/christian/ - Christian Discussion and Fellowship

>>741213

Wish I could be this dedicated, good job Anon! Mind sharing your personal experience with us, any questions maybe?

Also it's a bit of a mainstream recommendation but, I can only recommend Augustine's City of God if you're looking for top tier writing of the early church fathers.

>I just finished reading the old testament

How long did it take you to read the OT?

>>741213

If you're going by the order "whole OT -> whole NT" I recommend taking a break in-between to read the deuterocanonical/"apocryphal" books. Whether you consider them inspired or not, they'll give you a good idea of how Jewish theology progressed up to the incarnation of God the Son, and as such may make more clear where some of the authors of the NT are coming from. And some of them, like Sirach and Wisdom, were very popular in the early Church at least.

>>741241

I could have done it in 4 months (I'm reading 10 chapters per day) but I'm a huge procrastinator and it took me 3 years. But this year I read more than any other year.

>>741233

From my experience, once thing you realise is that the whole Bible is kind of a story of a family that, to borrow a NT analogy, starts off as small as a mustard seed but grows into something insanely huge and influential on the world. A couple huge things stick out that kinda go over your head but once you notice it you end up being angry that you didn't notice but it's that all of the OT gifts are earthly. Instead of God giving the Jews the incentive of living in His presence for all eternity, instead He says He will take them to a land that is filled with milk and honey. He promises to make them win wars and win against their enemies. I think this is why some Jews became nihilists, like the Sadducees, or believed in reincarnation, like the Pharisees.

>>741233

Also, I've seen how big city of God is. Freaking huge m8!

>>741257

I wasn't planning to read it but you convinced me to read it for educational purposes.

>>741233

Forgot to add, the OT does get a but repetitive and makes you think thank there's no hope for Israel. Like seriously!!!! The damn people can't go a half page without making God angry or something and this goes on from exodus to Malachi. They never learn! And God is angry for a large part of the OT at the different nations. He talks about the curses and blessings that will fall upon specific people and God isn't just focused on isreal. He also blessed other nations too and talks about how they too are holy. One interesting thing I found out is that the OT is just as focused on internal attitude as much as the NT is. For example after reading the gospels it can feel like Judaism is all about works but this isn't the case. When Paul talk's about circumcision of the heart, that's actually from Moses. As well as the commandment to love God with all your strength and being.

>>741262

This table shows which books are deuterocanonical according to various traditions: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Biblical_canon#Canons_of_various_Christian_traditions

It's actually pretty accurate, except it should be added that,

concerning the Old Testament:

- The books of 1, 2, 3 Meqabyan are difficult to find in proper English (or rather, one must buy a book to get them). Everything else can be found online however - the NRSV has all the Eastern Orthodox canon (which includes the Catholic canon) and books unique to other traditions such as 1 Enoch can be found online.

- It's a lot of texts to read. Some of them, like Jubilees, are pretty long too. Don't feel too pressured to read all of them if you don't want to - at least read the Catholic deuterocanon, I would say.

concerning the New Testament:

- Revelation's canonical status is "secondary" in everything but Western and Oriental Orthodox tradition. It wasn't recognized as canonical by the Byzantine churches until the 6th century, after the lectionary was put together, so it's not read liturgically except on Patmos and in a few monasteries; and in some tradition (the Armenian one I believe?) it wasn't even received as a Biblical text until the 12th century.

- In the case of the Syriac/Assyrian tradition, the canonical status of 2 Peter, 2 John, 3 John, Jude, and Revelation is pretty close to what one would call a Protestant approach to the deuterocanon. The texts were not received into the Bible until recently and are not read liturgically or used as sources of doctrine (however they are usually recognized as inspired if only because tradition makes it clear that the other churches have seen them as such, even the other churches within the Oriental Orthodox communion).

- Texts that were once considered canonical by some councils but ended up not making it into the Bible or the present liturgy are: 1 and 2 Clement, the Apostolic Constitutions, the Didache, the Shepherd of Hermas. It might be a good idea to read those immediately after the NT to see what the early Christians came up with, although some of those texts seem to be corrupted by heretical stuff so beware (but at least 1 Clement and the Didache seem to be uncorrupt).

>>741213

I’m reading through the prophets and apocrypha right now. Already read the NT. Much of the NT is just God repeating what He said in the OT like love your neighbor. Some stuff strangely doesn’t fit the OT like turn the other cheek which makes me think pacifism wasn’t the message Jesus was trying to get across. One thing I hate is I can’t go a single page in the OT without finding something GOD says that contradicts what most modern Christians say. When I show them the verses they just try to worm their way out of it. I think Christians are more concerned with shilling Christianity as compatible with modern values than what God wants.

>>741258

Wow.

Guess better to have it read than not.

New Testament is an easier read and much smaller.

>>741270

Interesting. I've already read the Didache, Clement 1 and 2, Ignatius epistles, shepherd of hermas (Which was soooo long!), Martyrdom of polycarp, papias and Justin martyr along with some other early church texts which I had to literally dig through to find.

I've heard that 1 Clement promoted modalism, what are your thoughts on this?

>>741271

Watch this video by the great Douglas J Moo: https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=wzHLVahKfaI&t=0s&list=PLRbA90bxvi-hkN4_4b3pjoLTDZa8U3UZh&index=2

It deals with this exactly and even touches on the pacifism you mentioned.

>>741276

The language to express Christology and Trinitarian theology was pretty vague and unclear in the early Church for the simple reason that there wasn't the big heresy of Arianism yet to give the Christians a reason to elaborate things with more precision. I'm not aware of 1 Clement promoting modalism but I can definitely say that many things that Justin Martyr says seem to be modalist or binitarian - he often says that the Logos and the Holy Spirit are the same for instance. Trinitarian language wasn't cemented until the Cappadocians did their thing, and even then it took the first ecumenical council + Augustine for the West to have a cemented Trinitarian language as well (which itself varied somewhat from what the East came up with).

Similarly, the Shepherd of Hermas sounds like it promotes adoptionism at some points, although this issue wasn't brought up by Christians so either this is a corruption of the text or they did not interpret it to mean something heretical.

2 Clement is definitely a forgery, and the Apostolic Constitutions have been tampered with.

>>741278

I was talking with a jehovas witness and wanted to prove the early belief of the deity of Christ by quoting Ignatius but he said that the 7 epistles are corrupt or tampered with. Wanted to know your thoughts on this also. Are there any textual debates regarding the authorship, date or something?

>>741280

Lol, Jehova's Witnesses know nothing and only repeat the propaganda they're told to spread.

There are short and long versions of Ignatius's epistles, plus completely false ones (that were never recognized as legitimate anyway). Nothing indicates the short versions were strongly tampered with, as they remain consistent all the way through. As for the long versions, even though they elaborate on what Ignatius says, I don't remember them saying anything heretical or even contrary to his other points, so even those are fine even if they're falsified. I'm not aware of any recent debate about this, other than whether it is the short Greek versions or the Syriac versions that are the closest to the originals (which makes no difference on the matter of doctrine, they're practically identical).

Philip Schaff's introduction on the letters should be sufficient: http://www.ccel.org/ccel/schaff/anf01.v.i.html

It's not a good idea to bring up church fathers to Jehova's Witnesses anyway. They believe the Church fell into heresy pretty much as soon as the apostles finished their job. You'd be better off addressing the scriptures themselves and how their interpretations are nonsensical, or simply avoiding debate with them if you don't think you're good enough.

>>741409

>>741413

Thanks m8y, I'll actually probably try that

>>741413

>>741409

This is pure autism.

I love it.

>>741213

If you read a Protestant version of the OT, let me tell you, you did NOT really read the OT. You can easily confirm this for yourself by checking out some NT quotes of the OT, and comparing them to Protestant renderings of the OT, which are all based on very late Masoretic texts, designed by the Jews to weaken the prophetic character of the OT with respect to Christ.

>Romans 3:10 quotes from Psalms 14. Compare the two. The Septuagint translations (where it is numbered 13) are the ones which correspond to what Paul wrote. Was Paul misquoting? Or did Luther winnie the pooh up by choosing to use the Masoretic texts, and did basically every Protestant denom following his lead do a disservice to their members? You decide, after comparing the two.

>Psalm 40 (39 in the Septuagint) is quoted by Paul in Hebrews 10. Protestant versions based on the Masoretic are different than Paul's quote, whereas versions based on the Septuagint are accurate.

>Isaiah 53 in 1 Peter 2. Ditto.

>Isaiah 10 quoted in Romans 9. Ditto.

>How about Isaiah 61 as quoted by Christ in Luke 4? This is one of the bigger changes the Jews made to the Masoretic texts, as Jesus' healing of the blind is prophetic, but if you relied on the Masoretic changed texts, you wouldn't know that, because "recovery of sight to the blind" was changed by the Jews to read "release from darkness for the prisoners," because that weakened the Christ-centric nature of the prophecy to make it more political/physical.

Bottom line, get a good translation based on the Septuagint. The best in English is done by the Orthodox Church. Vulgate translations are almost as good but not quite. Translations based on the Masoretic texts - basically anything done by the Protestants - are all missing various key points. The thing to do when reading the OT is to always LOOK FOR CHRIST IN EVERY LINE.

>>741257

Those books are neither deuterocanonical nor apocryphal. They were part of the Scripture of the Apostles and much of their doctrine (prayers for the dead, guardian angels) was part of the Church from the beginning. Also, this is a place where you need to read the Septuagint versions, as there are several God-centered long prayers by main characters of the books which are omitted from the Protestant versions based on the Masoretic texts.

>>741257

>And some of them, like Sirach and Wisdom, were very popular in the early Church at least.

Wanted to add to this: compare Hebrews 11:34-38 to the Wisdom of Sirach (aka Ecclesiasticus) 44:3-15, or basically all of Hebrews 11 to Sirach 44-50. It's obvious that the Apostle Paul considered Sirach to be "inspired" at the very least.

>>741263

There is no Israel but the Church. As such, there is certainly hope for it, or at least, for its remnant, those who have ears to hear and those who overcome.

>>741260

>all of the OT gifts are earthly

The OT covenants were all earthly shadows of the NT covenant, and the Law was merely a tutor to show man how much he sins and needs forgiveness. These are major themes of Hebrews, especially 8:7-13 including the extended quote from Exodus 25.

Most Jews of Christ's time believed in the Resurrection (not "reincarnation"), as evidenced in the OT. Job, whose story is essentially a precursor of Christ's, is a emblem of the resurrection. BTW in the Septuagint version of the OT we learn that Job, the most righteous man of the OT, was actually a … GASP! … GENTILE. But see Job 14. See also Hos 6, Isaiah 26, Ezekiel 37, Wisdom of Solomon 3, 4, 5, and 8. See also in the NT Martha, Lazarus' sister, who clearly states an expectation of the resurrection in John 11.

>>741413

>>741409

20 minutes a day, damn you must be a slow reader, either way uhh heres a website that can basically generate almost that exact plan along with many other plans, http://khornberg.github.io/bible-reading-planner/

>>741702

Have you ever played darts with Hamish Imlach?