Church fathers made stuff up… Quit proof-texting them

Comments · 540

• CJ

  @cjcornthwaite · 4 months ago (edited) · pinned

  What do you think? Let me know!! 👇👇👇<br>Join the community! 👉 <a href="https://www.cjcornthwaite.com/community">https://www.cjcornthwaite.com/community</a> <br>NOTES<br>- James Tabor has made some interesting arguments for reclaiming the Pella story - <a href="https://jamestabor.com/a-jesus-hideout-in-jordan/">https://jamestabor.com/a-jesus-hideout-in-jordan/</a><br>- It&apos;s not clear if the story comes to Eusebius from Hegesippus or not. However, I&apos;m not opposed to there being a historical kernel in the Pella Story. The name of the place is pretty specific. Lüdemann argues it&apos;s just based on a 2nd C legend, but we don&apos;t know. <br>- I don&apos;t know why I said &quot;Epiphanus&quot; the first time instead of &quot;Epiphanius.&quot; My lips don&apos;t work sometimes<br>- Eusebius isn&apos;t really called a church father usually, but ya know. Keeping it simple

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• AL

  @alexcb2 · 4 months ago (edited)

  As you say, a more critical way of understanding this problem is to see that &quot;church fathers&quot; only became so because their writings and notoriety were useful to later church leaders and their rhetorical goals. When we see apparent contradictions in the works of church fathers, we are seeing the traces of Christian identity politics from Late Antiquity. How many historians of the early church are forgotten because they weren&apos;t useful to later identity politics?

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• SE

  @senorbb2150 · 4 months ago

  Lying for the Lord is a time honored tradition!

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• RO

  @Robespierre-II · 4 months ago

  &quot;hypothesizing things that may have happened.&quot;. &nbsp;This is a phrase I think needs to be hammered home for people who are just starting to think about ancient sources like the biblical books. &nbsp; <br><br>It really is how most legends come to be. &nbsp; And it&apos;s not the same as myth or fiction. . &nbsp;or even conscious lies. &nbsp; <br><br>It&apos;s something we are all capable of.

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• TH

  @theuxdesignguy823 · 4 months ago

  This is one of the most frustrating things for me, trying to talk to anyone about early Christianity and how jewish concepts, and Jewish Christians held various view. I get quoted back 200 things about Church fathers as if they pre-exist figures like Paul and Jewish Christians who were followers

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• DA

  @danbusetti · 4 months ago

  Church fathers are quoted as if they were scripture. Where the fathers agree with one&apos;s dogma, they are useful. Where they differ, they are ignored or excused. Likewise for tradition.

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• AN

  @AncientStoneMysteries · 4 months ago

  Early on in my studies, I read Walter Bauer&apos;s &quot;Orthodoxy &amp; Heresy in Earliest Christianity&quot;, written almost 100 years ago, now (1934), and it provided an eye-opening reassessment of Eusebius and accepted Church History. Though parts of the work are outdated now, Bauer saw through the inventions of the Church Fathers quite easily, and raised these questions so long ago...

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• AD

  @adamcosper3308 · 4 months ago

  It&apos;s apologetics all the way down. Paul... The Gospels... The Church Fathers...

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• JO

  @John_Gooderham · 4 months ago (edited)

  The Church Fathers happen to be easy cherrypicking materials for apologetics. As CJ mentioned they sometime contradict each other and since there is so much theology and writings from them, its easy to find something to suit your certain dogmatic views, or to lend weight to whatever apolgetic trope one is selling

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• GA

  @GaiusSonofGermanicus · 4 months ago

  But what do the Church Mothers have to say? &nbsp;Oh, silly me, I forgot that a Church Father pretended to be Paul and wrote 1 Timothy and told them to shut their yap.

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• WH

  @while_coyote · 4 months ago

  We should consider that church fathers of the past were most likely no different than church elders and leaders today. &nbsp;If fact, they were probably even worse than today because it was harder to fact-check them in real-time. &nbsp;Everything they came up with should be considered suspect until proven otherwise.

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• W1

  @w1cked001 · 4 months ago

  The church fathers are the ones who won history and thus got to write them.

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