St pauls lost letters

[NotWorthy]

Well, if authentic epistles of Paul were discovered, that would just mean that there was that much more material to demonstrate the truth of Lutheran doctrine.

That’s funny. Thanks for the laugh!

 

[Angainor]

That’s funny. Thanks for the laugh!

I thought you might like it.

More seriously, Lutherans, strictly speaking, don’t have a “closed canon” as the Church never had a “closed canon”. If authentic new epistles were found, we wouldn’t have issue with including them. As a Lutheran, I can only assume they would further fortify Lutheran doctrine.

Before you protest, no, the Church did not have a closed canon at the time of the Reformation. The Roman Catholics closed their canon in 1546. If canon was closed at that time, there would have been no need for Trent to publish the “Decree Concerning the Canonical Scriptures”.

It is interesting that Trent lists in the canon an “epistle of Paul the apostle to the Hebrews”. I wonder if that is one of the lost letters lavazza was talking about.

 

[Turtullian]

I thought you might like it.

Before you protest, no, the Church did not have a closed canon at the time of the Reformation. The Roman Catholics closed their canon in 1546. If canon was closed at that time, there would have been no need for Trent to publish the “Decree Concerning the Canonical Scriptures”.

If that was the case then why do the Canons of Constance-Basel-Florence accept as binding the findings of the Council of carthage in reaffirmation of the Quintsext canons of Nicaea II.

It is interesting that Trent lists in the canon an “epistle of Paul the apostle to the Hebrews”. I wonder if that is one of the lost letters lavazza was talking about.

It is indeed within Church tradition taht Paul wrote the Letter to the Hebrews.

 

[Angainor]

If that was the case then why do the Canons of Constance-Basel-Florence accept as binding the findings of the Council of carthage in reaffirmation of the Quintsext canons of Nicaea II.

All I know is that Trent went through the trouble of listing all the books in one decree saying “this is the canon”. That hardly seems necessary if the canon was already closed.

I would have been happy to click through links on those councils, and as it is, I googled around awhile, but I honestly don’t want to spend any more time on it. I think the answer is clear.

 

[YADA]

The Council of Trent “closed” the Canon, but essentially, left the canon as it had been from about 395 +/-. The Church had not formally closed the canon because until Luther bagan to take liberties with the translations and the books included, a formal closing of the canon had not been seen as necessary.

Luther removed the duetero - canonicals form the OT [and placed them in an appendix at the back]. Luther wanted to remove he books of Revelation and 1st Timothy [he was persuaded by other reformers to leave them in].

After this attack upon the canon, the Church responded with a formal closing of the canon with the books that had been held for approximately 1100 years, a tradition of long standing.

And of course it is the Churches perogative to determine what liturature comprises its [the churches] core beliefs…

And I think I mentioned earlier that Protestant Christians would have less complusion about adding to [or subtracting from] the scriptures…that is of course their tradition.

 

[Zooey]

In 1 and 2 Corinthians, Paul mentions some letters that he wrote. I don’t remember the details, but maybe in 1 Corinthians, he mentions that he already wrote a letter to the Church in Corinth. And in 2 Corinthians, he mentions a previous letter with some details about it that are not in 1 or 2 Corinthians.

It’s generally accepted that there were 2 additional letters to Corinth. But think about it. There’s probably dozens of letters of Paul’s to various churches that are lost.

My understanding is, that the 2 letters to the Corinthians that we have of Paul’s, were actually put together from 2 actual letters & parts of others…If you read very attentively, there are a few little rough spots where Paul seems to change thoughts in midstream a bit. That is where ancient scholars reassembled the texts.
Now I don’t say that this is a sure thing. I just think that its interesting to note, that there is pretty much no question that Paul wrote things that are not in the canon.
My point of view is, that if God had intended for us to have the 3rd, 4th, 5th, and 342nd Epistles to the Corinthians, we would have had them all along.
(This is, by the way, a necessary corollary to my firm belief that the deuterocanonicals belong in the Bible. They had been in the Bible from the start, & I am not about to tamper with the canon of Scriptures!!)

 

[DanteAlighieri]

Hypothetically, i was just wondering what the church would do. it would seem strange to me, if the are real, to have some of his writings declared as inspired and others not. Why would the ones we have be any more inspired that the ones we found? I am just trying to get a debate going here.

Well, I haven’t read The DaVinci Code, but I bet the Church would publicly deny the authenticity of the discovered writings, and secretly dispatch Opus Dei assassins after the people who discovered them in order to protect the Church’s dominion over the faithful and prevent the world from learning the truth.



Peace,
Dante

 

[cpayne]

By the way, just to throw another log onto the pilot light here: Many scholars think that at least part of Paul’s “missing letters” actually made it into 1 and 2 Corinthians as interpolations. Their arguments are pretty convincing, I think.

So I’d argue that ANYTHING Paul wrote which God wanted to preserve in the Scriptures has already been preserved in the Scriptures, even those parts which have been labeled “missing.”