Did the Church burn books to keep them out of the Bible?

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Hello, all!

How would I respond to the question:

Did the Church burn books to keep them out of the Bible?

Thank you!!!
 
jmsgirl said:
+JMJ+

Hello, all!

How would I respond to the question:

Did the Church burn books to keep them out of the Bible?

Thank you!!!
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A rather odd accusation. Until the 1400s, bibles were handwritten by individuals, one at a time. So, how could this happen? The Church, under the guidance of the Holy Spirit, did hold councils to argue the canonicity of books and epistles. Those councils determined which books and letters were to be considered scripture, both in the Old and New Testaments. They also determined which writings were not to be included in the bible. So, if anything was ever burned, it would have been a heretical (harmful) work, and had already been judged so. Frankly, the question sounds like that of a conspiracy theorist.

However, seven books of Sacred Scripture were later taken out of many bibles altogether. Who did this? Martin Luther. He rejected the books of the “deuterocanon” (second canon). He, by his own authority, demoted them to “apocrypha”, which essentially means that they are interesting and possibly even useful, but not the word of God. He also wanted to eliminate the Apocalypse (Revelation) and the letter of James, and possibly others.

But, it was not the Catholic Church that did this.
 
Mistranslated bibles were burnt to prevent them from being read. Bibles which were correctly translated were not burnt.
 
If the Catholic Church burnt books to keep them out of the bible them why does the Catholic Bible have MORE books than a Protestant Bible?
 
I thought there was some Roman emperor (don’t remember who) who ordered the sacred books of the Church to be burnt during the Great Persecution of the Roman Church in the early centuries.

I might be wrong, but I think St Athanasius ordered gnostic texts to be destroyed in his famous Easter letter. Some monk went on to hide the gnostic texts by burying them in the ground, and many centuries later, they were discovered and named the Nag Hammadi library.

More recently, some Evangelical pastor (and other Evangelicals) burned RSV Bibles because they didn’t like how the translation did not square with their theology.
 
jmsgirl said:
+JMJ+

Hello, all!

How would I respond to the question:

Did the Church burn books to keep them out of the Bible?

Thank you!!!
Click to expand...
Do you have particulars as to who asks this question, and if they have specific books in mind?

Certainly, many early Christian writings that were not deemed canonical were forgotten or allowed to moulder.
 
The context of your question is unclear. Do you mean:

Burn specific apocryphal books so that they wouldn’t be read?

Burn whole bibles?

Also, at one time period are you referring to? Books as we know them today weren’t really made until the Renaissance and moveable type, where the first printed Bible was made by Johannes Gutenberg. Before then, books were hand-written and VERY costly, and the illiteracy rate was high as reading wasn’t needed.
 
The context of this question is basically people object when I say that there are no ancient writings that claim that Jesus was made-up by the apostles to form this religion and that’s the strongest proof that Jesus - the historical person - existed.

Then people say, “Well, how do we know that the Church didn’t burn those writings?”

Basically, people want to know that when the Bible was complied, the Church didn’t burn heretical “accounts” of Jesus’ life. The website about the early christian writings is a really good one, because it shows how many “incorrect” accounts still exist.
 
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