There’s little reason to think that “Thomas” was, in fact, the Thomas of Scripture.
Indeed. But as you probably know, most scholars think that
most of the apostolic names attached to early Christian books, whether canonical or non-canonical (with seven letters ascribed to Paul being the major exceptions) are highly dubious.
You gladly avail yourself of this scholarly consensus when it suits your theological prejudices, while tossing it aside when it doesn’t–in another post you say that you think Hebrews was written by Paul, a view that is held by no credentialed modern scholar I know of.
Explain to me how this is not purely arbitrary?
If you appeal to the consensus of the early Church–well, again we are back to the question of why you regard that consensus as authoritative
only for questions of canon.
The book is considered gnostic
My colleague who teaches NT refers to it as “proto-Gnostic,” but oh well. . . .
for it frequent use of “secret” and “mysterious” phrases and while many ECFs considered it heretical, not all did.
I’m not quite sure how this is answering my point, which is that we reject Thomas as canonical because the early Church did. Using “secret” and “mysterious” phrases is not surely a disqualifier, since such language occurs in the canonical books. I agree that the theology of the book is deficient, but again, that’s because I accept the witness of the early “Catholic Church” to the Faith.
Well, of course it means I find the textual links between the books of the Bible to be convincing.
Fair enough. But the early Church, which made the same judgment you do, did so because they understood Scripture according to the “rule of faith,” which they believed to be apostolic tradition. If you reject this way of understanding Scripture, I fail to see why the links would still seem convincing. Obviously this would take an entire separate thread–perhaps many of them–to deal with.
You, otoh, find your church’s argument to be “convincing”.
No, I do not find the Episcopal Church’s arguments to be very convincing at all
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Not sure I understand precisely. In any case, I do “identify” with those who founded the NT church . You’ll have to more specific as to what you think the “other respects” are.
Do you believe in the validity of prayer for the dead?
Please explain why you find the apostolicity of 2 Peter more convincing than the practice of praying for the dead. To me the evidence for the latter seems, if anything, stronger.
I believe you’ve seen a coherent case made for rejecting the RCC but you just reject the coherent case.
If it’s a coherent case for rejecting the RCC, it’s a still more coherent case for rejecting Protestantism in all its forms, including the forms that claim not to be Protestant. (Eastern Christianity is in a somewhat different boat, but since that’s not the position you are arguing for I think we can lay it to one side.)
The RCC did not establish the canon of the NT - of that there is no doubt. What constitutes the organization of the Roman Catholic Church today did not exist when the canon was received by the early churches.
There’s a lot of doubt about it, because you are assuming that particular features of Catholicism that have changed are essential to the definition of the “RCC.” That’s a prejudicial assumption for which you have not argued.
For instance, you make much of the scholarly claim (which as you note, is accepted by most mainstream Catholic scholars) that there was no monarchical episcopate at Rome until the second half of the 2nd century. Again, I question why you accept that claim so gladly while rejecting not only the claim that Peter didn’t write 2 Peter, but the far better established claim that Paul didn’t write Hebrews. You simply aren’t consistent in your appeals to both modern scholarship and ancient Christian tradition.
However, the claims of the Roman Communion do not rest on the existence of an Ignatius-style “monarchical episcopate” at Rome early on. A collegial government by presbyters, one of whom (if we accept the witness of Hermas) was in charge of relations with other churches, supports Catholic claims about the Papacy perfectly well.
No, in fact, is was the RCC who “rethought” the OT canon.
So you accept that the RCC was in existence in the fourth century? Because the deuterocanonical books were certainly accepted in the Western Church by the late fourth century–there’s no doubt about this. There were scholars over the centuries who questioned whether they should be put on the same level as other OT books, but the practice of the Church was to include them.
- but long before any canon was arrived at, in essence centuries before, the earliest Christians as Kelman posted, “received the inspired words of God written by the Apostles and other penman”. And as Kelman explained, His sheep heard His voice.
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