Pope's Take on the Koran?

[chevyontheriver]

Forget Schaff, why not go with Jesus and the divinely inspired apostles?

I do. You quoted Schaff.

 

[crossnote]

I do. You quoted Schaff.

You deflected from what Schaff said to Schaff himself...anyways...you go with the Roman Church and it's Canon, and I'll go with Jesus, the Jews, the Apostles and their Canon. Deal?

 

[chevyontheriver]

You deflected from what Schaff said to Schaff himself...

No. I gave Schaff credit for editing a decent collection of the Church Fathers. A collection that I have spent many many hours reading. But what you quoted Schaff as saying, that I reacted to.

anyways...

Yes, moving on, because what Schaff said is neither here nor there. Not the person I would quote about canonicity. I might instead look to quote Jaroslav Pelikan, particularly his book 'Whose Bible Is It?', Viking, 2005.

you go with the Roman Church and it's Canon, and I'll go with Jesus, the Jews, the Apostles and their Canon. Deal?

I will go with the Catholic Church and it's longstanding canon. No contest. As long as you think you have the canon of Jesus and the Apostles, do what you think is right. As to a Jewish canon, settled some time after Jesus, somehow excluding every Christian book, I would not bind myself to that as at all authoritative.

 

[crossnote]

As to a Jewish canon, settled some time after Jesus, somehow excluding every Christian book, I would not bind myself to that as at all authoritative.

I was referring to the Canon already accepted at the time of Jesus with the addition of the writings of the Jewish Apostles.

 

[chevyontheriver]

I was referring to the Canon already accepted at the time of Jesus with the addition of the writings of the Jewish Apostles.

There was no one Jewish canon accepted at the time of Jesus. For example, the Sadducees only accepted the Torah. Jews in Alexandria used the LXX. Qumran used various books not in other canons. It was open season until the Pharisees closed book well after Jesus, well after most all of the NT had been written.

 

[SolomonVII]

I was referring to the Canon already accepted at the time of Jesus with the addition of the writings of the Jewish Apostles.

At the time of Jesus, the Septuagint was the more widely accepted Holy writings for the Jews as a whole. this is why Paul often quoted from those writings. The Saduccees, who only accepted the Books of Moses, accepted much less than what became the Bible of the Pharisees in the generations following the Cross and the rise of a Christian alternative.

 

[SolomonVII]

What Bible Did Jesus Use? - Genealogy and Jewish Heritage

Jesus and the Apostles studied, memorized, used, quoted, and read most often from the Bible of their day, the Septuagint. Since Matthew wrote primarily to convince the Jews that Jesus of Nazareth was indeed their promised Messiah, it follows as a matter of course that his Gospel is saturated with the Hebrew Scriptures. Yet, when Jesus quotes the Old Testament in Matthew, He uses the Hebrew text only 10% of the time, but the Greek LXX translation 90% of the time!

The MT that Jews eventually settled on, were not the primary text that Jesus referred to when quoting from the Bible.

 

[crossnote]

There was no one Jewish canon accepted at the time of Jesus. For example, the Sadducees only accepted the Torah. Jews in Alexandria used the LXX. Qumran used various books not in other canons. It was open season until the Pharisees closed book well after Jesus, well after most all of the NT had been written.

Nevertheless, neither the apostles nor Jesus quoted from the apocrypha.
Anyways, I'm not fond of debates, my original enquiry was the pope's take on the Koran.

 

[chevyontheriver]

Nevertheless, neither the apostles nor Jesus quoted from the apocrypha.

Just because your Bible does not include the references does not mean the deuterocanon was not quoted. That is a limitation on your particular Bible version more than anything. Scripture Catholic - DEUTEROCANONICAL BOOKS IN THE NEW TESTAMENT

Anyways, I'm not fond of debates, my original enquiry was the pope's take on the Koran.

I would have happily let it go, but you kept debating it.

 

[crossnote]

I would have happily let it go, but you kept debating it.

I believe you took the first shot with this...

"That you are missing a few books is your problem, just like it is a Muslim's problem that they think the Koran is inspired. Some people want to add books and some people want to subtract books. From a Catholic point of view the canon is simply closed."

...after I kindly said I'll stick to the 66, thank you.

 

[chevyontheriver]

I believe you took the first shot with this...

"That you are missing a few books is your problem, just like it is a Muslim's problem that they think the Koran is inspired. Some people want to add books and some people want to subtract books. From a Catholic point of view the canon is simply closed."

...after I kindly said I'll stick to the 66, thank you.

No. It was in post 55 that I wrote

The Koran got it wrong. Dead wrong. Not a reliable guide. If you want the reliable guide, it is the canonical Scriptures, just those 73 books that the Church has ruled being within the covers of the Bible. Nothing in the Koran has been ruled to be within the canon. And the canon is closed, so the Koran will never be included.

This is an absolutely true statement that the Catholic Church has accepted 73 books in the Bible and they have done so for over 1600 years. The Catholic Church has a canon. It excludes the Koran. It includes 73 particular books. And you responded

I'll stick with the 66, thanks.

To which I responded

That you are missing a few books is your problem, (As in not my issue, I don't really care that you have a lighter Bible, not germane to this discussion) just like it is a Muslim's problem that they think the Koran is inspired (as in I don't really care that they think it is inspired and the most perfect book, they're still dead wrong). Some people want to add books and some people want to subtract books (neither cut it with me). From a Catholic point of view the canon is simply closed (as in you won't be very successful changing my mind so please don't even bother to waste my time or yours).

So if you want to say I 'started it' that would have been in post 55. But I stated a fact, that the Catholic Church has a fixed and closed canon of 73 books. You felt the need to make that an issue. We had been talking about the Koran, more or less successfully. Now you seem to be ready to wrap it up, and I approve.

 

[SolomonVII]

The difference between Deuterocanicals and the Koran is that while the Koran explicitly contradicts the person of Christ, according to most normal interpretations of it anyway, the Deuterocanicals do not.

It would be a hard case to make that the Koran does not contradict the Bible- indeed the last 1600 years of Islam have explained this by maintaining that the Bible is a corrupt book-, and the case that the Deuterocanicals contradict the Bible has never been made.

Pope's are diplomats. This is the case since even before Leo the Great confronted Attilla the Hun on the battlefields outside of Rome and saved the city from utter destruction. Many popes, apparently, take the axiom of 'blessed are the peacemakers" seriously.
Many Christians and Catholics do not like the idea that JPII kissed the Koran(he didn't slip it the tongue though). Just as many or even more Christians and Catholics are dismayed by the liberal tendencies of the current appeasing pope.
Be that as it may, the intentions of both are easy enough to read. Pope Frances is not a fifth column monster. He is a liberal. He pictures himself as a peacemaker.
Myself, I prefer blunt, calling a spade a spade. Full scale honesty is the best policy when dealing with terrorists and their books. I think that it is a better policy because signs of weakness only encourage the hooligans into thinking that they have the upper hand.
For Leo, the barbarian did have the upper hand, and that is why he is considered to be the Great. He really pulled peace out of the barrel of a gun. Liberals though, see their appeasements as magnanimity. The criticism of liberalism and liberals like Pope Francis is that appeasement inevitably comes off as a mark of a coward.