4 Misconceptions Christians Spread About The New Testament

[St. SteVen]

True or false?

1) The gospels of Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John, were written by eyewitnesses, possibly the apostles themselves.

2) Christianity was relatively unified in the first few centuries, and only became theologically diverse and fragmented with time.
The further you go back, the more united Christianity is.

3) The proto-orthodox church fathers did not accept the authority of any texts we’d now consider non-canonical, such as the apocalypse of Peter.

4) Legendary accounts of Jesus birth, ministry, and death did not have time to form by the time the Gospels were written.
So, the gospel accounts are purely historical.

 

[St. SteVen]

1) The First Council of Nicaea canonized the New Testament

2) The valley of Gehenna was a place where Jerusalem burned its trash, which is how it got its fiery image

3) The Nag Hammadi library was buried out of fear of violent persecution from the proto-orthodox,
as evidenced by Athanasius of Alexandria laying out a list of orthodox books very similar to contemporary New Testament canons

4) The “Gnostics” were a specific sect of Christians which had their own congregations far apart from other Christians

5) The narrative of Jesus’ virgin birth, the celebration of his birth on December 25th, his 12 followers, dying for world peace, etc. was lifted from the Roman religion of Mithraism

 

[Pavel Mosko]

True or false?

1) The gospels of Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John, were written by eyewitnesses, possibly the apostles themselves.

2) Christianity was relatively unified in the first few centuries, and only became theologically diverse and fragmented with time.
The further you go back, the more united Christianity is.

3) The proto-orthodox church fathers did not accept the authority of any texts we’d now consider non-canonical, such as the apocalypse of Peter.

4) Legendary accounts of Jesus birth, ministry, and death did not have time to form by the time the Gospels were written.
So, the gospel accounts are purely historical.

Ug I don't think I want to stomach him today. Not that I don't have sympathies for him and why he is the way he is dealing with Fundamentalist Christians, but my big problem with him is he as a person somehow ends up exaggerating all the alleged problems with the New Testament so much, that it gives people who in my estimation got more epistemological problems (Muslims and the New Atheists) a lot of false confidence going after the splinter int the eye of certain Christians when they got a log sticking out of their eye.


As far as the bullet points

1) Yes that technically is mostly right, but the Bible is still stronger than most people think. I believe the Scriptures were developed by the Logia Aramaic saying of Jesus, as well as some kind of notes and memories based on when the gospels were preached by the Apostles.

2) Is it a lot of neo-Gnostic propaganda. Yeah, it is sort of true if you want to talk about local traditions going on. But yeah I do think Christianity was largely unified on basic Apostolic Tradition, because the ancient Apostolic Churches are united on the basics of Faith and this is really something when you consider how separated groups like Assyrians, Armenians, Maronites, early saint Thomas Chrisitans were with each other.

3) Agreed! wow that was easy. I guess a better way of saying it was the Church Fathers agreed with the material used in questionable texts and sometimes used it to support their arguments.

4) I think I also agree with this one (can't think of a bad reason not to). The Coptic Church is the best argument for this and I think number 3 to. There are some Coptic Legends I believe that fit into Biblical types but would be probably knee jerk rejected out of hand due to people's conceptions of what happened is all in the text, something even the Gospel John seems to warn us of saying that there would not be room to contain all the cool stuff Jesus did and said. This also is true when you get into the role each gospel plays in trying to reach a given ethnic group of the time (Romans, Greeks and Jews) and how different cultures are interested in certain things and that tailor some of the material in them.

Toddler Jesus Topples Egyptian Idols!

According to the apocryphal Infancy Gospels, Baby Jesus was working miracles in Egypt long before his adult ministry began.

www.beliefnet.com

 

[Dan Clarkston]

The gospels of Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John, were written by eyewitnesses

The Holy Ghost was THE Eye Witness Who instructed the writers of the books what to write

Christianity was relatively unified in the first few centuries, and only became theologically diverse and fragmented with time.
The further you go back, the more united Christianity is.

No, false doctrine was floating around while the Apostles were still here on earth

The proto-orthodox church fathers did not accept the authority of any texts we’d now consider non-canonical, such as the apocalypse of Peter.

The proto-orthodox church fathers were wrong.

Jesus is the One Who decided what went in to God's Canon, not men.

That's why some writing were removed because the Lord influenced men to remove them.

Jesus Christ is THE decision Maker in this matter.

Legendary accounts of Jesus birth, ministry, and death did not have time to form by the time the Gospels were written.
So, the gospel accounts are purely historical.

God's Word accounts the Truth of Jesus' birth, ministry, and death

 

[St. SteVen]

That's why some writing were removed because the Lord influenced men to remove them.

Jesus Christ is THE decision Maker in this matter.

They almost removed the book of James.
Why would Jesus do that? (to His own brother)

 

[Dan Clarkston]

They almost removed the book of James.
Why would Jesus do that? (to His own brother)

You did notice the Book of James is still in the Bible right?

The tares (reformed theology people) were the ones trying to boot the Book of James, so don't blame Jesus for something the god of the reformed (satan) was trying to accomplish