We can, by taking all of the historical data from the beginning of the Christian era, state that it is almost certain that Jesus did exist. There is evidence going back to the middle of the first century, not the second. Both the Scriptures and the external testimony to the movement which He founded argue for his existence. While it cannot be decided with historical certainty, I think that the historical record alone argues for the extreme probability of his existence, and have yet to see an argument which throws this probability into sufficient doubt. If you are asking for a body, that is ruled out by the Christian narrative.

Doubt it. Both Christian and non-Christian offer good records and evidence of how Jesus did exist. Whether he was divine or not... well, we are still debating on that one.

The Book of Acts and Paul’s Epistles indicate that Paul and the original 12 Apostles (with Iscariot’s replacment) had a role in ordaining the leaders of local congregations and all local (legitimate) congregations submitted to the authority of Paul and the Apostles on matters of doctrine and behavior (the Jerusalem conference regarding circumcision).  Tradition holds that the Apostles appointed successors, i.e., men who had the same authority that the Apostles had exercised on earth.  But eventually the number of local congregations became too great to be supervised by the Apostles’ sucessors.  The Apostolic successors were eventually replaced by bishops, and while these bishops had some authority over local congregations within their territory, the bishops themselves did not have to answer to anyone higher up on earth until the time of Constantine.

Just how did they do this?  Could they kick a heretical congregation out of its church buildings?  Could they exile pastors and bishops whom they didn’t like as Constantine was able to do?

An ever ongoing process.

Actually heretics like Marcion were trying to create a canon of a sort as early as the mid-2^nd century.  The Gnostics also created their own heretical writings and if the Gnostics were around during the lifetime of Paul, as some historians and Bible scholars maintain, their writings were likely around as well.  Chances are as long as the Paul and the Apostles were still around, no heresy could gain much headway because it could be countered by Apostolic authority. When the Apostles died, their authority died as well.

This is odd.  The Biblical manuscripts that are usually used to prepare modern English translations of the Bible are associated with Alexandria, i.e., the Alexandrian Text Type.  For someone like me, these modern translations are heretical in the extreme.  Antioch was a Christian center from Apostolic times.  If heresy was to develop in either place, it would most likely have been Alexandria.

I don’t get your meaning.  Did I use the expression “just a few”? Both the Roman Catholic and Anglican Churches claim Apostolic succession.  But what we now know as the Roman Catholic Church did not exist until well after the time of Constantine; the lineage of bishops, cardinals (an un-Biblical office) and popes (another un-Biblical office) back to Paul and the original 12 Apostles cannot possiblly be verified. And if the Anglican bishops and arcbishops are legitimate successors to what the Catholics had, the Anglicans have to explain why God let His officials on earth to become so corrupt that the Anglicans had to depose them.

It kills me when a modern congregation claims to be a New Testament church.  Without Apostles or their legitimate succesors, a New Testament church is impossible.  As far as I know every existing denomination is more or less corrupt.  Congregations that have congregational polity by making themselves the sole authority of doctrine and behavior defy the Bible because New Testament churches submitted to the authority of the Apostles.  Congregations that have episcopalian polity by submitting to a hierarchy of bishops, arcbishops etcetera, also defy the Bible because such elaborate hierarchies did not develop during Biblical times, i.e., before the last Apostle died, and thus may not be Biblical.  And congregations that have presbyterian polity are just variations on the first two.

But what was there to keep heretical congregations from claiming to part of the Body of Christ?  Just because person A says that person B is not a Christian does not mean that person B canot still claim to be a Christian.

But, unlike the church that had the backing of the state, the Apostles had no physical means to enforce their decrees.  I realize that once the Apostles were dead on earth, there needed to be some way to use legal/physical force to maintain legitimte doctrine and practice.  But entrusting the church to the power of the state, which happened with Constantine, was not a good solution.

I became a Christian when I was about 4 years old.  But I was not raised in a Christian home and have never been a member of any church and I do not now attend services anywhere because I won’t associate with lukewarm Christians and hypocrites.  I have never used any translation but the Authorized King James, but I didn’t care about the translation issue until the late 1990s.  The hostility of modern Bible advocates and the emptiness of their anti-AKJ arguments are what made me King James only.

I don’t know much about Greek Orthodox doctrine, but I do respect the Greeks for preserving the Greek record of the NT.  One of the issues that I have run across in my research on the King James only issue is how the Greek term monogenesis should be translated.  Most modern English translation say it means unique, but modern day Greeks can pretty much read the NT in its origianl Koine Greek form and they insist that the word means only-begotten.  Without the Greek record, today’s heretics would be having a run-a-way field day.

There are some people who think the modern day pastor is the be all to end all when it comes to church leadership.  There are others that say the modern day pastor has no Biblical foundation while some say that elder, bishop, pastor and presbyter are all one and the same office.  There are passages in the Book of Acts that do seem to back up this claim.  But I see where a congregation can have too many chiefs and not enough Indians.  I think a congregation should be governed by something akin to the U.S. Constitution- separation of powers and a system of checks and balances so no one can play the dictator and you have more chances to stop heresy if you have more people in positions of leadership.  But too many people with authority and too many checks and balances can be as paralyzing to a church congregation as it too often is with the federal government.  The more people that have to have their say the more likely a church is to not make vital decisions.

I tend to use the term congregation because the church is the entire Body of Christ.  But many congregations (and practically all that have congregationsal polity) tend to see themselves as the sole Body of Christ and thus the only real church.

Can you give me the Scriptural references to back this up?  For a while now I have been trying to find a concise explanation regarding what the NT says about church polity.  I have the AKJ in MS Word format and I have been using the search function off-and-on to find references to apostles, elders, deacons etcetera, but I am bound to miss something with this process.  And most of what I can find on the net is designed to uphold some preacher’s or denomination’s preferred slant.  I hadn’t thought about what the Greek Orthodox Chruch may say on the matter.

I agree that the earthly structure of the NT church was bound to change over time for the simple fact that 12 + 1 men would eventually be unable to do the physical work that administering hundreds and thousands of local congregations would require.  I am just concerned that the expanded earthly church ramain consistent with the spirit, if not the letter, of the Bible.

But can a godly man be fallible when he is doing God’s work with the benefit of God’s guidance?  I cannot tell you how many time modern translation advocates have told me that the Bible is not infallible because man had a role in preparing it.  Some people don’t even think the original autographs are infallible because humans were the ones to put ink to paper.  Claiming that God’s power cannot compensate for man’s shortcomings is denying the supreme power of God.

I’ve always said that the worst thing to ever happen to Christianity was the formation of the Roman Catholic Church and the second worse thing to happen was the Reformation.  Authority without orthodoxy is useless when it is not dangerous.  But orthodoxy without authority can be ineffectual.

Possiblly not during Apostolic times, but likely not since then.

I’ve never thought of the Reformation in this way before, but now that you say this it hit me that there is no stream of Reformation theology that I totally agree with.

I never learned the Russian, but while Ronald Reagan was negotiating nuclear arms reduction agreements with the Soviet Union he liked to quote a Russian proverb that said “trust, but verify”.  Too many of today’s self-proclaimed Christians trust, but don’t verify.

I follow Athanasius, which most Protestants do.  I’ve seen it claimed that Athanasius’ canon includes the Apocrypha, but I have never seen any documentation for the claim.  Traditionally the Apocrypha was printed with Protestant English Bibles, but as a separate section since its Biblical authencity is considered to be doubtful. Eventually the Apocrypha was dropped from printings of the King James to save production costs.  I don’t use the Apocrypha as a general rule, but this is likely because I don’t have ready access to it.  Personally I haven’t studied the issue well enough to venture any comment on whether or not it should be in the canon.

Incomplete and likely intentionally fraudulent manuscripts that likely arose during the persecution of Diocletian.

The Eucharist, as a physical act on our part, has no role in our salvation.  We are saved by faith in Christ, not by works or ritual of our own doing.

They don’t need to be running the church, which is the case where I live.

How so?

I'm not sure I see any point in people who believe firmly in the Bible considering it as evidence in whether Jesus was a historical figure or not.

I happen to agree that the overwhelming likelihood was that he was historical (if not, then it must have been someone else with the same name) but at least the possibility that he wasn't enters into my universe.

Erkut originally asked

Hugo asked:

The earliest version of Josephus' chief mention of Jesus that we have a text of is from the early fourth century (though Josephus's work is first century). That says

There is another earlier reference to Josephus mentioning Jesus. Midway through the third century Origen wrote:

(Origen's reference to books and sections have been challenged.)

There is another reference (apparently) to Jesus in Josephus when he wrote: