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Emails with my professor, 09JAN
From: “R”   Date: Jan 9
Subject: Re: Fellow alumnus–he is a pastor

The NT canon was not finally established until the 4th century. Yet on the core of it, the gospels, and the letters of Paul, 1 John and 1 Peter, there was pretty much universal agreement by the mid 2nd century. In the 4th C, church was still debating whether Revelation, 2 Peter, and James were canonical, along with the canonicity of, such as the Shepherd of Hermas, 1 Clement, and a few others which ultimately did not make it. But the four gospels were accepted (and the other noncanonical gospels widely rejected) by the mid 2nd C.

 

—–Original Message
Sent: Fri, Jan 9

Holy S#$%!

 

I can’t believe that this fellow alumnus is a pastor (Pastor P) who wrote a 13 page paper that addresses one of my key issues – “how can a perfect book be written by imperfect humans?” … this is right up the alley of R’s sermons and research and right what I am just scratching the surface on – researching to teach this small but significant section in my “timeline of the bible curriculum” …  ok – I am going to say Holy S#$%! once again – excuse the french – but it was the first thing out of my mouth!  haha

 

His paper has an interesting take on the writer Marcion…  and people calling him a heretic – that’s a hot topic later many times – when people like Jan Hus were trying to translate the bible..and was burned at the stake…  People didn’t know who was a heretic and who was not… tough question!!!!!!

 

I am not sure if my journey will take me into all the ins and outs of who and when the new testament was written – I am certainly not looking to be a revisionist historian – but it’s cool to know that there are good discussions/debates for the origins of the bible – when and if I am ready to tackle that…  right now I am going to let sleeping dogs lie and focus on my Christmas merry go round for a little more…

 

but I think I will email this fellow alum anyway to introduce myself and say hi…