Where do Protestants say we received the Biblical Canon?

[ahs]

So the whole reason the Deuterocanon is even referred to AS the Deuterocanon is because their acceptance has been controversial at times in church history. Unlike Romans, your example above, they don’t have a “clean record,” so to speak. But yes in some way, shape or form, they should definitely be included under the heading “Christian Scripture” or “The Bible” with the caveat that their case for being “inspired” (again, leaving that definition open) is less clear. This is why Luther, just as an example, includes these texts in his translation of the Bible into German.

Again, we are speaking at the level of the canon. There are at least three versions of the book of Tobit that we know of. Which is the inspired one?

Right, at the level of the Canon. Okay, I think I see what you are saying now. Protestants can know that the books of their Bible, their Canon of Scripture, are/is the Inspired Word of God based on the fact that those books, that Canon, have/has a “clean record”, so to speak, of historical consensus among all the Christian Churches. Is this an accurate summary?

Do Muslims have that same assurance that their Quran is the Inspired Word of God based on a “clean record”,so to speak, of historical consensus on the Quran within Islam?

 

[Dave_Noonan]

Right, at the level of the Canon. Okay, I think I see what you are saying now. Protestants can know that the books of their Bible, their Canon of Scripture, are/is the Inspired Word of God based on the fact that those books, that Canon, have/has a “clean record”, so to speak, of historical consensus among all the Christian Churches. Is this an accurate summary?

More or less, yes.

Do Muslims have that same assurance that their Quran is the Inspired Word of God based on a “clean record”,so to speak, of historical consensus on the Quran within Islam?

Historically, Islam has exercised much tighter control over the text of the Quran than did, for example, Christianity over Old Latin texts. Muslims have what they see as one singular inspired text of the Quran, so Islam doesn’t have equivalent concerns and arguments about inspiration, canon and textual variants. There’s one text; that’s it; all Muslims agree on it. At least as far as I know.

 

[ahs]

Historically, Islam has exercised much tighter control over the text of the Quran than did, for example, Christianity over Old Latin texts. Muslims have what they see as one singular inspired text of the Quran, so Islam doesn’t have equivalent concerns and arguments about inspiration, canon and textual variants. There’s one text; that’s it; all Muslims agree on it. At least as far as I know.

But that’s the point. Muslims do agree, in consensus through their history, that the Quran is the Inspired Word of God. And, in fact, if a clean record of historical consensus is the deciding factor on whether a book(s) or Canon is the Inspired Word, they have an even stronger argument than Christians because they don’t have textual variants and disagreements about the “Canon” that Christians have. They can easily hold up their book and say it is the Inspired Word because they have always agreed that it is AND part of their “proof” would be in the fact that the Christians actually DON’T agree on what is or isn’t the Inspired Word of God…and their evidence to that is the link you provided that at least gives the appearance of that.

So, in speaking with a Muslim about whether or not they/you have the Inspired Word of God, if your argument is hinged on this point of “consensus”, then you’d find yourself having absolutely no ground to stand on in trying to convince them that the Christian Bible is the Inspired Word of God (as opposed to the Quran)…because they’d show you their unbroken record of consensus about their own book within their own faith.

See what I mean?

 

[Cranch]

So you would say then that the original writings were inspired but not later copies?

Yes of course. If you had access to Paul’s letter to the Rome church from his hand and you copied it by hand in the manner of that time, would you claim inspiration from God for your labor as the Church claims for Paul? If not then how can you claim it for the result of your labor? It is merely a copy of the inspired original. If accurate however, a copy conveys God’s Word just as effectively.

Since none of the originals are available for inspection, this is what Christian fundamentalists often use as an “out” for problems related to inspiration and textual variants… these texts are the ones imagined to have been inspired.

Not being a Christian fundamentalist—at least not in the way the term is usually understood—I wouldn’t know about that. Fortunately the Church, guided by the same Holy Spirit which inspired the Sacred Authors, has definitively identified Sacred Scripture.

If you have ever written anything and think about the human process of writing, even the whole idea of “an original” itself is a bit cloudy…

I do not focus on “the human process of writing” when I ponder the origin of Scripture. Rather, concerning the Sacred Books

“being written under the inspiration of the Holy Ghost, they have God for their author and as such have been delivered to the Church.”…and that these are His own oracles and words - a Letter, written by our heavenly Father, and transmitted by the sacred writers to the human race in its pilgrimage so far from its heavenly country.—Providentissimus Deus

And from the same encyclical:

For, by supernatural power, He [the Holy Spirit] so moved and impelled them to write-He was so present to them-that the things which He ordered, and those only, they, first, rightly understood, then willed faithfully to write down, and finally expressed in apt words and with infallible truth.
I just don’t picture the Sacred Authors sweating through multiple rewrites.

And I thought you said that the Tridentine Vulgate was THE authoritative manuscript? Since there are obvious differences between the Tridentine Vulgate and the original Vulgate (thus the need for editions like the Nova Vulgata) to say nothing of differences between the Latin translation and the Hebrew and Greek texts, it seems to me that you can’t have everything be inspired if they all differ from each other.

I simply pointed out that in the matter of accurate presentation of Sacred Scripture, the Church has said the Vulgate is authentic among Latin editions of the time for “public lectures, disputations, sermons and expositions.” And that that statement has in no way been invalidated subsequently. The Tridentine Fathers also decreed:

But if any one receive not, as sacred and canonical, the said books entire with all their parts, as they have been used to be read in the Catholic Church, and as they are contained in the old Latin vulgate edition; and knowingly and deliberately contemn the traditions aforesaid; let him be anathema.That’s good enough for me, anyway. Will the Church ever stop trying to more deeply plumb the meaning of God’s Word through study using every tool? No. By the way, take note that Trent referred to the Vulgate “now in circulation” (16th century) as the “old and vulgate edition, which, by the lengthened usage of so many ages, has been approved of in the Church.” It seems in the Vulgate the modern church sees a continuity from Jerome that you do not. Perhaps the Nova Vulgata is viewed in the Church in the same way?

And what about the significant textual variants that already existed before the time of Christ and before the Church even came on the scene…I’m not saying these are necessarily anyone’s fault–it’s just human nature. We make mistakes. Lots of mistakes.

Another reason to not assign inspiration to a copy much less a translation.

You can’t have your cake and eat it too; it’s either Trent or the originals or something else OR you have to admit the limitations of being able to know what is or is not inspired.

I have already spoken of the authoritative role of the Church—“to whom the transmission and interpretation of Revelation is entrusted”—in identifying and safeguarding Scripture. (CCC 82) I take your skepticism on this point as a mark of your Protestantism.

…to a non-Catholic, this just reads like an elaborate dance around the fact that the Tridentine Vulgate doesn’t agree with other editions of the Vulgate, nor with the Hebrew or Greek texts.

By Tridentine Vulgate I assume you refer to the Clementine Vulgate, the fruit of Trent’s decree that “Sacred Scripture, especially this well-known Old Latin Vulgate edition, shall be published as correctly as possible.” The point of this directive at the time was to produce the official version of the Vulgate and bring order out of the various Vulgate editions that over so long a time had come into use (human mistakes, remember). You might find the history of this process interesting as outlined in this article.

 

[Dave_Noonan]

But that’s the point. Muslims do agree, in consensus through their history, that the Quran is the Inspired Word of God. And, in fact, if a clean record of historical consensus is the deciding factor on whether a book(s) or Canon is the Inspired Word, they have an even stronger argument than Christians because they don’t have textual variants and disagreements about the “Canon” that Christians have. They can easily hold up their book and say it is the Inspired Word because they have always agreed that it is AND part of their “proof” would be in the fact that the Christians actually DON’T agree on what is or isn’t the Inspired Word of God…and their evidence to that is the link you provided that at least gives the appearance of that.

So, in speaking with a Muslim about whether or not they/you have the Inspired Word of God, if your argument is hinged on this point of “consensus”, then you’d find yourself having absolutely no ground to stand on in trying to convince them that the Christian Bible is the Inspired Word of God (as opposed to the Quran)…because they’d show you their unbroken record of consensus about their own book within their own faith.

See what I mean?

Not really. Christians have never thought the Quran is inspired, much less reached any sort of consensus that it is. It doesn’t bother me that a Muslim believes the Quran is inspired by God; it’s not relevant to Christianity.

 

[ahs]

Not really. Christians have never thought the Quran is inspired, much less reached any sort of consensus that it is. It doesn’t bother me that a Muslim believes the Quran is inspired by God; it’s not relevant to Christianity.

It’s not relevant to Christianity whether Muslims know the True Gospel…the Truth of the Word of God? I guess we will disagree here. I believe that when Christ said to preach the Gospel message to “all nations”, that He didn’t exclude Islam. And so, in reaching out to Muslims…how might one go about showing that the books within the Christian Bible are indeed the Inspired Word of God? Your “consensus” view only gives them more proof to the opposite.

 

[Dave_Noonan]

It’s not relevant to Christianity whether Muslims know the True Gospel…the Truth of the Word of God? I guess we will disagree here. I believe that when Christ said to preach the Gospel message to “all nations”, that He didn’t exclude Islam. And so, in reaching out to Muslims…how might one go about showing that the books within the Christian Bible are indeed the Inspired Word of God? Your “consensus” view only gives them more proof to the opposite.

Yes, I think it’s clear that on a purely objective basis, the Quran has a much, much cleaner and clearer history and some Muslims will even readily point this out. The Bible was composed over a period stretching over 1,000 years (at least) and especially for the Old Testament we have to do a lot of guessing as to its compositional history, and there are a lot of textual problems to be sure. The Quran, theoretically, was complete during the lifetime of Mohammed or compiled shortly after his death, and textual variants were quickly brought under control–I think during the time of Omar, if memory serves.

In reaching out to a Muslim, I guess from my own perspective I don’t see religion as a “who’s got the best book” contest, because every religion has one and they all, by definition maybe, think that their book is the absolutely the greatest. The one thing that the Bible has going for it is that it includes so many different voices over such a long period of time (this idea of consensus again) whereas the Quran is pretty much about one particular person alone channeling God. I think for a Muslim all of these “because-the-Pope-says-so” or “because-these-bishops-said-so” or “because-the-Catechism-says-so” type of arguments are going to fall even flatter than they do with Protestants.

It think it’s hard for Christians to relate to Muslims at times because they are, at least from my perspective, much more a “people of the book” than we are. Christianity is much more about a person–Jesus Christ–and it really boils down to Jesus’ famous question, “Who do you say that I am?”

 

[ahs]

Yes, I think it’s clear that on a purely objective basis, the Quran has a much, much cleaner and clearer history and some Muslims will even readily point this out. The Bible was composed over a period stretching over 1,000 years (at least) and especially for the Old Testament we have to do a lot of guessing as to its compositional history, and there are a lot of textual problems to be sure. The Quran, theoretically, was complete during the lifetime of Mohammed or compiled shortly after his death, and textual variants were quickly brought under control–I think during the time of Omar, if memory serves.

In reaching out to a Muslim, I guess from my own perspective I don’t see religion as a “who’s got the best book” contest, because every religion has one and they all, by definition maybe, think that their book is the absolutely the greatest. The one thing that the Bible has going for it is that it includes so many different voices over such a long period of time (this idea of consensus again) whereas the Quran is pretty much about one particular person alone channeling God. I think for a Muslim all of these “because-the-Pope-says-so” or “because-these-bishops-said-so” or “because-the-Catechism-says-so” type of arguments are going to fall even flatter than they do with Protestants.

It think it’s hard for Christians to relate to Muslims at times because they are, at least from my perspective, much more a “people of the book” than we are. Christianity is much more about a person–Jesus Christ–and it really boils down to Jesus’ famous question, “Who do you say that I am?”

Right…I’m not talking about a “best book” contest. I’m talking about the fact that Muslims don’t believe Christians have the True Gospel…rather a corrupted message. They don’t “think that their book is the absolutely the greatest [among other great and true books]”…they believe that the Quran is the “true” Gospel and the Christian Bible is not.
I understand that you don’t want to fall into a “because the Pope said so” perspective…and that a Muslim would reject this as well. And so, in reaching out to Muslims…how might one go about showing that the books within the Christian Bible are indeed the Inspired Word of God?

 

[Dave_Noonan]

…they believe that the Quran is the “true” Gospel and the Christian Bible is not.

I think a Muslim would say (and I could be wrong) that the Christian Bible is true, but corrupted.

Honestly, if I were to be in dialogue with a Muslim about Christianity, I would NOT begin with talking about the Bible–that’s just very likely to be a non-starter, imo–but rather I would begin by trying to talk about what beliefs we held in common.

There’s a very interesting ancient dialogue (8th Cen. maybe?) between the Syriac Catholicos, Timothy I and the Abbassid Caliph al-Mahdi (father of the famous Harun al-Raschid) about Christianity and Christian beliefs. That might be worth reading if you’re really serious about this. As I recall, their main sticking point was over the Trinity and Jesus being the Son of God (or really, just the whole idea of God having a son)–that seems to be much more important for some reason than the nature of the Bible.

 

[Dave_Noonan]

By Tridentine Vulgate I assume you refer to the Clementine Vulgate, the fruit of Trent’s decree that “Sacred Scripture, especially this well-known Old Latin Vulgate edition, shall be published as correctly as possible.”

Yes.

The point of this directive at the time was to produce the official version of the Vulgate and bring order out of the various Vulgate editions that over so long a time had come into use (human mistakes, remember).

Interestingly, this was the same reason why Jerome was commissioned to prepare the Vulgate in the first place–because of all of the textual variants in the Old Latin Bible. Everything old is new again!

You might find the history of this process interesting as outlined in this article.

Thanks for the article link; the history of the Vulgate is indeed complex, or dare I even say, messy.

I would object to one thing in the article and that is the assertion that Jerome translated the Old Testament directly from the Hebrew. If you look at Jerome’s Hebraicae quaestiones (his translation notes on Genesis) it’s clear that he often defers to the Septuagint/Old Greek instead of the Hebrew text when there is a disagreement between the two versions, even (oddly) sometimes when he seems to prefer the Hebrew reading. Although I disagree strongly, some scholars have gone so far as to argue that Jerome really didn’t know Hebrew all that well. And of course that debate is much more recent than the date of the article (1938) so I wouldn’t have expected it to be included.

 

[ahs]

I think a Muslim would say (and I could be wrong) that the Christian Bible is true, but corrupted.

Well, yes, they believe we have a corrupted book, and they believe the Quran is the inspired/revealed Word of God. IS the Christian Bible corrupted? Based on your proposition of this historical consensus, it would seem that the Muslims can rightly claim truth on that matter. And so, how might one go about showing that the books within the Christian Bible are indeed the Inspired Word of God? Your “consensus” view seems to more strongly support the Muslim opinion.

 

[inkaneer]

So the whole reason the Deuterocanon is even referred to AS the Deuterocanon is because their acceptance has been controversial at times in church history. Unlike Romans, your example above, they don’t have a “clean record,” so to speak. But yes in some way, shape or form, they should definitely be included under the heading “Christian Scripture” or “The Bible” with the caveat that their case for being “inspired” (again, leaving that definition open) is less clear. This is why Luther, just as an example, includes these texts in his translation of the Bible into German.

Again, we are speaking at the level of the canon. There are at least three versions of the book of Tobit that we know of. Which is the inspired one?

But you over simplify the matter. The Deuteros were not the only books that were controversial. You could add to those seven the book of Revelation, Letter to the Hebrews and several more. None of them have as you say, “a clean record” either. But let us not try to fool ourselves. The Deuteros were part of the Septuagint which was the Jewish scriptures used by both the early church as well as the Jews of the first century, many of whom could neither speak nor understand Hebrew. The Jews never did close their canon until after the christian church was well established. Various dates from 80 AD to the third century have been proposed and some will argue that it remains open to this day. It is generally regarded today that Jerome, who translated the scriptures into Latin apparently did not accept the deutero’s but in actuality he never either categorically acknowledged or rejected the deuterocanonical books as part of the Canon of Scripture. Jerome’s task was that of a translator, not a canonical expert. He would go on to write as the reason for including the deuterocanonical books:

"“What sin have I committed if I follow the judgment of the churches? But he who brings charges against me for relating [in my preface to the book of Daniel] the objections that the Hebrews are wont to raise against the story of Susannah [Dan. 13], the Song of the Three Children [Dan. 3:29–68, RSV-CE], and the story of Bel and the Dragon [Dan. 14], which are not found in the Hebrew volume, proves that he is just a foolish sycophant. I was not relating my own personal views, but rather the remarks that they are wont to make against us.” (Against Rufinius 11:33 [A.D. 401]).

Jerome followed the churches in his decision to include the deuteros but he also included in a preface the objections that Jews would make about these books and added the disclaimer that they were not his own personal views.

In hind sight the very early christian [Catholic] church using the entire Septuagint was a slam dunk. It was the Jewish scriptures of Jesus and the Apostles time and used by Jews as well as christians. Bear in mind that the early christians were Jewish converts. The ‘Hebrew only’ Jewish scriptures was an after thought by Jews well after the time that the church started to evangelize the Gentiles.

Regardless, Luther’s real reason why he did not think the deuteros were inspired was because they contradicted some of his doctrines. The ‘Jerome reason’ as well as the ‘Jesus never quoted from them reason’ the 'not generally accepted reason" and all the other reasons cited by one protestant denomination or another are attempted smoke screens for one basic protestant doctrinal contradiction of scripture and that is that it is the Church that is the pillar and foundation of truth and not scripture or anyone’s interpretation of scripture no matter if that person is Martin Luther, John Calvin or Moe, Larry and Curly. Church authority is at the heart of this subject.

 

[Dave_Noonan]

But you over simplify the matter. The Deuteros were not the only books that were controversial. You could add to those seven the book of Revelation, Letter to the Hebrews and several more. None of them have as you say, “a clean record” either.

As I noted.

But let us not try to fool ourselves. The Deuteros were part of the Septuagint which was the Jewish scriptures used by both the early church as well as the Jews of the first century, many of whom could neither speak nor understand Hebrew.

This would have only been true of the Greek-speaking Christians and Jews. Most Jews were Aramaic speakers at the time–thus the need for and production of the Targumim and the Peshitta. And of course the Dead Sea Scrolls show that at least the Jews at Qumran read Hebrew and Aramaic and probably spoke both. On the other hand, there is almost no evidence of interest in Greek texts at Qumran or in other finds in the Judean Desert.

The Jews never did close their canon until after the christian church was well established. Various dates from 80 AD to the third century have been proposed and some will argue that it remains open to this day.

I don’t disagree with that at all–however, I don’t remember this even coming up in the thread. But you should be aware that many Catholic apologists (Gary Michuta and Fr. John Hardon, as two examples off the top of my head) continue to argue in favor of the long-debunked “Council of Jamnia” and the closure of the Jewish Canon in the late first or second century. I think they are absolutely wrong about that.

It is generally regarded today that Jerome, who translated the scriptures into Latin apparently did not accept the deutero’s but in actuality he never either categorically acknowledged or rejected the deuterocanonical books as part of the Canon of Scripture.

Fine with me. Neither did Martin Luther, for that matter.

In hind sight the very early christian [Catholic] church using the entire Septuagint was a slam dunk.

The Catholic church uses neither the text nor the biblical canon of the Septuagint; that point was covered earlier in the thread. The biblical canons within/among the early churches differ; nor is their theology of canon the same.

It was the Jewish scriptures of Jesus and the Apostles time and used by Jews as well as christians. Bear in mind that the early christians were Jewish converts. The ‘Hebrew only’ Jewish scriptures was an after thought by Jews well after the time that the church started to evangelize the Gentiles.

The Dead Sea Scrolls show otherwise. Keep in mind that many Jews at the time of Jesus (perhaps the vast majority) neither spoke nor understood Greek.

Regardless, Luther’s real reason why he did not think the deuteros were inspired was because they contradicted some of his doctrines.

Without covering Luther’s entire biblical theology, basically he didn’t think that an entire theological house of cards should be built on a text in a controversial book, especially if it conflicted with the Gospels and Paul. You certainly don’t have to agree with that, but it’s important not to misrepresent his views.

The ‘Jerome reason’ as well as the ‘Jesus never quoted from them reason’ the 'not generally accepted reason"

I’m not sure where all this is coming from. Maybe you are thinking of a different thread.

 

[Dave_Noonan]

Well, yes, they believe we have a corrupted book, and they believe the Quran is the inspired/revealed Word of God. IS the Christian Bible corrupted? Based on your proposition of this historical consensus, it would seem that the Muslims can rightly claim truth on that matter.

I guess it depends on what you mean by “corrupted.” I think if you’re purely looking at the Bible as a whole and its textual fidelity to the original and if you’re looking at the Quran and its faithful to the original, it’s definitely score one for the Muslims. That’s why I’ve mentioned several times that I don’t think this is a good place to start.

One thing you could do is point out and argue for is that if a person read all of the Gospel in all its variations and Paul’s letters in all their variations, the basic message of the Gospels isn’t affected. And you could point out that unlike the Quran, different books were composed in different times and places by different authors and some are much more reliable than others. Though I’m not sure how a Muslim would view the fact that the Gospels themselves don’t agree on everything, textual variants aside. You would have to ask them.

BUT if you’re trying to build your case that the entire Christian Bible that we have today is utterly faithful to their originals (whatever that means), I think you will have serious issues. Just for example, I don’t think anyone has seen a copy of 1 Maccabees in Hebrew for at least 1,600 years–all we have and all we have pretty much ever had are translations of the originals. So if you’re trying to build a theological case over something in books like Maccabees, Tobit or Jeremiah I don’t think this would be defensible from a Muslim point of view.

 

[inkaneer]

Quote:
Originally Posted by inkaneer
But let us not try to fool ourselves. The Deuteros were part of the Septuagint which was the Jewish scriptures used by both the early church as well as the Jews of the first century, many of whom could neither speak nor understand Hebrew.

This would have only been true of the Greek-speaking Christians and Jews. Most Jews were Aramaic speakers at the time–thus the need for and production of the Targumim and the Peshitta. And of course the Dead Sea Scrolls show that at least the Jews at Qumran read Hebrew and Aramaic and probably spoke both. On the other hand, there is almost no evidence of interest in Greek texts at Qumran or in other finds in the Judean Desert.

I disagree. Jews were widespread. Those living in Israel were only a small portion of the Jewish population.

Quote:
Originally Posted by inkaneer
The Jews never did close their canon until after the christian church was well established. Various dates from 80 AD to the third century have been proposed and some will argue that it remains open to this day.

I don’t disagree with that at all–however, I don’t remember this even coming up in the thread. But you should be aware that many Catholic apologists (Gary Michuta and Fr. John Hardon, as two examples off the top of my head) continue to argue in favor of the long-debunked “Council of Jamnia” and the closure of the Jewish Canon in the late first or second century. I think they are absolutely wrong about that.

Regardless, if the deuteros are in the Septuagint and the Septuagint was translated from the Jewish scriptures. Then it stands to reason that the deuteros were contained in the Jewish scriptures at least when they were translated. We can argue as to when they were removed but that really has no bearing in the discussion.

Quote:
Originally Posted by inkaneer
It is generally regarded today that Jerome, who translated the scriptures into Latin apparently did not accept the deutero’s but in actuality he never either categorically acknowledged or rejected the deuterocanonical books as part of the Canon of Scripture.

Fine with me. Neither did Martin Luther, for that matter.

But He did not consider them to be of the same level as the protocanon books. The difference between Jerome and Luther was that Jerome recognized the church’s authority as the pillar and foundation of truth while Luther denied church authority and sunstituted his own…

 

[inkaneer]

Quote:
Originally Posted by inkaneer
In hind sight the very early christian [Catholic] church using the entire Septuagint was a slam dunk.

The Catholic church uses neither the text nor the biblical canon of the Septuagint; that point was covered earlier in the thread. The biblical canons within/among the early churches differ; nor is their theology of canon the same.

I am not too sure of that especially concerning the OT. The real problem was the New Testament. The canon of scripture came about because of the error of Gnosticism with its pseudo writings purporting to be inspired of God. These writings were not advanced as “lost books of the Jewish scriptures” but rather christian era writings.

Quote:
Originally Posted by inkaneer
It was the Jewish scriptures of Jesus and the Apostles time and used by Jews as well as christians. Bear in mind that the early christians were Jewish converts. The ‘Hebrew only’ Jewish scriptures was an after thought by Jews well after the time that the church started to evangelize the Gentiles.

The Dead Sea Scrolls show otherwise. Keep in mind that many Jews at the time of Jesus (perhaps the vast majority) neither spoke nor understood Greek.

I do not agree at all. Greek was the universal language, the language of trade and commerce. Heck, even the Romans spoke Greek. Recall the conversation that Jesus had with the centurion. Was it in Aramaic? How about the one with Pilate? The simple fact is that the majority of Jews spoke Greek. After all wasn’t that the reason for the Septuagint in the first place to translate the Hebrew scriptures into Greek because the Jews of the diaspora knew Greek but did not know Hebrew.

Quote:
Originally Posted by inkaneer
Regardless, Luther’s real reason why he did not think the deuteros were inspired was because they contradicted some of his doctrines.

Without covering Luther’s entire biblical theology, basically he didn’t think that an entire theological house of cards should be built on a text in a controversial book, especially if it conflicted with the Gospels and Paul. You certainly don’t have to agree with that, but it’s important not to misrepresent his views.

Let’s not make Luther into some kind of glorified canonical superman. We all know what he thought of the Epistle of James and why. He wanted to remove it as well as other NT books from the canon as well but others intervened. And as far as building ‘a theological house of cards on a controversial book’ it seems the only controversy about the deuteros, as well as the NT books, resided with Luther. They were canonical for 1100 years before Luther and still are.

Quote:
Originally Posted by inkaneer
The ‘Jerome reason’ as well as the ‘Jesus never quoted from them reason’ the 'not generally accepted reason"

I’m not sure where all this is coming from. Maybe you are thinking of a different thread.

No, just some of the reasons various protestant groups come up with for eliminating the deuteros from the protestant Bible. These reasons are like mud that they throw against a wall hoping that some of it sticks. But none of them do. Isn’t it strange that those who claim to use only scripture as an authority fail to heed it’s authority when it says that the church is the pillar and foundation of truth.

 

[mackbrislawn]

Rather that there are books of Apostolic origin and authority that were received as such by the Bishops. However the notion of a “List” would be thought of as nonsense since the Church has always received these books as Scripture from the time of Peter. Therefore the notion of a Canon having been determined by the Church is not possible because the Bible is the sole authority and rule of faith for all men. Thus the Church does not have authority over Scripture, Scripture has authority over the Church.

QUOTE]

I don’t know… the books of bible were all written separately in different places at different times. They existed first as scrolls, independently, and were not all under one cover as today. The books on the canonical list we have today were not the only writings circulating around that were competing for status in the church. Hence a canon, a list of the truly apostolic and inspired writings, was needed so the bishops and churches would know what scrolls were appropriate for reading in church, and which were not. It needs to be repeated that in the beginning the Bible did not exist as one volume under one cover, but as separate and distinct scrolls and codices, so, indeed, a list was needed.

The books we accept today were not always received by the Church as Scripture from the time of Peter. How could they be, since a number of them were written after Peter was gone? Revelation is a prime example, since it was written by John after all the other apostles were dead. Revelation was also slow in being accepted as authoritative, as were Hebrews and James.

Members of the Church wrote the Christian Scriptures, so it seems fitting that the Church should determine the Canon. What or who else could? How could the Bible be the sole rule of faith and authority for men if men do not know what the Bible is?

I don’t know what it means to say that the Church does not have authority over the Bible, nor the Bible to have authority over the Church. They both come from God, and the Bible is a tool that God gave to the Church.

 

[mackbrislawn]

According to the Protestant scholar from Princeton, Dr. Bruce Metzger, the early church leaders had three criteria for determining which books should be considered authoritative and which discarded.

First, they must have apostolic authority, written by apostles who were eyewitness, or by followers of apostles.

Second, there was the criterion of conformity to what was called the rule of faith. That is, was the document congruent with the basic Christian tradition that the Church recognized as normative?

Third, the criterion of continuous acceptance and usage by the church at large.

The second criterion is of interest. It means there was something outside Scripture called the “Rule of Faith” to which Scripture was compared, to determine if a particular scripture was to be considered authoritative! Yes, Church and her tradition judged Scripture and determined the Canon.

The first criterion means that members of the Church wrote Scripture, so it is proper to say that the Church wrote Christian Scripture.

And the third criterion means that the Church had to use and accept it!

Therefore I don’t know how it can be said that, “… the notion of a Canon having been determined by the Church is not possible because the Bible is the sole authority and rule of faith for all men.”

However, Dr. Metzger also makes a statement I consider to be odd. Some people may accept it, but to me it doesn’t make any sense. It is that ‘the canon is a list of authoritative books more than it is an authoritative list of books.’

Because, how do we know that these books are authoritative to begin with if the list itself is not authoritative? Hence, the list needs be authoritative as well if it is to be of use.

 

[mackbrislawn]

Here’s some good explanation of the Canon of Scripture:
newadvent.org/cathen/03267a.htm (Old TEstament)
newadvent.org/cathen/03274a.htm (New Testament)

Then how do we know if the books in our Bible are the infallible Word of God?

Only by trusting the Church. If you don’t trust the Church, then we don’t know if the books in our Bible are the word of God.

After all, we only believe the Bible is inspired to begin with is because that is a teaching of the Church.

 

[gigi4747]

However, Dr. Metzger also makes a statement I consider to be odd. Some people may accept it, but to me it doesn’t make any sense. It is that ‘the canon is a list of authoritative books more than it is an authoritative list of books.’

Because, how do we know that these books are authoritative to begin with if the list itself is not authoritative? Hence, the list needs be authoritative as well if it is to be of use.

Great point.