Witness to God’s mercy: Conference of Br. Sabino Chialà on Isaac of Nineveh (June 14, 2008)
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After Ephraim, Isaac of Nineveh, also known as Isaac the Syrian, is the most well known and best loved of the Syrian writers and his works have been translated into many languages.
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Isaac tells us that we cannot know God as He is but only through the economy, through salvation history, and this economy is nothing other than love.
God’s entire activity in the past, the present and the future is motivated by only one feeling, namely love.
Even when Scripture speaks of God’s wrath we need to understand this correctly.
Even when God allows us to suffer, He still acts out of love and never out of wrath or justice but rather out of fatherly wisdom.
Even the last judgement must be understood as a purification and as an act of love.
It is only this love that can account for the Cross of Christ:

"Why did Christ stretch himself out on the cross for sinners and why did He give His holy body over to suffering for the sake of the world?
I suggest that God did this for only one reason:
to make His love known to the world, so that our ability to love, increased by such a discovery, would be the prisoner of His love.
As such, the exceptional power of the Kingdom of Heaven, which consists of love, found an opportunity to express itself in the death of His Son.
Our Lord did not die in order to redeem us from sin, or for any other reason, but purely and only so that the world would see and perceive the love of God for His creation.
If this wonderful act was only in order to forgive sins, then another means could have been found to realise it." (Cent IV, 78)

Wow, when one of these kinds of discoveries is made I always immediately wonder what else is out there just waiting for somebody to notice?

Operative paragraph:

The research highlights several key features of Codex H. The newly recovered pages include some of the earliest known chapter lists for Paul’s Letters, which differ significantly from the divisions used today. They also reveal how sixth-century scribes corrected and annotated their texts, showing that these manuscripts were actively read and modified rather than simply copied.

Didn't these simpletons know that you're not supposed to mess around with inerrant and inspired scripture?  

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Steefen said
Dr. Ehrman:
I’d say there was not a single oral tradition to be aligned with, but thousands of oral traditions, and each author is reflecting what he has heard.
Steefen:
With the “thousands of oral traditions” Matthew, Mark, and Luke heard Jesus was the Son of God before he was crucified.
Let’s say thousands or millions of people went to the Macy’s 4th of July fireworks, sure there were thousands or millions of oral testimonies but they all agree they saw fireworks. Paul did not hear anything because he wasn’t there and did not immediately go to Jerusalem after his conversion as per Galatians 1: 17-18.
You have just given equal weight to eyewitnesses and one or those who were not eyewitnesses. Just because there were thousands of people who knew what happened does not mean every piece of writing is accurate. Jesus was known to be the Son of God before he resurrected (also add Jesu’s baptism accounts) is different from Jesus was appointed to be the Son of God after he resurrected.
  

There is no direct evidence that the anonymous works attributed to Matthew, Mark and Luke are eyewitness accounts, so the whole "you have given equal weight to eyewitnesses and those who were not eyewitnesses" fails at the lack of confirmed eyewitnesses.

It fit in with our view of what’s called Dispensationalism, the idea that there are different divinely orchestrated ages of time and different aspects characteristic of each age.  We live in the ‘Church Age’ which supposedly will continue right up until the Rapture. This idea is behind a lot of the ‘End Times’ mythology. 

One of my favorite books during my first year or so in the Church was ** you do not have permission to see this link **

Paul is clearly comfortable with visionary experience and ecstatic utterances. My question is whether this was specific to Paul’s view or did all Jewish apocalypticists include this behavior in their practice? What about Jesus? Did he and his followers encourage this kind of experience? If so it would explain a lot. If you’re already spent a lot of time having visions of spiritual realms then seeing Jesus after his death no longer seems much of a stretch.

I've found some good resources that I'm starting to explore. Hopefully I'll be able to come up with some reasonable answers. 

Yeah that was the approach my people took when trying to explain why we didn't speak in tongues.  It fit in with our view of what's called Dispensationalism, the idea that there are different divinely orchestrated ages of time and different aspects characteristic of each age.  We live in the 'Church Age' which supposedly will continue right up until the Rapture. This idea is behind a lot of the 'End Times' mythology.   

Paul is clearly comfortable with visionary experience and ecstatic utterances.  My question is whether this was specific to Paul's view or did all Jewish apocalypticists include this behavior in their practice?   What about Jesus?  Did he and his followers encourage this kind of experience?  If so it would explain a lot.  If you're already spent a lot of time having visions of spiritual realms then seeing Jesus after his death no longer seems much of a stretch. 

I can't help but think that the authors of the links I provided start with a conclusion and worked backwards.  Tongues ceased early on.  What we see today and what we saw sporadically through history was different than what occurred in the early church.

I suppose I see cessationism as a way in which people are able to explain why we don't see what is recorded in the early church. 

Steefen said
Dr. Ehrman,
Paul / Romans 1:4
by his resurrection from the dead, he was appointed the Son of God.
Mark 9: 7 (Matthew 17:1-8, Luke 9:28-36, and 2 Peter 1: 16-18)
This is my beloved Son. (The Transfiguration)
Matthew 16: 16-17
Peter: You are the Son of the living God. Jesus: This was revealed to you by my Father in heaven.
Paul: Jesus became Son of God beginning at his resurrection
Mark and Matthew (if not Luke and John): Jesus was the Son of God before his resurrection.
Paul was neither at the transfiguration nor Peter’s assertion nor at the Resurrection meal where Jesus ate broiled fish.
Paul has his vision and later writes Jesus became an appointed Son of God after his crucifixion, by resurrection.
Question: Is Paul more aligned with the real Jesus and Oral Tradition or are the gospels more aligned with the real Jesus and Oral Tradition (multiple times–transfiguration and Peter’s assertion confirmed by Jesus and multiple attestations) ?

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Dr. Ehrman:
I’d say there was not a single oral tradition to be aligned with, but thousands of oral traditions, and each author is reflecting what he has heard.

Steefen:
With the “thousands of oral traditions” Matthew, Mark, and Luke heard Jesus was the Son of God before he was crucified.

Let’s say thousands or millions of people went to the Macy’s 4th of July fireworks, sure there were thousands or millions of oral testimonies but they all agree they saw fireworks. Paul did not hear anything because he wasn’t there and did not immediately go to Jerusalem after his conversion as per Galatians 1: 17-18.

You have just given equal weight to eyewitnesses and one or those who were not eyewitnesses. Just because there were thousands of people who knew what happened does not mean every piece of writing is accurate. Jesus was known to be the Son of God before he resurrected (also add Jesu’s baptism accounts) is different from Jesus was appointed to be the Son of God after he resurrected.

I wonder if what Paul regarded as ecstatic speech was in any way similar to what we now know as glossolalia?

I just glanced at the two PDFs in Post 3 but certainly the second believes they are not the same:

"...it is safe to conclude that the Pentecostal phenomena prevalent over the past century is not the same as that of the early church. Instead it is of recent origin in the history of Christianity."

But then again he's coming from a position where he needs to say that. Tongue talking is just not done in civil places! 

Everyone it seems has their own axe to grind.  Consider, for example, the remarkable ** you do not have permission to see this link **under The future of speaking in tongues in Renewalist churches in the Gift of Tongues Project.  Although it's all worth reading, here's a snippet:

In short, this peculiar doctrine is extinguishing on its own. The quiet deemphasis is a backdoor for the many church institutions founded on this doctrine to abandon it and move ahead to new directions without controversy and shame.

I'll see what I can find out there and try to determine as best I can whether or not what Paul was talking about is the same as glossolalia. Once I do, I'll post what I've found.

Soon after graduating from a Pentecostal Bible School and making my way (thankfully!) into an accredited Baptist college, I read ** you do not have permission to see this link **which was quite good.

I am, thanks!  This work is being done.  

I wonder if what Paul regarded as ecstatic speech was in any way similar to what we now know as glossolalia?  You find this sort of practice in almost all mystical traditions.   Hindus do it.  Buddhists do it.  Gnostics do it.  Country Southern Baptists didn't do it.  But that's because mysticism begins in "mist", is centered on the "i" and ends in schism.   We were only allowed to get a little choked up when George Beverly Shea sang ** you do not have permission to see this link ** at a Billy Graham revival meeting.   

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Hopefully, I'll have a chance to read them over the next few days.

He was able to find scriptural precedent for it.

The Spirit in the Hebrew Bible would come upon people (Numbers 11:25-29; I Samuel 10:5-11; 19:20-24).

There are those verses that as a Pentecostal I held so dearly:

Isaiah 28:11-12 (that Paul quotes in I Corinthians 14:21)

Joel 2:28-29 (that Peter quotes in Acts 2:16-18)

You might be interested in ** you do not have permission to see this link ** both of which are worth reading. 

Mark 1:11

Luke 3:22

In the Synoptics, Jesus is God's son before his crucifixion.