An interesting article. It’s good to see an Orthodox perspective .
Bold assertions, but consider the issue of the canon.
Protestants say that Catholics “added” seven books to the Old Testament. In fact, Luther even argued that seven New Testament books were not inspired, and rejected all doctrine from those seven books. (Modern Protestants have uniformly restored the seven New Testament deuterocanonicals to their bibles, so this has been forgotten largely.)
Catholics assert that they have always been part of the canon. And indeed, they were universally read as scripture in masses (the Catholic test of what is scripture) since the first century.
But the weird truth is that there had always been substantial grey shades to the biblical canon until the Council of Trent; before then, there had never been a universal synod declaring the content of the canons. At Trent, the Church had to look to the universal usage among the particular churches to infallibly discern the canonicity of the dueterocanonicals.
The Protestant assertion that St. Jerome rejected the canon is both malarkey (he explains that he was reacting merely to the impossibility of winning Jews over to the Church’s theology using them, since the Jews — not he — reject the deuterocanonicals) and also irrelevant (if he only came to accept the deuterocanonicals under duress from the Pope, does that not demonstrate that the Pope authoritatively asserted the matter to him?)
But the weakness of the Protestant position that any one of the deuterocanonicals is not scriptural doesn’t wash away the awkward lack of definition of the canon:
A medieval gloss of the bible warns of the futility of basing theological arguments on those books;
Jesus himself cites as scripture two books which didn’t make the Catholic canon; there were variations in the accepted New Testament canon for three centuries after Christ;
to this day, various Eastern churches hold additional books as canon (most commonly 3 Maccabees;
To this day, 2 Esdras (also known as 3 Esdras, or Greek Esdras) remains in a canonical limbo: It was part of many versions of the Septuagint, but the Council of Trent left it out of the list of books that must be defended as sources of doctrine, for the simple reason it had no unique doctrine. (It’s an abridged version of 1 Esdras, which itself is more commonly divided into two books, Ezra and Nehemiah.)
Truly, the bible is an expression of the Holy Tradition given to the Church by Christ. And while anything that is not in accord with the Scriptures is thereby revealed to be counterfeit to the Holy Tradition, and while it sustains that Holy Tradition, and while it breathes the life of that Holy Tradition within the reader of it, it is NOT the temporal source of that Holy Tradition.
"Martin Luther’s, “Hier, stehe ich!” (demanding that only a Scriptural argument would be an acceptable response to his position) would have been unimaginable four or five hundred years before.
What a preposterous statement without a smidgen of support--except in slandering scholasticism. Luther himself rejected "the schoolmen," so calling him a scholastic is silly. Mainly though, the idea that the Bible was not seen by the early Church as her final unarguable authority--the very Testimony of the Apostles....is ridiculous.
Were the books of the Bible dictated by one man in the words of Allah, like the Koran claims of itself? NO. But the Word of God and the supreme authority which the Church must obey? YES.
John 8
32 And ye shall know the truth, and the truth shall make you free.
Nothing to debate.
Worthless article. Tears down the Bible more than Islam.
The Quran is not an ignorant book. It was very cleverly designed to invert Christianity in every respect for Muhammad’s evil and self-serving purposes. The author should read it.
A major difference between Islam and Christianity is the condescension of God.
Allah doesn’t lower himself to man, but God shown in Christianity and recorded in the Bible not only communes with man, He provided His Son to dwell with us and sacrificed Himself for our sins, so that we might be justified to live with Him.
Muslims, just like all men after the fall in the Garden, have the ability to discern between good and evil, but how Christians respond with righteousness and justice is different.
The Muslim may perceive unrighteousness, and demands judgment, but sees his delivery of justice as something identifiable with righteousness, worthy an eternal reward.
God has already provided the Judgment on the Cross. None of us are good, but only though faith in Christ might we be found righteous to be saved from condemnation.
Christians are not baptized into the Bible. Jews were circumcised and made part of the Covenant people before ever a word of Scripture was written. God revealed Himself as the God of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob some hundreds of years before Moses ever wrote a line.
Christians may rightly see Islam as an ersatz version of Christianity – an attempt to create a rival to meet the peculiar needs and desires of the man, Muhammed. The Quran is Muhammed’s distorted idea of the role played by a “book” in the life of Christianity and Judaism. It is his attempt to create a rival. But this book, unlike any writing or utterance of a Biblical prophet, came with new claims. The Quran is what a misinformed desert preacher thought the Christian and Jewish holy books looked like. It is a poor substitute and a caricature of those writings. In this sense, the Quran is more akin to the Book of Mormon, a fabrication that tells what Upstate New York con-men thought an ancient religious book should look like. It tells us much about the mind of 19th century Upstate New York, but nothing about God. The Quran tells us about the perception of a 7th century Arabian merchant, but nothing about God.
It is thus a supreme religious irony that such a misperception should have changed how Christians saw their own sacred texts. But, it can be argued, this is indeed the case. The movement from authoritative Church to authoritative book that occurs over the 15th and 16th centuries (the Protestant Reformation), should not be considered apart from the dialog with Islam in the two or three centuries that preceded it. It is worth noting that scholasticism in the West was largely begun in Andalusian Islam. It was not a natural development from within. Scholasticism was ultimately rejected in the Christian East.
Martin Luther’s, “Hier, stehe ich!” (demanding that only a Scriptural argument would be an acceptable response to his position) would have been unimaginable four or five hundred years before. The “Bible” had not yet become a Christian Quran. Today, however, many Christians are indeed, “People of the Book.”
Yesterday saw...a forceful plea from a key papal advisor [Bishop Salvatore Fisichella, the rector of the Lateran University and President of the Pontifical Academy for Life] to reject the idea of Christianity as a “Religion of the Book”...........the big debate over Dei Verbum at the time of the council pitted what was then known as the “two-source theory,” which held that Scripture and tradition are essentially two separate streams of revelation, against the “one-source theory,” which posited that Scripture is the lone source of revelation and tradition is an elaboration of it. In effect, Dei Verbum held that Scripture and tradition are interdependent and integrally related to one another.
-- from the thread Synod: Christianity not a 'Religion of the Book'
James 4:7 Submit yourselves therefore to God. Resist the devil, and he will flee from you.
Submit in Greek hupotassó - I place unde r, subject to; mid, pass: I submit, put myself into subjection.
Catholics relying on these leaders who are obviously ignorant of what the word of God says is not going to turn out well for them.
Jews are The People of the Book. THE people. No one else is.
Jews have many, many, many holy books. The Torah is the absolute pinnacle.
The rejection of submission to G-d and His Authority (and His laws) is the heresy at the heart of chrstianity that has made its current situation inevitable. Ditto for the creation of "natural law," a tactic to have G-d's Law without G-d.
Yeah. Jesus kept saying, “It is written...” because he was a closet Muslim.
The problem with the Roman Catholic Church was that its teachings CONTRADICTED scripture.
It is not that the Reformers borrowed directly from Islam – but that Islam contributed certain key notions that have, in time, become foundational for certain segments of contemporary Christianity. The Bible is not the Christian Holy Book... The movement from authoritative Church to authoritative book that occurs over the 15th and 16th centuries (the Protestant Reformation), should not be considered apart from the dialog with Islam in the two or three centuries that preceded it. .
..Martin Luther’s, “Hier, stehe ich!” (demanding that only a Scriptural argument would be an acceptable response to his position) would have been unimaginable four or five hundred years before. The “Bible” had not yet become a Christian Quran. Today, however, many Christians are indeed, “People of the Book.”
That is absurd and as valid as saying that since the devil quoted from the Bible - slightly misrendering it -as authoritative in Mt. 4, then the Lord adopted this idea of a book as supreme from the devil! Which explains why He so often referenced Scripture and established His Truth claims upon Scriptural substantiation, which even miracles were part of.
If Christianity was not a religion of a book, why did the preaching of the church rely upon Scriptural substantiation in word and in power to establish it, and reference the OT about 250 times?
What not just quote oral tradition and not reprove ignorance of Scripture?
And he said unto them, Full well ye reject the commandment of God, that ye may keep your own tradition. For Moses said.. (Mark 7:9,10)
Jesus answered and said unto them, Ye do err, not knowing the scriptures, nor the power of God. (Matthew 22:29)
The Lord said unto my Lord, Sit thou on my right hand, till I make thine enemies thy footstool? If David then call him Lord, how is he his son? And no man was able to answer him a word, neither durst any man from that day forth ask him any more questions. (Matthew 22:44-46)
And he said unto them, These are the words which I spake unto you, while I was yet with you, that all things must be fulfilled, which were written in the law of Moses, and in the prophets, and in the psalms, concerning me. Then opened he their understanding, that they might understand the scriptures, (Luke 24:44-45)
And Paul, as his manner was, went in unto them, and three sabbath days reasoned with them out of the scriptures, (Acts 17:2)
For he mightily convinced the Jews, and that publickly, shewing by the scriptures that Jesus was Christ. (Acts 18:28)
These were more noble than those in Thessalonica, in that they received the word with all readiness of mind, and searched the scriptures daily, whether those things were so. (Acts 17:11)
And when they had appointed him a day, there came many to him into his lodging; to whom he expounded and testified the kingdom of God, persuading them concerning Jesus, both out of the law of Moses, and out of the prophets, from morning till evening. (Acts 28:23)
I think this "father" reads little of the Bible, and instead the centrality of "that which is written being borrowed from Islam, the latter is simply the devil is again using a text (from an oral tradition as authoritative), as Christ did, but this time it is a text later written which partly depends upon misrendering Bible texts again, as the devil knows where the power lies.
The Christian community predates its own texts (the New Testament) and is not described as in any way having a foundation on the Scriptures
What blindness! It is easily shown that the Lord and His apostles and the NT church established their oral and written Truth claims upon what was written. href="http://peacebyjesus.witnesstoday.org/Bible/2Tim_3.html#Partial ">Go thru the NT and see Thus while oral tradition preceded some of what was later written, it was dependent upon conformity with it.
The exaltation of the sovereignty of God and the working of the Divine Will (predestination) are hallmarks of Muslim thought. They eventually become hallmarks within certain forms of Christian scholasticism.
More nonsense, as by this logic the Psalmist and Paul were influenced by Islam:
But our God is in the heavens: he hath done whatsoever he hath pleased. (Psalms 115:3)
O the depth of the riches both of the wisdom and knowledge of God! how unsearchable are his judgments, and his ways past finding out! For who hath known the mind of the Lord? or who hath been his counsellor? Or who hath first given to him, and it shall be recompensed unto him again? For of him, and through him, and to him, are all things: to whom be glory for ever. Amen. (Romans 11:33-36)
And a stone of stumbling, and a rock of offence, even to them which stumble at the word, being disobedient: whereunto also they were appointed. (1 Peter 2:8)
Jews were circumcised and made part of the Covenant people before ever a word of Scripture was written. God revealed Himself as the God of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob some hundreds of years before Moses ever wrote a line.
Indeed, and souls were thus not as accountable as after the giving of the Law, as to whomsoever much is given (grace), much shall be required. (LK. 12:48) And the Lord revealed Himself thru nature and men of God with supernatural attestation, most supremely thru His Law-giver Moses, the man of God.
But as the written word appeared, it is abundantly evidenced that Scripture was the transcendent supreme standard for obedience and testing and establishing truth claims as the wholly Divinely inspired and assured, Word of God.
And which testifies (Lk. 24:27,44, etc.) to writings of God being recognized and established as being so (essentially due to their unique and enduring heavenly qualities and attestation), and thus they materially provide for a canon of Scripture (as well as for reason, the church, etc.)
Christianity is not submission to God.. His invitation to become a child of the Father is not a demand to submit to the Supreme Being. It is why there can be no conversion at the point of a sword in Christianity,
Here a false dilemma is employed, yet to confess the Lord Jesus is a confession of submission, but which does not mean compelled such as under Rome's "coercive jurisdiction." . How one can have Christ as Lord and not indicating submission may be modern, but it is not Biblical.
The absence of a true ecclesiology in contemporary Christianity is a hallmark of its Islamification.
Which is neither an infallible perpetuated papal office nor EO "priests," both of which are contrary to Scripture, and thus the attempt to marginalize Scripture and elevate men "above that which is written."
And these things, brethren, I have in a figure transferred to myself and to Apollos for your sakes; that ye might learn in us not to think of men above that which is written, that no one of you be puffed up for one against another. (1 Corinthians 4:6)