New Testament Also Ran`s

Jan 28, 2025 18:11


Preview

  1. Review & Preview
  2. Didache
  3. Shepherd of Hermas
  4. Epistle of Barnabas
  5. Gospel of Hebrews
  6. Review
  7. Sources
Divine Inspiration and Related Issues Raised By the Also Ran's [1]

Didache

Listen to audio of The Didache

The Didache, aka Teachings of the Twelve Apostles [2]

Didache If Didache had made it into the New Testament, it would be most like the book of Proverbs in the Old Testament. There are no stories or narratives, mostly just a rephrasing of New Testament sayings by Jesus and the Apostles with some new material here and there. It was rejected for the New Testament because of its late date, not so much its content.

Comments from Ehrman's Lost Books, pp. 211-2 [3]



Didache, Highlights [4]

Shepherd of Hermas


Shepherd of Hermas

The Shepherd of Hermas [5]
  • Scholars disagree about its date, arguing from 85 AD to 150 AD
  • Accepted as canonical by some early churches, and vigorously rejected by others


Who Was Hermas? [6]

  • Contemporary of Clement
  • Perhaps a former slave
  • Probably Jewish


Who Was the Shepherd? [7]

The Shepherd was a guardian angel of sorts sent to give commandments and explain the Visions and the Similitudes (Parables) to Hermas.

The Shepherd of Hermas: Plot and Structure [8]

  • The Plot – Hermas, the main character, is a freed slave with a wife and two grown sons. An old woman (the Church) appears to him in four visions. Then, an angelic Shepherd, appears in another vision, followed by a series of commandments and parables.
  • The Structure
    1. Book I: Five Visions
    2. Book II: Twelve Sets of Commandments
    3. Book III: Ten Parables (About 50% of the text)


The Shepherd of Hermas and Allegorical Tone [9]

  • If you’ve read Pilgrim’s Progress, this will seem familiar
  • It also reminds me VERY much of The Shack, a 2007 novel (later a movie) about a father’s interactions with God after the man’s child was molested and murdered
  • I sort of lean towards this being a literary work flowing from imagination, like Pilgrim’s Progress, rather than a reporting about a series of actual visions. I suspect some of the early readers might have considered the visions as real.
  • In the NT and OT, prophets interact with male angels in their visions and dreams. It is very curious to see visionary encounters similar to the Old Testament prophets or Revelation with a woman instead of a man doing the talking.


The Shepherd of Hermas (Giving) [10]

  • Fraudulent Alms Recipients Will Answer For It – “They who receive, will render an account to God why and for what they have received. For the afflicted who receive will not be condemned, but they who receive on false pretenses will suffer punishment.” (Kindle Location 362-363)
  • Give Without Worry - “He, then, who gives is guiltless. For as he received from the Lord, so has he accomplished his service in simplicity, not hesitating as to whom he should give and to whom he should not give. This service, then, if accomplished in simplicity, is glorious with God.” (Kindle Location 363-365).
  • Do we give unquestioningly or do we weigh our giving? Foreign Aid Follies? - The more you FEED, the more they BREED, the more they NEED (A poster I saw on the internet.)


The Shepherd of Hermas (Cheating Wife Returns?) [11]

“And I said to him, What if the woman put away should repent, and wish to return to her husband: shall she not be taken back by her husband? And he said to me, Assuredly. If the husband do not take her back, he sins, and brings a great sin upon himself; for he ought to take back the sinner who has repented. But not frequently. For there is but one repentance to the servants of God.” (Kindle Locations 394-396

The Shepherd of Hermas (One Repentance) [12]

  • “And therefore I say to you, that if any one is tempted by the devil, and sins after that great and holy calling in which the Lord has called His people to everlasting life, he has opportunity to repent but once. But if he should sin frequently after this, and then repent, to such a man his repentance will be of no avail; for with difficulty will he live. And I said, Sir, I feel that life has come back to me in listening attentively to these commandments; for I know that I shall be saved, if in future I sin no more. And he said, You will be saved, you and all who keep these commandments.” (Kindle Locations 420-424).
  • It is not just Hermas who appears schizophrenic on the issue of repentance and forgiveness. The Church has great contention over Church Discipline in its future, with some claiming The Church does not have the right to override God with a premature, undeserved forgiveness.


The Shepherd of Hermas (False Prophet Identifiers) [13]

“Hear, then, says he, in regard to the spirit which is earthly, and empty, and powerless, and foolish. First, the man who seems to have the Spirit exalts himself, and wishes to have the first seat, and is bold, and impudent, and talkative, and lives in the midst of many luxuries and many other delusions, and takes rewards for his prophecy; and if he does not receive rewards, he does not prophesy.” (Kindle Locations 602-605).

The Shepherd of Hermas (Rich and Poor Symbiosis) [14]

“Listen, he said: The rich man has much wealth, but is poor in matters relating to the Lord, because he is distracted about his riches; and he offers very few confessions and intercessions to the Lord, and those which he does offer are small and weak, and have no power above. But when the rich man refreshes the poor, and assists him in his necessities, believing that what he does to the poor man will be able to find its reward with God— because the poor man is rich in intercession and confession, and his intercession has great power with God— then the rich man helps the poor in all things without hesitation; and the poor man, being helped by the rich, intercedes for him, giving thanks to God for him who bestows gifts upon him.” (Kindle Locations 712-717)

The Shepherd of Hermas (Fasting) [15]

  • "Having fulfilled what is written, in the day on which you fast you will taste nothing but bread and water; and having reckoned up the price of the dishes of that day which you intended to have eaten, you will give it to a widow, or an orphan, or to some person in want, and thus you will exhibit humility of mind, so that he who has received benefit from your humility may fill his own soul, and pray for you to the Lord.” (Kindle Locations 792-795).
  • The early church contains a strain of what I consider an unhealthy, ascetic self-mortification in the early church—especially in the anchorite and stylite monks. The Shepherd’s recommendation for fasting here is other-centered rather than self-centered; a good thing!

Epistle of Barnabas

Epistle of BarnabasThe Epistle of Barnabas [16]

  • Written c. 120 AD
  • Controversial book, widely-read and used but most influential church leaders of whom we have a record rejected its canonicity

Who Was Barnabas? [17]

  • Not Paul’s co-laborer Barnabas
  • Alexandrian Jew?
  • Used Philo’s allegorical interpretation of Scripture
Barnabas and Dispensationalism [18]

“5:2 For there are written concerning him certain things that pertain unto Israel, and certain other that pertain unto us.”

Barnabas Explaining the Incarnation [19]

“5: 10 For if he had not come in the flesh how could men have looked upon him and have been saved, since they cannot endure to look at the rays of the sun which must one day perish, and which is the work of his hands?”

Barnabas and Circumcision [20]

“9: 6 But he will say, Of a truth the people have been circumcised for a seal unto them; but so, also, hath every Syrian and Arabian, and all the priests of idols. Do they also belong to the covenant? But the Egyptians also are in circumcision.”

Barnabas and Allegorical Interpretation [21]

“10: 6 Thus, he saith, Thou shalt not eat the hare, meaning thou shalt not indulge in unnatural lusts; 10: 7 nor shalt thou eat the hyaena, meaning thou shalt not be an adulterer; 10: 8 nor shalt thou eat the weazel, meaning thou shalt not do uncleanness with thy mouth concerning food;”

Allegorical Interpretation from Their Eyes [22]

Believers in the allegorical method would have looked down on us for treating the Bible like any other book with our (sniff of disapproval) Historical-Grammatical method. For them, the Bible is a spirit-breathed book requiring a special hermeneutic for it alone. Our faith and the Spirit enable us to interpret the Scriptures allegorically, i.e., spiritually.

Barnabas and Graven Images [23]

“12: 6 For in the end Moses himself, after that he had given commandment, There shall not be among you a molten image or a graven image for a god, maketh one himself, that he might show a type of Jesus. Moses, therefore, maketh a brazen serpent, and setteth it aloft, and calleth the people by a proclamation.”

Superiority of Christians Over Jews in the Old Testament [24]

  • “Two nations are in thy womb, and two peoples are in thy bowels, and the one people shall surpass the other, and the elder shall serve the younger.” (Locations 564-565).
  • Jacob said unto Joseph, I know, my child, I know; but the elder shall serve the younger; (Kindle Locations 576-577)
Barnabas and Early Eschatology [25]

“And he himself beareth witness unto me, saying: Behold this day a day shall be as a thousand years. Therefore, my children, in six days, that is in six thousand years, shall all things be brought to an end.”

Barnabas and Abortion [26]

“[T]hou shalt not kill a child by abortion, neither shalt thou destroy it after it is born.”

Gospel of Hebrews



Gospel of HebrewsThe Gospel of the Hebrews [27]

  • Has not survived intact
  • Remnants remain in writings of Clement of Alexandria, Origen, Didymus the Blind, and Jerome
  • Used primarily by Jewish Christians

Sources [28]