Questions for "Bible Christians" that they can't answer

There are 38 questions + a few bonus questions. I have split them into two separate posts of 20 and 18 + bonus questions. In case you missed it, here is the link to Part 1. Are you ready?

21. Who in the Church had the authority to determine which books belonged in the New Testament canon and to make this decision binding on all Christians? If nobody has this authority, then can I remove or add books to the canon on my own authority?

22. Why do Protestant scholars recognize the early Church councils at Hippo and Carthage as the first instances in which the New Testament canon was officially ratified, but ignore the fact that those same councils ratified the Old Testament canon used by the Catholic Church today but abandoned by Protestants at the Reformation?

23. Why do Protestants follow postapostolic Jewish decisions on the boundaries of the Old Testament canon, rather than the decision of the Church founded by Jesus Christ?

24. How were the bishops at Hippo and Carthage able to determine the correct canon of Scripture, in spite of the fact that they believed all the distinctively Catholic doctrines such as the apostolic succession of bishops, the sacrifice of the Mass, Christ’s Real Presence in the Eucharist, baptismal regeneration, etc?

25. If Christianity is a “book religion,” how did it flourish during the first 1500 years of Church history when the vast majority of people were illiterate?

26. How could the Apostle Thomas establish the church in India that survives to this day (and is now in communion with the Catholic Church) without leaving them with one word of New Testament Scripture?

27. If sola Scriptura is so solid and biblically based, why has there never been a full treatise written in its defense since the phrase was coined in the Reformation?

28. If Jesus intended for Christianity to be exclusively a “religion of the book,” why did He wait 1400 years before showing somebody how to build a printing press?

29. If the early Church believed in sola Scriptura, why do the creeds of the early Church always say “we believe in the Holy Catholic Church,” and not “we believe in Holy Scripture”?

30. If the Bible is as clear as Martin Luther claimed, why was he the first one to interpret it the way he did and why was he frustrated at the end of his life that “there are now as many doctrines as there are heads”?

31. The time interval between the Resurrection and the establishment of the New Testament canon in AD 382 is roughly the same as the interval between the arrival of the Mayflower in America and the present day. Therefore, since the early Christians had no defined New Testament for almost four hundred years, how did they practice sola Scriptura?

32. If the Bible is the only foundation and basis of Christian truth, why does the Bible itself say that the Church is the pillar and foundation of truth (1 Tim. 3:15)?

33. Jesus said that the unity of Christians would be objective evidence to the world that He had been sent by God (John 17:20-23). How can the world see an invisible "unity" that exists only in the hearts of believers?

34. If the unity of Christians was meant to convince the world that Jesus was sent by God, what does the ever-increasing fragmentation of Protestantism say to the world?

35. Hebrews 13:17 says, "Obey your leaders and submit to their authority. They keep watch over you as men who must give an account. Obey them so that their work will be a joy, not a burden, for that would be of no advantage to you." What is the expiration date of this verse? When did it become okay not only to disobey the Church's leaders, but to rebel against them and set up rival churches?

36. The Koran explicitly claims divine inspiration, but the New Testament books do not. How do you know that the New Testament books are nevertheless inspired, but the Koran is not?

37. How does a Protestant know for sure what God thinks about moral issues such as abortion, masturbation, contraceptives, eugenics, euthanasia, etc.?

38. What is one to believe when one Protestant says infants should be baptized (e.g., Luther and Calvin) and another says it is wrong and unbiblical (e.g., Baptists and Evangelicals)?

A Few Bonus Questions

. . . tell us how we know that the revelation of Jesus Christ ended with the death of the last Apostle?

. . . inform us of the names of the authors of the Gospel of Matthew, Mark, Luke, or John?

. . . .tell us Jesus Christ was both fully God and fully man from the moment of conception (e.g. how do we know His Divinity wasn't infused later in His life?) and/or tells us Jesus Christ is One Person with two complete natures, human and Divine and not some other combination of the two natures (i.e., one or both being less than complete)?

. . . that the church should, or someday would be divided into competing and disagreeing denominations?

. . . that Protestants can have an invisible unity when Jesus expected a visible unity to be seen by the world (see John 17)?

. . . tell us Jesus Christ is of the same substance of Divinity as God the Father?

Why Catholics fall for that meme I’ll probably never understand. Paul commended the Bereans because they “searched the scriptures daily”. What do Catholics think those scriptures were? Peter called the writings of Paul scripture. Do Catholics honestly think that those writings weren’t disseminated widely since they were considered to be equal to the Old Testament? Seriously, Catholics have fallen for a lie from the RCC that anyone who studies history knows.

Up until the 2nd century "books" as we know them did not exist. Writings were done on animal hides, or papyrus in the form of scrolls. Later individual sheets were gathered and this was called a "codex", but they were not everyday items. Even into the times of Elizabeth the first playwrights would put an actors part on a "scroll" this is where the term "Role" originated.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_books

http://www.e-book.com.au/bookhistory.htm

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Book

The tricky detail in this question comes from the fact that it was councils of learned men and leaders who each had their own followings of Christians who supported them and their views.

The Catholic Church

The assemblage of the New Testament is a very interesting process and a highly complex one. It can, however, by summarized relatively simply as follows.

Various Christians wrote books explaining the history of the Christian Church (including Gospels about the life of Christ and more general histories such as the Acts of the Apostles) and letters addressed to specific communities and persons (such as the letters of Saint Paul) and also what are best considered to be “open letters” (such as Hebrews). There were hundreds of different documents circulating around, all of them purporting to the authentic Christian teaching and accurate history and doctrine.

However, many of these documents were not what they claimed to be – they were forgeries not written by the people whose names they bore, or were heretical documents advancing novel notions about Christ. Some of these documents have survived today – examples are the Gospel of Judas and the Gospel of Thomas. Neither of these documents were written by their alleged authors – they are late forgeries designed to cash in on the success and popularity of Christianity.

Out of all these hundreds of documents – many of them forgeries – the current 27 book New Testament appeared. This process took a long time – roughly 300 years went by from the writing of the last book of the New Testament (Revelation) until the list was finalized.

The list was compiled by the bishops of the Catholic Church. Initially, local canons were assembled by individual bishops. These canons were lists of books which could be read aloud in Churches at Mass. Despite the fact that these canons were independently assembled they bore a great deal of similarity to each other – because the Catholic bishops were all using the same criteria to determine which books should be included. They looked to see if the books were written by an apostle or someone who was reporting the words of an apostle. They checked to see how much the book was being used by other bishops and priests in their Masses, and also looked at how often the book was quoted by the Church Fathers in their writings. Only those books which “scored” favorably on all three of these criteria made it into their canons.

In the early fourth century Christianity was made the official religion of the Roman Empire and it became possible for the bishops to meet without being imprisoned or killed by the pagan authorities. Beginning in the late fourth century and continuing until the very early fifth century the Catholic Church met at a number of councils where the canon of the Bible was debated. These councils produced canons which were identical to the current 73 book Roman Catholic canon.

As can clearly be seen the canon of the Bible was produced by the Catholic Church. The Church also existed long before the Bible – it was the early fifth century before the Bible existed as we might recognize it today, and none of the books of the Bible were even written until around 50 AD. But the Catholic Church began 20 years earlier, at Pentecost when the Holy Spirit descended on the apostles.

The Christians who wrote the New Testament were Catholic – they were Catholic for two reasons. One, they believed everything which the current Catholic Church (and only the Catholic Church) teaches (as is shown by the writings of the Church Fathers). And they were Catholic because there was no other church at the time. Myths such as the “Trail of Blood” simply do not hold water – the Catholic Church was, quite literally, the only game in town.

Accordingly, the Bible can be considered to be two things – it is younger than the Catholic Church and it is the product of the Catholic Church. This means that the Bible is not the sole rule of faith for Christians, but rather “the Church is the pillar and foundation of the truth” as it says in I Timothy 3:15.

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