Wednesday, May 6, 2020

The Real History of the True Church...Were we fed a false narrative?





My last six posts have included excerpts from historical documents (without commentary or embellishment from me) related to the history of Christianity. For the benefit of those who may not have read those posts, a brief summary of them for the purposes of this post are in order:

1. Worship Among Early Christians - An eyewitness account of a Christian worship service during the first half of the Second Century AD/CE. In that account, we find Christians meeting on Sunday and reading the "memoirs of the apostles" and the writings of the prophets (as they didn't have access to what we now refer to as the New Testament). It is also interesting to note that a simple communion service is observed, and that members with the financial resources to do so made voluntary contributions that were used to help those members who were in need.

2. Martin Luther's Preface to the Book of Revelation - The founder of the Protestant Reformation in Sixteenth Century Europe gives his opinion that the last book of our New Testament doesn't belong in the canon of Scripture!

3. From Book 3 of Eusebius' Church History - The man who was largely responsible for pulling together the New Testament in the Fourth Century states that II Peter, II & III John, Jude, James, Hebrews and Revelation had not been universally accepted by the Christians of the first three centuries of the Church. In other words, Christians had not been able to agree on which books should be included in the canon for three hundred years!

4. First Century Christianity - This Late First Century manuscript gives us the earliest take on a Christian Statement of Beliefs that we know of (once again, prior to any compilation of a New Testament). This simple statement stands in stark contrast to the elaborate Statements of Beliefs put out by today's churches. It begins with a focus on Christ's two great commandments as the foundational principles on which all else follows. Christians are enjoined not to engage in sinful behaviors, and it provides brief treatises on baptism and the Eucharist.

5. Ignatius of Antioch on Christians Keeping the Jewish Law - In excerpts from the bishop's letters to the Philadelphians and Magnesians, we read that Christians of the Late First Century and Early Second Century were not expected to follow Jewish traditions or religious practices.

6. 70 A.D. - A First Century Jewish historian (Flavius Josephus) gives a graphic account of the destruction of the Temple by the Romans.

Now, WHY DID LONNIE CITE ALL OF THESE PRIMARY SOURCES RELATED TO THE HISTORY OF CHRISTIANITY?

Because they present some very inconvenient truths for Fundamentalist/Literalist Christians - especially for Armstrongites!

In his booklet, Where Is The True Church?, Herbert Armstrong wrote: "So it was, that before A.D. 50 (the Church had been founded in A.D. 31) a fierce controversy arose as to whether the gospel to be proclaimed was the gospel OF Christ, or a gospel ABOUT Christ. Soon the curtain was wrung down on historic records of the Church. It evidenced the fact that a vigorous cooperative and systematic effort was made to destroy historic records of church happenings of the next hundred years. It was the LOST CENTURY in church history. When the curtain of history is raised about A.D. 150, it reveals a church calling itself 'Christian,' but one totally different from the Church Jesus founded through his apostles in A.D. 31."

As you can see from the primary documents I cited (and there are others besides them), there was no "lost century" in terms of the history of Christianity. Yet, the folks who are familiar with Armstrongism will recognize this as a central tenet of his theology (and of those who have followed him). The problem is that, in attempting to explain the emergence of a Christian Church that has abandoned the Sabbath and embraced Sunday, Armstrong and his minions have had to avoid/ignore a whole lot of REAL history!

Yes, Jesus and his disciples kept the Sabbath and observed the Holy Days - THEY WERE JEWS! Yes, the very first Christians were Jewish and observed Jewish traditions and met with other Jews. In fact, we are told in Scripture (see the book of Acts) that this insular attitude of early Christians prevented them from fulfilling the commission which Christ had given to his apostles and church (see Matthew 28:19-20). Indeed, when we continue to read in Acts, we see that Christ had to give Peter a special vision in order to convince him that he should carry the gospel to the Gentiles! Moreover, we know that Christ later raised up Paul as an apostle to the Gentiles, because the twelve simply were not getting it done! Jewish Christians continued to observe the religious traditions which they had been in the habit of observing for their entire lives - until the destruction of the temple in 70 AD/CE made that impossible (remember, there was only ONE place that was a legitimate feast site according to Scripture - see Deuteronomy 16).

Gentiles, however, had no such traditions. Gentiles were never a part of the Old Covenant. They had NEVER observed the Sabbath or the Holy Days. Moreover, the great council of Jerusalem decided that Gentile Christians would not be forced to adopt those features of the Old Covenant - with the exception of a few tenets which everyone agreed should be universal in applicability (see Acts 15). The above history, in combination with Scripture, leads one to the inescapable conclusion that MOST Christians were observing Sunday and didn't have access to any New Testament by the close of the First Century!

The notion that God had handed the Church a completed New Testament and commanded them to observe the tenets of the Old Covenant is made absurd by this history! There simply wasn't any great Roman Catholic or Satanic conspiracy to do away with God's Sabbath during a hundred year period shrouded in mystery!

And Mr. Armstrong was not alone in concocting this false narrative about Church History. There was Herman Hoeh's A True History of the True Church. The United Church of God has its The Church Jesus Built. There is David Pack's Where is the True Church? - and Its Incredible History! We have Gerald Flurry's The True History of God's True Church. There is the Church of God International's documentary, The Chronicles of the New Testament Church. For Armstrongites, this is an essential part of the narrative that makes them superior to the rest of Christianity. They have to tell the story about the rise of a counterfeit Christianity. Never mind that history debunks their false narrative and consigns their efforts to the bin of historical fiction!

I know it feels really good to be so sure and settled about what you believe; but, if your narrative is built on a foundation of sand, how settled can it really be? Rather than read a church booklet on church history, why not do a little digging of your own?


by Lonnie Hendricks

84 comments:

Anonymous said...

Good write up - could use some references. You might add that most of the early church fathers believed in Universal Salvation - another Christian dogma that did not find its way into Armstrongism. Also, I have always been under the impression that the Armstrongist church history was pretty much adopted from the Millerite Church of God Seventh Day - maybe with a little ornamentation by Herman Hoeh. I am not sure how much of this history HWA originated.

Miller Jones/Lonnie C Hendrix said...

NEO,
You're right about Armstrong's source Dugger and Dodd wrote the original history of the true church:

http://www.reformedreader.org/history/dugger/toc.htm

And there are links to each one of the transcripts on my blog if you're interested

nck said...

Most of the information regarding church history can be found in Ellen G. White "The Great Controversy". Except of course the split when SDA split from COG.

nck

Anonymous said...

Universal salvation for everyone except Jews and Judaizers, including all sabbath keepers, I guess!

Anonymous said...

These are an interesting look at the true church narrative of the history of modern religious organizations, including WCG and the WCG splinter groups:

https://concretizedchristianity.wordpress.com/2015/08/23/the-jazz-age-roots-of-modern-religious-organizations-part-1/

https://concretizedchristianity.wordpress.com/2015/08/27/the-jazz-age-roots-of-modern-religious-organizations-part-2/

https://concretizedchristianity.wordpress.com/2015/09/06/the-jazz-age-roots-of-modern-religious-organizations-part-3/

Tonto said...

Lonnie writes ;"They have to tell the story about the rise of a counterfeit Christianity."

I do have to retort that it is "self evident" that things like Xmas, Easter, Priests, Heaven/Hell and many other issues are all non Biblical ideas, and thus could be labeled "counterfeit".

Miller Jones/Lonnie C Hendrix said...

Sorry, for those who are unfamiliar with my blog (Miller Jones = Lonnie Hendrix), I've provided a link below (In the last couple of days, I've added excerpts from two more documents):

https://godcannotbecontained.blogspot.com/

Miller Jones/Lonnie C Hendrix said...

Anonymous 5/7 @ 2:32,
I find myself largely in agreement with Justin Martyr on this one: Observance of the Sabbath and Holy Days is fine as long as you don't make salvation conditional on them - He regarded Christians who observed tenets of the Old Covenant as his brothers and sisters as long as they didn't insist on everyone observing them.

Tonto,
I'm sure you meant to say that some of the traditions associated with Christmas, Easter, Priests and Heaven and Hell are/were nonbiblical. The birth and resurrection of Christ are certainly biblical. Likewise, the Levitical Priesthood and the concepts of heaven and hell are not foreign to Scripture. It is self-evident to me that the narrative around these themes was twisted to make the Armstrong brand of Christianity superior to the mainstream brand of Christianity. It is simply not historically (or biblically) accurate to claim that a majority of Christians were duped into accepting a counterfeit.

Anonymous said...

Anonymous (2:32)

Off the topic but: Christian Universal salvation excludes no one. Everyone is ultimately a part of apokatastasis - the renewal of all things. But it is an exclusivist soteriology in that Christ is the only way to salvation either through this life or post-mortem. When Paul says in Romans all Israel shall be saved, he means exactly what he says and he is talking about salvation through Christ. Calvinists would fight a pitched battle with scripture over the term "all" - they would insist that it doesn't mean "all" (so much for Biblical literalism). The same push back from other Augustinians. Robin Parry's (pseudonym Gregory MacDonald) book is a good place to look for a comprehensive treatment of this.

Anonymous said...

Tonto wrote:

I do have to retort that it is "self evident" that things like Xmas, Easter, Priests, Heaven/Hell and many other issues are all non Biblical ideas, and thus could be labeled "counterfeit"

Well, Egyptians and Phoenicians practiced male circumcision for centuries before Abraham's covenant with YHVH. Apparently YHVH didn't object to taking a pagan custom and adopting it for His people, Israel.

Same can be said about the Feast of Tabernacles, which is attested in Babylon long before there is any record of Israelites keeping that Feast. For that matter, Canaanites were worshipping their rain-god YHVH long before the Israelites knew of any god other than El.

Maybe the matter isn't as cut-and-dried as Tonto assumes?

Anonymous said...

So Miller Jones is a Protestant.
I recall my University sociology book stating that not long after it's inception, the curtain went down on Christianity for about one hundred years. When the curtain was raised, a very different religion was evident.

Byker Bob said...

@8:41 ~ Do you happen to recall the author and title of your Sociology textbook?

I first learned of the Antenicene Fathers in 1966. They were always presented by the WCG as being "Catholic", but I later learned that they were part of an historically documented chain of individuals starting with those who were personally trained as the disciples by Jesus (Apostles), continuing with those whom the apostles trained and appointed or ordained, and continuing through the early centuries of Christianity. They wrote extensively, and about ten years ago, I read as many of their works as I could find in English. Irenaeus, who was one of them, wrote against Simon Magus and other heretics, and made sure that all possible writings by Simon were destroyed. And yet HWA's theory was that Simon Magus had started the Catholic Church, and that the Antenicene Fathers were Catholic.

Christianity did indeed experience its genesis within the Hebrew or Jewish culture, but then expanded or extended to the point where the teachings of and salvation through Jesus were shown to be functional within the contexts of all cultures.

BB

Anonymous said...

Christianity was plagiarized from a mix of different pre-existing beliefs. This included the mystery religions, the pacifist/communist ideas of Jewish fringe sects, and mainstream Judaism (which itself contains a good deal of paganism), as well as some new inventions.

If Jesus really lived there would be historical records of his supposedly profound impact. For example, Herod's slaughter of the innocents, the crowds that followed him, his trial, etc. However, there are only a few vague references to some "Christ" which could refer to any number of people claiming to be a messiah. And there is the passage in Josephus which is clearly fake/fraudulent. So there is NO historical evidence he actually lived. The whole thing is clearly a myth/fraud. Even one of the popes said so.

The whole idea was to fool the Romans. So a group of false witnesses got together and made up some fake gospels and epistles and worked hard for centuries to get them adopted as the Roman state religion. This led to the destruction of Rome and the dark ages (about 1000 years of halted progress).

Miller Jones/Lonnie C Hendrix said...

Anonymous 5/7 @ 8:41,
Lonnie Hendrix (aka Miller Jones) is a Christian who happens to observe the Sabbath. I am a member of Christ's ecclesia, an assembly of people who have accepted salvation through Jesus Christ (which includes some folks who have been labeled as Protestant, Baptist, Lutheran, Catholic, Seventh Day Adventists, etc.).

Anonymous 5/7 @ 10:01,
Just as these writings present problems for Fundamentalists, Literalists and Armstrongites, they also demonstrate that the stories about Christ and writings of Paul were already in wide circulation by the close of the First Century. So, sorry, your narrative is just as twisted and false as the one promulgated by Herbert Armstrong and company!

Anonymous said...

Tonto retorted "...Heaven/Hell..."

I just read a new book by Bart Ehrman, "Heaven and Hell: A History of the Afterlife" which dismisses the widely held view as Heaven for the saved and an eternity in hell for the rest.
Prof Ehrman, along with other scholars, holds the view that Eusebius writings were biased: that the majority belief was the Orthodox and heresies were minor, and the Church as he knew it (4th Century CE) held the same beliefs as that of the First Century CE, were demonstrably false. Ehrman's position is that Christianity fragmented from the beginning, and what became the "true church" was the one that dominated the others, the Catholic Church.

Anonymous said...

Did we ever have any real truth told to us by Hoeh, Waterhouse, Armstrong, and others? They fed us such garbage over the years that even Hoeh had to admit his stuff was junk. The entire system of Armstrongism is poorly researched fake news and fluff which is ultimately a lie.

Anonymous said...


The Bible teaches God's weekly Sabbath. The Roman Catholic Church and most Protestant churches hate it and observe Sunday instead.

The Bible teaches God's annual festivals. The Roman Catholic Church and most Protestant churches hate them and observe customs like X-mass, Easter, and Halloween instead.

The Bible teaches God's laws about clean and unclean animals. The Roman Catholic Church and most Protestant churches hate them and like to eat pigs and other unclean animals.

The Bible teaches God's laws about sexual morality. Many Roman Catholics and Protestants are into not only fornication and adultery, but also the LGBTQ agenda.

The fact is that the world's churches simply do not get their beliefs and practices from the Bible. They simply do not like the Bible's teachings. They like other things instead. And they do not like to acknowledge this inconvenient truth.

Anonymous said...

Anonymous (10:01)

Lots of declarations. You must have read a book.

How about we start with just this one "Christianity was plagiarized from a mix of different pre-existing beliefs."

How about you provide some evidence.

Anonymous said...


Byker Bob at 9:36 AM said...“They wrote extensively, and about ten years ago, I read as many of their works as I could find in English.”


Books can say whatever their authors want them to say. Authors are endless. Books are endless. Theories are endless. Error is endless.

Try reading the Bible for a change to see what God said about His religion.

Anonymous said...

Hoeh had to admit his stuff was junk

Yes, in Ambassador Report there was a story that Dr Hoeh laughed about his 'research'. In another story, regarding HWA's "Pentecost" problem, Dr Hoeh said if HWA wanted it to be Monday, he could argue that it's on Monday; on Sunday, if he wanted it to be on Sunday. I don't know if he offered the other method (used by Orthodox Jews) that the count is from the First Day of ULB, not the weekly Sabbath.
All those endless revisions of lists of kings in the Compendia!! The dynasties may have been correct, but their origin was bogus. Just like twisting history to make Church Eras work. FWIW, Bob Thiel either dropped the Waldenses (who were not really Sabbatarians) or claimed only some of them. Where's Waldo?

Anonymous said...

Try reading the Bible for a change to see what God said about His religion.

He said in the Old Testament that it was a complete book.

Then he said there's a New Testament.

Then he said the Bible got corrupted, so here's the Koran.

People decide what's in books. Reading a book tells you what people say, not what God says. The problem is in deciding which people you can trust.

Byker Bob said...

If you had asked if I had read the Bible, 1:04, I would have told you that I did read two different versions, cover to cover, including all the footnotes, and the cross references that direct you to similar or related scriptures. Plus, the complete works of Josephus.

Or, did you mean to say that I should have read the Bible from the standpoints of HWA's perspectives?. That's usually what COGlodytes mean when they tell someone to read the Bible.

BB

Anonymous said...

"...we find Christians meeting on Sunday..."


actually, they are the ones that left and started their own traditions...



"Martin Luther's Preface to the Book of Revelation - The founder of the Protestant Reformation in Sixteenth Century Europe gives his opinion that the last book of our New Testament doesn't belong in the canon of Scripture!"


what makes his opinion of any value?


what makes the ideas of the Catholic Fathers valuable?...they are the ones that advocated for dropping God's law in favor of man's traditions..

your arguments are pretty much the same ones that led to the founding of the great false church.




Anonymous said...

As I recall, Waldo put his daughter in a convent. He was more of a Catholic reformer than a servant of the "true God".

Anonymous said...


How about we start with just this one "Christianity was plagiarized from a mix of different pre-existing beliefs."

How about you provide some evidence.


You are not trying to find it. If you did you would find it. Try "The Pagan Christ" by Thomas Harpur. And try an internet search engine. There is tons of evidence. Read "The Jesus Mysteries".

Anonymous said...

Early Christian writers knew Christianity had many parallels with paganism. So they accused the devil of plagiarizing Christianity in advance. The same argument was used in the WCG. That's like saying that John Allen plagiarized Mystery of the Ages when he wrote his book on BI that preceded Mystery of the Ages.


Anonymous said...

A lot of bible scholars don't read OUTSIDE the bible so they will never see that the bible is a knock-off of other religions. It's narrow-minded and cultic.

Anonymous said...

"Irenaeus, who was one of them, wrote against Simon Magus and other heretics, and made sure that all possible writings by Simon were destroyed."


So, does that mean that Pack can't write against Flurry and they both still be fake?

Anonymous said...

Funny thing about paper, including cyber paper, they'll just lie there and allow any fool to write what they want upon them! Even Ehrman!

Anonymous said...

Or, other religions are a knock off of the bible. Please produce original evidence of the opposite. Not opinions from hundreds of years after the fact.

Anonymous said...

Try this link:

https://www.amazon.com/Christ-Conspiracy-Greatest-Story-Ever/dp/0932813747

It is called "The Christ Conspiracy: The Greatest Story Ever Sold".

That should convince any rational person some conspiracy theories are real. Remember, Bart Ehrman says scholars in all the Churches know about the stuff he writes about, they just won't preach it from the pulpit. And he says the mainstream churches have known these things for about 200 years! Now THAT really IS a conspiracy. Bart Ehrman is a conspiracy "theorist".

Anonymous said...

Thomas Harper must be 1900 years old, or older to know all these "facts" about the pagan christ. Since there are no original writings making such claims.

Anonymous said...

Thomas Harper must be 1900 years old, or older to know all these "facts" about the pagan christ. Since there are no original writings making such claims.

What on earth are you talking about?

There are first-century writings that make various contradictory claims about Jesus. A small subset of all the first-century and second-century writings about Jesus were selected by the Roman church to be canonized as a "New Testament." If you chose different first-century and second-century original writings, you would end up with a very different Christianity.

Anonymous said...

anonymous (3:04)

Porter and Bedard wrote a response to this book in which they assert:

"The authors demonstrate that the suggestion of pagan origins for the Gospel story is not based on historical or textual evidence, but rather on a desire to create a universalistic spirituality revolving around a "Cosmic Christ" within each person."

You can find anything on the internet, including Armstrongism. The "tons" present there probably does not really qualify as evidence strictly speaking.

I'll pass.

RSK said...

Yeah, when you read through the various WCG attempts at illustrating this "unbroken history", it really is some seriously bad work. It gets even crazier when they start trying to graft the "church eras" nonsense onto it. Armstrong claimed that he had noticed that "the true church always had the 'correct name'," though trying to show that all the cited groups actually used it was very difficult to do.

Anonymous said...


Anonymous at 1:52 PM said...“Then he said the Bible got corrupted, so here's the Koran.”


It was Muhammad, the self-appointed representative of “Allah,” who made up that story. When the Jews wisely refused to accept him, he got mad and made Friday his special day of prayer.

Anonymous said...

Usually I don't learn article on blogs, however I wish to say that this
write-up very compelled me to check out and do so!
Your writing style has been surprised me. Thank you, very nice post.

Anonymous said...

BB
The name of the sociology textbook was "Sociology by Broom and Selznick."

Anonymous said...


Anonymous at 3:04 PM said...“Try 'The Pagan Christ' by Thomas Harpur. And try an internet search engine. There is tons of evidence. Read 'The Jesus Mysteries'.”


Him again.


Quotes from a book called DID JESUS EXIST? by Bart D. Ehrman:

------------

"The reality is that whatever else you might think about Jesus, he certainly did exist. That is what this book will set out to demonstrate.”

“ I hardly need to stress what I have already intimated: the view that Jesus existed is held by virtually every expert on the planet." (page 4, hardcover)

------------

“I am not a Christian, and I have no interest in promoting a Christian cause or a Christian agenda. I am an agnostic with atheist leanings, and my life and views of the world would be approximately the same whether or not Jesus existed.” (page 5, hardcover)

------------

"The idea that Jesus did not exist is a modern notion. It has no ancient precedents. It was made up in the eighteenth century." (page 96, hardcover)

------------

“Real historians of antiquity are scandalized by such assertions—or they would be if they bothered to read Freke and Gandy's book. The authors provide no evidence for their claims concerning the standard mythology of the godmen. They cite no sources from the ancient world that can be checked. It is not that they have provided an alternative interpretation of the available evidence. They have not even cited the available evidence. And for good reason. No such evidence exists.”

“What, for example, is the proof that Osiris was born on December 25 before three shepherds? Or that he was crucified? And that his death brought atonement for sin? Or that he returned to life on earth by being raised from the dead? In fact, no ancient source says any such thing about Osiris (or about the other gods). But Freke and Gandy claim that this is common knowledge. And they 'prove' it by quoting other writers from the nineteenth and twentieth centuries who said so. But these writers too do not cite any historical evidence. This is all based on assertion, believed by Freke and Gandy simply because they read it somewhere. This is not serious historical scholarship. It is sensationalist writing driven by a desire to sell books.” (page 26, hardcover)

------------

But I personally love the Bible. I read it all the time, in the original Greek and Hebrew; I study it; I teach it. I have done so for over thirty-five years. And I don't plan to stop any time soon. But I don't think the Bible is perfect. Far from it.” (page 36, hardcover)

------------

Anonymous said...

2.50 PM
Martin Luther, the founder of the Protestant Reformation? Well, sort of. Several would be founders preceded him, but were squashed by the authorities. It's because of the changing spirit of the age (zeitgeist), that the authorities finally allowed him or similar, to do what he did.

nck said...

Many Christian cults opposed the bishop of Rome assuming primacy over the bishops of the west. The Eastern Church was larger, older and more widespread than Western Christianity. It only died out completely this decade through terrorism.

Tombs of early Christian sabbath keepers have been found in China and Northern India to the surprise of early arriving jesuits.

There have always been dissenting groupings. Western Europe was christened from Ireland not Rome. At the Council of Whitby between the Roman and, Irish bishops the 14th of Nisan and therefore the sabbath was discussed.

The first crusades in Southern France killed many sects amongst them "those that kept sabbath like the Jews".

After the fall of Rome most European Tribes adhered to Arianism and rejected the Trinity. They took this controversy into Northern Africa during the visigoth migrations until Islam overran them. Of course the trinity is a dangerous concept to Islam one God (Hebrew) concept.

Sabbath keepers defended the borders of the Byzantine empire according to Gibbons. Jews, had defended Asuan border earlier on. Celts were among the Ptolemy elite guards. My point! No point, just that you didn't know that last part.

I have read many inquisition papers from the Pyrenees, which like many rural areas harbored dissenters from catholicism. Bearing characteristics like dividing the world in "light and dark", good and evil, (the two trees for that matter), simple mountain folk without bibles, only travelling teachers holding to concepts that are recognizable by armstrongism but maybe also to older eastern religions.

I made the point often that Christ worked as a preteen with his builder father in one of the capital cities of the Roman Empire, next to the main trade routes from the East..... this explains why the learned temple men of Jerusalem were astonished by the deepness of young jesus his philosophy asking questions at 12.

I'm sure a Buddhist Dr Hoeh was on one of the trading caravans from the east and introduce some ideas at Sepphoris.

The Hindus influencing the later Eastern Church must have introduced the concept that a million gods or 3 could constitute Atman or the One principle.

Coincidentally Atman means, breathing in German or Wind in Sanskriet which coincides with Hebrew Ruach for the one who became "The Word". I'm out of breath now so I'll stop speaking.

Nck

nck said...

BTW I agree with 7:41.

History is the sum total of the possibility created by technology for span of control.

The prince's of the trading cities believed the feudal times to be over and Luther was their instrument to break free through the bloodiest of conflict 30 year war.

After Covid a new religion will emerge if technology is introduced to increase the span of control over all data of every citizen in the world.

This AI God will know more about my future than the lesser Google God who will be trampled as a lesser or "earlier version" of the new religion. Kinda like the High Places of the Edomites ridiculed by the Jerusalem Temple Priests of the New, religion, while they just represented old VS new and more span of control.

Old Jesus was a suffering man. Current Jesus is a blue eyed American.
Next Jesus is the one solving real problems through Intelligence and data.

Nck

Kieren said...

HWA's notion of church history is actually hilarious.

The "lost century" starts (according to HWA) either in 50AD or 70AD. And yet there is hardly a book in the NT that is written before that. Nearly every single book has evidence it is written post-Jewish War (70AD) ... and yet this is meant to be the time where we have "no evidence of what the church looks like."

Nice...

Anonymous said...

Some Armstrongists are very proud of the lengthy history of their church(es). It represents to them a kind of credential supporting the idea of their being the "true church." Actually it means little - it is like a grand tour through the one-off churches of history. And the Branch Davidians can claim the same vaunted pedigree.

Anonymous said...

Depending on who you listen to, some of the "history" of the early church was back-dated to make it look earlier than it really was. Then of course, some of it is just fake.

Anonymous said...

The story of the child Moses being put in a basket in a river was plagiarized from an earlier pagan myth. So even the OT was faked.

Anonymous said...

Kieren
The bible was inspired and protected by God through the ages, so your point is mute.

Anonymous said...

Bart Ehrman knows about conspiracies. He knows that for 200 years the churches have hid from the members the truths in the books he writes. The very things that turned him to agnosticism. I think I have to call that a conspiracy. A VAST conspiracy. What else would you call it?

Anonymous said...

Bart Ehrman lives in a circle of bible scholars. How much do they read OUTSIDE the bible? How much do they know about the history of paganism? They cannot see all the pagan stories in the bible because they don't know much about paganism.

These people basically accept the gospels as history. They can't see that it is fake history. But take out all the miracles (which Ehrman does not believe if he is an atheist) and all the stories borrowed from paganism, and there is not much left.

So in what sense did Jesus live? What parts of the gospels are based on an actual man from Galilee? Most of it is myth. Perhaps a few events from some actual person were thrown in. Even if so, most of it is myth.

Anonymous said...

" the learned temple men of Jerusalem were astonished by the deepness of young jesus his philosophy asking questions at 12."

This is another story copied from paganism.

Anonymous said...

Either the miracles in the Koran are fake or the miracles in the gospels are fake. Or both are fake. Which is it?

Well, one or both are fake. One or both are the result of a conspiracy. Conspiracies are real.

Anonymous said...

The entire new testament was written by Jews, but few Jews were ever converted. Ever wonder why? Because it was written by Jews FOR Gentiles. They never believed it themselves. It was a conspiracy. "Paul" took the gospel to Rome, claiming the Jews had rejected it. A nice cover story for pushing it on the Gentiles.

Anonymous said...

Who do the authors of The Jesus Mysteries quote from?

Cicero. Plato. Justin Martyr, Euripides, Seneca, Herodotus, and many others. Perhaps if Mr. Ehrman would dig deeper he would find the evidence that he says does not exist.

Byker Bob said...

Thank you, 7:06.

The reason for my question was that prior to your comment, HWA/WCG was the only source from which I had ever personally heard of a lost century in church history. So, your Sociology textbook constituted a second reference, and I wondered if there could have been a connection between the authors and HWA. The earliest copyright date I was able to find for your book was 1964. If I recall correctly, HWA developed his Simon Magus theory sometime during the early '60s. So, it is indeed possible that someone on the Ambassador College "research" staff was aware of Broom and Selznick. HWA considered an antequated version of Encyclopedia Britannica to be perhaps his most valued resource for information, iirc that would have been the 1912 version? It is possible that such a statement re: lost century of church history might have come from that source, with both HWA and Broom or Selznick having been aware of it.

At any rate, I was totally amazed when I realized how much information was actually extant and available, and of the writings and debates of those whom the original disciples/apostles had ordained, and whom those leaders had then ordained, etc. These sources were inly excerpted by AC "research" for the purpose of "proof-texting", which is why I wanted to read their works in their entirety and in context. I also read as much of the Nag Hammadi library as I could find in English.

BB

Anonymous said...

Suppose Osiris was not born on Dec 25. Who was? Where does Ehrman think that Christmas came from? Does he not see the connection between Christmas and the solstice? (Is there any evidence that a carpenter from Galilee was actually born on that day?) Does Ehrman not see the connection between the halo and the sun (sun god)? Does he not see a connection between Easter and the equinox? Does he not see a possible/probable connection between the crown of thorns and the rays of the sun? Does he not see any connections between Christianity and Astronomy? What about the holy days and their connection to the new moons? What about Christian worship on SUN-day? Does he see no connection to Christmas or Easter and pre-exisiting pagan religions rooted in astronomy? What about the Easter rabbit and the pagan spring fertility rites? No connection whatsoever? Even Herbert could see that. Herbert wasn't wrong about EVERYTHING. Neither was Hislop. Is Ehrman going to argue that all this is in the Bible? Is the Easter bunny in the bible? If not, where did it come from?

Byker Bob said...

Well, 3:24, the Antenicene Fathers are internationally recognized by historians, and their works valued by all who are interested in early church history. The same HWA who credited Simon Magus with having started the Catholic Church also wrote off the Antenicene Fathers as being "Catholic", and I just cited Irenaeus, one of the AFs as having been aware of Simon Magus, and having written extensively about Simon as having been a heretic.

As for Flurry and Pack, they're just two ridiculous old guys sitting around playing mud pies. Nobody outside of a very small circle of friends is even aware of them. They perpetuate their own franchises of Armstrongism, in which they go to even further extremes, and have nothing to do with the original chain of leaders from the early centuries of Christianity. They are irrelevant and have nothing to do with the validity or historicity of Irenaeus.

BB

Byker Bob said...
This comment has been removed by the author.
Anonymous said...

“What, for example, is the PROOF that Osiris was BORN on December 25 ... do not cite any HISTORICAL evidence. ... This is not serious HISTORICAL scholarship."

The Osiris story was a MYTH. Osiris was never born because he never lived. What kind of historical evidence does Ehrman want? The Osiris MYTH was never meant to be taken literally. So of course there is no proof he was born on Dec 25. Who was? How did the solstice and equinox and SUN-day come to Christianity if not from pagan myths?

Anonymous said...

No connection between Dec 25 and Osiris the sun god?

"Many ancient passages referring to Mithras compare him to Apollo or Osiris; he is simply the Persian name for the ‘unconquerable sun’. Translation and synthesis of religions was a common trend in the 2nd and 3rd century; with the joining of races under the Greco-Roman empire, rather than fighting for supremacy, most people assumed that different cultures worshiped the same gods under various names. Thus Mithras was just another sun god, and desirable features or symbols from other cultures were blended together. When the Roman Empire celebrated Dec. 25th as the Day of the Invincible Sun (Sol Invictus), followers of Apollo, Mithras, Osiris, Attis and other mystery [yes, MYSTERY] cults could join together in celebration of light and goodness."

https://www.holyblasphemy.net/mithras-and-jesus/

All sources seem to say much the same thing. Osiris was a sun god. The sun is re-BORN about Dec 25. I don't know what Ehrman's problem with that is.

Anonymous said...

Suppose Osiris was not born on Dec 25. Who was? Where does Ehrman think that Christmas came from? Does he not see the connection between Christmas and the solstice? (Is there any evidence that a carpenter from Galilee was actually born on that day?)

Many carpenters lived in Galilee. It would be surprising if, between 4 BC and 1 AD, there was no carpenter born in Galilee on December 25. There might have been several.

It would be even more surprising, however, if any of those carpenters fit the description of Jesus Christ in the New Testament.

Anonymous said...

There is never going to be an agreement on the above comments, you can have 2 people read the exact same thing and they are both going to interpret it differently. I have tried this with a member of RCG that I live with. I have read some the writings of the early authors and it explained to me how some of the things came about such as the meeting on Sunday, made sense to me. This going back and forth will never end and maybe this is the way it should be. Sometimes we may just learn something we didn't know before.

Byker Bob said...

Always attempting to see the humor in these things, I always get a kick out of how these discussions usually end up in a three way tug of war amongst the primary identifiable factions here, which the following attitudes typify:

"Here's yet another big thing that HWA got wrong, and here are the proofs."

"No he didn't! You rebelled against God's Apostle because you hate the Sabbath, so you lost the Holy Spirit and can no longer understand!"

"You are both wrong, because God and Jesus are just cartoons, so none of this matters!"

LOL!

BB

Anonymous said...

More on the debate between Erhman and his opponents:


https://www.holyblasphemy.net/did-jesus-exist-by-bart-ehrman/

https://www.holyblasphemy.net/category/historicaljesus/

RSK said...

Osiris, the sun god? That was Ra (and/or Amun), IIRC...

Anonymous said...

Anonymous (7:00)

If one culture records an event similar to an event in another culture, does that incontrovertibly mean the first culture plagiarized the event from the other? Especially if there are substantive dissimilarities. Do you see the illogic of your statement?

Other convincing evidence is needed to rule out simple coincidental thinking. Abrogating the entire OT based on illogic kinda gives us an idea of where you politics are.

Anonymous said...

Miller Jones, May 7, 2020 at 7:25 AM, said:
******
"Sorry, for those who are unfamiliar with my blog (Miller Jones = Lonnie Hendrix), I've provided a link below (In the last couple of days, I've added excerpts from two more documents):

https://godcannotbecontained.blogspot.com/"
******
FWIIW, I visited that link site and found an article dated Saturday, April 4, 2020 with the title of "The Problem of Evil."

The final paragraph I found to be a conclusion with interesting questions stating:

"...Bottom line: Evil is a problem that serious theists must be willing to confront, but it does not constitute proof that God doesn't exist. If God really cannot be contained, then there is a strong probability that most of us still haven't gotten to the bottom of the questions that confronted Adam and Eve in the Garden of Eden - What constitutes GOOD and EVIL? and Who gets to decide?..."

HWA went back to that Garden of Eden regarding the two trees numerous times, but found it difficult to come with anything new. He just kept going back there and repeating things he had already told us. HWA believed we lived in a world help captive, and if that was true, then how specifically was Satan taking the world captive? HWA couldn't tell us.

But good and evil? God knows good and evil. Adam was not given a choice about the fruit of the tree of knowledge of good and evil, but he was given a command. Eat the fruit and death would eventually result.

The nature Adam and Eve were given by God was "very good (Gen 1:21)," and Adam and Eve knew the good, but they didn't know the evil until after Satan was allowed into that Garden and did something to the minds of Adam and Eve; it was after that occurred that Adam and Eve came to learn about evil. They ate the fruit; they died.

Anyway, this isn't for this thread, but I found it interesting to read that article. I am confident we will all learn more in time. Thanks for sharing.

And time will tell...

John

Anonymous said...

NEO wrote:

Abrogating the entire OT based on illogic kinda gives us an idea of where you politics are.

Sorry, but it is the OT itself that insists that if one part can be disproved, the entire thing should be abrogated an inspired text.

nck said...

What about John the Baptist conveying knowledge to John the Apostle with Jesus his student as an intermediate.

I mean Jesus as the Essenes "son of light" from the copper scroll.

And the book of revelation as a Stargate or starmap with all the constellation mentioned for those who have eyes to see.

Anyway I guess I just revealed to John time will tell the keys as to who keeps the world captive and by what means.

The means are debt..........and control of the narrative. Was it Chris Columbus who found America or his sponsors?

All a play and We are merely the players.

Nck

nck said...

And why are the banking family that brought you Columbus and the cog sponsoring the same diggers in Jerusalem.

And no not the Rothschildts.WCG worked with the Rothschildts only from 1982- 1992. Before that they worked on the implementation of the Rockefeller "Prospect for America" plan.

Or at least the announcement of it since hwa often said he was ONLY the newscaster.

Nck

Anonymous said...

The Sun god had many names.

Even Jesus goes by many names or titles. The Lamb, The Lion of the tribe of David, etc.

RSK said...

But the Lamb, the Lion of the tribe of David, etc arent considered to be separate people. Osiris is not a title for Ra, anymore than David Pack is a title for Gerald Flurry.

WHAT ABOUT THE TRUTH said...


After Covid a new religion will emerge if technology is introduced to increase the span of control over all data of every citizen in the world.

This AI God will know more about my future than the lesser Google God who will be trampled as a lesser or "earlier version" of the new religion. Kinda like the High Places of the Edomites ridiculed by the Jerusalem Temple Priests of the New, religion, while they just represented old VS new and more span of control.

Old Jesus was a suffering man. Current Jesus is a blue eyed American.
Next Jesus is the one solving real problems through Intelligence and data.

Nck

May 7, 2020 at 9:57 PM



Nck are you really introducing Jesus as an extraterrestrial coming to a world of transhumanism?

As in the days of Noah indeed!

nck said...

WATT

No extraterrestrials exist. No life exists beyond earth.

A point I have been making many times is that technology is rapidly progressing to taking all characteristics commonly attributed to "gods".

(healing, predictive qualities, real time worldwide contacts...... IT might even bring social justice and peace when we start understanding crowd behavior more etc etc etc)

As a matter of fact Google does know that women are pregnant before they do or parts of the nation are developing "pestilence" before the help of scientists is invoked. And Google is just a prototype for what data is really extracted on behavior.

I am not saying "man is improving". For more eloquent explanation I might just introduce Yuval Noah Harari for some inspiration.

As a matter of fact.... if you would pray loudly "who is this Harari guy" your mobile phone will start telling you...... with the right settings.

Nck

nck said...

WATT
A careful reading of my posting shows that I am critical of those ridiculing "older prototypes of anything". In commenting on social progress I find myself philosophically on the side of the great teacher hwa.

I have extrapolated his teachings however into compassion for the Neanderthaler and critical advancement of the human race through technological aid. I have extrapolated HWA's world tomorrow, (which was the 1939 Technology Fair in New York) into a world where Cargill and Monsanto have eridicated world hunger.

But I am open to more green initiatives like "city greenhouses" or other experiments like cars producing (solar) energy to the grid as they sit idle anyway most of the day.

Nck

Byker Bob said...

The Rothschilds certainly do accomplish good around the world, nck. But didn't you feel a lot better, so much more secure when we could count on Republican presidents to work closely with the Bilderberg Group? Much of the credit for the prevention or postponement of additional world wars certainly should go to the Bilderbergs.

BB

nck said...

11:06

Yes BB. True! Not so much because of the political affiliations but more so because of the established close working principles.

My professor missed the security arrangements in one of my thesis but I argued that it was time to shift to more pressing issues of global Governance. I admit, health was not on my list at the time.

Today CNN reports with horror the abandonment of American leadership.

I don't know if the Bilderbergers specifically prevented wars, as for instance Germany was officially also under Russian control until 1992.

But I am sure they prevented a lot of civil unrest as the Reds provided an attractive alternative for many versus popular (American) music through radio Luxembourg, radio monte Carlo, pirate Stations and others outside of transatlantic cooperation ("OR NO FLESH WILL BE SAVED...... shaking jowls, trembling world leader facing internal socialist opposition)

Nck

WHAT ABOUT THE TRUTH said...

Yes Nck,

I have a globe keepsake from the 1939 New York fair. My Irish grandmother treated herself to that gift after somehow surviving giving birth to my 13 1/2 pound dad at close to 40 years old the year and a half prior.

That globe was given to me by my grandmother because she understood what a then young impressed teenager had embraced concerning the world tomorrow.

I have only pictured you Nck as a polymathist. Hwa sold us the mystery of renaissance humanism at a cost. Cargill and Monsanto have indeed fed the world, but the cost as determined by one California court is $50,000,000 per man.

The terrestrial Jesus was right. The gates of hell would not prevail against his church. What is a lost hundred years or not. The corruption and violence of the human potential is recorded starting Gen. 3 and has continued unto this day.

The prevailing church came at a cost or will come at a cost. Did we really know what we were asking for with Matt. 20:22 plainly in site?

nck said...

Thank you WATT for sharing that great personal story about the pale lass with the green eyes. It warms my heart in the same way when I heard of one of the blogs contributers whose ancestors shipped all over on the Red Star liners from the Port of Antwerp or the day I met that member who was related to George Washington's mother.

I find your remark about Renaissance humanism most interesting. Florence warms my heart as no other city. David there is uniquely portrayed NOT on classical manner AFTER the slaying of Goliath but BEFORE the action, set to action, set to make his mark, ready to act...... Indeed people count the cost on this blog as they misinterpreted THE PRINCE. I only relate the story of "the Italian sunk gardens" and the Italian mansions as adorned by Eckbo and Mendenhall. Much to the chagrin for those who only know the cost.

I am sorry.

Nck

nck said...

My friend WATT
Re:transhumanism

I will admit to being brainwashed on one point and one point alone. The technique to ingrained cog transhumanism in me worked as follows:

Dark cinematic setting.
Although hall is full darkness imprints being a sole human in a great universe.

10... 9.....8....8.....6......5.......4......3.......2........1 bleeeeep ambassador productions....... The following is a worldwide church of God presentation.

Blue earth starts spinning, focus on earth zoom in............. Become part of the collective human consciousness by observing the earth from outside beyond all known boundaries.

Music swells.

Nck is begotten.

Nck

Anonymous said...

BykerBob, Quality Bait! at May 8, 2020 at 11:06 PM. Not biting.

"The notion that God had handed the Church a completed New Testament and commanded them to observe the tenets of the Old Covenant is made absurd by this history!"

Makes you really wonder why Jesus Christ never wrote the New Testament himself. If He did, would it have mattered anyway?

DBP

nck said...

DBP
I clicked on the 2nd link (in the article) on Iran. It shows a) some names that at that time cooperated with a cog project b) the ways of us diplomacy (hwa as mercury messenger of the God's and Israeli prime ministers rushing from Jerusalem to tel Aviv for hwa in the midst of meetings)
I do not understand why you included the article on the Bilderberger Kissinger. It is common neocon speak to not include Israel as a major American Foreign Policy objective. (why should millions die to protect a tiny nation). Also a "Jewish state" are contentious words especially for the Druze minority. The racism of a Jewish state can never be a foreign policy objective of the US, the maintenance of the status quo can, but the neocons did everything in their power to change the status quo in the middle east with the bush Jr puppet, not versed like Darth Vader Cheney.

Nck

Anonymous said...

Nck, the neoliberals have supported and extended the game plan of the neocons. Libya, Syria, and the clandestine support for the Muslim Brotherhood during the Obama administrations come to mind. Do you remember McCain and Clinton with their paws in Libya and Syria? I included Kissingerbecause he is a major proponent for the NWO, or I like to call it the Nuclear World Order.

So, if Jesus wrote the New Testament himself, how could one prove it? You can't. You could try telling someone the truth, better still would be showing someone the truth, and best yet is experiencing the truth for yourself. I think this is what the apostles did and we are just left reading their journals.

DBP

nck said...

DBP
My concern is limited by this blogs mission statement to COG involvement not world politics in general. That's why some of my postings seem warped, because of the imposed box.

Nck

Anonymous said...

HWA was a close friend of the terrorist Meachem Beagin,PM of Israel, who called himself the father of terrorism and who blew up the king David Hotel in 1946.


See the book "Israel's Sacred Terror". No wonder Palestinians call Israel a terrorist state.