What if Modern Christianity is just the other end of the telephone?

[NathanH83]

The analogy of the telephone doesn't work because we have the words of scripture and the Holy Spirit.

Our Bibles today are completely different than the early church’s. The early church used the Greek Septuagint. Words are different. Phrases are different and sometimes missing from our Bibles that the Septuagint includes. Chapters are missing from our Bibles today. Whole books are missing.

Besides, even when it comes to the scriptures that are the same, the WAY the early church INTERPRETED them is often very different.

 

[Lees]

Our Bibles today are completely different than the early church’s. The early church used the Greek Septuagint. Words are different. Phrases are different and sometimes missing from our Bibles that the Septuagint includes. Chapters are missing from our Bibles today. Whole books are missing.

Besides, even when it comes to the scriptures that are the same, the WAY the early church INTERPRETED them is often very different.

I have argued the idea of a 'Septuagint' many times. And, I thought I argued it here also, but I could not find it.

So, just let me say, there is no Septuagint. It is a fabrication. It is nothing more than the older Alexandrian manuscripts which are nothing more than Origen's translation of the Old Testament.

Lees

 

[NewCreation435]

Our Bibles today are completely different than the early church’s. The early church used the Greek Septuagint. Words are different. Phrases are different and sometimes missing from our Bibles that the Septuagint includes. Chapters are missing from our Bibles today. Whole books are missing.

Besides, even when it comes to the scriptures that are the same, the WAY the early church INTERPRETED them is often very different.

So your saying that God is incapable of protecting and keeping His Word?

 

[Fritz Kobus]

I have argued the idea of a 'Septuagint' many times. And, I thought I argued it here also, but I could not find it.

So, just let me say, there is no Septuagint. It is a fabrication. It is nothing more than the older Alexandrian manuscripts which are nothing more than Origen's translation of the Old Testament.

Lees

So what did the early church use for scriptures? What did Jesus quote from if not the Septuagint?

Is it possible that the early, early church, the one before we had the written New Testament, might have had some varied practices, in part because they did not have the written Word? So the telephone game may have been a factor in the first decades of the early church, but not since the written Word.

 

[Origen]

Bercot list common mistakes made by readers. This is number one on his list (p. xii).


The last sentence is very telling giving what is being claimed concerning the beliefs of the early church.

 

[NathanH83]

Bercot list common mistakes made by readers. This is number one on his list (p. xii).

View attachment 1851
The last sentence is very telling giving what is being claimed concerning the beliefs of the early church.

Yep!

 

[NathanH83]

So your saying that God is incapable of protecting and keeping His Word?

The Septuagint is still available to us today.

 

[NathanH83]

I have argued the idea of a 'Septuagint' many times. And, I thought I argued it here also, but I could not find it.

So, just let me say, there is no Septuagint. It is a fabrication. It is nothing more than the older Alexandrian manuscripts which are nothing more than Origen's translation of the Old Testament.

Lees

Your belief contradicts the beliefs of the early church in regards to the Septuagint.

Thanks for proving my point.

 

[NathanH83]

So what did the early church use for scriptures? What did Jesus quote from if not the Septuagint?

Is it possible that the early, early church, the one before we had the written New Testament, might have had some varied practices, in part because they did not have the written Word? So the telephone game may have been a factor in the first decades of the early church, but not since the written Word.

Listen to what the early church said about the Septuagint. Don’t listen to him.

 

[Lees]

So what did the early church use for scriptures? What did Jesus quote from if not the Septuagint?

Is it possible that the early, early church, the one before we had the written New Testament, might have had some varied practices, in part because they did not have the written Word? So the telephone game may have been a factor in the first decades of the early church, but not since the written Word.

Jesus, and the writers of the New Testament, quoted from the Hebrew Old Testament. The so called Septuagint is a Greek translation of the Old Testament.

The Church had the Old Testament. The letters of the New Testament would have been passed around quite early, and while most of the writers were still alive.

Understand that just because a writing is of the 'early church' doens't make it right. The early church fathers may have been early but they were not infallible. They could be right or wrong.

There were all kinds of problems in the 'early church'. The writers of Scripture were constantly addressing them.

I agree that tradition was a factor early on, but now with the written Word we have a more sure foundation for our faith.

Lees

 

[Lamb]

So your saying that God is incapable of protecting and keeping His Word?

That's what it sound like.

 

[Lanman87]

Our Bibles today are missing the phrase about healing the blind

Then the eyes of the blind shall be opened,
and the ears of the deaf unstopped;
6 then shall the lame man leap like a deer,
and the tongue of the mute sing for joy.
For waters break forth in the wilderness,
and streams in the desert; Isaiah 35:5-6

I don't know about yours, but my Bible still has prophecy about healing the blind.

Besides, there’s many different types of beliefs. Doctrinal beliefs is one. But there’s also historical beliefs. Beliefs about the scriptures. There’s lots of beliefs, doctrinal or not, that the early church differs from the modern church.

I can't argue with that. The Early Church had all kinds of beliefs. But not only do they differ from the modern church but they also differ from each other. Rarely do you find church fathers agreeing on everything. Some agree more and some less. But the early church had a wide variety of beliefs and practices. The early creeds were pretty much standard across Christianity but some of the secondary things that are debated today were already being debated in the early church.

Sometimes we make the early fathers to be some kind of super Christians who knew everything and did everything correctly. In fact, there were fallible men with the same prejudices and faults as the rest of us.

 

[Fritz Kobus]

Why don't we look at the Orthodox Church. They were never disconnected like the western church was. When the western church went astray, the Orthodox separated to preserve the true church.

 

[NathanH83]

Then the eyes of the blind shall be opened,
and the ears of the deaf unstopped;
6 then shall the lame man leap like a deer,
and the tongue of the mute sing for joy.
For waters break forth in the wilderness,
and streams in the desert; Isaiah 35:5-6

I don't know about yours, but my Bible still has prophecy about healing the blind.



I can't argue with that. The Early Church had all kinds of beliefs. But not only do they differ from the modern church but they also differ from each other. Rarely do you find church fathers agreeing on everything. Some agree more and some less. But the early church had a wide variety of beliefs and practices. The early creeds were pretty much standard across Christianity but some of the secondary things that are debated today were already being debated in the early church.

Sometimes we make the early fathers to be some kind of super Christians who knew everything and did everything correctly. In fact, there were fallible men with the same prejudices and faults as the rest of us.

Isaiah 61 is missing the phrase about healing the blind. That’s what Jesus was quoting in Luke 4. The Septuagint has the phrase, Luke 4 has the phrase, but Isaiah 61 in the Hebrew is missing it.

 

[NathanH83]

Why don't we look at the Orthodox Church. They were never disconnected like the western church was. When the western church went astray, the Orthodox separated to preserve the true church.

Are you Eastern Orthodox?

 

[Fritz Kobus]

Are you Eastern Orthodox?

No I am not, but recently have read about them some.

 

[NathanH83]

No I am not, but recently have read about them some.

I think our friend Vladimir is Russian Orthodox.

 

[Lucian Hodoboc]

So your saying that God is incapable of protecting and keeping His Word?

Why incapable? There could be various reasons for why He chose to not protect it. Like He didn't protect Paul's lost letters, the ones that are clearly referred to in the Bible.

 

[Albion]

Have you ever played the telephone game?


We played it in church youth groups a lot. The way it goes is:

One person whispers a sentence or phrase into another’s ear. Then that person whispers it in the next person’s ear, then the next and the next on down the line. Finally, it reaches the last person who tells everyone out loud what they heard, and you can see how much it changed on down the line from the original phrase.

Usually the final phrase is extremely different from the original phrase.

I said all that to say this:

Have you ever thought that the Early Church was the origin end of the telephone, and that the Modern Church is the other end? And could it be that the “Christianity” that we have today is barely even recognizable to what the Early Church had?

Maybe that thought crossed my mind when I was a child, but the reason that the analogy fails is because we do have the record of how the church has developed over time. Some people appreciate the fact while others think it disproves Christianity, but that's their problem.

As for the validity of the religion itself, the history of the Church is not unknown or unknowable. That being the case, we surely can see if it went off the rails or if, on the other hand, the Holy Spirit kept the gates of Hell from prevailing against it.

 

[Albion]

David Bercot made a dictionary of early Christian beliefs. If you take a look inside, you’ll find there’s lots of beliefs of the early church that were different than modern church beliefs.

"Early Christian beliefs" does not represent the faith of the early Church. What Bercot is cataloging here are the aberrant beliefs of numerous INDIVIDUALS, some of whom collected a following for their ideas. Some amounted to sects for awhile, but ultimately were condemned and faded away while mainline Christianity thrived.