RE: Early Christianities Weren't "Orthodox"
I will reply more later, but this is a joke. My post had nothing to do with Muslim apologetics. I cite not a single Muslim. I cite tons and tons of Christians, both Literalist and non-Literalist. I quote directly from the Bible. And I cite noted secular authorities on the Bible.
Your mentioning of Islam is a transparent attempt to scare away Literalist Christians by poisoning the well. Shame on you for that.
And shame on you for not finishing the reading. For if you had you would see that I refute every single one of your bogus contentions with actual evidence (and there's much more to come).
You should really take the time to read it and attempt to refute my specific points rather than pulling some lame complaint about Muslim apologetics out of your...whatever. At least then people might learn something.
I will have much to say in the next chapter about supposed Apostolic Authority, but I already addressed it to some degree in my post above (had you bothered to read it rather than instead getting all worked up about non-existent Mulsim apologetics and attempting to refute that which you hadn't even read). Rather than cut and paste the relevant sections here, I invite the reader to simply start reading my post above starting with the subsection titled "Competing Claims of Authority" and continuing through the end. As it demonstrates, the Gnostics and other so-called "heretical" sects had at least equal claims of both Apostolic Authority and popular authority. But I will have MUCH more to say on this in the next chapter.
Also, these "heretical" teaching were NOT "rejected again and again and again." Rather, they were SUPRESSED again and again and again. How and why this happened will be explained two chapters from now in great detail.
Regardless, my next chapter is all about how the Bible came to be. And, after reading it, no sane person will continue to have much confidence that the Bible preserves the "original" Christian tradition.
Regarding Paul, you have him all wrong, as does your straw man Muslim apologist. I'll save my discussion of Paul for another day. I will just say for now that, when we get to Paul, things get truly fascinating.
Look man, if you have issues with some of my points above, then name them. If they are too many to name, then pick your two or three biggest ones. If you don't want to do the research to refute them yourself, then at least cut and paste from the guy who refuted the straw man Muslims. We can then hash things out on specific issues and make progress. Readers can then decide who offers the more compelling evidence. But simply providing a link to a guy who is arguing with Muslims about things I didn't even say and claiming "I refute you thus" is cheap and irrelevant.
I made it clear that I was not saying you had any Muslim motivations - just similar arguments. I then went on to give you specifics - criticizing your use of secondary documents to undermine the primary documents that prove the secondary documents wrong. The link I provided is a comparable work that lists the tons of 1st and 2nd century authors that wrestled with the issues you raised or vouched for Paul's authenticity - which is what you and Islamic apologists both try to attack.
Thus, a rebuttal on one attack on Paul's credibility is directly applicable to rebut any attack on Paul's credibility.
I do intend to rebut some of your points, but I don't have time in any 24 hour window to rebut so many points before the article goes stale under Steemit's wickedly short attention span.
So, I had to get the single most relevant piece of information I could find into the hopper while there were still viewers to see it.
Sorry. Your hard work deserves careful point by point examination. It's just not feasible when you dump that much stuff into the 24 hour hopper all at once.
You will note that I have already addressed one such point by quoting from the reference in your previous post. I'll continue to do that, but all I can do when you post that much material all at once is link to the best general rebuttal I know of.
I would argue that they were not suppressed because we still have them and people have been arguing about these things for 2000 years.Sure, any particular group is free to decide which teachings are to be part of their creed and which teachings are to be rejected. But everyone has been free to form their own groups to hold their own views. And these groups are free to clash in the arena of ideas (and often on the battlefield). In every generation great minds and church leaders have dealt with these things. Now it is happening again here. :)
Over time most groups wander off from their original teachings. That's why it is so important to continuously go back and do a check against the earliest writings traceable to the apostles.
But when you start using doctrines long rejected by the very students who knew and trusted these apostles to impune their original authoritative writings, you open a pandora's box where any heresy imaginable can be reinserted into the bloodstream of history, leaving casual readers unsure of anything. As you have stated, this even allows you to introduce your own preferred views -- if you can just disable those original navigational beacons...
Nag Hammadi. Dead Sea Scrolls. These "libraries" contain numerous documents that were previously unknown to scholars, or known only by name (because they were mentioned in orthodox writings). There are a great many other documents mentioned in orthodox writings that are as yet still unaccounted for. So, "we still have them" only thanks to recent fortuitous discoveries. These documents were hidden away centuries because those who revered them were hounded, persecuted and SUPRESSED as heretics. You can't seriously debate me on this point, but if you do, just wait two more chapters where I will detail a two thousand year history of suppression.
Oh, I am well aware of what happened once the Roman church gained control clear through the Inquisitions and counter reformation.
The Dead Sea Scrolls are a wonderful treasure that counters the claim that Scriptures have been corrupted over the centuries.
But, each of the books found in those caves still has to undergo the challenge of traceability back to an apostle.
Finding a new non-traceable book and using it to refute the credibility of a traceable book is my main objection.
You made it clear that I wasn't personally a Muslim apologist, but you very definitely tried to say that my arguments originate in Muslim apologies. This is simply not so (for I cite standard academic and faithful scholars alike but not a single Muslim one.). That Muslim scholars may occasionally cite the same sources doesn't means that these arguments "come from" Muslim apologists.
My apologies for not making that more clear. My intent was to show why I felt that the link I provided was a relevant response to your post even though it was originally written in response to similar arguments from Islamic apologists - given that response time was of the essence.