One thing that the Armstrongist movement has always been good at is rewriting church history to fit its own narrative of how it is supposed to be. No one in the entire history of Christianity ever understood the history of the church and the Bible until Armstrong and his all-knowing minions hit the scene. Much of that so-called knowledge was a hodgepodge of church history and made-up beliefs that only Armstrongism could produce through the likes of Gerald Waterhouse, Dean Blackwell, Herman Hoeh, Raymond McNair, and a few others that set themselves up as authorities.
Who can forget the complete and utter failure of Herman Hoeh's Compendium of World History? Two columns of supposed history that was so appallingly bad and inaccurate that even Hoeh come out eventually and said it was wrong. Even Hoeh's A TRUE History of the TRUE CHURCH was found to be so full of errors that it was withdrawn and rewritten later as a still appallingly bad work of half fiction.
Never one to learn a lesson from the past, our Great Bwana to Africa and 100 Caucasians, the world's foremost historian and theologian, the highly esteemed and doubly blessed Robert Mzungu Thiel has made another bold statement about church history that is so far off the wall that one can only laugh at his sheer stupidity.
Most do not realize that the Church of God had the ‘chain of custody’ of the New Testament
Just this one sentence of his article is so wrong that it is laughable, especially considering how the churrrent Church of God movement has so little to do with so many books of the New Testament and particularly when it deals with the New Covenant. None is worse about that in COGland than Robert Mzungu Thiel.
He along with others in COGland believes that their lineage goes all the way back through the apostles to the feet of Jesus and then back to Moses and Abraham. The Great Bwana Bob Mzungu though claims his direct line of apostolic privilege goes directly back to the early apostles. That very same lineage means that he, the end-time prophet of God, the all-knowing one of Bible interpretation and scripture, is the sole possessor of truth established in the New Testament (a book which he incidentally refuses to follow).
As usual, he has to slam the Catholics for usurping his claims, the very people who are his first source to go to about anything.
The Catholic Encyclopedia article on the New Testament asserts the following:
The idea of a complete and clear-cut canon of the New Testament existing from the beginning, that is from Apostolic times, has no foundation in history. (Reid G. Canon of the New Testament. The Catholic Encyclopedia. Vol. 3., 1908)
The above is only true if one considers that the Vatican has always represented the true Christian church.
If, however, one believes the Bible and considers the fact that the Church of Rome was not dominating all of Christendom in the first and second centuries—which their own scholars recognize (Duffy E. Saints & Sinners: A History of the Popes. Yale University Press, New Haven, CT, 2002, pp.2,6; Sullivan F.A. From Apostles to Bishops: the development of the episcopacy in the early church. Newman Press, Mahwah, NJ, 2001, pp. 13-15,147)— then the idea that the true Christians’ Church knew the books from the beginning does have a foundation.
Yet, contemporary Protestant scholars often take the Roman Catholic view:
The canon of the NT, as commonly received at present, was ratified by the third council of Carthage (A.D. 397.) (Unger M. The New Unger’s Bible Dictionary. Moody Press, 2009, p. 204)
There are basic two views of the canon. While the last column reflects, to a significant degree, the major scholastic view today, the first column hopefully provides enough scriptural and historical information to show the honest inquirer that, yes, the Church of God had the canon from the beginning.
The entire span of Christianity has had the exact same books in use for over 1,900 years. There is nothing that Armstrongism or the Church of God movement ever preserved that wasn't already preserved and well known.
The true chain of custody for the Church of God has continued to hold the same books of the canon of scripture to this day.Because the Greco-Roman churches often included certain books they dropped and did not include others which they added, that would not be considered an unbroken chain of custody.Although Jesus taught that His church would be a “little flock” (Luke 12:32), most scholars ignore that and accept that the Greco-Romans (and later the Protestants) represent Christianity as a whole. So, they have tended to teach the Greco-Roman view as fact.Most have overlooked the true chain of custody. Part of the reason is that many aspects of church history have been misunderstood.
Deleted was the comment to write in for his booklet that "proves" the improperly named "continuing" Church of a lesser god are the modern-day descendants of the preservers of the Word.
9 comments:
Bob's account of church history is as flawed as his theology. I can't believe that people give him credit for this kind of drivel.
Boob feels the need to create an unbroken "provenance" of "command and control" going back to the original Apostles, both in terms of some kind of singular apostolic succession, an unbroken laying on of hands, and now this claim of Biblical Scripture oversight.
Lost in all of these kinds of claims, is the self evident existence that God does NOT allow human beings to own him! He allowed the Temple to be destroyed, and not one stone left upon another for a reason... to demonstrate that NO ONE gets to own him!
The Veil in the Temple was ripped when Christ died. There is no longer the need for human intercessors between the faithful believer and God. No need for a "corporate org", no need for a HWA, GTA, Flurry, Pack , Weinland, Cox, Thiel and many other usurpers to act as human go betweens.
Thiel's Catholic background manifests itself with him viewing himself as some kind of Pope. Actually, nearly all of Armstrongism is based on a centralize Catholic type of world view, starting with the WCG.
Well-said, Tonto.
Old Bob is in so far over his tiny little head, that he would have to stand on his doubly blessed tippy toes to grasp for air. What he knows and understands about the patristics, the cannon of Scripture, the original languages and the apostolic line of succession could fit in a thimble...just like him.
But, hey, thanks for the laughs Bob.
The entire span of Christianity has had the exact same books in use for over 1,900 years.
Nonsense.
It is very unfortunate that the COG has never even acknowledged or used either the O.T. Septuagint or the N.T. Peshitta instead of the totally corrupt O.T. Masoretic Text which most English Bibles in existence are based on. In 50+ years of walking this way I've only heard one person "mention" the Septuagint during a message, let alone speak about its authenticity.
Several years ago, the younger brother of one of the WCG ministers who had died visited a WCG-related forum of which I was part. This guy's chief interest in life was apparently to "prove" that the King James Version of the Bible was the only truly inspired version of the Bible today, because it was based on the Masoretic text, while the others, such as Revised Standard, American Standard, and Moffatt were all based on Textus Receptus. Oh, all manner of things came up in the ensuing discussion of the KJV about how Erasmus had taken such and such liberties in translating his parts of the Masoretic Text, and how Shakespeare had embedded his name in one of the Psalms. I mentioned Dr. Gene Scott, who would use various other ancient manuscripts, writing the verses out on a chalk board to compare and supposedly to come up with the most accurate meaning based on all. His scholarship was always fascinating to me. Others went into detail with things not known about the canonization process. It was very educational, but as always, the Armstrongites amongst us in the discussion ignored many of the facts, and remained unconvinced, sticking to what that amazing irrefutable scholar HWA had taught them. The poster was a one topic apologist, and eventually disappeared from the forum, but not before labeling me as a Jesuit type because I had also mentioned the Catholic Bible and deuterocanonicals, some of which provided valuable history of the impact of helenization on the Jews who lived during the intertestamental period. I really wish I'd printed out that discussion, because it contained documented facts which I had never seen anywhere else, and spawned additional study on my part.
I know for a fact that upper classmen at Ambassador College were taught about the Septuagint and the Peshitta, in Third Year Bible, because as I had met up with two of my dorm mates on my way back to the dorm one day, one of them mentioned the Peshitta. I began to laugh uncontrollably, as they stood completely aghast. Knowing how HWA and the ministers were always mocking the Pope, poking fun at competing radio and TV evangelists, and many other Christians (whom they always called "falsely so-called"), I had assumed that these guys were mocking a translation of the Bible they considered bogus by calling it a portmandeau of the crass names for two bodily functions!!! I was amazed that the mocking would go so far, and didn't realize that Peshitta was it's real name! That was my introduction to the Peshitta, and the knowledge that it was actually a thing!
I skimmed the article and found it a little bizarre. Peter knew his and Pauls letters would become "scripture"? How many letters did they send in their lifetimes that we dont have? (Yes, I know 2 Peter is particularly disputed as is.)
He also claims that Polycarp quotes or alludes to the entire NT corpus, which I dont think is correct.
I'm glad that the Armstrong churches of God just inherited the Bible. If they had had a role like the proto-Catholics had, they probably would have edited the scrolls to make Armstrongism of today appear as the essence of truth. As it is, they must work harder, lift from context, spin and twist the scriptures to get where they want them to go.
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