Canon of Scripture

[mercygate]

Aside from, “the church said so” do Catholics feel there is any criteria Scriptures must meet to be considered inspired?

Criteria for inclusion the NT:

• Apostolic authorship or
• Close association with an Apostle (Mark, Luke)
• Non-contradiction of Church teaching
• Being universlly (or nearly so) read in the liturgy of all the churches
• The accepted OT was the Septugint.

 

[Ginger2]

Criteria for inclusion the NT:

• Apostolic authorship or
• Close association with an Apostle (Mark, Luke)
• Non-contradiction of Church teaching
• Being universlly (or nearly so) read in the liturgy of all the churches
• The accepted OT was the Septugint.

Is this official?

 

[mgrfin]

Carthage and Hippo did not establish the canon for the Church as a whole. The Canon was officially established at the Council of Trent in the 16th century and even then there was not a consensus.

I believe, and this is just my opinion, that the canon was set in 1546 to fight Luther’s reformation. The timing is pragmatic.

As usual, Ginger, when it comes to Catholic matters you oversimplify.

For the Church to have a defined dogma, it is not necessary e.g. to have unanimous approval by a Church Council.

I am sure that in most defined dogmas taught by the Catholic Church, from the Council of Jerusalem, through Vatican 2 there was always healthy debate, and a final vote. Then, the Pope decided to accept the vote, and the teaching of the Church was defined on the matter.

The Canon of the Bible was pretty much set in the 5th Century. Because it is in the canons of Trent doesn’t mean that is when it was determined. The Church taught, correctly I might add, about Justification before the Canons of Trent. And even at Trent there was some disagreement. There may have been some debate about particular books of the Bible, but doesn’t mean that the Canon wasn’t decided much earlier.

What ‘Council’ of the Lutherans or the Calvinists voted on what books are in the Canon.

peace

 

[Ginger2]

Criteria for inclusion the NT:

• Apostolic authorship or
• Close association with an Apostle (Mark, Luke)
• Non-contradiction of Church teaching
• Being universlly (or nearly so) read in the liturgy of all the churches
• The accepted OT was the Septugint.

I see a real problem with #3. Shouldn’t that be the churches teaching cannot contradict God’s word?

And #5 The current Catholic canon is not identical to the list out of Hippo and Carthage which are the Septuagint version of 1 and 2 Esdras. But, the Council of Trent proclaimed 1 & 2 from the Jewish canon.

That means the current accepted version is in error where it departs from the Septuinant versions.

Also, the Orthodox have a different canon. How do you know which one is correct. Does one have extra books or is the other missing books?

 

[mgrfin]

*]The accepted OT was the Septugint.

Although accepted in the Council of Trent, the Septuagint goes back before the time of Christ, and was accepted in the early Church.

peace

 

[mgrfin]

I see a real problem with #3. Shouldn’t that be the churches teaching cannot contradict God’s word?

No, you have it backwards, Ginger.

The Catholic Church is the official interpreter of the meaning of Sacred Scripture. God’s word supports the teaching magisterium of the Church.

I know this comes a shock to you. You’d like to believe that the Holy Spirit is inspiring you when you read Scripture. But, such ‘inspirations’ come to all your others in your christian community. Whose interpretation is correct?

You never seem to understand that you cannot have thousands of interpretations of God’s Word. That is why the Church is the sole interpreter of what God is teaching in his Word.

peace

 

[Ginger2]

No, you have it backwards, Ginger.

The Catholic Church is the official interpreter of the meaning of Sacred Scripture. God’s word supports the teaching magisterium of the Church.

I have been trying to ignore you mgrfin, but you are the one who has it backwards. The Holy Spirit interprets because the Holy Spirit is the Helper sent to guide us to all truth.

You are forever placing God beneath the church. Stop it.

John 16:13: “When He, the Spirit of Truth has come, He will guide you into all truth.”

Now, would you like to rephrase your statement to claim the Holy Spirit guides the Church?

 

[mgrfin]

The fact that, in the west we have two canons and that neither of these canons are innovations but both have much historical attestation leads me to conclude that while the church may have this “custodial superintendency” of the Word of God, it is not exhaustively inerrant or infallible when it comes to the exercise of this superintendency over the issue of which books belong in it…

Of course, the Council of Trent said otherwise.

peace

 

[mgrfin]

But it is not so important to me that these books are included in the Bible. What is more important is that they contain serious errors and should be read keeping in mind their imperfections.

Serious errors? Yeah, like Purgatory.

What errors are you talking about?" If the Catholic Church says a particular book is inspired, that covers the question of inerrancy.

This is more whitewash from Ginger.

peace

 

[steve_b]

Carthage and Hippo did not establish the canon for the Church as a whole. The Canon was officially established at the Council of Trent in the 16th century and even then there was not a consensus.

Since Hippo and Carthage were local councils, they don’t bind the entire Church to their ruling. So technically, they didn’t establish the canon for the entire Church. However, one of the issues they met over, was the need to show what books were considered canonical. And it goes without saying, there must have been an issue here still at this time which books were accepted and which ones were not.

When the Protestant revolt took place 1200 years after those councils, and the issue of scripture and canon was revisited by Luther, Trent which was an ecumenical council, ended that debate and speculation.

Ginger:

I believe, and this is just my opinion, that the canon was set in 1546 to fight Luther’s reformation. The timing is pragmatic.

That was a big part of it. Afterall, if Luther was going to base his revolt on scripture alone and faith alone, then it’s obvious, there can’t be a reworking of what scripture is, correct?

BTW, there were around 19 translations of the scriptures in German before Luther published his version.

Luther’s translation of the New Testament was not published until 1522, and his version of the Old Testament was not published until 1534.

Catholics, between the years 1466 and 1522, had already published fourteen complete editions of the Bible in high German and five in low German.

 

[mgrfin]

I have been trying to ignore you mgrfin, but you are the one who has it backwards. The Holy Spirit interprets because the Holy Spirit is the Helper sent to guide us to all truth.

You are forever placing God beneath the church. Stop it.

John 16:13: “When He, the Spirit of Truth has come, He will guide you into all truth.”

Now, would you like to rephrase your statement to claim the Holy Spirit guides the Church?

Stop it? Please!

You never really learned much about the Catholic Church, Ginger.

The Holy Spirit is in the Catholic Church, sent to guide and protect her from error. So when the Catholic Church speaks, it is God who is speaking through her.

God is not below the Church. What an ignorant remark! You want to sit in your pew and wait for the Holy Spirit to speak to you. But, such voices in your head are guarantees of nothing. When the Church speaks we know it is the Spirit who is guiding her, and keeping her from error.

That is why the Catholic Church is enabled to lead us to salvation by the indwelling of the Holy Spirit, who gives it life. This indwelling of the Spirit enables the Church to teach, to sanctify, and to rule the faithful in the name of Christ.

Read John 16: 13-14

Is that enough of ‘restatement’, or, would you like some more?

peace

PS You are free to ignore me all you want. You invited someone to leave this thread because he did not agree with you. Well, the same invitation applies to you. You are also free to leave this thread whenever you want.

 

[Ginger2]

Serious errors? Yeah, like Purgatory.

What errors are you talking about?" If the Catholic Church says a particular book is inspired, that covers the question of inerrancy.

This is more whitewash from Ginger.

peace

Baruch 6:2. And when you are come into Babylon, you shall be there many years, and for a long time, even to seven generations: and after that I will bring you away from thence with peace.

Jer. 25:11 “And this whole land shall be a desolation and a horror, and these nations shall serve the king of Babylon seventy years.”

Seventy years - not generations.

 

[Ginger2]

Stop it? Please!

You never really learned much about the Catholic Church, Ginger.

The Holy Spirit is in the Catholic Church, sent to guide and protect her from error. So when the Catholic Church speaks, it is God who is speaking through her.

God is not below the Church. What an ignorant remark! You want to sit in your pew and wait for the Holy Spirit to speak to you. But, such voices in your head are guarantees of nothing. When the Church speaks we know it is the Spirit who is guiding her, and keeping her from error.

peace

PS You are free to ignore me all you want. You invited someone to leave this thread because he did not agree with you. Well, the same invitation applies to you. You are also free to leave this thread whenever you want.

That’s it. I just cannot deal with you. I’m outta here.

 

[jmcrae]

Baruch 6:2. And when you are come into Babylon, you shall be there many years, and for a long time, even to seven generations: and after that I will bring you away from thence with peace.

Jer. 25:11 “And this whole land shall be a desolation and a horror, and these nations shall serve the king of Babylon seventy years.”

Seventy years - not generations.

Maybe they married young, back then.

In any case, both terms are intended to mean “a very long time.” I don’t know how long they were actually in Babylon, but I doubt that it was either precisely 70 years to the day, or precisely seven generations to the day. (How do you calculate a generation, anyway?)

If you want to talk about apparent contradictions, you can find more interesting ones right in the Book of Genesis itself, within the first four chapters. The fact that there are apparent contradictions doesn’t mean that the text isn’t inspired - it just means that we don’t understand it very well.

 

[Mannyfit75]

I have been trying to ignore you mgrfin, but you are the one who has it backwards. The Holy Spirit interprets because the Holy Spirit is the Helper sent to guide us to all truth.

You are forever placing God beneath the church. Stop it.

He hasn’t. What are you trying to prove here? Don’t get me wrong but you seem to want to separate the Church and God. You can’t.

The Soul of the Church is the Holy Spirit. The Church is also the Bride of Christ. The Church is also the Mystical Body of Christ. Since when did God divorce his Church? Since when did Holy Spirit leave Church? Since when did Jesus, who is the Head of Church cut himself off?

I don’t think my Catholic friend is placing God beneath the Church.

John 16:13: “When He, the Spirit of Truth has come, He will guide you into all truth.”

Now, would you like to rephrase your statement to claim the Holy Spirit guides the Church?

You know when Jesus said that, he was speaking to his Apostles, whom Jesus build his Church on. This only prove 1 Tim 3:15.

15 But if I tarry long, that thou mayest know how thou oughtest to behave thyself in the house of God, which is the church of the living God, the pillar and ground of the truth.

In other words, the Church decided the Canon of Scripture.

 

[mercygate]

Is this official?

Those were the criteria used in the 4th century when the canon of the NT was set. So, yes: it’s official.

One of the best treatments of the subject of the canon that I have heard is R. C. Sproul’s mini-lecture given on his radio show. He’s Presbyterian. He does not go into the Deuterocanon but since we are speaking of Scriptures received by the Christian Church, the OT Scriptures accepted by the early Church would be THE Scriptures.

The question of the NT canon presumes the authority of the Church to identify what belonged in it.

 

[mgrfin]

Baruch 6:2. And when you are come into Babylon, you shall be there many years, and for a long time, even to seven generations: and after that I will bring you away from thence with peace.

Jer. 25:11 “And this whole land shall be a desolation and a horror, and these nations shall serve the king of Babylon seventy years.”

Seventy years - not generations.

Your biblical scholars never taught you that numbers in the bible are very special. And when we come to 7 and 70, they are very, very special.

When Jesus was asked how many times we should forgive our brothers, 7 times? He answered, No, 70 times 7 times, meaning indefinitely, without limit.

What are you trying to prove with your scriptural quotes? As usual you just throw out scripture without any connection to what you are saying.

Is Baruch in error? How and why?

peace

 

[mgrfin]

That’s it. I just cannot deal with you. I’m outta here.

Goodbye, and God bless you.

peace

 

[Deconi]

This board desperately needs a dead horses forum where the same old tired debates can go to either sputter on or die and where we can send new comers to get up to speed.

ETA: I have discovered that in most posts, the number of exclamation points used is usually in direct inverse proportion to the actual amount of substance in it.

For example, a series of vehemently maintained and presented assertions does not constitute an argument. At best the most it can be is contradiction.

Your problem is that you drag Church facts down to your level and throw some mud against it until it looks like everything else you know about Christianity until you cannot discern one from the other.

Then you call into question the veracity of those facts as though those (ECFs) who decided on them were all idiots, or were not blessed with your ‘divinely given’ intellect.

Of course, to do that, you choose to ignore Scriptural referrences to The Church being guided by The Holy Spirit, as Her Founder promised!! You look for dissention where there are none; indecision where there is none!

Carthage and Hippo decided The Canon of Scripture. Period! Human reasoning suggests that it was because there were 200-300 odd books floating around claiming to be teachings of Our Lord and His Apostles. The Church ‘knows’ also that The Holy Spirit deemed it was time to do it!

Trent reaffirmed it in light of more errors circulating, 1200 - 1400years in between.

I have endured the mindset of your ilk through universities! Some of academia find there were varied views throughout the Council discussion periods. From there they base entire arguments on those “variations” as though The Church is undecided. They, like your view, ignores the RESULT and CONCLUSIONS of the councils

That’s like a jury coming back with a verdict, and you bypass them to discuss any possible ‘variation’ when they retired, and use that as an argument against the verdict.

In matters of Church Councils, you’re calling The Guide to account.

Newsflash!
Time will end without your success, for you simply are ignorant of WHO you are up against. Those ‘old and tired arguments’ were here before we came along and will be here when time ends, because He Guided those who made it.

 

[Pwrlftr]

Carthage and Hippo decided The Canon of Scripture. Period!

Out of curiosity, what does it mean that “Carthage and Hippo decided The Canon of Scripture. Period!”?

Also, what do you think of the following statements:
a.) Trent was the first council to dogmatically define the canon for the church. (True/False)

b.) Up until Trent, believers had freedom in discerning what the OT canon consisted of. (True/False)