Biblical Hebrew Forum

[Peter Kirk <peterkirk AT qaya.org>]

On 11/08/2005 17:23, Pawel wrote:

> ...
>
> Some tenets in Christianity must be necessarily accepted by
> a Christian. If not, you are no lenger a Christian. The tenets
> are shared by all denominations and are really strict and
> inflexible. For example:
>
>         1. The existence of the Holy Trinity,
>         2. Two natures of Christ,
>         3. Jesus saved people on the cross
>         4. Resurection of Christ and of our bodies,
> 	5. Future judgement, 
>
> And so on, and so forth...
>  

Well, these and a very few others are what I meant by "a few basics". 
But even these are not all held by many who call themselves Christians, 
even by many who are leaders in Christian denominations. And even among 
those who do hold them there is little strictness and a lot of 
flexibility in the precise meaning attached to them.

Similarly, there are a few basics of Judaism, surely, such that anyone 
who doesn't hold them can hardly be called a religious Jew. (I won't 
attempt to outline them here.) Of course there may be non-religious Jews 
who reject even the basics, but are still accepted within the Jewish 
community at least unless they formally accept another religion - but 
then there are many nominal members of Christian denominations who do 
not actually accept even the basic dcotrines but are still accepted as 
members of a nominally Christian community.

> ...
>  
>
> > > ... All views which
> > > are not contained in the doctrine and do not oppose
> > > it are acceptable - there is a principle: "in dubio
> > > libertas". Now, when you say that an idea 'is Christian'
> > > you suggest that it is part of the official Christian
> > > doctrine. In case of "the fall of Satan" - it is 
> > > simply not true. ...
> > >
> > >      
> > I don't think the point was that this doctrine is official Christian 
> > doctrine
> >    
>
> But it was exactly my point! :-)
>
>  
Well, it is clear that the fall of Satan has never been one of the few 
basics of either Christianity or Judaism. But:

> > ... this teaching originated among Christians and is widely believed by 
> > Christians. ... As 
> > for the origin of the teaching, I don't know.
> >    
>
> For me the origin is the bone of contention here. 
>
>  
Well, I think we are making progress there, in tracing it back to the 
book of Enoch, which was probably written by Jews who were not 
Christians, but was never officially accepted as a canonical work by 
either Jews, nor by Christians except for the Ethiopian church. Perhaps 
its teaching is official doctrine of the Ethiopian church, but despite 
its widespread acceptance it has never been official doctrine in the 
European and American churches. Is there anything more to say on this?

--
Peter Kirk
peter AT qaya.org (personal)
peterkirk AT qaya.org (work)
http://www.qaya.org/