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To: HarleyD

Where in the Bible does it say these books are not inspired, is there an inspired table of contents, or must you look at Tradition to determine what is inspired? And if you look at Tradition when did it end? (i.e. why are you following hebraic christian conceptions of canonical authority but not later church councils? Does it say in the bible that these “hebraic” christians were the final word on the determination of inspired works? (of course you can’t and of course this did not happen because Tradition would itself be extra-biblical, but if Tradition exists, then it has never ended-by definition, but how else then?)


95 posted on 01/10/2009 1:39:11 AM PST by The Cuban
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To: The Cuban

If I understand you correctly, you are using a circular argument. Tradition says these books were inspired so they are inspired because tradition says so. This wasn’t the original position of the early Church fathers. They had a very demanding criteria they applied to ensure what books were inspired (it had to be confirmed from other text, etc.). These books happened to coincide with what the Hebrew Christians felt were inspired. So, at least in the early church there was agreement on which particular books was inspired.

Along come Trent 1200 years later in which the Church stated there were additional books. One has to ask the question why did it take the Church 1200 years to recognized these books and why were they accepted them later when they didn’t meet the criteria of the early fathers who relegated them into appendices? To me, if anyone would think about this objectively, it seems pretty logical that tradition doesn’t make books inspired.


96 posted on 01/10/2009 4:21:38 PM PST by HarleyD
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