Item Detail
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28068
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1
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0
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English
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The Concept of Apostasy in the New Testament
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Early Christians in Disarray : Contemporary LDS Perspectives on the Christian Apostasy
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Provo, UT
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Foundation for Ancient Research and Mormon Studies ; Brigham Young University
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133-162
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We frequently speak of the “great apostasy,” and we recognize that apostasy was a concern for early Christianity. Less often do we ask what the writers of the New Testament meant by the term apostasy. I suspect that we seldom ask what we mean by the word. It is a term we take for granted, but being clear about how apostasy was understood in the early church would help us be clear about what we mean when we speak of the apostasy in the first and second centuries AD, and it might help us understand better what constitutes apostasy in our own times. I will implicitly argue that understanding its New Testament meaning is important for an additional reason: understanding how early Christians understood apostasy will give us a better understanding of what it means to be a Christian. We will understand better what was essential to the early church and, therefore, also to the restoration by asking ourselves, “From what do we fall away when we apostatize?” [From the text]