Hands in the Cookie Jar? - The Assertions of the Apostolic Fathers

Prompt: Are you surprised by any of the assertions of the Apostolic Fathers?

I would say, "Not really." In his mini-lecture, Dr. Drumm says, "Not even a hundred years after Jesus is gone, we can see that they begin to rely less on Scripture and more on people, that they begin to rely on their bishops." I'm not sure what the antecedent of the pronoun "they" is; his language points to the Apostolic Fathers, but the context points to the common people as the "they." But regardless of his meaning, Dr. Drumm makes a similar statement in the PowerPoint for Lessons 1 & 2: "The Fathers show that within just a few years of the apostle's [sic] deaths, the church began to teach doctrines not included in the New Testament." I think Drumm's word choice is telling in both quotations: He says "Not even a hundred years after Jesus is gone" and "within just a few years of the apostle's [sic] deaths." To me, his language implies wrong-doing on their part (although he does describe their actions as "good-intentioned.") It's just that the way he phrases these comments makes Jesus and the Apostles sound like the Fathers' ... well ... fathers: "Not even a few minutes after his dad left, Lil Johnny beat the snot out of the nun" or "Within just a few moments after his father walked out of the room, Lil Johnny urinated on his sister's teddy bear."

Certain "adults-have-left-the-room" doctrines Drumm mentions, like final unction, baptismal regeneration, and the existence of Purgatory, have their origin, not in rogue bishops squandering their dead fathers' inheritances, but in certain interpretations of not only "Scriptures" now known as the New Testament but works considered God-inspired at the time (i.e. Scripture). I know very little about final unction, but it doesn't take a spiritless heretic to find NT verses that seem to suggest baptismal regeneration. One can easily develop a doctrine of Purgatory from certain readings of 1 Corinthians 15 and 2 Maccabees (both considered God-inspired by the early church). And when you consider the early work "The Shepherd of Hermas" as God-breathed (as the early church did), you'll be able to further argue a case in favor of both baptismal regeneration AND the existence of Purgatory.

So, no, I'm not a bit surprised by the assertions of the Apostolic Fathers. They believed what they believed because some of their "Scripture" was different than ours, and their readings of this "Scripture" (both the Scripture no longer considered holy and the Scripture accepted as Scripture today) differed from our contemporary readings.

So in conclusion, the Apostolic Fathers did not murder their parents in order to stay up late. Their parents simply left a babysitter in charge before they met their untimely deaths, the babysitter wrote down the parents' directions, and then these orphans tried their best to interpret the commands of their dead parents written in the babysitter's somewhat legible cursive handwriting (these orphans can't yet read cursive) ... it just so happens that some of them might have stayed up to watch Craig Ferguson: "It IS the weekend ... and our parents SOMETIMES let us stay up ... well ... dad did at least ... and ... I guess we should brush our teeth before bed ... we USUALLY do ... but not on weekends for some reason ... maybe we should go ahead and ..."