Church History Paper I

The validity of the bible and its contents has been a popular topic deliberated by numerous religious scholars for over three-hundred years. Biblical scholar and professor, Dr. Bart Erhman, dedicated his studies to canonical text in their original languages. Erhman’s evangelical background had a large impact on his pursuit in an education and career in religious studies, but his initial opinions about Christianity were completely flipped when he began to discover the great number of mistakes and intended adjustments within the texts that had been made by earlier translators. In Erhman’s first book, Misquoting Jesus, he illustrates his provocative case to convey that many treasured theological stories and beliefs from the bible are the outcome

Marcion of Sinope is a Christian theologian who has made many arguments in wanting to separate Judaism and Christianity and devaluing the Old Testament. He has quite the backstory about his life, opposing the Old Testament, and making an impact on Christian History.

Polycarp contributed to Christianity by his confrontation of the Gnostic Marcion and his witnessing to other Gnostics, his writing to the church at Philippi, and his faith in the moments leading up to his death. Polycarp confronted Marcion who developed one of the first heresies that affected the Church. According to Marcionism, there was a God of the Old Testament but a different God of the New Testament. Therefore, he rejected all of the Old Testament writings in favor of the New Testament. In addition, he rejected the incarnation of Christ, asserting that he was simply God appearing to be a man. Marcion’s teachings had a very dangerous influence on the Church, as they were

Through reading the chapter 4 of the book “Church History”, written by Kevin Hughes, I find the connection between the Luther's Conflict with Catholic opponents and the definition of the Church. In other words, although the traditional Catholic theologians and Luther have different views about the if a human could follow Gospel perfectly, they were still a unity that gathered by God to form the Church, and both of them were doing their best to teach the Holy Spirit of God to other citizens. Arguing the sense of human sinfulness, Christians could better ways to bring Jesus’ Holy and love to others. Moreover, the deeper understanding of sins could save from people from the suffering of further sins. For example, between 1517 and 1520, Luther wrote thirty works about his theology ideas and sold more than 300,000 copies total. It gives many people a completely new view about human sins.

The general church is the branch of government in the Church of the Nazarene that effectively and efficiently connects the members and resources of our denomination to preserve our core values and beliefs and advance our mission to preach holiness, make Christ-like disciples in all the nations, and bring relief to the needy. Recognizing the strength and equality of all partners, the general church combines and apportions time and resources for global mobilization. Simply stated, we can accomplish more united as a global denomination than we ever could at the local church or district level.

Over the past years of my life I have seen many changes, some for the good and others not as good. Change can be demanding and also crucial. The early believers would encounter this. One can see that significant change happened, when reading through the gospels and the book of acts it is obvious to the reader that the believers who followed Jesus would never be the same again.

Marcion believed that the God of the Old Testament (Yahweh) and of the New Testament (Father of Christ) were two different gods. Because he viewed Yahweh as the creator, he rejected the incarnation since it would have made Jesus subject to an inferior god. He established a church that used the letters of Paul and the Gospel of Luke and explained away Old Testament references by blaming them on Judaizers (Gonzalez 74). These dualistic viewpoints directly relate to

“Of the many influences that have shaped the United States into a distinctive nation and people, none may be said to be more fundamental and enduring than the Bible (Reagan).” These are words spoken by the 40th President of the United States of America, Ronald Reagan. The fundamentals of the Bible are vast, a few include God as creator of all, sin and its consequences, God’s redemption of mankind through Jesus, the work of the Holy Spirit, and Heaven and hell. The Christian Bible is comprised of the 39 books in the Old Testament and 27 books in the New Testament. A man by the name of Marcion is believed to have rendered the first canon of the Bible. Though he grew up in a Christian home, and is perhaps one of the most influential and impactful men to walk the earth, Marcion is also considered one of the most reviled heretics. So much so, he was excommunicated from the church because his teachings departed from traditional Christianity. His teachings were radical, and caused many to follow him, thus starting a movement that came to be known as Marcionism.

Having rejected the Hebrew Scriptures as the word of a lesser God, Marcion found it necessary to put something else in the place. This was his own version of what we now call the New Testament. Its core was the corpus of Paul's epistles, joined to the Gospel of Luke whom Marcion held in high regard because he had been Paul's companion Both the epistles and Luke, however, were edited in order to erase from them all positive references to the Hebrew Scriptures or to the material world.

In the early church, Christians were persecuted and had to think about the doctrines of salvation and the church. Some of the Christians denied their faith. Ferguson states, “The reign of Decius marked the turning point from local, sporadic persecution to an empire-wide assault on Christianity. The first action of Decius was the arrest of the higher clergy. The second was a universal order to sacrifice to the gods of the empire (burn incense, pour a libation, and taste the sacrificial meat). Those who sacrificed received a certificate testifying that they had complied.” [1] Church members became martyrs by their faith. Ferguson states, “Christian practice made some changes in these customs. The funerary meals were eucharistic in the church (Acts of John and Tertullian). Cyprian is the first to call the eucharist a sacrifice offered in memory of the martyrs, commemorating their victory as well as praying for their repose.” [2]

Believed to have originated in Syria or Palestine c.100-150, the Didaché is one of the earliest Christian writings outlining the beliefs and practices of the Church at the time. Although there are a number of different areas discussed by the author(s), there are four main subtopics that are focussed on. These are: the practice of baptism, the need for fasting, the observation of the Eucharist, and the importance of strong leadership in the church. The relevance of the Didaché in today’s church is often a topic of debate, with some seeing it as outdated, while others still see it as significant.

Determining what exactly influenced the official canonization of the Scriptures that we have today is debated among many Christian theologians and scholars. It is important to understand how the books that are found in the Bible today, where Christians receive their foundation of belief, were selected and what encouraged the church to actually close their canon and make it official. The church began with a canon, the Jewish Scriptures, but as the Gospels were written and the apostolic writings were located, published, and recognized, the need for a closed canon became imperative. The church was beginning to expand quickly, and with the expansion of the church, different and somewhat false beliefs were soon to follow. Some of these beliefs became stretched to their full extent and were recognized as heresies. One heretic in particular drew a significant amount of attention from the church, and we know him as Marcion and his heresies as Marcionism. The Marcion heresy greatly influenced the official canonization of Scripture by drawing the church of Rome’s attention to the need of a sure and solid closed canon.

During the early history of the church, there was no such thing as a New Testament “canon.” The selection of books that were to be included or excluded from the texts used by the church was the responsibility of each individual church body, and thus varied greatly from location to location. Because there was no canon – (books considered

The process by which the English Bible, as it is known to the English culture today, was compiled is an extraordinary thing to see. The Bible consists of two parts: the Old Testament and the New Testament. The process by which both Testaments were written and then canonized into one book transpired over a period of many years. Once the canonization of the Bible officially came to an end, it was translated into English. Since then, many versions of the modern Bible have been made. Since the individual books of the Bible became scattered as they were written, people set forth to preserve God’s Word by compiling them into one

Not long after the Day of Pentecost believers had to defend their faith from false teachers seeking to dilute, or subdue the power in the Gospel of Jesus. To combat heresy, orthodoxy had to be defined both by creed, and by the approval of writings recognized as God’s inspired Word. The Canon we study today remains the same powerful Scripture that has been transforming lives for thousands of years.