2 Timothy 3:16-17 and Sola Scriptura

[Sola_C_F_G_S_DG]

In the gospel of John, I can’t remember the verse properly, but I think it was John 21:25 and it was something along the lines of ‘there were others thing that Jesus of Nazareth did that aren’t recorded’

How about oral tradition for starters as implied from John’s gospel. Just the fact that in scripture, it says that there are other things, just disproves sola scriptura. Sola scriptura theology needs to have scripture referencing what is needed as true, scripture doesn’t do that, and even if it did it would be circular reasoning, hence why scripture doesn’t do it and therefore it’s not sola scriptura.

Otherwise known as (proof by contradiction)

Whoooaa there! Slow down. I think you’re getting at some good points but you may need to clarify for me. If you are making the tradition argument, let me ask you this. Pretend I am a neutral “seeker.” Which “tradition” would you advise me to follow, Eastern Orthodox or Roman Catholic. Both claim the same apostolic authority being handed down, but the two contradict one another.

 

[Harmony1988]

I want to debate Sola Scriptura per the title of the thread. I do not want to debate the hope issue on this thread. I have been debating Sola Scriptura with Marco Polo this whole time and everyone kept wanting to sidetrack me on the hope issue.

Sorry, my fault.

 

[Harmony1988]

Have you ever debated sola scriptura before?

Once or twice

 

[Harmony1988]

Whoooaa there! Slow down. I think you’re getting at some good points but you may need to clarify for me. If you are making the tradition argument, let me ask you this. Pretend I am a neutral “seeker.” Which “tradition” would you advise me to follow, Eastern Orthodox or Roman Catholic. Both claim the same apostolic authority being handed down, but the two contradict one another.

Well considering I am Roman Catholic, I would obviously advise you on RC. I see this is a rather rhetorical question, but I answered it nevertheless

Well firstly, that is irrelevant as of now, because we are trying to justify sources other than scripture aren’t we?

I thought I might add this, this was in the other sola scriptura thread, I just wish there was one. Urgh.

Sorry to butt in, but, Bengal_fan, you seem to be saying that the Bishops determine the books in the Bible based on whether they were written by an Apostle. At the end of the 4th century there were 150-250 writings all claiming to be written by, or written by those mentored by, apostles. There were many more books written by apostles than what we have in the NT today.

My understanding is the Bishops took the oral tradition to that point and siad either this book conforms to our oral traditon or it does not. The Spirit guided them by giving them a tradition that determined books in the Bible.

Inspired Tradition bore the Inspired Bible. That’s why Catholics always look to tradition to interpret the Bible; not a local study club.

One of the posters there said this.

 

[MarcoPolo]

I believe it is exclusionary…is there anything else you can think of that Scripture says is divinely inspired?

Good thought, but gonna play my red-herring card here. let’s stick with theopneustos.

Yes, that was a red herring. What I did was appeal to your principal of injecting “sola” where there is a single use of a Greek word, and we see that does not stand, by using my Luke 1:28 example. I’m sure I could find others.

To your first question, yes, the apostles were divinely inspired in their teaching. See again John 20:22. The passage relates the breath of God using similar Greek root etymology as your theopneustos. They received the Spirit, whether you think it was at that moment or later at Pentecost.

Also, the apostles will be guided to all truth (Jn 16:13) by the Spirit, to the end of our age (Mt 28:20).

It is Jesus speaking through them (Lk 10:16, 2 Cor 5:20, Jn 13:20). He who holds the office of leadership in the faith also holds a special charism of God’s truth, (Jn 11:49-51, Mt 16:17). This special grace is passed on to Church leaders through the imposition of hands (1 Tim 4:14, Acts 9:17, Acts 8:18-19, etc…and, again it is Jesus who is revealing Truth through them…

If you are still unconvinced that God’s Word is transmitted in ways other than by the pen, we will have reached a stalemate my friend.

 

[Sola_C_F_G_S_DG]

You dismiss the original greek scriptures as red herrings? Do you even understand that language matters? You can’t play your red herring card when it comes to the original scripts and their translation into English. Sorry, you can’t just weasel your way out of this. Refute his statement, or don’t speak at all, we don’t want to hear your countless arguments all the while not refuting ours.

.

I was not dismissing the Greek by any means, only the cross reference. I do understand that language matters, which is why, I think, I’m a Protestant and not a RC. A “re-discovery” of the original languages was essentially what launched the Protestant Reformation.

It was a premier RC apologist, Patrick Madrid, that dismissed the importance of the original languages in a recent debate on sola scriptura. I quote Madrid

“[White] says that I can’t refute the Greek translations. Well of course! I didn’t bring a Greek library with me tonight. I didn’t bring all sorts of linguistic apparatuses to throw at you to try to build my case based on what this scholar or that scholar might say. I brought the Bible. I believe in going by what God’s Word says.”

Yeah…in English.

 

[Sola_C_F_G_S_DG]

Take this for instance. Mary is called kekaritomene in Luke 1:28, the only occurrence of this perfect-passive-participle, literally “having been perfected in grace” (a full treatment here). Are we then to conclude Jesus was not perfected in grace? Only Mary because it is the only occurrence of kekaritomene in Scripture? Of course not. (FYI, even if you don’t accept a “Catholic” translation of kekaritomene, you can translate the word any way you want too: “full of grace”, “highly favored”, “favored one,” pick your translation…the point remains the same.)
.

Okay, I’m gonna go for this one, but let’s not turn it into a discussion about Mary. Let’s keep to the thread, and discuss the “uniqueness” of *kecharitomene *only as it relates the uniqueness of “theopneustos”.

First of all, the same verb, *charitoo *is used in Eph 1:6. While *kecharitomene *is parsed differently than echaritosen, they stem from the same basic verb. Whereas nothing remotely familiar to *theopneustos *can be found in the NT.

Also, *charitoo *(infinitive of kecharitomene/echaritosen) clearly comes from the root charis, which is the very familiar NT term for grace, used 155 times in the NT. The verb describing Mary is very familiar to the NT (granted, the conjugation is unique), whereas the modifier *theopnuestos *describing Scripture is truly unique and exclusive. It’s not just the conjugation, but the entire word form that is unique.

Because of this unique *theopnuestos *quality, we can accurately say Scripture ALONE.

PS- I found the Mary discussion and link pretty interesting, and might be up for going there if someone wants to start that thread. I do not think this is teaching that Mary “should be ever resplendent with the glory of most sublime holiness and so completely free from all taint of original sin” as Pius IX says in the link.

 

[Harmony1988]

I was not dismissing the Greek by any means, only the cross reference. I do understand that language matters, which is why, I think, I’m a Protestant and not a RC. A “re-discovery” of the original languages was essentially what launched the Protestant Reformation.

It was a premier RC apologist, Patrick Madrid, that dismissed the importance of the original languages in a recent debate on sola scriptura. I quote Madrid

“[White] says that I can’t refute the Greek translations. Well of course! I didn’t bring a Greek library with me tonight. I didn’t bring all sorts of linguistic apparatuses to throw at you to try to build my case based on what this scholar or that scholar might say. I brought the Bible. I believe in going by what God’s Word says.”

Yeah…in English.

Re-discovery of the languages isn’t what launched the protestant reformation. I thought it was pretty well known.

What launched it was the abuse of plenary indulgences

 

[Harmony1988]

Okay, I’m gonna go for this one, but let’s not turn it into a discussion about Mary. Let’s keep to the thread, and discuss the “uniqueness” of *kecharitomene *only as it relates the uniqueness of “theopneustos”.

First of all, the same verb, *charitoo *is used in Eph 1:6. While *kecharitomene *is parsed differently than echaritosen, they stem from the same basic verb. Whereas nothing remotely familiar to *theopneustos *can be found in the NT.

Also, *charitoo *(infinitive of kecharitomene/echaritosen) clearly comes from the root charis, which is the very familiar NT term for grace, used 155 times in the NT. The verb describing Mary is very familiar to the NT (granted, the conjugation is unique), whereas the modifier *theopnuestos *describing Scripture is truly unique and exclusive. It’s not just the conjugation, but the entire word form that is unique.
**
Because of this unique *theopnuestos ***quality, we can accurately say Scripture ALONE.

PS- I found the Mary discussion and link pretty interesting, and might be up for going there if someone wants to start that thread. I do not think this is teaching that Mary “should be ever resplendent with the glory of most sublime holiness and so completely free from all taint of original sin” as Pius IX says in the link.

I don’t know much Greek at all, so I don’t want to dance in this aspect of the topic. But dang, that bolded bit has got to be the biggest leap of logic I have ever seen. Especially when I pointed out some things in my last post on the previous page which you seemed to have conveniently avoided.

“There are other things which Jesus of Nazareth” - The Bible wouldn’t need to state such a thing if tradition weren’t important. If you are claiming it is, then you are implying the Bible is stating things that are useless.

If the Bible came together in 380 A.D and I’m guessing logically it would have at least taken about 20 years to spread to the general public, given the lack of technology at the time, what did they go by to practice their faith?

TRADITION

So we are essentially talking about 370 years since the death of christ, where there was no scripture to what mattered the most the general public.

Just the logic and basic chronological mathematics proves this. That is a lot of time without the Bible, that’s around 11 - 12 generations of people. It’s rather obvious that there was something else.

 

[Harmony1988]

It was a premier RC apologist, Patrick Madrid, that dismissed the importance of the original languages in a recent debate on sola scriptura. I quote Madrid

“[White] says that I can’t refute the Greek translations. Well of course! I didn’t bring a Greek library with me tonight. I didn’t bring all sorts of linguistic apparatuses to throw at you to try to build my case based on what this scholar or that scholar might say. I brought the Bible. I believe in going by what God’s Word says.”

Yeah…in English.

This is also another irrelevant, last I checked, we weren’t going by the teachings of Madrid, and we don’t take apologists to be infallible either. Considering the Vatican does their Bible linguistics in Latin…

 

[john_ennis]

Well, since the canon of the New Testament wasn’t written down and compiled when Timothy 1 and 2 were written, it is safe to conclude that he was speaking only of the Old Testament Jewish Scriptures. Therefore, sola scriptura should be faithful and exclude anything that was compiled after the time of Christ.

Yes, and this has to be acknowledged.

The only way Paul could’ve meant for Timothy to understand him as meaning only Scripture was necessary for knowing the truth, would be if every NT letter had already been written (even more than that–that all NT letters were widely recognized as Scripture by then, which is most certainly not the case).
Reasonableness demands that we think Paul meant OT, as Jesus did when he talked of Scripture.

One can scrutinize and hypothesize, searching for logical evidence that Paul could have meant otherwise, but the only reason for doing so is to support a Sola Scripture belief that hasn’t yet been indicated. That’t circular.
If you don’t already believe SS, you’re certainly never going to derive it from 2Tim.

Peace.
John

 

[MarcoPolo]

The verb describing Mary is very familiar to the NT (granted, the conjugation is unique), whereas the modifier theopnuestos describing Scripture is truly unique and exclusive.

Because of this unique *theopnuestos *quality, we can accurately say Scripture ALONE.

Come on Sola…now you’re going to say that even though there are words with etymology similar to theopneustos and kecharitomene, that the ones for theopneustos are just REALLY REALLY more different than the ones for kecharitomene? Your word is more unique than my word because the modifier is unique instead of the perfect, passive tense)??? Either way, you have a unique word with a unique meaning. You would not place this kind of exclusivity on things in Scripture described by other unique Greek adjectives. You know there are a lot of words used only once in Greek in the NT.

But no matter to what degree you would like it to be unique is immaterial. It could have ZERO relatives etymologically (which it, of course, does even in reference to God’s breath and I already linked to such verses). But that doesn’t put the word “sola” anywhere in there.

 

[danalad]

I used to get hung up on that point too. But context again provides the answer.

v.10 you have carefully followed MY doctrine
v.13 you must continue in the things you have learned and been assured of, knowing from whom you have learned them [Paul referring to himself, Timothy’s mentor]

As Paul mentored Timothy,he was very aware that what he was writing and teaching young Timothy was Scripture. Timothy was to continue in the things he learned from Paul. That would be the NT Scriptures, not just OT. Ephesians, Philippians, Colossians, etc had all been written and circulated by the time this letter was written. Those letters of Scripture are included in this exhortation. After all, Timothy will take over the pastorate at Ephesus, so the letter to the Ephesians will be an important Scripture for Timothy to preach as well.

Sola, I’m not sold on your idea that the term “Scripture” here means anything more than the OT. Here’s why:

1. Why would Paul think he was teaching Timothy scripture? To two educated, Jewish men like Paul and Timothy, “Scripture” meant the Torah, the OT. Period, end of story. Just like when you and I say “Bible” we mean the OT and the NT together. When you say Bible, you don’t mean, for example, the written Bible and the writtings of Billy Grahm appended onto it, right? A good Jew would never dream of adding books onto the Torah, and Paul, while a Christian, still had a strong Jewish upbringing. He believed that Christ fulfilled the Torah, so Paul had nothing against the Torah; no reason to change it.
2. Not all of Paul’s writings are in the Bible. How was Timothy to know which of his writings were “Scripture” and which were not? Paul didn’t know. Neither did Timothy. It wasn’t decided until almost 400 AD.
3. Not all of the NT books were written while Paul was writing. The Gosepls weren’t even done yet. How can Paul mean Scripture is OT + NT when the NT wasn’t even written yet, much less determined?

I’d also like to hear your defense of the argument of Authority that Harmoney quoted of me a few posts ago. but for now I’d like more explanation of why you think Paul is, in the 50’s AD, refering to the Bible that wasn’t in its current form until almost 400 AD?

 

[danalad]

Yes, and this has to be acknowledged.

The only way Paul could’ve meant for Timothy to understand him as meaning only Scripture was necessary for knowing the truth, would be if every NT letter had already been written (even more than that–that all NT letters were widely recognized as Scripture by then, which is most certainly not the case).
Reasonableness demands that we think Paul meant OT, as Jesus did when he talked of Scripture.

One can scrutinize and hypothesize, searching for logical evidence that Paul could have meant otherwise, but the only reason for doing so is to support a Sola Scripture belief that hasn’t yet been indicated. That’t circular.
If you don’t already believe SS, you’re certainly never going to derive it from 2Tim.

Peace.
John

John, I didn’t see your post before putting mine up on the same topic. Wasn’t meaning to borrow your argument. Thanks for making sure this point isn’t forgotten or glossed over because it has not been properly addressed here.

 

[Sola_C_F_G_S_DG]

I don’t know much Greek at all, so I don’t want to dance in this aspect of the topic. But dang, that bolded bit has got to be the biggest leap of logic I have ever seen…

No biggie on the Greek, but weren’t you the one accusing me for not knowing Greek earlier? On “the biggest leap of logic”…what about evolution? nobody + nothing = everything. easy on the superlatives

“There are other things which Jesus of Nazareth” - The Bible wouldn’t need to state such a thing if tradition weren’t important. If you are claiming it is, then you are implying the Bible is stating things that are useless.

The point of this statement in Jn 20:30 is to emphasize the superiority and greatness of Christ. It says NOTHING about tradition. However, the very next verse does emphasize that “these are WRITTEN that you may believe that Jesus is the Christ, the Son of God, and that believing you may have life in His name.” In fact, you’ve just pointed out a verse that makes the Protestant point quite clearly. What John is saying is that, yes, Christ did a ton more than what he has recorded, but what He has recorded is sufficient for “belief” and “life” in Christ, the purpose of His gospel.

If the Bible came together in 380 A.D and I’m guessing logically it would have at least taken about 20 years to spread to the general public, given the lack of technology at the time, what did they go by to practice their faith?

TRADITION

So we are essentially talking about 370 years since the death of christ, where there was no scripture to what mattered the most the general public.

Just the logic and basic chronological mathematics proves this. That is a lot of time without the Bible, that’s around 11 - 12 generations of people. It’s rather obvious that there was something else.

If I may use your term “leap,” the statements in bold are quite a leap. The Scriptures were Scripture when they were written. They were written to churches (Ephesus, Corinth, Thessalonica, Rome). They were just as much Scripture the moment the churches received and circulated them as they were 370 years later at the councils. SUre, the original recipients may not have possessed leather-bound Bibles, but they still had the theopneustos Scriptures.

I’m not sure I get your point. Are you saying the Scriptures were inspired when they were penned, then for a while they went stealth, then they were inspired Scripture again when the councils waived their magic wand?

The Word of God (written, incarnate, and preached by the Apostles) begat the church, not vica versa. As the apostles, with their unique gifts and authority, faded out, the Canon faded in as our sole rule of authority and faith.

For further clarity, not chapter 1, article 1 of the Westminster Confession here

 

[Sola_C_F_G_S_DG]

Sola, I’m not sold on your idea that the term “Scripture” here means anything more than the OT. Here’s why:

1. Why would Paul think he was teaching Timothy scripture? To two educated, Jewish men like Paul and Timothy, “Scripture” meant the Torah, the OT. Period, end of story. Just like when you and I say “Bible” we mean the OT and the NT together. When you say Bible, you don’t mean, for example, the written Bible and the writtings of Billy Grahm appended onto it, right? A good Jew would never dream of adding books onto the Torah, and Paul, while a Christian, still had a strong Jewish upbringing. He believed that Christ fulfilled the Torah, so Paul had nothing against the Torah; no reason to change it.
2. Not all of Paul’s writings are in the Bible. How was Timothy to know which of his writings were “Scripture” and which were not? Paul didn’t know. Neither did Timothy. It wasn’t decided until almost 400 AD.
3. Not all of the NT books were written while Paul was writing. The Gosepls weren’t even done yet. How can Paul mean Scripture is OT + NT when the NT wasn’t even written yet, much less determined?

I’d also like to hear your defense of the argument of Authority that Harmoney quoted of me a few posts ago. but for now I’d like more explanation of why you think Paul is, in the 50’s AD, refering to the Bible that wasn’t in its current form until almost 400 AD?

john ennis and graceandglory, you’re both right, this does need to be addressed, but i can’t get to it tonight…will respond asap.

 

[Sola_C_F_G_S_DG]

Come on Sola…now you’re going to say that even though there are words with etymology similar to theopneustos and kecharitomene, that the ones for theopneustos are just REALLY REALLY more different than the ones for kecharitomene? Your word is more unique than my word because the modifier is unique instead of the perfect, passive tense)??? Either way, you have a unique word with a unique meaning. You would not place this kind of exclusivity on things in Scripture described by other unique Greek adjectives. You know there are a lot of words used only once in Greek in the NT.

But no matter to what degree you would like it to be unique is immaterial. It could have ZERO relatives etymologically (which it, of course, does even in reference to God’s breath and I already linked to such verses). But that doesn’t put the word “sola” anywhere in there.

Marco, I think I’m done on this one, I want to put some thought into john ennis and graceandglory…

 

[danalad]

Yes, and this has to be acknowledged.

One can scrutinize and hypothesize, searching for logical evidence that Paul could have meant otherwise, but the only reason for doing so is to support a Sola Scripture belief that hasn’t yet been indicated. That’t circular.
If you don’t already believe SS, you’re certainly never going to derive it from 2Tim.

Peace.
John

In support of this quote I think it’s good to remember where SS came from. Luther didn’t read 2Tim 3:16 and say “Wow, look at this! I guess the Bible says the Bible alone is valid”.

Instead Luther rejected the teaching authority and the tradition of the RC out of frustration with her teachings and traditions. If you remove authority and tradition from the RC you are left with… the Bible alone.

Neither this verse, nor any other, caused SS; Luther’s frustration with the RC did. Luther may have used this verse to defend his position; but it wasn’t the root of it. The SS argument is most certainly circular since it wasn’t even born of the Bible but from Luther’s replacement of the RC’s authority and tradition with his own.

 

[mackbrislawn]

Sola_C_F_G_S_DG:
Even if this were true, it begs the question of, what is “all scripture”?

 

[mackbrislawn]

Quote: I’m not sure I get your point. Are you saying the Scriptures were inspired when they were penned, then for a while they went stealth, then they were inspired Scripture again when the councils waived their magic wand? Unquote.

Sigh…of course the inspired scriptures were inspired to begin with and always remained inspired. But, the problem is, among the early Christians there existed many “scriptures,” some inspired and some not inspired. It’s not even sure that the early Christians thought to distingish among them, at that time.

However later, in response to heresies, it became important to decide which writings represented genuine inspired ones and which not. Which writings should be used in the congregations and which not? That’s not an easy problem to decide, especially when the original sources of the writings have become obscure. Different “Christian” groups used different writings and did not accept others. (I put “Christian” in quotes because not all early groups calling themselves Christian would today be considered to be Christian.) So, the church of the 3rd and 4th centuries, the church that we are all descended from, made the decision which writings should be considered authentic and inspired and which not.

Of course Catholics consider that church, the church that decided what the canon, the measure, of scripture should be, is the Catholic church. Hence, by this thinking, all of us today are dependent upon the Catholic church for the Bible we have today.

I can’t imagine how anyone should consider anything of what I said above to be controversial. But, I suppose some will.