The arguments started many years ago. A Committee determined what went in and what went out. The word determined by committee.
Posted on 03/13/2015 12:40:51 PM PDT by Laissez-faire capitalist
1.) The King James Bible and/or Protestant Bible contains 39 Old Testament books and 27 New Testament books.
Roman Catholics include all of these books within their sacred canon, with the addition of other books not included within the Protestant Canon.
The Coptic Bible contains more books than all of the aforementioned (including the 27/39) and books that Roman Catholics believe to be canonical - and some other books.
2.) The First Council of Nicaea in 325 AD issued the Nicene Creed, adhered to by almost all Christians (Roman Catholics, Greek Orthodox, Protestants and Coptics) with the exception of a few Protestant denominations. St. Jerome noted in his writings that the Book of Judith was considered (at the First Council of Nicaea) to be "sacred scripture."
The principal argument used against deuterocanonical books is that supposedly neither Jesus nor the Apostles quoted from them. If this is indeed true, then a counter argument is that neither Ezra, Nehemiah or Esther were quoted from.
It has been posited that to quote from one book in a set ("history": Ezra, Nehemiah, Esther or "poetry": Ecclesiastes or Song of Solomon) validates the entire set. But this counter argument used against Roman Catholics, Coptics and Greek Orthodox is grounded in conflation and extrapolation and opens up the door to 3:
3.) If Jude quoted from the Book of Enoch (Jude 1:14) and the Assumption of Moses (Jude 19), then to quote one verse from those books would validate the whole of both books.
4.) Some argue that we need to look to the "Deluxe" sets (Codex Alexandrinus, Sinaiticus and Vaticanus) --- the oldest surviving Greek Manuscripts available --- to determine what books are or are not canonical. The problem with this is that each codex contains at least one book that neither Protestants nor Catholics believe to be Canonical and secondly, until the discovery made by Tischendorf and others of these codices. the long ending of Mark (Mark 16:9-20) was believed for over 1000 years to be valid. But none of theses codices contains the long ending while both the long and short ending can be found among Greek fragments.
So which of the aforementioned Bibles do you believe to be the "true" Bible?
Mark 9:38-42:“Teacher,” said John, “we saw someone driving out demons in your name and we told him to stop, because he was not one of us.” 39 “Do not stop him,” Jesus said. “For no one who does a miracle in my name can in the next moment say anything bad about me, 40 for whoever is not against us is for us. 41 Truly I tell you, anyone who gives you a cup of water in my name because you belong to the Messiah will certainly not lose their reward."
I am going to sit back and read what people have to say. No more, no less.
Please, no ad homs, but let’s have a lively discussion nonetheless!
May the BEST bible win!
That's the bottom line.
The principal argument used against deuterocanonical books is that supposedly neither Jesus nor the Apostles quoted from them. If this is indeed true, then a counter argument is that neither Ezra, Nehemiah or Esther were quoted from.
As I recall, my Old Testament professor said that the principal argument against deuterocanonical books was that the Jews did not consider them to be canonical. Therefore, why should we?
If Jude quoted from the Book of Enoch (Jude 1:14) and the Assumption of Moses (Jude 19), then to quote one verse from those books would validate the whole of both books.
Excellent question. I'm not sure what he's getting at with Jude 19, but with verse 14 there might be a legit point. This assumes the quote doesn't appear somewhere in canonical scripture. I'll have to check later. I'm "working".
There is no way I’m going to state that ‘my’ bible is somehow better than someone else’s. So long as you are living a life of kindness, truth and commitment to what builds more life, I’m fine. I will leave that war of semantics to the Scholars, the Jesuits and the most Troublesome trolls whose reason for getting out of bed each day is simply to contradict whatever the majority think and provoke a show of outrage.
http://www.kingjamesbibleonline.org/ (AKJV ONLY)!
the testimony of Jesus is the spirit of prophecy. Rev. 19:10
The most important is to believe Jesus Christ as the Son of God and savior and his commands to us to love God with all our hearts and minds and our neighbor as ourselves. That last part alone should keep one busy enough not to be wondering about other stuff.
Canonology (my made up word) is the study of the origins of different bible canons.
This discussion would benefit by recognizing that the discussion spans three different groups of texts and origins. There is the Old Testament, the New Testament and a group that for a lack of better term, I will call “Other”. It is also good to identify what is agreed upon in addition to identifying differences.
The OT is the Hebrew canon and can be shown that the canon was closed about 400 BC. This “Hebrew bible” is for the most part, accepted and agreed upon by all major Christian denominations. There are some minor variations in how the texts are divided - for example, is it just one book of Chronicles or is it 1st and 2nd Chronicles.
The 27 books in the NT are also agreed upon by most major Christian denominations. In fact, there is almost universal acceptance of the NT books.
As for the Others, they consist of different works classified as either the Apocrypha, Pseudepigrapha, Gnostic or individual works. In fact, the major differences to the different bibles can be narrowed down to these “Other” works. Why they are either included or excluded has been and continues to be, a mater of debate within the Christian community.
The primary question facing anyone who is deciding on what to include and exclude from the canon is: What books are so core to the faith that they must be studied in order to understand that faith (ie doctrine or dogma). Other books may be helpful, but are not necessary. For example, I like several of the books that Billy Graham has written. However, I do not consider them doctrine.
Some take a more restrictive view, others a more liberal view.
Your assumption that a snippet of Jude quoting the Book of Enoch legitimizes the entire book would have some validity if we can now canonize every remark by the Cretans, since Paul clearly quotes them telling him, “Cretans are all liars” Titus 1:12.
BFL
The arguments started many years ago. A Committee determined what went in and what went out. The word determined by committee.
After doing a lot of reading and studying the bible, I’ve come to the following conclusion. But first, I must say that I am a bible believing Christian and believe that Jesus Christ is God in the flesh. He is both fully man and fully God. He dies and was resurrected as a perfect sacrifice for my sins. And his sacrifice was looked to throughout the old testament.
That said, I don’t see the bible as the word of God. I see it as the words of men INSPIRED by God. And so is the teaching of many pastors. I don’t worship the bible. I worship God and highly revere the bible.
The bible is important for gaining wisdom and learning the mind of God, but when people get into the minutia of some of the interpretations they can find themselves unable to see the forest because they have smacked into a tree.
I like how you stated your position. I agree with it.
In seminary, we had the Revised Standard Version that included the Apocrypha (though it is not recognized as Scripture by my denomination). It was included for historical reference purposes. I’ve read some of the Apocryphal books and my own take was that they always, for lack of a better word, sounded “odd” to me. Some had really bizarre creatures, sayings, etc. On the other hand, I found the books of the Maccabees interesting as they did include some historical narrative. How accurate they are I have no idea.
I think we should focus on the books that all agree upon and leave the “controversial” books up to the other denominations to decide what they want to use.
A Committee determined what went in and what went out
The last few years I have focused on the Gospel, those red words are the ones that count most for me!
I had always wondered about that committee thing. A good friend and smart guy on theology and stuff explained that it wasn’t so much as voting or deciding on what was real, but getting down in paper what most everyone in all the churches knew to be real.
There was lots of crap floating around by that time. Even Paul had to deal with false doctrines and stuff that sprang up early in the church (super apostles, etc.)
I forget how he explained it to me, but it made a lot of sense. He didn’t describe it to me like this, but I’m thinking if they were putting in a bunch of material about 9-11 into a museum it would be the first-hand accounts, eyewitness descriptions, etc and leave out the youtube accounts of missles using airplane holographs as a disguise.
I’m not suggesting you do this, but it would be interesting if someone documented what doctrinal changes would have to be made (if any) by a given flavor of Christianity, should they accept or reject a book in the “other” category.
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.