[jboot]

My goal was to get the class to see that there was a common, uncontroversial and accepted NT canon from the time of the Early Church, that the "disagreements" among believers about which texts to include were relatively minor (i.e. there is no evidence that such things as "Judas" were ever accepted and later rejected) and that all disputes were settled by the time of St. Augustine. We created a nice timeline showing the various early canons, which turned out to be very useful in slicing throught the confusion.

FYI, I don't reject the idea that the Church and the Councils were given the discernment and the authority by the Holy Spirit to fix the canon. But that would be a non-starter in a suburban Baptist Sunday School in these post-Christian times. In this case, it was better to go the "long way around" to get to the same conclusion.

[CTrent1564]

jboot

Good post, I understand that as a Sunday School teacher for a Southern Baptist Church, you had to present the information in way that did not upset someone, while still maintaining the 27 Book NT canon is the correct one.

I also appreciate your intellectual honesty in recognizing that the Early Church and the Canon is something that plays out from the period of the early/mid 2nd century with Marcion wanting a truncated canon, and him subsequently being excommunicated by the Bishop and Church of Rome and that the canon was not ultimately fixed until the late 4th and early 5th centuries as Hebrews and Revelation were contested in some parts of the Church well until the 4th century as Eusebious in his History of the Church reports [circa 320-330 AD].

Regards and good and fair post, you have this Catholics respect for your intellectual honesty and I hope to see you in open and ecumenical threads again.

Cheers