"Silly boy, it's all about trust."

[purplemer]

@"DISRAELI" 

I'm only questioning the difference between trust versus faith.

I will only add that in common speech the word "faith" is also applied to relations with other people, which makes it even more difficult to discern a difference. "I have faith in you". The word "faithful" between lovers has the same ambiguous meaning ("trusting" and "worthy of being trusted") that it has in the New Testament. So on the purely linguistic point, I think they're nearly synonyms. Obviously the church has also used the word "faith" for "believing that something is true", as I said before, but I think that's a subordinate sense. Believing that statements about God are true is an aid towards trusting him, which is the real goal, but being unsure about the statements is not necessarily a barrier to trusting. Believing "that" is a matter of being convinced, but believing "in" is ultimately a decision.

Lots of biblical books where removed including the Gnostic's. By powerful elite families trying to control the flow of information.. Nothing changes eh.

With self knowledge the need for faith disperse..

:-)

[Ninurta]

Lots of biblical books where removed including the Gnostic's. By powerful elite families trying to control the flow of information.. Nothing changes eh.

With self knowledge the need for faith disperse..

:-)

I've read some of the Gnostic texts, and personally believe they were "removed" (actually, they were never included to begin with, being the pretty basic definition of "anti-Christian") due to the way they directly oppose Biblical doctrines. If powerful elite families removed them in an effort to control information flow, they did a piss poor job of it, since I or anyone else can still read them if so desired.


I have a fairly firm grounding in the history of the Bible, and can find no basis for the claims which continually crop up that books were "removed", other than the Apocrypha from Protestant texts. As a matter of fact, the King James Bible originally included the Apocrypha (as does my copy of the Geneva Bible, the "original" Protestant Bible), but it was eventually relegated to a separately bound volume, and them disappeared altogether... but the King James version of the Apocrypha can still be found with a diligent search. I used to have a copy of it in my collection, back when I had a collection.

Gnostic fantasies were, in large part, the foundation of Islam as regards it's alleged connection with Christianity as the "logical development" thereof. One can still find bits and pieces of Gnostic stories in the Qur'an, as well as their ongoing argument about the validity of the Gospel of Barnabas and it's relation to the Islamic Isa.

Gnosticism is not nor ever was it, "Christianity" - it just tried to pass as Christianity by cloaking itself in a habit. Similarly to LDS doctrine, it sought to make every man his own "god in embryo", thus denying the unique deity of the Christian God.


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[Ninurta]

Well, one of the side-effects of being a former non-believer is that I feel no need to be aggressive towards current non-believers. (Also, I learned at first-hand that the aggressive approach doesn't work). I regard myself as a teacher, with a built-in "mission to explain", rather than an evangelist.

I'm pretty much a Calvinist, all 5 points. One of the advantages to that doctrine (especially the predestination point) is that I also have no need to be aggressive towards non-believers, or anyone else for that matter regarding their faith or lack thereof. Calvinism gives a perfectly logical explanation for why they do not believe, and why there is no point in trying to argue them into believing. Let people believe as they will, and enjoy what life they have.

Now, I understand that you have misgivings regarding Calvinist doctrines, and that's fine by me. it's not for everyone, and all these doctrinal divisions and disputes, to my way of thinking, serve only to mask the one salient and important message of the entire gospel - the means to salvation. Everything else is just window dressing, and doctrinal disputes not only fracture churches into the 400 odd splinter factions we have today, they also draw attention away from that one main thrust of the entire message.

So to each his own. In the end, we are each of us only responsible to God for ourselves and what we ourselves believe.

I do admire your "mission to explain" rather than evangelize. I'm a lot like that. I just live my life, and if anyone has questions, they can ask and I'll tell - but otherwise I don't go out hunting for them to "spread the gospel", I instead let them come to me if they are so inclined. It makes for a far more peaceful existence. When I married Grace, she was a Muslim... but in a year and a half or two years, she came around to converting to Christianity, and I never once preached to or at her about it. Matter of fact, I studiously avoided that, as it was a point of the marriage contract. She actually had to drag it out of me, so reluctant was I to discuss such matters with her for fear of breaching that contract.

So that approach works, and works pretty well, with fewer false starts. As it is said, you catch more flies with honey than you do with vinegar, so why run out and track folks down just to toss vinegar on them that they don't want to hear? That only alienates them and makes matters worse. If they want to hear, they will come to you, in my experience.


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[Ninurta]

@"DISRAELI" 

I'm only questioning the difference between trust versus faith.

They way I work with them is that "faith" is knowing without seeing, and "trust" is based on prior history, a track record, and is therefore something that has been seen.

I trust nothing that I have not tested to some point, but God being a god, it is not prone to jump through hoops at my bidding for testing like some trained monkey. So in that context "faith" must be applied, or withheld, without testing.

of course, your mileage may vary - those are just my own personal concepts of the difference.

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[purplemer]

I have a fairly firm grounding in the history of the Bible, and can find no basis for the claims which continually crop up that books were "removed"

Correct me if i am wrong but the bible we use today is based on template which was created under Constantine of the Roman Emperor. It is at this point  heavy censorship occurred. For example the book of Enoch was not incuded (it mentions a previous civilization) and many other sciptures where denied access. To think these books have not been altered by the elite to control the narrative of mankind baffles my mind.

Our history has been cleansed and sanitised for the masses.

If you are in any doubt that the bible has been altered. Go back and look at the oldest bible (Ethiopian) and see how many scriptures are now missing.

Happy days :-)

[DISRAELI]

I have a fairly firm grounding in the history of the Bible, and can find no basis for the claims which continually crop up that books were "removed"

Correct me if i am wrong but the bible we use today is based on template which was created under Constantine of the Roman Emperor. It is at this point  heavy censorship occurred. For example the book of Enoch was not incuded (it mentions a previous civilization) and many other sciptures where denied access. To think these books have not been altered by the elite to control the narrative of mankind baffles my mind.

Our history has been cleansed and sanitised for the masses.

If you are in any doubt that the bible has been altered. Go back and look at the oldest bible (Ethiopian) and see how many scriptures are now missing.

Happy days :-)

We're obliged to correct that because it isn't true. There is no evidence for any such template. Printed books are a better source of information than the internet, and they will tell you that the growth of the Biblical "canon" was organic, a collective consensus building up in the centuries before Constantine. The alleged "omitted" books were not omitted, because they had never been included in the first place. The early church had a "nonsense filter" of inherited tradition, which managed to keep them out. The trouble with the modern internet is that the internet has no nonsense filter, so any speculative or fictitious rubbish is given the same standing as genuine knowledge, especially if it chimes in with what people want to believe. Part of the trouble is that an obsessively anti-authoritarian mindset has left many people hopelessly gullible, ready to believe any old crap as long as it doesn't come from established authority.

[purplemer]

I have a fairly firm grounding in the history of the Bible, and can find no basis for the claims which continually crop up that books were "removed"

Correct me if i am wrong but the bible we use today is based on template which was created under Constantine of the Roman Emperor. It is at this point  heavy censorship occurred. For example the book of Enoch was not incuded (it mentions a previous civilization) and many other sciptures where denied access. To think these books have not been altered by the elite to control the narrative of mankind baffles my mind.

Our history has been cleansed and sanitised for the masses.

If you are in any doubt that the bible has been altered. Go back and look at the oldest bible (Ethiopian) and see how many scriptures are now missing.

Happy days :-)

We're obliged to correct that because it isn't true. There is no evidence for any such template. Printed books are a better source of information than the internet, and they will tell you that the growth of the Biblical "canon" was organic, a collective consensus building up in the centuries before Constantine. The alleged "omitted" books were not omitted, because they had never been included in the first place. The early church had a "nonsense filter" of inherited tradition, which managed to keep them out.

Sorry that does not really make sense. The Ethiopian church is in possession of the oldest bible in the world and this bible gives a different narrative. It evidently has a different idea of official Canon(s)
meaning it is not as clear cut as you are making it out.

Heck didnt the church remove even more books when they translated it into English. Was that grass roots and organic too. 

• 1 Esdras
  
• 2 Esdras
  
• Tobit
  
• Judith
  
• The rest of Esther
  
• The Wisdom of Solomon
  
• Ecclesiasticus
  
• Baruch with the epistle Jeremiah
  
• The Songs of the 3 Holy children
  
• The history of Susana
  
• Bel and the dragon
  
• The prayer for Manasses
  
• 1 Maccabees
  

https://consciousreminder.com/2017/03/12...ible-1684/

In reality the Canon is not set in stone and differs from Catholics / protestants etc.  Your nonsense filter is just controlling the narrative by different groups.

 :-)

[Ninurta]

I have a fairly firm grounding in the history of the Bible, and can find no basis for the claims which continually crop up that books were "removed"

Correct me if i am wrong but the bible we use today is based on template which was created under Constantine of the Roman Emperor. It is at this point  heavy censorship occurred. For example the book of Enoch was not incuded (it mentions a previous civilization) and many other sciptures where denied access. To think these books have not been altered by the elite to control the narrative of mankind baffles my mind.

Our history has been cleansed and sanitised for the masses.

If you are in any doubt that the bible has been altered. Go back and look at the oldest bible (Ethiopian) and see how many scriptures are now missing.

Happy days :-)

We're obliged to correct that because it isn't true. There is no evidence for any such template. Printed books are a better source of information than the internet, and they will tell you that the growth of the Biblical "canon" was organic, a collective consensus building up in the centuries before Constantine. The alleged "omitted" books were not omitted, because they had never been included in the first place. The early church had a "nonsense filter" of inherited tradition, which managed to keep them out. The trouble with the modern internet is that the internet has no nonsense filter, so any speculative or fictitious rubbish is given the same standing as genuine knowledge, especially if it chimes in with what people want to believe. Part of the trouble is that an obsessively anti-authoritarian mindset has left many people hopelessly gullible, ready to believe any old crap as long as it doesn't come from established authority.

The only thing I can add to that is that the Ethiopian Bible was not "the first Bible". The Bible was not written in Ethiopia. Furthermore, Ethiopia was a hotbed of Gnosticism, so there is no telling which spurious "Biblical" books may be found there. many of those were the very sources that Mohammed based his concept of "Christianity" on which he built Islam up from.

The book of Enoch, which I have read, has theological problems that kept it out of the cannon over and above any mention of ancient civilizations. It was not that mention that kept it out, it was faulty theology, which is also the case with the exclusion of most of the Gnostic texts.

Being initially excluded from incorporation into a body of literature in the first place is not the same thing as having been removed from that body. For instance, the musical "Cats" was not removed from the works of Shakespeare through any malicious motivation, because it was never included in the first place.


.

[DISRAELI]

I have a fairly firm grounding in the history of the Bible, and can find no basis for the claims which continually crop up that books were "removed"

Correct me if i am wrong but the bible we use today is based on template which was created under Constantine of the Roman Emperor. It is at this point  heavy censorship occurred. For example the book of Enoch was not incuded (it mentions a previous civilization) and many other sciptures where denied access. To think these books have not been altered by the elite to control the narrative of mankind baffles my mind.

Our history has been cleansed and sanitised for the masses.

If you are in any doubt that the bible has been altered. Go back and look at the oldest bible (Ethiopian) and see how many scriptures are now missing.

Happy days :-)

We're obliged to correct that because it isn't true. There is no evidence for any such template. Printed books are a better source of information than the internet, and they will tell you that the growth of the Biblical "canon" was organic, a collective consensus building up in the centuries before Constantine. The alleged "omitted" books were not omitted, because they had never been included in the first place. The early church had a "nonsense filter" of inherited tradition, which managed to keep them out.

Sorry that does not really make sense. The Ethiopian church is in possession of the oldest bible in the world and this bible gives a different narrative. It evidently has a different idea of official Canon(s)

I assume you mean the oldest manuscript. Even if that is true, I've got to point out an elementary rule of textual criticism; the oldest surviving physical copy is not necessarily the oldest and most original text. so it cannot, as such, be used as a "control".

[Ninurta]

Sorry that does not really make sense. The Ethiopian church is in possession of the oldest bible in the world and this bible gives a different narrative. It evidently has a different idea of official Canon(s)
meaning it is not as clear cut as you are making it out.

Heck didnt the church remove even more books when they translated it into English. Was that grass roots and organic too. 

• 1 Esdras
  
• 2 Esdras
  
• Tobit
  
• Judith
  
• The rest of Esther
  
• The Wisdom of Solomon
  
• Ecclesiasticus
  
• Baruch with the epistle Jeremiah
  
• The Songs of the 3 Holy children
  
• The history of Susana
  
• Bel and the dragon
  
• The prayer for Manasses
  
• 1 Maccabees
  

https://consciousreminder.com/2017/03/12...ible-1684/

In reality the Canon is not set in stone and differs from Catholics / protestants etc.  Your nonsense filter is just controlling the narrative by different groups.

 :-)

No. I'm not sure where you are getting your information from. I have a 1560 edition of the Geneva Bible within 5 feet of where I am sitting right now, and every one of those books is in it. The Vatican has NEVER removed any of those books - they are still in the Catholic Bibles to this day. from the Douay-Rheims Bible (the first Catholic Bible in English) right up through the Jerusalem Bible, all imprimatured by the Vatican. They were also included in the Protestant Bibles as originally translated, such as the great Bible, the Geneva Bible, and the King James Bible.

Even the Catholic version of the Living Bible, which is not a translation at all, it is a paraphrase, included them to this day.

Now, the Geneva Bible was not the first English Bible, but it was way back when, during the period you are questioning, and it still contains those books, collectively known as the "Apocrypha". Likewise, the first "King James" Bibles (aka "authorized version of 1611") also included them. In both of those Bibles, they are gathered together into a single section situated between the Old and New Testaments, In the KJV, they were eventually removed and bound into a volume of their own, but are still available in the KJV version, just as a separate volume.

The first translation into English, the Wycliffe Bible translated into Middle English (Chaucer's English) from the latter half of the 1300's DID omit the Apocrypha, I believe, but that isn't surprising since it also omitted the entire Old Testament. It was translated from the Latin Vulgate of the Catholic Church, rather than the original languages as all modern bibles are translated.

I think a deep dive into the history of the Bible texts would do a world of good to dispel the mythologies you appear to be laboring under.

Note also that there is a difference between the Apocrypha, the books you mention in this post, and the Pseudepigrapha, such as the Book of Enoch you mentioned previously.

ETA; Here is a section of II Esdras, chapter 6, in the Geneva Bible:



It's still there.

.

[Ninurta]

...

Heck didnt the church remove even more books when they translated it into English. Was that grass roots and organic too. 

• 1 Esdras
  
• 2 Esdras
  
• Tobit
  
• Judith
  
• The rest of Esther
  
• The Wisdom of Solomon
  
• Ecclesiasticus
  
• Baruch with the epistle Jeremiah
  
• The Songs of the 3 Holy children
  
• The history of Susana
  
• Bel and the dragon
  
• The prayer for Manasses
  
• 1 Maccabees
  

https://consciousreminder.com/2017/03/12...ible-1684/

In reality the Canon is not set in stone and differs from Catholics / protestants etc.  Your nonsense filter is just controlling the narrative by different groups.

 :-)

I did go and read the linked page, and found it to be fraught with misinformation. For example, it says the first English Bible was translated from the Latin Vulgate in 1611. That is wrong at every point.

The first English Bible I am aware of was that of John Wycliffe, started in I believe 1382. Prior to this unnamed Catholic Bible of 1611, there were, in English, the Tyndale Bible, the Bishops's Bible, the Great Bible, the Geneva Bible, and probably a few less well known translations. So, the Bible was not first translated into English in 1611 as claimed. However, Wycliffe's early version WAS at least translated from the Vulgate.

The only translation I know of from 1611 is the King James Version, and it was not translated from the Latin Vulgate as claimed. It was translated from the best available (at the time) texts in the original languages - Hebrew, Aramaic, and Greek.

The Douay-Rheims version of the Catholic Church WAS translated into English from the Latin Vulgate, but it was translated in 3 installments from 1582 to 1610. It was translated by the Catholic Church as a Counter-Reformation move, intended to claw back English speaking peoples from the Reformation movement back into filling the coffers of the Catholic Church.

As demonstrated above, the apocrypha as listed were never removed from the Catholic Bible, nor the earlier Protestant Bibles. Not in 1684, nor at any other time. The author may be confused, since, in the Catholic Bibles, the Apocrypha are interspersed into the Old Testament texts. For example, "Bel and the Dragon" forms a part of the Book of Daniel in the Catholic Bibles, rather than a stand-alone book.

So, all the way around, the article is disinformative.


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