I was trying to highlight the lack of certainty about what went into, and was kept out of the scriptural canon. I think we are on the same side–I am confident that any sort of “literal” view of the canon is problematic, if the basis for it is the assumption that the apostles sat around a table and decided what would go in.

Many scholars believe that the scriptures were “protected and guided” by God. That’s fine, at least in terms of consistency and matching up with reality. These individuals tend to recognize the diverse sources and complex decisions that went into the canon.

I only wanted to say that while Paul’s writings dominate the epistles section of the New Testament (I don’t know of anyone who states that the gospels or Acts were written by Paul), its beginnings were much less unified than this statement might suggest.

As to the issue of Paul influencing the reading of the “Old Testament”, I agree to a limited extent.

It might be more accurate to talk about it the other direction: Paul was trained as a Pharisee and would have been well versed in the “Old Testament” as it was interpreted by the scholars of the time.

It is also striking to me that Paul refers to the “Old Testament” far less often than do the gospel writers. This might be *because* the big issue that was trying the unity of the new believers was the question whether they had to be Jews in order to be believers. Paul’s position clearly was “no.” Peter’s position (as reported by Paul) was less definite.

That’s all. Just wanted to clarify what might have been misunderstood. It is surprising how many Christians assume that the apostles gathered their manuscripts together and decided to have them bound into a book.

I think the prevailing thought is that the work of selecting which manuscripts were scripture and which were not happened sometime in the second or third century–as much as 300 years after Jesus’ life on earth.

But I might be wrong on this, as well! If practice makes perfect, I’m just about a perfect “being wrong” athlete. . .

If the gospels were written later than most of Paul’s work (and they were), then they would presumably be influenced (perhaps strongly) by him. That summarizes what I understood to be mattyc’s point.

I would say that Paul had little influence over what we today would call the “Old Testament.” If you are of the school that somehow sees this body of Scripture as “no longer relevant” then this is probably not an important point.

But even if you were to restrict your comments about Paul’s influence on the canon to the “New Testament”, I would suggest that Pauline thought was not nearly as coordinated, nor as pervasive, as your point would seem to indicate.

Much of the “New Testament” non-gospel writings do claim to be from Paul, and you can certainly see Paul’s influence in other places. But there are at least two mitigating factors:

(1) the “New Testament” was not pulled together and standardized/canonized until way, way after Paul’s death. There are many manuscripts and fragments and references to things that claim to be written by Paul which were not included in the canon.

Those scholars who pulled the canon together (and they did not all agree–still don’t all agree) had to make some judgment calls about which copies of which letters/writings that were circulating among the (by then) established churches should be accepted as authentic, and which should not be assumed to be the “Word of God.”

It might help to remember that there were no printing presses, that every letter was recopied and recopied, and recopied as it made its way around. The whole need for the canonization project was based in the uncomfortable reality that some contradictory works were being read in some areas/among some groups, and that many of the early heresies were established by “emphasizing,” “editing” or even “fabricating” parts of larger works.

Papyrus doesn’t hold up so well (nor do any of the common and portable writing materials of that era), and the original copies with Paul’s signature probably didn’t even last until his death. The originals were certainly not around 300 years later.

Perhaps this is similar to the advice “say it was written by Benjamin Franklin: people will be impressed, more likely to believe it, and there is no way to prove you wrong. . .”

(2) Much, perhaps all, of the “New Testament” was written to address one or more heresies or shortcomings in the scattered groups of these new-called believers.

One such disagreement is obvious in Paul’s account of his meeting with Peter and the other delegates from the Jerusalem believers who came to correct Paul about some mistakes he was making. According to Paul, they are the ones who were taken to task. We don’t have Peter’s account.

Point is, the “New Testament” was not taken to be “a manual with rules for living” until after the reformation. If we wanted to read these scriptures in the light of how the original audience would have heard them, we should imagine them written as encouraging/scolding messages to our own local meetings–and not as a manual on “how to do things the right way.”

Please note that I am not (here) saying anything about the infallibility or truthfulness of the “New Testament.” Just commenting on what some might misread your point to say.

Many people believe the English version of the “New Testament” as we have it is the literal inspired Word of God. That may be, but this position must be maintained within a historical setting in which the decisions about what should be included in the canon were made by human beings, some of whom were active opponents of others.

I disagree with the conclusions, often, but I am quite certain that learning any sort of script, deciding on “talking points” or highlighting your Bible are enough for the prosecution to rest.

I did a short stint in advertising (now there is a group liked less than fundamentalists!) and have since been craving an opportunity to explore “the ethics of persuasion” with a group of thinking evangelicals (even though I once was one, I’ve pretty much given up on fundamentalists–they seem to be way too committed to the “war” metaphor to make discussion fruitful).

We are really quick to lash out from our moral high ground against all of the “situational relativists” because of their rejection of any universals (which is, I believe, a universal).

So, is evangelism persuasion an OK form of “whatever works” or “the ends justify the means?”

Jurgen Habermas did some interesting work on communication, trying to work out some rules that could ensure a particular communicative exchange was good (not manipulative, deceitful, “might makes right” etc.)

That really got me thinking: Is a right relationship with God all about getting one confession out of someone? What if we were free to employ the “interrogation” tactics apparently approved (by one who self-identifies as an evangelical) for evangelism? Would it be OK to use sleep deprivation, humiliation, sensory overload or deprivation, verbal harrassment, fear of death or harm etc. if it resulted in someone confessing that they were a sinner and that they accepted Jesus into their life? (or insert your own euphanism)

Where are the limits? What is an ethical basis for evangelism?

As is probably clear by now, I have disavowed any sort of evangelistic activity. I believe

(1) that it is God’s affair to interact with others, not mine, and that if there is an omniscient and omnipotent God (and I do believe so) we are way *not* qualified to shoulder our way in and try to take over, and if there isn’t such a God, we have nothing to evangelize to!,

(2) that while there is no one so enthusiastic and dogmatic than a recent convert (works for those who have quit smoking, as well as for new Christians) there is no one so hardened against persuasion than someone who sort of tried it and found it unsatisfactory,

(3) that what God desires is an honest relationship with us, not any sort of program, cultish program or gimmicky trick. I am daily humbled by the realization that the largest and most gullible targets for multi-layered marketing schemes are evangelicals. . .the implication is that these are people who will believe anything. . .
perhaps, just perhaps, this is the case because people who are willing to believe anything are the ones with whom Christians have been filling the pews. . .

(4) we seriously shortchange the real news of Christianity (if you believe there is any news at all) by giving the metamessage that being a Christian is a simple and easy matter, much easier than, say, buying a car. . .

The message I keep seeing in the Bible is exactly the opposite: God doesn’t want the “I’m Christian because it is easy” group–and that there will be a whole lot of people who whine “we called ourselves Christians” who are on God’s “not belonging to me” list.

So it seems to me that if I have any right at all to continue to call myself “evangelical” it is because I do believe we are better off with God than without, that it is possible for a finite spatially-temporally bounded human to have some sort of relationship with one who is not limited, period, and that I ought to remain particularly sensitive to opportunities to tell people what I believe and why.

In many peoples’ books, that probably disqualifies me. . . guess it’s a good thing there aren’t any “identity police”, and that I don’t have to agree or defend shallow or insincere or unthinking people who also call themselves “evangelical” any more than someone who is not a shallow, insincere or unthinking atheist (or agnostic, or secular humanist, or animist or . . .) has to defend every nut who calls themselves an “atheist” just to see how “the locals” respond.

Well said, mattyc. Those are words to be heard by everyone, not just Christians. I think this is something that all people need to keep in mind.

2) What historical documents, and how can they prove the bible “is true.” The bible is a collection of various writings from various sources at various times describing various events at various other times. Unless there is some document or group of documents from around the same time period as each individual document of the bible that verify the exact facts of all the people places and events contained in those biblical sources, I’m gonna have to say you are wrong on that one.

3) While the bible does contain many books by many authors, all of the theology around which Christianity is based hinges on the writings attributed to one man: Paul. Even the books that are not attributed to him are heavily influenced by his theology as he became an early leader in the Christian movement. If anything, the more authors a collection of works has the more easily it is for errors to creep in, especially before the printing press was invented when all books were hand copied. The more people that touch something the more error it contains. There are more differences in the ancient biblical texts that we have surviving today than there are words in the bible itself. Also look into Hinduism which has many many volumes of sacred texts that have many different authors.

4) Jesus was not the only God in history whose believers thought had been raised from the dead, see Mithra, Attis, Adonis, Some would even say Julius Caesar and Alexander the. Jesus IS dead. Physically he is dead, though he may be spiritually alive, he IS physically dead.

5)Christianity IS about ME because it’s about a relationship. You can’t have a relationship without ME

And, yes I am a Christian.
Also, you might think about reading some books about early christianity and how the bible came to be.