FireGarden ~
FG: "Can I ask who you're using as a source of commentary/interpretation? Are you talking to Muslims while you read the Quran?"
I'm accessing various online Islamic commentaries and hadith-collections.
FG: "I'm interested in why you think that the Christians in Arabia at the time of Mohammed were "pseudo-Christians"."
After the Council of Ephesus (431) the Nestorians went westwards, and it seems reasonable that they would've founded some churches in Arabia. Also, deducing from the text of the Quran and some Hadith, it looks like the people whom Muhammad regarded as "Christians" taught an exalted form of Mary-exaltation, and treated an image of Jesus and Mary like an idol, and had some other unorthodox beliefs.
FG: "Are you aware of St Athanasius ..."
Yes. Btw, as a non-denominational Christian, while Athanasius' work was very important, I don't view the Athanasian Creed as an authoritative statement.
FG: "Weren't the Gospels you have in the Bible today were chosen by committee? It seems that other Christians chose other Gospels."
No. There's something of a trend (started by gullible readers of the "Da Vinci Code" book, I suspect) to re-write history to that effect, but it simply is not true. The four Gospels -- Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John -- were considered a unique and complete group ~ i.e., THE Gospels ~ in the 100's. The Christian bishop Irenaeus of Lyons mentions this in his writings in about A.D. 180. About 10 years earlier, when the early church writer Papias wished to combine the "Gospels" into one continuous narrative, he used the texts of Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John. The "Muratorian Fragment" also has an early list of accepted books in it which, while not identical to the current canon, indicates which Gospels were accepted. (It's a Google-search away.)
(The early rival of the four canonical Gospels -- Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John -- was not other gospel-accounts; it was oral tradition about Jesus which was still circulating. This is why writers in the second century still mentioned things like the appearance of a bright light in the water when Jesus was baptized, even though such a thing is not mentioned by Matthew, Mark, Luke, or John.)
So, no; other Christians did not choose other Gospels. What basically happened was that some people, temporarily in the church, invented their own notion of what Jesus should be like, and since they did not find support for their ideas in the Gospels of Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John, they either rejected them (or most of them, as Marcion did in the mid-second century) or replaced them with new compositions to which they attached apostolic or lofty-sounding names. Irenaeus mentions, and exposes, some such books in his book "Against Heresies."
Yours in Christ,
Waterrock
FG: "Can I ask who you're using as a source of commentary/interpretation? Are you talking to Muslims while you read the Quran?"
I'm accessing various online Islamic commentaries and hadith-collections.
FG: "I'm interested in why you think that the Christians in Arabia at the time of Mohammed were "pseudo-Christians"."
After the Council of Ephesus (431) the Nestorians went westwards, and it seems reasonable that they would've founded some churches in Arabia. Also, deducing from the text of the Quran and some Hadith, it looks like the people whom Muhammad regarded as "Christians" taught an exalted form of Mary-exaltation, and treated an image of Jesus and Mary like an idol, and had some other unorthodox beliefs.
FG: "Are you aware of St Athanasius ..."
Yes. Btw, as a non-denominational Christian, while Athanasius' work was very important, I don't view the Athanasian Creed as an authoritative statement.
FG: "Weren't the Gospels you have in the Bible today were chosen by committee? It seems that other Christians chose other Gospels."
No. There's something of a trend (started by gullible readers of the "Da Vinci Code" book, I suspect) to re-write history to that effect, but it simply is not true. The four Gospels -- Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John -- were considered a unique and complete group ~ i.e., THE Gospels ~ in the 100's. The Christian bishop Irenaeus of Lyons mentions this in his writings in about A.D. 180. About 10 years earlier, when the early church writer Papias wished to combine the "Gospels" into one continuous narrative, he used the texts of Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John. The "Muratorian Fragment" also has an early list of accepted books in it which, while not identical to the current canon, indicates which Gospels were accepted. (It's a Google-search away.)
(The early rival of the four canonical Gospels -- Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John -- was not other gospel-accounts; it was oral tradition about Jesus which was still circulating. This is why writers in the second century still mentioned things like the appearance of a bright light in the water when Jesus was baptized, even though such a thing is not mentioned by Matthew, Mark, Luke, or John.)
So, no; other Christians did not choose other Gospels. What basically happened was that some people, temporarily in the church, invented their own notion of what Jesus should be like, and since they did not find support for their ideas in the Gospels of Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John, they either rejected them (or most of them, as Marcion did in the mid-second century) or replaced them with new compositions to which they attached apostolic or lofty-sounding names. Irenaeus mentions, and exposes, some such books in his book "Against Heresies."
Yours in Christ,
Waterrock
