Where do Protestants say we received the Biblical Canon?

[Reuben_J]

It’s kind of amusing to read the pronouns “She” here a lot…as in “*her *leadership” and “she discerned”…when the bible books were mostly or all written by males, mostly about the deeds of males, and when it came time to decide which books were to be included in the canon–all those decisions were made by groups of males (the bishops at the meetings?)…and then in the church, all the teachings are taught by male priests…and the head of the church, the pope, is a man…

So to hear the pronoun “She” sounds so…oddly contrary to the ear.

We use the pronounce ‘she’ for the Church and not an ‘it’.

We have been using the pronounce ‘man’ for mankind but now many of us are using ‘man and woman’. It can be amusing in a way.

 

[Reuben_J]

Except for the Council of Florence, what you are listing above were not councils at all but actually local synods of bishops–and their decisions were only accepted only within the Latinate church. The rest of Christendom had their own ideas about the canon.

I have forgotten why I quoted that but probably in response to some suggestion that the Catholic did not have a canon until Trent. Well, the Catholic Church do have a canon since the earliest time the Bible was canonized and it is the same as it is today. There were not many Christian denominations in AD360 as they are today. Who were the rest of the Christendom then?

Oh now I remember, you don’t need a council to reaffirm what you already have and believed. The Roman Catholic Church does not define truths unless errors abound on the matter. The council is often needed to clarify heresy and mistakes and therefore states what is already been believed.

What errors were abounding concerning the biblical canon that sprung up at the time of the Council of Florence?

I can remember at the top of my head. Need to read back about the particular council. I am sorry.

 

[Dave_Noonan]

I have forgotten why I quoted that but probably in response to some suggestion that the Catholic did not have a canon until Trent. Well, the Catholic Church do have a canon since the earliest time the Bible was canonized and it is the same as it is today.

True, as far as it relates to the Catholic Church

There were not many Christian denominations in AD360 as they are today. Who were the rest of the Christendom then?

Without going into the entire history of Christianity outside of the Roman Empire, here are just a few examples:

Armenia was the first country to adopt Christianity as its official religion in 301 AD;
Syriac Christianity traces its origins to St. Thomas the Apostle;
The Syriac Church in India traces its origin to immigration from Edessa in 345 AD;
The Ethiopian Church traces its origin to Philip the Evangelist (Acts 8:26-27).

Sometimes people are left with the erroneous impression that Christianity only existed within the bounds of the Roman Empire until much later. In all likelihood, by the 4th Century more Christians were living outside the Roman Empire than within it.

You can easily compare the various differences in their biblical canons to the Catholic one here, as I mentioned in a prior post:

en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Biblical_canon (scroll down)

Oh now I remember, you don’t need a council to reaffirm what you already have and believed. The Roman Catholic Church does not define truths unless errors abound on the matter. The council is often needed to clarify heresy and mistakes and therefore states what is already been believed.

Right; I was simply unaware of controversies surrounding the biblical canon in the West prior to the Protestant Reformation. If there were big controversies about the canon already in 1440, that’s pretty interesting.

 

[ahs]

Originally Posted by Dave Noonan :
…The New Testament that we use and place our confidence in doesn’t even exist as a manuscript in the material world–it’s a agglomeration of a number of different texts where variants are judged correct or incorrect by scholars. But the scholars wouldn’t all agree. We don’t know which manuscript is the “correct” one–or even whether such a thing as a correct manuscript exists or has ever existed. This has not been revealed…

Originally Posted by ahs:
Then how do we know if the books in our Bible are the infallible Word of God?

Originally Posted by Dave Noonan:
*Because there exists no divine revelation as to WHICH of the myriad of texts available is THE inspired text (on top of which are issues related to the biblical canon itself), this would be a logical impossibility—at least if I understand the meaning of your question.

In this respect, Christianity differs substantially from Islam, which asserts a specific divinely inspired text*.

So, you are saying that it is impossible to know if the books within our Christian Bible are really the Inspired/Infallible Word of God?

Since the biblical canon never been divinely revealed and since the universal church has never agreed on what it is, basically yes…

So, does this mean that you believe that any given book in the Christian Bible might not actually be the Inspired Word of God?

 

[Reuben_J]

Without going into the entire history of Christianity outside of the Roman Empire, here are just a few examples:

Armenia was the first country to adopt Christianity as its official religion in 301 AD;
Syriac Christianity traces its origins to St. Thomas the Apostle;
The Syriac Church in India traces its origin to immigration from Edessa in 345 AD;
The Ethiopian Church traces its origin to Philip the Evangelist (Acts 8:26-27).

Sometimes people are left with the erroneous impression that Christianity only existed within the bounds of the Roman Empire until much later. In all likelihood, by the 4th Century more Christians were living outside the Roman Empire than within it.

You can easily compare the various differences in their biblical canons to the Catholic one here, as I mentioned in a prior post:

en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Biblical_canon (scroll ).

Thanks for providing the list of the churches at the time around 360AD, the first time an official canon of the Bible was recorded. As I said the canon was not necessarily began at that time since the Catholic Church does not need to document it officially before that but all the same she was using the same canon of the Bible.

I am sure there were early churches outside the Roman Empire. The present Roman Catholic Church from which the early Church got its name was already operating within the Roman Empire but clandestinely as she was under the persecution of the Roman Emperors. There was no Vatican as we know it today but the Pope or the Bishop of Rome was definitely in existence. We can trace back the line of the present Pope all the way back to St. Peter.

I would think the Church in Rome then knew the existence of the other churches outside the Roman Empire. Do you thinks these churches were in communion with Rome then?

 

[Reuben_J]

Right; I was simply unaware of controversies surrounding the biblical canon in the West prior to the Protestant Reformation. If there were big controversies about the canon already in 1440, that’s pretty interesting.

I am not aware of anything in the Council of Florence of the fifteenth century regarding the controversies surrounding the biblical canon. It is more remembered for the issue of the Filloque and some political intervention of the crowning of a new king. You can google it under the Council of Florence.

 

[livingwordunity]

It’s kind of amusing to read the pronouns “She” here a lot…as in “*her *leadership” and “she discerned”…when the bible books were mostly or all written by males, mostly about the deeds of males, and when it came time to decide which books were to be included in the canon–all those decisions were made by groups of males (the bishops at the meetings?)…and then in the church, all the teachings are taught by male priests…and the head of the church, the pope, is a man…

So to hear the pronoun “She” sounds so…oddly contrary to the ear.

The Church has always been the bride of Christ hence the pronoun “she”. The Bible teaches this, and this has always been the teaching of the Church. Another thing that might surprise feminists is that the Catholic Church teaches that God’s greatest creation is the Blessed Virgin Mary, a woman. With Our Lady, Catholics are the only Christians who have a Queen of Heaven, the greatest of all saints. And our faith has always had a matriarch as well as a patriarch. The matriarch of the Old Covenant was Sarah.

 

[Dave_Noonan]

So, does this mean that you believe that any given book in the Christian Bible might not actually be the Inspired Word of God?

So I think there are two distinct issues here. The first is whether a book should or should not be included in the Bible. On this issue, there has historically been broad agreement on most books, but certain books have been accepted by some churches and not by others. I think that for those books which everyone clearly accepts, one could infer that those are inspired. As for the others, I’d say there is much less certainty–simply because there is no consensus and direct revelation on the matter.

I used the book of Jeremiah above as a case in point. The Greek texts of Jeremiah and the Hebrew texts are pretty radically different–to the point where one is more than 10% longer than the other. The verses at some places are also in a different order. So even once you’ve decided that Jeremiah as a book should be part of the Bible, you still have to ask: “Which Jeremiah?” There is no revelatory guidance–only traditions–and they vary.

The second issue you asked me about was infallibility, which I think of as quite a bit different from a work being inspired. Simply because a particular writing is “useful for instruction” doesn’t mean it’s absolutely perfect. Even if all Christians could agree on which books should be in the Bible, which they don’t, we still wouldn’t know which manuscript to point to and say “this one’s infallible.” And if you can’t do that, then any assertion of infallibility seems totally illogical to me.

 

[Dave_Noonan]

I am not aware of anything in the Council of Florence of the fifteenth century regarding the controversies surrounding the biblical canon. It is more remembered for the issue of the Filloque and some political intervention of the crowning of a new king. You can google it under the Council of Florence.

Yes, I couldn’t find any either. Since you said “The Roman Catholic Church does not define truths unless errors abound on the matter” and “Roman Catholic Christians look to the Council of Florence, an ecumenical council in 1441 for the first definitive list of canonical books” I assumed there must have been some major controversy about the canon at that time–or the Roman Catholic Church would not have opined on the matter.

 

[Reuben_J]

Yes, I couldn’t find any either. Since you said “The Roman Catholic Church does not define truths unless errors abound on the matter” and “Roman Catholic Christians look to the Council of Florence, an ecumenical council in 1441 for the first definitive list of canonical books” I assumed there must have been some major controversy about the canon at that time–or the Roman Catholic Church would not have opined on the matter.

The issue might merit discussion in that council and may be part of the document but probably not that significant as the main issue at the time which was more in trying to get the Orthodox participation and agreement who had been in schism.

 

[Dave_Noonan]

I would think the Church in Rome then knew the existence of the other churches outside the Roman Empire. Do you thinks these churches were in communion with Rome then?

Yes, up through the fourth century to one extent or another gathered for ecumenical (worldwide) councils, so I think one can assume they knew of each others’ existence, sure.

Until the mid fifth century, yes I think you could say they were in communion with each other although means of communication were probably fairly limited. So if the Pope/Bishop of Rome was as forceful on the issue of the biblical canon as he is often made out to be, then it seems the other churches either: a) knew of proceedings such as those at Hippo and Carthage and simply disagreed with and/or ignored their conclusions or b) never knew about them and thus developed their own independent traditions on the biblical canon.

 

[ahs]

Yes, I couldn’t find any either. Since you said “The Roman Catholic Church does not define truths unless errors abound on the matter” and “Roman Catholic Christians look to the Council of Florence, an ecumenical council in 1441 for the first definitive list of canonical books” I assumed there must have been some major controversy about the canon at that time–or the Roman Catholic Church would not have opined on the matter.

The issue might merit discussion in that council and may be part of the document but probably not that significant as the main issue at the time which was more in trying to get the Orthodox participation and agreement who had been in schism.

There were several “Bulls” issued at Florence, all geared toward mending the schism with the Churches in the Orient. The one regarding the inspiration of Scripture was one such as these. It is lightly mentioned in that first link I posted about the Canon of the Old Testament.

 

[TravisJTH]

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

Thanks for sharing. I’m a big fan of the Catholic Encyclopedia, I’ve used it in quite a few research papers.

 

[ahs]

So, does this mean that you believe that any given book in the Christian Bible might not actually be the Inspired Word of God?

So I think there are two distinct issues here. The first is whether a book should or should not be included in the Bible. On this issue, there has historically been broad agreement on most books, but certain books have been accepted by some churches and not by others. I think that for those books which everyone clearly accepts, one could infer that those are inspired. As for the others, I’d say there is much less certainty–simply because there is no consensus and direct revelation on the matter.

Are you saying that, while one can infer that a particular book in the Bible is the Inspired Word of God, which is done by popular concensus, one cannot not actually know whether or not it is the Inspired Word of God?

 

[Reuben_J]

Yes, up through the fourth century to one extent or another gathered for ecumenical (worldwide) councils, so I think one can assume they knew of each others’ existence, sure.

Until the mid fifth century, yes I think you could say they were in communion with each other although means of communication were probably fairly limited. So if the Pope/Bishop of Rome was as forceful on the issue of the biblical canon as he is often made out to be, then it seems the other churches either: a) knew of proceedings such as those at Hippo and Carthage and simply disagreed with and/or ignored their conclusions or b) never knew about them and thus developed their own independent traditions on the biblical canon.

I can imagine the communication. It would take months just for that alone. I think all churches would know about the council when it was convened; it was such major event. The problem would be lack of communication between the representative of the church and their church back home. A good example was when the representatives went back home from the Council only to find that his patriarch or the people rejected the council that he had accepted.

 

[Reuben_J]

There were several “Bulls” issued at Florence, all geared toward mending the schism with the Churches in the Orient. The one regarding the inspiration of Scripture was one such as these. It is lightly mentioned in that first link I posted about the Canon of the Old Testament.

Thanks ahs.

 

[JerryZ]

It’s kind of amusing to read the pronouns “She” here a lot…as in “*her *leadership” and “she discerned”…when the bible books were mostly or all written by males, mostly about the deeds of males, and when it came time to decide which books were to be included in the canon–all those decisions were made by groups of males (the bishops at the meetings?)…and then in the church, all the teachings are taught by male priests…and the head of the church, the pope, is a man…

So to hear the pronoun “She” sounds so…oddly contrary to the ear.

Well why are you surprised?

Christ is the Bridegroom of the Church, He is male hence the Church is female.

Lots of nuns teaching the faithful…through the ages.

 

[Dave_Noonan]

Are you saying that, while one can infer that a particular book in the Bible is the Inspired Word of God, which is done by popular concensus, one cannot not actually know whether or not it is the Inspired Word of God?

Given that there is no one particular agreed upon manuscript of the Bible and no direct divine revelation about any one manuscript, combination of books or particular edition, yes I think inference about what IS held in common by the churches is probably the best one could do. To claim something more seems dishonest to me.

 

[Reuben_J]

Given that there is no one particular agreed upon manuscript of the Bible and no direct divine revelation about any one manuscript, combination of books or particular edition, yes I think inference about what IS held in common by the churches is probably the best one could do. To claim something more seems dishonest to me.

As far as the Catholic Church is concerned the officially documented canon was in 360AD and that canon has been in used since then until what we have today. The compilation of the Bible was certainly much earlier than that. When the Church Fathers compiled or rather decided which book is inspired, they were inspired by the Holy Spirit through retreat, consecration and prayer. So it is not just systematically selecting the books available but through prayer and inspiration by the Holy Spirit. Personally I would consider any disagreement or deviation from the original canon, if it is based on the canon of the 360AD, to be an anomaly.

 

[Dave_Noonan]

As far as the Catholic Church is concerned the officially documented canon was in 360AD and that canon has been in used since then until what we have today. The compilation of the Bible was certainly much earlier than that. When the Church Fathers compiled or rather decided which book is inspired, they were inspired by the Holy Spirit through retreat, consecration and prayer. So it is not just systematically selecting the books available but through prayer and inspiration by the Holy Spirit. Personally I would consider any disagreement or deviation from the original canon, if it is based on the canon of the 360AD, to be an anomaly.

So you would then say that the Catholic Church has the correct list and that all the other Churches are in error on this particular issue–and were not similarly guided by the Holy Spirit in their choices?