Church History I first readings
Well I haven't posted in a little while because I've been busy trying to stay on top of my classes. In fact right now I'm taking family time in order to write down some of my thoughts from the readings I did this morning.
I read three different things today for my Church history class the first thing I read was several chapters in "The Story of Christianity" by Justo L. Gonzalez. I have to say that I found the reading extreamly easy and of little substance. That is not to say that its not a worth while read, but right now it hasn't added anything to my knowledge of Christianity, I just hope it will get better.
The second item that I read was "Second Apology" by Justin Martyr this artical was very interesting for some rather odd reasons for me. Justin goes through the trouble of defending Christianity but he does it by trying to appeal to the Greek philosophers, such people as Aristotle and Plato. Its quite facinating to see the various view points coming out in his writtings. One of the things that grabed my attention the most was in the section entitled "God and the Logos" here Justin is equating God with the concept of Logos in Greek philosophy but that wasn't the interesting part for me, what was interesting was that Justin used the male pronouns to describe God this whole part of his discourse. Justin makes a point that he is not going to ascribe God a name but he insist on using things like "Father," "He,""His" and so on. That just facinated me because I got the impression from the rest of the discourse that Justin would be an individual fully capable of not ascribing gender to God.
The other article that I had to read was "The Epistle of Mathetes to Diogenetus." This article just started to drive me batty. I hope the other members of my class pick up on some of Mathetes predjudices. Mathetes makes an argument against idols meaining the actual statues made of stone, wood, silver, etc. this argument is very familiar to me because the Apostal Paul makes some of the same arguments in the New Testament so that really doesn't supprise me but on the next page Mathetes has a section entitled "Superstions of the Jews." This section was increadably harsh toward the Jewish people, unfortunatly there wasn't any indication of what time Mathetes was writting in. If I had to place a guess then I would say after 70 CE becasue of the distruction of the temple and then the casting out of the Christians from the Jewish synagouges. One of the statments that hit me the hardest is rather long but bears repeating for understanding, "But those who imagin that, by means of blook, and the smoke of sacrifices and burnt-offerings, they offer sacrifces (acceptable) to Him, and that by such honors they show Him respect, --these, by supposing that they can give anything to Him who stands in need of nothing, appear to me in no respect to differ from those who studiously confer the same honour on things destitue of sense, and which therefore are unable to enjoy such honours." This statment comes directly after Mathetes argument against the 'pagan' idols. It is scating and full of spite toward the closest religious kin that Mathetes has at the time. My hope is that other members of my class noticed this and that the proffesor with acknowledge it in class.
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In other news I am spending alot of time writing for my classes, yesterday I spent some time writing my reflections for my Critical Ministry Review (CMR). This is a beast of a project because I have to examin my life and theology and make the connections between them. The difficulty that I am having I think is related to my age. When some of the doctrins come up I have my particular view but I can't point to an instance that gives me creedance to that particular view. I guess I will just have to struggle through it and see what becomes of it.
I read three different things today for my Church history class the first thing I read was several chapters in "The Story of Christianity" by Justo L. Gonzalez. I have to say that I found the reading extreamly easy and of little substance. That is not to say that its not a worth while read, but right now it hasn't added anything to my knowledge of Christianity, I just hope it will get better.
The second item that I read was "Second Apology" by Justin Martyr this artical was very interesting for some rather odd reasons for me. Justin goes through the trouble of defending Christianity but he does it by trying to appeal to the Greek philosophers, such people as Aristotle and Plato. Its quite facinating to see the various view points coming out in his writtings. One of the things that grabed my attention the most was in the section entitled "God and the Logos" here Justin is equating God with the concept of Logos in Greek philosophy but that wasn't the interesting part for me, what was interesting was that Justin used the male pronouns to describe God this whole part of his discourse. Justin makes a point that he is not going to ascribe God a name but he insist on using things like "Father," "He,""His" and so on. That just facinated me because I got the impression from the rest of the discourse that Justin would be an individual fully capable of not ascribing gender to God.
The other article that I had to read was "The Epistle of Mathetes to Diogenetus." This article just started to drive me batty. I hope the other members of my class pick up on some of Mathetes predjudices. Mathetes makes an argument against idols meaining the actual statues made of stone, wood, silver, etc. this argument is very familiar to me because the Apostal Paul makes some of the same arguments in the New Testament so that really doesn't supprise me but on the next page Mathetes has a section entitled "Superstions of the Jews." This section was increadably harsh toward the Jewish people, unfortunatly there wasn't any indication of what time Mathetes was writting in. If I had to place a guess then I would say after 70 CE becasue of the distruction of the temple and then the casting out of the Christians from the Jewish synagouges. One of the statments that hit me the hardest is rather long but bears repeating for understanding, "But those who imagin that, by means of blook, and the smoke of sacrifices and burnt-offerings, they offer sacrifces (acceptable) to Him, and that by such honors they show Him respect, --these, by supposing that they can give anything to Him who stands in need of nothing, appear to me in no respect to differ from those who studiously confer the same honour on things destitue of sense, and which therefore are unable to enjoy such honours." This statment comes directly after Mathetes argument against the 'pagan' idols. It is scating and full of spite toward the closest religious kin that Mathetes has at the time. My hope is that other members of my class noticed this and that the proffesor with acknowledge it in class.
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In other news I am spending alot of time writing for my classes, yesterday I spent some time writing my reflections for my Critical Ministry Review (CMR). This is a beast of a project because I have to examin my life and theology and make the connections between them. The difficulty that I am having I think is related to my age. When some of the doctrins come up I have my particular view but I can't point to an instance that gives me creedance to that particular view. I guess I will just have to struggle through it and see what becomes of it.
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