[Boxjobox]

Originally Posted by awareness

Yeah BJB, Untohim called me a New Testament scholar. And he's a Evangelical, not a Catholic.

However, all Christians, including you, stand on what was established in the 4th c. The very books we believe to be the very word of God was canonized by the RCC, in the 4th c., by Eusebius -- a good buddy with Constantine -- and first church historian (and he wasn't inspired while selecting the books, by any of the three ("gods"), neither the Father, Son, nor Holy Spirit ... purposely and deliberately, btw ... because of Montanus and The New Prophecy - 2nd to 3rd century).

The only "canon" before that was the books of Marcion of Sinope, who selected Paul's books, and a modified Luke. He went so far as to deny the God of the OT, as a lower demiurge god, that we had to transcend to get to the real God the Father.

And talking about recovering the early church, Marcion (late 1st c. early 2nd c.) wanted to recover it back to Paul, who wrote the earliest books of our NT, and about half of it.

Now BJB, I don't know back to where that you want to recover the church, but if'n ya want to go back to the infant early church, it was Jewish. Then the Pentecost happened. That was the official birth of Christianity.

Seems to me, if you want to recover the early church you're gonna half to have the same thing happen. And you're gonna half to go back to before any of the NT books were written. The early church was pre-NT.

We have an account of it all in The Acts of the Apostles, written decades after it all happened. And the star in that book is Paul. So Marcion was at least onto to something.

Accept, he didn't go back to before NT books were written ; back when direct connection to God the Father didn't need books as an intermediary.

Can we live without the books of the NT? If so, we've recovered the early church ... way before the gospels were written, especially the gospel we now call John, that was written at the end of the first century, same as btw, Revelation, written around the same time.

Can we do that?

I would say that the formation of the NT, which yes, was compiled 4th century, was taken from that which was written at the time of the formative years of the church. Luke and Acts and epistles of Paul give a pretty good understanding of the Christian faith, the contents of the formative years. This did not include a Jesus is God message, but one that told of the work and plan of God in raising Christ from the dead.
There obviously had been a few centuries of the formation of the Jesus is God thing and the diverse opinions had to be brought to a cohesive doctrine that would satisfy Constantine, so the vote was taken, and voila the great Roman religion was formed. (Obviously this is an abbreviated account). As we have pointed out before, this put the dissenters to such a decree in, shall we say, hot water! Preaching, liturgy, songs, myths were formed around this decree, which ruled the roost for the next 1000 years. The reformers tried to deal with some of the organizational problems and some of the myths, but couldn’t shake the great decree, which still holds sway today!
My view of recovery of the church would be to hold to what was taught by Paul, dump the trinity thing, which would restore glory to the God and Father of Jesus, Put our thinking of the Christ in the right perspective, set sail, and hope and expect that God would give the wind of the Spirit.
It seems that most that participate in this site are Holden to the trinitarian theology, which keeps them in the 4th century. They would probably do better returning to the Roman Catholic organization; it is the home of their source document, which would save them from wandering incoherently And aimlessly through christiandom. I’m sure there is plenty of holy water there to purify their prodigal souls.