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Tomster
Guest
BTW- What confusion are you referring to? Be specific and have accurate documentation for your allegations please.
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Are you asking this question in regards to Trent, or the early Church?
Just as I have argued in defense of Luther’s questioning the d-c’s, as it was clearly allowed by the Church prior to Trent, it must also be understood that there were those in the early Church forward that defended the inclusion of them as canon. Luther included the d-c’s in his translation, at least in part because he recognized that they had been included in Bibles for centuries.
I am not convinced that either of these statements, “Luther removed books”, or “The Catholic Church added books”, is historically accurate.
Jon
Jon
EDIT; You show me a Luther translation of the Bible that didn’t have the d-c’s, and I’ll agree with you.
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Tomster
Guest
Technically, Luther chose the Hebrew canon over the then accepted Alexandrian canon.
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SemperReformada
Guest
We are talking past each other. My point is/was that before Trent there was no dogmatic or infallible statement on the canon of the OT.
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Sword_Brethren
Guest
But, you don’t know or have the truth
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DD2007
Guest
God inspired all scripture to be written. Jesus even spoke to Moses face to face.
Ex 33:11 ESV
11 Thus the Lord used to speak to Moses face to face, as a man speaks to his friend. When Moses turned again into the camp, his assistant Joshua the son of Nun, a young man, would not depart from the tent.
2 Timothy 3:16-17 ESV
16 All Scripture is breathed out by God and profitable for teaching, for reproof, for correction, and for training in righteousness, 17 that the man of God may be competent, equipped for every good work.
Jeremiah 30:2 ESV
2 “Thus says the Lord, the God of Israel: Write in a book all the words that I have spoken to you.
Neither. It is the written word of God.
Luke 8:21 ESV
21 But he answered them, “My mother and my brothers are those who hear the word of God and do it.”
Yes.
Ephesians 2:20 ESV
20 built on the foundation of the apostles and prophets, Christ Jesus himself being the cornerstone,
Everything the apostles and the prophets (those who spoke with God) wrote.
God did when he spoke through the prophets and apostles. The people of God simply receive the canon from God.
Isaiah 55:11 ESV
11 so shall my word be that goes out from my mouth;
it shall not return to me empty,
but it shall accomplish that which I purpose,
and shall succeed in the thing for which I sent it.
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Tomster
Guest
“The people of God simply receive the canon from God.”? Where is that in the Bible? Please give us a list of the Books contained IN the Bible. Chapter and verse would be nice.
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DD2007
Guest
I included Isaiah 55:11 in my edit.
The list is included in Ephesians 2:20 where it clearly states that the church is built on the foundation of the prophets and apostles. So, EVERYTHING written that they wrote, dictated or blessed as truth from God is scripture.
J
josie_L
Guest
" . . . At the Council of Rome in 382, the Church decided upon a canon of 46 Old Testament books and 27 in the New Testament. This decision was ratified by the councils at Hippo (393), Carthage (397, 419), II Nicea (787), Florence (1442), and Trent (1546).
Further, if Catholics added the deuterocanonical books in 1546, then Martin Luther beat us to the punch: He included them in his first German translation, published the Council of Trent. They can also be found in the first King James Version (1611) and in the first Bible ever printed, the Guttenberg Bible (a century before Trent). In fact, these books were included in almost every Bible until the Edinburgh Committee of the British Foreign Bible Society excised them in 1825. Until then, they had been included at least in an appendix of Protestant Bibles. It is historically demonstrable that Catholics did not add the books, Protestants took them out.
Luther had a tendency to grade the Bible according to his preferences. In his writings on the New Testament, he noted that the books of Hebrews, James, Jude, and Revelation were inferior to the rest, and they followed “the certain, main books of the New Testament.” In 1519, this same attitude fueled his debate against Johannes Eck on the topic of purgatory. Luther undermined Eck’s proof text of 2 Maccabees 12 by devaluing the deuterocanonical books as a whole. He argued that the New Testament authors had never quoted from the seven books, so they were in a different class than the rest of the Bible."
catholic.com/thisrock/2000/0009sbs.asp
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SemperReformada
Guest
With the possible exception of the council of Rome what you state is true but that doesn’t change the fact that it was Trent that issued the first dogmatic declaration of the OT canon for the Catholic church.
Where did I state that the Rome added the books in 1546? I said there was no dogmatic statement about the dc’s canonocity but never denied that the books were in use.
So? Were they accepted as fully canonical or not by those who put out the KJV 1611? The fact that they were bound together with the canonical books matters little.
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josie_L
Guest
Again, it was repeated to you that the reason it was dogmatically declared was because it was being threatened as being non-canonical by the reformers. Before this no such threat existed. I would understand your position (of 66 books) more had there been councils denouncing the deuterocanonicals as unbiblical or that Bibles pre-existing the reformation had less than 73 books, but the fact of the matter is, there are not. Which leads me to ask why are you so convinced that the deuterocanonicals are uninspired? As for the council of Rome is there a reason this is an exception?
I copied and pasted part of an article from Catholic Answers, so I can’t help the wording (I did not mean to imply you thought we added books). The reason I posted this part was because of the many councils preceding Trent that declared the deuterocanonicals as being part of biblical canon and the fact that deuterocanonicals still existed in some bibles even after the reformation only to be arbitrarily taken out of the Bible a few hundred years later.
Why put them in if they didn’t?
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SemperReformada
Guest
First, I really haven’t argued too much one way or the other as to the why, I simply have made a statement. As to their being no threat until the reformers came along…this simiply isn’t true. For example, the glossa ordinaire which was the major scriptural commentary during the middle ages rejected the dc’s canonical status.
No problem.
Why not put them in? Just because they weren’t considered canonical doesn’t mean that they couldn’t be useful.
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josie_L
Guest
Could it be this is the reason that the Church held another council in 1441 (Florence) to affirm the church’s position on the deuterocanonicals (and I don’t think they were a threat unless they were planning to split from the Church as Luther did)? By the way, the council of Rome did approve the same books that the council of Trent did. What is your position concerning the deuterocanonicals?
If they were put into the Bible and we call the Bible the “Word of God” then it would seem blasphemous to put something they were not sure was scripturally inspired by God in the Bible.
p.s. I found this website about the deuterocanonicals, would you like to read it?
speroforum.com/wiki/default.aspx/SperoWiki/HebrewScripturesAndDeuterocanonicals.html
Here is part of the article:
Before 393 A. D. there were 3 classes of sacred writings being read in the Churches. First, there were the genuine writings accepted universally by the Christian Church which hailed this first group of writings as actually written by the Apostles or on the same Apostolic authority. The second class of sacred writings, which were being used by the Churches, was the disputed class. In some places they were accepted as genuine Scripture and in other places they were not so accepted. In this second class, or disputed list, were James, Jude, the second Epistle of St Peter, the second and third Epistle of St John, the Epistle to the Hebrews, and the Book of Revelation (Apocalypse). Then there was a third class of writings spread about, which was never accepted by any of the Churches as genuine Scripture, books which contained all sorts of fanciful stories or fables of the early life of Our Lord. The usage of certain Pauline letters was also prevalent in certain early Christian churches, but a universal and standard list of inspired books was never promulgated before the Council of Hippo in 393.** It is ironic that Protestants reject the inclusion of the Old Testament deuterocanonicals at councils such as Hippo (393) and Carthage (397), because these are the very same early Church councils that defined the current canon of the New Testament. Prior to the councils, there was a wide range of disagreement over exactly what books belonged in the New Testament. Certain books, such as the gospels, acts, and most of the epistles of Paul had long been agreed upon. However a number of the books of the New Testament, most notably Hebrews, James, 2 Peter, 2 & 3 John, and Revelation remained hotly disputed until the canon was settled. They are, in effect, "New Testament “deuterocanonicals.” **
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CWBetts
Guest
If you would actually read the document from Trent in question, the Council reaffirms the status of the deuterocanonicals as Scripture. If they had not benn previously affirmed, how could they be REaffirmed? Curious…
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SemperReformada
Guest
I’ve read the documents from Trent.
I guess I don’t understand your question. Not every statement from a pope or council is regarded as dogmatic and I believe you are aware of this.
For example, papal infallibility didn’t become dogma until Vatican I. That doesn’t mean that there wasn’t a belief in papal infallibility until then, only that it wasn’t dogma until V1.
Same as with the canon of the OT. Obviously there were several councils which listed the OT canon but none of those statements prior to Trent were dogmatic. This is why between Carthage/Hippo and Trent you see differing opinions as to whether the dc’s were canonical.
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CWBetts
Guest
You have a problem with understanding the way the CHurch functions in declaring dogma. Dogmas tend to not be formalized until dissenters raise confusion. In this case with the canon, the Deuterocanonicals were generally accepted, then when dissenters started spreading confusion among the faithful, the Council officially declared the dogma to end the dissention. So, the Deuterocanonicals were very much part of the canon before Trent, but it was at Trent that it had to be formalized because of the heresies of the Reformation.
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SemperReformada
Guest
When was the first dogmatic statement regarding the canon of the OT for your church?
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geekborj
Guest
You posted new interesting questions here. Thanks for they indeed prompt me as well to think about how Jesus would have wanted his Church to be like.
You answered this already below: As Christ has promised, He will be with the Church and that the Holy Spirit will guide His Church to all truth.
Unfortunately, the truth is sooo BIG that even the entire human race cannot fathom in its entirety. The Truth is like the ocean and what we know about it is like a drop of it. Hence, finding “all the truth” is never completed and the argument fails.
The promise that the Holy Spirit will dwell in all believers as prophesized in Ez 36:27 has been done during Baptism and Confirmation. However, it seems that you are mixing this up with the Gifts of the Holy Spirit. Not everyone is given equal gifts as the Scriptures will give:
since, as St. Paul continues down in the same chapter,
Therefore, although we share One Spirit in One Baptism, we don’t share THE SAME gift. We cannot all be apostles, only SOME. Not all can be teachers. Not all can be prophets. The gift of infallibility can only be given to the one in the Seat/Chair/Cathedra of Peter/Kepha.
In the two passages that you mentioned in John, who do you think Jesus was talking to? Isn’t He just talking to his Apostles only, the representatives of the One Church? The Catholic Church teaches that the gift of infallibility is also given to the One Church as a WHOLE, not to each individual faithful.
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