Quote:
Originally Posted by creekster
Your second paragraph shows your agenda which leads many to be wqary of your posts. Here is my honest question, and realize that I know very little about this, not being classically trained: why does FARMS refuse to acknowledge a greek influence? what is the issue that leads to this tussle?
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This is not a simple question. At a superficial level, at least since Talmage bookish Mormons have used the (so-called) Great Apostasy as an explanatoin for the need for a restored Gospel. FARMS likes to pretend at scholarship (sorry for the hyperbole but I don't know how else to make this point), and the Greek ingredient in Christianity is the concrete thing it has identified as constituting apostasy from Christ's original church. But if such a church existed, it is only in theory. The seminal writings and concepts of Christianity, including the entire New Testament, the persona of Christ (the NT is our only record of him except for brief references in Josephus and Tacitus), the elegant theology of the atonement, all are permeated with Greek philosophy, indeed, were reduced to writing originally in Greek language. And we see their antecedents in the writings of Philo, the Stoics, Plato, Socrates, et al.
Whatever "Christianity" may have existed before the Greek element was introduced is not the Christianity of Paul, of the Gospels (of Mary and Joseph, the Wise Men, Herod, etc.), of the Atonement, or indeed really of Joseph Smith or Brigham Young. The Christianity we all have known and loved is a product of men thoroughly imbued in Greek philosopy. Take the Greek out and essentially all you have is a radical offshoot of Judiasm existing only in theroy, of which there is no written record. Some here have even thought that Christ actually quoted from the Septuagint, as if he was speaking in Aramic then suddenly started quoting OT passages in Greek! Of course these passages appear in Greek because the Septuagint is the Bible the writers of the NT used. So, if you want to get rid of the Greek element in Chrsianity the first thing you must do is grab your Bible and toss the whole thing (with a vengence) in the dumpster.
Two thousand years later the Classical ingredient of Christianity has come to be associated with Catholicism, Russion or Greek Orthodox, the older side of the Christian tree. Martin Luther, founder of the Protestant side, in fact rebeled primarily against the Renaissaince, which was fundamentally a reawakening to Christianity's Classical heritage. Go to the Louvre or the Met and in the Renaissance section you'll see scores of statues imitating Roman and Greek work, and paintings filled with Classical motifs. The glorious edifices of the Vatican were constructed in large part by digging up and re-using Classical ruins, and partially imitating them. So the Protestant side of the tree has never been comfortable with its Greek heritage. But this is a form of self-loathing. Because Martin Luther, Calvin, Joseph Smith and the rest of them all celebrated Christmas and Easter and revered the nativity scene, the symbolism of the crucfiction and Christ's suffering, etc., and all this is permeated with the Greek. It was all originally created in Greek words.