Entries Tagged 'Gnosticism' ↓

I’ve learned some interesting concepts from class #23: Eastern Orthodoxy.  The podcast is one from the Ancient and Medieval Church History class from Covenant Theological Seminary.  First, let’s have a little background.  (Incidentally, the seminary is a Presbyterian seminary.)

The Eastern Orthodox Church officially split with the Catholic Church in 1054.  The Pope excommunicated the Patriarch in Constantinople, so the Patriarch did the same to the Pope.  There had been some different emphasis on theology for quite some time.  For example, while the Catholic Church claimed that the Pope held all the leadership, the Orthodox Church held a much less central authority.  The Orthodox belief of revelation is that God speaks through these councils, not one central person.

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I posted previously on the topics of Gnosticism, Marcionism, and Montanism in my previous three posts. While discussing Marcionism, there was a debate about the apostasy. The topic got sidetracked into a discussion of the definition of scripture, so I thought I’d post a new topic regarding that topic.

Falcon makes the case that Joseph is a fraud because of his polygamy, and by extension, the Book of Mormon should not be considered scripture. So, I decided to issue a challenge. Here’s the reader’s digest version of the challenge, but you can see the entire set of instructions here.

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This is part 3 of Heresy and Orthodoxy. I’ve been listening to class 5 from the Covenant Theological Seminary on Ancient and Medieval Church History. They have talked about Gnosticism and Marcionism. I’d like to talk about a little known movement in early church history called Montanism and compare this to Mormonism.

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As I mentioned in my previous post, I’ve been listening to the Covenant Theological Seminary class called “Ancient and Medieval Church History.”  Class 5 deals with Heresy and Orthodoxy, and they discuss 3 of the largest early heresies:  Gnosticism, Marcionsim, and Montanism.  I’d like to discuss Marcionism a bit.

Marcion lived 110 - 160 AD in Sinope, Turkey.  He is probably the first person who tried to establish a Christian canon.  His New Testament was much smaller than ours today.  It included an edited version of the Gospel of Luke, and 10 of Paul’s letters.  He was the son of a bishop, and originally embraced by the orthdox church, but due to his embracing of Gnostic doctrines, he was excommunicated.  However, his movement became so large that it rivaled the orthodox church in size for about a century.

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I found a really cool website that offers free downloads from a seminary.  It’s found at Covenant Theological Seminary.  I believe it is a Presbyterian Seminary, and I’ve learned a ton about the Bible, and Jewish and Christian History.  Currently, I’m listening to the course called Ancient and Medieval Church History.  Class 5 deals with Orthodoxy, and Heresy.  It talks about 3 specific heresies:  Gnosticism, Marcionism, and Montanism.

The first thing I learned was that the term “heresy” originally meant “opinion.”  It had no negative connotation.  However, with these 3 movements, the term took on a much more derisive connotation.  Othrodoxy literally means “straight thinking”, just as an orthodontist “straightens teeth.”  These other movements are “heterodoxy”, meaning “other thinking.”

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My previous post comments had drifted off topic, so I thought I’d post a new topic along those lines.

Gnosticism means “secret knowledge.”  This is not to be confused with the term Agnostic, which means “without knowledge.”  Typically, Agnostic people are without knowledge of God.  Some are atheists, but not all.  Agnostics typically are ambivalent about whether God exists or not.

Gnostics, on the other hand, date from the time of Christ.  Gnostic should probably be considered a generic term, such as Protestant.  For example, while Baptists, Lutherans, Presbyterians, etc. are all considered “protestant”, they certainly don’t all believe exactly the same.  Protestant is a term to group nearly all “non-Catholic” groups together.  In essence, these groups are “protesting” against some of the beliefs of the Catholic church.

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