Search not the Book of Mormon for truly great allegory.

[Requiem]

"The beginning of wisdom is found in doubting; by doubting we come to the question, and by seeking we may come upon the truth."
Pierre Abelard (1079-1142)

"There are two ways to slide easily through life: to believe everything or to doubt everything; both ways save us from thinking."
Alfred Korzybski

"It is not bigotry to be certain we are right; but it is bigotry to be unable to imagine how we might possibly have gone wrong."
G. K. Chesterton

[ChinoCoug]

Originally Posted by jay santos

Thanks for cutting through the bullshit of this "Robinson's unprofessional and ChinoCoug's intellectually dishonest" and telling us what you're really saying.

What you're saying is fine, if you're talking to another atheist about the theory of the evolution of Christianity. It doesn't work in a theological discussion with a group who believes Jesus is the Christ.

This should be a discussion among Christians.

Tell a Catholic that his religion is largely a product of pagan philosophy, and you can bet he'll be offended. To them, Greek philosophy is merely the handmaiden of theology.

Seattle won't concede anything negative about his warm-fuzzy love for the classics. Christians are not concerned about the credit given to Hellenism. To Christians, if your creeds are derived from Plato, you've got issues.

[Archaea]

Originally Posted by ChinoCoug

that matter is bad is a neoplatonic import.

No I think it is more profound than that.

Did all Hebrews believe, before Christ came in the flesh, that God would manifest himself in the flesh?

Afterwards, did they struggle with the Logos doctrine to reconcile it with the one God theory?

Am I opining Greek philosophy had no influence? Of course not.

However, jay's posturing is naive.

He basically states, "well in a vacuum God revealed the true nature of the Godhead to all who would listen and everybody understood. Furthermore, none disagreed or misunderstood."

Hence a pure original truth was broadly purveyed but polluted by those bad Greek speakers and thinkers.

It seems it is very far from the truth that the "truth" of Christ and his relation to Father was not easily understood. There were those who viewed him as a separate and distinct person, the gnostics, the adoptionists, and many others. Not all having links to Greek philosophy [as if that is one homogeneous whole].

Robison oversimplifies the debate and unnecessarily casts "Greek" culture as the bad guy in these developments, when Christianity never really had a complete purity of thought.

[SeattleUte]

Originally Posted by Requiem

"The beginning of wisdom is found in doubting; by doubting we come to the question, and by seeking we may come upon the truth."
Pierre Abelard (1079-1142)

"There are two ways to slide easily through life: to believe everything or to doubt everything; both ways save us from thinking."
Alfred Korzybski

"It is not bigotry to be certain we are right; but it is bigotry to be unable to imagine how we might possibly have gone wrong."
G. K. Chesterton

Jay, I think she posted this for you.

[ChinoCoug]

Originally Posted by Archaea

No I think it is more profound than that.

Did all Hebrews believe, before Christ came in the flesh, that God would manifest himself in the flesh?

Afterwards, did they struggle with the Logos doctrine to reconcile it with the one God theory?

Am I opining Greek philosophy had no influence? Of course not.

However, jay's posturing is naive.

He basically states, "well in a vacuum God revealed the true nature of the Godhead to all who would listen and everybody understood. Furthermore, none disagreed or misunderstood."

Hence a pure original truth was broadly purveyed but polluted by those bad Greek speakers and thinkers.

It seems it is very far from the truth that the "truth" of Christ and his relation to Father was not easily understood. There were those who viewed him as a separate and distinct person, the gnostics, the adoptionists, and many others. Not all having links to Greek philosophy [as if that is one homogeneous whole].

Robison oversimplifies the debate and unnecessarily casts "Greek" culture as the bad guy in these developments, when Christianity never really had a complete purity of thought.

Who every said Greek thought was all bad?

So you're saying when God revealed Himself in Christ, His followers were still unclear on His nature?

The theologians I've read say the NT doesn't touch on God's nature too much because it wasn't controversial at the time.

[Archaea]

Originally Posted by ChinoCoug

Who every said Greek thought was all bad?

So you're saying when God revealed Himself in Christ, His followers were still unclear on His nature?

The theologians I've read say the NT doesn't touch on God's nature too much because it wasn't controversial at the time.

Read the BCE theologians and tell me all predicted that Christ would be as he was. They didn't have much of a clue.

At the time, they saw him as a man, and those who witnessed the resurrection, knew he came back.

But I wager many still did not understand his relationship to Father. To you, it's clear, so you assume it was as clear to all others. I don't make that assumption.

[jay santos]

Originally Posted by Archaea

No I think it is more profound than that.

Did all Hebrews believe, before Christ came in the flesh, that God would manifest himself in the flesh?

Afterwards, did they struggle with the Logos doctrine to reconcile it with the one God theory?

Am I opining Greek philosophy had no influence? Of course not.

However, jay's posturing is naive.

He basically states, "well in a vacuum God revealed the true nature of the Godhead to all who would listen and everybody understood. Furthermore, none disagreed or misunderstood."

Hence a pure original truth was broadly purveyed but polluted by those bad Greek speakers and thinkers.

It seems it is very far from the truth that the "truth" of Christ and his relation to Father was not easily understood. There were those who viewed him as a separate and distinct person, the gnostics, the adoptionists, and many others. Not all having links to Greek philosophy [as if that is one homogeneous whole].

Robison oversimplifies the debate and unnecessarily casts "Greek" culture as the bad guy in these developments, when Christianity never really had a complete purity of thought.

I can speak with SU because he'll tell me where he stands on my list of required assumptions for this conversation. I don't know where you stand.

I'm naive? I'm not saying the apostles were perfect in their understanding of doctrine or in their communicating of doctrine. They were first hand witnesses. They had a tough enough time preserving the doctrine they taught to their own converts. How can it possibly be naive to postulate that once the first hand witnesses were dead and revelation ceased that the doctrine started to be corrupted by the most dominating thought around--Greek philosophy.

Of course gnostics and other philosophy and doctrine most likely had an influence as well. I doubt Robinson would argue that. The key here is that the doctrine was altered and something was responsible. The Catholic Church is not that something. Apostacy from within primarily through hellenization in the 50 - 150 AD time period is the primary cause.

It's not that controversial. In fact it's a feel good/bridge building piece to tell Mormons to take the heat off the Catholics and blame it on something more nebulous.

[ChinoCoug]

Originally Posted by Archaea

Read the BCE theologians and tell me all predicted that Christ would be as he was. They didn't have much of a clue.

At the time, they saw him as a man, and those who witnessed the resurrection, knew he came back.

But I wager many still did not understand his relationship to Father. To you, it's clear, so you assume it was as clear to all others. I don't make that assumption.

I forgot about the "Messianic secret" maintained in the synoptic Gospels, so you partly right on that one.

I can't find any theological dictionaries online (other than evangelical ones). The best I have is quotes from an email exchange bewteen Eugene Seaich and Carl Mosser:

The NT does not actually speak of triunity. We seek this in vain in the triadic formulae of the NT....Early Christianity itself...does not yet have the problem of triunity in view" (Kittel, Theological Dictionary of the New Testament, 3.108-9).

Donald Guthrie's evangelically-oriented New Testament Theology, while arguing that there are "adumbrations" of Trinitarianism in the New Testament, is similarly obliged to admit that:
It cannot be said that the doctrine (of Trinitarianism) is expounded. Indeed, it is significant that none of the NT writers sees the need to speculate about such a doctrine. They are content to present data which imply the divine nature of both Christ and the Spirit and which naturally gave rise to reflections about the unity of God (op. cit., 122).

http://www.shields-research.org/Critics/A-O_04.html

[jay santos]

Originally Posted by SeattleUte

Jay, I think she posted this for you.

Requiem's on my side of this debate. She may not understand what you're saying but if she does, she'd be on my side.

[Archaea]

Originally Posted by jay santos

The Catholic Church is not that something. Apostacy from within primarily through hellenization in the 50 - 150 AD time period is the primary cause.

It's not that controversial. In fact it's a feel good/bridge building piece to tell Mormons to take the heat off the Catholics and blame it on something more nebulous.

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.