HISTORY OF THE BIBLE

[Panis_Angelicas]

bbas 64:

Great rewrite of history, seeing that there is 1 person who attended that council and went on to disagree with the cannon they had set.

And did that 1 person assent to the Rome’s decision, or did he leave and found a new church? :ehh:

 

[Faustina]

bbas 64:

Good day

Great rewrite of history, seeing that there is 1 person who attended that council and went on to disagree with the cannon they had set.

Peace to u,

Bill

I give up. How did you know there ws only person that attended the Council of Rome? Could you post the link where you found this? I’ve read a few articles about the Council Of Rome and they discuss the debate between St Jerome and St Augustine. Finally Pope Damasus stepped in and made a final decision.

"Now the story had a dramatic change, as the Pope stepped in to settle the matter. In concurrence with the opinion of St. Augustine, and being prompted by the Holy Spirit, Pope St. Damasus I, at the Council of Rome in 382, issued a decree appropriately called, “The Decree of Damasus”, in which he listed the canonical books of both the Old and New Testaments. He then asked St. Jerome to use this canon and to write a new Bible translation which included an Old Testament of 46 books, which were all in the Septuagint, and a New Testament of 27 books.
ROME HAD SPOKEN, THE ISSUE WAS SETTLED.

“THE CHURCH RECOGNIZED ITS IMAGE IN THE INSPIRED BOOKS OF THE BIBLE. THAT IS HOW IT DETERMINED THE CANON OF SCRIPTURE.” Fr. Ken Baker

The decisive shot had been fired.

St. Jerome acquiesced under obedience (Hebrews 13:17) and began the translation, and completed it in 404 A.D… In 405, his new Latin Vulgate* was published for the first time.

home.inreach.com/bstanley/canon.htm

 

[Katholikos]

(contined from previous post)

The authority of the Jews to determine what is Scripture (i.e., the table of contents) ended with Jesus Christ and passed to His Church – the New Israel (Rm 11:26, Gal 6:16, James 1:1). Certainly, the Jews may adopt a canon for Jews, but it has no effect on the Church, which continued to use the 46 books of the Septuagint she inherited from Jesus and the Apostles. Jews have no authority to determine Scripture for Christians – that power belongs to the Church.

When Martin Luther split from the Church he, like Marcion and others before him, declared his own canon of Scripture. He shucked all of the Greek Scriptures, but his real target was 2 Maccabees, which provided the scriptural evidence that Jews believed in purification of the soul after death – it was not an invention of the Church as Luther claimed. But his strategy was to agree with the Palestinian Rabbis that the NT could only be written in Hebrew (God can’t speak Greek? ). This got rid of Maccabees, and more. But 2 Maccabees did not fit his new theology of Faith Alone – Sola Fide – and it had to go. To justify this he used the canon of the Palestinian Rabbis for the OT in his 1522 German translation of the Bible and defended it on the basis that the Jews had rejected the Greek OT Scriptures, and so should Christians.

There was a slight problem – he removed writings from the OT that had been Scripture since before Christ was born until 1522. Then they were no longer scripture because Luther said so.

But – he also rejected Hebrews, James, Jude, and Revelation. Hebrews and James were definitely a problem for Luther’s new doctrine of Faith Alone. James 2:24 is the only place in the entire Bible where faith alone is mentioned, and it specifically says: “You see that a man is justified by works and not by faith alone.”

I’ve asked this question before, and I ask it again: Please explain why the so-called “apocrypha” are not in the Protestant Bible and the four NT books of Hebrews, James, Jude, and
Revelation are? They were treated exactly the same: Luther removed them from among the Scriptures and placed them in a separate section at the back of his Bible with the pages unnumbered to indicate that they were not part of the Scriptures. He wrote prefaces for them indicating why he had rejected them.

The original KJV in 1611 copied Luther’s method: the “apocrypha” were placed in a separate section at the back with the pages unnumbered, indicating that they were not to be considered Scripture. However, Hebrews, James, Jude and Revelation were right back in the KJV New Testament where they belonged.

Do Protestants think Luther was only half right?

JMJ Jay

 

[Katholikos]

Good day
Great rewrite of history, seeing that there is 1 person who attended that council and went on to disagree with the cannon they had set.

Huh! Say what? Only one person attended and then disagreed with the decision that “they” (plural) had set? Do you mean “disagreed with the decision that he had set”?*** The one person present disagreed with his own decision?*** Or, do you mean there were two people present? There was Pope Damasus I, who presided, and who else? Or are you saying the Pope, being the only one there, made the decision and then disagreed with it? Then why did he ask St. Jerome to use the decree from the Council as a guideline for translating the Scriptures? St. Jerome worked for Pope Damusus, translating the Vulgate, until he (the Pope) died. The Vulgate, with the exact same table of contents as laid out at the Council of Rome, was published in 405.

The Church hardly ever holds a council of one :nope:.

I’d like to see your evidence.

The Council of Rome was the first to name the table of contents of the Scriptures. Would you like me to post the decrees of the Council of Carthage (397 - 419)? The list of Scriptures is exactly the same.

 

[Katholikos]

Criteria for the NT Canon:

There were around 200 writings that circulated among the local branches of the One Holy Catholic and Apostolic Church in the early centuries of Christianity. When she was nearly 400 years old, the Catholic Church canonized 27 of them and named them the New Testament. There were certain criteria that the Church applied to these writings to test their acceptability into the canon of Scripture:

(1) the writing had to be of apostolic origin, or influenced by an Apostle;

(2) the writing had to have been universally accepted by all the local Churches that were part of the Universal (Catholic) Church;

(3) the writing had to have been used in the liturgy (read aloud during the Liturgy of the Word segment of the Mass);

(4) the writing had to conform to the doctrines that came from the Apostles that were already believed and taught by the Church.

The Catholic Church rejected from the canon those writings which did not meet all of the criteria she herself established for the Scriptures of the New Covenant. Take a look at #4 and you’ll see just how absurd the arguments are that the Church’s teachings are “unbiblical.”

If the writings had not been in conformity with the doctrines of the Catholic Church, she would have rejected them from the canon. If anyone thinks that anything the Church teaches is “not in the Scriptures” or “unbiblical” they are misreading the Scriptures. If anyone wants to know what the NT means, they should ask the Church who wrote it.

JMJ Jay

 

[Katholikos]

Canonization of the Old Testament

The Church simply canonized the collection of 46 writings she had inherited from Jesus and the Apostles. Jesus knew which OT scriptures were inspired!

(But Luther disagreed with him )

The Church then put the NT together with the OT and called the entire collection of separate writings the Bible.

The Church was nearly 400 years old at the time she formed the Bible.

The Bible is not a continuous book with a beginning, a middle, and an end. It is a library – a collection of different writings written by different people at different times and locations, to different audiences for different reasons, over a period of about 1100 years.

The Church did not come out of the Bible; rather, the Bible came out of the Church.

JMJ Jay

 

[Katholikos]

Criteria used by the Palestinian Rabbis to set the canon for the Hebrew Scriptures at the Council of Jamnia c. 90 - 100 A.D.​

The rules drawn up by the Palestinian rabbis for discerning their canon were clearly designed to discredit the Greek Septuagint. To be accepted, a writing:

(1) had to conform to the Pentateuch

(2) had to originate in Palestine

(3) had to be written in Hebrew

(4) could date no later than 400 B.C.

The translation of the Septuagint was probably completed in the main around 250 B.C.

JMJ Jay

 

[Panis_Angelicas]

Faustina:

I give up. How did you know there ws only person that attended the Council of Rome?

Faustina, I had read bill’s remark the same way. What I’m sure he meant to say was that one person (who had been in attendance) disagreed.
What he, and all protestants refuse to accept is what happened after that.
Jerome was a highly, highly, *highly *intelligent man. But he did not let his pride get to him.
He knew that he was fallible, and that the pope speaking on matters of faith and morals, was infallible.
If he was soooooooo sure of himself, he’d have pulled a 4th century Martin Luther, nailed his objections to the LXX on the door, and begun drawing away from the Church those Christians who would lend ear to his arguments.
Instead, he wrote the Bible, complete with the LXX, just as Pope Damasus asked.
He was so intelligent! And also wise.
He knew that the words that came from the Vicar of Christ were as powerful as those handed down in Scripture, because they were both inspired by the Holy Spirit, inerrant.

Non-Catholics can argue that Jerome disagreed all they want, but the buck doesn’t stop there. Open up any Catholic Bible to this day and you will still find all the same books that Jerome himself first copied down.

While they’ll use St. Jerome to shore up their argument, they’ll not follow in this wise man’s footsteps!

Katholikos, this is highly educational and much needed. Thank you so much!

Pax Christi. <><

 

[Panis_Angelicas]

Katholikos:

Jesus knew which OT scriptures were inspired!

Not according to Martin Luther, He didn’t!

The Church was nearly 400 years old at the time she formed the Bible…

The Church did not come out of the Bible; rather, the Bible came out of the Church.

:bowdown:

:clapping:


If only our separated brothers and sisters in Christ knew this much history, they would reject the erroneous doctrines of men, and come home to the Church.
Keep telling it like it is, as you do so well.

Pax Christi. <><

 

[Katholikos]

Faustina:

“THE CHURCH RECOGNIZED ITS IMAGE IN THE INSPIRED BOOKS OF THE BIBLE. THAT IS HOW IT DETERMINED THE CANON OF SCRIPTURE.” Fr. Ken Baker

Go tell it on the mountain!

(See criterion #4 for determining the canon.)

 

[Little_Mary]

Go tell it on the mountain!

(See criterion #4 for determining the canon.)

How do you really feel here, Katholikos??

I am fervently digesting this information. Thanks!

 

[Servant1]

Well, I think Katholikos has done ALL a favor who want to TRULY know about the origins of the Bible. Katholikos has been patient, spent a lot of time on this, and I intend to make reference to the facts given when I try to help teach others on this important set of issues.

Keep it up!

 

[AmandaPS]

Thank you so much for all this wonderful research!

 

[larryo]

bbas 64:

Good day

Great rewrite of history, seeing that there is 1 person who attended that council and went on to disagree with the cannon they had set.

Peace to u,

Bill
The Apochrapha are not identical with the Deuterocanon. The Apochrapha include books like the Gnostic gospel of Thomas and the book of Enoch, et al. There were disagreements in the early Church about the Deuterocanon but the local councils–what we would today call synods–settled the differences. Pope St. Damasus confirmed the canon of Scripture as Catholics accept it today. The canon was formally defined by the entire Church at the Council of Trent in response to the Protestant Reformation. Martin Luther lumped the Deuterocanon in with the Apochrapha. The Jewish Council of Jamnia at the end of the 1st century A.D. only included the Old Testament books that were written in Hebrew. Jamnia also totally rejected the Christian books that we define as the New Testament. Why would Protestants rely on Jamnia for a definition of the Old Testament but not for the New Testament?

 

[Katholikos]

Here’s the evidence that Luther rejected James and Jude (and Hebrews and Revelation) from the canon of Scripture. This is the preface from his German translation of the Bible (1522).

Part 1 of 3 parts

****By Matt1618

The following is the translation from Luthers Works, vol. 35. pages 395-398. This is his preface to James and Jude. Now in green are some comments that Luther originally made that were in editions of his Bible prior to 1530. After 1530, the first comments in Green were removed. The second comments in green made by Luther were replaced by other comments that are in maroon in the editions after 1530. I do not give commentary, but I think that Luther speaks for himself: He does not consider James Scripture, even if the book was in his Bible. The Deuterocanonical books were also in his Bible. The four books that he considered not a part of the true canon, Hebrews, James, Jude and Revelation were never numbered with the other 23 books of the New Testament.

This is a translation of the preface to St. James and Jude. . I think it is plain as day that Luther considers these books as uninspired, but I will give you Luther’s full preface so you can judge for yourself whether he considers these books (here James and Jude) inspired Scripture, but he also spoke of Revelation and Hebrews as well, similarly. I bold the sections that I choose to highlight, they are not of course highlighted by Luther or the editors of Luther’s Works.

[Quoting Luther] Though this epistle of St. James was rejected by the ancients, I praise it and consider it a good book, because it sets up no doctrines of men but vigorously promulgates the law of God. However, to state my own opinion about it, though without prejudice to anyone, I do not regard it as the writing of an apostle, and my reasons follow.

In the first place it **is flatly against St. Paul and all the rest of Scripture in ascribing justification to works **2:24). It says that Abraham was justified by his works when he offered his son Isaac (2:20); Though in Romans 4:22-22 St. Paul teaches to the contrary that Abraham was justified apart from works, by his faith alone, before he had offered his son, and proves it by Moses in Genesis 15:6. Although it would be possible to “save” the epistle by a gloss giving a correct explanation of justification here ascribed to works, it is impossible to deny that it does refer to Moses’ words in Genesis 15 (which speaks not of Abraham’s works but of his faith, just as Paul makes plain in Romans 4) to Abraham’s works. This fault proves that this epistle is not the work of any apostle.

 

[Katholikos]

Part 2

In the second place** its purpose is to teach Christians, but in all this long teaching it does not once mention the Passion, the resurrection, or the Spirit of Christ. He names Christ several times; however he teaches nothing about him, but only speaks of general faith in God. Now it is the office of a true apostle to preach of the Passion and resurrection and office of Christ, and to lay the foundation for faith in him, as Christ himself says in John 15:27], "You shall bear witness to me.? All the genuine sacred books agree in this, that all of them preach and inculcate [treiben] Christ. And that is the true test by which to judge all books, when we see whether or not they inculcate Christ. For all the Scriptures show us Christ, Romans 3:21]; and St. Paul will know nothing but Christ, I Corinthians 2:2]. Whatever does not teach Christ is not yet apostolic, **even though St. Peter or St. Paul does the teaching. Again, whatever preaches Christ would be apostolic, even if Judas, Annas, Pilate, and Herod were doing it." (ibid).

**But this James does nothing more than drive to the law and its works. **Besides, he throws things together so chaotically that it seems to me he must have been some good, pious man, who took a few sayings from the disciples of the apostles and thus tossed them off on paper. Or it may perhaps have been written by someone on the basis of his preaching. He calls the law a “law of liberty” [1:25], though Paul calls it a law of slavery, of wrath, of death, and of sin. Moreover he cites the sayings of St. Peter [in 5:20]; Love covers a multitude of sins" [1 Pet. 4:8], and again [in 4:10], “Humble yourselves under he had of God” [1 Pet. 5:6] also the saying of St. Paul in Galatians 5:17], “The Spirit lusteth against envy.” And yet, in point of time, St. James was put to death by Herod [Acts 12:2] in Jerusalem, before St. Peter. So it seems that [this author] came long after St. Peter and St. Paul.

(Continued)

 

[Katholikos]

Part 3

In a word, **he wanted to guard against those who relied on faith without works, but was unequal to the task **in spirit, thought, and words. He mangles the Scriptures and thereby opposes Paul and all Scripture. He tries to accomplish by harping on the law what the apostles accomplish by stimulating people to love. Therefore I cannot include him among the chief books, though I would not thereby prevent anyone from including or extolling him as he pleases, for there are otherwise many good sayings in him. Therefore I will not have him in my Bible to be numbered among the true chief books, though I would not thereby prevent anyone from including or extolling him as he pleases, for there are otherwise many good sayings in him. One man is no man in worldly things; how then, should this single man alone avail against Paul and all Scripture.

Concerning the epistle of St. Jude, no one can deny that it is an extract or copy of St. Peter’s second epistle, so very like it are all the words. He also speaks of the apostles like a disciple who comes long after them [Jude 17] and cites sayings and incidents that are found nowhere else in the Scriptures [Jude 9, 14]. This moved the ancient Fathers to exclude this epistle from the main body of the Scriptures. Moreover the Apostle Jude did not go to Greek-speaking lands, but to Persia, as it is said, so that he did not write Greek. Therefore, although I value this book, it is an epistle that need not be counted among the chief books which are supposed to lay the foundations of faith.

END QUOTE

JMJ Jay

 

[hlgomez]

WHERE IS BBAS 64? Any answer???

I guess Bbas 64 went mystic to find out if there was anybody else present during the Council of Rome with Pope Damasus…

Pio

 

[Shibboleth]

hlgomez:

WHERE IS BBAS 64? Any answer???

I guess Bbas 64 went mystic to find out if there was anybody else present during the Council of Rome with Pope Damasus…

Pio

Was this really a necessary or Christian post?

 

[Katholikos]

For those who may not wish to wade through Luther’s preface to James and Jude, here are the salient parts:

Concerning James: Therefore I cannot include him among the chief books, though I would not thereby prevent anyone from including or extolling him as he pleases, for there are otherwise many good sayings in him.Therefore I will not have him in my Bible to be numbered among the true chief books . . .

Concerning Jude: Therefore, although I value this book, it is an epistle that need not be counted among the chief books which are supposed to lay the foundations of faith.
JMJ Jay