Absolutely. It should be also noted that the Church's position on the matter is that the inspired writings were always recognized-at least the early Church. They knew what was inspired and what wasn't. It wasn't a matter of them picking and choosing them from a Border's aisle. It was as if the inspired ones had white, leather covers with gold leaf while the others were paperback. They weren't hard to tell.
It really was later in the Church that the leaders concocted the idea that they put together the scriptures. This is completely contrary to the early Church's view and, with all due respect, is rather laughable when talking about tradition. Had this author studied this he would not have made this careless mistake.
They weren’t “always recognized.” There were many apocryphal writings that had great currency in their day and in fact if you look at early art of that period, you will see depictions of some figures who are never mentioned in the Gospels but featured prominently in apocryphal writings.
This doesn’t necessarily mean that these figures never existed or that the apocryphal writings didn’t have some truth or reality to them. In some cases, the writings may have been based on oral tradition about figures and events, and they were often cited by perfectly orthodox Christian writers and preachers during the first couple of centuries of Christianity. However, their overall theological message was determined not to be in line with the truth. The Muratorian Canon (first known listing of the canonical books) may date to the 2nd century; even at the latest dating, it would be 4th century, and by the early 5th century, two Councils had decided on the matter and a definitive canon was issued by the Pope.
Protestants like to think that truth spontaneously wells out of an assembly, but the sad fact is that heresy can just as easily infect that assembly and the thing produced is not truth. There has to be a defining authority; the bishops and the Pope are that authority.
Even Luther knew this, but he decided that he was the authority, and he dropped a number of canonical books because they conflicted with his doctrine of sola fides. This was the first attempt to change the canon, and it was because he set himself up as the authority, not because a mysterious buried truth somehow seeped up from the ground somewhere.
Amen Brother!
There were all kinds of discussions, among early Christians and pronouncements by leaders of churches, before any synod/council convened to add their opinion. It is interesting that when councils did start to convene their opinions fell in line with what had already been recognized.
Harley,
Have you ever heard of Marcion? Are you aware of the history behind him? Did you know that at that point, the various bishops began making lists and so forth until the Church defined the canon?
Is the Church supposed to listen to every guy who comes along with some "theory" that parts of the Sacred Scriptures don't belong? Marcion wanted to toss out the OT, Luthe had his list of "acceptable scriptures" as well. The Church has been tasked to protect the Tradition once given, not Marcion, not Luther.
Regards
Very much true in the case of the canonical gospels and the letters of St. Paul.
Very much false in the case of everything else. In the early church, "canonical Scriptures" was synonymous with "read in the liturgy". Some places read the Shepherd of Hermas, the Didache, and the Epistles of Clement in the liturgy. Some didn't. To this day, Revelation is not read in the Orthodox liturgy, though they (today) consider it canonical.
But this is kind of anachronistic of you, Harley. If it's so "easy" to tell what was inspired, why did Luther declare, not merely that the Epistle of James wasn't inspired, but that its author wasn't even a Christian?