Luther's Bible editing

[david01]

Thanks, Mr. Goodbar and BigNorsk. One of the peculiarities with the argument that the Council of Jamnia rejected the deutero-canonical because because they were somehow "Christian" is that there is virtually nothing in those books that is "Christian." In fact, if that argument was to prevail, they would have been included rather than rejected as these books are never either directly cited or referenced in the New Testament. Instead, the Council of Jamnia should have rejected Isaiah (especially chapter 53) and the Psalms (many of which are messianic, especially 22) as well as other sources cited in the New Testament.

 

[MrGoodbar]

david,

While not expressly "Christian," they do support the fairly "new-age (at the time)" belief in the afterlife that may have been an undercurrent in the thinking of the zealots in the 66-70 revolt.

There's no way they could have dispensed with Isaiah, it was too prominent a book, presumably both in written and oral tradition. I do believe they may have understood the Messianic prophecies to be about the coming of Hezekiah, and as a retelling and interpretation of his coronation.

The Psalms seem to have been particularly beloved as well. Most were presumed to have been written by David. The audacity would be something like George Bush declaring that we were purging the Gettysburg address from American History.

Definetly a tough time period to discern people's intention and political motivation.

I haven't heard the theory about Jeremiah, most of my OT professors and the literature I've read seemed to regard the canon as emerging from the Jamnia synod era. How does the Jeremiah theory answer the obvious question about how the books that narrate a history that occurred AFTER the writing of Jeremiah (I suppose it depends greatly on the date one accepts for the authorship of Jeremiah) including Ezra, Nehimiah, Haggai?

 

[david01]

Thank you, Mr. Goodbar, for your input. Unfortunately, the issue of an afterlife was not a peculiarly Christian idea. In fact, the Pharisees espoused it in contrast to the Sadduceess long before Christ came on the scene. One might, then, conclude that the deutero-canonical books were rejected not as a reaction against Christianity (which was seen as a sect within Phariseeism by many) but as a reaction against Phariseeism in general.

The difficulty with that argument is as follows:

1. The New Testament arguments for an afterlife are based both on the resurrection of Christ and quotations from the Old Testament and not the deutero-canonical books.
2. The belief in an afterlife (Phariseeism) within Judaism did not disappear after the Council of Jamnia and still remains within certain segments of Judaism to this day.

 

[MrGoodbar]

Right, and I can see your points.

But it could be argued that say, the story of the dry bones in Ezekiel is not a promise of the resurrection but of a restoration of a seemingly destroyed nation. Many of those references are interpreted by Christians whose notion of the afterlife was already developed.

And not to be semantic, but 'long before' Christ might be a stretch for Phairisaic influence. They could be considered the liberals of their day, and ideas don't last long historically on the liberal front before becoming either the next conservative belief or are quashed entirely.

Certainly the belief was not stamped out, but Rabbinical failure to stamp something out is not a compelling argument. I may try to get rid of all the ants in my house with repeated spraying and cans of raid. But they probably will still survive. (Best I could think of at the time, in no way implying that the Rabbinical movement was akin to me stamping out ants)

 

[david01]

Thanks for your good points.

Interstingly, the dry bones of Ezekiel are never used in the New Testament. One can surmise that they were not viewed as anything other than a promise of national restoration. There is little doubt, however, that not only Christians had developed strong beliefs concerning the afterlife, but a very large number of Jews, as well, which helps explain the early popularity of the Gospel within Judaism.

I prefer not to think of the Sadduccees as being the conservatives and the Pharisees as being the liberals, because in today's parlance liberalism generally implies unbelief in varying degrees. Both sides of the issue held firm beliefs on the matter and both claimed scirptural and historical support for their cause. Although the issue did not develop "long before" Christ came on the scene, it was a very hot issue prior to His advent. Likewise, the whole issue of resistance to Roman authority was another very hot issue, Essentially, what happened seems to be that the Pharisaic influence was significantly lessened as many became Christians, leaving the Sadducees holding the cards and, as they say, history, belongs to the victors.

I still maintain that the issue of the deutero-canonical books being eliminated at the Council of Jamnia had virtually nothing to do with any "Christian" doctrine taught therein.

 

[brownie3]

Thank you for all your posts.

From the way this thread has been going, it appears to me that the reason the deutero-canonical books are not followed by everyone is because of some seemingly trivial human event: the dislike of Christianity by some, the thoughts of Luther, ... is it evidence enough that the Septuagint has these books but the Hebrew does not? Don't we depend on the Septuagint for a lot of our other texts/interpretations?

I'm not finding a strong enough reason as to why I shouldn't hold the deutero-canonical books in as high of regard as the rest of the Bible.

 

[MrGoodbar]

Still an interesting discussion, good posts all.

Brownie, are you saying that the Pharisees disliked Christianity or Luther did, and that's why the books were thrown out? And the Septuagint is generally not used for English translations of the OT, (except, of course, for the apocrypha) the Hebrew Masoretic text is.

David, point of clarification here. The Pharisees won by being the last man standing. Before 70, there were many strands of Judaism. Pharisees, Essenes, Sadducees, Zealots, Jewish Christians, Scribes. The Zealot revolt all but wipes out the Sadducees, the subsequent Roman response pretty much eliminates the Zealots and Essenes. The Pharisees and Scribes sort of "consolidate" and form the fore-runner of the Rabbinic tradition.

I would agree that it doesn't seem to be that the apocrypha was too "Christian" necessarily, but to my eye there is definetly a strong messianic element to them. I think it was more a reaction to the Zealots, and a desire to re-define Judaism after the fairly cataclysmic devastation left by the 66-70 war.

Fascinating discussion, IMHO.

PS, Brownie, you ask the question in the OP "Who was Luther to remove the books?" Who put them "in?" Who decides what the word of God is?

 

[BigNorsk]

Thank you for all your posts.

From the way this thread has been going, it appears to me that the reason the deutero-canonical books are not followed by everyone is because of some seemingly trivial human event: the dislike of Christianity by some, the thoughts of Luther, ... is it evidence enough that the Septuagint has these books but the Hebrew does not? Don't we depend on the Septuagint for a lot of our other texts/interpretations?

I'm not finding a strong enough reason as to why I shouldn't hold the deutero-canonical books in as high of regard as the rest of the Bible.

Well, you better define "follow" for instance the Orthodox consider them scripture, but they aren't used for doctrine. And until after Trent you really don't see them referred to as authoritative for doctrine in the Roman Catholic Church either.

The standard commentary of the Roman Catholic Church for several hundred years, the Glossa ordinaria, spells out and labels that they are not scripture, and it tells how there are many unlearned who do not know the difference.

In other translations at that time of Luther, done by the scholars of and approved by the Roman Catholic Church we see for instance one Latin translation set the Apocrypha in a separate section, Luther was not the originator of that, another Latin translation labelled them as nonscripture and an Italian translation actually left them out. Yet today you hear it repeatedly stated that Luther was an innovator, he was very much in the mainstream of Catholic beliefs of the time on the canon.

Anyway, there was basically a rosetta stone given by Cardinal Cajetan, who was sent by the Pope to deal with Luther in Cajetan's commentary on the Old Testament, in which he did not even bother to give commentary on the apocryphal books. He explains all this that seems so confusing to people today.

[SIZE=+1]

[SIZE=+1]Here we close our commentaries on the historical books of the Old Testament. For the rest (that is, Judith, Tobit, and the books of Maccabees) are counted by St. Jerome out of the canonical books, and are placed among the Apocrypha, along with Wisdom and Ecclesiasticus, as is plain from the Prologus Galeatus. Nor be thou disturbed, like a raw scholar, if thou shouldest find anywhere, either in the sacred councils or the sacred doctors, these books reckoned canonical. For the words as well as of councils as of doctors are to be reduced to the correction of Jerome. Now, according to his judgment, in the epistle to the bishops Chromatius and Heliodorus, these books (and any other like books in the canon of the bible) are not canonical, that is, not in the nature of a rule for confirming matters of faith. Yet, they may be called canonical, that is, in the nature of a rule for the edification of the faithful, as being received and authorised in the canon of the bible for that purpose. By the help of this distinction thou mayest see thy way clear through that which Augustine says, and what is written in the provincial council of Carthage’ [/SIZE][SIZE=-1](Commentary on all the Authentic Historical Books of the Old Testament. Taken from his comments on the final chapter of Esther. Cited by William Whitaker, A Disputation on Holy Scripture (Cambridge: University Press, 1849), p. 48).[/SIZE]

So we see and need to understand that the words canon and scripture were used in two ways. One is as authoritative for doctrine, the other is for those books to be read in the church, the ecclesiatical canon if you will. And that was the question of the early councils was which books to read in the church. The question of authority seems not to have been in dispute.

Even to this day, only a couple passages in the Apocrypha are used by some Roman Catholics to try and teach doctrine. Instead of everyone should be under them, those are the only people who use them for doctrine, and doing so is against the historical practice of the church.

You are right though that it seems almost due to random chance. Through history, most people's canon of scripture has probably had more to do with a publisher than with any teaching of the Church.

Let me put that explanation in a separate post.

Marv.[/SIZE]

 

[BigNorsk]

Now one thing one should notice is that a lot of people point to the Septuagint as setting the canon. It's an interesting position because we don't see any "official" setting of what books were in it.

There seems to be this assumption that at the time of Christ, the Septuagint already had all the books and it was generally accepted that those were the correct books.

That's a real "interesting" position considering that several hundred years later, which books are in the Septuagint isn't consistent from one copy to another. Some don't have all the Apocryphal books accepted by either the Orthodox or Catholic, some have additional books not accepted by either.

Add into the mix that right around the year 400 Athanasius, the Patriarch of the Eastern Church is adamant that there are but 22 books in the Old Testament. His only mistake was when he listed them, he left off Esther and added one of the Apocryphal books. But it becomes quite difficult to explain how the Bishop of Constantinople is unaware that the Septuagint was supposedly stable for several hundred years and the Apocryphal books were accepted as scripture by Jesus and the Apostles.

Instead what you find if you don't look for lists but rather check for the number 22 or 24 is that the early Fathers were quite strong in their support that for doctrine, the Jewish Old Testament was the authoritative scripture.

Jerome too who refers to the apocryphal books as such in his prefaces to the Vulgate was not questionable on that. Now a lot of people want to say he accepted them but why would he leave in his prefaces that they are not scripture if he had changed his mind? And it was from Jerome that we know why they are called Apocrypha. In the synagogs, the scriptures were out in the open to be read, the other books were hidden in a structure called the apocrypha. Places of worship still have such a place today where books not considered authoritative are kept, usually the pastor's office or library, while what is accepted as holy scriptures are out in public to be used in worship.

Anyway, back to the Vulgate, we see Jerome attacked for his position by people who were basically claiming a second inspiriation for the Septuagint. Similar to today's King James only people. And over time, the simple fact that the books in the Septuagint stablized caused them to be accepted as scripture by the Eastern Church. Though they don't use them for doctrine.

A similar thing started to happen with the Western Church and the Vulgate. We see effectively a Vulgate only movement and again a second inspiration was claimed for the Vulgate. Better than the original languages was the official position of Rome. And, by the time of Trent, we see that the only authority appealed to was that if it was in the Vulgate, it was scripture. Often Jerome's prefaces were not copied, and so those who did not attend one of the seminaries didn't know, they just created a folk religion in their minds that everything in the Vulgate was scripture. Strange to appeal to the canon of a book that if you read it actually conflicts with what was claimed on account of it.

It is almost chance which books were eventually included. Jerome did not give them great care, indeed some he didn't even bother to translate just taking Old Latin texts and reusing them. And we see people again adding things, by the time of Luther, most copies had what was called Paul's letter to the Laodiceans. Jerome had written that it was rejected by everyone, yet people started adding it back in. It even appears in Wycliffe's translation and every German translation before Luther.

And so the effects of the Septuagint only and Vulgate only movements were similar, but slightly different since the two translations ended up with slightly different books in them.

The Ethiopians are often looked upon as an oddity with their larger canon but it should also be noted that they have retained the different levels of authority so in some ways, they are quite representative of the historic church.

And so too are the main line Protestants. Groups such as Lutherans and Anglicans did not remove the books of the ecclesiatical canon, but instead continued to use them in the churches, just not for doctrine.

Thrown on top of this we see the other groups of Protestants who really were disconnected from history to a much greater extent. Groups such as the Puritans and Baptists, who were opposed to the inclusion of the Apocryphal books almost from the start. They started to produce bibles without the Apocryphal books at all.

But the big change came when the British and American Bible societies, in a move in which the reason given was the cost of publishing but in which those groups opposed to the Aporcyrphal books seem also to be active. We see in the 1800's, on the decision of publishers, it starts to become standard that the books are left out entirely. And so people grow up with Bibles without them and just accept that.

So for most people, the Bible they accepted was no more complicated than what they saw. It wasn't a matter of Councils and authorities but simply a matter of what was decided to include. In the case of the Septuagint, we don't even know who made the decision, with the Vulgate it was largely Jerome, for Protestants, while saying they follow Luther, it's actually more the Bible societies though most follow the book order of Luther.

A story of bibles.

And while language and motivated history writers tend to make it difficult to see, if you follow through, you will find the history of the church all fits with a usage of the Jewish canon of the Old Testament for doctrine and a broader Ecclesiatical canon of the Old Testament used for reading in the Churches. Certainly many individuals did not agree or made mistakes concerning this.

And the whole Synod of Jamnia setting the Jewish canon around the year 70. That was a nice theory presented to try and explain things and it was quite popular at one time, but it has really fallen out of favor. Mostly due to lack of information to support the theory. Now it seems the ones that cling to it the strongest are the Roman Catholics who want to discredit decisions that no one can show it ever made.

It looks more like the canon predates that time. Probably from the time of Jeremiah. But that's for another book.

Marv

 

[Peter]

As has been pointed out, one must think twice about a set of documents that were heavily edited (Masoretic texts) by non-Christians after the establishing of Chrit's Body, the Church. Who cares if the Jews today accept those texts. Do we care what laws Great Britian just passed in the House of Commons? No, we are the United States and we have our own laws. We are Christians, and those who are not have no sway over those who are.

 

[brownie3]

I'm afraid I'm starting to get rather confused. I will go backwards in my responses to the posts.

Peter, you are saying that the Hebrew of the Old Testament has been heavily edited? I thought the Septuagint was the more non-Christian version of the text? If the Hebrew version was so edited, why don't we follow the Septuagint? And then wouldn't we include those deutero-canonical books in the process?

BigNorsk, I appreciate all the time and effort you're putting into your posts. However, I don't think I understand where you stand on the issue. What do you follow? I think you were trying to explain that canon is used for doctrine, and scripture is authoritative. Authoritative for what? And if the deutero-canonical books are included in the "scripture", do what degree of relevance should we hold them? Are they the inspired Word of God? If Jesus is the Word, is Scripture, then how many words is He? Is He the deutero-canonical books too, and if so, are Protestant Bibles leaving out part of Christ, so to speak?

MrGoodbar, I was referring to the Pharisees disliking Christianity, according to the previous posts (as I know little on this issue, as you know by now). Also, your last sentence in your last post, "Who decides what the word of God is?" - THAT'S EXACTLY WHAT I WANT TO KNOW!!!!! Who decides, or has decided, or is in the process of deciding? What should I follow, what should I be sure to read in my daily Bible studies? I don't want to leave out any of God's truth. I've inherited the Protestant Bible that has completely removed the deutero-canonical books from print, as BigNorsk referred to. What am I missing? Am I missing anything? I feel like Pontius Pilate asking, "What is truth?" What is the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth???

Aside from my personal struggle with this, the variation of books in Bibles frustrates me because it weakens our credibility as possessing the Truth. Which truth is it?

Why (an atheist might say) do you have all these diffferent Bibles? Muslims only have one written word of Muhammad, and they don't have all the denominations you guys do. Other religions don't have such variation on their texts either; you guys must not possess the truth.

If I (this is me talking again) knew exactly what the Word of God is, I would be able to proclaim it and defend it with my life. How can I defend something I am dubious about (as far as being sure to contain the whole truth)? And why in the world don't other Christians struggle with this idea? I've a friend in seminary and he said people don't seem to concerned about this topic in academic study. That blows my mind. I don't see how you can gloss over something so critical to the lives we lead, based on the words we read and follow as truth.

 

[Peter]

The LXX has VERY strong Messiah language. This was toned down considerably in the Masoretic texts. (ie. "A vigin shall conceive" became "A young girl shall conceive.")

The EO do follow the LXX. The Reformers, in their zeal, decided they didn't want anything to do with a Latin text for the OT, and chose the only extant copies of the Hebrew that was available, the Masoretic texts.

There are counting and division differences in Psalms as well. In the Masoretic texts, Psalms 9 and 10 are two Pslams. In the LXX they are combined into one single Psalm.

 

[MrGoodbar]

I don't see how you can gloss over something so critical to the lives we lead, based on the words we read and follow as truth.

Herein lies the rub.

Reading and studying God's word is indeed critical to our lives. However, for me, this particular issue is not. It would be one thing if the material contained something crazy that I felt my tradition was lacking. But I'm in seminary, and I've read the deuteros. There isn't anything that blows my mind in there.

I would best advise you to read them. Discuss with someone at your church, read books by scholars on the subject (I'm sure Bruce Metzger and FF Bruce have something to say on it). There's no easy answer to your question. I doubt anyone here is going to present you with the end-all, be-all answer to satisfy you.

I was reading about the mess in Iraq regarding a sniper squad leader who was using the Quran for target practice. I'd like to think that the Word of God for Christians is a slightly more living breathing one. It isn't God. One of the toughest things for me to do was to open up my understanding of the word when I got to seminary so that I could see the real beauty of it. How it spoke to the historical situation, how it often reflects the author's views on other subjects, how in the original language there is often nuance that I could never appreciate in the English.

I would hold that God speaks through the Bible. In my church, its emphasized that the Holy Spirit guides us through the word, and that sitting on the shelf, the Bible is a book, but when illumined by the Spirit, is is the Word of God for us. There's no good answer, but If He speaks to you in what you read in it, perhaps that's enough.

 

[BigNorsk]

brownie,

I was trying not to make this about me and say this is what I believe, you must believe it too. I believe that I follow the historic practice of the Church concerning canon and scripture.

It is a bit more subtle than a hard line in the sand and this is scripture and that is nothing.

I will focus on the Old Testament and the Apocryphal books but might mention the New Testament if I keep it below 200 pages or so (subtle warning that this might be fairly long.)

I took a look at the church fathers before the time of the Nicene Creed. I haven't been through all of them, unfortunately my language skills are not sufficient for that. But of those available in English at least a pattern is quite apparant.

They support the Jewish canon of the Old Testament. A lot of people seem to think for some reason a search for a list of books is necessary for that, but it's not. Many more, instead of giving a list give the number. And what is repeated over and over is twenty two or twenty four. Which is the number of books in the Jewish canon, only differing in whether or not a couple are combined. The support is quite broad for this.

The support for the number of books in the extended canon that Orthodox or Catholics would use today. None. Can't find it. Though the early fathers are aware of the books and sometimes even refer to them. But there is no one who says our canon is 30 books or 34 or really anything but 22 or 24.

Then we come into the Nicene Age. We see some councils take up the question of what should be read in the church.

This is where a lot of confusion enters in. Many people take the question of what should be read in the church and what is authoritative scripture as the same question, but they really aren't. The thing was, if a person didn't hear something read in church, the average person was never going to hear it read at all. You didn't go down to the bookstore and pick one up. Books were very expensive. So the question was what should be read from, what benefitted the people. And so we see an inclusion of additional books to help teach the people.

If we were in the same situation today, with many unable to read or unable to afford books, we'd probably see a similar thing where books that aren't considered authoritative scripture are read from in the church. Matter of fact we see actually do see it though most don't do it during the worship service, some do. It's not unusual at all though for people to refer to things other than scripture during the worship service especially during the sermon.

So you really see the historic practice of the church continuing. That books that are not considered authoritive scripture continue to be used in church. Those early councils simple looked at what was available then and came up with a list, it wasn't like what was available changed every day then. And so they said these books are what we will use.

And so we see that a natural thing happened over a bit of time. Bibles tended to conform to having those books that the most agreement was to use in the church. They were somewhat standardized.

Now what happens is that folk religion starts to enter in big time. People see a bible or they hear and see someone using a bible and over time, they tend to just lose the distinction between the books. That isn't generally taught. What they are taught is that what they see is the historic faith just exactly as it always was, so they accept that.

The distinction in books is generally lost though there was always those who knew about it and their writings give witness to it. What I mean by generally lost is lost to the masses, the uneducated, but the distinction was taught at the universities and such, just such education was only available to a very few.

Now it seems when many people think about it that there is this hard line but that isn't actually how it works or even how people work today. For instance it wouldn't be unusual for someone to quote another person as far as being an authority in teaching or use a book written by that person as an authority, but that doesn't mean they are scripture.

So people build a bunch of asumptions into things and these actually end up being their proofs.

For instance, they might say because someone quoted from a book that's proof it is scripture. Well, isn't that nonsensical, we regularly quote from books as proof or quote authors and that doesn't mean we think they are scripture does it? So we freely practice something and yet pretend that people didn't do it previously.

Or we might say that something is scripture because it's in a bible someplace. Kind of a funny thought when you look at today's bibles isn't it? If that was proof, what do we really see? It would be a mish mash with little or no agreement in the additional books. But very strong agreement concerning the Jewish canon.

There seems to be this teaching that the Septuagint was complete and contained the books in the modern Septuagint at the time of Jesus and then the assumption is that since it is quoted in the New Testament that is proof. Thing is, even our earliest copies which come 300 years later aren't standardized. They contain both more and fewer books. And while there are quotes from the Septuagint, there are also quotes from other sources. My conclusion is that it is part of the mythology of the Septuagint. Which is surrounded in such things. The supernatural nature of its creation, actual claims that it is perfect, and so on. They don't stand up any better to examination than the claims of the King James only people, yet so long and so strong was the Septuagint only crowd that they really did affect the Eastern and even the Western Churches.

Why there are certain books in the Septuagint really almost is a chance happening.

And we see it paralleled in the West with the myth of the perfection of the Vulgate which rose even to the level of church dogma in the Roman Catholic Church.

When did the Cathollic Church finalize their canon? In the 1500's, how about the Orthodox? Really that was in the 1600's. And both were really done in a majority vote type of council where the concern in both cases was a rejection of the Reformation. The Catholics were tripping over their feet to discredit the Lutherans and Calvinists, not to mention the Anabaptists. The Orthodox were in a panic over their Bishop of Constantinople becoming a Calvinist.

In any case, what you see was a difference in how language was used, but not a real difference in usage of the books between Orthodox and what we would call today the mainline Protestants. Both pretty well limited themselves to the narrower canon for doctrine, both used the wider canon for reading and education. If you look a bit through the language you find the practice was really the same.

And even though the Roman Catholic Church has decided one must accept a broader canon (not as broad as the Orthodox by the way) as scripture, if you again look beyond the language, they too really agree in practice. The Roman Catholic Church really doesn't use the Apocryphal books as a source of doctrine, though there are those who now refer to Maccabees to support prayers for the dead. Now isn't that something that in a body of scripture that is close to the size of the New Testament that there isn't any doctrine? The Catholic Church even to this day makes a distinction calling the additonal books the deuterocanonicals.

The reason can really be found even in the Apocrypha. While the Apocryphal books are good and useful for reading because they teach us about the Jews and the context of the life of Jesus we see both that the Jews and the Church has pretty much always agreed with the author of one of the books of Maccabees where he states there is no prophet.

Here's the big question. How can someone who isn't a prophet write scripture in the narrower, God breathed sense? I would say he cannot. And so the church is built on the foundation of the Apostles and Prophets, and while we use other authorities and sources to learn, they never can rise to the level of a foundation like God breathed scripture.

That is my understanding of the historic pretty well universal practice of Christianity. If you start to read a bunch of apologists and such it seems like their purpose is to confuse that.

And it gets difficult to understand with people's segmentation in their minds of the way they do things everyday and the way they thing of church matters in a much more rigid way.

So in summary, my position is that in the Old Testament, we have the Jewish canon, the 22 books which is the same as the 39 books of the Protestant canon. Agreed to by all. Authoritative, God breathed scripture.

And then there is the extended canon, which has often been used for reading in the church and which serves a useful educational function, but which is not used as a source of doctrine. I understand them as historical witnesses, which has really been the overwhelming practice of the church.

That's my take and I'm sure a hundred thousand people could easily jump up and say I am completely wrong and quote all sorts of people to show that, but it's what I've arrived at.

Marv

 

[BigNorsk]

As to why aren't a lot of people concerned with this? How many people really delve into much of anything? Most people aren't very deep thinkers, they simply take things they are told or assume and that becomes what they know.

In the area of religion, many very strongly held beliefs come down to folk religion.

Let's say all the ladies in your church dress a certain way. Well that becomes a very powerful thing to you if you are exposed to that as a child. You might run into someone years later and have an arguement about it. You might say the Bible says they should dress that way and be challenged to find it and you can't, but even if you can't find it, you will probably still believe it's there, just you can't find it.

Or you might believe something that even goes against scripture, you might for instance believe Jesus never drank a drop of alcohol. This despite the fact that he participated in the Jewish passover his whole life, that his first miracle was making wine and so on. Because you grew up in a holiness group that taught against drinking any alcohol, you believe it as if it's true and you might even be one of those that works mightily to come up with explanation to do away with the fact that Jesus drank alcohol at least occassionally.

Every group of Christians has many things that are not the teachings of God but the customs of man. Some strive to maintain that distinction, others do not or even move things from one side to the other in their teachings. As someone who does not just accept what you are told, your life with many of those groups is not an easy one because they will usually give you the folk religion version that thinks things were always that way, and often, the customs of men, since they were often the distinctive things about the group become of greatly exagerated importance.

Most people don't examine those things. And there is somewhat of a tendency for them to become the leaders, since they never question but only accept. Someone who questions the practices of a group is more likely to be driven out rather than to be accepted as a leader, so the tendency is for a group to actually pick the personable, relatively ignorant person as leader.

Marv

 

[bbbbbbb]

Excellent analysis, Marv. Thanks.

 

[Peter]

My own journey into the Orthodox Church has come after years of study. I am a former Calvinist who took my vows of church membership seriously ("Do you promise to study the doctrines of the church?"). And there are literally hundreds, nay thousands, who have taken the same journey. I questioned the teachings and practices of protestantism (including those of the alleged non-denominational thought). I came to the same conclusions as Dr. Jaroslav Pelikan, Professor of Church History at Yale, Peter Gillquist, former Campus Crusade for Christ leader and Dallas Theological Seminary grad, and countless other Christian leaders and pastors. I came home to the Orthodox Church, the One, Holy, Catholic and Apostolic Church.

 

[BigNorsk]

The Testimony Forum is at http://christianforums.com/forumdisplay.php?f=222

 

[Peter]

As to why aren't a lot of people concerned with this? How many people really delve into much of anything? Most people aren't very deep thinkers, they simply take things they are told or assume and that becomes what they know.

You asked!

 

[SummaScriptura]

How Many Books?

Brownie3, someone in this thread said they believe they are following the traditional view of the Church toward the various books of scripture. However, it is a fact that there is not now nor has there ever been a single list of the books of scripture for all Christians. It is my contention the truest way to follow the tradition of the Church universal is through a sythesis of all the books!​

I do not believe the ancient witness of the Church should be discounted. The most ancient communions of faith have preserved a legacy of scripture the value of which should be reconsidered for the whole Church in the 21st century. I believe the books accepted within the traditions of each of the ancient communions of faith should be accorded their place. In this light, "The Bible" in its totality should consist of the books which have been considered scripture by all the ancient communions of the Church. It is the testimony each of the ancient communions of Orthodoxy to the rest of the Church that these books have stood the test of time and have served as a resource for instruction and edification for countless people of God over the long roll of the centuries. Viewed in this way, this discussion should never disintegrate into an evaluation of Roman Catholic vs. Protestant canons as the relevant information pre-dated them both.

Since these books are typically missing from Bibles in the West, it is a fact their value and use in our churches today is often unknown. I believe this is an unfortunate state of affairs; in fact, the rediscovery of these books should be a rich treasure trove of teaching, information and blessing for all God's people throughout the world. If we discover these books are indeed God's gift to His people, we will realize we have been cheated and impoverished by their neglect.

Bibles with Sixty-Six Books
Even though many Christians regard the sixty-six books found in most personal Bibles as a kind of bedrock of scripture, it would be an oversimplification to assume even these sixty-six books have always enjoyed universal acceptance as scripture. If you categorize these sixty-six books by their degree of acceptance you find there are three classes of books: -those whose acceptance was universal, -those whose acceptance was initially doubted by some but their acceptance eventually became universal, and -those which were doubted and whose acceptance became almost universal.

SCRIPTURES RECEIVED WITH UNQUALIFIED ACCEPTANCE ​

Of the sixty-six books contained in most Bibles in the West, fifty-four did not present any obstacles for their universal acceptance. In other words, there is no historical record of debate whether these fifty-four books were to be considered inspired by God.

For the rest of the sixty-six books, twelve in number, there was initially some doubt as to whether they should be included. As we shall see there were a number of ways in which this question was answered.

SCRIPTURES RECEIVED WITH QUALIFIED ACCEPTANCE ​

1. Books which came to have universal acceptance.
Of the 12 books of the biblical corpus for which there was debate, seven were subsequently accepted universally. These books are, Esther, Proverbs, Ecclesiastes, The Song of Songs, Ezekiel, Hebrews and James. Objection was raised to Esther because the Hebrew text contains no mention of the God. Proverbs was doubted because it seemed to contain self-contradictory statements. Ecclesiastes seemed to be too pessimistic about life. The Song of Songs seemed to be to occupied with things carnal. Whether the Book of Ezekiel was actually penned by the prophet Ezekiel was doubted. Hebrews was doubted, it is said, because it was thought not to have been written by Paul. James was slow to be accepted as well. These were ultimately accepted and added to the group of scriptures accepted by all.

2. Books which came to have nearly universal acceptance.
There are an additional five books which today are still not accepted universally. They are 2 Peter, 2 John, 3 John, Jude and The Revelation to John. In the Syrian Orthodox Church these books are referred to as "the five" due to their not having been received by them from early times in the Aramaic language. The fact these epistles can only be found in Greek caused the Syrian Orthodox Church to reject them for nearly 2,000 years. Despite this, it is safe to say, the acceptance of "the five" as inspired scripture has been nearly universal in the Church worldwide.

More than Sixty-Six Books
If you categorize the additional books by their degree of acceptance you find there are three more classes of books: -those whose acceptance is pervasive, -those whose acceptance is somewhat limited, and -those accepted in historic times.​

3. Books which came to have pervasive acceptance.
There is another group of books which had nearly universal acceptance for centuries. The titles of those books are 1 Esdras, Judith, Tobit, 1 Maccabees, 2 Maccabees, Baruch, The Letter of Jeremiah, The Prayer of Manasseh, Wisdom of Jesus ben Sirach, Wisdom of Solomon, Psalms 151, and additional chapters to the books of Esther and Daniel. For more than 1,000 years, these books were accepted by all Christians, though doubts about them were raised and continued to resurface from time to time. This group of Old Testament-era books are different from the rest of the Old Testament in that complete copies of them have survived in Greek rather than Hebrew. From early times, the Church used the Old Testament in Greek called the Septuagint, so little notice was paid to the fact that certain books did not exist in Hebrew. As the need for translations of the Old Testament came about, translators began to seek out the Hebrew texts taking note that certain texts did not exist in Hebrew. Doubts concerning the authenticity of those books that were only available in Greek surfaced from time to time during the history of the Church, but no practical changes occured to the ways in which those books were used in practice in the churches.

In the 16th century, when the split between Roman Catholicism and Protestantism came about in the West this topic became more important in a big way. Without removing these books from the Bible, Protestants diminished their importance, relegating them to an appendix to the Old Testament calling it "The Apocrypha". From that time, gradually, Bible publishers in Europe began to drop The Apocrypha section from printed Bibles until today most printed Bibles in the West do not include these books.

The Eastern Orthodox churches, unaffected by the rift in the West, continued uninterrupted in their acceptance and practical use of these books throughout this time.

4. Books which have been accepted by some.
Another group of Biblical books obtained acceptance in one or more of the ancient communions. These books are 2 Esdras, 3 Maccabees, 4 Maccabees, The Book of Enoch, The Book of Jubilees, Psalms 152-155, Paraleipomena Jeremiou, The Apocalypse of Baruch, 3 Corinthians, and The Shepherd of Hermas. These are books which are currently recognized as scripture in certain churches.

5. Books which had acceptance in historic times.
Additionally, there are books which were accepted in historic times, but were subsequently dropped from the Bible either through changes to canonical lists of books or through the books' having fallen into disuse. Among these books are, The Testaments of the Twelve Patriarchs, Joseph and Asenath, Lives of the Prophets, Psalms of Solomon, 1 Clement, 2 Clement, Epistle of Barnabas and The Didache.

Bob Burns
Southern Baptist
San Francisco