,” no unified body of churches until the Council of Nicea (mid 4th cen CE); and even then it was just the start of the Church. And the “unifying” authority was a pagan emperor, Constantine, and not a “Pope.” Until then, and for a long time after there were many churches that accepted Yeshua, but all interpreted scriptures and the apostolic writings differently. But after they gathered control under one group of bishops with government authority behind them the process was started to bring the disparate churches under control. They were also able to start changing "times and seasons," replacing history with church tradition. They reinterpreted holy writ to suit their theology, so brainwashing people that generations later when we point out clear errors, even errors clarified immediately in scripture itself people cannot accept them.
2. Authority of the bishops to make changes is based on the principle of the Great Sanhedrin, and in many cases the lesser sanhedrins and later the rabbis making halacha- rulings on how Torah was observed. The problem is the Jewish leaders could only rule on the minutia of Torah observance; what if two commandments were in opposition (ex: ox in the ditch on Shabbat), or if the situation was not covered by Torah. However no man could change Torah itself! In taking that authority upon themselves the church did what even Yeshua could and would not do. And what we got from that was a manmade church that acts exactly as prophesied of in Daniel and Revelation.
3. The apostles did have authority. Each one was made a shaliach tzibur, a representative of the sect of the Notsarim/Nazarines with the authority to make halacha in the assemblies they established. This sect, according to the writings of many of the church fathers themselves continued into at least the mid 17th cen (or thereabouts- from a rapidly failing memory). Not only that, they continued in defiance of both the RC Church and the various mainstream Jewish sects as well. So any "apostolic succession" would be the sole estate of Messianic believers, not of any church denomination nor mainstream Judaism. And we observe the times and seasons of the Lord, including (especially) the biblical Shabbat beginning at sundown on the 6th day and going to sundown of the 7th.
4. Protestants have a love-hate relationship with the idea of apostolic succession. They generally deny it when arguing about the authority of the RC Church. But when I argue with pastors about things like Shabbat vs. Sunday worship, “Xmas” and the feast of Ishtar vs. the Feasts of the Lord, God’s calendar vs. the Gregorian Calendar I often get apostolic succession thrown right in my face. Yet those things are the very definition of “seasons and times.”
The importance is these are the things I mean when I say the Protestants stoped questioning. And the question of whether a body of men has the authority to change God’s laws, His instructions, His calendar and feasts; whether man can change the way we were told by God to worship Himself- the question of whether we can tell God how things will be would seem to me to be the most important question regarding the “church(s)” today! In fact, the church's position taken as a whole seems to me to be an awful lot like the sin of ha’satan himself!
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Post by rakovsky on May 22, 2022 17:30:12 GMT -8
We're touching on a lot of issues here, Dan, but that's OK. I got back from Greek coffee hour a few hours ago and it was really nice, feeling like friends or a bit almost family like with a few of them. I imagine that MJ synagogues are like that too. The early Christian period had something like that, a collective meal after the service. We are getting into potential issues of RC apostolic succession, Prot.s using arguments comparable to apostolic succession against MJs, how Protestants evaluate MJ approach to observances, what the early Church's/Nazarenes' relation was to Observance, how well documented we have records of Yeshua's and the apostles' view of observance, the merits of arguments on how followers of Yeshua should relate to observance, whether the rabbis were in fact dutiful and diligent in following and preserving observance, whether the apostles, non-Christian rabbis, Nazarenes, and Christians had authority to make changes, especially to how they observe , how unified was the Church/Assembly/Ekklesia of followers of Yeshua in the 1st-2nd centuries AD. Part of me feels like reiterating the value that I see in the MJ movement, and another part of me feels like considering critiques of it. Your forum is pretty nice, and it's unfortunate that there aren't more MJ forums. It's really nice having a POV and approach that is dedicated to both Jewish heritage and Yeshua, since the Tanakh was basically an Israelite and Jewish text. Further, I think that the rabbinical community got away from some parts of ancient Judaism that Christianity preserved. One of them is the Temple aspect. Substitutionary Atonement teaching was part of the theory underneath Temple rituals, and it shows up in Isaiah 53 when it refers to the Servant's suffering as undergoing guilt offering. (אם־תשים אשם נפשו יראה זרע). The moving away from substitution theory probably has to do with both the destruction of the temple (hence moving away from sacrifice as such a major focus) and the dialectic resulting from centuries of debating against Christianity. I like the Hebrew4 Christians website, because it's pretty helpful for memorizing verses in Hebrew, as well as for learning Hebrew. The kind of associations that it makes between Hebrew words and phrases is helpful for the mind to make associations and memorize. But the site has an unrealistic Paleo Language theory. It's true that Hebrew letters are based on pictures, but the website has this detailed theory about how the Hebrew vocabulary itself is based on the meaning of pictures. But this theory can only be true on rare occasion, rather than as a rule, since the Hebrew alphabet is phonetic. What you said about the rabbis being unable to make decisions conflicting with sounds right, because means Law, and a legalistic paradigm would tend to prevent judges or scholars from directly contradicting such a foundational text like the Constitution. One way that you might be able to contradict it (in a sense) in a wholesome way would be if an exception arose or if there was an intervening or superseding event. For instance, the destruction of the Temple is an intervening event that obviates the ability to perform Temple sacrifice. From an MJ POV, if the Temple was still intact, would Yeshua's sacrifice annul or overcome the role of ritual Yom Kippur atonement sacrifices that prefigured Yeshua's sacrifice? It sounds like a hypothetical question, but in the 1st century, Yeshua's post-Resurrection apostles and the Temple were around together for about 35 years. Plus, the answer can throw light on the relationship of Yeshua's teaching to observance, as the Yom Kippur ritual was one of the important rituals. Yesterday I heard a Youtube talk by Rachel Elior, an Israeli scholar, "Who Wrote the Dead Sea Scrolls and Why Were They Forgotten?" Her theory is that the Scrolls were kept by the former Temple priests around the Maccabean era when high priest Onias left Judea for exile in Egypt due to conflict with another Jewish faction. She notes that the demands a solar calendar whereby the year starts in spring, but that today the Jewish calendar is just monthly (a lunar calendar). She takes the view that the DSS promotes a Solar Calendar, and that it criticizes those who would use a lunar calendar. This reminds me of your criticism of changing "times and seasons." This is something that comes up in Daniel, where a figure (the Hellenistic ruler Antiochus perhaps?) changes times and seasons. Probably within written tradition, the Bible is given the most prominent place in Tradition / religious writings within all Christianity in a general sense, and I imagine that this is actually the case in Catholicism, even if some Catholics consider the Bible to be equal to the Pope or councils. A Catholic saying from Augustine is: "As we pray, so we believe". The Gospels get read out loud at all Christian services, not messages from the Pope AFAIK. However, a qualification should be made. Imagine if Yeshua/Jesus told Luther, an apostle, or the Pope in person that the Bible's meaning on a topic took a certain stance, or that a certain teaching was correct (regardless of whether the Bible took a position on it). In that case, they would probably follow Jesus' explanation more directly than the Bible's meaning. So if Jesus actually appeared to Luther in person and told him that Purgatory was a real thing, Luther would believe it. Of course, I am using a hypothetical, but the point that I want to make is that probably across Christianity, God's Word, Yeshua/Jesus probably actually is implicitly considered to be the highest authority in Tradition. Yeshua himself is the highest authority within the Gospels. Luther himself seems to allude to this paradigm when he seems to equate Jesus with the Bible. It was Jesus whose life and teaching directly generated the gospels' stories. One reason why this little quandary probably (Jesus' authority vs authority of the NT) doesn't get talked about much is because we don't have reliable sayings of Jesus outside of the NT. Plus, Christians historically (RCs, EOs, Protestants) agreed that the NT's portrayal of Jesus' teaching is reliable. It's curious whether MJs (or for that matter EOs) fit more into the RC or Protestant paradigm. I'm not sure whether Hebrew Catholics and Observant EOs would count as MJs. What do you think? Probably most of them would identify as Catholic or EO over MJ because they would put membership in their Churches first in identifying themselves. They wouldn't want to use it as a label to separate themselves. There was an EO named Fr. Eusebius Stephanou who practically became Pentecostal (laying on of hands + glossolalia + some right wing Protestant style ideology), but since he considered himself to be still EO, I don't know if he identified himself as Pentecostal or only Charismatic. As far as the thread's OP is concerned, I have mixed feelings about the Reformation, and I think that this is true about EOs' and MJs' feelings as well. After the 1453 Islamic conquest of Constantinople, the RC Church was closer to a global monopoly on Christianity. I didn't even know about EOs until I read about it in the Encyclopedia as a teenager. I heard about the Great Schism in a history book as a kid, but it didn't carry over to me thinking about EOs as a major current day Church. The RC Church seems rather dogmatic to me and historically strict. I actually have heard a range of reports about individual Catholic schools in the 1950's. It's always nice for me when I hear from older men from that time who say that they went to nice Catholic schools and didn't get beaten. They know enough stories that they know that there were other RC schools that were scary or physically abusive. Somewhere in the last 20-50 years the RC Church got a lot more liberal and Protestant-like. RC schools as a rule don't hit kids nationwide, and this must be partly a result of years of resentment against past decades of Catholic schools by today's generation of RC adults. Nowadays an average RC service reminds me a lot of a classic American Lutheran one. Certainly the Reformation and Catholics being a minority in the US played a role in these developments. In contrast, the Reformation opened up more "free thinking" for Christians and also made sectarianism socially acceptable and mainstream, allowing for MJs to have a more respectable place in the US. However, some qualifications need to be made. Luther, Calvin, and the Church of England each did NOT agree with sectarianism. I don't know whether Calvin or the C of E was worse. Calvin had fewer people under his control, but he was a Puritan compared to the C o E. Luther seems the least oppressive to me, and this is partly because he seemed more sympathetic to the RCs, and Germany was a mixed RC-Protestant society. Calvin and the C.o.E. had control over their respective societies (Geneva and the UK). Luther is noteworthy in his crude rants against Jews, but he must have deliberately stopped short of advocating punishing their persons, since he seems to have walked up to that line without crossing it. The Elizabethan COE-era UK however did kill at least some Jews for announcing anti-Christian theology ("blasphemy" laws). UK repression of Ireland and RCs gives me a bit of a stigma against the English and COE. I have a little English religious dissenter heritage. I think with so much vitriol against Jews from Luther, you are naturally going to get anti-Luther comments in a MJ setting, like Garrett posted above. The RCs and EOs have some councils that IIRC would go against some observance, although I forget the details. One of them is against praying in non-Christian synagogues. Protestants might have those same councils, or else would practically agree, like with some major written "Confessions" (Protestants have them sometimes in place of "councils") or in foundational documents of the "Reformers." On the other hand, Protestants are probably less "rule based" than RCs and I guess EOs, so would be more open to having Observance. I know of a Observant congregation that was under the PCUSA in a major city, but some of the rabbinical community supposedly pressured the PCUSA to close it. The sense of the objection was that having a PCUSA congregation be MJ was somehow anti-Semitic, an objection that I don't agree with. observance and upholding longstanding Jewish religious traditions seems much more reminiscient of the RC attitude toward Works, rules, and Sacred Tradition. For Protestantism (minus the Anglicans/Methodists), there is a big emphasis on "Faith Alone" vs. "Works", "Bible Alone" vs. "Tradition". One interfaith-leaning Reform Jew told me that he couldn't get into Orthodox Christianity because it reminded him so much of Orthodox Judaism. The Reformation must have had an indirect impact on the Jewish community: Western European Judaism got Reform Judaism in the wake of the Reformation (even the name sounds similar), whereas Reform Judaism is relatively rare in EO-dominated countries. |
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Post by alon on May 22, 2022 21:36:00 GMT -8
We're touching on a lot of issues here, Dan, but that's OK. I got back from Greek coffee hour a few hours ago and it was really nice, feeling like friends or a bit almost family like with a few of them. I imagine that MJ synagogues are like that too. The early Christian period had something like that, a collective meal after the service. Yes, it's called "Oneg," and we do it after every service.
We are getting into potential issues of RC apostolic succession, Prot.s using arguments comparable to apostolic succession against MJs, how Protestants evaluate MJ approach to observances, what the early Church's/Nazarenes' relation was to Observance, how well documented we have records of Yeshua's and the apostles' view of observance, the merits of arguments on how followers of Yeshua should relate to observance, whether the rabbis were in fact dutiful and diligent in following and preserving observance, whether the apostles, non-Christian rabbis, Nazarenes, and Christians had authority to make changes, especially to how they observe , how unified was the Church/Assembly/Ekklesia of followers of Yeshua in the 1st-2nd centuries AD. Part of me feels like reiterating the value that I see in the MJ movement, and another part of me feels like considering critiques of it. Your forum is pretty nice, and it's unfortunate that there aren't more MJ forums. It's really nice having a POV and approach that is dedicated to both Jewish heritage and Yeshua, since the Tanakh was basically an Israelite and Jewish text. Further, I think that the rabbinical community got away from some parts of ancient Judaism that Christianity preserved. One of them is the Temple aspect. Substitutionary Atonement teaching was part of the theory underneath Temple rituals, and it shows up in Isaiah 53 when it refers to the Servant's suffering as undergoing guilt offering. (אם־תשים אשם נפשו יראה זרע). The moving away from substitution theory probably has to do with both the destruction of the temple (hence moving away from sacrifice as such a major focus) and the dialectic resulting from centuries of debating against Christianity. Contemporary Jews believe that Isaiah 53 refers to them as the Suffering Servant. In some ways it does, however they cannot atone for their own sins. But it is either that or believe in Yeshua as ha’Moshiach.
I like the Hebrew4 Christians website, because it's pretty helpful for memorizing verses in Hebrew, as well as for learning Hebrew. The kind of associations that it makes between Hebrew words and phrases is helpful for the mind to make associations and memorize. But the site has an unrealistic Paleo Language theory. It's true that Hebrew letters are based on pictures, but the website has this detailed theory about how the Hebrew vocabulary itself is based on the meaning of pictures. But this theory can only be true on rare occasion, rather than as a rule, since the Hebrew alphabet is phonetic. Being phonetic does not preclude the alphabet being based on ancient pictographs. I don’t know about the Hebrew 4 Christians site (I’m familiar with it, but seldom go there). However I have scholarly reference books tracing the development of the Hebrew language, and it would appear it did originally consist of pictographs. Furthermore understanding these (more like being able to look them up) very often helps my understanding of terms and phrases. Those books also contain pictures of engravings i showing the letters as originally used.
What you said about the rabbis being unable to make decisions conflicting with Torah sounds right, because Torah means Law, and a legalistic paradigm would tend to prevent judges or scholars from directly contradicting such a foundational text like the Constitution. One way that you might be able to contradict it (in a sense) in a wholesome way would be if an exception arose or if there was an intervening or superseding event. For instance, the destruction of the Temple is an intervening event that obviates the ability to perform Temple sacrifice. True, and that is what happened. Halacha for mainstream Judaism (and MJ’s) is no sacrifice without a Temple in Jerusalem.
One point, though. Legalism as a concept did not appear until the faction arose saying everyone had to convert and become fully Torah observant before they could be saved. That is the true meaning of the term, and it was so new there was no word for it in either Hebrew or Greek. This goes against what Yeshua and the Nazarenes taught, contemporary Messianic teaching, church teaching, and even Jewish teaching. Not to say Judaism is the same as others, just they will accept a proselyte and teach him observance step by step even today. No one learns this all at once! MJ believes in salvation by grace through faith alone. Obedience is just a natural outward sign once one is saved. We obey because we love God and want to please Him, not so we can be saved. This too is a difference i Judaism- they believe the Messianic Kingdom will be ushered in by their obeying the mitzvoth. Shoot-fire, I think it is possible that just as in the days of Noah Yeshua will return because He is tired of everyone NOT being obedient! From an MJ POV, if the Temple was still intact, would Yeshua's sacrifice annul or overcome the role of ritual Yom Kippur atonement sacrifices that prefigured Yeshua's sacrifice? It sounds like a hypothetical question, but in the 1st century, Yeshua's post-Resurrection apostles and the Temple were around together for about 35 years. Plus, the answer can throw light on the relationship of Yeshua's teaching to Torah observance, as the Yom Kippur ritual was one of the important rituals. In Ezekiel’s famous vision of the Millineal Temple: Ezekiel 44:27-29 And on the day that he goes into the Holy Place, into the inner court, to minister in the Holy Place, he shall offer his sin offering, declares the Lord God. “This shall be their inheritance: I am their inheritance: and you shall give them no possession in Israel; I am their possession. They shall eat the grain offering, the sin offering, and the guilt offering, and every devoted thing in Israel shall be theirs.Paul made offerings in the Temple after the death of Yeshua: Acts 21:26 Then Paul took the men, and the next day he purified himself along with them and went into the temple, giving notice when the days of purification would be fulfilled and the offering presented for each one of them. When he did this it was in connection with the Nazarene vow. The church teaches it was a monetary “offering.” If he’d have done that they would have killed him on the spot! One did not mess around in the Temple, which was still under Jewish control; and they followed what the law prescribed- and the Nazarene vow required animal sacrifices: Numbers 6:13-14 “And this is the law for the Nazirite, when the time of his separation has been completed: he shall be brought to the entrance of the tent of meeting, and he shall bring his gift to the Lord, one male lamb a year old without blemish for a burnt offering, and one ewe lamb a year old without blemish as a sin offering, and one ram without blemish as a peace offering,
Yesterday I heard a Youtube talk by Rachel Elior, an Israeli scholar, "Who Wrote the Dead Sea Scrolls and Why Were They Forgotten?" Her theory is that the Scrolls were kept by the former Temple priests around the Maccabean era when high priest Onias left Judea for exile in Egypt due to conflict with another Jewish faction. She notes that the Torah demands a solar calendar whereby the year starts in spring, but that today the Jewish calendar is just monthly (a lunar calendar). She takes the view that the DSS promotes a Solar Calendar, and that it criticizes those who would use a lunar calendar. This reminds me of your criticism of changing "times and seasons." This is something that comes up in Daniel, where a figure (the Hellenistic ruler Antiochus perhaps?) changes times and seasons. I’ve heard this debate before. Genesis 1:14 And God said, “Let there be lights in the expanse of the sky to distinguish between the day and the night, and let them be signs to mark the seasons and days and years. All the heavenly lights were used as signs. The reason the stars and moon are used to set the calendar is they reflect accurately the Metonic Cycle (the orbits of earth and moon which complete their cycle every 365 days and change- which means there must be an adjustment). There are other considerations as well- for example the barley must be in the aviv stage before the new year is declared, because a sheaf must be waved as the firstfruits of the harvest during Pesach/Unleavened Bread. This will set the calendar for all the feasts in the year, and so is very important. All the things that must align to set the calendar means God set it each year, not men just counting days.
Probably within written tradition, the Bible is given the most prominent place in Tradition / religious writings within all Christianity in a general sense, and I imagine that this is actually the case in Catholicism, even if some Catholics consider the Bible to be equal to the Pope or councils. A Catholic saying from Augustine is: "As we pray, so we believe". The Gospels get read out loud at all Christian services, not messages from the Pope AFAIK. Yes, the RC’s use the Bible; or rather misuse it. They corrupt scripture to an alarming extent. A good example is their rewriting of the 10 Commandments to suit themselves concerning idolatry.
However, a qualification should be made. Imagine if Yeshua/Jesus told Luther, an apostle, or the Pope in person that the Bible's meaning on a topic took a certain stance, or that a certain teaching was correct (regardless of whether the Bible took a position on it). In that case, they would probably follow Jesus' explanation more directly than the Bible's meaning. So if Jesus actually appeared to Luther in person and told him that Purgatory was a real thing, Luther would believe it. Of course, I am using a hypothetical, but the point that I want to make is that probably across Christianity, God's Word, Yeshua/Jesus probably actually is implicitly considered to be the highest authority in Tradition. Yeshua himself is the highest authority within the Gospels. Luther himself seems to allude to this paradigm when he seems to equate Jesus with the Bible. It was Jesus whose life and teaching directly generated the gospels' stories. One reason why this little quandary probably (Jesus' authority vs authority of the NT) doesn't get talked about much is because we don't have reliable sayings of Jesus outside of the NT. Plus, Christians historically (RCs, EOs, Protestants) agreed that the NT's portrayal of Jesus' teaching is reliable. The problem is they intentionally misconstrue the teachings of Jesus in the gospels. Like Orthodox Judaism and their Talmud, the RC’s hold church doctrine and the teachings of the fathers to be equal to or above scripture. They explain scripture, and their authority is unquestionable. But they take it farther than the Jews, whose teachings admittedly have the effect of changing Torah commands in some instances. The RC’s actually did change some commands. They also blatantly rewrote much scripture to suit themselves.
It's curious whether MJs (or for that matter EOs) fit more into the RC or Protestant paradigm. I'm not sure whether Hebrew Catholics and Torah Observant EOs would count as MJs. What do you think? Probably most of them would identify as Catholic or EO over MJ because they would put membership in their Churches first in identifying themselves. They wouldn't want to use it as a label to separate themselves. There was an EO named Fr. Eusebius Stephanou who practically became Pentecostal (laying on of hands + glossolalia + some right wing Protestant style ideology), but since he considered himself to be still EO, I don't know if he identified himself as Pentecostal or only Charismatic. MJ is its own entity, and as such would identify with none of the above. Not that there are some similarities to any of them. As I’ve said, we pass it all through the fire and only keep what remains. All our beliefs, preconceptions, learned teachings- everything. The scripture itself. What is true will survive, what is not will not. Then we rebuild on the Word of God where necessary. And we do a LOT of rebuilding, trust me on that!
As far as the thread's OP is concerned, I have mixed feelings about the Reformation, and I think that this is true about EOs' and MJs' feelings as well. After the 1453 Islamic conquest of Constantinople, the RC Church was closer to a global monopoly on Christianity. I didn't even know about EOs until I read about it in the Encyclopedia as a teenager. I heard about the Great Schism in a history book as a kid, but it didn't carry over to me thinking about EOs as a major current day Church. The RC Church seems rather dogmatic to me and historically strict. I actually have heard a range of reports about individual Catholic schools in the 1950's. It's always nice for me when I hear from older men from that time who say that they went to nice Catholic schools and didn't get beaten. They know enough stories that they know that there were other RC schools that were scary or physically abusive. Yes, I grew up hearing those stories. Religion tends to draw the dogmatic and abusive ti itself. The RC’s aren’t the only ones, but their Nuns were infamous, for sure! I often wondered though just how much those stories were embellished to impress us Prods.
Somewhere in the last 20-50 years the RC Church got a lot more liberal and Protestant-like. RC schools as a rule don't hit kids nationwide, and this must be partly a result of years of resentment against past decades of Catholic schools by today's generation of RC adults. Nowadays an average RC service reminds me a lot of a classic American Lutheran one. Certainly the Reformation and Catholics being a minority in the US played a role in these developments. The RC Church has been loosing ground faster even than others. I think they’ve had to change some things as a survival mechanism. And yes, the Reformation would be a major factor in this, as it cost them (as you said) their near-monopoly in western culture.
In contrast, the Reformation opened up more "free thinking" for Christians ... LOL, you apparently never went to an old-school Baptist church!and also made sectarianism socially acceptable and mainstream, allowing for MJs to have a more respectable place in the US. However, some qualifications need to be made. Luther, Calvin, and the Church of England each did NOT agree with sectarianism. I don't know whether Calvin or the C of E was worse. Calvin had fewer people under his control, but he was a Puritan compared to the C o E. Luther seems the least oppressive to me, and this is partly because he seemed more sympathetic to the RCs, and Germany was a mixed RC-Protestant society. Calvin and the C.o.E. had control over their respective societies (Geneva and the UK). Luther is noteworthy in his crude rants against Jews, but he must have deliberately stopped short of advocating punishing their persons, since he seems to have walked up to that line without crossing it. The Elizabethan COE-era UK however did kill at least some Jews for announcing anti-Christian theology ("blasphemy" laws). UK repression of Ireland and RCs gives me a bit of a stigma against the English and COE. I have a little English religious dissenter heritage. I think with so much vitriol against Jews from Luther, you are naturally going to get anti-Luther comments in a MJ setting, like Garrett posted above. Luther was part of Hitler’s justification for the Shoa, but the CoE also mistreated Jews. MJ’s do tend to be sympathetic to the plight of Jews throughout history. However not having been raised with the constant repetition of the history of Christian treatment of the Jewish people, we also can be a bit more objective about that history. Crusaders, for example did horrible things to Jews as they marched to the Holy Land. Most Jews will bristle at the mere mention of a Crusader. However I could see the necessity of the Crusades on a larger scale. Islam was pushing at the gates, violently making inroads onto Europe’s doorstep. The Crusades were a response to that; the relief of the Holy Land being just the excuse to sell it to the populace and unite kingdoms (they never tell you why you are really fighting a war). I used to argue this with my Rabbi. He (being Jewish, raised in Jerusalem mostly) simply refused to see anything good in the Crusades.
The RCs and EOs have some councils that IIRC would go against some Torah observance, although I forget the details. One of them is against praying in non-Christian synagogues. Protestants might have those same councils, or else would practically agree, like with some major written "Confessions" (Protestants have them sometimes in place of "councils") or in foundational documents of the "Reformers." On the other hand, Protestants are probably less "rule based" than RCs and I guess EOs, so would be more open to having Torah Observance. I know of a Torah Observant congregation that was under the PCUSA in a major city, but some of the rabbinical community supposedly pressured the PCUSA to close it. The sense of the objection was that having a PCUSA congregation be MJ was somehow anti-Semitic, an objection that I don't agree with. Since even the Baptists and Charismatics are less dogmatic than the RC’s, and are for the most part well drilled in their Bibles, I think we began to see the chinks in church armor more quickly than RC’s, Lutherans, and others who use a lot of ritual to bolster beliefs. Those rituals get comfortable, and they are both active and visual aids to the brainwashing process.
Torah observance and upholding longstanding Jewish religious traditions seems much more reminiscient of the RC attitude toward Works, rules, and Sacred Tradition. For Protestantism (minus the Anglicans/Methodists), there is a big emphasis on "Faith Alone" vs. "Works", "Bible Alone" vs. "Tradition". One interfaith-leaning Reform Jew told me that he couldn't get into Orthodox Christianity because it reminded him so much of Orthodox Judaism. The Reformation must have had an indirect impact on the Jewish community: Western European Judaism got Reform Judaism in the wake of the Reformation (even the name sounds similar), whereas Reform Judaism is relatively rare in EO-dominated countries.People is people, and they will be people. And the more we change, the more we tend to be the same. The biggest difference in contemporary Judaism, Christianity, and MJ is the first 2 are about religion. MJ is about finding the truth in God’s Word. Some who start out as MJ do cross that line, but then I’d say they cease to be truly MJ. Judaism crossed that line many times in their history, the last time when the rabbonim got control in the Roman Diaspora. The church(es) unfortunately started out over that line and few have put even a toe back over the other side. People is people, and they will be people. And the more we change, the more we tend to be the same. The biggest difference in contemporary Judaism, Christianity, and MJ is the first 2 are about religion. MJ is about finding the truth in God’s Word. Some who start out as MJ do cross that line, but then I’d say they cease to be truly MJ. Judaism crossed that line many times in their history, the last time when the rabbonim got control in the Roman Diaspora. The church(es) unfortunately started out over that line and few have put even a toe back over the other side. |
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to establish teachings. This is because when you use other writings like Luther to find out the Bible's indirect, implicit meaning (like whether to baptize infants) then in effect you are also using other writings to establish dogmas. The idea that the "Bible Alone" is establishing your dogmas when you use commentaries to establish dogmas that the Bible doesn't specifically talk about is a logical fallacy.
