“It is absurd to believe that He Who wrote only once in His Life, and that was in the sands, and Who never told anyone to write, should have intended that His Truth should be available only and exclusively in a few memoranda that were written down by a few followers over twenty years after His Death, and were never gathered together in their approved form until three centuries later? Grant that they are inspired and revealed, and I believe it and confess it and read those writings daily; but I still say it is unthinkable that these books which were not written until His Mystical Body was already spread throughout the whole Roman Empire, should be His only way of communicating Truth. If He did not take some effective guarantee to preserve His Truth, which was so sacred that He died for it, then Truth did not matter to Him. If He could not prolong His Truth, up to this hour, then He is not God. Either that infallible Truth of Jesus Christ is living now, available now, or He is not God.”
~Archbishop Fulton Sheen (The Rock Plunged into Eternity)
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Bishop Sheen fell prey to a false narrative, which was the late authorship of the Gospels. Get a recent copy of Nestle, and look at the references, which take up half of the book.
A great deal of discovery has taken place in the last 100 years, demonstrating that the Gospels were spread widely VERY EARLY. The climax was the busted crocodile. Crocodiles were embalmed by the Egyptians. They were filled with confetti in order to keep their shape. Well, the excavators dropped one and its contents spilled out. Fragments of papyri. And one of them was part of John, conclusively dated to 70 AD. So you can forget about 190 AD for John. All Nicaea did was to agree that these documents had always been around, and reject many of the spurious ones (like the Arabic Gospel of the Infancy).
Look it up.
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never told anyone to write, should have intended that His Truth should be available only and exclusively in a few memoranda that were written down by a few followers over twenty years after His Death, and were never gathered together in their approved form until three centuries later? Grant that they are inspired and revealed, and I believe it and confess it and read those writings daily; but I still say it is unthinkable that these books which were not written until His Mystical Body was already spread throughout the whole Roman Empire, should be His only way of communicating Truth. If He did not take some effective guarantee to preserve His Truth, which was so sacred that He died for it, then Truth did not matter to Him. If He could not prolong His Truth, up to this hour, then He is not God. Either that infallible Truth of Jesus Christ is living now, available now, or He is not God.”
Bishop Sheen fell prey to a false narrative, which was the late authorship of the Gospels. Get a recent copy of Nestle, and look at the references, which take up half of the book.
A great deal of discovery has taken place in the last 100 years, demonstrating that the Gospels were spread widely VERY EARLY. The climax was the busted crocodile. Crocodiles were embalmed by the Egyptians. They were filled with confetti in order to keep their shape. Well, the excavators dropped one and its contents spilled out. Fragments of papyri. And one of them was part of John, conclusively dated to 70 AD. So you can forget about 190 AD for John. All Nicaea did was to agree that these documents had always been around, and reject many of the spurious ones (like the Arabic Gospel of the Infancy).
Look it up.
Posted by: mathman | Sunday, June 21, 2015 at 12:08 PM
Bishop Sheen seems to be referencing that written even earlier than the crocodile texts so... not sure I'm seeing the problem.
Posted by: Rick | Sunday, June 21, 2015 at 09:14 PM