Whose Bible Is It, Anyway?

It does more than just tell us the pages on which the constituent books begin. It tells us that the Bible is a collection of books, and that implies a collector. The identity of the collector is what chiefly distinguishes the Protestant from the Catholic.

Douglas Wilson knows this. Writing in Credenda Agenda, a periodical espousing the Reformed faith, he notes that “the problem with contemporary Protestants is that they have no doctrine of the table of contents. With the approach that is popular in conservative Evangelical circles, one simply comes to the Bible by means of an epistemological lurch. The Bible ‘just is,’ and any questions about how it got here are dismissed as a nuisance. But time passes, the questions remain unanswered, the silence becomes awkward, and conversions of thoughtful Evangelicals to Rome proceed apace.”

Most Protestants are at a loss when asked how they know that the 66 books in their Bibles belong in it. (They are at an even greater loss to explain why the seven additional books appearing in Catholic Bibles are missing from theirs.) For them the Bible “just is.” They take it as a given. It never occurs to most of them that they ought to justify its existence. All Christians agree that the books that make up the Bible are inspired, meaning that God somehow guided the sacred authors to write all of, and only, what he wished. They wrote, most of them, without any awareness that they were being moved by God. As they wrote, God used their natural talents and their existing ways of speech. Each book of the Bible is an image not only of the divine Inspirer but of the all-too-human author. So how do we know whether Book A is inspired while Book B is not? A few unsophisticated Protestants are satisfied with pointing to the table of contents, as though that modern addition somehow validates the inspiration of the 66 books, but many Protestants simply shrug and admit that they don’t know why they know the Bible consists of inspired books and only inspired books. Some Protestants claim that they do have a way of knowing, a kind of internal affirmation that is obtained as they read the text.

Wilson cites the Westminster Confession — the 1647 Calvinist statement of faith — which says that the Holy Spirit provides “full persuasion and assurance” regarding Scripture to those who are converted. The converted,” says Wilson, “are in turn enabled to see the other abundant evidences, which include the testimony of the Church.” But the “testimony of the Church” cannot be definitive or binding since the Church may err, according to Protestant lights. (Protestants do not believe the Church is infallible when it teaches.) What really counts is the internal testimony of the Holy Spirit. Without it, the Protestant is at a loss — but, even with it, he is at a loss. When young Mormon missionaries come to your door, they ask you to accept a copy of the Book of Mormon. You hesitate, but they say that all they want is for you to read the text and ask God to give you a sign that the text is inspired. They call this sign the “burning in the bosom.” If you feel uplifted, moved, prodded toward the good or true — if you feel “inspired,” in the colloquial rather than theological sense of that word — as you read the Book of Mormon, then that is supposed to be proof that Joseph Smith’s text is from God.

A moment’s thought will show that the “burning in the bosom” proves too much. It proves not only that the Book of Mormon is inspired but that your favorite secular poetry is inspired. You can get a similar feeling anytime you read an especially good novel (or, for some people, even a potboiler) or a thrilling history or an intriguing biography. Are all these books inspired? Of course not, and that shows that the “burning in the bosom” may be a good propaganda device but is a poor indicator of divine authorship.

Back to the Protestant. The “full persuasion and assurance” of the Westminster Confession is not readily distinguishable from Mormonism’s “burning in the bosom.” You read a book of the Bible and are “inspired” by it — and that proves its inspiration. The sequence is easy enough to experience in reading the Gospels, but I suspect no one ever has felt the same thing when reading the two books of Chronicles. They read like dry military statistics because that is what they largely are.

Neither the simplistic table-of-contents approach nor the more sophisticated Westminster Confession approach will do. The Christian needs more than either if he is to know for certain that the books of the Bible come ultimately from God. He needs an authoritative collector to affirm their inspiration. That collector must be something other than an internal feeling. It must be an authoritative — and, yes, infallible Church.

Can anyone honestly say that they came to faith in a complete vacuum with only a Bible in their hands? Didn’t you learn the faith from your parents, teachers, pastors, other Christians, etc. first, and only later read the Bible under the "patronage," so to speak, of those people?

Sure. And sometimes I find that they were incorrect in what they taught. In a contest between the Bible & man-made teachings, I'll go with the Bible every time.

And, once again, if I am a Calvinist, will I not form my beliefs around the tenets of Calvinism, making John Calvin my magisterium?

I suppose so; since I condemn Calvinism, I don't really care.

If you are now patting yourself on the back for avoiding "institutional Christianity" and going with the "pure wheat" of scripture, then you prove your likeness to Calvin, Luther, Zwingly, etc., all the more. Like them, you are setting off to be your own pope, building your own one-man "Christian institution."

I'm not sure what you mean by "institutional Christianity" but if it consists of letting some organization do my scriptural interpretation for me, then yeah, I avoid it. Since the office of "pope" doesn't exist in the Bible, I suppose I am as qualified for it as anyone else.

Someone somewhere has to make decisions about public revelation that are definitive. Otherwise, we can never claim to know anything.

Why? I can.

We call those decisions infallible. We can use another word - certainty, assurance - but a rose by any other name smells the same.

I don't equate those -- assurance or certainty means high confidence; infallibility suggests supernatural perfection.

Protestants have this as well: Calvinists interpret Romans 9 to teach strict Calvinism. If I question that it does, I will be met with correction. If that isn’t an authoritative magisterium, what is it?

Setting aside that I'm neither Protestant nor Calvinist, let's assume that your point here is correct. You still have not shown why anyone should regard your "magisterium" as any more authoritative than the Calvinist one.

I prefer to let the Scriptures be their own "magisterium" to the extent possible, and beyond that I will work out my own salvation with fear & trembling before I hand it over to some religious bureaucracy.

The Second Council of Orange:

To us, according to the admonition and authority of the Apostolic See, it has seemed just and reasonable that we should set forth to be observed by all, and that we should sign with our own hands, a few chapters transmitted to us by the Apostolic See, which were collected by the ancient fathers from the volumes of the Sacred Scripture especially in this cause, to teach those who think otherwise than they ought. ...
Can. 1. If anyone says that by the offense of Adam's transgression not the whole man, that is according to body and soul, was changed for the worse [St. Augustine],4 but believes that while the liberty of the soul endures without harm, the body only is exposed to corruption, he is deceived by the error of Pelagius and resists the Scripture which says: "The soul, that has sinned, shall die" [Ezech. 18:20]; and: "Do you not know that to whom you show yourselves servants to obey, you are the servants of him whom you obey?" [Rom. 6:16]; and: "Anyone is adjudged the slave of him by whom he is overcome" [II Pet. 2:19].
Can. 2. If anyone asserts that Adam's transgression injured him alone and not his descendants, or declares that certainly death of the body only, which is the punishment of sin, but not sin also, which is the death of the soul, passed through one man into the whole human race, he will do an injustice to God, contradicting the Apostle who says: "Through one man sin entered the world, and through sin death, and thus death passed into all men, in whom all have sinned" [Rom 5:12; cf. St. Augustine].1
4 De nupt. et concup. 2, 34, 57 [ML 44, 471].
1 Against two epistles of the Pelagians 4, 4-7 [ML 44, 611-614]

Translation and footnotes from Denzinger. Here are the cited passages from St. Augustine:

Now observe what follows, as he goes on to say: "If, before sin, God created a source from which men should be born, but the devil a source from which parents were disturbed, then beyond a doubt holiness must be ascribed to those that are born, and guilt to those that produce. Since, however, this would be a most manifest condemnation of marriage; remove, I pray you, this view from the midst of the churches, and really believe that all things were made by Jesus Christ, and that without Him nothing was made." He so speaks here, as if he would make us say, that there is a something in man's substance which was created by the devil. The devil persuaded evil as a sin; he did not create it as a nature. No doubt he persuaded nature for man is nature; and therefore by his persuasion he corrupted it. He who wounds a limb does not, of course, create it, but he injures it. Those wounds, indeed, which are inflicted on the body produce lameness in a limb, or difficulty of motion; but they do not affect the virtue whereby a man becomes righteous: that wound, however, which has the name of sin, wounds the very life, which was being righteously lived. This wound was at that fatal moment of the fall inflicted by the devil to a vastly wider and deeper extent than are the sins which are known amongst men. Whence it came to pass, that our nature having then and there been deteriorated by that great sin of the first man, not only was made a sinner, but also generates sinners; and yet the very weakness, under which the virtue of a holy life has drooped and died, is not really nature, but corruption; precisely as a bad state of health is not a bodily substance or nature, but disorder; very often, indeed, if not always, the ailing character of parents is in a certain way implanted, and reappears in the bodies of their children. (On Marriage and Concupiscence, II 57:34)
These things being so, what advantage is it to new heretics, enemies of the cross of Christ and opposers of divine grace, that they seem sound from the error of the Manicheans, if they are dying by another pestilence of their own? What advantage is it to them, that in the praise of the creature they say "that the good God is the maker of those that are born, by whom all things were made, and that the children of men are His work," whom the Manicheans say are the work of the prince of darkness; when between them both, or among them both, God's creation, which is in infants, is perishing? For both of them refuse to have it delivered by Christ's flesh and blood,--the one, because they destroy that very flesh and blood, as if He did not take upon Him these at all in man or of man; and the other, because they assert that there is no evil in infants from which they should be delivered by the sacrament of this flesh and blood. Between them lies the human creature in infants, with a good origination, with a corrupted propagation, confessing for its goods a most excellent Creator, seeking for its evils a most merciful Redeemer, having the Manicheans as disparagers of its benefits, having the Pelagians as deniers of its evils, and both as persecutors. And although in infancy there is no power to speak, yet with its silent look and its hidden weakness it addresses the impious vanity of both, saying to the one, "Believe that I am created by Him who creates good things;" and saying to the other, "Suffer me to be healed by Him who created me." The Manicheans say, "There is nothing of this infant save the good soul to be delivered; the rest," which belongs not to the good God, but to tile prince of darkness, "is to be rejected."' The Pelagians say, "Certainly there is nothing of this infant to be delivered, because we have shown the whole to be safe." Both lie; but now the accuser of the flesh alone is more bearable than the praiser, who is convicted of cruelty against the whole. But neither does the Manichean help the human soul by blaspheming God, the Author of the entire man; nor does the Pelagian permit the divine grace to come to the help of human infancy by denying original sin. Therefore it is by the catholic faith that God has mercy, seeing that by condemning both mischievous doctrines it comes to the help of the infant for salvation. It says to the Manicheans, "Hear the apostle crying, 'Know ye not that your body is the temple of the Holy Ghost in you?' anti believe that the good God is the Creator of bodies, because the temple of the Holy Ghost cannot be the work of the prince of darkness." It says to the Pelagians, "The infant that you look upon 'was conceived in iniquity, and in sin its mother nourished it in the womb.' Why, as if in defending it as free from all mischief, do you not permit it to be delivered by mercy? No one is pure from uncleanness, not even the infant whose life is of one day upon the earth. Allow the wretched creatures to receive remission of sins, through Him who alone neither as small nor great could have any sin."
What advantage, then, is it to them that they say "that all sin descends not from nature, but from the will," and resist by the truth of this judgment the Manicheans, who say that evil nature is the cause of sin; when by being unwilling to admit original sin although itself also descends from the will of the first man, they make infants to depart in guilt from the body? What advantage is it to them "that they confess that baptism is necessary for all ages," while the Manicheans say that it is superfluous for every age, while they say that in infants it is false so far as it pertains to the forgiveness of sins? What advantage is it to them that they maintain "the flesh of Christ" (which the Manicheans contend was either no flesh at all, or a feigned flesh) to have been not only the true flesh, but also "that the soul itself was stained by no spot of sin," when other infants are by them so put on the same level with His infancy, with not unequal purity, as that both that flesh does not appear to keep its own holiness in comparison with these, and these obtain no salvation from that?
In that particular, indeed, wherein they say "that death passed to us by Adam, not sins," they have not the Manicheans as their adversaries: since they, too, deny that original sin from the first man, at first of pure and upright body and spirit, and afterwards depraved by free will, subsequently passed and passes as sin into all with death; but they say that the flesh was evil from the beginning, and was created by an evil spirit and along with an evil spirit; but that a good soul--a portion, to wit, of God--for the deserts of its defilement by food and drink, in which it was before bound up, came into man, and thus by means of copulation was bound in the chain of the flesh. And thus the Manicheans agree with the Pelagians that it was not the guilt of the first man that passed into the human race--neither by the flesh, which they say was never good; nor by the soul, which they assert comes into the flesh of man with the merits of its own defilements with which it was polluted before the flesh. But how do the Pelagians say "that only death passed upon us by Adam's means"? For if we die because he died, but he died because he sinned, they say that the punishment passed without the guilt, and that innocent infants are punished with an unjust penalty by deriving death without the deserts of death. This, the catholic faith has known of the one and only mediator between God and man, the man Christ Jesus, who condescended to undergo death--that is, the penalty of sin--without sin, for us. As He alone became the Son of man, in order that we might become through Him sons of God, so He alone, on our behalf, undertook punishment without ill deservings, that we through Him might obtain grace without good deservings. Because as to us nothing good was due so to Him nothing bad was clue. Therefore, commending His love to them to whom He was about to give undeserved life, He was willing to suffer for them an undeserved death. This special prerogative of the Mediator the Pelagians endeavour to make void, so that this should no longer be special in the Lord, if Adam in such wise suffered a death due to him on account of his guilt, as that infants, drawing from him no guilt, should suffer undeserved death. For although very much good is conferred on the good by means of death, whence some have filly argued even "of the benefit of death;" yet from this what can be declared except the mercy of God, since the punishment of sin is converted into beneficent uses?
But these speak thus who wish to wrest men from the apostle's words into their own thought. For where the apostle says, "By one man sin entered into the world, and death by sin, and so it passed upon all men," they will have it there understood not that "sin" passed over, but "death." What, then, is the meaning of what follows, "Whereto all have sinned"? For either the apostle says that in that "one man" all have sinned of whom he had said, "By one man sin entered into the world," or else in that "sin," or certainly in "death." For it need not disturb us that he said not "in which" [using the feminine form of the pronoun], but "in whom" [using the masculine] all have sinned; since "death" in the Greek language is of the masculine gender. Let them, then, choose which they will,--for either in that "man" all have sinned, and it is so said because when he sinned all were in him; or in that "sin" all have sinned, because that was the doing of all in general which all those who were born would have to derive; or it remains for them to say that in that "death" all sinned. But in what way this can be understood, I do not clearly see. For all die in the sin; they do not sin in the death; for when sin precedes, death follows --not when death precedes, sin follows. Because sin is the sting of death--that is, the sting by whose stroke death occurs, not the sting with which death strikes? Just as poison, if it is drunk, is called the cup of death, because by that cup death is caused, not because the cup is caused by the death, or is given by death. But if "sin" cannot be understood by those words of the apostle as being that "wherein all have sinned," because in Greek, from which the Epistle is translated, "sin" is expressed in the feminine gender, it remains that all men are understood to have sinned in that first "man," because all men were in him when he sinned; and from him sin is derived by birth, and is not remitted save by being born again.
For thus also the sainted Hilary understood what is written, "wherein all have sinned;" for he says, "wherein," that is, in Adam, "all have sinned." Then he adds, "It is manifest that all have sinned in Adam, as it were in the mass; for he himself was corrupted by sin, and all whom he begot were born under sin." When he wrote this, Hilary, without any ambiguity, indicated how we should understand the words, "wherein all have sinned." (Against Two Letters of the Pelagians, IV, 4-7)

" Your complaint seems to be with the concept of inherited sin, or perhaps inherited guilt. Do you see that expressed in Canon I?"

Yes. I'll post Canon 1.

"If anyone denies that it is the whole man, that is, both body and soul, that was "changed for the worse" through the offense of Adam's sin, but believes that the freedom of the soul remains unimpaired and that only the body is subject to corruption, he is deceived by the error of Pelagius and contradicts the scripture which says, "The soul that sins shall die" (Ezek. 18:20); and, "Do you not know that if you yield yourselves to anyone as obedient slaves, you are the slaves of the one whom you obey?" (Rom. 6:16); and, "For whatever overcomes a man, to that he is enslaved" (2 Pet. 2:19)."

It's says both the body and soul of men were changed for the worst, because of Adam's sin. It then goes on to say that to deny that Free will no longer exists, because of Adam's sin, contradicts Ezechiel 18:20. Here is Ezekiel 18:20,
" The soul who sins is the one who will die. The son will not share the guilt of the father, nor will the father share the guilt of the son. The righteousness of the righteous man will be credited to him, and the wickedness of the wicked will be charged against him."

Ezeliel 18:20 clearly contradicts the claim of Canon 1.

Canon 1 then goes on to claim that we are slaves to sin, because of Adam's sin. Again contradicting Ezekiel 18 and all of John 9. In John 9:3 God said, " Neither this man nor his parents sinned," said Jesus, "but this happened so that the work of God might be displayed in his life. If man was a slave to sin as claimed, both the blind man and his parents would have sinned. Canon 1 also contradicts Gen 1: 26-27
Then God said, "Let us make man in our image, in our likeness, and let them rule over the fish of the sea and the birds of the air, over the livestock, over all the earth, and over all the creatures that move along the ground."

So God created man in his own image,
in the image of God he created him;
male and female he created them.

This never changed. Gen 1:26-27 holds as is.

Canon 2

"CANON 2. If anyone asserts that Adam's sin affected him alone and not his descendants also, or at least if he declares that it is only the death of the body which is the punishment for sin, and not also that sin, which is the death of the soul, passed through one man to the whole human race, he does injustice to God and contradicts the Apostle, who says, "Therefore as sin came into the world through one man and death through sin, and so death spread to all men because all men sinned" (Rom. 5:12)."

The first man sinned, that is why sin came into the world. All men did not sin though, simply because Adam did. Canon 2 did not include Romans 5:13 which is an integral part of Paul's thought. Romans 5:13-"for before the law was given, sin was in the world. That changes the meaning of the selected quote considerably. Now each man sins on his own having no law to guide him. Yet Enoch walked with God and Noah was righteous.

Genesis 5:24
"Enoch walked with God; then he was no more, because God took him away."

Genesis 6:9
"This is the account of Noah. Noah was a righteous man, blameless among the people of his time, and he walked with God."

Ezeliel 18:20 clearly contradicts the claim of Canon 1.

Wrong. Canon 1 is only talking about the effect of sin on Adam, so even your misreading of Ezechiel doesn't contradict it. Canon 2 is what talks about the transmission of sin and death from Adam to his descendants.

Moreover, the argument against original sin from Ezech. 18:20 has no force. Here is St. Thomas' rebuttal of your error (SCG 4.51):

Arg. 1. The son shall not bear the iniquity of his father (Ezech. xviii, 20).
Reply 1. There is a difference between what affects one individual and what affects the nature of a whole species: for by partaking in the species many men are as one man, as Porphyry says. The sin then that belongs to one individual is not imputable to another individual, unless he sins too, because the one is personally distinct from the other. But any sin touching the specific nature itself may without difficulty be propagated from one to another, as the specific nature is imparted by one to others [by generation]. Since sin is an evil of rational nature, and evil is a privation of good, we must consider of what good the privation is, in order to decide whether the sin in question belongs to our common nature, or is the particular sin of a private individual. The actual sins then, that are commonly committed by men, take away some good from the person of the sinner, such as grace and the due order of the parts of his soul: hence they are personal, and not imputable to a second party beyond the one person of the sinner. But the first sin of the first man not only robbed the sinner of his private and personal good, namely, grace and the due order of his soul, but also took away a good that belonged to the common nature of mankind. According to the original constitution of this nature, the lower powers were perfectly subject to reason, reason to God, and the body to the soul, God supplying by grace what was wanting to this perfection by nature. This benefit, which by some is called 'original justice,' was conferred on the first man in such sort that it should be propagated by him to posterity along with human nature. But when by the sin of the first man reason withdrew from its subjection to God, the consequence was a loss of the perfect subjection of the lower powers to reason, and of the body to the soul, -- and that not only in the first sinner, but the same common defect has come down to posterity, to whom original justice would otherwise have descended. Thus then the sin of the first man, from whom, according to the doctrine of faith, all other men are descended, was at once a personal sin, inasmuch as it deprived that first man of his own private good, and also a sin of nature, inasmuch as it took away from that man, and consequently from his posterity, a benefit conferred upon the whole of human nature. This defect, entailed upon other men by their first parent, has in those other men the character of a fault, inasmuch as all men are counted one man hy participation in a common nature. This sin is voluntary by the will of our first parent, as the action of the hand has the character of a fault from the will of the prime mover, reason. In a sin of nature different men are counted parts of a common nature, like the different parts of one man in a personal sin.

As for the argument from St. John 9:3, let St. Augustine answer you (Tractate 44 on the Gospel of St. John):

Jesus answered, “Neither hath this man sinned, nor his parents,” that he was born blind. What is this that He has said? If no man is sinless, were the parents of this blind man without sin? Was he himself either born without original sin, or had he committed none in the course of his lifetime? Because his eyes were closed, had his lusts lost their wakefulness? How many evils are done by the blind? From what evil does an evil mind abstain, even though the eyes are closed? He could not see, but he knew how to think, and perchance to lust after something which his blindness hindered him from attaining, and so still in his heart to be judged by the searcher of hearts. If, then, both his parents had sin, and the man himself had sin, wherefore said the Lord, “Neither hath this man sinned, nor his parents,” but only in respect to the point on which he was questioned, “that he was born blind”? For his parents had sin; but not by reason of the sin itself did it come about that he was born blind. If, then, it was not through the parents’ sin that he was born blind, why was he born blind? Listen to the Master as He teaches. He seeks one who believes, to give him understanding. He Himself tells us the reason why that man was born blind: “Neither hath this man sinned,” He says, “nor his parents: but that the works of God should be made manifest in him.”

Yes. They *did* rely on an infallible Church. To whom was Jesus speaking in John 14:25-26 and 15:12-15? The Apostles. Who are they? The founding bishops of the Church. They are promised that the Holy Spirit "will guide you into all the truth." This promise extends beyond the 11 men to whom it was spoken, to their successors down to our own day and beyond. The Church, which is the "pillar and bulwark of the truth" (1 Timothy 3:15), derives the benfit of Jesus' words already cited in John 14 and 15 primarily through the authority granted by Christ to the Apostles and their successors.

The New Testament was written from around 45 AD to 90 AD. A minimum of eight men (possibly nine, if St. Paul did not write Hebrews) were the human instruments through which God's inspired, written revelation came to the Church. These writers were scattered around the Roman Empire, and their writings often took decades to disseminate through the Church. Thus, the entire New Testament was *not* available to the entire Church as quickly as the 90's AD.

Gradually, the books of the New Testament filtered through the Christian community, alongside of other writings: numerous "Epistles" and "Gospels," and other writings such as the Shepherd of Hermas and the Didache. Sure, some of the writings were spurious on their face, but others were not so easy to discern as non-inspired. The Didache was written before the end of the Apostolic Era, so why was it not included in the canon? Apostleship is not reqired as a prerequisite for scriptural authorship: just ask Mark and Luke! Yet the Didache was not included; it was merely "useful" for teaching. Who said?

Not till near the end of the fourth Century, and the beginning of the fifth, was the matter of canonicity finally settled. The canon was fairly uniform throughut the Church by this time through tradition, but there were some differences in the tally of books from one place to another. Definition of the canon was in order. By 419, several Church councils and papal ratifications of them had settled the canon. Pope Innocent, in 405, formally ratified the canon of both Testaments after the work of St. Jerome. Subsequent to this, there was no more irregularity in the canon of Scripture i the universal Church. The *Church* settled the matter, not some inward conviction within individual believers. An Ecumenical Council, Trent, defined the canon dogmatically in the 1500's, NOT because the Church had failed to do so 1100 years earlier, but because the Protestants had already removed seven books from their OT canon, and had contemplated the removal of various books in the NT (Luther, for example, really wanted to remove James and Revelation, among others, but was talked out of it). It was in response to that that an Ecumenical Council defined the canon. Barring such outrageous presumption on the part of the early Protestants, the strength of the several regional councils' earlier wold have had more than sufficient authority to satisfy any reasonable inquiry into the matter.

Where did the Protestants go to justify their different canon? A primary source to which they appealed was the Council of Jamnia (also known as Javneh) held about 90 AD. What was different about this council that its authority was appealed to? It was Jewish. And, again, it took place about 90 AD. Hmmm. What Christian would ascribe authority for ascertaining the canon of Scripture to a Jewish council held 60 years after the birth of the Church and 20 years after the destruction of the Temple, sacrifice and priesthood of the Jewish people? What authority could that council *possibly* have for Christians? Beats me.

Yet, its decisions were appealed to. Appart from authority, their decisions are inconsistent for a Christian to follow for another reason. That Council of Jamnia *specifically* rejected *all* of the writings of what we call the New Testament as were knwn to exist by the council! How can a Christian group not only accede to the decisions of a group whose authority was null and void, but accede to the decision on the OT canon, while, obviously, having to simultaneously reject the Jewish rejection of the NT canon?

The fact is, no Protestant can make a coherent, rational case for why *anything* is considered canonical, because to do so would be to no longer reject the authority of the Catholic Church which chronologically precedes any Protestant consideration of the matter. The Catholic Church gave them a completed book, and they proceded to play a 16th Century Reader's Digest-style editing job in abridging it. Protestants cannot acknowledge the authority of the Church in the issue of canonicity because they would, by derivation, have to acknowledge the authority of the Church in other matters. That, of course, simply cannot do!

What we are left with is a group of people who claim to hold the Bible as the only source of revelation but cannot even point to why it is so; who claim "faith alone" provides justification even though nowhere in their only source of revelation, the Bible, can this concept be found as a distinct phrase (well, actually, it *does* exist once in Scripture as part of a phrase: "...NOT by faith alone..." James 2:25); who, of late, largely consider the concept of "once saved, always saved" is correct, though that teaching, too, is nowhere to be found as such in any part of the Bible they consider to be the sole source of revelation,; and a host of other logical inconsistencies. All of which stem from the ultimate logical inconsistency: they hold to a source of faith whose legitimacy they cannot corroborate, for to do so lends credence to the Church that bore witness to that source and has that source witnessing to itself, and that Church is held by them to be anathema!!

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