1.Beliefs
1.1Jesus Christ
Christians believe that, as the Messiah, Jesus was anointed as ruler and savior of humanity, and hold that Jesus ' coming was the fulfilment of messianic prophecies of the Old Testament. The Christian concept of the Messiah differs significantly from the contemporary Jewish concept. The core Christian belief is that, through the death and resurrection of Jesus,sinful humans are reconciled to God and thereby attain salvation and the promise of eternal life. While there have been theological disputes over the nature of Jesus, most Christians believe that Jesus is God incarnate and “true God and true man”.Jesus,having become fully human in all respects, including the aspect of mortality,suffered the pains and
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The first three are often called synoptic because of the amount of material they share. The rest of the New Testament consists of a sequel to Luke 's Gospel, the Acts of the Apostles, which describes the very early history of the Church, a collection of letters from early Christian leaders to congregations or individuals, the Pauline and General epistles, and the apocalyptic Book of Revelation.
Some traditions maintain other canons. The Ethiopian Orthodox Tewahedo Church maintains two canons, the Narrow Canon, itself larger than any Biblical canon outside Ethiopia, and the Broad Canon, which has even more books.Mormons hold the Bible and three additional books to be the inspired word of God: the Book of Mormon, the Doctrine and Covenants, and the Pearl of Great Price.
1.6Creeds
Creeds, or concise doctrinal statements, began as baptismal formulas and were later expanded during the Christological controversies of the fourth and fifth centuries. The earliest creeds still in common use are the Apostles ' Creed and Paul 's creed.
The Nicene Creed, largely a response to Arianism, was formulated at the Councils of Nicaea and Constantinople in 325 and 381 respectively, and ratified as the universal creed of Christendom by the Council of Ephesus in 431.
The Chalcedonian Creed, developed at the Council of Chalcedon in 451,(though not accepted by the Oriental Orthodox Churches) taught Christ "to be
Moses: The holy book of my faith is the Torah, and contains the Old Testament. The Old Testament is also used in the Christian’s Bible, making the Torah the foundation for the Bible.
The Nicene Creed is the creed or profession of faith that was adopted in the city of Nicaea by the first ecumenical council, which met there in the year 325. At that time, the text ended after the words "We believe in the Holy Spirit", after which an anathema was added. The doctrine of the Trinity is commonly expressed as: "One God, three Persons”, but this word "Trinity" does not appear in the Bible. So the doctrine is formally defined in the Nicene Creed, which declares Jesus to be: "God of God, Light of Light, very God of very God, begotten, not made, being of one substance with the Father." in 325, the Council of Nicea set out to officially define the relationship of the Son to the Father, in response to the controversial teachings of
The theological differences were some of the biggest reason why the Roman Catholic and Eastern Orthodox churches split. The Eastern churches had theological roots in Greek philosophy and the Western churches had theologies that constructed on their Roman law (“Schism of 1054”, 2014, para. 3). A strong issue that the two churches had was the theological proposition of the placement and addition of “the Son” to the Roman creed. The Roman churches included the “Father and the Son” in the Nicene creed without consulting the Eastern church while the Eastern church only used the Father. The Orthodox Church believe it should have been written with “the Father” proceeded by the Holy Spirit.
Christianity is one of the most influential religions on both ancient and modern Western society, with the religion based on the teachings of the prophet Jesus Christ who lived approximately between the years of 5 BC and 33 AD. It is claimed that Christ was the son of God whose spirit was embodied and sent to Earth as a human being to bring peace and prosperity to the less fortunate, and absolve the world of its sin. Jesus preached a doctrine of a supreme monotheistic god who ruled over the universe, as well as ethics and morals especially centred on the concept of faith and forgiveness. If one was to live their life in accordance to the Will of God and the teachings of Christ found in the written word of the Holy Bible, one would be absolved of their sin and ascend to the spiritual realm of God, known as Heaven, after their physical death.
The third section dissects the formation of the New Testament with more historical context and views of other writings defined as Gnostic writing. Bruce explains the spoken words of the apostles carried as much authority as their written words and gives an in depth explanation how the Gospels and Pauline writings were viewed by the Church Fathers. The rest of the section demonstrates the Church Fathers and their views of what was to be considered scripture and the councils that affirmed the inspired scripture.
The important sacred text of Christianity is the Bible. The Bible is primary sacred text of Christianity. The Christian Bible is made of two parts: the Old Testament, which is almost identical to the Jewish Bible; and the New Testament, a collection of Christian writings that includes biographies of Jesus and the apostles, letters to new churches, and an apocalyptic work. The Christian Bible is a collection of writings that Christians believe is of divine and human origin. The Bible is accepted by Christians as trustworthy for belief and practice. As well sometimes referred to as 'Scripture ' and 'Holy Scripture '. Christianity views the Bible as the basic source of belief and practice. The Bible is the central sacred text for
Outline the development of the Christian doctrine of the Trinity from the New Testament Church to the Nicene Creed.
The Christological controversies of the fourth and fifth centuries were debates regarding the nature of Christ, and in particular the issue of his humanity versus his divinity. Docetism is a position which undermines the integrity of the humanity of Jesus because it claims that Jesus is fully divine but not truly human, because he is God merely adopting the appearance of being human. Arianism is the belief that Jesus is superior to the rest of creation but not equal to God because Jesus was created by God and thus is not eternal unlike God. The Council of Nicaea in 325 was called to fight against Arianism. The Council
This heretical view is further fought against through Athanasius’ extensive focus on Jesus’ death and the implications that this had on humanity as told by the Bible (Young, 2010, p.55); Romans (10:9) explicitly states Jesus is the Lord and the only route to salvation. So it can be argued, if Jesus is not God, as Arius suggests, then it is not possible for humanity to reach salvation, which results in diminishment of the purpose of Christian faith. Thus, it is acceptable to assume that the Nicene Creed’s assertion of the homoousious relationship of God and Jesus, as a rejection of Arianism, was essential to early Christian theology because it provided certainty for the establishment of the faith.
In 325, the Council of Nicea set out to formally characterize the relationship of the Son to the Father, in light of the dubious lessons of Arius. Driven by Bishop Athanasius, the gathering confirmed the precept of the Trinity as conventionality and censured Arius ' showing that Christ was the first making of God. The ideology received by the committee depicted Christ as "God of God, Light of Light, very God of very God, begotten, not made, being of one substance (homoousios) with the Father."
Christians overwhelmingly attest that monotheism is key to the Christian confidence, as the Nicene Creed (and others), which gives the customary Christian meaning of the Trinity, starts: "I have faith in one God". From sooner than the seasons of the Nicene Creed, 325 CE, different Christian figures pushed the triune secret nature of God as a standardizing calling of confidence. As per Roger E. Olson and Christopher Hall, through supplication, contemplation, study and practice, the Christian people group finished up "that God must exist as both a solidarity and trinity", arranging this in ecumenical chamber toward the finish of the fourth century.
He wanted to learn more about the religion, even though he was pagan. He adopted the Nicene Creed in 325 AD, since it was first established in the city of Nicene. The Nicene Creed implemented few changes in Christian belief that many found it to be absurd because they didn’t believe that the son of god were equally alike. Reasons for the establishment of the Nicene Creed was because of the relationship between God and Christ. Transforming Christian belief to Nicene provided Romans to make their own adjustment, like celebrating Easter on Sunday instead of doing it as the Jews which was done in a different day; marriages within the church and the state, and many more. In present day, Nicene Creed is used by Roman Catholics, Christians, East Orthodox, Anglicans, Lutherans, and
The Bible is made up of a collection of books.The New Testament includes several different genres of literature (Harris,2014). At least four genres consist of, the gospels,historical,letters,and apocalyptic. The gospels are the first genre which appears in the first four books of the bible. Matthew,Mark,Luke,and John gives the accounts of the life of Jesus Christ in different perspectives. The gospels are not like any other type of literature,it is defined by its subject matter,the life of Jesus (Harris,2014).The other books are considered historical texts. Additional books were letters of epistles. The letters by Paul were a major unit of the collection Revelations. There are twenty-seven documents in the New Testament which fits into one
When the Nicene Creed was created and finalized in 381 A.D., there were many heresies under the umbrella of Christianity. The Nicene Creed seeked to address these heresies and remove them from mainstream worship. One of the many heresies in this time was Arianism.
The New Testament was canonized over a period of approximately four hundred years (Stotesberg). From AD 50-125, the books which in the end constitute the New Testament were written. Simultaneously, other books, which did not end up being included in the final canon, were produced. These books are the Epistle of Barnabas, the Didache, I Clement, the seven letters of Ignatius of Antioch, etc. (“Development of the Difficult Canon”). As more and more books were written, Christians realized that it was imperative that they gather and consolidate this material before it became lost. Sometime before AD 100, ten of Paul’s letters were gathered and combined into their own canon. The Gospels (Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John) were combined to form another canon soon after the canonization of Paul’s letters. The Gospels and Paul’s letters became the main body of a new group of Scriptures that would soon become the New Testament. Soon Acts, I Peter, I John, and Revelation were inserted into this body of Scripture. Following this, the rest of the books were added to the New Testament (Barker).