4.) Alexander the Great was the king of Macedonia and the conqueror of the Persian Empire. Following the conquest of the Persian Empire, Alexander pursued a policy of introducing Greek thought, language and culture into the conquered territories. From the tactical stance of the conquering Alexander, this approach is ideal as the more the conquered identify with the Greek nation the less they will fight against it and simply become part of the empire. Hellenisation slowly eroded Jewish culture. The first adopters were the wealthy and socially meaningful in the cities. Jewish men adopted prosthetics to cover their circumcision and exercised in the nude in gymnasiums. Even the High Priest became Greek and the temple had a pagan altar erected and
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A collection of books coming from that moment in Moses’ lifetime would have only represented a tiny view of the world from one man. It would be inauthentic, and disingenuous, to claim that moment alone and Moses’ words alone to represent the culmination of many years of work, thought and contemplation by the educated of an entire culture. Context is all important to understanding the value, ethically and spiritually, of the continuing growth of a relationship between God and man. Without understanding who added what, and when, then all context is lost and that value is greatly reduced. Further, the place this in terms of faith, God as an all knowing, all seeing and all powerful being would certainly have countenanced such additions and modifications of the word he would have wanted mankind to know and understand. To view the Pentateuch as a static, unchanging and rigid doctrine is a deliberate loss of the beauty, wonder and value of the books in favor of reinforcing dogmatic …show more content…
To Arius’ view making the Son and Father indivisible and existing eternally takes away from the Father and deprives him of ousia. This degrades the totality of God. Athanasius argues that the separation of the Son and the Father does nothing to diminish the Father and that the human categories of understanding relationship should not be applied to the Godhead.
The outcome of the debate at the Council of Nicaea was the Nicene Creed. This Creed specifically contradicted the ideas of Arius and endorsed the view of the indivisible nature of the Godhead. Those who did not agree with the Creed were to be exiled, and in the case of Arius to also be excommunicated.
Constantine and the Council of Nicaea had the right to make the decision they did. Whether they made the right choice, either politically or religiously, is readily up for debate. For the growth of the church, within the political and social context of the time, decisions had to be made to unify the dogma to be taught and followed. The Emperor and the religious authorities in attendance at the Council had the legitimate political and religious authority to decide the direction of the Church, particularly within the context of recent legalization across the
A collection of books coming from that moment in Moses’ lifetime would have only represented a tiny view of the world from one man. It would be inauthentic, and disingenuous, to claim that moment alone and Moses’ words alone to represent the culmination of many years of work, thought and contemplation by the educated of an entire culture. Context is all important to understanding the value, ethically and spiritually, of the continuing growth of a relationship between God and man. Without understanding who added what, and when, then all context is lost and that value is greatly reduced. Further, the place this in terms of faith, God as an all knowing, all seeing and all powerful being would certainly have countenanced such additions and modifications of the word he would have wanted mankind to know and understand. To view the Pentateuch as a static, unchanging and rigid doctrine is a deliberate loss of the beauty, wonder and value of the books in favor of reinforcing dogmatic …show more content…
To Arius’ view making the Son and Father indivisible and existing eternally takes away from the Father and deprives him of ousia. This degrades the totality of God. Athanasius argues that the separation of the Son and the Father does nothing to diminish the Father and that the human categories of understanding relationship should not be applied to the Godhead.
The outcome of the debate at the Council of Nicaea was the Nicene Creed. This Creed specifically contradicted the ideas of Arius and endorsed the view of the indivisible nature of the Godhead. Those who did not agree with the Creed were to be exiled, and in the case of Arius to also be excommunicated.
Constantine and the Council of Nicaea had the right to make the decision they did. Whether they made the right choice, either politically or religiously, is readily up for debate. For the growth of the church, within the political and social context of the time, decisions had to be made to unify the dogma to be taught and followed. The Emperor and the religious authorities in attendance at the Council had the legitimate political and religious authority to decide the direction of the Church, particularly within the context of recent legalization across the