No Bible

The Christian Bible was compiled and edited some years - I think more than a century after Christ's crusifiction.

Could Christianity have developed without the Bible.

Would the absence of a Bible have weakened fundamentalism. Some people seem to worship a narrow view of the Bible as much as God.
 
I think your just talking about Christian Fundamentalism, since there also exists Islamic Fundamentalism also. While Fundamentalism, as defined by the dictionary, says a movement in 20th century Protestantism emphasizing as fundamental the literal inerrancy of the Scriptures, the second coming of Jesus Christ, the virgin birth, physical resurrection and substitutionary atonement, I think it has also come in mean believing in the basic tenants of any religion.

Some compliation like the Bible was bound to happen in the Early Church, thats the only way to make sure everyone was following Church doctrine. There were rival sects of Christianity, but they lost out. Most of the time they were the side with the weaker armies. Christianity could have developed without a 'Holy Book', tho eventually the winning side will produce one.
 
Derek Jackson said:
The Christian Bible was compiled and edited some years - I think more than a century after Christ's crusifiction.

Could Christianity have developed without the Bible.

Would the absence of a Bible have weakened fundamentalism. Some people seem to worship a narrow view of the Bible as much as God.
Best chance for this is to have the other sects, such as Gnosticism, survive and flourish. Many of the different sects had different opinions on what books were canon. For example, the Ethiopian Chruch considers the Book of Jubilee canon, while the rest of Christianity doesn't. So, if you get various sects, you could easily have various bibles. Not exactly what you're looking for, but its probably the closest you can come to it.
 
Derek Jackson said:
The Christian Bible was compiled and edited some years - I think more than a century after Christ's crusifiction.

Could Christianity have developed without the Bible.

Would the absence of a Bible have weakened fundamentalism. Some people seem to worship a narrow view of the Bible as much as God.

Christianity DID develop without the Bible, which didn't hold any great importance to the Catholic Church until recently, although the Reformation gave it a central role in Protestantism.

Since it was in Latin, almost nobody could even read it.
 
Which came first the chicken or the Bible?

I pretty much agree with Dominus. It should be pointed out that there is disagreement about what books belong in the Bible--the Reformation rejected several books in the Catholic Bible.

One thing to remember is that Christianity emerged out of Judaism, a religion that placed a great emphasis on the written word. There already was a Bible --it's now what we call the Old Testament with the Hebrews considering five books to be be supremely important--the Torah. Jesus quoted the Bible so I guess by Derek's definition Jesus was a fundamentalist.
 
Tom_B said:
I pretty much agree with Dominus. It should be pointed out that there is disagreement about what books belong in the Bible--the Reformation rejected several books in the Catholic Bible.
I thought it was just Maccebes(sic)... What're the other rejected books?
 
DominusNovus said:
I thought it was just Maccebes(sic)... What're the other rejected books?

The inclusion of Revelation was extremely controversial, as many thought (correctly) that this book subverted the message of Christianity. Without it, its hard to imagine Protestantism or Fundamentalism having much steam.
 
DominusNovus said:
I thought it was just Maccebes(sic)... What're the other rejected books?

There were two books of Macabees (actually four were written but the 3rd and 4th are rejcted by the Catholics) plus Tobit (aka Tobias), Judith, Baruch, Wisdom and Ecclesiaticus.
 
There are a plethora of "apocraphal" books that nobody (fortunately!) believes. My favorite is the one that makes the child Jesus look like Anthony in "It's a GOOD Life"...an omnipotent spoiled brat.
 
Abdul Hadi Pasha said:
The inclusion of Revelation was extremely controversial, as many thought (correctly) that this book subverted the message of Christianity. Without it, its hard to imagine Protestantism or Fundamentalism having much steam.

Good point but overstated. Luther supposedly had serious doubts about Revealation. However there could--and would-- be fundamentalism without Revealation but we would not have fatuities like dispensationalism, no Late Great Planet Earth (bestselling book of the 1970's), no Left Behind novels ...
 
tom said:
There are a plethora of "apocraphal" books that nobody (fortunately!) believes. My favorite is the one that makes the child Jesus look like Anthony in "It's a GOOD Life"...an omnipotent spoiled brat.
Then there are the books that everybody believed, but weren't included for various other reasons. Like the Gospel of James (think it was James). It was about the life of the Virgin Mary, and was about as canon as you could want. However, because the guys who compiled the NT wanted everything in chronological order, this would have been the first book in the NT, which would have meant that there would have been an entire book before it talked about Jesus.

This is a kinda minor problem, so there could easily be a version of the Bible where this Gospel is canon. It could even be the mainstream Catholic/Orthodox Bible.
 
What about the effect on literacy?

The one aspect of having a central religous text in general but the bible (Koran and Torah) is largely unintenional, at some point it encourages literacy.

I would contend (and believe that I can make a strong argument for) that one reason why Northern Europe was able to do so well after the initial renaissance, was due to the fact that the some churches that resulted from the reformation encouraged the study of the bible. These churches essentially suggest that literacy teaches one to read the bible and that individual salvation can be found through the study of the bible.

This in turn suggests to the invidiual that knowledge can be gained through reading.

Without this concept to push literacy, would we (as a civilization) been able to make the progress we have?
 
Abdul Hadi Pasha said:
Since it was in Latin, almost nobody could even read it.

...after the breakup of the Roman empire. ;) However, most people were illiterates at that time. But at the very least they could understand it if their priest read it aloud for them...
 
Max Sinister said:
...after the breakup of the Roman empire. ;) However, most people were illiterates at that time. But at the very least they could understand it if their priest read it aloud for them...

I'm not sure what you mean; by the Middle Ages very few clergymen even knew what they were reading, let alone peasants.
 
Tom_B said:
Good point but overstated. Luther supposedly had serious doubts about Revealation. However there could--and would-- be fundamentalism without Revealation but we would not have fatuities like dispensationalism, no Late Great Planet Earth (bestselling book of the 1970's), no Left Behind novels ...

I wonder if we are not synching with definitions. I suppose there would still be Fundamentalism in the sense that the Bible is the basis for belief, but it would be a totally different fundamentalism, as most cults that we consider fundamentalist are millenialist, which is not possible without Revelation. Neither is the Satan cult, and the move, "The Omen".

Satan had never even been a bad guy before that.
 
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