Deuterocanonical books.

my thesis is not hard to decipher. Either the account of creation given by Moses in genesis is correct, or the account of creation given by John in the AOJ is correct. Examine both rationally and without bias and you will discover that John's makes much more sense. The people who launched the bible canon obsession were wrong.

single eye said:

my thesis is not hard to decipher. Either the account of creation given by Moses in genesis is correct, or the account of creation given by John in the AOJ is correct. Examine both rationally and without bias and you will discover that John's makes much more sense. The people who launched the bible canon obsession were wrong.

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So I read a brief synopsis, just enough to find some interesting parallels going on here, if it is an ancient text from the time of the early church. Sparing some of the details here, it emphasizes the existence of a female deity, exalts Eve as a higher being, denigrates Eden and the Creator as sinful and evil, indicates that the fall was really a cosmic hat trick which Christ wanted, and is basically opposed to the totality of Judeo-Christian scripture.

To me it looks like the same old principles going on here as would have been the case between David and Michal when she accused him of indecency, which is why I think it's interesting, because if it's an ancient text then it shows that the early Church may have been going through the same sort of accusations.

Mama Kidogo said:

I take it you are speaking of the Gnostic texts and not those included in various Canons

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I'm not a fan of Bel and the Dragon for example, if that's what you're asking.

Yes, in order to pull off the launch of the bible canon obsession it would have been necessary to eliminate the only serious competition from the AOJ. History shows that this is exactly what happened. It is going to make a comeback bringing a radical faith not seen in many generations.

LiberalAnglicanCatholic said:

why would it be a bad idea. Gnosticism is dead and should stay dead, but there could be tools in there that is read critically, tossing aside the gnosticism and just like we critically read Scriptures nowadays. Nor should we say this is to replace Scripture either, but more insight on the early church could be a good thing, if taken with those dashes of salt.

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You have a valid point. The texts are readily available for just about anyone to read in any case, whether they are officially accepted or not. From what I've read nothing would change. And I doubt anything would change for larger bodies either. People still see what they want to see.

Anything we read should be personally judged and gauged regardless of scholarly officiating. But particularly so if scholarly officiating has blacklisted the writings as non-inspired or not fit for spiritual consumption by reason of errors.

What is it you would like to see changed that those texts would bolster would be a question?

single eye said:

Yes, in order to pull off the launch of the bible canon obsession it would have been necessary to eliminate the only serious competition from the AOJ. History shows that this is exactly what happened. It is going to make a comeback bringing a radical faith not seen in many generations.

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What is it exactly about AOJ that would make you think Genesis is false?

squint said:

You have a valid point. The texts are readily available for just about anyone to read in any case, whether they are officially accepted or not. From what I've read nothing would change. And I doubt anything would change for larger bodies either. People still see what they want to see.

Anything we read should be personally judged and gauged regardless of scholarly officiating. But particularly so if scholarly officiating has blacklisted the writings as non-inspired or not fit for spiritual consumption by reason of errors.

What is it you would like to see changed that those texts would bolster would be a question?

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I'm not sure I know what you're asking, but I don't have any desire for change w.r.t. the canon.

Nanopants said:

I'm not sure I know what you're asking, but I don't have any desire for change w.r.t. the canon.

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My post was to the opening poster. I would never question you nano..

Good topic.

LiberalAnglicanCatholic said:

1. For "protestants" have you read or studied the Apocrypha, and if so, do you think it's a valuable tool?

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Yes, I've read through them twice in the 4th Oxford Annotated Edition. Whether or not they should be considered canonical (and which Deuterocanon should be), they are extremely valuable for their paraenesis (e.g., Sirach), theology (e.g., Wisdom), and Second Temple Jewish context (e.g., the Maccabean literature). Although I find parts problematic, whether Torah-centric works-righteousness of Sirach, the teaching on the immortality of the soul in a permanent heavenly state in Wisdom, or the prayers for the dead in 2 Maccabees, I don't find any of that much more problematic than passages found in the Protestant canon (e.g., Job and Ecclesiastes for theology, Joshua for ethics, etc.).

I'm not certain if I'm comfortable with them being read in the lectionary as "the Word of the Lord," but I am totally comfortable with them being included in printed Bibles as dedicated section between the testaments. I don't think they should be integrated into the Old Testament as though there were no distinctions between Protocanon and Deuterocanon, though. But those who have a good grounding in biblical theology should be encouraged to read them.

2. For all others, have you read any of the Gnotic Texts or the Ethopian canon books? If so, do they have merit in this day and age? If some don't what do we reject. And if we reject some but not all, should there be an Apocrypha for the New Testament like there is for the Old Testament?

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I'm currently working through a reading course in biblical backgrounds. I've gotten sidetracked a bit on ancient epics (and even there, I got off track after re-reading the Odyssey and instead of going on to the Aeneid, I'm now reading Irish Ulster cycle tale 'Tain bo Cuailgne'), but I got through Pritchet's Ancient Near Eastern Texts and am going to follow up the Aeneid with Charleston's two-volume Pseudepigrapha, the Dead Sea Scrolls, Schneemelcher's two-volume New Testament Apocrypha, and the Nag Hammadi corpus. So give me another eight months or so and I can say with certainty that I've read most what's on offer. As it stands I've really only read selections (parts of Enoch, Jubilees, Thomas, the Gospel of Truth, the Infancy Gospel of Thomas, and several others).

That being said, I think Ethiopic texts like Jubilees (and 1 Enoch) are best left to scholars (as well as DDS examples of the same genre like Genesis Apocryphon), and the Gnostic texts (not 'gospels') are right out. They provide invaluable resources for understanding the historical development of early Christianity of the second and third centuries, especially as regards marginal Jewish and Gnostic forms of Christianity, but unlike the Deuterocanonical texts, which largely represent the mainstream of Second Temple Judaism, the NT apocrypha does not seem to represent the mainstream of early Christianity.

If anything should be included in New Testaments as some sort of an apocryphal appendix, it should be the apostolic fathers. After all, there's actually a precedent for doing so in ancient manuscripts. More mainstream apocryphal tales, like the Protoevangelion of James or the Infancy Gospel of Thomas, could provide a nice balance to fictional tales like Tobit and Judith, but there's absolutely zero precedent for doing so and there's no indication that they were ever considered authoritative texts that had any sort of public role in the community. They seem to be romances for private reading, like the Acts of Paul and Thecla and or the Pseudo-Clementines. They have no more role in a New Testament appendix than the Tale of Joseph and Asenath or Jannes and Jambres.

squint said:

My post was to the opening poster. I would never question you nano..

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Lol. Thanks?

I must have misread the posting order or something. My pages have been annoyingly jumping up and down as the ads load.

For my two cents...it comes to this is it benificial to read books written by modern christian authors...maybe our modern authors write as modern preachers preach expository(read a few verses expound on its meaning) this is our style nothing wrong with it the style of the writings mentioned is more of a mimic but not intended to be taken as Scripture. Of course some are mentioned by scripture itself however for the most part they where understood for their purpose an explanation by the author of understanding. So should we read them...maybe if they make scripture clear good if they cast doubt throw away if you dont know read the scripture till you do...use same guidlines with modern authores...last note the worlds new found fascination with these text does not speak well for them.

Squint writes "what is it exactly about AOJ that would make me think that genesis is false?" Are you aware that any error excludes a writing from being scripture? John directly corrects errors made by Moses in ge. 2:21 and ge. 7:7. This alone would disqualify genesis from being scripture. The real game changer is that according to John the creator of the universe in ge. 1:1 is an evil imposter, not GOD. The one thing the majority of theistic religions center their beliefs on is this misconception that John exposes in the AOJ. Therefore, we cannot believe Moses, that GOD created the universe and believe John, that the creator of the universe is an evil imposter. Why should we believe John and not Moses? Because John was well schooled in The Gift of Grace for over 3 years directly by Jesus prior to receiving advanced training by "Another Comforter". What training, if any, did Moses have? Does this answer your question?

Darth Bagel said:

It's kind of hard to decipher what your thesis is, but it seems like you're overlooking the fact that the Eastern Orthodox Church and Roman Catholic Church have (and have had) more books than the Protestant canon. It was the reformers who removed the Deuterocanon.

It's not a matter of making sweeping declarations that say "since this deuterocanon is authentic, so these other books deemed gnostic must be legit too". No, what's valid is valid and what's not is not.

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I wouldn't go as far as to say that the reformers removed the deuterocanon. Granted, they lowered the status, but Protestant Bibles used to have all the books from the Catholic canon just with different sections (I recall a law in England forbidding Bibles printed without the Apocrypha) until the missionaries started to only use the New Testament when going to the New World where upon the Apocrypha section slowly but surely started to disappear from the Protestant Bibles.

The rules of the forum doesn't forbid any discussion of scriptures so long as it is recognised by any allowed denomination of this forum (hence why we had that whole Enoch debacle). I am of the opinion of an "open" canon in the sense that there are rooms for revision not because the Church Fathers and the early Synods and Councils were wrong, but simply because we now have more information and doing additional research may be beneficial. Note that this does not mean I am wishing for a complete canonical revision such as adding the Gnostic texts to Scripture.

Lol..."training" in the gift of grace? Was going to look into this but I won't waste my time...

single eye said:

Squint writes "what is it exactly about AOJ that would make me think that genesis is false?" Are you aware that any error excludes a writing from being scripture? John directly corrects errors made by Moses in ge. 2:21 and ge. 7:7. This alone would disqualify genesis from being scripture. The real game changer is that according to John the creator of the universe in ge. 1:1 is an evil imposter, not GOD.

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Yes, well, that is quite entirely off the pages and into non-orthodox belief.

The one thing the majority of theistic religions center their beliefs on is this misconception that John exposes in the AOJ. Therefore, we cannot believe Moses, that GOD created the universe and believe John, that the creator of the universe is an evil imposter. Why should we believe John and not Moses? Because John was well schooled in The Gift of Grace for over 3 years directly by Jesus prior to receiving advanced training by "Another Comforter". What training, if any, did Moses have? Does this answer your question?

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Yeah, it tells me why that particular writing has no place in the bible.

squint said:

I'm not a fan of Bel and the Dragon for example, if that's what you're asking.

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No. I'm asking what rule we'd be breaking discussing texts that are in the Canon of groups deemed Christian by CF? That's why I used the term Gnostic (meaning books other than those). I'd agree we could be(or could end up) rule breaking if we went beyond those books in Canons.

Mama Kidogo said:

No. I'm asking what rule we'd be breaking discussing texts that are in the Canon of groups deemed Christian by CF? That's why I used the term Gnostic (meaning books other than those). I'd agree we could be(or could end up) rule breaking if we went beyond those books in Canons.

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Isn't Bel and the dragon in the DC? How it got there if it is is beyond me. It reads like it was a very poor recount of Daniel, but whatever.

Wisdom on the other hand definitely should have made the protestant cut. Very inspired. Judith? Interesting story. Maybe not in the vein of of classic text, but definitely a Godly account of an inspired woman led of God, (even if it was to cut off a man's head...heh heh).

As to your statements above, yeah.

The quality of of some of those extra-biblical texts is obviously very very poor (the gnostic texts.) The Apocrypha of John is definitely a fake/non-inspired document (or maybe closer to demonically inspired) fantasy, even if it's 'old.'

I'm pretty sure the early churches had their hands full with fakery, fraud and manipulations of various sorts.

When the officials finally said, in effect, let's keep the text out of their hands completely, it maybe was for good cause at the time...

squint said:

Isn't Bel and the dragon in the DC? How it got there if it is is beyond me. It reads like it was a very poor recount of Daniel, but whatever.

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Maybe Daniel was a part-time dragon-slayer, who knows?

WisdomTree said:

Maybe Daniel was a part-time dragon-slayer, who knows?

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When I first read it I thought what in the world is this nonsense? It was like a low rate Daniel. Like a grade C movie knockoff made in India.

squint said:

Isn't Bel and the dragon in the DC? How it got there if it is is beyond me. It reads like it was a very poor recount of Daniel, but whatever.

Wisdom on the other hand definitely should have made the protestant cut. Very inspired. Judith? Interesting story. Maybe not in the vein of of classic text, but definitely a Godly account of an inspired woman led of God, (even if it was to cut off a man's head...heh heh).

As to your statements above, yeah.

The quality of of some of those extra-biblical texts is obviously very very poor (the gnostic texts.) The Apocrypha of John is definitely a fake/non-inspired document (or maybe closer to demonically inspired) fantasy, even if it's 'old.'

I'm pretty sure the early churches had their hands full with fakery, fraud and manipulations of various sorts.

When the officials finally said, in effect, let's keep the text out of their hands completely, it maybe was for good cause at the time...

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Thank you I get it now. You mean Gnostic by your understanding not by what others may or may not call Gnostic.