Did Most Early Christians Believe The Divinity of Christ?

[TheLightWithin]

The Lost Books of the Bible and the Forgotten Books of Eden

Yes! I actually have that somewhere!

 

[juantoo3]

Not exactly early Christianity, but early Protestism is covered in Foxe's Book of Martyrs.

An English translation of the Septuagint might be in order for a better understanding of the Jewish perspective.

And a Strong's Concordance is always a good study tool.

 

[Thomas]

All the these Calendar changes! The Hebrew calendar is the only one I would trust if it was even possible to ignore the rest of them.. but because the calendars have been changed how can anyone even know what the true day in history even is.

Don't forget the Essene calendar ... that was in plays too!

 

[Thomas]

do you also think that much of what many early Christians' believed has possibly somewhat been manipulated limited or distorted through the lens of 2000 years of history ?

In some cases yes, and still so today. There are some 'sensational' views of early Christian history around today, books even making it to the best-seller lists.

And there is more sober scholarship, but those books tend not to gather media attention, and not having anything particularly sensational to say, tend to pass without comment.

What documents would we study about early Christians' and their beliefs ?

Depends what era you're talking about.

as far as I have found, there are not that many documents existing outside of the documentation that is found in the Roman Catholic Church that summarizes what the Roman Church Leaders had to say about Non Catholic " so called " heretical or erratic faiths,

We need to be careful about anachronisms here. If there were representatives of the Greek Orthodox or other Patriarchates here, they'd come down quite hard on you for this. The 'Roman Catholic Church' was not the entity then as it is now.

Are the only documentation available for us to study centered specifically around the the trinity - the human and divine disagreements of God and argumentations between the Catholic Church and those who they castigate as hereticks

The Arian Controversy
Sabellianism:
Adoptionism:
Nestorianism:
Apollinarianism:
Arianism:

Most of these heresies rose within the Eastern Roman Empire, and were Greek-based rather than Latin-based. The then Pope regarded Arianism as a local problem in Alexandria – where it arose – and saw no need to get the whole church embroiled, as it were. It's only when political players got involved that it became such an issue.

it seems everyone else were not able to preserve their faith in writing, are the only surviving documentation that exists today are what the Roman Catholic Church has preserved about those who they deemed as heretical. ?

The problem here is that writing and recording was a long, expensive and laborious process. And the materials were fragile so had to be periodically recopied to be preserved ... so yes, obviously no-one saw the need to preserve the works of heretics for posterity.

In the same way, even the works of the orthodox were lost ...

As a context, De Rerun Natura (The Nature of Things), a work by the Epicurean poet-philosopher Lucretius (c99-55BC) was lost until a single manuscript was discovered in 1417, in a library in a Benedictine monastery at Fulda.

The oldest complete text of Homer's Illiad dates to the 10th century, later gifted by Greek Cardinal Basileus Bessarion along with his library of Greek manuscripts to the Republic of Venice in the 15th century.

Seneca's writings were widely admired, and again versions turn up in monastic libraries, but again, one of the oldest extant texts was lost in the 12/13th century (from a civil collection)

It's the same for almost every ancient literary giant – there are references and citations, but so often the actual text itself is lost.

So it's not so much that so little has survived, as anything survived at all, in a continent ravaged by wars left right and centre, especially after the fall of the Roman Empire, in many places the monasteries kept the flame of scholarship alive, and so transmit such texts to us.

 

[juantoo3]

Actually Vellum, sheepskin, was pretty long lived, and many examples exist of being scraped of the old writing and new writing applied. It was also very expensive and time intensive.

Over time most scribal duties migrated to monasteries, and these monastic scribes were charged with producing the successive reprints of accepted texts. Of note, if a scribal error was noted, the errant text was pulled and sent to the scriptorium...not to be used, but also not to be discarded in any mundane, profane manner. Consequently there are ancient texts to be found in these monastic scriptoriums that are hundreds, even over a thousand years old.

That is how the Codex Sinaiticus was found:

Codex Sinaiticus - Wikipedia

en.wikipedia.org

 

[Fragilegums]

The Bible also highlights the different various ways how that a very early Christian would innocently deviate, wander or stray from the truth that God shortly thereafter preserved in his Scriptures, such as Saint Peter, when he was beginning his ministry in Jerusalem. Peter was wanting to eat separately from gentile believers.

Gal 2:11 ....... when Peter was come to Antioch,...... Paul ....... withstood him to the face.
because before Peter would eat with the Gentiles : but Peter eventually withdrew and separated himself, fearing them which were of the circumcision.

:13 And the other Jews dissembled likewise with him; insomuch that Barnabas also was carried away with their dissimulation. I am so thankful for the Scripture that has been given by inspiration of the Spirit Holy and have been preserved. Christians can know what is truth about what God expects for his sons and daughters.

 

[Fragilegums]

Hello, hey

thanks so much for taking time to write me, if you would have time to direct me to the introductory thread " I would be happy to submit this very introduction if you please.

I am a Christian man who believes in the inspired word of God found in the 66 books of the Bible.

I believe that Jesus Christ is the only savior, only born son of God and that he is the fullness of the spirit of " God's spirit " manifested in the flesh.

Mankind, we - are not born as sons and daughters of God but we can become begotten / born of God by submitting to the Spirit holy of God, however Jesus alone is the only born / begotten son of God in that he was born as the invisible spirit of God, manifested in flesh, the fullness of the divinity of God

Col 2:9 For in him dwelleth all the fulness of the divine bodily.

Gal 4:4 when the fulness of the time was come, God sent forth his Son,
Eph 1:10 That in the dispensation of the fulness of times he might gather together in one all things in the anointing
Eph 1:23 Which is his body, the fulness of him that filleth all in all.
Eph 3:19 And to know the love of the anointing which passeth knowledge, that ye might be filled with all the fulness of God.
Eph 4:13 ...... the knowledge of the Son of God, unto a perfect man, unto the measure of the stature of the fulness of the anointing
Col 1:19 For it pleased the Father that in him should all fulness dwell;

I also believe that Jesus is someday coming again back to earth in the 2nd coming to raise the dead and bring them with the living - of " those in Christ " and bring us up to heaven as his own bride.

I have studied the scriptures extensively and spent so much time in this study, meaning = most of the time, it is basicity all that I do, for about 20 years for most of the day and night. If i have a question or long to know what the Bible says about something, I will spend a week studying until I find the answer, I study the Greek and Hebrew and believe that these manuscripts contain the truth of God's message and plan of salvation and also the truth about the history of Hebrew people.

Love is what I have for all people - and I have found that upon " salvation-al core biblical, christian beliefs " I am mostly in agreement with most Protestant posters in all christian forums - but this core the " salvation-al core of biblical, christian beliefs " is very, very small part and portion surrounding of all that is contained in God's word.

my goal is to find how can we all learn from one another, together and through agreement and disagreement study and discuss what we will decide and believe in the future concerning the word of God in scriptures.

 

[Fragilegums]

for example , here is another very interesting forum I have posted in, very recently
click on the " comment "

https://www.reddit.com/r/DebateReligion/comments/9c2ptd/_/e59jcoe

if interested, you can discover what I am interested in and how I would respond in other controversial topics
scroll down to the very last post, I am the poster called " elegantattoms " note, the last three posts

we trust the sources /. PhA tersie and Mhh uddersa
sorry, it's baal tesh caeZar

 

[TheLightWithin]

thanks so much for taking time to write me, if you would have time to direct me to the introductory thread " I would be happy to submit this very introduction if you please.

Introductions

New? Feel free to introduce yourself and meet the other members here. :)

www.interfaith.org

You find that and other threads on https://www.interfaith.org/community/

Another space with interesting stuff relevant to what you just said is

I identify as: (belief)

My post was also serious. :D

www.interfaith.org