Why Protestant Bibles Are Smaller

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You want to read a book, you say?
How about one of the few books truly pertinent to the conversation?

Where We Got The Bible by Rev. Henry Graham.

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I’d have much more faith in the canon if Catholics and Orthodox had the same exact Canon.
 
So, do you stick with one rebellious Augstinian monk in Germany, or with one of the Apostolic Churches? The Catholic Apocrypha are not in the canon because they most likely contain moral or doctrinal error.

You can choose one of the various Orthodox Churches, but which one? This many councils or that many? This nationality or that? This geography or that? They reject original sin, for good grief!

It is not as simple as it seems.
 
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Thomasbradley312 said:
I’d have much more faith in the canon if Catholics and Orthodox had the same exact Canon.
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This is a non-sensical position given the Orthodox do not have a unified canon. So again i ask, which Orthodox canon?

Peace!!!
 
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po18guy said:
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RaisedCatholic:
So, does this mean that Jesus & the disciples & the NT writers didn’t know what was classified as Inspired Scripture in the first century? If not, then why did it take centuries to agree on the entire Biblical canon - not just the New, but also the Old Testament? Ironically, he has a subsection in his book called “Why was the Old Testament not preserved?” Curious to what he came up with.
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Again, at the start, the Christian Church used no scripture! They preached, just as Jesus taught and commanded them to. They did not write, because Jesus did not teach them or command them to write. Read the Didache! Not a peep about any writing at all. Zip. Zero. Nada. That was during the lifetime of the Apostle John and it is a verified document - it’s just not popular with bible-alone types, for obvious reasons.

As the Apostles died off, and the Parousia had not occurred, it was prudent to record the basics for future generations.

But, think of the ancient world: Churches far from each other, speaking different languages. Travel was by foot or donkey - by ship if you were lucky and didn’t wreck. So a letter shows up that claims to be from Paul - but he’s dead! What to do with it? There were 100+ of these spurious letters and books.
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True, there was no bible till the canon was finalized in 382 at the council of Rome and the decree of Pope Damasus I .

The canon went through development.

Example: By ~170 A.D. there was the Muratorian Canon, readings that were read

(small Excerpt) link for full context, follows

it is yet shown-i.e., by this sevenfold writing-that there is one Church spread abroad through the whole world. And John too, indeed, in the Apocalypse, although he writes only to seven churches, yet addresses all. He wrote, besides these, one to Philemon, and one to Titus, and two to Timothy, in simple personal affection and love indeed; but yet these are hallowed in the esteem of the Catholic Church, and in the regulation of ecclesiastical discipline. There are also in circulation one to the Laodiceans, and another to the Alexandrians, forged under the name of Paul, and addressed against the heresy of Marcion; and there are also several others which cannot be received into the Catholic Church, for it is not suitable for gall to be mingled with honey.
4. The Epistle of Jude, indeed,37 and two belonging to the above-named John-or bearing the name of John-are reckoned among the Catholic epistles…
From: Muratorian Canon (Roberts-Donaldson Translation)
 
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Thomasbradley312 said:
You’ve never struggled with the original sin teaching?
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The doctrine of Original Sin is very central to understanding how a lot of other doctrines fit together. If you’re considering that the rest of the doctrines could fit together without the doctrine of original sin you might consider questioning some of the assumptions you are making on the other doctrines.

As for the difficulty in accepting the Catholic Canon consider that it is an insult to God if we use the things of man To measure the things of God, To determine the goodness of what God has revealed.

For example Protestants By default have to use the things of man - that is their own judgment. -
to determine the 3 or 4 criteria for determining the Canon. One person might says this set of 4 criteria another person might say to use a different set of 4 criteria. And another might say no it’s 6 different criteria for determining the Canon.

Using the things a man must always lead to uncertainty. And if The Bible is your foundation then you have no certain foundation.

Whether or not you convert to Catholicism is entirely between you and the Holy Spirit .

However, if you want to become a Catholic you’re going to have to stop putting so much faith in man and instead place your faith in God.
Sincerely,
I join with you in prayer for God’s best in our lives.
John
 
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I actually believe the Catholic canon should consist of the entire Septuagint which the Orthodox have always accepted for their Old Testament. Has nothing to do with Protestantism.
 
I apologize for my mistake.
As far as the early church there was no defined set of books for the “Septuagint.”

Different early church libraries would have different collections
 
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adf417 said:
Does this me you will not be buying the book yourself, one you seem to be most curious about?

Peace!!!
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I probably will. But I wanted to wait to see if others had to say first to see about it first, to see others’ take on it, including potential critiques about it. Since there has been both positive & negative comments, I most likely will. When it comes to reading, I’m pretty selective about what I read. This does peak my curiosity though. Was just seeing if others are curious to see what what appears to be a former Catholic, using mostly Catholic resources, including Catholic Answers (this is from the back cover of his book on Amazon). So, yes, I most likely will get it.
 
po18guy said:
Oh, but wait! Both LDS/JW were founded on the KJV! Same bible, same wording. Sola scriptura, baby! They morphed since then, but so has each and every post-reformation denomination - some are unrecognizable today, and would not be recognized by their founders.
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But doesn’t sola scriptura & sola fide go hand-in-hand with the reformation? Not saying I agree with either, but those were the two trademarks from it. The KJV was not the Bible of the post-reformers though. From what I read, the Geneva Bible was, which came out a century earlier. The KJV was a later English translation. So, I don’t know what the correlation between the JWs & the KJV is supposed to be, since the the JWs added their own “traditions” to the Bible, as well as works. So, they can say all they want they are sola scriptura, their history demonstrates otherwise.
 
po18guy said:
Hmmmm… on a Catholic forum, we have posters fascinated with the concept of proving the Catholic Church wrong.

Surreal.

Far better than any of us have tried to do that for almost 2,000 years and failed.

As to the Deuterocanonicals, I could not care less who wrote them, when, where and in what language.

The Church has tested them over time and they passed every test.

Has anyone here actually read those books?
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I did awhile back. And there do seem to be some irreconcilable errors in them, even though they do teach a lot of truth in them. And in one of the appendixes of his book, it’s titled “Errors & Contradictions in the Deuterocanon,” so apparently he brings them up there.

I think the “who, when, where, & in what language” is significant to the writings of the Deuterocanonicals, since it gives us a look into their authorship & timing of when they were written. And from my Catechism, all of them were written between the end of the books that make up Protestant OTs & the New Testament books.

Again, not saying that there aren’t truth in them, or that they aren’t edifying. I just can’t seem to reconcile how something can be inspired, yet contain errors in them.
 
po18guy said:
You know how many alleged New Testament letters and books were circulating? Over 100! We have 27 which passed the test.

Due to that new authority, all available writings were tested. The Church waited way too long to announce the canon set in stone - but hear this:

The Church acts mainly in response to heresy. This takes time, investigation, gatherings from the corners of the earth, argumentaion, point-counterpoint and finally a vote is taken after involking the Holy Spirit and concrete is poured
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His book does have a chapter on the New Testament as well, which includes books that didn’t make it in, like 1 Clement. I’m assuming he addresses why only 27 books made it in & the majority of the “over 100” didn’t?

Since the OT was known by Jesus, His disciples, and the early church (and I assume the NT writers like St. Paul), then why would it have taken “way to long to announce a canon set in stone”? Wouldn’t this have been known from before the time of Christ? And since Christ knew since He is God, wouldn’t have this been communicated to His disciples, and then their successors over the next few centuries? Again, he does have a subsection asking “Why was the Old Testament canon preserved?” That sounds interesting.
 
po18guy said:
Again, at the start, the Christian Church used no scripture ! They preached, just as Jesus taught and commanded them to. They did not write, because Jesus did not teach them or command them to write. Read the Didache! Not a peep about any writing at all. Zip. Zero. Nada. That was during the lifetime of the Apostle John and it is a verified document - it’s just not popular with bible-alone types, for obvious reasons.

As the Apostles died off, and the Parousia had not occurred, it was prudent to record the basics for future generations.

But, think of the ancient world: Churches far from each other, speaking different languages. Travel was by foot or donkey - by ship if you were lucky and didn’t wreck. So a letter shows up that claims to be from Paul - but he’s dead! What to do with it? There were 100+ of these spurious letters and books.
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But, again, this doesn’t address since Jesus & His disciples & the NT writers, like St. Paul knew what the OT canon was (“All Scripture is inspired” - referring to the OT), how was it not preserved into the second century and beyond?
 
Isn’t it the case that Protestant bibles have to be smaller to fit into the smaller hands of Protestants compared to those of Catholics?
 
ZMystiCat said:
Most of this is pretty standard knowledge. I’d imagine Jimmy Akin would have also noted that the Pharisees did not have an established canon during the life of Jesus and Paul, and if that isn’t present, the guy is leaving out very pertinent information and not really engaging with the argument, which is kind of what I think many worry about.
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And yet, that does seem to be what Jimmy Akin is saying. I looked up the reference he used from him, which is a YouTube video produced from Catholic Answers, and he does seem to be saying that the Pharisees during Jesus’ & Paul’s day did have an established OT canon, which was “bigger” than the Sadducees who only acknowledged the 5 books of Moses (the Torah). This bigger canon is identical to what Protestants possess today. And since St. Paul was a Pharisee, would he have embraced this “bigger canon”? And since Jesus used the same phrase to describe the OT as St. Paul did later (“the Law & the Prophets”), would He have been talking about this same canon of the Pharisees who were listening to Him? I am only summarizing the main points he is making in the book. Obviously, I can’t quote the entire chapter(s), since that would plagiarism & the free section only goes up to part of chapter 1 of his book.

I could be way off here, but from what I read, I think the point he is trying to make about the word “echo” is that the Pharisees possessed the entire OT canon, not just part or most of it, but all of it, which is what “echo” would imply. At least that is what he is claiming in the book. After all, if they didn’t possess all of it, how could Jesus hold them accountable for knowing what was in it, which He did?
 
Pattylt said:
It seems the entire book is available on Google books!
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WOW! Looks like quite a big chunk of it is online, but I noticed a large number of pages are missing (probably to get the reader to buy the whole book). Probably need to download it since the missing pages might be pertinent to the surrounding texts. Please share what you find out, even though I most probably will end up getting it too. 😀
 
Ha! I didn’t check the page numbers. Either way it seems to be quite a large portion of it. When I read it, if the missing pages seem to skip vital information and I want to know what’s said, then I’ll buy it. I forgot to check if there is a kindle version. My bookshelves can’t handle any more physical books and I’ve already whittled them down quite a bit!
 
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