Thanks i will be looking into cru.org..
Fasting
- Thread starter AllieWi
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Speaking of coincidental - I was watching The Bible Rules on H2 and they had a brief segment on fasting, saying that they did an experiment where they starved men for 26 weeks and found universally that none of the subjects could focus on anything being too weak and one guy cut off 3 of his fingers and didn't remember why. I found myself thinking, doesn't the devil want us fasting as the program seems to promote the ridiculous in bible rules.
No doubt the devil wants us to try to earn, through religious works, what God will only give by grace.Speaking of coincidental - I was watching The Bible Rules on H2 and they had a brief segment on fasting, saying that they did an experiment where they starved men for 26 weeks and found universally that none of the subjects could focus on anything being too weak and one guy cut off 3 of his fingers and didn't remember why. I found myself thinking, doesn't the devil want us fasting as the program seems to promote the ridiculous in bible rules.
For me, it's not about earning. Fasting is a discipline, just like praying or reading the bible. It's not for everyone. I have benefited greatly from it in my spiritual walk with God. I don't do it to speed up prayers or try to move Gods hand. It's a discipline, a spiritual discipline. It helps me crucify my flesh and focus on God completely without any distractions. Satan doesn't want us to fast and pray. He knows the power of it. That's the lie, from the father of all lies. I'm not talking anyone in to doing it. I benefit from it, it's a part of my walk with God. I don't weep and cry when I do. I dig deep into His word and meditate on Him. If it's not for you, great. Be blessed. If you've never done it, don't comment.
No, sorry just woke up and my humor tries to sleep in sometimes
Well I have done it,(above others and probably you) and have made a defense of my view from the scriptures.
Im saying that which I have posted on this thread, in my discussion of this issue. I probably was more dedicated to fasting than anyone I know and believe that it was God who delivered me from these false ideas through greater truth. Just as it is those who desire to keep the law, that truly understand that one must die to the law. I wanted what others said fasting would give, I wanted it above others and sought it with more diligence.. in that seeking I found a greater truth and the true fulfilling of what fasting really means.
Just clarifying.
Starving one's self has ZERO effect on God....read Isaiah 58 to see the fast God prefers...the benefit of physically fasting is that it can be useful in training us to say no to the flesh...also if done right it can be beneficial to our overall health.
200 years before the edited discarded Sinaiticus and Vaticanus delete it, in Origen's Commentary on Matthew, based on the best manuscripts of his time (see The Hexapla), he writes
"Whenever, then, any one has all faith so that he no longer disbelieves in any things which are contained in the Holy Scriptures, and has faith such as was that of Abraham, who believed in God to such a degree that his faith was counted for righteousness. he has all faith as a grain of mustard seed; then will such an one say to this mountain— I mean, the dumb and deaf spirit in him who is called lunatic,— Remove hence, clearly, from the man who is suffering, perhaps to the abyss, and it shall remove. And the Apostle, taking, I think. his starting-point from this place, says with authority, If I have all faith so as to remove mountains, 1 Corinthians 13:2 for not one mountain merely, but also several analogous to it, he removes who has all faith which is as a grain of mustard-seed; and nothing shall be impossible to him who has so great faith. Matthew 17:20
But let us also attend to this, This kind goes not out save by prayer and fasting, Matthew 17:21 in order that if at any time it is necessary that we should be engaged in the healing of one suffering from such a disorder, we may not adjure, nor put questions, nor speak to the impure spirit as if it heard, but devoting ourselves to prayer and fasting, may be successful as we pray for the sufferer, and by our own fasting may thrust out the unclean spirit from him."
Just an interesting commentary...
brother Paul
"Whenever, then, any one has all faith so that he no longer disbelieves in any things which are contained in the Holy Scriptures, and has faith such as was that of Abraham, who believed in God to such a degree that his faith was counted for righteousness. he has all faith as a grain of mustard seed; then will such an one say to this mountain— I mean, the dumb and deaf spirit in him who is called lunatic,— Remove hence, clearly, from the man who is suffering, perhaps to the abyss, and it shall remove. And the Apostle, taking, I think. his starting-point from this place, says with authority, If I have all faith so as to remove mountains, 1 Corinthians 13:2 for not one mountain merely, but also several analogous to it, he removes who has all faith which is as a grain of mustard-seed; and nothing shall be impossible to him who has so great faith. Matthew 17:20
But let us also attend to this, This kind goes not out save by prayer and fasting, Matthew 17:21 in order that if at any time it is necessary that we should be engaged in the healing of one suffering from such a disorder, we may not adjure, nor put questions, nor speak to the impure spirit as if it heard, but devoting ourselves to prayer and fasting, may be successful as we pray for the sufferer, and by our own fasting may thrust out the unclean spirit from him."
Just an interesting commentary...
brother Paul
Hard to read or see the point, but is not Origen a accused heretic? Interesting that he is used to degrade the worth of the older text because they are somehow defiled by him, and now his (supposed) letter is used as a "source of truth"? I want to understand what you are saying so I can check it out, because if there is a reading of Matt 17:21 even from Origen, that predates the older text, it would be interesting and should be considered. So please explain a little more of what you are trying to affirm?
Actually later on he sided with the Montanists (on the basis that he believed the Spirit of God was still speaking to and through His chosen vessels...even today this is an arguable point) so yes...but his early work is pretty good (considering the Alexandrian School of Clement was largely allegorical in its approach as opposed to the more literal Antiochene School).
The only point I was making however was this exceptional scholar who took the slightly variant versions compared with what he had received wrote a Hexapla (six column comparative Bible) with his notes (the later copies did not include his notes, the copyists left that to the reader) includes the "and fasting" as a reliable part of the text a couple hundred years before A and B...
I never use Origen to defend any doctrine though for the very reason you sited so thsnks for pointing that out
The only point I was making however was this exceptional scholar who took the slightly variant versions compared with what he had received wrote a Hexapla (six column comparative Bible) with his notes (the later copies did not include his notes, the copyists left that to the reader) includes the "and fasting" as a reliable part of the text a couple hundred years before A and B...
I never use Origen to defend any doctrine though for the very reason you sited so thsnks for pointing that out
I will do some research, but man some of this stuff is dry... I have read all these "supposed" letters from Church fathers and did a little study of Origen.. None of it seemed to relate to the scriptures and truth of Gods Spirit that was burning in me? That does not mean that some value cannot be found there. You appeared to degrade the worth of A and B as "edited and discarded" which is unusual, in that many use the opposite line of reason. Are you a defender of the TR?
Actually I am not Mitzpa...as I pointed out in a previous thread I believe the quotations in the earliest church fathers bear the strongest witness to the autographs so where modernists debate I default to these. When I do I always find A and B lacking (in about 90 % of the cases)...having said that I favor the Majority Text....but also the pre-JPS Masoretic, with the LXX is my favorite OT witness...the Targums are also an interesting witness to how 1st and 2nd century Rabbis interpreted the word of God.
What is curious to me however in what you said above "None of it seemed to relate to the scriptures and truth of Gods Spirit that was burning in me?" I say curious because the earlier ones (or their teachers) were actually taught what the scriptures mean by the Apostles themselves...also they are replete with scriptural references wither as quotes or inferences we are familiar with. I took down 19 pages of scriptural quotations from the New Testament in just Against Heresies...every point is supported by the scriptures...
Now of course it is not a substitute for, nor meant to be, "God's word....but it is a powerful witness modern Christians should not ignore....most of what we have today (like the 10 Volume Ante-Nicene fathers by Hendrickson) was not even around at the time of the reformers and what was around was mostly repressed by the RCC...
In His love
brother Paul
We now have early and very early evidence for the text of the New Testament. A classified list of the most important manuscripts will make this clear. Numbers preceded by a P refer to papyri, the letters refer to parchment manuscripts.
ca. A.D. 200 250 300 350 450
Matthew P45 B Sin.
Mark P45 B Sin. A
Luke P4,P45,P75 B Sin. A
John P66 P45,P75 B Sin. A
Acts P45 B Sin. A
Romans-Hebrews P46 B Sin. A
James-Jude P72,B Sin. A
Apocalypse P47 Sin. A
As you can see, from the fourth century onwards the material base for establishing the text of the Greek New Testament is very good indeed. The manuscripts Sin. (Sinaiticus), A (Alexandrinus) and B (Vaticanus) are almost complete parchment manuscripts. With the help of the earlier papyrus manuscripts we have been able to establish that the text of these three great manuscripts is to a large extent reliable. The papyrus manuscript P75 was the latest to be published, but it showed a virtually identical text to manuscript B. This settled the vexed question whether we have in the parchment manuscripts of the fourth and fifth centuries a safe guide to the original text of the New Testament. We have.
That is not to say that we can dispense with later manuscripts of the New Testament. With the exception of Sin. the oldest manuscripts are not complete. Moreover they contain scribal errors of all sorts. P46 is a case in point: it is the manuscript with the largest percentage of blunders on record! Most of this kind of errors can, however, be removed by comparing the readings of the oldest manuscripts. The remaining puzzles can only be solved by taking later manuscripts into account. Most of the work in textual criticism in the past forty years has been done by Kurt Aland in Münster and Bruce Metzger in Princeton. The latest translations of the New Testament are based on their work.
It is to be noticed that all the manuscripts listed above come from Egypt. The papyri were found there in the twentieth century. They are now in Dublin, Ann Arbor, Cologny (in Switzerland), the Vatican and Vienna. Sin. was found in a monastery library on the slopes of Mount Sinai in the nineteenth century and brought to St. Petersburg. In 1933 it was sold to the British Museum in London for a mere 100,000 pounds. A was transferred from the patriarchal library at Alexandria in the seventeenth century and is now also in the British Library. B has been in the Vatican since the Middle Ages. We owe the early Egyptian Christians an immense debt. Those who are fortunate enough to be able to work with part of their heritage count their blessings every day.
Tischendorf himself and the British scholars Westcott and Hort produced two rival editions of the Greek text. They believed that their text reflected the original as well as possible, even if it was based on manuscripts dating from at least three centuries after the New Testament was written. Gradually the new critical texts replaced Erasmus' text, which has not received much attention from serious scholars anymore. Thousands more ancient Greek manuscripts of the New Testament have become known in the past 100 years.
ca. A.D. 200 250 300 350 450
Matthew P45 B Sin.
Mark P45 B Sin. A
Luke P4,P45,P75 B Sin. A
John P66 P45,P75 B Sin. A
Acts P45 B Sin. A
Romans-Hebrews P46 B Sin. A
James-Jude P72,B Sin. A
Apocalypse P47 Sin. A
As you can see, from the fourth century onwards the material base for establishing the text of the Greek New Testament is very good indeed. The manuscripts Sin. (Sinaiticus), A (Alexandrinus) and B (Vaticanus) are almost complete parchment manuscripts. With the help of the earlier papyrus manuscripts we have been able to establish that the text of these three great manuscripts is to a large extent reliable. The papyrus manuscript P75 was the latest to be published, but it showed a virtually identical text to manuscript B. This settled the vexed question whether we have in the parchment manuscripts of the fourth and fifth centuries a safe guide to the original text of the New Testament. We have.
That is not to say that we can dispense with later manuscripts of the New Testament. With the exception of Sin. the oldest manuscripts are not complete. Moreover they contain scribal errors of all sorts. P46 is a case in point: it is the manuscript with the largest percentage of blunders on record! Most of this kind of errors can, however, be removed by comparing the readings of the oldest manuscripts. The remaining puzzles can only be solved by taking later manuscripts into account. Most of the work in textual criticism in the past forty years has been done by Kurt Aland in Münster and Bruce Metzger in Princeton. The latest translations of the New Testament are based on their work.
It is to be noticed that all the manuscripts listed above come from Egypt. The papyri were found there in the twentieth century. They are now in Dublin, Ann Arbor, Cologny (in Switzerland), the Vatican and Vienna. Sin. was found in a monastery library on the slopes of Mount Sinai in the nineteenth century and brought to St. Petersburg. In 1933 it was sold to the British Museum in London for a mere 100,000 pounds. A was transferred from the patriarchal library at Alexandria in the seventeenth century and is now also in the British Library. B has been in the Vatican since the Middle Ages. We owe the early Egyptian Christians an immense debt. Those who are fortunate enough to be able to work with part of their heritage count their blessings every day.
Tischendorf himself and the British scholars Westcott and Hort produced two rival editions of the Greek text. They believed that their text reflected the original as well as possible, even if it was based on manuscripts dating from at least three centuries after the New Testament was written. Gradually the new critical texts replaced Erasmus' text, which has not received much attention from serious scholars anymore. Thousands more ancient Greek manuscripts of the New Testament have become known in the past 100 years.
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Im sorry Paul but your dependence on the extra biblical writings is not a idea that I can accept.. The text and the oldest text are the best source of truth we have. Clearly the older text are more accurate and these additions as in Mt and Mark are just that..additions
I could not establish the age of Origens writings as it relates to the oldest known text? Do you have a source that I could look to for your dating?
No my brother, I do not depend on these but as I said they are a powerful witness. For the earliest writers only two generations had passed. Sin and Vat were not even made until 400 years later. Who knows how many variances could have entered into these.
You say, “With the help of the earlier papyrus manuscripts we have been able to establish that the text of these three great manuscripts is to a large extent reliable. “
I’m not sure of that since they differ between themselves in literally 1000s of instances. I am not dogmatic over this point but the modern consensus is not totally honest with lay readers and this is the first reason I am bothered by their perspective. For example you mention P75 which though it does not contain the periscope or the events of Gethsemane, in every other respect it is a match for the Majority Text and in this part of Vaticanus the two agree.
In other places Sinaiticus differs, like with Mark 16:9, if we trust Vaticanus it is either deleted or had not yet written in, as it contains the appropriate empty space for where it should be or was intended. On the other hand, if we trust Sinaiticus, the book stops at Mark 8 abruptly with no post resurrection statement. Alexandrinus on the other hand (from where Mark’s gospel was published) includes the entire text through verse 20. Earlier still, when Jerome wrote the Vulgate he gathered the best documents in his time and had the unfettered testimony of most church leaders and scholars at the time. He includes verses 9-20. Then in the even earlier fathers, at least one quotes and others infer from these very verses. (?!?)
If you do some digging you will find that there are 3,036 textual variations between Sinaiticus and Vaticanus in the text of the Gospels alone (656 in Matthew; 567 in Mark; 791 in Luke; 1022 in John). Which do you suppose is closest to the autographs with such vast distinctions? Obviously they are neither the oldest nor the best, but many of the Papyri are closer and thus more reliable. Sometimes they agree with one or the other but mostly they agree with the Majority Text.
In some cases Sin and Vat, are in disagreement with the quotations from the earlier Texts quoted by those who received the originals from the Apostles or their immediate disciples. Burgon notes that “…the omissions, additions, substitutions, transpositions, and modifications, are by no means the same in both. It is in fact easier to find two consecutive verses in which these two MSS differ the one from the other, than two consecutive verses in which they entirely agree." So why would I trust these?
Why should I take the word of 2000 year removed moderns, who in addition, against all of the actual history we do possess, try to insist that I should believe Mark was written first (totally contrived without a shred of evidence). You see?
Take this example….Modern biologists tell me it is the consensus of most biological scholars that at least at one time non-living matter became alive (akin to spontaneous generation)…so then because it is the consensus of modern scholars I should trust it as correct? I think not…at least not me…
You were correct when you said “It is to be noticed that all the manuscripts listed above come from Egypt.” The funny thing is it attested as late as Pamphilus Eusibius (who was himself from the west and only later opened a library in Caesarea where he still possessed a Hebrew Aramaic Matthew which was viewed by Jerome) that NONE of the autographs were entrusted to the west, they were all entrusted to the churches of the east with the exception of Mark…Sin and Vat would not be written for another 100+ years…
Origen wrote about 180-250 A.D. and I would not say he is anymore reliable than any other, but he did get to examine all the extant samples of his time and compose a 6 version comparison (a huge scholarly task)...but let's skip him...that's fine, I would not try and force him on you...I also would question a lot of his conclusions but very few of his quotations.
Sorry if I led you away from the OP...so tell me, do you think "and fasting" should be deleted?
Paul
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I believe the older writings are clearly to more reliable, even when these variants are pointed out, common logic and I believe as a matter of faith that God has preserved His Word in Egypt, as He has done in the past. There are many other reasons why I believe the older text are more in line with the doctrines of the gospel. This one issue really has no effect on any doctrine I have, but no doubt is a interesting debate about why these words where added or left out? I don't believe they are part of the original intention of the scriptures, maybe it was Origen himself that added these things, he seemed to promote this idea of added to the scriptures in his process of translation. If indeed this is the first known mention of this translation, and it was his practice to add to the scriptures his own ideas and understandings? Which was the basis of the charges against him, maybe we have stumbled upon the source of these additions