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Title: Rebuilding a Conservative Movement I
Source:
Sultan Knish blog
URL Source: http://sultanknish.blogspot.com/201 ... s+The+Stories+Behind+the+News%
Published: Sep 25, 2015
Author: Daniel Greenfield
Post Date: 2015-09-27 19:03:36 by Rufus T Firefly
Keywords: None
Views: 41165
Comments: 199
The trouble with the donor class, by and large, is that it is resistant to change because it doesn't want to change. The Democratic and Republican donor classes donate for their business interests, but the Democratic donor class has a radical edge. Groups like the Democracy Alliance want a fundamental transformation of the country. And they understand how they can make money off that. There are too many Republican single issue donors who are fairly liberal on everything outside that issue. And there are too many big business interests and financial folks who live in major cities and only differ from liberals in their economic policy. The trouble with fiscally conservative and socially liberal is that the left is not a buffet. You don't get to pick a combo identity. Fiscally liberal follows socially liberal as day follows night. All those single people, their babies need assorted government benefits. No amount of lectures on "liberty" will change that. Austrian economics is never going to displace food stamps for the socially insecure. A lot of the Republican donor class would like to have its cake and eat it too. It wants the fun of a liberal society without having to pay the bill. It wants cheap Third World labor without wanting to cover their health care, the school taxes and all the other social welfare goodies. But it doesn't work that way. There's no free ride. Yes, they can move to a township where the property taxes are killer, and dump their pool guy and tree trimmer and maid in some city to live in housing projects at the expense of that city's shrinking middle class and working class. And it can work for a while, until all those cheap laborers get community organized and the organizers take over the city. And then the state. And then there are housing projects in the township, everyone is plugged into the same statewide school tax scheme and the left runs everything and taxes everything. The wealthier members of the donor class can outrun this process longer. Or just live with it while funding groups that promote "Liberty", the way the Koch Brothers do, but the bill always comes due. You can't outrun the political implications of poverty in a democracy. And you can't stop those political trends without addressing the social failures that cause them. A socially liberal society will become politically and economically liberal. Importing Third World labor also imports Third World politics, which veer between Marxism and Fascism all the way to the Islamic Jihad. Everything is connected. You can't choose one without the other. We're not going to have some libertarian utopia in which everyone gets high and lives in communes, but doesn't bother with regulations and taxes. The closest thing you can find to that is Africa. Nor are we going to be able to import tens of millions of people from countries where working class politics is Marxist without mainstreaming Marxism as a political solution in major cities across America. People are not divisible that way. Human society is not a machine you can break down. The left has fundamentally changed America. Much of the donor class hesitates to recognize this or prefers to believe that it can isolate the bad changes from the good changes. It doesn't work that way. Getting the kind of fiscal conservatism that a lot of the donor class wants requires making fundamental changes to the country. You can't just tinker with economic regulations in a country where schoolchildren are taught to demand taxes on plastic bags to save the planet or where a sizable portion of the population is dependent on the government. Those tactics can rack up ALEC victories while losing the war. Fiscal conservatism requires a self-reliant population that believes in the value of honesty and hard work. Those are not compatible with social liberalism or casual Marxism. Individually, yes. It's possible to make money while being a leftist. But spread across a large population with different classes and races, those individual quirks will not be replicated. And you can't create that population with slogans. You have to be able to shape national values, not just economic policy. That's the hard truth. There are no single issue solutions. At best there are single issue stopgaps. But the left is not a single issue organization. It has narrowed down most of its disagreements and combined its deck of agendas. Its coalition supports a large range of programs from across the deck. It's still possible to be a pro-abortion Republican, but the political representation of pro-life Democrats is disappearing. You can be a Republican who supports the Muslim Brotherhood, but a Democrat who says anything too critical about Islam has a limited future in his party at any national level. The same is true across the spectrum. Kim Davis is a Democrat. How much of a future do Democrats opposed to gay marriage have? Meanwhile it's possible to be a pro-gay marriage Republican. The Republican "big tent" is more a symptom of ideological disarray, as we've seen in this primary season, by a party that doesn't really know what it believes, than of tolerance. But the left has taken over the Democratic Party and made its agendas into the only acceptable ones. There are still some national Democrats hedging weakly on gun control and environmentalism, but they're going to be purged. Their party will abandon them and Republicans will squeeze them out. A lot of the donor class is really seeking an accommodation with the left. The election was warped when the Koch brothers decided to find common ground with the ACLU on freeing drug dealers. They dragged some good candidates in with them and down with them destroying their credibility on key issues. You can't have an accommodation with the left. The left isn't seeking a compromise. It wants it all. The left has to be fought all the way or surrendered to all the way. There's no middle ground here regardless of what philosophical objections are introduced, because that is what the left is doing. It's easily observable just in Obama's two terms. The left has defined the terms of battle. And its terms are total control over everything. You can't be pro-life and pro-Obama. You can't be pro-business and pro-Obama. You can't be pro-Israel and pro-Obama. You can't be fiscally conservative and pro-Obama. You can't be socially conservative and pro-Obama. You can't be anything less than full leftist and pro-Obama. The left has to be fought totally or not at all. Single issues can be important and it's good for people to pick one or two things to focus on, but that has to come with the understanding that there can be no accommodation with it in any other area. An organization fighting gun control is doing important work, but its backers should never fall under the illusion that the 2nd amendment can be maintained if the left wins on all the other fronts. As Benjamin Franklin said, "We must all hang together, or assuredly we shall all hang separately". The quote is true today in all its implications as it was then. We must have a conservative movement that is united in a common front or we will be dragged down one by one. There will be no conservative issue islands left to stand on if the red tide comes in. The final point is that it is not enough to resist. That's just delaying the inevitable. Even the strongest resistance can be worn away with time. If the left can't win directly, it focuses on the next generation. If cultural barriers are in the way, it goes for population resettlement, as it's doing in parts of this country and Europe. There is no such thing as an impregnable issue island. Winning means pushing forward. Winning means advocating for change, not just fighting to keep what we have. Winning means thinking about the sort of free society that we want. Winning means having a vision to build, not just resist. Winning means advancing forward. To do that, we have to accept that fundamental change is necessary. Right now we're fighting a losing battle. We're trying to keep the tide out, when we must become the tide. Poster Comment: Money quote: You can't be pro-life and pro-Obama. You can't be pro-business and pro-Obama. You can't be pro-Israel and pro-Obama. You can't be fiscally conservative and pro-Obama. You can't be socially conservative and pro-Obama. You can't be anything less than full leftist and pro-Obama. The left has to be fought totally or not at all.
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#70. To: Vicomte13 (#46)
Well, I saw your "Satan" and raised you an "Accuser" so it seemed to balance out anyway.
Dogma. Not interested. The text means premature birth.
If the government enforces a 10% tithe to the charities, fine. Otherwise, no - the resources required exceed what people give to charity.
St. Jude speaks of the Book of Enoch. Well, we only HAVE the book of Enoch because the Ethiopians preserved it and consider it Scripture. Enoch is interesting because Jesus seems to quote it extensively. Also, among the various books that are not in the Catholic, Eastern Orthodox or Protestant canons but that are nevertheless considered canonical by an ancient Church, Enoch is the only one mentioned BY NAME in the New Testament, and is the only one that really provides insights into things that are not otherwise revealed in the Bible (such as the names and motivations of the angels who fell and took human wives and made Nephilim came from). There are books mentioned in the Old Testament - Jubilees, Jasher, etc. that are also in the Ethiopian Canon. It is interesting once you learn a bit about it. Certainly, there is much to interest even lay people in the history of the Ethiopian Orthodox. The Orthos, as a club, are certainly the most conservative of churches. They just don't change. Or ever throw anything away. : ) It's no great reason to feel compelled to embrace the Ethiopic either. Even so, it does have a certain historical interest, regardless of which canon of scripture you prefer. As I said before, Gill is the only writer I've ever read who even mentioned it as a canon and as manuscript evidence for particular readings of a verse. As I recall it, the Ethiopian Orthodox differ as much in their creedal disagreement with the other churches that are Orthodox or Catholic. So there are some doctrinal differences. Also, the Ethiopian church was established in very ancient times when Christianity spread across regions of Africa. Over the centuries, Ethiopian Christianity became geographically isolated for many centuries. So many of the issues that became quite important in the West or in Byzantium never penetrated some of the remote churches of the Copts or the Ethiopian Orthos or the Syrian or Mesopotamian churches.
You use "dogma" as an insult. Do you deny Divinity of Christ? Dogma of Holy Trinity? Union of divine and human nature in Christ? Etc ... Where was a dogma in our exchange? You read your opinions into Holy Scriptures.
The most compelling reason to embrace the Ethiopic canon is that it contains Enoch. Jude referred directly to Enoch by name, and both Jude and Peter made arguments from it. Jesus quoted Enoch nearly verbatim several times. This book was very much on the minds of the Apostles and Christ himself. Why should it NOT be canonical? Jesus used it. The whole argument about what IS canon is interesting to me, because men place such very heavy authority on Scripture, but then Scripture never defines what Scripture is. Where Scripture QUOTES Scripture, that's a pretty good indication of what IS Scripture, and where God Himself, in personam Jesus, AND the head of the Church, AND the brother of God - two Apostles and the Christ - are all using a book - well, the only Old Testament book that has THAT much cross usage is the Torah itself. Jesus quoted Isaiah quite a bit, but the Apostles didn't. There's a line or two from Daniel, but that's it. Also, both Peter and Jude make specific theological ARGUMENTS from Enoch, and there isn't any OTHER text in the Old Testament, at all, that ever gives the data about the fallen angels leaving their stations and their motivations. Enoch is the ONLY Biblical source for that. Obviously it should be in the Bible. Just as obviously, the Jews have been celebrating Hannukka as a high holy day for millennia, and yet the only place to read about it is in the books of the Maccabbees, which are part of the Jewish LXX but which were eliminated from the Jewish canon a generation or more after the destruction of the Temple, by very xenophobic and racist Jews, BECAUSE Maccabbees is written in Greek. Obviously the Maccabbean account of the first Hannukka is properly in the Jewish canon, as it was at the time of Christ. If a book is NECESSARY to understand a Biblical teaching or a major tradition - and Enoch is - that tells me that it's in the Canon. The fact that there are ancient Christian Churches that agree is second corroboration. To my eyes, whatever any of the Orthodox call Canon, is properly included in the Canon, and that brings in a few extra sources. It doesn't really change anything Jesus said, which is the law for us, but it gives the information necessary to evaluate. The issues that became important in the West and Byzantium are all post Biblical, and have to be interpreted in light of the Bible. I will avoid all discussion of the Reformation Era canon choices, because it doesn't lead anywhere good when Catholics and Protestants are speaking with each other. Essentially, the canon of Scripture is the Ethiopic Canon, plus the additional book in the Slavic Canon, but it is not as easy to rely on the Ethiopic canon because it has not been mechanically translated, and when you've only got one or two translations, you may be getting some wrong things.
I always pose it as a question: how can Jude be scripture if it quotes Enoch? If Enoch is not scripture, Jude should not be elevated above Enoch. Excluding Enoch while including Jude is problematic, always was. However it came about, it is interesting to see a long-established and isolated Christian church and how it dealt with the whole tamale of scripture. We have no other examples of this. You can look for ways in which things change or do not change over time, whether there is any particular reliance on the peculiar features of the extra books they include in their canon as compared to other Ortho churches or Catholic/Protestant canons in the West.
When you made your appeal to "authority". Our ancestors fought about this fruitlessly for ages, and I am completely uninterested in the discussion. The Torah was given in Hebrew. It still exists in Hebrew. The LXX translation translated the Hebrew. If you want to look into the original GREEK meaning, in Eastern Mediterranean (Jewish ethnic usage, non-native) Greek of 200 BC, you may well find that the Greek word used, which has been translated into English as "miscarriage" - a very precise word in English - had the more general meaning of the underlying Hebrew. In fact, I'd bet drachmas that that is what you would find: if the baby comes out early and unexpectedly, that is probably what that Greek word means, and NOT the specific "baby dies early in the womb" that English "miscarriage" now means. In any event, the Greek translates a text that was given by God in Hebrew, and the Hebrew word that the Greek translates means that the baby comes out, and does not refer to the status - living or dead - of the baby. When properly understood, everything that follows makes perfect sense, AND it aligns perfectly with all of the OTHER statements in the Bible - about God knowing people in the womb, and about begetting. It all forms one seamless garment that completely and simply, tells the truth: life begins at conception. I am not sure that the Greek, even, inserts a seam due to translation. I doubt it. The English does. IF the Greek does, the Greek is wrong. It is true that when Jesus quotes the Old Testament, 9 times out of 10 where there is a difference between the LXX and the Hebrew, Jesus uses the Greek of the LXX. But it is also true that 1 time out of 10 he uses the Hebrew, and not the LXX. Which means that even though the Greek-speaking Fathers of the Church were completely sold on the Greek, Jesus wasn't, and his authority trumps theirs.
Ethiopians have the same faith as Copts and Armenians. They derive from those who rejected dogmatic definitions of the Fourth Ecumenical Council in Chalcedon.
Because canon is a measure or standard set by the Ecumenical Councils for practical pastoral reason. There are many good and inspired texts that were not included. Canon is not a fetish, it is an inspired collection of key and reliable books. But there are more.
Yes. And I agree with the Ethiopians that Enoch is a book inspired by God that should be read with the other books. If it is not included, then Jude's letter loses the marrow of its argument.
Not bad. Except the image misses the council of Jerusalem.
"For when we were yet without strength, in due time Christ died for the ungodly."---Romans 5:6
If it is not included, then Jude's letter loses the marrow of its argument. Are there any Hebrew fragments of Enoch? "For when we were yet without strength, in due time Christ died for the ungodly."---Romans 5:6
Non sequitur. Saint Paul quotes Greek poetry that of course is not in the canon, it does not undermine "the marrow of his argument"
None of which I am aware. We have the Amharic, preserved by the Ethiopian Christians. And that's all we have.
Yes it does, because Jude is making a theological point. In any case, Jesus quotes Enoch extensively, so it should be in the canon.
This is not a purpose of the canon. Canon is to provide a standard to measure other books or doctrines or teachings. It is sufficient in traditional form (before Luther removed some books)
Then it's down-in-the-weeds inside baseball, and I'm content to leave it there. Enoch is Scripture.
It is in Geez, old liturgical language.
It is, so is Letter of St Clement, Martyrdom of St Polycarpos, Didache and many other inspired holy writings from later centuries. But the purpose of canon is not to include all holy books.
Before you leave, admit that LXX passage is correct one.
If the churches and the charities won't dig into their assets to pay for it,Tough Titty. Who ever said life would be fair? Why is democracy held in such high esteem when it’s the enemy of the minority and makes all rights relative to the dictates of the majority? (Ron Paul,2012)
I am more modernist than the Oriental churches in your diagram. I do harbor doubts about the filioque from the later Synod of Toledo in 589AD. Nothing good ever comes from Toledo. : ) Nice chart though.
If the Greek word means "babies come out" then sure. If the Greek word means the same thing as English "miscarriage" means today, then no, it is not.
You've sunk your teeth into this one. LOL
I actually agree with A Pole insofar as the designation as "canon" is a vague sort of line. I agree with him that the writings of the early saints, such as the Didache, or Clement's letters are every bit as authoritative as the writings of Paul or Jude. And happily, the Ethiopian Orthodox agree, for those documents are also part of the Tewahedo canon.
Filioque is right or wrong, depending on what you understand by saying it. Spirit is breath. Holy Spirit is the breath of God, the animating power of life and creation. Both the Holy Spirit and the Son ultimately originate, at their first beginnings, in the Father. If we look at the Son as an aspect of God that was WITHIN the Father until begotten and placed outside of the Father in a second person then he was indeed with the Father always, and certainly was beside the Father before the beginning of time. And yet the Father is the Father, and superior to the Son, not in divinity, but in primacy. God's divine breath creates. The First Breath, the Holy Breath, the Holy Spirit, began with the Father. And yet the Son also breathes, and the Son is divine, and the breath that proceeds out of the Son is divine - of one divine essence with the Father. Jesus breathed the spirit into the Apostles, remember. So the question of the procession of the Holy Spirit reposes on the question of WHEN. If speaking of the very beginning of beforetime, there was the Father, and the Father begat the Son and breathed out the Spirit. So at the first, before all time, The Holy Spirit AND the Son both originally proceeded out of the Father, certainly. But NOW, with Jesus enthroned at the right hand of the Father awaiting enthronement on the Earth, the Holy Spirit proceeds from the divine, and Father and Son are both divine, and both breath out the Spirit. Jesus breathed it into the Apostles and the Church. Nicaea and Toledo are both right. And the Catholics and Eastern Orthodox are both right also, just in different contexts. Or, and the miaphytism of the Oriental Orthodox - that's just exactly the right way to look at it too.
Uh-oh. You're treading on the thin ice of "eternally begotten Son". : )
We might make this claim. But when the canon was established, those books were rejected as they did not provide a reliable testimony or teach vital doctrine or they contained passages that contradicted other fundamental texts. Frankly, I've never understood exactly how Jude passed muster in those deliberations. We also have to recognize that for most of the books of the canon, they confirmed those that were widely in circulation. A few others, like Clement's epistles, were in circulation and were considered of great interest to readers but that they did not contain direct testimony or vital doctrine from the time of Jesus and the earliest churches. There was a certain minimalism used to screen unsuitable or dubious books out of the canon.
He kinda wanted to remove the ones that he thought ruined his systematic theology so he did disparage them. But he only moved them to the back of bible, much as the Apocrypha got moved to the back of many bibles. Demoting a book from its place in the ancient canon is not the same as removing it completely. Wiki: Luther's canon
A bit more from the Wiki on the Antilegomena. Among the disputed writings, which are nevertheless recognized by many, are extant the so-called epistle of James and that of Jude, also the second epistle of Peter, and those that are called the second and third of John, whether they belong to the evangelist or to another person of the same name. Among the rejected writings must be reckoned also the Acts of Paul, and the so-called Shepherd, and the Apocalypse of Peter, and in addition to these the extant epistle of Barnabas, and the so-called Teachings of the Apostles; and besides, as I said, the Apocalypse of John, if it seem proper, which some, as I said, reject, but which others class with the accepted books. And among these some have placed also the Gospel according to the Hebrews, with which those of the Hebrews that have accepted Christ are especially delighted. And all these may be reckoned among the disputed books. The Epistle to the Hebrews is also listed earlier: It is not indeed right to overlook the fact that some have rejected the Epistle to the Hebrews, saying that it is disputed by the church of Rome, on the ground that it was not written by Paul. Codex Sinaiticus, a 4th-century text and possibly one of the Fifty Bibles of Constantine, includes the Shepherd of Hermas and the Epistle of Barnabas. The original Peshitta (NT portion is c. 5th century) excluded 2 and 3 John, 2 Peter, Jude, and Revelation. Some modern editions, such as the Lee Peshitta of 1823, include them. Given that Eusebius was a near-contemporary of those who canonized the NT and had access to a many materials we lack, we can't simply dismiss him entirely on this matter. I'm not saying he was right (because I don't know) but his education, his scholarship, his source materials, his connections in the early churches can't simply be ignored.
Not a bit. "Eternal" refers to TIME. Endless time. Time begins with creation. And the Father and the Son and Holy Spirit have been there from the beginning of time, and for all time. But BEFORE time, before anything that we would call existence, BEFORE the beginning, there was the Father, El, and El begat YHSWH and breathed out the Holy Wind. And THEN the beginning began. All of this is actually WITHIN the first word of Genesis, B'reshiyt, which we translate as "In the beginning", but the translation is shaky because it's really "in head" And the pictographic sentence WITHIN that word, WITHIN the beginning of "the beginning" are Within Head El division-into-two arm pointing to the Cross. That is what the pictographs of B'reshiyt SAY, when read as a sentence themselves. Then next comes "bara" BRA - a repetition within head God - then the word Elohiym, which is the PLURAL of El - the first PLURAL use of El, the name of the Father, since the beginning - now that El has divided into two pointing to the Cross and in the head of God - Elohiym. And Elohiym is God - Sheperd staff (the Lord is my shepherd) breath/spirit arm upon the chaos/waters, followed by the unstranlsated word AT - which is Alpha-Omega in Greek - from El to the Cross. The transition from El to Elohiym before the beginning of the world but IN the beginning of the beginning - literally WITHIN it - is actually toid out loud, in a series of sentences. We read the Hebrew words these letters form, and that's fine. But if we read the hieroglyphic sentences that form these words, we see the begetting of the son, the fore indication of the Cross from the beginning, and the breathing out out of the Spirit - and then the hand upon the chaotic waters...which the surface words will go on to tell in the first two verses. Genesis is a fractal, and it's all right there...in the Hebrew pictographs, which is why the LXX is wonderful for being able to match NT Greek words to OT Greek words, so that meaning is conveyed across the language change, but why preserving the Hebrew of the Torah is so vital: the pictographs themselves are full of fractal meaning that can be read as sentences. Were I to be free one day of the obligation to work. I would write out the Bible pictographic sentences in English, at least for the first chapters of Genesis. After that, when it comes to the story of Abraham and onward, the surface words convey the story. But in the very dense creation story, where God had to dictate everything, and where the meanings of words themselves have not yet been defined, the fractal density is...well...it's supernatural. And when you see it, you realize that you are peering into the mind of God.
I was a little tongue-in-cheek. The "eternally begotten" phrase seems to beg the question instead of answering it.
No, those books were NOT rejected. They were always accepted by the Orthodox Church. In Ethiopia. I see no reason to privilege the Greeks or Aramaens, or the Latins, over the ancient Ethiopians. For one thing, the Easterners lost their faith, en masse with the arrival of Islam. Part of the West was overrun by Islam also, and only slowly driven back, but the West and the East fought Christianity hard for centuries, and the Catholic West was still very barbaric well into the Middle Ages. By contrast, Ethiopia went over eagerly to Christ very early, without all of the trauma and drama. And the Ethiopian faith was like the rock of Gibraltar when Islam descended on all sides - by sea, down the coast, and down the river. It is difficult to evaluate the Ark of the Covenant at Elephantine claim, as nobody is allowed to see it anymore, but it is plausible that it IS the Ark. And the Ethiopians had the full canon from the beginning, and didn't accept the niggling and haggling of the Roman imperials. The Ethiopian faith was, and is, strong, and was free of all of the polluting and corrupting influence of imperial politics. My bet is that the Ethiopian canon is the best and most complete. So, the fact that squabbling imperials who were not behaving in a very Christian manner to one another rejected books of the proper canon doesn't mean that those books were rejected, it means that Rome and Constantinople were simply committing one more of the numerous errors that ultimately laid them low. After all, the East could not stand against Islam. And the West...well, they were selling indulgences until Martin Luther, and then burning people (on both sides). The Roman versions of Christianity, East and West, are quite tainted by imperial politics and violence. Ethiopia stood up to the Muslims and turned them aside. God preserved them. Seems to me that they got it right, as far as including all of the inspired Scriptures go, and the Catholics and Eastern Orthodox produced abridged versions which, while holy, are not complete. Luther continued that paring down business in the West. Given Ethiopia's success against Islam and barbarism and Rome's and Constantinople's failures and weaknesses, I'd say that God has indicated which of the Churches of that era best preserved his full message unadulterated by petty imperial politics.
We have the Amharic, preserved by the Ethiopian Christians. And that's all we have. Let's explore this a bit. Maybe on another thread. In Enoch I do see language showing their is direct conversation with God and Enoch. So it does meet at least on first examination to meet the "thus saith the Lord" criteria. Genuine authorship should be addressed as well. We would probably need something after or during Noah's timeframe to indicate preservation of the text. If so, then the question is when YHWH gives the Torah historical books to Moses why not the details of Enoch? One could chalk that up to Moses getting what YHWH deemed most important to communicate to the Hebrew people. So we would have to chalk up Enoch to historical oral tradition. If not who is the Holy Spirit inspired scribe writing it down later. We don't know. So this criteria, authorship is what probably put the early Christian fathers in some doubt. The other criteria would be did the Second Temple scribes attribute the book as part of the TaNaKh. Apparently they did not as St Jerome did much research on that. The criteria the Ethiopians most likely grasped on to was apostolic authority. Jude mentions specifically text from Enoch so that satisfies the apostolic authority of those commissioned directly by Christ. One might argue the apostle was clearly inspired (Jude) but that does not make all of Enoch considered inspired. I know sounds odd and why early theologians perhaps grappled with Enoch. I think the last criteria to be examined is the manuscript evidence. Why I asked about any Hebrew fragments of manuscripts are known. Or what opinions of Enoch came out of the post Babylon exile. What's interesting also is the various prophecies in Enoch do not contradict any of the end times prophecies in the TaNaKh. So I don't see contradictory issues. So yes this is interesting to investigate. Especially when the data in Enoch takes us to super antiquity yet we do not see written copies until the post Second Temple era. My best estimation is that is the most prevalent factor in why the Second Temple scribes did not have it added to TaNaKh. "For when we were yet without strength, in due time Christ died for the ungodly."---Romans 5:6
Nobody was present at creation, and yet we have Genesis. Divine inspiration provides the chain of custody.
Always thought Clement was a the third bishop of Rome and considered post apostolic. So given the apostolic criteria I can see why his works were not included in the NT canon. Only exceptions would be Mark and Luke. Mark writing Peter's gospel account and Luke the close companion and fellow traveler with Paul.
"For when we were yet without strength, in due time Christ died for the ungodly."---Romans 5:6
Yes, no human was present. Not until created of course:) But we know YHWH gave Torah to Moses and those accounts were recorded. Why I mentioned it was probably important to the second temple era and beyond on "who" provided the Divine custody of Enoch. There was a huge flood and a whole lot of human history between the events of Enoch and when we first see it in writing. Jude thought it important enough to quote a bit from Enoch. A mystery we may never uncover. "For when we were yet without strength, in due time Christ died for the ungodly."---Romans 5:6
Which quotes of Christ? I'm curious if such cannot be found also in TaNakh. "For when we were yet without strength, in due time Christ died for the ungodly."---Romans 5:6
I am a classicist. The aristocracy gave power to the Athenian citizenship not so much because they feared a revolution (and they did) but because the old way of fighting wars, where the aristocrats did the fighting in the form of duels while the peasants fought around them willy nilly had ended and the age of armed formations of disciplined soldiers took over. The aristocrats realized an army of peasants heavily armed would not fight for free or take orders from aristocrats if they did not want to. We kind of saw that after WW2. The Americans passed the GI Bill - which was purely a wealth transfer from the rich to the poor (on a basis of merit) because they did not want an angry population of millions of combat hardened veterans returning to the slums of American cities (where most of the Irish, Italians and non WASP whites lived) and to poverty. And it worked. This wealth transfer benefited the republic immensely. All those non WASP whites who benefited from the GI Bill would before the war never have even finished high school in many cases pre WW2 and were now being payed to go to trade schools or higher education. These days, our leaders don't really need the rest of the population? As automation and outsourcing take over and fewer Americans serve there will be a feeling that they can use a private army to keep the discontent bottled in a nation with a 2nd amend?
Which are arbitrary and not accepted by the entire Church. There is no reason to privilege that Latin Church's decision, or the Greek Church's decision, over the Ethiopian Church's. The Ethiopian Church is older than the Latin Church, and as old as the Greek Church. They always used the holiest apostolic writings, and some of the writings of the Church fathers. Who gave the Greeks or the Italians the power to decide that ONLY THESE BOOKS are inspired by God? Nobody did. And given that the Ethiopian Church's actual BEHAVIOR was exemplary, when compared to the Latins and the Greeks, and also given the fact that God stripped the Greeks and the Latins of many faithful, but Ethiopia stood as a rock in a flood of Islam all around, the fact of victory demonstrates a divine favor that has an authority that exceeds that of Churches that were defeated by hostile religions and lost 90% of their adherents, forever. Should, therefore, the Latin Church or Greek or Russian Church of today "change their canon"? Why bother. The Ethiopians preserved certain parts of Scripture, and we can get it from them, and if the Greeks and Latins and Russians don't want to admit that those writings were inspired by God, and therefore have authority, well, they're no different from the Baptists then, are they? One reads more of God's inspiration in a Catholic Bible than a Protestant, because there are more inspired books in it, and more still in a Greek Orthodox Bible than a Catholic one. There's an additional book in the Russian Bible that the Greeks don't have. And finally the Ethiopians, who have the Old Testament books that are referred to in the Old Testament, but that the other Christians don't have (the Book of Jubilees, the Book of Jasher), and of course Enoch, the Didache, the Letters of Clement, etc. There is a reason to privilege the Ethiopian canon: it's the most complete. And there is a reason to dismiss the superiority of wisdom in the choices made by the Greek Orthodox and the Latin Catholics - the Greeks lost to Islam; the Russians lost to the Mongols. And the Latins? Well, look at how corrupt and barbaric they became. The Ethiopians had the favor of God: they did not succumb to Islam. They didn't have to have a Reformation. And they were founded IN ISRAEL by an Apostle speaking to a high official - meaning that whereas Greek and Roman officials rejected Christianity and tormented it, but the Ethiopians understood all the way to the top, from the start. And they preserved everything to now. Which means that the moral claim to superior wisdom clearly rests with Ethiopia, and their choice of the fullest canon is the most logically sustainable. If one wants to stick to the Catholic argument: "Only apostolic writing in the Scripture", that is fine as a limiter, unless one also adds to that an arbitrary "Only Scripture" tradition on top of that which treats something like the Didache as less authoritative than, say, a letter of Paul. There is no basis other than stubborn traditional prejudice for that. Enoch is Scripture. The Didache is Scripture. Clementine Letters are Scripture. So are Jubilees and Jasher. Why would they not be? Why are the opinions of corrupt, fighting, ultimately weakened and failed Greeks or ultimately violent and barbaric Latins better witnesses than a church older than either that neither fell nor failed nor went barbaric? Cultural prejudice? An error, then. It's Scripture.
Comments (111 - 199) not displayed.
Top • Page Up • Full Thread • Page Down • Bottom/LatestAnd I'm sorry for calling you "Satan" yesterday.
#71. To: A Pole (#60)
#72. To: sneakypete (#55)
Let the churches and other charities deal with them. That's what they get tax-free status for as charities.
#73. To: Vicomte13 (#48)
The Ethiopian Orthodox Church, for its part, is as old as the Apostles, as old as any other Church (see the story of Philip and the Ethiopian Eunuch in Acts), and its canon is the longest, containing several books otherwise lost to history.
I see no basis to reject the books of the Ethiopian Canon. After all, the Greek Orthodox and Latin Catholic canons are not identical, but that never divided the Church and provoked a schism.
#74. To: Vicomte13 (#71)
(Edited)
Dogma. Not interested. The text means premature birth.
#75. To: TooConservative (#73)
#76. To: Vicomte13 (#75)
(Edited)
The most compelling reason to embrace the Ethiopic canon is that it contains Enoch. Jude referred directly to Enoch by name, and both Jude and Peter made arguments from it. Jesus quoted Enoch nearly verbatim several times. This book was very much on the minds of the Apostles and Christ himself.
If a book is NECESSARY to understand a Biblical teaching or a major tradition - and Enoch is - that tells me that it's in the Canon. The fact that there are ancient Christian Churches that agree is second corroboration.
#77. To: A Pole (#74)
Where was a dogma in our exchange?
#78. To: TooConservative, Vicomte13 (#73)
As I recall it, the Ethiopian Orthodox differ as much in their creedal disagreement with the other churches that are Orthodox or Catholic.
#79. To: Vicomte13 (#75)
Why should it NOT be canonical? Jesus used it.
#80. To: A Pole (#79)
Canon is not a fetish, it is an inspired collection of key and reliable books. But there are more.
#81. To: A Pole (#78)
#82. To: Vicomte13, TooConservative, GarySpFc (#80)
Yes. And I agree with the Ethiopians that Enoch is a book inspired by God that should be read with the other books.
#83. To: Vicomte13 (#80)
If it is not included, then Jude's letter loses the marrow of its argument.
#84. To: redleghunter (#82)
Are there any Hebrew fragments of Enoch?
#85. To: A Pole (#83)
Non sequitur. Saint Paul quotes Greek poetry that of course is not in the canon, it does not undermine "the marrow of his argument"
#86. To: Vicomte13 (#85)
Jesus quotes Enoch extensively, so it should be in the canon.
#87. To: A Pole (#86)
This is not a purpose of the canon. Canon is to provide a standard to measure other books or doctrines or teachings.
#88. To: Vicomte13 (#84)
#89. To: Vicomte13 (#87)
Enoch is Scripture.
#90. To: Vicomte13 (#87)
Then it's down-in-the-weeds inside baseball, and I'm content to leave it there.
#91. To: Vicomte13 (#72)
If the government enforces a 10% tithe to the charities, fine. Otherwise, no - the resources required exceed what people give to charity.
#92. To: A Pole, Vicomte13 (#78)
Ethiopians have the same faith as Copts and Armenians. They derive from those who rejected dogmatic definitions of the Fourth Ecumenical Council in Chalcedon.
#93. To: A Pole (#90)
Before you leave, admit that LXX passage is correct one.
#94. To: Vicomte13 (#85)
In any case, Jesus quotes Enoch extensively, so it should be in the canon.
#95. To: TooConservative (#94)
#96. To: TooConservative (#92)
#97. To: Vicomte13 (#96)
If speaking of the very beginning of beforetime, there was the Father, and the Father begat the Son and breathed out the Spirit.
#98. To: Vicomte13 (#95)
I actually agree with A Pole insofar as the designation as "canon" is a vague sort of line. I agree with him that the writings of the early saints, such as the Didache, or Clement's letters are every bit as authoritative as the writings of Paul or Jude.
#99. To: A Pole (#86)
It is sufficient in traditional form (before Luther removed some books)
#100. To: A Pole, Vicomte13, redleghunter, GarySpFc (#86)
Let's not pretend that Luther is the only one with alternate views of the canon. Others are those like Eusebius and Jerome and many others. If you're going to throw rocks at Luther, save some stones for Eusebius. The first major church historian, Eusebius, who wrote his Church History c. AD 325, applied the Greek term "antilegomena" to the disputed writings of the Early Church:
#101. To: TooConservative (#97)
#102. To: Vicomte13 (#101)
#103. To: TooConservative (#98)
#104. To: Vicomte13 (#84)
None of which I am aware.
#105. To: redleghunter (#104)
#106. To: TooConservative, Vicomte13 (#98)
#107. To: Vicomte13 (#105)
Nobody was present at creation, and yet we have Genesis. Divine inspiration provides the chain of custody.
#108. To: Vicomte13 (#85)
In any case, Jesus quotes Enoch extensively, so it should be in the canon.
#109. To: A Pole, Rufus T Firefly, Willie Green, Vicomte13, TooConservative, sneakypete, tpaine (#5)
t boils down to the share in economic pie, the rich over the centuries wanted others to do work for them for free. Then oops, democracy and socialism came. Horrible! Now the question is how to disempower unwashed masses, to terrorize them with police state or to brainwash them into zombie state? Probably you need both.
#110. To: redleghunter (#106)
So given the apostolic criteria
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