Sunday, February 7, 2010

Salvation and the Requirement to Believe Jesus is God

Note: This entry does not attempt to disprove the Trinity, rather it is a discussion of the claim that you must believe that Jesus is God in the flesh in order to be saved.

The Trinity is the most important doctrine of the sects that call themselves “orthodox”, that is the majority of “Christians”. They have persecuted millions and killed many, many thousands for not believing in the doctrine of the Trinity. At the same time they teach that you cannot be a “Christian” and not believe in the Trinity, that is there is no salvation apart from the Trinity doctrine.

When we read websites and books by Trinitarians we frequently read something like the following:
“The Bible itself reveals those doctrines that are essential to the Christian faith.  They are 1) the Deity of Christ, 2) Salvation by Grace, and 3) Resurrection of Christ, 4) the gospel, and 5) monotheism.  These are the doctrines the Bible says are necessary.” (CARM - Essential Doctrines of Christianity)
and
“God’s way of salvation is called the Gospel – or the good news.  There are some things in the Gospel you must know about and believe.
1.   You must believe Jesus is God the Son…
(Ankerberg Theological Research Institute - How to Become a Christian)
They then appeal to Scripture for support, mostly a combination of John 8:58 and Exodus 3:14 with a sprinkling of other verses they believe support their claim.

The problem is that none of the verses cited by Trinitarians actually support the command that you must believe that Jesus is God in order to be a Christian and therefore be saved. This fact cannot be denied, even if God is triune and even if Jesus is the "second person" of a "triune Godhead" God has made no command requiring us to believe this particular fact. We are told we must believe many things in order to be Christian, but that Jesus is God is not one of those things.

As the late Walter Martin said about one of our doctrines:
“A doctrine of such momentous importance, the author feels, would certainly have been carefully defined in the New Testament; yet it is not” (Walter Martin, Kingdom of the Cults pg.120)
There is no attempt by the NT writers, who wrote under inspiration from God, to define this doctrine at all, let alone as one upon which our salvation hinges. We must believe instead that since it is undefined in Scripture that God left it to uninspired men who often contradicted each other to define the Scripture in the two or so centuries immediately following the death of the Apostles.

Sunday, January 24, 2010

Unscriptural Trinitarian Doctrines

The members of the Trinitarian religion constantly claim doctrines held by others which they do not subscribe to are “false” and “unscriptural” while calling themselves “Biblical Christianity”, but how do their key doctrines stand up to the light of God’s word?

The answer is, not very well at all, they hold to several very important doctrines such as the necessity to believe that Jesus is God in order to be saved and the “bodily” resurrection of Jesus. The problem is that these doctrines are not found anywhere in God’s word at all, they are completely unscriptural. Normally this is a serious problem but three factors make this more than merely serious and puts the Trinitarian religion into the realms of outright heresy – these are the fact that they are hypocrites, a breed that God has warned he will punish severely, they are teaching doctrines required for salvation that God has not commanded, making them false prophets, and finally that they have persecuted and even killed thousands for not believing these things even though they are not doctrines commanded by God.

Some of the doctrines I will look at over time include, but are not limited to the claims that salvation is contingent on believing:

  1. That Jesus is God;
  2. That God is triune;
  3. In the “bodily” resurrection of Jesus, i.e. that Jesus rose from the dead in the same body he had before death;
  4. That Jesus retains his human flesh in heaven to this day;
  5. That Jesus had two natures (God and Man) that were entirely separate but united as one (the “hypostatic union”);
  6. Faith alone (i.e. that works play absolutely no part in salvation).

There are others, I am sure and I will add them as they occur to me, but for now those on the list will be discussed in the future at random intervals.

Friday, January 15, 2010

Manuscripts of the TR

When creating his Greek text, now called the Textus Receptus (TR) by many, Erasmus used just seven Greek manuscripts. Erasmus’ version in its first edition was called, Novum Instrumentum omne, diligenter ab Erasmo Rot. Recognitum et Emendatum, non solum ad Graecam veritatem verum etiam ad multorum utiusq; linguae codicum eorumq; veterum simul et emendatorum fidem, postremo ad probatissimorum autorum citationem, emendationem et interpretationem, praecipue, Origenis, Chrysostomi, Cyrilli, Vulgarij, Hieronymi, Cypriani, Ambrosij, hilaryj, Augustini, una cum annotatines, quae lectorem doceant, quid qua ratione mutatum sit. The original version was a bilingual Greek/Latin parallel edition with Greek in the left column and Latin in the right. It was originally intended to be a revision of Jerome’s Vulgate, a translation much hated by the KJV-Only crowd. The TR is not the early version of Erasmus’ Novum Instrumentum but is based on the later editions from the third edition onwards.
The codices used by Erasmus were (the names used are according to the Gregory-Aland system):

First Edition

Miniscule 1: a twelfth century manuscript containing the entire NT except Revelation. This forms part of f1 or “Family 1” in conjunction with miniscules 118, 131, 209, 1582, and others. The order of books is Gospels, Acts, General Epistles and Pauline Epistles with Hebrews as the last. The Gospels are “Caesarean” text type while the remainder is “Byzantine”. Scrivener believed that the following verses came from this manuscript:
Mathew 22:28; 23:25; 27:52; 28:3.4.19.20;
Mark 7:18.19.26; 10:1; 12:22; 15:46;
Luke 1:16.61; 2:43; 9:1.15; 11:49;
John 1:28; 10:8; 13:20.
(A plain introduction to the criticism of the New Testament for the use of Biblical students, pg 382)
Miniscule 2: probably eleventh or twelfth century. This 248 page codex contains the full text of the Gospels. The text is Byzantine and contains numerous scribal errors. Von Soden placed this miniscule in Family Kx along with about fifty other late miniscules. Von Soden believed the family appeared around the tenth century and diverged from Family E. The TR is based largely on this family. Miniscule 2, along with the rest of the family are distinguished largely by the presence of the Pericope Adultera.
Miniscule 817: as with 2816 this codex is dated to the fifteenth century.
Miniscule 2814: dated to the twelfth century containing the book of Revelation and a commentary by Andreas of Caesarea (when he lived is unknown but he has been placed between the fifth century to the ninth century. This is the only Greek source of the book of Revelation in the TR and is missing the last six verses which Erasmus supplied with a back translation from the Vulgate.
Miniscule 2815: a Byzantine text-type codex dated to the twelfth century of 216 pages and containing Acts, the General Epistles, and the Pauline Epistles in that order. It is textually similar to 206, 429, 522, and 1891.
Miniscule 2816: a Byzantine text-type 287 page codex dated to the fifteenth century. The codex contains Acts, the Pauline Epistles, and General Epistles. Erasmus used some of the marginal readings rather than the main body text.
Miniscule 2817: a twelfth century Byzantine text-type codex of 387 pages containing all of the Pauline Epistles and ends on Hebrews 12:18. Estienne used this along with Codex Bezae and numerous others in his 1550 Editio Regia.

Second Edition Additions

The second edition of Erasmus’ text is the basis for Luther’s German translation.
Miniscule 3: a twelfth century Byzantine text-type codex of 451 pages containing all of the NT except Revelation. This codex does not contain the Pericope Adultera. As with Miniscule 2 Von Soden placed this codex in Family K.

Third Edition Additions

Miniscule 61: The first and second editions did not contain 1 John 5:7 called the Comma Johanneum, which was added on the basis of its inclusion in this fifteenth century miniscule also known as Codex Montfortianus. It contains the entire NT with the books in the order Gospels, Pauline Epistles, Acts, James, Jude, I and II Peter, I, II, II John and the Revelation. This codex is the first discovered Greek manuscript containing the Comma Johanneum. The manuscript was apparently copied from a tenth century manuscript held at Lincoln College in Oxford. The original codex did not contain the Comma which was added in this copy from the Latin.
The manuscripts are the main source of the text for the King James or Authorised Version of the Bible as well as the Luther Bible. The version of the Textus Receptus used was the Bezae version which, in addition to the manuscripts listed above, also used Codex Bezae or Codex Cantabrigiensis (Dea or 05) and Codex Claromontanus (DP or 06) both of which were in the hands of Theodore Beza at the time.
Cantabrigiensis: This 5th century uncial codex also known as Codex Bezae is 406 pages and is believed to have originally had 534 with Greek on the left page with Latin on the left. It contains most of the Gospels, III John, and Acts. There is evidence of at least nine separate correctors between the sixth and twelfth centuries. The order of books is Matthew, John, Luke, Mark, III John, and Acts. The Greek is Western text-type while the Latin is considered to be an old form of the Old (pre-Vulgate) Latin. One form of the longer ending of Mark is included, as is the Pericope Adultera while John 5:4 is omitted and Acts is about 10% longer than the TR.
Claromontanus: this 533 page Western text-type uncial codex is dated to around the 6th century AD and contains all of the Pauline epistles. In addition it contains a catalogue of the OT and NT omitting Philippians, I and II Thessalonians, and Hebrews and includes the Epistle of Barnabas, The Shepherd of Hermas, Third Epistle to the Corinthians, Acts of Paul, and the Revelation of Peter.
I am not sure if these are all the individual manuscripts that went into the TR as it was when the KJV was translated from it. It appears that contrary to the KJVO position the TR is actually based on a limited number of manuscripts – the rest (including many Byzantine manuscripts) mostly, but not 100%, in agreement with the 50-60 in Family 1 and Family K that directly support nearly all readings in the KJV.

Monday, January 11, 2010

Clement of Alexandria - 70 Year Desolation of Jerusalem

For many centuries it has been accepted as a fact that Jerusalem lay desolate and uninhabited for seventy years after Nebuchadnezzar carried its inhabitants off to Babylon. In recent years some have come to reject what the Bible says and accept based purely on what archaeology has been able to find that it was only 49 years. They claim that the Bible does not say that Jerusalem would be desolate for 70 years, despite Daniel stating the following:

Dan 9:2  in the first year of his reign I, Daniel, understood by the books the number of the years about which the word of Yahweh came to Jeremiah the prophet, for the accomplishing of the desolations of Jerusalem, even seventy years.

Once again, we see an "Early Church Father", Clement of Alexander, supporting the position of Jehovah's Witnesses that the city of Jerusalem lay desolate a full 70 years and not merely 49:

And in the twelfth year of the reign of Zedekiah, forty years before the supremacy of the Persians, Nebuchodonosor made war against the Phœnicians and the Jews, as Berosus asserts in his Chaldæan Histories. And Joabas,  writing about the Assyrians, acknowledges that he had received the history from Berosus, and testifies to his accuracy. Nebuchodonosor, therefore, having put out the eyes of Zedekiah, took him away to Babylon, and transported the whole people (the captivity lasted seventy years), with the exception of a few who fled to Egypt.

This quote is quite interesting as it gives us two separate points for the dating of the exile. Firstly he tells us that the twelfth year of the reign of Zedekiah was forty years before the "supremacy of the Persians", which is about 559 BC when Cyrus II took over from his father Cambyses I becoming the first true king of the Persian Empire. This would mean that the twelfth year of Zedekiah could be no later than 599 BC and not 587/6 as is generally accepted.

He goes on to repeat the seventy years of desolation later:

On the completion, then, of the eleventh year, in the beginning of the following, in the reign of Joachim, occurred the carrying away captive to Babylon by Nabuchodonosor the king, in the seventh year of his reign over the Assyrians, in the second year of the reign of Vaphres over the Egyptians, in the archonship of Philip at Athens, in the first year of the forty-eighth Olympiad.
The modern chronology gives us a date of about 588/7 BC for all of these events, but here we encounter multiple problems for the modern chronology, firstly the date of the supremacy of the Persians is known to be approximately 559 BC with the 12th year of Zedekiah being forty years prior, or no later than 599 BC. Secondly and he gives us the end date and length of the captivity, conforming with Daniel:
The captivity lasted for seventy years, and ended in the second year of Darius Hystaspes, who had become king of the Persians, Assyrians, and Egyptians; in whose reign, as I said above, Haggai and Zechariah and the angel of the twelve prophesied. And the high priest was Joshua the son of Josedec. And in the second year of the reign of Darius, who, Herodotus says, destroyed the power of the Magi, Zorobabel the son of Salathiel was dispatched to raise and adorn the temple at Jerusalem.
Darius became king of the kingdoms listed in 539 BC at the conquest of Babylon, his second year was therefore 537 BC. Clement, following Josephus a hundred years earlier and Berossus  who wrote c.290-278 BC or 300 years earlier and only about 200 years after the fall of Babylon, tells us that the exile lasted a full seventy years and finished in the second year of the reign of Darius or 537. Therefore, following Clement of Alexander, the exile could not have started later than 607 BC.

To accept the date of 587/6 as the beginning of the exile we have to assume that this hefty list of sources cited and quoted by a man who lived only 600 years after the date is completely wrong and that the sources he used, some less than 300 years after the time, were also defective. Worse we have to assume that when he, Daniel and God all say the exile and desolations of Jerusalem lasted "seventy years" they were all essentially lying.

Friday, January 1, 2010

Minucius Felix on Blood and Murder

Marcus Minucius Felix is something of an enigma, there are few clues as to when he lived, the 1913 Catholic Encyclopaedia states that it was probably between 170 and 220 AD, nor is it known where he came from and it is believed that he may have been an African like Tertullian. He is known solely now by his Octavius, a discussion held between Minucius Felix and his friends Octavius Januarius and Caecilius Natalis with the pagan Caecilius Natalis voicing the common accusations against Christians, Minucius Felix defending Christianity and Octavius acting as an adjudicator.

Minucius Felix had this to say about killing and blood:

"To us it is not lawful either to see or hear of homicide; and so much do we shrink from human blood, that we do not use the blood even of eatable animals in our food" (Octavius of Minucius Felix XXX)

It is clear that despite claims by modern "Christians" that Jehovah's Witnesses are wrong in our reading of all the verses where God forbade the use of blood and that Acts 15:29 was only created to please the Jews and ceased to have effect after the Apostles that Christians still abstained from blood as late as Minucius Felix's day.