Debates

[fulloftruth]

I found a couple of debates bringyou.to/apologetics/audio.htm#Debates
between James White( a protestant) and a couple of Catholics, like Staples, Pacwa, Mattatics. Staples really kicked his Butt. The crux of the problem that White could not Answer was that the Table of Contents in the Bible was not inspired and that no book in the Bible can authenticate its own inspiration, or the inspiration of any other book, letter or gospel, and that just because it was inspirational was not good enough since, the Koran and , the book of Mormon give the same Feeling to its believers. Based on Sola Scriptura, there is no way for a protestant to know what Books are to be included/excluded in the Bible, without an Authority on earth to authenticate such a Table of Contents. Since Protestants who subscribe to Scripture as the only ***infallable ***authority, and no where in that scripture is it stated what writings will make up that scripture, then the idea of sola scriptura cannot logically be relied on. Under whose Authority were the Apocraphyl books removed after the reformation. Who infallably said that they were not scripture, or was that a fallable decision?

 

[ichabod]

There is a good article in this month’s This Rock magazine of the Council of Jamnia by Steve Ray.

More astute students of Protestant history will be able to p(name removed by moderator)oint the event, but I believe there was a Protestant council/statement of some sort that referred to the Council of Jamnia as defining the canon of the Old Testament.

Prior to that, many Protestant bibles actually included these books; if not in the main body of the text, then as an appendix. The first editions of the King James bible had them.

As I found out by reading the aformentioned article, the council of Jamnia was neither authoritative, nor did it close the OT canon; it merely debated a couple of the books. Debates such as these continued into the second and third centuries.

The Catholic perspective is this:
Jesus and his apostles preached from the Septuagint, a Greek translation of the OT, published for the large number of Greek-speaking Jews that existed at the time. We know this because they make references to books that came from it. That is why we use it. Although there has been some debate, Christianity on the whole accepts the NT canon, although you’d think that’s where the debate would be.

History indicates:
After the fall of Jerusalem in 70 Ad, a version of the Sanhedrin re-formed outside of Jerusalem. Christians were converting Gentiles and Greek-speaking Jews using the Septuagint.
Given this, the new Sanhedrin was compelled to generate a new Greek translation of the OT, one which did not favor this new sect(Christianity). Those books that were questionable were thrown out.

My hypothesis:
Both the new Sanherdin and Protestantism needed to remove those books that contained support for uniquely-Catholic beliefs.
The churches of Protestantism had the additional motive of denying the authority of the Church.