Martin Q. Blank said:

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Zobel said:

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I'm saying that if we defer to scholarly consensus, you have everything that comes with it. It is a different way of looking at the world, based on at best empirical evidence, and often worse than that subject to all kinds of bias because the approach itself is a modernist one. Scholarly consensus has in the past said that the Trinity, the divinity of Christ, and the virgin birth were not apostolic teaching. Scholarly consensus would say the Exodus never happened, and that Moses did not write the OT.

At any rate, I think arguing over whether Britannica is a good summary of scholarly consensus or not, or what that scholarly consensus is is beside the point. There simply isn't much evidence available on this topic, and it seems to me that how you interpret the evidence is basically a function of your biases coming into the discussion.

My prior on topics like this is based on every time I've looked into something where consensus or whatever has said the church is wrong about matters of history, the church view has proven out...from whether or not King David was a real person to St Thomas traveling to India to the age of the scriptures, whatever. So there's a lot of goodwill built up for me on this, and the evidence seems to be somewhere between silent on the topic to strongly supporting the historicity both of the presence of images and the use of images. I think it's also important that the consensus on presence of images has changed over the past 100 years as we get more archaeological evidence.

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Ok, so I shouldn't waste my time. I started working through the bibliography of this wikipedia article.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Byzantine_Iconoclasm

I began with Brubaker, L.; Haldon, J. (2011). Byzantium in the Iconoclast Era and got the below, but I'll stop if you're just going to dismiss each one since accepting the edicts of Nicaea II is a matter of faith.

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This is the crux of the issue. Your scholars are saying that veneration is essentially worship or attributing power to an image. Your article says no one attributed power to such images until the 600s. That is true.

But then he says therefore no veneration of images is found before the 600s. This is false. He has replaced the church's own definition of veneration (showing reference for an image) for his own definition (worshipping/attributing power to an image) and then says veneration is a new thing. Had he stuck with the Nicean definition of veneration, he can say that WORSHIP of icons is a new thing. This would have been true and it's exactly why the topic had to be addressed.

I would recommend the word search of Nicea 2. Read all of the texts together. Nicea did not magnify the role of images, but curtailed the over magnification. Similarly, it rejected those that said that veneration in its entirety is wrong. The pictures had been used since the beginning, can still be used, and must not be taught that they cannot be used, all provided that no power or glory is ever given to the image itself.

I can kneel before the crucifix. I can simply look at the crucifix. I can kiss the crucifix. I can prostrate before the crucifix. What I cannot do is believe the crucifix can do something for me or has any power of its own. I also cannot reject the crucifix as a work of evil.

In that same book I think is the matter of contention.

After a discussion talking about the widespread proliferation of veneration of relics, they contrast that with images of the saints.

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The earliest images to acquire cult status were those that most closely approximated relics....like relics, [images not made by human hands] had intercessory and salvatory power: they superseded the role of Roman urban palladia - statues that housed the soul of the city - and channeled divine force to the Christian community...

Other portraits of Christ, the Virgin, and saints certainly existed from at least the fourth century, but until the last quarter of the seventh century only images that were also relics had miraculous or intercessory powers. Prior to this, simple commemorative and [thanksgiving] images abound...The notion that Christian sacred portraits continued an older, pre-Christian practice, has recently been revived, and it has been argued that portraits of Roman gods and Christian saints follow similar precepts. It has long been recognized that early images of Christ conform with established images of Zeus/Jupiter (and Alexander the Great and Augustus, too), just as representations of the Virgin and Isis nursing their respective children are compositionally familiar, and although we would not want to posit too direct a relationship between imperial portraits and icons, neither would we deny such a connection. More importantly, we would not wish to argue that post-Constantinian Christian veneration of sacred images followed seamlessly from pre-Christian practice.*

*As has been argued by Mathews 1999 177-90

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They then talk about the passages from St Irenaeus, Acts of John - quoted fully and discussed here - and then say "With one notable exception [Agathias inscription on an image of Michael the Archangel which you can read here] there is then silence about Christian veneration of images for 400 years."

Their handling of the only two quotes they offer (Irenaeus and Acts of John) reach opposite conclusions as the link I posed, and then they revert to the argument from silence. And, to their credit, they do reference a view they disagree with - that Christian use of icons followed naturally from pagan practices; in other words, pagans replaced pagan images with holy icons, and their natural use followed. This is the same argument made in the video I linked above. Whether you find one view or the other compelling is up to you. As I said, the available evidence is scant, as is true with most things from the early years of Christianity.

The book they reference by Mathews says:

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Christian icon painting, in our view, stands squarely in the tradition of ancient art and constitutes one of the most inventive phases of Greek panel painting....texts attesting to the Christian use of icons as early as the second century have gone unnoticed, and they are promptly followed by a whole body of neglected Christian icon literature. This includes prayers recited before icons, stories about icons, even stories of visions of icons (respecting always the limitations of the historical genre), as well as texts of the Divine Liturgy (in which icons figured from very early times). Indeed one must look at the whole habitus of the religious practice of Orthodoxy, in which icons played an integral role second only to the Sacrament of the altar itself, with important bearings not only in the epistemology of images but also on the theology of Orthodoxy to which icons have made essential contributions, including discussions of the Incarnation and Redemption. The challenge to most modern scholars is to find ways to understand and sympathize with Orthodox practice from a secular orientation.

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The introduction to Mathews book actually responds the book you quoted:

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A deep discomfort with the cultic dimensions of icons underlies much of the current literature, as if icon veneration were some gross, pagan rite like bloodbaths or infanticide...Leslie Brubaker has nailed her thesis to the door: "There is little support...etc." The paintings that Weitzmann and others have been in the habit of identifying as "icons" Brubaker insists on classifying as simply instructional or commemorative "portraits," reversing history to make icon veneration into the result rather than the cause of Iconoclasm. The term "portraits" thus becomes a way of secularizing icons.

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So - as with everything in history, but especially religious history, the orientation of the historian matters a great deal.

As the previous poster correctly pointed out - this all comes down to what you mean by veneration.

AgLiving06 said:

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Respectfully disagree with this.

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I'll say again that this is why Jesus didn't leave a Bible. He didn't leave a document for the "victors" to interpret. He left a church to guide the faithful. One of the methods the church used to lead the faithful were letters written by the apostles. But the letters were not the church. The church did not come from the Bible. The Bible came from the church to help protect it. And, similar to how the Bible was inspired by God as to be inerrant, the church is inspired by God to be inerrant WHEN IT TEACHES FAITH AND MORALS. Similar to the way the Bible doesn't tell us how gravity works, neither does the church. She can be wrong on issues that are not faith and morals, but she is protected where it matters most.

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You make the same mistake you accuse Protestants of.

Jesus didn't establish a formal Church or Church structure either. Rome specifically makes these incorrect leap to justify Peter as the Supreme authority, but we have no actual indications this is true. Scriptures provide the opposite of this.

But further, The argument that Jesus didn't leave the Scriptures is wrong. Because what are the Scriptures other than the Word of God written down, and that preceeded any claims of a NT church (Rome, EO, Protestants, other).

First, we obviously have the OT Scriptures. God was comfortable with a fallible group of people maintaining His Word. An infallible church was not necessary.

Further, Jesus quoted these Scriptures and expected that the Jews knew it too. There was no concern expressed with the written Word expressing the Word of God.

Second, The New Testament existed before it was written down. That the medium changed from word of mout to written Scripture is irrelevant. It wasn't created by the church. The church recorded what it received, just as occurred with the OT. There's a reason we have more copies of the Scriptures than any other book. The church saw fit to protect the Word of God and went to great lengths

Third, when you start to justify why a supposed infallible entity is now fallible, you give away the game. It's a completely arbitrary and vague standard that Rome created to shield itself from all its flaws. Rome won't even officially say how many infallible statements there are. Rome itself disagrees on the topic.

Rome's claims to be the Church Jesus established don't hold. They are simply the Roman Catholic Church, a group established (really at the Council of Trent) that exist and proclaim things that we are all free to ignore.

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I appreciate the cordial response, and I will try to do the same.

I never said Jesus established a formal church. I said Jesus established THE church. The church has grown. As it grew, processes came into place to address issues. We see this first in Acts when they appealed to the apostles to help solve a division in teaching. As it grew more, more issues arose and more church councils were needed. But one of the other ways issues were addressed was by the apostles with authoritative teaching power sending letters to the believers telling them how to believe and act. It was an authoritative teaching in written form. For example: the council in Acts is not authoritative because it was written. It was written because it was authoritative. The teaching authority existed outside of the letters.

All of this was done inside of the same church that was left. So while the church looks more formal today, it's still the church that was left by Jesus. The church in 100 AD looked different than in did in 40 AD. Persecution has ramped up, they couldn't teach in the synagogues, they couldn't be as open, etc. The church in 350 AD looked different than 100 AD. The church in 2025 looks different than the church in 350. Heck, the church in 2025 looks different than the church in 1925. It's still the same church with the same teachings on faith and morals. The setting in which we live and promulgate the faith just looks different.

And no, Jesus definitely left no scriptures. The Holy Spirit inspired scriptures as a part of the teaching authority of the church that Jesus left. The church absolutely preceded scripture because the church (which is the people) is the one writing and promulgating it, through the inspiration of the Spirit. The church was the apostles. Then it was the apostles and their followers. Then it was those followers and their followers. And so on and so forth. That has never changed. The church was never a Bible inspired entity. The Bible is a part of the church. Now you can say that church is not the Catholic Church, but you cannot say the Bible created the church.

And OT scriptures won't help you prove otherwise. Why else did Jesus appeal to the teachers and scribes as sitting on "the seat of Moses" and to do whatever those teachers told them to do? Matthew 23. Despite all of the hypocrisies he declares they commit in that chapter, he still tells the people they are to be listened to. What He did not do is tell them that they could understand those OT scriptures for themselves apart from the teachers. He never inspired anyone to break off. He was here to fulfill the Jewish faith and bring gentiles to it, not to leave it in the dust and blaze a new path.

To your second point:. The medium changed? So the fullness and authority of teaching went from oral to written and stopped at written? No other authoritative oral teaching or clarification was needed? That would lead me to wonder why the heck we needed all the councils to do the defining of terms, rejection of heresies, and otherwise leading the faithful if it was all encapsulated in the Bible. The guys that got together to condemn those heresies could have been just as wrong as you or I.

I have said this before, but I think it holds here: there is a danger in making the Bible itself an idol. It seems to me the idea that the gospel existed orally and then, at the Spirit's prompting, was encapsulated in writing in a way that has sealed all that God ever meant to teach is dangerous. It's like saying that since God created the ark and worked through the ark that now He was confined to the ark. Because God's word was "transferred" to text, it is now confined to the text. Not only does scripture not say this, but it is a dangerous position to hold. In fact, it is a position that has created all the division we see today. Every church split is claimed to be done on the authority of God's word. Somehow the Bible is the sole word of God and the inspiration for division in the church. Forgive me if this isn't what you're saying in your second point, but I don't know how to come to any different conclusion.

Your third point is a personal opinion on why you think infallibility is wrong. I think it's right. There is really no way to come to a conclusion without parsing through points 1 and 2 first.