Posted on 11/22/2004 9:28:44 PM PST by goldstategop
By Washington standards, Mr. Bush is a misfit. He's different. He barely socializes at all and on weekends and holidays makes a beeline for Camp David or his ranch in Crawford, Texas. He'd rather invite Christian musician Michael W. Smith and his wife to the White House for dinner than eat out. If Mr. Bush really wanted to soothe establishment types, he'd invite them to state dinners at the White House, after which their names would be in the paper. But he's held fewer state dinners than any president in memory.
Mr. Bush is also a seriously religious man in a largely secular town. This has brought him no end of criticism. He also refuses to hide his loathing of the press, probably the most dominant force in Washington. In short, Mr. Bush hasn't tried to fit in.
(Excerpt) Read more at opinionjournal.com ...
Yep. Leafing thru that Bible is the reason his index finger is crooked doncha know.
The Lord's Day didn't originate with Constantine. Sunday is referred to in Scripture as "the first day of the week," since Saturday, the Hebrew sabbath, was the "last day of the week."
Acts 20:7 - this text shows the apostolic tradition of gathering together to celebrate the Eucharist on Sunday, the "first day of the week." Luke documents the principle worship was on Sunday because this was one of the departures from the Jewish form of worship.The "Lord's Day," Sunday, has been different from the Jewish sabbath from the earliest times:1 Cor. 16:2 - Paul instructs the Corinthians to make contributions to the churches "on the first day of the week," which is Sunday. This is because the primary day of Christian worship is Sunday.
On the Lord's own day, assemble in common to break bread and offer thanks, but first confess your sins so that your sacrifice may be pure." Didache, 14 (A.D. 90)."If, therefore, those who were brought up in the ancient order of things have come to the possession of a new hope, no longer observing the Sabbath, but living in the observance of the Lord's Day, on which also our life has sprung up again by Him and by His death--whom some deny, by which mystery we have obtained faith, and therefore endure, that we may be found the disciples of Jesus Christ, our only Master." Ignatius, To the Magnesians, 9:1 (A.D. 110).
Jesus founded more than one church?
It is best to go to church- but can you imagine the security they would have to put the church people through every Sunday? Under those circumstances, smaller, private services at Camp David might be preferable.
That would be the one the Founders referred to [see #121].
As you can see, it is composed only of scattered individuals who have been given to understand what freedom from the tyranny of men in religion and politics means.
Legalists (well-meaning or not) don't understand freedom and therefore should never hold power over others as long as they remain in that immature state of mind.
That would be the one the Founders referred to [see #121].
Is their interpretation of Scripture infallible?
As you can see, it is composed only of scattered individuals who have been given to understand what freedom from the tyranny of men in religion and politics means.
Why should I be bound by the Founders' interpretation of Scripture? Is that in Scripture?
The point is, Jesus founded one Church (Mat. 16:19) with the power to "bind and loose," the Church which Scripture calls "the pillar and foundation of truth" (1 Tim 3:15). Implicit in Jesus' command to take our disputes "to the church" (Mat 18:17) are the following logical necessities.
Jesus would not send Christians to a church other than the one that He founded and of which He is the head (Eph 4:15) because the church that he founded is "the pillar and foundation of truth," and sending Christians elsewhere would contradict his nature as The Truth.
Secondly, the church spoken of must be a visible church, otherwise it would be impossible to find.
The Church spoken of must also possess a body of non-contradictory doctrine, otherwise it would be impossible for Christ's Church to definitively settle doctrinal disputes among Christians.
Additionally, if Jesus was speaking of various local churches promoting diverse doctrines, disputants could pick a church that would favor their particular argument. This would contradict Jesus' nature as The Truth (John 14:6) and Justice, his expressed desire that "they be one as We are one," (John 17:11) and the Scriptural description of the Church as "the pillar and foundation of truth" (1 Tim 3:15), besides making it impossible to settle disagreements, making His statement meaningless.
I'll give you a few hints. See if you are able to figure it out:
Scripture = "The Infallible Word of God"
The Infallible Word = "Jesus Christ"
[A true] Christian = "An indivdiual in whom The Infallible Word" [Jesus Christ] dwells.
Thats why The Infallible Word says this: 1 John 2:27
This begs a question.
What constitutes Scripture? The canon given to us by Christ's Church, "the pillar and foundation of truth"? Or the canon given to you by Martin Luther?
"What constitutes Scripture?" ~Aquinasfan
See my previous post, whic shows that it is Jesus = The Living Scripture - The Living Word that dwells in ALL true Christians, and IN PRINT:
New Testament Canon:
In A.D. 367 the Thirty-ninth Paschal Letter of Athanasius contained an
exact list of the twenty-seven New Testament books we have today. This was
the list of books accepted by the churches in the eastern part of the
Mediterranean world.
Thirty years later, in A.D. 397, the Council of Carthage, representing the
churches in the western part of the Mediterranean world, agreed with the
eastern churches on the same list. These are the earliest final lists of
our canon of Scripture.
"In many and various ways God spoke of old to our fathers by the prophets;
but in these last days he has spoken to us by his Son...". [Heb. 1:1-2]
God's speaking to us by his Son is the culmination of his speaking to
mankind and is his greatest and final revelation to mankind.
(The exceptional greatness of the revelation that comes through the Son,
far exceeds any revelation in the Old Covenant as noted over and over again
in the first and second chapters of Hebrews.)
Once the writings of the New Testament apostles and their authorized
companions were completed, we have everything that God wants us to know
about the life, death, & resurrection of Christ, and its meaning for the
lives of believers for all time. In this way Hebrews 1 & 2 shows us why no
more writings can be added to the Bible after the time of the New
Testament. The canon is now closed.
Old Testament Canon:
“Beginning at Moses and all the prophets, he [Jesus] expounded unto them in
all the Scripture the things concerning himself.” (Luke 24:24; cf. Rom. 1:2)
The entire OT canonical Scriptures are deemed in the following way:
1) the prophets; 2) Moses and the prophets; 3) Moses, the prophets, and the
psalms.
Augustine so shows this in his writings against Cresconius the grammarian:
“Not without cause was the canon of the church framed with so salutary a
vigilance, that certain books of the prophets and apostles should belong to
it.” (Lib. 2. cap. 31);
also “Let them shew us their church, not in the rumors of the Africans, but
in the injunction of the Law, in the predictions of the prophets, in the
songs of the Psalms; that is, in all the canonical authorities of the
sacred books.” (De Unit. Eccles. C. 16.)
That the apocryphal books were not written by the prophets are clear and
certain.
All confess that Malachi was the last Jewish prophet. Between Malachi and
John the Baptist, no other Jewish prophet arose, but the writers of the
apocryphal books lived after Malachi.
The Major premise rests on Scripture: Peter says the OT is the “prophetic
word.” (2 Peter 1:19);
Paul calls it the “scriptures of the prophets” (Romans 16:26);
Zacharias the priest says “As he spake by the mouths of his holy prophets,
which have been since the world began.” (Luke 1:70);
“They have Moses and the Prophets” as Abraham said (Luke 18:39);
Heb. 1:1, “God spake in divers manners by the prophets.”;
the church is built upon the “apostles and prophets” (Eph. 2:20);
“All things must be fulfilled which are written in the law of Moses, and in
the prophets, and in the psalms, concerning me:” and it follows
immediately, “And he opened their understanding, that they might understand
the Scriptures.” (Luke 24:44-45);
Paul asks Agrippa, “Believest thou the prophets?” that is the Scriptures.
(Acts 26:27);
When Paul dealt with the Jews at Rome he tried to convince them “out of the
law of Moses and the prophets.” (Acts 28:23).
From these we see that the major assertion is true, that the whole OT was
given to us by God’s prophets.
There is no part of the OT which was not given by the prophets.
And they contain the "Apocrypha" or Deuterocanonical books of the OT: Tobit, Judith, Wisdom, Sirach, Baruch and 1 and 2 Maccabees.
Third Council of CarthageThe story in 2 Macabbees 7 of the mother who watches her 7 sons tortured to death while hoping in their resurrection is mentioned in Paul's Scriptural recapitulation of salvation history.Canon 24. Besides the canonical Scriptures, nothing shall be read in church under the name of divine Scriptures. Moreover, the canonical Scriptures are these: Genesis, Exodus, Leviticus, Numbers, Deuteronomy, Joshua the son of Nun, Judges, Ruth, the four books of the Kings,(a) the two books of Chronicles, Job, the Psalms of David, five books of Solomon,(b) the book of the Twelve [minor] Prophets, Isaiah, Jeremiah, Ezekiel, Daniel, Tobias, Judith, Esther, the two books of Ezra,(c) and the two books of the Maccabees. The books of the New Testament: the Gospels, four books; the Acts of the Apostles, one book; the epistles of the apostle Paul, thirteen; of the same to the Hebrews, one epistle; of Peter, two; of John the apostle, three; of James, one; of Jude, one; the Revelation of John. Concerning the confirmation of this canon, the Church across the sea shall be consulted. On the anniversaries of martyrs, their acts shall also be read.(d)
Hebrews 11:35Women received back their dead, raised to life again. Others were tortured and refused to be released, so that they might gain a better resurrection.
Now that you mention it I do believe they have stayed at the White House for the actual holiday and then usually head out to Texas afterwards????
"All confess that Malachi was the last Jewish prophet. Between Malachi and John the Baptist, no other Jewish prophet arose, but the writers of the apocryphal books lived after Malachi."
When Paul dealt with the Jews at Rome he tried to convince them “out of the law of Moses and the prophets.” (Acts 28:23).
From these we see that the major assertion is true, that the whole OT was given to us by God’s prophets.
There is no part of the OT which was not given by the prophets.
LOL! No, just enjoying the central Texas scenery.
Kirbyjon Caldwell. I think.
Just what EXACTLY is your point, narses?
Oops. I see you remembered the name on your own.
Up the revolution here too. What I think colloquial DC hates is Bush doesn't have a lot of meaningless, expensive nice dinner parties with free food, booze and schmooze all night like Clinton.
W made a point that he isn't one of them.
Various Jewish groups accepted various canons of Scripture.
Jesus and the Apostles quoted largely from the Alexandrian Canon or Septuagint.
Canon of the Old Testament...The admitted absence of any explicit citation of the deutero writings does not therefore prove that they were regarded as inferior to the above-mentioned works in the eyes of New Testament personages and authors. The deutero literature was in general unsuited to their purposes, and some consideration should be given to the fact that even at its Alexandrian home it was not quoted by Jewish writers, as we saw in the case of Philo. The negative argument drawn from the non-citation of the deuterocanonicals in the New Testament is especially minimized by the indirect use made of them by the same Testament. This takes the form of allusions and reminiscences, and shows unquestionably that the Apostles and Evangelists were acquainted with the Alexandrian increment, regarded its books as at least respectable sources, and wrote more or less under its influence. A comparison of Hebrews, xi and II Machabees, vi and vii reveals unmistakable references in the former to the heroism of the martyrs glorified in the latter. There are close affinities of thought, and in some cases also of language, between I Peter, i, 6, 7, and Wisdom, iii, 5, 6; Hebrews, i, 3, and Wisdom, vii, 26, 27; I Corinthians, x, 9, 10, and Judith, viii, 24-25; I Corinthians, vi, 13, and Ecclesiasticus, xxxvi, 20.
Yet the force of the direct and indirect employment of Old Testament writings by the New is slightly impaired by the disconcerting truth that at least one of the New Testament authors, St. Jude, quotes explicitly from the "Book of Henoch", long universally recognized as apocryphal, see verse 14, while in verse 9 he borrows from another apocryphal narrative, the "Assumption of Moses". The New Testament quotations from the Old are in general characterized by a freedom and elasticity regarding manner and source which further ten to diminish their weight as proofs of canonicity. But so far as concerns the great majority of the Palestinian Hagiographa--a fortiori, the Pentateuch and Prophets--whatever want of conclusiveness there may be in the New Testament, evidence of their canonical standing is abundantly supplemented from Jewish sources alone, in the series of witnesses beginning with the Mishnah and running back through Josephus and Philo to the translation of the above books for the Hellenist Greeks. But for the deuterocanonical literature, only the last testimony speaks as a Jewish confirmation. However, there are signs that the Greek version was not deemed by its readers as a closed Bible of definite sacredness in all its parts, but that its somewhat variable contents shaded off in the eyes of the Hellenists from the eminently sacred Law down to works of questionable divinity, such as III Machabees.
This factor should be considered in weighing a certain argument. A large number of Catholic authorities see a canonization of the deuteros in a supposed wholesale adoption and approval, by the Apostles, of the Greek, and therefore larger, Old Testament The argument is not without a certain force; the New Testament undoubtedly shows a preference for the Septuagint; out of the 350 texts from the Old Testament, 300 favour the language of the Greek version rather than that of the Hebrew. But there are considerations which bid us hesitate to admit an Apostolic adoption of the Septuagint en bloc. As remarked above, there are cogent reasons for believing that it was not a fixed quantity at the time. The existing oldest representative manuscripts are not entirely identical in the books they contain. Moreover, it should be remembered that at the beginning of our era, and for some time later, complete sets of any such voluminous collection as the Septuagint in manuscript would be extremely rare; the version must have been current in separate books or groups of books, a condition favourable to a certain variability of compass. So neither a fluctuating Septuagint nor an inexplicit New Testament conveys to us the exact extension of the pre-Christian Bible transmitted by the Apostles to the Primitive Church. It is more tenable to conclude to a selective process under the guidance of the Holy Ghost, and a process completed so late in Apostolic times that the New Testament fails to reflect its mature result regarding either the number or note of sanctity of the extra-Palestinian books admitted. To historically learn the Apostolic Canon of the Old Testament we must interrogate less sacred but later documents, expressing more explicitly the belief of the first ages of Christianity.
B. THE CANON OF THE OLD TESTAMENT IN THE CHURCH OF THE FIRST THREE CENTURIES
The sub-Apostolic writings of Clement, Polycarp, the author of the Epistle of Barnabas, of the pseudo-Clementine homilies, and the "Shepherd" of Hermas, contain implicit quotations from or allusions to all the deuterocanonicals except Baruch (which anciently was often united with Jeremias) and I Machabess and the additions to David. No unfavourable argument can be drawn from the loose, implicit character of these citations, since these Apostolic Fathers quote the protocanonical Scriptures in precisely the same manner. Coming down to the next age, that of the apologists, we find Baruch cited by Athenagoras as a prophet. St. Justin Martyr is the first to note that the Church has a set of Old Testament Scriptures different from the Jews', and also the earliest to intimate the principle proclaimed by later writers, namely, the self-sufficiency of the Church in establishing the Canon; its independence of the Synagogue in this respect. The full realization of this truth came slowly, at least in the Orient, where there are indications that in certain quarters the spell of Palestinian-Jewish tradition was not fully cast off for some time. St. Melito, Bishop of Sardis (c. 170), first drew up a list of the canonical books of the Old Testament. While maintaining the familiar arrangement of the Septuagint, he says that he verified his catalogue by inquiry among Jews; Jewry by that time had everywhere discarded the Alexandrian books, and Melito's Canon consists exclusively of the protocanonicals minus Esther. It should be noticed, however, that the document to which this catalogue was prefixed is capable of being understood as having an anti-Jewish polemical purpose, in which case Melito's restricted canon is explicable on another ground. St. Irenæus, always a witness of the first rank, on account of his broad acquaintance with ecclesiastical tradition, vouches that Baruch was deemed on the same footing as Jeremias, and that the narratives of Susanna and Bel and the Dragon were ascribed to Daniel. The Alexandrian tradition is represented by the weighty authority of Origen. Influenced, doubtless, by the Alexandrian-Jewish usage of acknowledging in practice the extra writings as sacred while theoretically holding to the narrower Canon of Palestine, his catalogue of the Old Testament Scriptures contains only the protocanonical books, though it follows the order of the Septuagint. Nevertheless Origen employs all the deuterocanonicals as Divine Scriptures, and in his letter of Julius Africanus defends the sacredness of Tobias, Judith, and the fragments of Daniel, at the same time implicitly asserting the autonomy of the Church in fixing the Canon (see references in Cornely). In his Hexaplar edition of the Old Testament all the deuteros find a place. The sixth-century Biblical manuscript known as the "Codex Claromontanus" contains a catalogue to which both Harnack and Zahn assign an Alexandrian origin, about contemporary with Origen. At any rate it dates from the period under examination and comprises all the deuterocanonical books, with IV Machabees besides. St. Hippolytus (d. 236) may fairly be considered as representing the primitive Roman tradition. He comments on the Susanna chapter, often quotes Wisdom as the work of Solomon, and employs as Sacred Scripture Baruch and the Machabees. For the West African Church the larger canon has two strong witnesses in Tertullian and St. Cyprian. All the deuteros except Tobias, Judith, and the addition to Esther, are Biblically used in the works of these Fathers. (With regard to the employment of apocryphal writings in this age see under APOCRYPHA.)...
Two documents of capital importance in the history of the canon constitute the first formal utterance of papal authority on the subject. The first is the so-called "Decretal of Gelasius", de recipiendis et non recipiendis libris, the essential part of which is now generally attributed to a synod convoked by Pope Damasus in the year 382. The other is the Canon of Innocent I, sent in 405 to a Gallican bishop in answer to an inquiry. Both contain all the deuterocanonicals, without any distinction, and are identical with the catalogue of Trent. The African Church, always a staunch supporter of the contested books, found itself in entire accord with Rome on this question. Its ancient version, the Vetus Latina (less correctly the Itala), had admitted all the Old Testament Scriptures. St. Augustine seems to theoretically recognize degrees of inspiration; in practice he employs protos and deuteros without any discrimination whatsoever. Moreover in his "De Doctrinâ Christianâ" he enumerates the components of the complete Old Testament. The Synod of Hippo (393) and the three of Carthage (393, 397, and 419), in which, doubtless, Augustine was the leading spirit, found it necessary to deal explicitly with the question of the Canon, and drew up identical lists from which no sacred books are excluded. These councils base their canon on tradition and liturgical usage...
BUMP
NOOOO KIDDING!!
"The inclusion of of various Apocrypha and Pseudepigrapha in the canon of the early Christians was not done in any any agreed way or at the earliest period, but occurred in Gentile Christianity, after the church's breach with the synagogue, among those whose knowledge of the primitive Christian canon was becoming blurred. .... On the question of the canonicity of the Apocrypha and Pseudepigrapha the truely primitive evidence is negative." ~ Roger Beckwith -The Old Testament Canon of the New Testament Church and Its Background in Early Judaism(London: SPCK, 1985, and Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1986), esp.pp.338-433.
Roger Beckwith's book has now established itself as the definitive work on the Old Testament canon.
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