If the Catholic church gave the world the Bible in 397 AD, then why did so many versions of the canon continue to circulate afterwards?

[BrianH]

The sight you linked.

The OP is taking the questions directly from that site for this post as well as their other recent posts. Which is their choice naturally. I thought the fact it was independent fundamentalist Church of Christ and verbatim word for word was germane. It is a problem when people do not directly link their source of information or questions. That does not make it my site. I assumed people would see that the link attached to the OP would be a citation of the information. Perhaps they did not read it that carefully otherwise they would not refer to it as “my site”. I am not the one directly lifting questions off of it…

 

[twopekinguys]

The OP is taking the questions directly from that site for this post as well as their other recent posts. Which is their choice naturally. I thought the fact it was independent fundamentalist Church of Christ and verbatim word for word was germane. It is a problem when people do not directly link their source of information or questions. That does not make it my site. I assumed people would see that the link attached to the OP would be a citation of the information. Perhaps they did not read it that carefully otherwise they would not refer to it as “my site”. I am not the one directly lifting questions off of it…

I see what you’re saying.

In fact, if memory serves correctly, the OP has “lifted” questions/statements from that site previously. Alot of it sounds familiar.

 

[twopekinguys]

They might have figured if you were a Catholic you were already dead and gone as far as they were concerned. . . Just kidding!

I hate to disappoint them, but I’m alive and well living in Christ.

At least i think I am. I am still on the green side of the grass. (under the snow that is)

 

[Dirk_Skene]

The point is that the apocrypha has been questioned throughout history regardless of whether Rome accepted these books or not.

OK What — Eeeeeever … This is all my fault … I should have noticed the bio. DO NOT worry. I will never respond to another one of your post because I will never see them again … DANG I love the “ignore” feature.

 

[Ignatius]

I disagree with you based upon how Rome didn’t officially pronounce the compliation of the Canon and how it was not consistant.

Actually, the Canon was pronounced officially. It was by Pope Damasus I in A.D. 382. It is the very definition of consistancy, the Canon of Pope Damasus I is identical to that of every council that addressed the issue from Rome, Hippo, Carthage, through Florance, all the way up to Trent and down to today. Not one has deviated from the Canon declared by Pope Damasus.

I’m afraid you (or whoever (mis)informed you) got the facts wrong. The same identical canon that was first declared by Pope Damasus I in 382 (see excerpt of declaration below). This idential canon was reaffirmed many times down through the millennia. Below is an excerpt from the It was the canon declared by Pope Damasus I in 382 was confirmed at Hippo, Carthage and in many more councils down through the aeons. 1546 is only the most recent reaffirmation. Here are the actual declarations from several of those Councils.

The Holy Scripture of the New Testament was declared by and as a result of the Decree of Pope St. Damasus 1 at the Council of Rome in 382 A.D.

The Decree of Pope St. Damasus I, Council of Rome. 382 A.D…

.
ST. DAMASUS 1, POPE, THE DECREE OF DAMASUS:
******It is likewise decreed: Now, indeed, we must treat of the divine Scriptures: what the universal Catholic Church accepts and what she must shun. ******
******The list of the Scriptures of the New and Eternal Testament, which the holy and Catholic Church receives: of the Gospels, one book according to Matthew, one book according to Mark, one book according to Luke, one book according to John. The Epistles of the Apostle Paul, fourteen in number: one to the Romans, two to the Corinthians, one to the Ephesians, two to the Thessalonians, one to the Galatians, one to the Philippians, one to the Colossians, two to Timothy, one to Titus one to Philemon, one to the Hebrews. Likewise, one book of the Apocalypse of John. And the Acts of the Apostles, one book. Likewise, the canonical Epistles, seven in number: of the Apostle Peter, two Epistles; of the Apostle James, one Epistle; of the Apostle John, one Epistle; of the other John, a Presbyter, two Epistles; of the Apostle Jude the Zealot, one Epistle. Thus concludes the canon of the New Testament. ******
Likewise it is decreed: After the announcement of all of these prophetic and evangelic or as well as apostolic writings which we have listed above as Scriptures, on which, by the grace of God, the Catholic Church is founded, we have considered that it ought to be announced that although all the Catholic Churches spread abroad through the world comprise but one bridal chamber of Christ, nevertheless, the holy Roman Church has been placed at the forefront not by the conciliar decisions of other Churches, but has received the primacy by the evangelic voice of our Lord and Savior, who says: "You are Peter, and upon this rock I will build My Church, and the gates of hell will not prevail against it; and I will give to you the keys of the kingdom of heaven, and whatever you shall have bound on earth will be bound in heaven, and whatever you shall have loosed on earth shall be loosed in heaven."

The Council of Hippo in 393 reaffirmed the canon put forth by Pope Damasus I…

AD 393: Council of Hippo. “It has been decided that besides the canonical Scriptures nothing be read in church under the name of divine Scripture.” (canon 36 A.D. 393).

The Third Council of Carthage reaffirmed anew, the Canon put forth by Pope Damasus I…

AD 397: Council of Carthage III. "It has been decided that nothing except the canonical Scriptures should be read in the Church under the name of the divine Scriptures. But the canonical " (canon 47 A.D. 397).

 

[Zooey]

My site?

Yeah, that one, Brian. The one that told me that the closest churches for me to worship in are a bowling alley, a truck loading dock, and a mini-storage rental.

And the only reason that Trent addressed the Canon of Scriptures at all, is because Martin Luther had been playing high, wide, and handsome with the Bible.

Sheesh.:tsktsk::whacky:uch::doh2::dts:

 

[AmateurPianist]

bible.ca/catholic-questions.htm

For the record, this site is Church of Christ. Just saying.

 

[Javl]

To All:

I’ve read all the posts on this thread and find the subject quite interesting. Without predjudice or bias, even though I’m a Catholic, I find many responses by our Protestant brothers to be in error or mis-informed. I say this in charity and Christian love.

Please keep in mind that, before the final council, there were many spurious and false gospels, letters, and missles, that were used by the various churches. These were supported mostly by the local Bishop, even though they were known to be false and un-inspired of God. The Councils were there to weed out these documents and to decide, under the guidence of the Holy Spirit, as to which were in truth. The Councils, under Church authority given it by Jesus, did so once and for all at the last Council in 1546. The decision was made and the canon sealed.

The argument over the canon, as to which books are to be included, and which are to be rejected has been heated since the time of Martin Luther. All objections to the canon, etc., are really personal objections and have no basis in fact. As long as Christianity, to it’s shame, remains splintered, there will aways be objections, more for personal satisfaction, but mostly for mis-understanding.

God Bless All.

PAX DOMINI

Shalom Aleichem

 

[Bill_Pick]

For the record, this site is Church of Christ. Just saying./QU

are the church of christ a cult
do they beleieve in the trinity

 

[AmateurPianist]

are the church of christ a cult
do they beleieve in the trinity

They do believe in the trinity. However they are kinda weird in other respects.

For example they don’t have musical instruments in their worship because God doesn’t say in the Bible that musical instruments should be used in church. That one issue alone kind of eliminates Church of Christ is a viable alternative for me.

 

[Zooey]

You know, there is a very important distinction to be made:
The Eastern Orthodox Canon includes some writings that are not part of the Western (Catholic) canon, but they do not, and did not–to my knowledge–omit books from the canon. They simply, do they not, use a longer canon of Scripture?
What Luther & Co did, was to discard writings that had been part of the Western canon of Scripture (and, by extension, part of the Eastern canon as well).

In other words, what Trent spoke to, was** a specific situation**: The Christians of Europe, for the first time, found themselves with questions as to the canon of Scripture.
Therefore: Rome stepped in, & affirmed the original canon, as it had been established & handed down,for hundreds of years, so that said Christians in the west would know what was a whole Bible and what was the Reader’s Digest Condensed Verdion. (Remember that many could not read, & needed to be told because they could not :shrug:sit down & compare Bibles at Barnes & Noble the way you & I can do).

The Eastern Church all ready possessed its canon of Scripture. Yes, it is longer than that of the West. But it is all there; Luther never got his marauding hands on that one.

The 2 cases are not the same. They are not the same at all.

 

[AmateurPianist]

You know, there is a very important distinction to be made:
The Eastern Orthodox Canon includes some writings that are not part of the Western (Catholic) canon, but they do not, and did not–to my knowledge–omit books from the canon. They simply, do they not, use a longer canon of Scripture?
What Luther & Co did, was to discard writings that had been part of the Western canon of Scripture (and, by extension, part of the Eastern canon as well).

In other words, what Trent spoke to, was** a specific situation**: The Christians of Europe, for the first time, found themselves with questions as to the canon of Scripture.
Therefore: Rome stepped in, & affirmed the original canon, as it had been established & handed down,for hundreds of years, so that said Christians in the west would know what was a whole Bible and what was the Reader’s Digest Condensed Verdion. (Remember that many could not read, & needed to be told because they could not :shrug:sit down & compare Bibles at Barnes & Noble the way you & I can do).

The Eastern Church all ready possessed its canon of Scripture. Yes, it is longer than that of the West. But it is all there; Luther never got his marauding hands on that one.

The 2 cases are not the same. They are not the same at all.

But this does not answer the fundamental question that is “What is the canon from God’s perspective”. This of course assumes that Scripture originates from God and whatever part man had in it was under the guidance of God.

If the Orthodox canon is “the canon”, then both Catholics and Protestants are guilty of omitting books (the Protestants more). If the Catholic canon is “the canon”, then the Orthodox are guilty of adding books and the Protestants still guilty of subtracting books. If the Protestant canon is “the canon” then both Catholics and Orthodox are guilty of adding books.

I can’t see whereas adding books is any less or any more eggregious than subtracting books myself.

That having been said, I have no intention of getting into this debate. Once you boil this down, I think the issue reduces to what the metric is to determine the canon. Since I know of no place where God chimes in on the metric, this all reduces down the opinions of people.

Although if you really want to get me on a limb, since the disagreement is over books written before the time of Christ, I would propose the metric would be “what did Jesus use” since there is no record of Jesus complaining about the canon that He had. Now I don’t know what canon Jesus used, but if there is historical agreement on that issue, my humble opinion would be to use that.

I for one have no shame in admitting that I use the 66 book canon because that is what the church that I came into after my conversion. If it had used the 73 book or 80 book canon, I am sure that is what I would be using instead. But it didn’t.

But this will be the extent of my involvement in “what is the OT canon” because it really does boil down to folks’ opinions which in my mind are worthless.

 

[Bill_Pick]

They do believe in the trinity. However they are kinda weird in other respects.

For example they don’t have musical instruments in their worship because God doesn’t say in the Bible that musical instruments should be used in church. That one issue alone kind of eliminates Church of Christ is a viable alternative for me.

Well that is weird but the bible does not say any thing about cars or airplanes

 

[BrianH]

Yeah, that one, Brian. The one that told me that the closest churches for me to worship in are a bowling alley, a truck loading dock, and a mini-storage rental.

And the only reason that Trent addressed the Canon of Scriptures at all, is because Martin Luther had been playing high, wide, and handsome with the Bible.

Sheesh.:tsktsk::whacky:uch::doh2::dts:

And WHY did I link the site Zooey? Just to clarify.

 

[BrianH]

For the record, this site is Church of Christ. Just saying.

I stated that earlier as well

 

[Zooey]

But this does not answer the fundamental question that is “What is the canon from God’s perspective”. This of course assumes that Scripture originates from God and whatever part man had in it was under the guidance of God.

If the Orthodox canon is “the canon”, then both Catholics and Protestants are guilty of omitting books (the Protestants more). If the Catholic canon is “the canon”, then the Orthodox are guilty of adding books and the Protestants still guilty of subtracting books. If the Protestant canon is “the canon” then both Catholics and Orthodox are guilty of adding books.

I can’t see whereas adding books is any less or any more eggregious than subtracting books myself.

That having been said, I have no intention of getting into this debate. Once you boil this down, I think the issue reduces to what the metric is to determine the canon. Since I know of no place where God chimes in on the metric, this all reduces down the opinions of people.

Although if you really want to get me on a limb, since the disagreement is over books written before the time of Christ, I would propose the metric would be “what did Jesus use” since there is no record of Jesus complaining about the canon that He had. Now I don’t know what canon Jesus used, but if there is historical agreement on that issue, my humble opinion would be to use that.

I for one have no shame in admitting that I use the 66 book canon because that is what the church that I came into after my conversion. If it had used the 73 book or 80 book canon, I am sure that is what I would be using instead. But it didn’t.

But this will be the extent of my involvement in “what is the OT canon” because it really does boil down to folks’ opinions which in my mind are worthless.

But the distinction I was making was, that there is this constant refrain about "the Catholic Church added books to the Bible at the Council of Trent.
Well, no books were added at Trent. The canon remained what the canon was, before Trent.
That canon was decided on, centuries before, in I believe the 4th (3rd?) C. That canon was the one used by the Catholic Church.
And it is often then objected, “What about the Eastern Orthodox”? Well, the Eastern Orthodox were not involved; they had all ready separated themselves from the West. Whether they “added” books is beside the point, because they are not the ones who take all the heat. The rest of the world goes along, letting the EOs be; whereas, let a Catholic (or any of the rest of the West) speak up in defense of the canon as determined by the Catholic Church, and we get a whole band of nay-sayers, quoti ng all manner of novel sources, trying to prove that Trent’s whole reason for being was to “add a bunch of uninspired works to the Bible”.
I don’t mean to cause problems for our EO brethren, but why is it** Catholics** who get the flak here? If “adding to Scripture” is such a big deal for you all, why is nobody standing outside an EO church, waving banners about adding to the words of Scripture?
But the size of the canon isn’t the sticking point, you see; the sticking point is whether or not you choose to want to choose an obscure (as was) German monk as the arbiter of all truth or is he simply (a) unqualified, and (b) altogether too full of himself ?
The answer is, by the by: A and B.

 

[BrianH]

AmateurPianist;6143301:

For the record, this site is Church of Christ. Just saying.[/QU

are the church of christ a cult
do they beleieve in the trinity

They are huge in the south it seems…
No I do not think anyone would refer to them as a cult. I have never seen them referred to as such. Quite conservative and most do not use musical instruments as has been pointed out as well.

[/quote]

 

[SteveVH]

Although if you really want to get me on a limb, since the disagreement is over books written before the time of Christ, I would propose the metric would be “what did Jesus use” since there is no record of Jesus complaining about the canon that He had. Now I don’t know what canon Jesus used, but if there is historical agreement on that issue, my humble opinion would be to use that.

From what I have been taught and have researched, the reason the Catholic Church used the Septuagint as the Old Testament canon of Sacred Scripture because it was the only canon in existence at the time of Christ and the Apostles. Ptolemy II Philadelphus, the King of Egypt from 287 to 247 B.C. had established a valuable library at Alexandria and wanted to include the sacred books of the Jews. He requested seventy two Jewish scholars (hence the term “Septuagint”, meaning seventy), six scholars each,
from each of the twelve tribes, to translate their sacred writings from Hebrew into Greek so that he and the rest of the Greek-speaking world could understand them, as Greek had become the universal language by that time. Amazingly enough, they each returned with identical translations. While there is some question as to exact dates, it is agreed by most biblical scholars that the use of the Alexandrian version, or the “Septuagint”, was wide-spread by at least 150-100 B.C. (probably sooner) and therefore certainly in
use at the time of Christ, and therefore at the origin of the Church (Pentecost). As that was the only canon in existence at that time, it was the canon from which the Catholic Church taught (and still does) and therefore was included in the canon of the Bible. Obviously, there would not have been any discussion or argument between using the Septuagint or the Palestinian canon of the Old Testament because the Palestinian version did not exist until roughly four centuries later. Interestingly enough, many of the books
(or at least fragments of them) termed “apocryphal” by non-Catholics were found, (written in Hebrew) in the Dead Sea Scrolls discovered in modern times.

 

[jlhargus]

Also too, if the Catholic church by her own inherant God given authority gave the world the Bible, then why did she not get it right the first time? Why did the Catholic church wait until the Council of Trent in 1546 AD to officially add the Apocrypha to the Canon?

JL: If those books are Apocrypha why did the original KJV and Angilican bibles before that have them.

 

[AmateurPianist]

From what I have been taught and have researched, the reason the Catholic Church used the Septuagint as the Old Testament canon of Sacred Scripture because it was the only canon in existence at the time of Christ and the Apostles. Ptolemy II Philadelphus, the King of Egypt from 287 to 247 B.C. had established a valuable library at Alexandria and wanted to include the sacred books of the Jews. He requested seventy two Jewish scholars (hence the term “Septuagint”, meaning seventy), six scholars each,
from each of the twelve tribes, to translate their sacred writings from Hebrew into Greek so that he and the rest of the Greek-speaking world could understand them, as Greek had become the universal language by that time. Amazingly enough, they each returned with identical translations. While there is some question as to exact dates, it is agreed by most biblical scholars that the use of the Alexandrian version, or the “Septuagint”, was wide-spread by at least 150-100 B.C. (probably sooner) and therefore certainly in
use at the time of Christ, and therefore at the origin of the Church (Pentecost). As that was the only canon in existence at that time, it was the canon from which the Catholic Church taught (and still does) and therefore was included in the canon of the Bible. Obviously, there would not have been any discussion or argument between using the Septuagint or the Palestinian canon of the Old Testament because the Palestinian version did not exist until roughly four centuries later. Interestingly enough, many of the books
(or at least fragments of them) termed “apocryphal” by non-Catholics were found, (written in Hebrew) in the Dead Sea Scrolls discovered in modern times.

If this is agreed as factual by neutral scholars with absolutely no axe to grind…ie…the canon that Jesus used did in fact have the DeuteroCanonicals / Apocrypha, I would think this to be significant evidence. As well as the reverse. As you might guess, I am very skeptical of spin.

What right do any of us have to alter what Jesus used and accepted. If it was good enough for Jesus it is good enough for me sort of makes sense.