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It looks from here that either you've changed your position 180 degrees or you don't understand what Tradition is in the Catholic theological sense of the word.
Well, the historical record is there to be seen. The Apocrypha was dropped from the Canon during the 16th century...early in the Reformation, that is. It continued to be used in the churches and had value, yes, and this may be part of the confusion. However, those books were not considered to be inspired.
My position hasn't changed, I never embraced the idea of Tradition but tradition with a lower case. Canon law, pontiffs, and other human traditions are rightfully rejected but the idea that Scripture stands on its own is oversimplified. Scripture relies on historic traditions to determine what is included/excluded. The only reason the deuterocanon/apocrypha are excluded in protestant Bibles is because the Jewish canon rejected them so they were not found in the Masoretic texts. It is, essentially, based on the testimony of 1st century jews who rejected Christ.
Okay. That leaves open some possible issues, but okay.
I think I was saying much the same when I commented that, at some point, we have to accept the beliefs of the Church Universal through the ages or else we can just drop the whole thing and substitute a story about golden plates or the utterances of some recent person whose followers consider him or her to be a prophet.
I think THAT is an oversimplification. But I've already addressed the point.
"Early in the reformation" is the 14th century. The 16th century is the late reformation.
That's fair enough, but it enters into more than simply the dictates of the "church universal," which itself requires appeal to tradition(after all, are the Montanists, Donatists, or Arians part of the "church universal" or not? How do we distinguish the church?) God's vested authority isn't just in Scripture, that is simply the most readily distinguishable.
I'm going by the normal, historical way of dating the Reformation as opposed to including the various forerunners of the Reformation.
Removed from the list of Bible books.
Calvin aside, they were dropped by the Lutheran, Anglican, Anabaptist, and other reformed movements.
This isn't quite accurate, they were included in the books they were simply relegated to appendices. They weren't excluded from Bibles entirely until they had fallen into complete disuse due to their relegation so the cost of printing outweighed the perceived value of inclusion.
What list? They were in the Bible until "recently".
Luther put them in his Bible translation and they were not dropped by any European reformation movements. These books were slowly loosing authority until removed from the most Bible print in the 19th century. And the 19th century is long after the reformation.
They may have been under the same cover with the Bible books, although I don't know of any publisher doing that recently, but they were excluded from the Holy Scriptures early in the Reformation because they were not considered to be inspired.
Yes, they were, although I think you are not likely to get that history correct until you give it more study.
Still, what list are you talking about they were removed from? And when? The reason that some English Bible society thought the print will be cheaper without those books does not seem to be relevant for reformation.
Maybe you are talking about English/USA (post)reformation, I am talking about European ( France, Switzerland, Holy Roman Empire, Poland...).
Well, all those groups had a history and adherents, so if tradition is what matters, they should be included. OF course, they have not been, so it's the decision-making of the whole church that settled this, and if we don't give it any importance, what else goes into the trash as well?
The Apocrypha was deemed by the Reformers to not be inspired, hence not part of Holy Scripture. Shortly afterwards, the Roman Catholic Church removed some of these books from their canon as well. This does not mean, in either case, that these writings are of no value, but they aren't considered to be the word of God.
All the Anglican statements, for example, including the Thirty-nine Articles of Religion, make what I'm telling you absolutely and unmistakably clear. And the Lutheran position is very similar--important to read for instruction in certain things, but not to be considered as Holy Scripture.
Actually, apocrypha was deemed by the Reformers to be inspired. You can read Calvin's works, works of for example Bohemian reformers. I am not sure about Luther, I have read only two books from him, so maybe.
I am talking about European (France, Switzerland, Holy Roman Empire, Poland...) reformation. England was always a foreign country to Europe, just some border wars with France. So Anglican statements had no influence. Helvetic confessions, Augsburg confession or Heidelberg catechism were more in use.
Can you name few outside of Britain/America? Also, is there an equation between canonical and inspired?
