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All oceansOcean of Faith

What can be shown, and what is believed?

Christianity as history and as living faith: the texts, the evidence, the institutions, and the line between what can be established and what is held.

This region in profile

Surface
1 question
Shallows
12 questions
Deep
26 questions
Abyss
4 questions
Unknown
1 question

Ways through

Six routes, each starting somewhere different. Nothing here is a prerequisite for anything else, and every question stands on its own. A stop opened from a route carries it: the foot of the question offers the next one.

  1. What can be shown

    Start with the evidence and follow it until it runs out, which it does, in a specific place.

    Take this route
    1. What did the ancient world write about Jesus?
    2. What did Jesus actually teach?
    3. Did Jesus say he was God?
    4. How close is today’s Bible to its earliest copies?
    5. What did the earliest Christians actually do?
    6. What did women do in the early church?
    7. What did Christianity do about slavery?
    8. Why do churches disagree about marriage?
    9. Did the Exodus happen?
    10. What happened after the crucifixion?

  2. The man himself

    What can be established about one first-century Galilean, and where the establishing stops.

    Take this route
    1. What did the ancient world write about Jesus?
    2. Did Jesus say he was God?
    3. Why was Jesus executed?
    4. What happened after the crucifixion?
    5. What happened to the people who knew him?

  3. Where the book came from

    Four Gospels that never name their writers, a canon no single council chose, and a text you can check against a fourth-century page.

    Take this route
    1. Who wrote the Gospels?
    2. Why do the Gospels tell it differently?
    3. Who decided which books became the Bible?
    4. What happened to the gospels that were left out?
    5. Why does the Christian Bible contain someone else’s scriptures?
    6. How close is today’s Bible to its earliest copies?
    7. Why do translations of the Bible disagree?
    8. What do Christians mean when they say the Bible is true?

  4. How it became an institution

    From an illegal association in one province to an empire, a creed and, eventually, several churches.

    Take this route
    1. What did the earliest Christians actually do?
    2. Did Paul invent Christianity?
    3. When did Christianity stop being Jewish?
    4. How did a persecuted sect become the empire’s religion?
    5. What did Christians think about war?
    6. Did Christianity invent charity?
    7. What were the Crusades actually about?
    8. What was decided at Nicaea?
    9. Where did the papacy come from?
    10. Where did the Trinity come from?
    11. What happens at communion?
    12. Why did Christians fight about pictures?
    13. Why are there so many kinds of Christianity?
    14. Is Christianity growing or shrinking?

  5. What it did

    The record of an institution with power, in the order the documents allow, including the parts it commissioned itself.

    Take this route
    1. What did Christianity do about slavery?
    2. What did Christians think about war?
    3. What were the Crusades actually about?
    4. What were the inquisitions?
    5. What did the missions do to the people they reached?
    6. What did the church do about abuse?
    7. Did Christianity invent charity?

  6. The questions that do not close

    Where history stops being the right instrument, and says so rather than guessing.

    Take this route
    1. What happened after the crucifixion?
    2. Did the first Christians expect the world to end?
    3. Could a miracle ever be evidence?
    4. Does prayer do anything?
    5. Why does a good God allow suffering?
    6. What happens when you die?
    7. What does Christianity mean by faith?
    8. What about people who never heard any of it?
    9. Where did hell come from?
    10. Where did the devil come from?

The same verse, more than once

Four places where the English you read was a decision, in translations old enough to be out of copyright. The year is the translation’s rather than the printing’s, and every rendering links to the page it was copied from.

  1. 1 Corinthians 14:34

    The Greek gynaikes covers both women and wives. One of these is a rule about half a congregation. The other is a rule about a marriage.

    1. Let your women keep silence in the churches: for it is not permitted unto them to speak; but they are commanded to be under obedience, as also saith the law.

      King James Version, 1611

    2. Your women in the assemblies let them be silent, for it hath not been permitted to them to speak, but to be subject, as also the law saith;

      Young's Literal Translation, 1862

    3. let the women keep silence in the churches: for it is not permitted unto them to speak; but let them be in subjection, as also saith the law.

      American Standard Version, 1901

    4. Let the wives be quiet in the assemblies, for it has not been permitted for them to be talking except in submission, as the law also says,

      World English Bible, 2000

    Argued inThe women
  2. Romans 16:7

    One person, greeted once. Surviving Greek usage attests the woman’s name, Junia. From the nineteenth century the man, Junias, displaced her, on the hypothesis that the name was a shortened one.

    1. Salute Andronicus and Junia, my kinsmen, and my fellowprisoners, who are of note among the apostles, who also were in Christ before me.

      King James Version, 1611

    2. salute Andronicus and Junias, my kindred, and my fellow-captives, who are of note among the apostles, who also have been in Christ before me.

      Young's Literal Translation, 1862

    3. Salute Andronicus and Junias, my kinsmen, and my fellow-prisoners, who are of note among the apostles, who also have been in Christ before me.

      American Standard Version, 1901

    4. Greet Andronicus and Junia, my relatives and my fellow prisoners, who are notable among the apostles, who were also in Christ before me.

      World English Bible, 2000

    Argued inThe women
  3. Colossians 3:22

    Here they agree, which is the more interesting result. The word is douloi, the ordinary Greek word for slaves, and four centuries of English print servants without a footnote between them. One modern preface defends a range of renderings, from slave to servant, because the word covered a range of relationships.

    1. Servants, obey in all things your masters according to the flesh; not with eyeservice, as menpleasers; but in singleness of heart, fearing God:

      King James Version, 1611

    2. The servants! obey in all things those who are masters according to the flesh, not in eye-service as men-pleasers, but in simplicity of heart, fearing God;

      Young's Literal Translation, 1862

    3. Servants, obey in all things them that are your masters according to the flesh; not with eye-service, as men-pleasers, but in singleness of heart, fearing the Lord:

      American Standard Version, 1901

    4. Servants, obey in all things those who are your masters according to the flesh, not just when they are looking, as men pleasers, but in singleness of heart, fearing God.

      World English Bible, 2000

    Argued inSlavery
  4. Mark 13:30

    A deadline or a description, depending on one word. Only one of the four admits that a choice was made, and it does it in a footnote.

    1. Verily I say unto you, that this generation shall not pass, till all these things be done.

      King James Version, 1611

    2. Verily I say to you, that this generation may not pass away till all these things may come to pass;

      Young's Literal Translation, 1862

    3. Verily I say unto you, This generation shall not pass away, until all these things be accomplished.

      American Standard Version, 1901

    4. Most certainly I say to you, this generation will not pass away until all these things happen.

      World English Bible, 2000

      Its own footnote: The word translated “generation” (genea) could also be translated “race”, “family”, or “people”.

    Argued inThe delay

The long descent

Every date here is one a question on this site cites a source for. From 3rd century BC to 1st century AD to 1965.

  1. 3rd century BC to 1st century ADThe Qumran scrolls are copied, more than a thousand years before the oldest biblical manuscripts previously known.The copies
  2. Between 26 and 36Jesus is crucified under Pontius Pilate, prefect of Judea in those years.The charge
  3. c. 51Paul tells Thessalonica that "we who are alive" will be caught up to meet the Lord.The delay
  4. c. 55Paul writes to Corinth, passing on a list of appearances he says he received rather than composed.After the cross
  5. c. 69 to 100Mark, Luke and Matthew are written, on Martin Hengel’s dating. None of the four Gospels names its writer.Who wrote them
  6. c. 96A letter from the church at Rome tells the church at Corinth that the presbyters it deposed could not justly be removed.The papacy
  7. c. 100The Didache tells congregations how to baptise, and what to do if the water is the wrong temperature. Estimates of its date run from before 70 to the fourth century.Early practice
  8. c. 112Pliny asks Trajan what to do about Christians, and describes them singing to Christ as to a god.The claim
  9. After 110Tacitus explains the name Christian to Roman readers, in a sentence about a fire.Ancient sources
  10. c. 144Marcion proposes cutting the Hebrew scriptures out of Christianity. The church refuses.Two testaments
  11. c. 155Justin describes a Sunday gathering to an emperor, in enough detail to be minutes.Early practice
  12. c. 160Justin writes a dialogue with a Jew as with an outsider. Whatever the first century was, this is two things.The parting
  13. c. 180Irenaeus names all four Gospels and attaches each to a person.Who wrote them
  14. c. 248Origen tells a critic that Christians will not serve in the army, and fight for the emperor by praying instead.War
  15. 313Constantine and Licinius agree at Milan that Christians and everyone else may worship as they choose.The empire
  16. By 324Eusebius writes down which books are accepted, which are argued over, and which are out.Left out
  17. 325Nicaea settles one word about the Son, and issues twenty canons, mostly about running an institution.Nicaea
  18. mid-4th centuryCodex Sinaiticus is written. Its copy of Mark ends at chapter 16, verse 8.The copies
  19. 362A letter preserved under Julian’s name orders hostels in every city, because no Jew ever has to beg and the Christians support "not only their own poor but ours as well".Charity
  20. 367An Easter letter lists the twenty-seven books most New Testaments now contain. It is the earliest surviving list of exactly those.The canon
  21. 395Jerome, defending himself, says he renders "sense for sense and not word for word", and in the same sentence exempts the holy scriptures.Translations
  22. 410 to 484The church in Persia renounces subjection to Antioch and the western bishops, and a synod at Seleucia later affirms the Antiochene Christology.The divisions
  23. 418Augustine writes to an officer that war may be waged only from necessity and only for peace. The just-war criteria that descend in part from him are still taught.War
  24. By 426Augustine argues with fellow Christians who doubt that the damned, or all of them, suffer forever, and gives a chapter to each form their view takes.Hell
  25. 451Chalcedon gives Constantinople privileges equal to Rome’s, ranked next after her, and says Rome had them "because it was the royal city". The Roman legates protest.The papacy
  26. 451Chalcedon defines two natures in one person, and a substantial part of the church does not accept it.The divisions
  27. 787A council answers sixty years of imperial edicts against images with a distinction between two Greek words, one for the reverence due an image and one for the worship due to God alone. Iconoclasm returns in 815 and ends in 843.Images
  28. 1054Roman legates and the Patriarch of Constantinople excommunicate each other.The divisions
  29. 1095Urban II preaches at Clermont. Five accounts of the speech survive, all written later, and they disagree.Crusades
  30. 1096Crusading bands passing through the Rhineland kill Jews before any army reaches the east. At Mainz the archbishop shelters them, and his men are the first to flee.Crusades
  31. 1204A crusade sacks Constantinople. The pope who called it condemns the sack in a letter the following year, and recognises the new order there.Crusades
  32. 1517Luther writes ninety-five propositions about indulgences, and asks for a disputation.The divisions
  33. 1640sThe Westminster Confession answers a different question about scripture: not what kind of sentences these are, but who decides what they mean.Is it true
  34. 1947A shepherd finds the first scrolls near the Dead Sea, and a millennium of copying goes on trial.The copies
  35. 1965A council states that what happened in the passion cannot be charged against all the Jews then alive, nor against the Jews of today.Two testaments
  36. 1965The sentences of 1054 are lifted, removed "both from memory and from the midst of the Church".The divisions

Inspect the routes, readings and dates

Every question here

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