Is there an ancient Christian creed that says credo in scripture?

by kepler 2 Replies latest watchtower beliefs

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  kepler

  Consider the Nicene Creed. Does it mention Bible? It does say what a Christian in a universal church of the Roman Empire should believe though.

  One day I visited a service at a fundamental church and I noticed that a video display interjected the belief in Holy Scriptures into what otherwise looked to me like the Credo I had learned in my own church.

  The notion of a credo does not necessarily stay unaltered, I admit. But it is worth investigating when or how belief in every word of the Bible became a pervasive belief among Protestants, especially 2nd Adventists.

  When I checked out the video testimony of the former Bethelite who obtained a doctoral degree in chemistry and became a Catholic, I noticed that part of his testimony related to scriptures. He said something that was tantalizing in the beginning, but I don't know if he ever elaborated further on. He said that Scripture was interpreted in the Catholic community as "Christian tradition".

  Think about it. That doesn't necessarily mean you chose sides with Samuel against Saul or believe that Joshua's campaign of extermination in Canaan is justified. It's just what we inherit from ages ago in our quest to understand our relation to God and doing what is right by it.

  Curiously as well, the same individual cited the writings of Ignatius, Bishop of Antioch. Since he was about second or third in succession and lived in the 1st to 2nd century, that placed an episcopal structure on the church centuries prior to the collection of the Biblical books. Wonder how close he was to making the cut? After all, the competition were people who signed their names as Jude, John, Peter... And people like Barnabas didn't make it. But the decision to include some Hebrew Scriptures and writings of the Apostles came after the Nicene Creed.

  So, if the Nicene Creed preceded the canon. Then let's talk about Credos that included any insistence on belief in Scripture: which ones, what verses, what text...Anything.
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  Cold Steel

  You're quite right about the canon. And the fact is, the early Christian church didn't have a closed canon. Further, there's evidence that several of the apostles were intimately familiar with the Testament of the Twelve Patriarchs, a book rejected by the early ecumenical councils. In fact, the book of Revelation came this close to being rejected. Can you imagine how that would have affected the future, particularly of the Adventist sects?

  The LDS church has always taken it on the chin by the evangelicals because they say it “adds” to the Bible. Well, yes, it’s true we add scripture to the Bible, like the Book of Mormon, but the shock value lies in the fact that it’s so opposed to what people have been taught by the various professors of religion. And the very verse most of them use is that niggling little verse at the end of Revelation. The one about not adding to the prophecies of that book being “accursed.” Of course now, most people are sophisticated enough to realize that it means the “book” of Revelation, the Bible not having yet been compiled.

  Ah, says the evangelical, but didn’t God know there would be a Bible? And didn’t He know that it would be in the last book? Well, they’ve got me there. I just can’t argue with that kind of logic. Like the Catholics, the Orthodox Christians say their doctrines are taken from scripture and tradition, both being equal. But tradition is an awfully slippery slope in that there can be wrong traditions. Both reject baptism for the dead, even though it was a tradition amongst at least some early Christians (see I Cor. 15:29). And there’s significant evidence that people were baptized by immersion rather than sprinkling, yet they choose to ignore that as well. At the same time, there’s not even a tradition for transubstantiation, praying to saints, wearing pompous vestments and so forth, so forget consistency.

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  Viviane

  The LDS church has always taken it on the chin by the evangelicals because they say it “adds” to the Bible. Well, yes, it’s true we add scripture to the Bible, like the Book of Mormon, but the shock value lies in the fact that it’s so opposed to what people have been taught by the various professors of religion.

  The LDS takes it on the chin because it's new, not because they are shocking. The LDS religion is just as idiotic, dumb and retarded as regular Christianity.