MERGED: Questions for Catholics on how we got our Bible

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snarflemike said:
All that was taught by Jesus and the Holy Spirit to the Apostles. A certain percentage of which was written down, with varying degrees of clarity, in what we call the bible.
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I love to offer this verse to those Christians who are adamantine that everything that Christ and the Apostles spoke was written down.

[BIBLEDRB]Acts 19:8[/BIBLEDRB]

Clearly, if St. Paul was preaching for 3 months in one location one simply COULD NOT have written everything he proclaimed. 🤷
 
JRKH said:
Not to be picky but I would not say that Luther removed the “extra” books…There were no "extra’ books to remove…
Luther removed books from the canon of Scripture.

Peace
James
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Not to be picky (:D), James, but Luther actually added a book in his translation. He included 74 books.

Jon
 
Makko52 it seem other have answer your question in a simple and clear way. I like the answer already given.
Ubenedictus
 
JonNC said:
Not to be picky (:D), James, but Luther actually added a book in his translation. He included 74 books.

Jon
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I don’t think this is accurate, at least not with respect to the OT canon. Luther argued that the Septuagint scripture text should not be part of the Christian canon because under the Mosaic covenant the Word of God was intrusted to the Jews and therefore the Hebrew canon should be the received text and not the Septuagint. The problem with his argument is that the Hebrew canon was not defined until the Academy of Jamnia (a Jewish Council) in about 95AD. This was more than 60 years after Jesus took the Keys of the Kingdom away from Israel and gave it to the Church. The Word of God was no longer intrusted to Israel and the Holy Spirit now guided the Church unto all truth and no longer Israel. The Acadamy of Jamnia also considered the 4 gospels and the apostolic letters making up the 27 books of the NT and rejected them as inspired at the time they defined the Hebrew canon.

Moreover, Luther also rejected the book of James calling it “an epistle full of straws.” So I would like to have a reference to the additions Luther allegedly added.

Peace,

David
 
Makko52 said:
Are there any Historical Inaccuracies in the books of the Apocrypha? I know the Bible is accurate. is the history in the Apocrypha accurate as well?
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**The Bible includes what you keep referring to as the “Apocrypha.” **

Those books were removed by an American publisher in 1885.

The Bible, all of it, is not “accurate.” It is True. For example, the mustard seed is not the smallest of all seeds, so not accurate. The lesson Jesus gave us using that image, hyperbole as a way of emphazing the point, is True.
 
Makko52 said:
I certainly agree with you, that that bible is about God and his dealing with people. But it is important to understand that if the Bible is not accurate in its depictions of the world, geographicaly and in other areas how could we prove that it was truely written by God?
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You can’t. Because it wasn’t. It is inspired writing, not dictation.
 
snarflemike said:
Perhaps the most important thing you should take away from this is that no Pope or Church Council, ever, said that the Protestant Canon is the correct canon. The Protestant 66-book canon was unheard of until the Reformation.

The Catholic Church can point to multiple Councils that affirm the Catholic Canon. The Protestant world cannot point to a single Council that affirms the Protestant Canon.
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The Protestant version that would not exist at all except that the Catholic Church established what was Canon and retained it for a couple thousand years.
 
PRmerger said:
I love to offer this verse to those Christians who are adamantine that everything that Christ and the Apostles spoke was written down.

[BIBLEDRB]Acts 19:8[/BIBLEDRB]

Clearly, if St. Paul was preaching for 3 months in one location one simply COULD NOT have written everything he proclaimed. 🤷
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I agree with you, that not everything the Apostles said was written down, but why did God move certain Apostles through the Holy Spirit to write down what we have now? Must have been pretty important. What do you guys think?
 
Makko52 said:
I agree with you, that not everything the Apostles said was written down, but why did God move certain Apostles through the Holy Spirit to write down what we have now? Must have been pretty important. What do you guys think?
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That’s pure speculation Makko. Were all the Apostles literate? A good portion of the world wasn’t then, and it had nothing to do with intelligence or spirituality.
You are also assuming that only the writings we have in our New Testament was authoritative (in that it could be used for teaching or read in churches). That’s not true either. The purpose of the New Testament books was to be read (aloud) in churches so the people would understand. So even if the Mass itself were in the Latin language (thats a whole other thread) the readings were in the language the people could understand.
 
JustaServant said:
That’s pure speculation Makko. Were all the Apostles literate? A good portion of the world wasn’t then, and it had nothing to do with intelligence or spirituality.
You are also assuming that only the writings we have in our New Testament was authoritative (in that it could be used for teaching or read in churches). That’s not true either. The purpose of the New Testament books was to be read (aloud) in churches so the people would understand. So even if the Mass itself were in the Latin language (thats a whole other thread) the readings were in the language the people could understand.
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Can you specify what you feels is speculation? that the apostles wrote the new testament? that they Holy Spirit was moved through them? Thank for the clarification. Im not that smart
 
Makko52 said:
I got in trouble 😦 so kind of hesitant to post anythign really
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No need to be hesitant. Just post with charity and you’ll be good.

There are lots of posters here to model yourself after–i.e. JonNC is a gentleman at all times, so following in his style is always a good thing to do.
 
Makko52 said:
I agree with you, that not everything the Apostles said was written down, but why did God move certain Apostles through the Holy Spirit to write down what we have now? Must have been pretty important. What do you guys think?
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On this we are agreed: what was written down was “pretty important”.

You’ll just have to consider what you’re missing by dismissing Sacred Tradition. That is how we get the Word of God in its entirety.

It’s like your Beloved left you a bunch of love letters to you, AND a bunch of videos she made, declaring her love for you. You dismiss the videos and say, “Why do I need those? She gave me letters and that’s good enough for me!”
 
Makko52 said:
I agree with you, that not everything the Apostles said was written down, but why did God move certain Apostles through the Holy Spirit to write down what we have now? Must have been pretty important. What do you guys think?
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Just an example…Luke was not an apostle…but wrote the Gospel and Acts…from Luke 1…3 With this in mind, since I myself have carefully investigated everything from the beginning, I too decided to write an orderly account for you, most excellent Theophilus, 4 so that you may know the certainty of the things you have been taught.

He was writing for Theophilus…to confirm what has been taught orally.

Mark was a disciple of Peter…he wrote his gospel…when he was exhorted by Roman Christians to put down in writing what he could of Peter’s teachings.

Prior to the official compilation of the NT…there were other writings considered scriptural, and were read during the Mass…some of these…Clement Epistle 1 to Corinth, the Letter of Barnabas, Shepherd of Hermas, the Didache…but these did not make it.

As JRKH said, one of the reasons for compiling the OT and NT was to have a set of standard writings to be read during the Mass.
 
Makko52 said:
I got in trouble 😦 so kind of hesitant to post anythign really
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Actually I think I saw the offending post…I was in the midst of trying to come up with a response when it was removed…😉
I won’t try to address anything specific in it other than to say that this website is a very good place to learn what of those things might be true and which are in error.

As said above…just kind of step back and consider how you might present things more charitably. If there is something that you believe to be true…then bring it up - but do so with a source…and ask a question…
For instance…“Did the Catholic Church keep the bible from the people?” Then you can supply the source of your belief…“So-and-so in his book This-and-that writes that…”.
In response to such a query, you will discover much good information.

One other thing I should mention - There was a lot in that post…Separate the stuff out and start separate threads for each. if possible…Or start with something general and work out from there.

Believe me - most all of us have taken our lumps either from moderators or from other members. But in learning to communicate more clearly and charitably we bring much more to any given conversation.

Hope you will continue to post here.

Peace
James
 
PRmerger said:
On this we are agreed: what was written down was “pretty important”.

You’ll just have to consider what you’re missing by dismissing Sacred Tradition. That is how we get the Word of God in its entirety.

It’s like your Beloved left you a bunch of love letters to you, AND a bunch of videos she made, declaring her love for you. You dismiss the videos and say, “Why do I need those? She gave me letters and that’s good enough for me!”
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Thank you, for putting it in a way, that is easier to see where you guys come from. i appreciate that.
 
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