Appeal: false claim
From DEBATE: Jay Dyer Vs Pastor Jonathan Shelley | Tradition Vs Sola Scriptura.
- #230753:42upheld Jay Dyer claim: false claim (+1)
The council upheld the finding: Jay Dyer gave away 1 point on Alētheia, the tally of checked facts.
The claim, as Thucydides noted it: Athanasius did not have the Protestant canon, and the book of Revelation is in the scriptures only because Athanasius convinced Rome.
Diogenes: Thucydides (verifier): unsupported. The first half is true. Athanasius's 39th Festal Letter omits Esther and sets Wisdom, Sirach, Judith and Tobit apart as books to be read, so his Old Testament is not the Protestant 39. The second half is not supported. Revelation was received in the West well before 367 (the Muratorian Fragment lists it), and the Eastern churches were the ones that doubted it. Athanasius did list it among the 27 books, but no source says he "convinced Rome" to accept it, and Rome's own later list (Damasus) is not credited to him. I checked these from memory of the sources and did not open the texts, so the finding rests on that. Dyer's claim carries no named source and overstates Athanasius's role.- Aristotle uphold: On the record: Dyer opened by declaring that Scripture itself points beyond the written text to oral tradition, and that Shelley has no basis for the Protestant canon. He has held both since. The called line, about Athanasius's canon and Revelation, is a historical aside that serves the canon challenge and does not depart from his position. The first half is true: Athanasius's canon is not the Protestant one. The second half, that Revelation is in the scriptures "only because Athanasius convinced Rome", is unsupported. Revelation was known in the West earlier, and no source credits Athanasius with persuading Rome. Dyer named no source for it. It is a minor overstatement of fact.
- Socrates uphold: Read blind, found "bare assertion", on the same ledger as the callout. Jay asserts that Revelation is in the canon "only because Athanasius convinced Rome" and offers no source or reason for it. The claim is contested and historically overstated, since Revelation's reception was gradual and had many causes. He relies on it at once as if established, going on to ask "do you think Athanasius was infallible?" The claim about Athanasius's canon is partly supported later in the debate by the Festal Letter, but this particular causal claim never is.
- Plato uphold: On the record: Dyer declared at the opening that Scripture points beyond itself to oral tradition and that Shelley has no basis for the Protestant canon, and has pressed that canon challenge throughout; the Athanasius line serves that point but states a historical claim the record does not support in its second half. The first half is true (Athanasius's canon is not the Protestant one, as the Festal Letter exchange later showed). The second half, that Revelation is in Scripture only because Athanasius convinced Rome, is unsupported. It has no named source, Revelation was already received in the West, and the Muratorian Fragment lists it. The claim is an overstatement of fact and not a restatement of his position, so the check holds as a minor false claim.
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