To Understand Truth and to Attain the True
Orthodoxy and Heresy in Earliest Christianity
Part 4: What was the apostles’ fully developed or definitive confession of their belief in the deity of Christ?
Discussants: Dr. Ng Kam Weng and Mr. Micheal Lim
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What was the apostles’ fully developed confession of their belief in the deity of Christ?
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Question: How did the apostles and early Christians come to believe in the deity of Christ?
Discussants: Dr. Ng Kam Weng and Mr. Micheal Lim
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https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AEkm-BqnCFo
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Question: But critics like Elaine Pagels & Bart Ehrman argue that this traditional history of orthodoxy is skewed because it grants greater authority to the canonical gospels and ignores the other (gnostic ) gospels. Why do you think the canonical four gospels provide more accurate historical information about Jesus than the gnostic gospels?
Discussants: Dr. Ng Kam Weng and Mr. Micheal Lim
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Why the Canonical Gospels are more reliable than Gnostic Gospels.
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Question: Many secular university scholars argue that there was diversity of Christian beliefs in the early church as different sects competed with one another for influence. When the sect in Rome gained power it declared itself orthodox and condemned the other sects like Gnosticism to be heretical. What is your response?
Discussants: Dr. Ng Kam Weng and Mr. Micheal Lim
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Part 1: Was there diversity of Christian beliefs in the early church as different sects competed for influence?
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A. Bauer-Ehrman Revisionist History – “Heresy Preceded Orthodoxy”
Ehrman’s assertion that the early Christians took liberty with scripture flows from his contested claim that there was no defining leadership in the early church. According to Ehrman, there was no notion of orthodoxy in early Christianity. Instead, a variety of “christianities” like the Ebionites, the Marcionites, the Gnostics and “proto-orthodoxy” [Ehrman’s coins the term “proto-orthodoxy” as he refuses to acknowledge that there was orthodoxy in early Christianity] vied for power and influence. Ehrman argues that alternative forms of “christianities” and their sacred writings which include the Gospel of Thomas, the Gospel of Mary and the Gospel of Peter should be regarded to be of equal authenticity (or in Ehrman’s real estimation, of equal inauthenticity) as the four canonical gospels. Indeed, he questions the special regard given the canonical gospels by orthodoxy since to him, the New Testament canon as it is, came to be only when the politically powerful “proto-orthodox” Christians in Rome unilaterally decided which book to be included in or excluded from Christian Scripture, and then applied ecclesiastical machinations and coercive policies to force other Christians to accept their decision. The other forms of “christianities” were then stigmatized by the victorious “proto-orthodox” party to be heretical and their writings were erased from history until some of them were discovered in Nag Hammadi in 1945. Ehrman writes, Continue reading “Bart Ehrman’s Historical Revisionism. Part 2/3. Relegating Orthodoxy in Early Christianity”
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Why bother to collect water with leaky buckets from distant wells when one can draw fresh water from the well in one’s backyard? [cf. endnote 7]
One of the most dramatic stories in the Bible is the transformation of Paul after he had a vision of the risen Christ. Paul was bent on destroying the church, but he suddenly turned into a preacher whose influence on the development of Christianity is second only to that of Jesus Christ. F.F. Bruce describes the significance of Paul’s conversion experience on Damascus Road,
No single event, apart from the Christ-even itself, has proved so determinant for the course of Christian history as the conversion and commissioning of Paul. For anyone who accepts Paul’s own explanation of his Damascus Road experience, it would be difficult to disagree with the observation of an eighteenth century writer [G. Lyttelton] that “the conversion and apostleship of St. Paul alone, duly considered was of itself a demonstration sufficient to prove Christianity to be a divine revelation.” /𝟏/
The cradle of Christianity was Judaism and Paul could rank himself as among to the finest elite of Judaism: He was born a “Hebrew of Hebrews,” sat at the feet of the outstanding teacher, Gamaliel, who was the grandson of the great rabbi Hillel. He was an emerging leader of the strict sect of the Pharisees who boasted that he was blameless in his observation of the Law (Phil. 3:6). He shared the same dogmatic assurance with his religious cohorts that the tradition handed down to them by their learned rabbis contained the whole truth of the religion. As such, there is no need for new revelation from God. Continue reading “Historical Origin of Divine Christology Part 3 – The Origin of Paul’s Divine Christology”
I. Luke 22:69
It was understandable that Caiaphas demanded an explicit answer from Jesus to the question whether he was the Messiah. Perhaps a display of miraculous power would be in order. After all, God will not abandon his Anointed One in the face of deadly opposition. But Jesus refused to call upon legions of angels to rescue him. What could Jesus be thinking about himself, his relationship with God and his mission when he allowed himself to be arrested and abused by his enemies?
Jesus refrained from any public declaration of himself as the promised Messiah because he did not want to pander to the political and nationalistic expectations of the Jews. His ambiguous answer to Caiaphas was intended to expose the insincerity of his questioner. Nevertheless, he was fully assured that he was God’s chosen servant despite facing adverse circumstances. It is significant that Jesus corrected the high priest by substituting the ‘Son of Man’ for the ‘Messiah’. By referring to the ‘Son of Man’, Jesus answered the question on his own terms and stressed the transcendent character of his mission against all political misinterpretations. /1/ Continue reading “Historical Origin of Divine Christology. Part 2 – Exaltation Christology in Luke-Acts”
The Messianic King
The exaltation of Jesus to the right hand of God means nothing less than his enthronement as messianic King. Peter concludes his first sermon with the affirmation, “God has made him both Lord and Christ, this Jesus whom you crucified” (Acts 2:36). Taken out of context, this saying could mean that Jesus became Messiah at his exaltation and represents an “adoptionist” Christology. However, the context makes it clear that Jesus was the Messiah in his earthly ministry, and the immediate context makes it clear that Peter means to say that Jesus has entered in upon a new stage of his messianic mission. He has now been enthroned as messianic King. Continue reading “The Exalted Christ in the Book of Acts: Reading 1 on Historical Origin of Divine Christology”
Mythological Christology
Some critics of Christianity assert that the doctrine of the deity of Christ was imposed on the church by Emperor Constantine during the Council of Nicaea (325 AD). Presumably, the early church in the first century began with a lower view of Jesus as an itinerant teacher and apocalyptic prophet of God. However, Jesus was gradually elevated to a higher status as Christianity spread through the Roman Empire. Christianity was loosened from its monotheistic Jewish roots when the new Hellenistic Christian communities surpassed the early Judaistic Christian community. A higher Christology evolved with adoption of elements of pagan religions. The result is the deification of Jesus Christ.
This theory has its roots in the “history of religions school” (Religionsgeschichtliche Schule) in Germany in the 19th century. The school extended its influence into the USA through the seminal works of Wilhelm Bousset, Kyrios Christos (1913) and Walter Bauer, Orthodoxy and Heresy in Earliest Christianity (1934). High profile scholars like Bart Ehrman are essentially theorizing from the framework of Bauer’s theory even as they speculate further that the deification of Jesus Christ was accelerated, purportedly under the influence of Jewish angelology. Continue reading “Historical Origin of Divine Christology. Part 1 – Apostolic Christology vs Mythological Christology”
Arianism [the ancestral fountainhead of modern day Jehovah Witnesses] posed a dangerous threat to the Church in the 4th century when it challenged the orthodox doctrine of the deity of Christ. In his refutation of Arianism, Athanasius the orthodox theologian displayed rare insight by identifying the doctrine of salvation as the heart of the dispute and cogently demonstrating that soteriology is a touchstone to determine the acceptability of any theology for the Church.
Arianism initially gained popularity because it offered an attractive path to salvation, that is, by imitation of Christ who perfected his own virtues through self-discipline and then enables his followers to do likewise. Christ as the first of the perfected creatures and his perfection is the promise of the heights that believers may aspire to achieve. Christ is the pioneer and perfector of our faith since he perfected his virtues while possessing the same human weaknesses as we have. Naturally, Arianism emphasized the human characteristics of Christ at the expense of his divine qualities, to which Athanasius retorted, “For looking at the human characteristics of the Savior, they have considered him to be a creature.” Continue reading “Redemption as a Touchstone for Right Theology in the Nicene Controversy”