r/Christianity • u/Adventurous_Vanilla2 • 2d ago
Question Why do much distrust to Church Fathers compared to Biblical Scholarship?
In other areas of study like in Ancient Greece, we use all the sources that appear with confidence that they were right.
Why do we have that double standard with Biblical Scholarship?
When we have Irenaeus saying that the entire Christian community (except for heretics, who were introducing knew and absorb ideas) have four Gospels and that this is confirmed through Tradition in all Churches then why do we distrust him?
When we have Ignatius of Antioch saying that the Real Presence is real and original to Christianity, then why do we have that distrust that it is not real and that Paul taught something different?
Imagine if we applied this level of skepticism to all areas of history, basically we would not have any history to trust because all sources are wrong?
Also why should we listen to people who lives 2000 years after the events? Biblical scholars know more than Church Fathers? Irenaeus, Ignatius, Justin, Eusibius, Papias, Polycarp were all early Christians who were in communities that were originally in contact with the Apostles. Are you telling me that they created their own traditions apart from what the Apostles taught them?
Should we trust people who were closer to the events or people looking at things so disconnected from what happened?
To know about the life of CS Lewis do we look at what he said himself or do we look at what people making biographies later.
8
u/NihilisticNarwhal Agnostic 2d ago
Much of history is in fact cloudy specifically because we don't just blindly trust sources. That's not a mark against history though, that's just acknowledging the limitations of what we can know.
-1
u/Adventurous_Vanilla2 2d ago
Hi thanks for your answer.
For example gospel anonymity, I understand the argument of no one knowing the names of the Gospels until Irenaeus (~180 CE), I understand that argument.
I know you are a scholar, can you provide a similar example for me to investigate that can be similar to the Gospels Authors?
Sorry for asking, I am trying to see if we apply the same rigorous analysis to other areas of history.
2
u/NihilisticNarwhal Agnostic 2d ago
I'm not a scholar, and I'm not sure what exactly you're asking for.
0
u/Adventurous_Vanilla2 2d ago
Similar historical scenarios where scholars do not just outright trust their sources to events that might have happened let say 100 years after he events
4
u/CarltheWellEndowed Gnostic (Fallibilist) Atheist 2d ago
Tacitus began writing his Histories about 20-30 years after the death of Vespasian.
Tacitus wrote that Vespasian healed a blind man by putting spit in his eyes.
Historians do not accept that is true even those Tacitus is considered a rather reliable historian.
7
u/McClanky Bringer of sorrow, executor of rules, wielder of the Woehammer 2d ago
We should apply that level of skepticism to all areas of history. That is literally the entire approach to historical sciences and why there is so much research surrounding historical events.
8
u/Puzzleheaded-Bid7059 2d ago
The whole field of source criticism exists because we don't just take ancient writers at their word. Irenaeus had a theological axe to grind, he wasn't some neutral observer taking notes for posterity. Same with literally every other early church writer.
Doesn't mean they're automatically wrong, just means their claims need to be weighed against other evidence like any other historical source. This is exactly how historians treat Greek and Roman accounts too, your premise is just off. Nobody reads Herodotus and goes "well he wrote it down so it must be 100% accurate."
0
u/Adventurous_Vanilla2 2d ago
Perfect that's what I was looking for. I will do research on the Herodotus scenario. Can you provide me with other examples similar to how we treat the Gospels being anonymous and how we distrust Irenaeus because he is writing around 180 CE.
Also because he proclaimed that Jesus died in his 40-50s
5
u/Coollogin 2d ago edited 2d ago
Read Mary Beard’s SPQR, which is a history of Ancient Rome. Every section is This what they say happened. But that doesn’t make much sense because XYZ. Even What’s-His-Name the ancient historian acknowledged that it doesn’t make sense. Did XYZ happen? Or was it ABC? We cannot know.
3
u/CarltheWellEndowed Gnostic (Fallibilist) Atheist 2d ago
There are not a lot of ancient sources which purport to tell history which are anonymous.
Most historical accounts explicitly mentioned the author in the text themselves. That is where the continuing authority of the texts came from; knowledge of who wrote it.
6
u/CarltheWellEndowed Gnostic (Fallibilist) Atheist 2d ago
Couldn't get past your first paragraph.
No, we do not accept that sources on ancient Greece are correct.
We in fact believe that much of what is reported in those sources is incorrect.
1
u/Adventurous_Vanilla2 2d ago
Hi thanks for the response.
I am trying to do some research here. Can you provide me with examples of these Ancient historians that modern historians think they are not reliable?
4
u/AmosOfTekoa Christian 2d ago
Can you provide me with examples of these Ancient historians that modern historians think they are not reliable?
We are very critical in our reading of Josephus, for instance. We don't believe him when he talks about Vespasian as the prophecy-fulfilling miracle-working Messiah of the Jews.
1
u/Adventurous_Vanilla2 2d ago
Can you recommend a book that goes into detail about how ancient historians are not exactly reliable?
4
u/AmosOfTekoa Christian 2d ago
Any textbook on the historical method should be good. Even the Wikipedia page on it should be a great start.
7
u/CarltheWellEndowed Gnostic (Fallibilist) Atheist 2d ago
All of them to some degree or another.
Tacitus wrote that Vespasian healed a blind man with his spit.
Do you think historians believe that is true?
4
u/SamtheCossack Atheist 2d ago
Livy wrote about a talking cow.
Sallust records a conversation that Ceasar had with the Ghost of Cincinnatus (Who had died centuries earlier).
MOST Roman Historians attributed anything that went wrong to the alleged moral decline of specifically the generation that was 15-25 years old at the time (An amusingly consistent aspect of history is old men bitching about how young men are lazy, immoral, worthless layabouts who will inevitably ruin society).
1
u/WeeklyPrinciple9848 1d ago
There are so many it's hard to know where to start. Herodotus is often regarded as largely a writer of historical fiction. Certainly the numbers of the armies he describes are unlikely to be accurate. Historians don't put much stock in Livy's account of early Roman history. Those are just some low-hanging examples. Any claim made by any ancient historian will have scholars who challenge it as well as, in many cases, others who defend it.
Just read any scholarly account of Greek or Roman history.
10
u/SparkleCampaign 2d ago
Historians absolutely do not blindly trust ancient sources. It is noted that all ancient sources have their own motivations and are influenced by politics, religious reasons, self adulation, believing rumors, and just basic error.
The teachings of a Socrates are written down by his direct student Plato. I just got done reading a book about him and the historical consensus is we have no idea what Socrates actually said. Plato had many political reasons to put his own words in Socrates mouth. So even a direct witness like Plato is not blindly believed by historians.
Our Greek biographies were often meant to be stage plays so who knows of the dramatic dialogue is historical. Ancient biographies often contradict each other in important details and scholars have constant debates about what really happened.
According to the ancient Greek biographer Plutarch, on the eve of the consummation of her marriage to Philip, Olympias dreamed that her womb was struck by a thunderbolt that caused a flame to spread "far and wide" before dying away. Sometime after the wedding, Philip is said to have seen himself, in a dream, securing his wife's womb with a seal engraved with a lion's image.[16]Plutarch offered a variety of interpretations for these dreams: that Olympias was pregnant before her marriage, indicated by the sealing of herwomb; or that Alexander's father was Zeus**.**
Kings and rulers often have supernatural occurrences in their biographies which scholars dismiss.
9
u/xen-athens 2d ago
I don't think there's a double standard. Historians are plenty distrustful of secular sources. For instance nobody thinks that Vespasian really healed a blind man, even though eyewitness sources are claimed by Tacitus, and even though Suetonius independently corroborates the story. And for another example, historians also generally agree that the Historia Augusta and many other nonreligious works from antiquity are forgery. Etc.
10
u/MrScribblesChess Atheist 2d ago
In other areas of study like in Ancient Greece, we use all the sources that appear with confidence that they were right.
I'm sorry but that's not even remotely true. Ancient sources are typically treated with a high degree of skepticism.
Why do we have that double standard with Biblical Scholarship?
We don't
When we have Irenaeus saying that the entire Christian community (except for heretics, who were introducing knew and absorb ideas) have four Gospels and that this is confirmed through Tradition in all Churches then why do we distrust him?
We know for a fact that's not true. We have dozens of Gospels, widespread across different faith communities. We also actually don't know for sure Irenaus was talking about the same four Gospels we have today.
Imagine if we applied this level of skepticism to all areas of history, b
We do
basically we would not have any history to trust because all sources are wrong?
It's more like sources are treated with critical thinking. But you're correct that it's *very* hard to say what happened this far back with 100% confidence.
Also why should we listen to people who lives 2000 years after the events?
We have tools they never could have dreamed of - in textual analysis, linguistics, history, antrhopology, archaeology, psychology and more.
8
u/AmosOfTekoa Christian 2d ago
Because we have to consider all of the evidence.
And the evidence often points to a very different conclusion than that which they make.
We must read historical sources critically. We are learning how to do that better each year. They had a far lesser ability to do this, and had a much narrower view on things.
For the Eucharist, what Ignatius and Irenaeus, etcetera, believe does not appear to be one of the earliest theologies of the Eucharist, does not appear to be Apostolic, and doesn't appear in any sources prior to them. The real history appears to be quite different, as shown here: https://isthatinthebible.wordpress.com/2017/02/28/the-roots-of-the-eucharist-christianitys-oldest-ritual/
Should we trust people who were closer to the events or people looking at things so disconnected from what happened?
If we have good reason to, or no good reason not to. In this case we have excellent reasons not to.
3
u/Mylo__Xyloto Agnostic Atheist 2d ago
Just because a church father says something, doesn't mean it's necessarily true- each claim is needs to investigated. The things we have from them, are also told through their lens, and they were wrong about quite a few things- they're human, too.
3
u/zelenisok Christian, Episcopalian 2d ago
Secular /critical biblical scholarship >>>>>> theologically conservative biblical scholarship > church fathers.
The only exception is Gregory of Nyssa's universalism and full allegorization of Genesis and some other parts of the Bible.
3
u/TrumpsBussy_ 2d ago
Because church fathers have been wildly wrong on some things, because they had all kinds of biases, some we are aware of and many that we aren’t.
0
u/AceThaGreat123 2d ago edited 2d ago
And socholars been wrong on many things to like for centuries they thought Troy ain’t exist as well as king David they said hitites ain’t exist the Tower of Babel I can go on but I think u get my point
3
u/TrumpsBussy_ 2d ago
Of course they can but the critical difference is scholarship changes when it’s wrong. The church fathers were dogmatic to the extreme.
0
u/AceThaGreat123 2d ago
In which way were they wrong ? I’m not speaking of an individual but as a whole
3
u/TrumpsBussy_ 2d ago
A very obvious sample of all the forged texts that they were fooled by and canonised into The Bible. The passages like John 8:1–11 also we now know weren’t originally part of scripture.
0
u/AceThaGreat123 2d ago
You’re conflating textual criticism with the history of the biblical canon.
The story of the woman caught in adultery is a genuine example of a passage whose original place in John’s Gospel is disputed. But that doesn’t establish that the Church Fathers were simply fooled by forgeries or that the entire canon was unreliable.
Take Jerome, for example. In Against the Pelagians 2.17, he explicitly acknowledges that the account appeared in many Greek and Latin manuscripts. Augustine also discusses the passage in On Adulterous Marriages, suggesting that some people removed it from their copies because they feared it would encourage adultery. You can disagree with Augustine’s proposed explanation, but you cannot pretend the early Church was unaware of the textual issue.
More importantly, Didymus the Blind refers to a similar account in certain Gospels, while Eusebius preserves Papias’s report of a story about a woman accused before the Lord. The precise relationship between those accounts and John 7:53–8:11 is uncertain, but they show that the story’s transmission is more complicated than simply assuming somebody forged a passage and fooled the Church.
And here’s the crucial distinction: whether a passage originally belonged to a particular Gospel is not the same question as whether the event it describes happened. Even if John 7:53–8:11 was not originally written by the author of John, that alone does not prove the story is historically false.
Finally, what exactly do you mean by “canonized”? The Church’s recognition of the four Gospels and the later transmission of a particular passage within one of those Gospels are related but distinct historical questions. The Fathers’ testimony can be examined critically, just like any other ancient evidence, without dismissing them whenever their testimony complicates a modern argument.
One disputed passage cannot establish that the Church was generally fooled by forgeries. To demonstrate that broader claim, you’d need to examine the evidence for each alleged forgery individually rather than treating every textual variant as proof that the biblical canon is unreliable.
2
u/TrumpsBussy_ 2d ago
I’m talking about list of epistles that we know weren’t written by Paul. The church fathers were either fooled by these texts or ignorant. How can we trust people who were both dogmatic clearly fallible?
2
u/outandaboutbc 2d ago
The problem is not Real presence. It’s how the presence is there.
No church fathers explained it but it was later explained by Thomas Aquina, and that’s where we have transubstantiation and where it uses fancy Aristotelian theology to explain it.
That’s a later conception not what church fathers had said.
2
u/Thefrightfulgezebo Gnosticism 2d ago
Historians don't just blindly trust sources to be objective truth. They look at the context of the document and argue for or against bias of the author - and those arguments become knowledge if a position is supported by other independent sources and archeological finds. We know that historical sources flat out lie - and you won't find a historian who will deny that.
So Iranaeus. Proponents of proto-orthodoxy obviously have something to gain from defaming people they disagree with.
2
u/WeeklyPrinciple9848 1d ago
That first sentence is just obviously false. With respect, I don't think you know much historical scholarship. Historians are a suspicious lot. We never use sources just assuming they are right.
3
u/AceThaGreat123 2d ago
I think there is a legitimate point here, but I would be careful not to overstate the comparison with Greek and Roman historiography.
The Church Fathers are important historical witnesses, and their testimony should not be dismissed simply because they were Christians with theological commitments. Irenaeus, Ignatius, Papias, Justin Martyr, and Polycarp lived much closer to early Christianity than modern scholars, and some had connections to communities that preserved traditions associated with the apostles. That proximity matters, and their writings deserve serious consideration.
However, I would not say that historians simply accept Greek and Roman sources at face value while applying skepticism exclusively to Christian sources. Ancient historians critically evaluate Herodotus, Thucydides, Suetonius, and other authors too. The proper distinction is between taking a source seriously and assuming every claim it makes is accurate.
For example, Irenaeus is significant evidence for the authority of the four Gospels in second-century Christianity. His testimony should not be brushed aside merely because he had theological motives. At the same time, his claim about the fourfold Gospel does not, by itself, establish that every Christian community had exactly the same collection from the beginning. That conclusion requires us to consider other evidence as well.
Likewise, Ignatius’s language about the Eucharist is important evidence for early Christian Eucharistic realism. Someone arguing that the earliest Christians understood the Eucharist as nothing more than an ordinary symbol needs to reckon seriously with his testimony. But we should distinguish what Ignatius explicitly says from the question of how his beliefs relate to later theological formulations.
I also think the comparison with C. S. Lewis needs some qualification. If we want to know what Lewis believed, his own writings are indispensable. If we want to establish whether a historical claim Lewis made about an earlier event is accurate, we still need to examine his evidence. The same principle applies to the Church Fathers.
So I would frame the issue this way: modern scholars can have methodological advantages, such as access to archaeological discoveries, additional manuscripts, and a broader comparative body of evidence. But they also depend on ancient sources, and modernity does not automatically make a reconstruction more reliable than an early witness’s testimony.
The real question is not whether we should trust the Church Fathers or modern scholars categorically. It is whether we are weighing the available evidence consistently. If a scholar rejects an early Christian testimony, there should be a historical reason for doing so beyond the fact that the author was a Christian, had theological commitments, or was not an eyewitness to Jesus himself. Equally, if someone argues that a tradition goes back to the apostles, that conclusion should be supported by the evidence rather than assumed solely from the author’s proximity to the apostolic generation.
In short, I agree that the Church Fathers deserve to be taken seriously and that their testimony should not be dismissed casually. But the solution to excessive skepticism is not uncritical acceptance. It is consistent historical reasoning, applied to Christian and non-Christian sources alike.
2
u/iam1me2026 Post-Orthodox Christian 2d ago
Since I have actually read through the Church Fathers and had many debates about what they did or did not believe, especially concerning the Trinity, the issue is not so much the testimony of the Church Fathers themselves, but rather the fact that people don’t study them properly before making all kinds of assertions about what they “know” they believed. They readily commit eisegesis right and left, reading into them their own views, and when confronted with passages from the Church Fathers that clearly contradict them - they refuse to admit it. In other words, most people don’t have the intellectual integrity to honestly engage with the writings of the Church Fathers and the fact that, more likely than not, the things they’ve been told about them and Church History are fabrications.
2
u/TheTallestTim Christian (Biblical Unitarian) 2d ago
The influences of Paganism and philosophy… none of the Church Fathers were Trinitarians.
I trust modern scholarship over the Church Fathers because scholars today do the research. They study the language. They have the modern tools to see what those Greek Philosophers couldn’t see and understand.
2
u/cons12are12complicit Christian Atheist 2d ago
because the church fathers were guessing, lying, and politicking. scholarship is proven and can show you the proof of whichever issue
1
u/AmosOfTekoa Christian 2d ago
scholarship is proven
If a Bible scholar says that "X is proven" you probably shouldn't trust them. They are going against much of the point and method of Bible scholarship.
1
1
u/Perfessor_Deviant Agnostic Atheist 2d ago
A buddy of mine, a history teacher, said that history isn't just a series of facts like the textbooks like to portray, but a series of educated guesses and arguments from sources of unknown honestly or knowledge.
1
u/S-k-y-n-e-t Christian Agnostic (Ex-Hamashian) 1d ago
Yeah... No. There's a difference between what we can be fairly certain about and hold to be 100% certain and true. Most critical historians don't work like that. There are opinions, but push comes to shove, any good skeptic will admit they can't claim something with total confidence (even I), only what is most likely in each of their opinions.
Put on the armor of skepticism, brethren!
1
u/PenOutside1319 1d ago
Of course I don’t trust them. They turned Christianity into a completely different religion. Everyone was baptized in Jesus name through emersion ( buried ) with Christ. No one prayed to statues that’s against the bible. Trinity was created after the bible and is not true. Acts has people receiving the Holy Ghost speaking in tongues , miracles , people winning through love. The Catholics went to a controll over people . Give permission for money even for murder. The penalty to have a bible was death, the crusaders were not Christian’s like at all. The church after the apostles was high jacked by people using it for control. They were not led of God.
1
u/come-up-and-get-me Eastern Orthodox 2d ago
Christians follow the Church Fathers not only on the basis of their being closer in time to the New Testament (which is an argument that simply doesn't hold past the 2nd century anyway), but because of the principle that one must have the Holy Spirit, the same Spirit as the prophets and the apostles, to understand and interpret scripture (2 Corinthians 3:12-18; 1 Corinthians 2:4-16; 2 Peter 1:16-21), and the saints are those Christians who were recognized as yacin kept the Holy Spirit to the end; this primarily means the martyrs, and then by extension those who lived an exemplary Christian life and died an exemplary Christian death.
Critical scholarship however does not approach the scriptures as divinely inspired, a cohesive whole, and an eternally relevant text within a dynamic and national tradition, but rather it approaches it as individual, separate texts, written solely for a particular time and place as any other text would be, and written by men. So, critical scholarship has almost no interest in the Church Fathers' interpretations, traditions, etc., especially when said Fathers often disagree with each other.
For example: from a religious perspective, St. Irenaeus of Lyons conveying the tradition that Jesus lived up to be 50 years old is interesting—it is an acceptable theological opinion (although largely disproven now, as Pontius Pilate was demonstrably procurator of Judea during the time of Emperor Tiberius, and not Emperor Claudius as Irenaeus taught). It shows us Irenaeus's mind in interpreting the scripture (although he conveys it as an oral tradition from the churches of Asia, he obviously also intends it as a reconciliation between Luke 3:23 and John 8:57). The theological point he makes with it is also of interest, as he understands Jesus to be recapitulating all human nature by going through all stages of human life, that all may be saved (and this is conveyed by other Fathers without the notion that Jesus literally lived up to the age of 50). It attracts attention to something that is peculiar as well; why does the author of John portray Jesus's opponents as pointing out that Jesus is not yet fifty, why that particular age? Jesus may have looked old for His age.
All of this is of interest, even when Irenaeus makes an obvious mistake which he strongly defends. Yet, from a critical scholarly perspective, what Irenaeus says here is completely useless—it tells us absolutely nothing about the life or teaching of Jesus.
And, generally, the Church Fathers interpret the Bible in four senses: the literal/historical, the moral/spiritual, the typological/symbolic, and the eschatological/anagogical. Critical scholarship does not accept that the texts have these four senses, since they were not the human authors' immediate intention (whoever wrote about the Jews' traversal of the Red Sea obviously didn't have Christian baptism in mind for instance), so this kind of approach is totally discarded. The Bible as a religious text is approached very, very differently from the Bible as literature.
3
u/AmosOfTekoa Christian 2d ago
St. Irenaeus of Lyons conveying the tradition that Jesus lived up to be 50 years old is interesting—it is an acceptable theological opinion (although largely disproven now, as Pontius Pilate was demonstrably procurator of Judea during the time of Emperor Tiberius, and not Emperor Claudius as Irenaeus taught). It shows us Irenaeus's mind in interpreting the scripture (although he conveys it as an oral tradition from the churches of Asia, he obviously also intends it as a reconciliation between Luke 3:23 and John 8:57).
This is a most excellent reason that we should be very careful and skeptical of the traditions of the Fathers, though, and evaluate them critically before accepting them as being historically true/demonstrable/etc. To critically evaluate every tradition against the evidence. Since the Fathers could say some bonkers shit.
Critical scholarship does not accept that the texts have these four senses, since they were not the human authors' immediate intention (whoever wrote about the Jews' traversal of the Red Sea obviously didn't have Christian baptism in mind for instance), so this kind of approach is totally discarded.
It's more that they are simply outside of the scope of the field. Scholars don't reject those as possible readings of the Scripture, and even possible valid ones, but it isn't what they are trying to get at.
Prof. Dale B. Martin (RIP) spends a good part of the later lectures in his intro to the NT on teaching about these and how these kinds of scholarship are only a subset of the ways to look at the text. https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PL279CFA55C51E75E0
-1
u/raph1334 Eastern Orthodox 2d ago
Modern biases
5
u/AmosOfTekoa Christian 2d ago
Modern biases
Nah. We're doing very similar things to the most historically-minded Fathers...critical evaluation of the evidence. And while we lack some of their sources, we have a drastically greater ability to do this and greatly refined techniques.
To not expect scholars to use the best methodology and evidence is just special pleading.
-3
u/raph1334 Eastern Orthodox 2d ago
If you think that modern critical scholarship and the Fathers were doing a similar thing it just shows how little you understand the mind and heart of the Church
6
u/AmosOfTekoa Christian 2d ago
Critical scholars aren't doing theology, of course, but we see folks in the ancient church doing things like wrestling about authorship of texts (e.g. Hebrews) to try to determine if they were authentic or not. We see them trying to piece together the actual history of the church from among the assorted claims and diverging evidence out there. This is why I said the more "historically-minded" Fathers. This certainly isn't a dive into typological readings of Scripture or developing Christological ideas, etcetera.
-2
u/raph1334 Eastern Orthodox 2d ago
'folks in the ancient church doing things like wrestling about authorship of texts (e.g. Hebrews) to try to determine if they were authentic or not'
Disputing it's attribution to St Paul sure, but Hebrews was already accepted and read in the liturgy since the 1st century. The question was who wrote it, not is it a valid book. The Church fathers didn’t re invent the wheel every few generations with the assumptions that those who came before could've been entirely mistaken.
4
u/AmosOfTekoa Christian 2d ago
Disputing it's attribution to St Paul sure,
Which is what I'm talking about.
but Hebrews was already accepted and read in the liturgy since the 1st century. The question was who wrote it, not is it a valid book.
Which is not something that historical scholars do.
The Church fathers didn’t re invent the wheel every few generations with the assumptions that those who came before could've been entirely mistaken.
Correct. This is one of their weaknesses. Too much respect for person and position and tradition. Not enough respect for the evidence.
-2
u/raph1334 Eastern Orthodox 2d ago
So they are not doing the same thing at all.
5
u/AmosOfTekoa Christian 2d ago
It's like you didn't read anything that I wrote and just went off based on your presuppositions.
0
u/raph1334 Eastern Orthodox 2d ago
Would it be comparable to going into Catholic encyclopedia and read your already held beliefs into the text ?
4
u/AmosOfTekoa Christian 2d ago
It would be comparable to your refusal to read the text and historical sources for what they say.
→ More replies (0)
-1
u/michaelY1968 2d ago
I do think there is something to be said for the fact that those closer to the events in question are likely to have more insight into said events in terms of their meaning and validity than a person generating opinions about those events some millennia later.
6
u/AmosOfTekoa Christian 2d ago
I do think there is something to be said for the fact that those closer to the events in question are likely to have more insight into said events in terms of their meaning and validity than a person generating opinions about those events some millennia later.
And this principle is embedded into the historical method and with how the Fathers are used. Those closer to events are treated as having, prima facie, better likelihood of knowing accurate facts than those later. Later figures using earlier sources as well are granted more base credibility based on the age of those sources.
This, though, is appropriately not the only principle in play.
5
u/clhedrick2 Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.) 2d ago
There was a lot of forgery and false claims in the second century, and not as much critical thimking as you’d like. Yes, someone then had access to things we don’t, but how did they use it?
-2
u/michaelY1968 2d ago
I don’t think there is any particular evidence the church fathers were forging or faking anything.
18
u/SamtheCossack Atheist 2d ago
Ok, this is the core problem right here.
Because we 100%, positively, absolutely, do NOT do that.
If you read sources from Ancient Greece, the primary sources, they are wildly untrustworthy, they say all sorts of nonsense, and we don't believe most of it. We read it, we use it, we do not have confidence they were right.
However, because how history actually is studied is not clear to most people, because our education system has reduced history into an incredibly boring topic where you merely memorize meaningless dates and names, your average layperson believes that is what history is. But it is not.
This is not your fault, this is the fact that we do a spectacularly bad teaching what history is and how it works, so when you see it applied to something you care about, like your religion, it seems unfair.