The Cannon of Scripture as we may or may not know it...

[Bible Highlighter]

While it is easier to concentrate on one's path with blinders on, it is also very easy to miss one's destination. You can not know where you are going if you don't know where you are coming from. Do you use a GPS? It does not just know where you are, it has to calculate where you are based on triangulation with satellites (an external source); once it has done that, then it can direct you to where you want to go. 3 satellites are OK but it can be hit or miss; 12 satellites, and you are within inches.

Regarding the NT; certainly those books that are positively attributable to the Apostles, should take precedence over the others. Historically they have; why is now different than the last 2000 years?

Well the Bible is not like a piece of technology. Again, check out the link I provided. It will explain what I am talking about.

 

[JackRT]

And I'd argue that the relationship between Jesus and the Pharisees was more complex than just being "opponents."

And I am not sure at all that that the Pharisees actually deserve most of their "Biblical bad press".

 

[JM]

I'm a 66 book guy but read widely and found it a great help to read the apocrypha and other books such as Enoch (best edition 1, 2 & 3), the Psalms and Odes of Solomon, Dead Sea Scrolls, etc. They are not inspired but do add context to the thinking of the early church, they way they wrote, what they beleived and what influenced them. I like a wider canon for reading and research but still to the 66 for doctrine and dogma.

Yours in the Lord,

jm

 

[hedrick]

I'm not so sure that Trent was entirely responsible for removing the distinction among books. Protestants, at least in many traditions, take a different approach to Scripture. The traditional doctrine of inspiration says that all statements in all canonical books are equally inspired, and you have to believe all of it. You can point to a statement in Jude, and a Protestant (once they figure out what it means) is supposed to believe it. With Catholics, they get filtered through Tradition, which can then prioritize various teachings.

So for Catholics to include a book like Jude in the canon isn't quite as significant as for a traditional Protestant to do so, because Catholics have more flexibility in deciding how to use it than Protestants do. I think the traditional Protestant concept of inspiration is at least as significant as Trent in removing distinctions among books.

While I don't filter interpretations through Tradition, I also don't think every statement in the canonical books has to be taken equally. So I accept that some of the NT books aren't by the stated authors and others are debatable, but I don't think we need to adjust the canon as our knowledge about authorship changes.

 

[AlexDTX]

From a link within the link you provided below:

Antilegomena

Antilegomena, a direct transliteration of the Greek ἀντιλεγόμενα, refers to written texts whose authenticity or value is disputed.[1]

Eusebius in his Church History (c. 325) used the term for those Christian scriptures that were "disputed," literally "spoken against," in Early Christianity before the closure of the New Testament canon. It is a matter of categorical discussion whether Eusebius divides his books into three groups of homologoumena ("accepted"), antilegomena, and 'heretical'; or four, by adding a notha ("spurious") group. The antilegomena or "disputed writings" were widely read in the Early Church and included the Epistle of James, the Epistle of Jude, 2 Peter, 2 and 3 John, the Book of Revelation, the Gospel of the Hebrews, the Epistle to the Hebrews, the Apocalypse of Peter, the Acts of Paul, the Shepherd of Hermas, the Epistle of Barnabas and the Didache.[2][3] The term "disputed" should therefore not be misunderstood to mean "false" or "heretical." There was disagreement in the Early Church on whether or not the respective texts deserved canonical status.​

As understood by theologians; that definition is wrong. BTW, I got mine from Wiki as well, but I checked a bunch of others, and all were in agreement with the one I posted.

OK

 

[JM]

I'm not so sure that Trent was entirely responsible for removing the distinction among books. Protestants, at least in many traditions, take a different approach to Scripture. The traditional doctrine of inspiration says that all statements in all canonical books are equally inspired, and you have to believe all of it. You can point to a statement in Jude, and a Protestant (once they figure out what it means) is supposed to believe it. With Catholics, they get filtered through Tradition, which can then prioritize various teachings.

So for Catholics to include a book like Jude in the canon isn't quite as significant as for a traditional Protestant to do so, because Catholics have more flexibility in deciding how to use it than Protestants do. I think the traditional Protestant concept of inspiration is at least as significant as Trent in removing distinctions among books.

While I don't filter interpretations through Tradition, I also don't think every statement in the canonical books has to be taken equally. So I accept that some of the NT books aren't by the stated authors and others are debatable, but I don't think we need to adjust the canon as our knowledge about authorship changes.

True. Didn't Jerome divide the canon?

 

[Tigger45]

BTW, if I don't reply for a while, I am going to be away fishing for a few days; not for men (although that may happen) but just for Muskie, Pike, Pickerel, Bass and Perch. LOL

I don’t know but I have known a few guys who’d fit those names

 

[Paidiske]

Another point to be taken from this discussion and the history of the Bible is that until Trent, the view of Homo- vs. Anti- was universally held in the Church.

I'm not sure this is quite accurate. For example we see from the Council of Carthage in 397:
"16 It was also determined that besides the Canonical Scriptures nothing be read in the Church under the title of divine Scriptures. The Canonical Scriptures are these: Genesis, Exodus, Leviticus, Numbers, Deuteronomy, Joshua the son of Nun, Judges, Ruth, four books of Kings, two books of Paraleipomena, Job, the Psalter, five books of Solomon, the books of the twelve prophets, Isaiah, Jeremiah, Ezechiel, Daniel, Tobit, Judith, Esther, two books of Esdras, two Books of the Maccabees.

17 Of the New Testament: four books of the Gospels, one book of the Acts of the Apostles, thirteen Epistles of the Apostle Paul, one epistle of the same [writer] to the Hebrews, two Epistles of the Apostle Peter, three of John, one of James, one of Jude, one book of the Apocalypse of John."

There is no sense here of distinctions or levels of canonicity in Scripture.
"

 

[MarkRohfrietsch]

True. Didn't Jerome divide the canon?

Yes, you are correct. Liturgically, Latin remained in active use in some Lutheran parishes as late as the mid 1600s and sporadic usage much later. In those parishes, St. Jerome's Vulgate (from vulgar i.e. common language) remained the Lutheran Bible. Our Choir does bits of Latin from time to time to this day. Most recent was Maundy Thursday with Mozart's "Ave Verum Corpus".

 

[MarkRohfrietsch]

I'm not sure this is quite accurate. For example we see from the Council of Carthage in 397:
"16 It was also determined that besides the Canonical Scriptures nothing be read in the Church under the title of divine Scriptures. The Canonical Scriptures are these: Genesis, Exodus, Leviticus, Numbers, Deuteronomy, Joshua the son of Nun, Judges, Ruth, four books of Kings, two books of Paraleipomena, Job, the Psalter, five books of Solomon, the books of the twelve prophets, Isaiah, Jeremiah, Ezechiel, Daniel, Tobit, Judith, Esther, two books of Esdras, two Books of the Maccabees.

17 Of the New Testament: four books of the Gospels, one book of the Acts of the Apostles, thirteen Epistles of the Apostle Paul, one epistle of the same [writer] to the Hebrews, two Epistles of the Apostle Peter, three of John, one of James, one of Jude, one book of the Apocalypse of John."

There is no sense here of distinctions or levels of canonicity in Scripture.
"

You are correct; however the councils of Carthage were local to the African Churches, not part of the Seven Ecumenical councils as they are know.

Antilegomena, a direct transliteration of the Greek ἀντιλεγόμενα, refers to written texts whose authenticity or value is disputed. ...among these Churches, these were not disputed. I believe that such remains the case in the Ethiopian Church.

 

[Paidiske]

You are correct; however the councils of Carthage were local to the African Churches, not part of the Seven Ecumenical councils as they are know.

And yet the councils of Carthage are generally considered to be the point at which the Scriptures (as such) were defined for the Church.

And even if that isn't accepted by Lutherans, the fact that they took this view shows that making distinctions in Scripture was not a universal practice (which was your claim).

 

[dzheremi]

You are correct; however the councils of Carthage were local to the African Churches, not part of the Seven Ecumenical councils as they are know.

Antilegomena, a direct transliteration of the Greek ἀντιλεγόμενα, refers to written texts whose authenticity or value is disputed. ...among these Churches, these were not disputed. I believe that such remains the case in the Ethiopian Church.

I'm not an Ethiopian, but since they were mentioned here and they are the daughter Church of the Coptic Orthodox Church of Alexandria of which I am a member, I feel confident in presenting this from an Ethiopian Orthodox Tewahedo website, which explains their unique canon to some degree:

The Holy Scriptures are one of the two great foundations of the faith and here is what our church holds and teaches concerning it. The word of God is not contained in the Bible alone, it is to be found in tradition as well. The Sacred Scriptures are the written word of God who is the author of the Old and New Testaments containing nothing but perfect truth in faith and morals. But God’s word is not contained only in them, there is an unwritten word of God also, which we call apostolic tradition. We receive the one and other with equal veneration.

The canon of the Ethiopic Bible differs both in the Old and New Testament from that of any other churches.

List all books. As a whole, books written in the Geez language and on parchment are numerous. The Ethiopian Orthodox Church has 46 books of the Old Testament and 35 books of the New Testament that will bring the total of canonized books of the Bible to 81.

These are the following

A. The Holy Books of the Old Testament

1. Genesis
2. Exodus
3. Leviticus
4. Numbers
5. Deuteronomy
6. Joshua
7. Judges
8. Ruth
9. I and II Samuel
10. I and II Kings
11. I Chronicles
12. II Chronicles
13. Jublee
14. Enoch
15. Ezra and Nehemia
16. Ezra (2nd) and Ezra Sutuel
17. Tobit
18. Judith
19. Esther
20. I Maccabees
21. II and III Maccabees
22. Job
23. Psalms
24. Proverbs
25. Tegsats (Reproof)
26. Metsihafe Tibeb (the books of wisdom)
27. Ecclesiastes
28. The Song of Songs
29. Isaiah
30. Jeremiah
31. Ezekiel
32. Daniel
33. Hosea
34. Amos
35. Micah
36. Joel
37. Obadiah
38. Jonah
39. Nahum
40. Habakkuk
41. Zephaniah
42. Haggai
43. Zechariah
44. Malachi
45. Book of Joshua the son of Sirac
46. The Book of Josephas the Son of Bengorion

B. The holy books of the New Testament

1. Matthew
2. Mark
3. Luke
4. John
5. The Acts
6. Romans
7. I Corinthians
8. II Corinthians
9. Galatians
10. Ephesians
11. Philippians
12. Colossians
13. I Thessalonians
14. II Thessalonians
15. I Timothy
16. II Timothy
17. Titus
18. Philemon
19. Hebrews
20. I Peter
21. II Peter
22. I John
23. II John
24. III John
25. James
26. Jude
27. Revelation
28. Sirate Tsion (the book of order)
29. Tizaz (the book of Herald)
30. Gitsew
31. Abtilis
32. The I book of Dominos
33. The II book of Dominos
34. The book of Clement
35. Didascalia


The Ethiopic version of the Old and New Testament was made from the Septuagint. It includes the book of Enoch, Baruch, and the third and fourth Esdras. In the international Bible studies there are certain books belonging to the class usually designated pseudepigraphic. The whole Christendom and whole-learned world owes a debt of gratitude to the church of Ethiopia for the preservation of those documents.

Among these books is the book of Enoch which throws so much light on Jewish thought on various points during the centuries immediately preceding the Christian era. The book of Jubilee (Kufale, i.e. Division) otherwise known as the Little Genesis has also been preserved entire only in the Ethiopic version. The preservation of yet one more book in its entity, namely, the Ascension of Isaiah, is to be remembered to the credit of the Ethiopic Church.​

It should be noted that the Axumite Church (modern day Ethiopia and Eritrea) received the scriptures in a pre-canonized state (that is to say, pre-39th festal letter of HH St. Athanasius the Apostolic, 367 AD), just as all the ancient churches did. So the concept of what the canon even is is a bit different, I suspect, because they had local books (i.e., Ethiopic translations of works that have otherwise been lost, as the website says) that made it in precisely because of their value to the Ethiopian Orthodox Tewahedo Church in particular (nobody else was reading Ge'ez, the language of the court and the Church at the time). And the Coptic Orthodox Church, which is the first Church of Africa and the mother of the Tewahedo Orthodox churches in East Africa (dating back to the time of HH St. Athanasius the Apostolic, who sent the first bishops to Axum after the death of St. Frumentius, the Syro-Greek Phoenician who converted King 'Ezana), has obviously never cared to institute some kind of inorganic uniformity upon the Ethiopians and Eritreans.

And since Protestantism happened in the West, not the 'Orient' (ugh), there was technically never a closing of the canon among any Oriental Orthodox that I am aware of. This is simply not an issue, just as there is no division into this or that (though there are plenty of books that are not in the canon that are still beneficial to read which may be divided this or that way, as per the website's lists). I don't know about Ethiopians, but I suspect the Copts only learned the term 'apocryphal' in English rather recently, from westerners. We call Bright Saturday of the Holy Week 'Apocalypse Night' (Copto-Arabic Abu Ghalimsees, from the Greek Apokalypsis) because that is when the Apocalypse of St. John (a.k.a. Revelation) is read in its entirety in our Church. So we know 'Apocalypse' but connect it to that specific book and that specific rite, not to some division of the Bible into this type and that type of writing.

If it's in the canon of whatever autocephalous church, it's considered a done deal. And besides, for the majority of Christian history the Biblical text was encountered orally/aurally, because literacy was low and anyway the text was publicly recited (and still is, in Eastern/Oriental Christianity). It wasn't a thing to sit around and argue about, once the canon had been promulgated (whether from Alexandria, as it first was, or later from Carthage, etc). Such fights did eventually happen later on (e.g., the Syriac Pešitta did not contain Revelation originally; I think that was only added later in the Harqelian version, 616 AD), but in a completely different context than the one in which the Protestant reformers and the Roman Catholic Church would find themselves in almost a thousand years later. So you may call them 'apocrypha', but to us they're just the Bible.

 

[MarkRohfrietsch]

I'm not an Ethiopian, but since they were mentioned here and they are the daughter Church of the Coptic Orthodox Church of Alexandria of which I am a member, I feel confident in presenting this from an Ethiopian Orthodox Tewahedo website, which explains their unique canon to some degree:

The Holy Scriptures are one of the two great foundations of the faith and here is what our church holds and teaches concerning it. The word of God is not contained in the Bible alone, it is to be found in tradition as well. The Sacred Scriptures are the written word of God who is the author of the Old and New Testaments containing nothing but perfect truth in faith and morals. But God’s word is not contained only in them, there is an unwritten word of God also, which we call apostolic tradition. We receive the one and other with equal veneration.

The canon of the Ethiopic Bible differs both in the Old and New Testament from that of any other churches.

List all books. As a whole, books written in the Geez language and on parchment are numerous. The Ethiopian Orthodox Church has 46 books of the Old Testament and 35 books of the New Testament that will bring the total of canonized books of the Bible to 81.

These are the following

A. The Holy Books of the Old Testament

1. Genesis
2. Exodus
3. Leviticus
4. Numbers
5. Deuteronomy
6. Joshua
7. Judges
8. Ruth
9. I and II Samuel
10. I and II Kings
11. I Chronicles
12. II Chronicles
13. Jublee
14. Enoch
15. Ezra and Nehemia
16. Ezra (2nd) and Ezra Sutuel
17. Tobit
18. Judith
19. Esther
20. I Maccabees
21. II and III Maccabees
22. Job
23. Psalms
24. Proverbs
25. Tegsats (Reproof)
26. Metsihafe Tibeb (the books of wisdom)
27. Ecclesiastes
28. The Song of Songs
29. Isaiah
30. Jeremiah
31. Ezekiel
32. Daniel
33. Hosea
34. Amos
35. Micah
36. Joel
37. Obadiah
38. Jonah
39. Nahum
40. Habakkuk
41. Zephaniah
42. Haggai
43. Zechariah
44. Malachi
45. Book of Joshua the son of Sirac
46. The Book of Josephas the Son of Bengorion

B. The holy books of the New Testament

1. Matthew
2. Mark
3. Luke
4. John
5. The Acts
6. Romans
7. I Corinthians
8. II Corinthians
9. Galatians
10. Ephesians
11. Philippians
12. Colossians
13. I Thessalonians
14. II Thessalonians
15. I Timothy
16. II Timothy
17. Titus
18. Philemon
19. Hebrews
20. I Peter
21. II Peter
22. I John
23. II John
24. III John
25. James
26. Jude
27. Revelation
28. Sirate Tsion (the book of order)
29. Tizaz (the book of Herald)
30. Gitsew
31. Abtilis
32. The I book of Dominos
33. The II book of Dominos
34. The book of Clement
35. Didascalia


The Ethiopic version of the Old and New Testament was made from the Septuagint. It includes the book of Enoch, Baruch, and the third and fourth Esdras. In the international Bible studies there are certain books belonging to the class usually designated pseudepigraphic. The whole Christendom and whole-learned world owes a debt of gratitude to the church of Ethiopia for the preservation of those documents.

Among these books is the book of Enoch which throws so much light on Jewish thought on various points during the centuries immediately preceding the Christian era. The book of Jubilee (Kufale, i.e. Division) otherwise known as the Little Genesis has also been preserved entire only in the Ethiopic version. The preservation of yet one more book in its entity, namely, the Ascension of Isaiah, is to be remembered to the credit of the Ethiopic Church.​

It should be noted that the Axumite Church (modern day Ethiopia and Eritrea) received the scriptures in a pre-canonized state (that is to say, pre-39th festal letter of HH St. Athanasius the Apostolic, 367 AD), just as all the ancient churches did. So the concept of what the canon even is is a bit different, I suspect, because they had local books (i.e., Ethiopic translations of works that have otherwise been lost, as the website says) that made it in precisely because of their value to the Ethiopian Orthodox Tewahedo Church in particular (nobody else was reading Ge'ez, the language of the court and the Church at the time). And the Coptic Orthodox Church, which is the first Church of Africa and the mother of the Tewahedo Orthodox churches in East Africa (dating back to the time of HH St. Athanasius the Apostolic, who sent the first bishops to Axum after the death of St. Frumentius, the Syro-Greek Phoenician who converted King 'Ezana), has obviously never cared to institute some kind of inorganic uniformity upon the Ethiopians and Eritreans.

And since Protestantism happened in the West, not the 'Orient' (ugh), there was technically never a closing of the canon among any Oriental Orthodox that I am aware of. This is simply not an issue, just as there is no division into this or that (though there are plenty of books that are not in the canon that are still beneficial to read which may be divided this or that way, as per the website's lists). I don't know about Ethiopians, but I suspect the Copts only learned the term 'apocryphal' in English rather recently, from westerners. We call Bright Saturday of the Holy Week 'Apocalypse Night' (Copto-Arabic Abu Ghalimsees, from the Greek Apokalypsis) because that is when the Apocalypse of St. John (a.k.a. Revelation) is read in its entirety in our Church. So we know 'Apocalypse' but connect it to that specific book and that specific rite, not to some division of the Bible into this type and that type of writing.

If it's in the canon of whatever autocephalous church, it's considered a done deal. And besides, for the majority of Christian history the Biblical text was encountered orally/aurally, because literacy was low and anyway the text was publicly recited (and still is, in Eastern/Oriental Christianity). It wasn't a thing to sit around and argue about, once the canon had been promulgated (whether from Alexandria, as it first was, or later from Carthage, etc). Such fights did eventually happen later on (e.g., the Syriac Pešitta did not contain Revelation originally; I think that was only added later in the Harqelian version, 616 AD), but in a completely different context than the one in which the Protestant reformers and the Roman Catholic Church would find themselves in almost a thousand years later. So you may call them 'apocrypha', but to us they're just the Bible.

Thanks for the insight!

 

[CaliforniaJosiah]

Homologoumena and Antilegomena

Our Pastor is running two Bible Studies this fall, one on the Revelation, and one on the Apocrypha. It is interesting to note from an historic perspective that until the Council of Trent, there were a group of Books that were universally accepted by the whole of Christendom, and another group that while often included in Bibles, were not. In our Lutheran Tradition, we have maintained the traditional pre-Trent view, and as a result, we hold the Apocryphal books to the same level as we hold Revelation. Since Trent the Catholic Church has closed the Bible, and as a result they have excluded some books that had been included in Catholic and Orthodox Bibles since the first century. Interesting that the Concordia edition of the Apocrypha has some books in it that Catholic Bibles no longer do. Like Revelation, we don't look to these books as a source of doctrine; but they and the other Antilegomena books in all our Bibles are used to support doctrine, and give the rest of the Bible context.

How many others here have heard of or understand this distinction?

Anyway, I am enjoying our studies this year a great deal!

Mark, respectfully, I disagree with you.

The Lutheran Church does not officially state which books ARE and ARE NOT Scripture (canon), nor which are Homologoumena and which Antilegomena. It is stunning, and I'm sure it's not simply neglect, but the Lutheran Confessions say NOTHING to this. They speak of "the canonical books" but never state which books those are. TRUE, some of the 300+ Lutheran denominations have listed books that singular group regards as canonical (but never which ones they do not) but that is a statement of that one group, not of Lutheranism.

Apocrypha

When Luther prepared his German translation (a function of one man, not of Lutheranism), he choose to include the books typically used in German tomes (which the exception of the Epistle to the Leodiceans, which he left out). This included several books that the Anglican Church would later call "Apocrypha" - indeed, one MORE than had been mentioned by the RCC at Florence and later would be at Trent (so Luther's tome has one MORE book in it than modern Catholic tomes, contrary to what many Catholics will tell you). BUT Luther expressed his OWN, PERSONAL, INDIVIDUAL, OPINION that these books were useful for information and inspiration but not as a norm or source for doctrine (not "canon" - a "canon" is a rule or measuring stick used to determine if something "measures up", a rule in the sense of ruler or as in the "rule" of Law). It should be noted this was the rather common, popular view at the time, nothing new or controversal about this stance at the time. BUT unlike the Anglican Church that would officially formally embrace this..... or the Reformed that would officially and formally reject them completely, Lutheranism has NEVER taken ANY official formal stance, nonetheless, until about 100 years ago, Luther's own personal, individual OPINION was common and popular in Lutheranism. In the past century or so, Lutherans (at least outside Europe) have largely neglected them. The LCMS and WELS don't include any readings from "them" in the lectionary (the ELCA often still does) although the LCMS recently published Luther's "list" as an appendix to the Lutheran Study BIble and CPH developed a study of "them." But again, Lutheranism has no formal stance on them; LUTHER had a personal, individual, OPINION (largely that of Anglicanism although for fewer books) but Lutheranism never has offically endorsed his view (although in practice, it was common until the last century or so).

BTW, there is no ecumentical "list" of the Apocrypha or Deuterocanonical books. The Eastern and Oriental Orthodox churches have several different "sets" of them, The post-Trent Catholic Church yet another, the Anglican Communion yet another. I know of no two denominations that have the same "set." It makes for a difficult discussion since there is no agreement on what "they" are, "which" books we're actually talking about. There has never been any agreement on this.

Homologoumena and Antilegomena

This distinction was important up to and through the Reformation. It ONLY means that theologians did NOT regard all books (66 or whatever number) as EQUALLY canonical (it's one "n" by the way, Mark; "cannon" is a gun). The Epistles of Paul, the 4 Gospels with Acts, First Peter, First John... they were given a higher status from earliest times. Hebrews, James, 2 Peter, Revelation of John were given less status; a verse from Romans might seem to be inconsistent with something in James but the Romans verse would be given more attention because Romans was homologoumena. Luther spoke this way. BUT this distinction collasped in the 16th Century. The Reformed, Anglican and the Catholic Church all in the 16th century officially listed books as "canonical" (norma normans) and clearly meant no distinction - so this Homologoumena and Antilegomena distinction simply faded away; canonical = canonical. Even Lutherans stopped speaking this way. If you study the formation of the Bible, you'll see how this played a major role but once that formation was codified in the 16th Century, it ceased to be an issue. Occasionally, a biblical scholar will apply it by subjecting the understanding of one book to another, but FAR more common is a biblical scholar speaking speaking of the broad "context" of the verse, or perhaps "Scripture interprets Scripture."


Sorry for sticking my nose into this. As you know, I very rarely post here anymore (and you are one of the few that know exactly why). I've moved to a different site (you know which). But I HOPE this is accepted in the spirit intended.


Blessings


- Josiah


.

 

[tz620q]

Homologoumena and Antilegomena

This distinction was important up to and through the Reformation. It ONLY means that theologians did NOT regard all books (66 or whatever number) as EQUALLY canonical (it's one "n" by the way, Mark; "cannon" is a gun). The Epistles of Paul, the 4 Gospels with Acts, First Peter, First John... they were given a higher status from earliest times. Hebrews, James, 2 Peter, Revelation of John were given less status; a verse from Romans might seem to be inconsistent with something in James but the Romans verse would be given more attention because Romans was homologoumena. Luther spoke this way. BUT this distinction collasped in the 16th Century. The Reformed, Anglican and the Catholic Church all in the 16th century officially listed books as "canonical" (norma normans) and clearly meant no distinction - so this Homologoumena and Antilegomena distinction simply faded away; canonical = canonical. Even Lutherans stopped speaking this way. If you study the formation of the Bible, you'll see how this played a major role but once that formation was codified in the 16th Century, it ceased to be an issue. Occasionally, a biblical scholar will apply it by subjecting the understanding of one book to another, but FAR more common is a biblical scholar speaking speaking of the broad "context" of the verse, or perhaps "Scripture interprets Scripture."
.

I suddenly got an image of a bacteria going through asexual reproduction as a visual metaphor for the Reformation. One body starts to shudder and pull apart until it splits and becomes two bodies that slowly drift further from each other.

I agree with you on the calcification of the canon. One study that showed me this was in looking into Athanasius' Festal Letter of 367. It is often used as a statement of canon; but though Athanasius was a bishop at the time and it did state a canon, at best it could only describe his canon and if read in context was only stated in the letter in reaction to various astrology books that were being sold using Gospel names and masquerading as Christian books. Soon after writing this Festal Letter, Athanasius was forced into exile again and retreated to what is current day Ethiopia. There he would have been around Coptic Christians who have the largest "canon" currently. Yet he did not condemn their canon in any way.

 

[The Liturgist]

Homologoumena and Antilegomena

Our Pastor is running two Bible Studies this fall, one on the Revelation, and one on the Apocrypha. It is interesting to note from an historic perspective that until the Council of Trent, there were a group of Books that were universally accepted by the whole of Christendom, and another group that while often included in Bibles, were not. In our Lutheran Tradition, we have maintained the traditional pre-Trent view, and as a result, we hold the Apocryphal books to the same level as we hold Revelation. Since Trent the Catholic Church has closed the Bible, and as a result they have excluded some books that had been included in Catholic and Orthodox Bibles since the first century. Interesting that the Concordia edition of the Apocrypha has some books in it that Catholic Bibles no longer do. Like Revelation, we don't look to these books as a source of doctrine; but they and the other Antilegomena books in all our Bibles are used to support doctrine, and give the rest of the Bible context.

How many others here have heard of or understand this distinction?

Anyway, I am enjoying our studies this year a great deal!

But you do know Revelation was declared canonical by Athanasius in the 360s, and by Pope Gelasius in the 480s?

Trent merely canonized the deuterocanon.

 

[The Liturgist]

As do many Bible Scholars in many Christian traditions (they just don't talk about it much) again due to authorship or conflicting contents compared to books that are "Homologoumena". The Catholic Church held this view until the Council of Trent; now their view is that all books are equal in their Canon, and their Canon is closed. Ours is not defined in our Confessions or the the constitutions of our Synods.

Do you have a list of books, like, for instance, the Gnostic literature, that you absolutely reject? Because the LCMS strikes me as being one of the best churches in America, one of my favorites, and I would think if any of your pastors dared read from The Gospel According to Philip, or the Acts of Thomas, the congregation would storm out!

Now the ELCA on the other hand is sadly something else. Ever heard of Herchurch?

 

[The Liturgist]

I'm not an Ethiopian, but since they were mentioned here and they are the daughter Church of the Coptic Orthodox Church of Alexandria of which I am a member, I feel confident in presenting this from an Ethiopian Orthodox Tewahedo website, which explains their unique canon to some degree:

The Holy Scriptures are one of the two great foundations of the faith and here is what our church holds and teaches concerning it. The word of God is not contained in the Bible alone, it is to be found in tradition as well. The Sacred Scriptures are the written word of God who is the author of the Old and New Testaments containing nothing but perfect truth in faith and morals. But God’s word is not contained only in them, there is an unwritten word of God also, which we call apostolic tradition. We receive the one and other with equal veneration.

The canon of the Ethiopic Bible differs both in the Old and New Testament from that of any other churches.

List all books. As a whole, books written in the Geez language and on parchment are numerous. The Ethiopian Orthodox Church has 46 books of the Old Testament and 35 books of the New Testament that will bring the total of canonized books of the Bible to 81.

These are the following

A. The Holy Books of the Old Testament

1. Genesis
2. Exodus
3. Leviticus
4. Numbers
5. Deuteronomy
6. Joshua
7. Judges
8. Ruth
9. I and II Samuel
10. I and II Kings
11. I Chronicles
12. II Chronicles
13. Jublee
14. Enoch
15. Ezra and Nehemia
16. Ezra (2nd) and Ezra Sutuel
17. Tobit
18. Judith
19. Esther
20. I Maccabees
21. II and III Maccabees
22. Job
23. Psalms
24. Proverbs
25. Tegsats (Reproof)
26. Metsihafe Tibeb (the books of wisdom)
27. Ecclesiastes
28. The Song of Songs
29. Isaiah
30. Jeremiah
31. Ezekiel
32. Daniel
33. Hosea
34. Amos
35. Micah
36. Joel
37. Obadiah
38. Jonah
39. Nahum
40. Habakkuk
41. Zephaniah
42. Haggai
43. Zechariah
44. Malachi
45. Book of Joshua the son of Sirac
46. The Book of Josephas the Son of Bengorion

B. The holy books of the New Testament

1. Matthew
2. Mark
3. Luke
4. John
5. The Acts
6. Romans
7. I Corinthians
8. II Corinthians
9. Galatians
10. Ephesians
11. Philippians
12. Colossians
13. I Thessalonians
14. II Thessalonians
15. I Timothy
16. II Timothy
17. Titus
18. Philemon
19. Hebrews
20. I Peter
21. II Peter
22. I John
23. II John
24. III John
25. James
26. Jude
27. Revelation
28. Sirate Tsion (the book of order)
29. Tizaz (the book of Herald)
30. Gitsew
31. Abtilis
32. The I book of Dominos
33. The II book of Dominos
34. The book of Clement
35. Didascalia


The Ethiopic version of the Old and New Testament was made from the Septuagint. It includes the book of Enoch, Baruch, and the third and fourth Esdras. In the international Bible studies there are certain books belonging to the class usually designated pseudepigraphic. The whole Christendom and whole-learned world owes a debt of gratitude to the church of Ethiopia for the preservation of those documents.

Among these books is the book of Enoch which throws so much light on Jewish thought on various points during the centuries immediately preceding the Christian era. The book of Jubilee (Kufale, i.e. Division) otherwise known as the Little Genesis has also been preserved entire only in the Ethiopic version. The preservation of yet one more book in its entity, namely, the Ascension of Isaiah, is to be remembered to the credit of the Ethiopic Church.​

It should be noted that the Axumite Church (modern day Ethiopia and Eritrea) received the scriptures in a pre-canonized state (that is to say, pre-39th festal letter of HH St. Athanasius the Apostolic, 367 AD), just as all the ancient churches did. So the concept of what the canon even is is a bit different, I suspect, because they had local books (i.e., Ethiopic translations of works that have otherwise been lost, as the website says) that made it in precisely because of their value to the Ethiopian Orthodox Tewahedo Church in particular (nobody else was reading Ge'ez, the language of the court and the Church at the time). And the Coptic Orthodox Church, which is the first Church of Africa and the mother of the Tewahedo Orthodox churches in East Africa (dating back to the time of HH St. Athanasius the Apostolic, who sent the first bishops to Axum after the death of St. Frumentius, the Syro-Greek Phoenician who converted King 'Ezana), has obviously never cared to institute some kind of inorganic uniformity upon the Ethiopians and Eritreans.

And since Protestantism happened in the West, not the 'Orient' (ugh), there was technically never a closing of the canon among any Oriental Orthodox that I am aware of. This is simply not an issue, just as there is no division into this or that (though there are plenty of books that are not in the canon that are still beneficial to read which may be divided this or that way, as per the website's lists). I don't know about Ethiopians, but I suspect the Copts only learned the term 'apocryphal' in English rather recently, from westerners. We call Bright Saturday of the Holy Week 'Apocalypse Night' (Copto-Arabic Abu Ghalimsees, from the Greek Apokalypsis) because that is when the Apocalypse of St. John (a.k.a. Revelation) is read in its entirety in our Church. So we know 'Apocalypse' but connect it to that specific book and that specific rite, not to some division of the Bible into this type and that type of writing.

If it's in the canon of whatever autocephalous church, it's considered a done deal. And besides, for the majority of Christian history the Biblical text was encountered orally/aurally, because literacy was low and anyway the text was publicly recited (and still is, in Eastern/Oriental Christianity). It wasn't a thing to sit around and argue about, once the canon had been promulgated (whether from Alexandria, as it first was, or later from Carthage, etc). Such fights did eventually happen later on (e.g., the Syriac Pešitta did not contain Revelation originally; I think that was only added later in the Harqelian version, 616 AD), but in a completely different context than the one in which the Protestant reformers and the Roman Catholic Church would find themselves in almost a thousand years later. So you may call them 'apocrypha', but to us they're just the Bible.

That said, I have heard that when books from the Ethiopian “broad canon”, which we could call, lets say, tritocanonical, contradict the shared doctrine of the Coptic and Ethiopian churches, they are ignored on such a point. So for example, some of the more peculiar parts of 1 Enoch.

 

[The Liturgist]

Yes they are.... adiaphora? Sorry, not sure exactly what you meant there.

Well the Anglican Articles predate Trent (just). I'm not so aware of the history of how we received these texts prior to that, might have to do some research (but not tonight).

But given that we do include those books as canonical, and even if that is a break with Tradition (which would require a longer look at traditions vs. Tradition and which side of that this fell on, and why), on the whole I think I would argue for a larger rather than a smaller canon. (Which is, incidentally, what led to the defining of a canon in the first place; the need to keep particular books in rather than allowing heretics to reject them).

The earliest “canon” was that of Marcion apparently, which was about rejecting everything except his edited version of the Gospel of Luke and the Pauline Epistles, but its a bit of a freak of nature, so I won’t count it as a canon if you won’t.

 

[The Liturgist]

BTW, if I don't reply for a while, I am going to be away fishing for a few days; not for men (although that may happen) but just for Muskie, Pike, Pickerel, Bass and Perch. LOL

Perch! You lucky man! I am insanely jealous. I must repeat to myself “Thou shalt not covet thy neighbor’s fish.”

But it sounds like you are going to fish for it yourself, and I find fishing boring, even with quantities of beer my current occupation as a man of the cloth prevents me from consuming. Wouldn’t want to be accused of moral turpitude...

I haven’t had any of those heavenly little fish since I ordered an exquisite platter of them at the seafood restaurant in the Drake Hotel in Chicago in 2007. I have to console myself eating fresh water eel at sushi bars and pretending I am eatimg perch, but with stranger seasoning.