[jay santos]

Originally Posted by Archaea

Well, this assumes that the authentic Church existed in substantial numbers and that those members knew and understood various doctrines. Perhaps they did, perhaps they didn't.

I assume a small body of persons actually knew Christ, a smaller body actually understood him and an even smaller body understood, believed and followed him. From this third group, we had various levels of faith and belief.

As the membership branched out, consistency within the doctrines would be difficult, especially in that age, to correlate. Hence a difference of opinions would arise, as on central organization existed in the form which we know of, today. Without the gravitational affect of a central organization, the teachings and principles were bound to morph, if they were ever clearly understood and written down, a fact I doubt.

People understood the Hebraic code, to some extent, as they lived it. Non Jews understood other paths. However, the Master did not live long among the Jews nor did he develop a huge enough following to ensure a broad understanding of all his doctrine. Hence repent and be baptized were central themes. Keep it simple with a short time.

Thus many unanswered questions arose, and thus ambiguity existed.

I don't see some grand conspiracy by Greeks to pollute the pure doctrine.

You think you're defending Seattle, but you're not. He's calling the whole thing a crock of shit. He calls the whole Christian gospel a story someone made up under heavy influence of Greek thought. So of course it's ludicrous to say that story went "apostate" due to some further mingling with Greek thought. You're not defending him unless you agree with that.

What you're saying is not much of consequence and not worth arguing over. Robinson doesn't call Greek culture the great and abonimable church. In fact you repeat what he said as part of your argument against him.

Babylon in the first and second centuries may even have been a collection of different movements. Some Jewish Christians couldn't let go of the law of Moses and eventually gave up Christ instead. The Orthodox Christians adopted Greek philosophy. The Gnostics wallowed in the mysteries and in unspeakable practices on the one hand or in neurotic asceticism on the other. Second-century compilers like Tatian and Marcion rewrote the scriptures, the latter boldly chopping out anything, he didn't like. And all of them together forced the virtuous woman, the true church of Jesus Christ, into the wilderness.