Protestant Canon

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I am truly amazed by the contradiction in your view on pride. How can it be prideful to say, “please don’t just blindly accept what I teach. Test what I am preaching by the study God’s Word and pray.”? In fact, that is quite the opposite. Pride is: “This is the the Truth and if you don’t believe, be accursed!!!”

What was happening in the first century churches? The church John was writing to in 1 John was being infected with Gnosticisms. And John wrote his espistle to combat the false teachers. This church was most likely founded by an apostle himself but yet, was still had false teachings. The point of John’s message was to test what was being said by the First Message preached. Test, test, and test against all teaching and stick to the first message given.

We follow the directions given by John and the other apostles to read and study the Word of God and to test our teachers. Unfortunatley, that does not happen in all Christian churches and that is unfortunate.
I think that you have either misunderstood me or missed that point I was making. If I have to check the Scriptures to make sure that the preacher is preaching correctly, that means to me that I am the one who knows what is doctrine and what is not and is to be preached. It also means that I know better than the preacher does about what Scripture means and does not mean. This to me is taking on authority over and above the authority of the preacher. If I can not trust the preacher to preach correctly and I have to make sure by checking Scripture to make sure that he/she does or is preaching correctly than indeed there is pride in that I am the authority because I know what is to be preached and preached correctly. testing the Spirits to see if something is correct takes a lot of understanding of what is being tested Besides how can I really know beyond a doubt that the Spirit is really guiding me? to make sure tat what the preacher is preaching is without error? If I am that sure that the Spirit is guiding me than I do not need the church and have no need for guidance as I know because the spirit told me so.
 
That means that we heard the MESSAGE FIRST, and then chose the Scriptures that conformed to this message.

And that means you believe in Sacred Tradition.

Who do you believe created the Septuagint?

Pagans?

I’ve asked you that before.

Who put that together?

Amen!

Beautiful!

So if you could address the question of whether you believe it was Pagans, Romans, Etruscans
or Greek JEWS who compiled the Septuagint, then we could discuss.
Part of LXX was the translation by Hebrews at the request of Philadelphus that included the Preserved Words of God in the Hebrew Masoretic text (the 39 books of the OT). We are unsure the origins of the apocrypha writings.
 
Part of LXX was the translation by Hebrews at the request of Philadelphus that included the Preserved Words of God in the Hebrew Masoretic text (the 39 books of the OT). We are unsure the origins of the apocrypha writings.
Oh. So JEWS did indeed consider it canonical. Someone–JEWS–put the Septuagint together.

And therefore there were some JEWS who considered the “apocrypha” inspired.

QED.
 
I think that you have either misunderstood me or missed that point I was making. If I have to check the Scriptures to make sure that the preacher is preaching correctly, that means to me that I am the one who knows what is doctrine and what is not and is to be preached. It also means that I know better than the preacher does about what Scripture means and does not mean. This to me is taking on authority over and above the authority of the preacher. If I can not trust the preacher to preach correctly and I have to make sure by checking Scripture to make sure that he/she does or is preaching correctly than indeed there is pride in that I am the authority because I know what is to be preached and preached correctly. testing the Spirits to see if something is correct takes a lot of understanding of what is being tested Besides how can I really know beyond a doubt that the Spirit is really guiding me? to make sure tat what the preacher is preaching is without error? If I am that sure that the Spirit is guiding me than I do not need the church and have no need for guidance as I know because the spirit told me so.
If there is nothing between you and God, the Holy Spirit will guide you. Even the Catholic church agrees that some bishops teach in error at times.

If I am a master mechanic and came to you and said, I have a car to sell you that that gets 100/mpg. Would you buy it without verifying my claims, or would you want to do some research, drive it, and see it for yourself? How is that prideful. It is the same concept.
 
Oh. So JEWS did indeed consider it canonical. Someone–JEWS–put the Septuagint together.

And therefore there were some JEWS who considered the “apocrypha” inspired.

QED.
Please read my quote again, the Jews translated our 39 books. We do not know where the apocryphal writing came from. How does that put the Jews responsible for those writings? :confused:

Good try my friend!!!
 
Amen! Very Catholic, this! 👍
Well, that is a contradition to your early post when you said God has NOT fully revealed to us what He wasnts us to know about Him. Not sure where you are coming from? But thank you for acknowleging it. That is why I am a Biblical Christian.

That is great that what I wrote is very Catholic. But MORE important than that: it is very Christian!!!
 
That means that we heard the MESSAGE FIRST, and then chose the Scriptures that conformed to this message.

And that means you believe in Sacred Tradition.

Who do you believe created the Septuagint?

Pagans?

I’ve asked you that before.

Who put that together?

Amen!

Beautiful!

So if you could address the question of whether you believe it was Pagans, Romans, Etruscans
or Greek JEWS who compiled the Septuagint, then we could discuss.
I believe the Jewish people. Speak to them and ask them. Don’t believe me. Go out and TEST what I am saying. Speak to a Jewish Rabbi. Ask him to give you historical evidence. I am not afraid for you to go and prove me wrong. Please, do it. Test it. 🙂
 
Well, that is a contradition to your early post when you said God has NOT fully revealed to us what He wasnts us to know about Him.
Perhaps if you could cite the post of mine that you believe says this, we can chat.

Please provide the link.

Thanks.
 
So you believe that the apostles were not saved until they performed all that was commanded of them? To gain salvation, they had to do all the good works prior to being saved?
Philippians 3:8 Indeed I count everything as loss because of the surpassing worth of knowing Christ Jesus my Lord. For his sake I have suffered the loss of all things, and count them as refuse, in order that I may gain Christ 9 and be found in him, not having a righteousness of my own, based on law, but that which is through faith in Christ, the righteousness from God that depends on faith; 10 that I may know him and the power of his resurrection, and may share his sufferings, becoming like him in his death, 11 that if possible I may attain the resurrection from the dead.
12 Not that I have already obtained this or am already perfect
; but I press on to make it my own, because Christ Jesus has made me his own. 13 Brethren, I do not consider that I have made it my own; but one thing I do, forgetting what lies behind and straining forward to what lies ahead, 14 I press on toward the goal for the prize of the upward call of God in Christ Jesus. 15 Let those of us who are mature be thus minded; and if in anything you are otherwise minded, God will reveal that also to you. 16 Only let us hold true to what we have attained.
[Bold mine]

Doesn’t sound like Paul is preaching OSAS. :nope:
 
PR, you deny the whole body of truth. That is why I keep trying to get you to understand that is is of the utmost importance that you understand **the harmony of the Gospels, the NT, the OT, and the Bible as a whole. **When you do, you can clearly see the apocrypha is clearly out of context with the harmony of the Bible.
Interesting that is what the Jehovah Witnesses say. Link here.
Let’s say for a minute that your agument above hold value, you keep denying one thing. God charge the Jewish people with the canon of the OT. They UNIVERSALLY reject the apocryphal writings as canon (then and now)!!! It doesn’t matter that some Christians don’t agree. We do not override our Holy Father.
Absolutely, completely, 100% false. There were more Hellenistic Jews holding that the Septuagint was the Word Of God than Palestinian Jews.
Even the Catechism recognizes that the Jewish people are still charged with certain responsibilities from our Holy Father:
It’s great that you would read the Catechism. For that you get a big 👍

Couple of other things to note from the Catechism.

We are not a religion of the book.

108 Still, the Christian faith is not a “religion of the book.” Christianity is the religion of the “Word” of God, a word which is “not a written and mute word, but the Word which is incarnate and living”.73 If the Scriptures are not to remain a dead letter, Christ, the eternal Word of the living God, must, through the Holy Spirit, "open [our] minds to understand the Scriptures."74

Although it is extremely important to remember

102 Through all the words of Sacred Scripture, God speaks only one single Word, his one Utterance in whom he expresses himself completely:64

You recall that one and the same Word of God extends throughout Scripture, that it is one and the same Utterance that resounds in the mouths of all the sacred writers, since he who was in the beginning God with God has no need of separate syllables; for he is not subject to time.65

103 For this reason, the Church has always venerated the Scriptures as she venerates the Lord’s Body. She never ceases to present to the faithful the bread of life, taken from the one table of God’s Word and Christ’s Body.66

104 In Sacred Scripture, the Church constantly finds her nourishment and her strength, for she welcomes it not as a human word, “but as what it really is, the word of God”.67 "In the sacred books, the Father who is in heaven comes lovingly to meet his children, and talks with them."68​

And is extremely important to recognize

128 The Church, as early as apostolic times,104 and then constantly in her Tradition, has illuminated the unity of the divine plan in the two Testaments through typology, which discerns in God’s works of the Old Covenant prefigurations of what he accomplished in the fullness of time in the person of his incarnate Son.

129 **Christians therefore read the Old Testament in the light of Christ crucified and risen. **Such typological reading discloses the inexhaustible content of the Old Testament; but it must not make us forget that the Old Testament retains its own intrinsic value as Revelation reaffirmed by our Lord himself.105 Besides, the New Testament has to be read in the light of the Old. Early Christian catechesis made constant use of the Old Testament.106 As an old saying put it, the New Testament lies hidden in the Old and the Old Testament is unveiled in the New.107

Because Christians read the OT in light of Christ crucified is a pretty important reason why we do not let the Pharisees determine what was OT scripture. The Church determined what was scripture based on the Apostolic Faith, what was handed down by the Apostles and they looked at what was being read at Mass in Catholic Churches throughout the world.

😉
 
I believe the Jewish people. Speak to them and ask them. Don’t believe me. Go out and TEST what I am saying. Speak to a Jewish Rabbi. Ask him to give you historical evidence. I am not afraid for you to go and prove me wrong. Please, do it. Test it. 🙂
The trouble with this argument is that Christians are the new Israel: We wouldn’t defer to the now Judaism for anything now that God has revealed Christ to us - especially now that Judaism in it’s more Rabbinic form has also changed over the last 2000 years.
 
Hartman Grisar, who wrote an extraordinary 6 Volume biography of Luther, also published a one volume version. He also comments on the ‘quality’ of Luther’s ‘translation’ of the NT into German:

“It was partly the defects of the translation itself, partly the cleverly calculated and thus all the more dangerous marginal glosses, which called forth objections and warnings from Catholic writers as soon as the work was published. Emser complains that Luther “made Scripture to turn everywhere on faith and works, even when neither faith nor works are thought of.” Emser speaks of more than 1400 passages which Luther had rendered in a false and heretical sense, though many of the passages he instances are not of any great importance.” Grisar, pg 518-9, Volume V

Why was Luther in such a hurry to publish his translation of the New Testament? It wasn’t because the German people deserved to read the Scriptures in their native tongue because they had more than two dozen printed translations in German prior to his. So, why the rush to publish something that was so poorly done? The Emser quote provides a plausible answer to this question. He relates that Luther’s translation took every opportunity to portray Scripture as teaching Salvation by Faith Alone, even where it wasn’t the subject of the text. However, in Luther’s mind, ALL Scripture was intended to teach Salvation by Faith Alone and SO

he “found” it everywhere. He wanted everyone else to do so also.

“The Bible was unmistakably a Luther Bible. Prefaces and glosses read like an evolving catechism of Luther’s theology. It’s center is the doctrine of “justification by faith alone.” Gritsch, (Lutheran Professor of Church History), “Companion”, pg. 65

Luther “spun” the Bible to suit his own purposes, and as we have already learned, he criticized entire books of the Bible, AS IF, he had the authority to do so. In spite of his claim that the Bible is perfectly understandable to even the layman, Luther found it ‘necessary’ to accompanying prefaces which made it very clear that Salvation was by Faith Alone. It is odd though that nobody in Christian history ever “noticed” that doctrine before in Scripture. Apparently Luther, who was not willing to take the chance that people wouldn’t “notice” and made sure to “educate” them early on in their reading. Obviously, the desire to convince others (and himself) of Salvation by Faith Alone was the key motivation for ‘translating’ the NT to German.

Now we come to the question as to whether Luther actually translated anything, and again, we turn to Protestant Scholar Henry Clay Vedder:

“Authorities differ concerning the number of editions of the Bible in German before Luther’s version appeared, but none enumerate fewer than fourteen in High German and three in Low German. Those in High German, which are all that we need consider here, are apparently reprints of a single MS. version, of which two copies are still preserved, one in a monastery at Tepl, Bohemia, the other in the library of the university at Freiburg in the Breisgau. The former, known as the Codex Teplensis has recently been printed and is accessible to all scholars. As this MS. contains seven articles of faith that are evidently Waldensian, many have been led to attribute to this version a Waldensian origin. Others have pointed out that no more is proved by the MS. than a Waldensian ownership of it at some time, and have asserted a Catholic origin for the version. We need not enter into this controversy, which concerns a question of technical scholarship rather than the historic effect of the version; for, whatever theory of its origin may prevail, the fact of it a frequent reprinting and wide circulation cannot be hi any wise affected.

This (German) version was certainly in the possession of Luther, and was as certainly used by him in the preparation of his version. This fact, once entirely unsuspected, and then hotly denied, has been proved to a demonstration by the “deadly parallel.” It appears from a verse-by- verse comparison that this old German Bible was in fact so industriously used by Luther, that the only accurate description of Luther’s version is to call it a careful revision of the older text.”/U] Vedder, pg. 170-71

According to Vedder, not only was it impossible for Luther to have translated the NT from Greek into German, but he didn’t. Furthermore, what we have always thought of as ‘Luther’s translation’ was not a translation at all, but really just a ‘revision’ of an earlier German NT. It would seem that these facts help us get a little closer to what motivated Luther to ‘translate’ the NT into German. Obviously it wasn’t to ‘give the German people the Scriptures in their native language’, because they already had German Bibles. It wasn’t because Luther thought he could produce a ‘superior’ German version, because even Luther must have realized that nothing ‘superior’ would result from an incredibly rushed 11 week effort.

The only conclusion we can draw is that Luther, who had just been rebuffed by both the Church and the empire at Worms, and of course, recognized that his version of Salvation by Faith Alone was going to be resigned to the dustbin of Christian History if he didn’t “do something” fast. That ‘something’ was to publish the NT in German, and to write Prefaces for each book which would ‘assist’ the readers to ‘discover’ Salvation by Faith Alone EVERYWHERE. Of course, officially ‘demoting’ James to a secondary status, from which doctrine is not established, would ‘help’ to bend the minds of the populace. Who wouldn’t ‘prefer’ a “salvation” in which Only Faith (or more radically – Only Belief) was important?
 
:clapping:Hi Jon,

Thanks for your response,
That Luther couldn’t, or didn’t think it could be doesn’t matter, Tim. It doesn’t matter. Lutherans are not bound to Luther.
Actually Jon, YOU WISH Lutherans were not bound to Luther. You can claim all you want that Lutheranism is somehow ‘disconnected’ from Luther, but that will not make it so. It was Luther who founded the Lutheran church and your denomination is forever bound to the doctrines that Luther developed and ‘used’ to break away from the Historic Church. I don’t blame you for wanting to distance yourself from Luther but I think everyone here recognizes to be true exactly what you deny.
You see, these are the kind of obnoxious, unnecessary comments you make that makes dialogue with you unpleasant. I come here because I enjoy the interactions with respectful Catholics and others. So, before I say something that I will regret,
👋 bye.
I find this comment rather interesting. Actually I think “that thou doth protest too much”. I say that no Catholic Theologian would have wanted Luther’s (Doctoral) beret, and THIS you find obnoxious. On the other hand, you don’t think Catholics should be offended when the office of the papacy is referred to as the Anti-Christ. It also should be noted that it is the official teaching of the Lutheran church that the pop IS the anti-Christ, with that teaching actually being part of your confessions. Personally, I think that there is a whole lot more ‘going on’ here than my comment about Catholic Theologian’s not wanting Luther’s beret.

To tell you the truth, I can’t understand why a good person like you would follow a man like Luther. He was full of hatred, as mentioned by Lutheran Scholar Mark U. Edwards in a refreshingly honest comment:

“Luther hated the pope as antichrist and Catholics as the agents of Satan.’ Edwards, “Luther’s Last Battles”, pg. 36

“It truly seems to me that if this fury of the Romanists should continue, there is no remedy except that the emperor, kings, and princes, girded with force and arms, should resolve to attack this plague of all the earth no longer with words but with the sword. 
If we punish thieves with the gallows, robbers with the sword, and heretics with fire, why do we not all the more fling ourselves with all our weapons upon these masters of perdition, these cardinals, these popes, and all this stink of Roman sodomy that ceaselessly corrupts the church of God and wash our hands in their blood so that we may free ourselves and all who belong to us from this dangerous fire.” Marius, page 282-3 WA6: 347

In 1521, even before he was excommunicated, Luther calls for people to wash their hands in the blood of Catholics, and somehow, my comments about Catholics not wanting Luther’s Doctoral beret are ‘obnoxious’. His comments were designed to incite the common people, and at that Luther was a master. We all know how that turned out for the ‘common people’.

I have said it before but it bears repeating – I am at least 10 times more charitable towards Luther than he was towards his opponents. I would also suggest to you that these things that we are learning about Luther are an indication of the nature and character of the man, a nature and character which is not what you would call ‘well known’ at all to the ‘average lay Protestant’.

So Jon, just to be clear – there definitely IS a high moral ground here.

All this being said, I will restate that I have tremendous respect for Lutherans, especially because they are ‘dogmatic’, meaning that dogma is seen as being very important. I am not as thrilled with the brand of Lutheranism which does not think that doctrinal issues are not worth arguing about.

God Bless You Jon, Topper

By the way, when I first came to CA a few months ago, you told me that you would criticize Luther ‘when needs be’. The last quote from Marius seems to be a perfect opportunity to finally demonstrate that that statement is true.🍿
 
Actually Jon, YOU WISH Lutherans were not bound to Luther. You can claim all you want that Lutheranism is somehow ‘disconnected’ from Luther, but that will not make it so. It was Luther who founded the Lutheran church and your denomination is forever bound to the doctrines that Luther developed and ‘used’ to break away from the Historic Church. I don’t blame you for wanting to distance yourself from Luther but I think everyone here recognizes to be true exactly what you deny.
Pease don’t presume to inform us Lutherans what we profess as you’re woefully wrong.

Our claim is that the Lutheran church started at Pentecost, as we claim to be a valid continuation of the western church.

It’s appropriate for Catholics to point out that the Catholic view of our church is different.

But it’s inappropriate for you to claim that they Lutheran viewpoint of our church is as you have said.
 
Topper seems to be debating something that is not even relevant anymore. Particularly in light of Lutheran-Catholic Dialogue that clearly proclaims:
  1. Thus, Lutherans and Catholics are able jointly to conclude, »Therefore
    regarding Scripture and tradition, Lutherans and Catholics are in such
    an extensive agreement that their different emphases do not of them-
    selves require maintaining the present division of the churches. In this
    area, there is unity in reconciled diversity« (ApC 448).82
 
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