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Sosthenes
Joined: 18 Feb 2008
Posts: 60
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 Posted: Sat Nov 08, 2008 1:25 pm Post subject: |
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The Canon of Scripture
(C) by Sothenes
revised 1/23/2005
I recommend two books on the subject
Bruce, F.F., "The Canon of Scripture"
Geisler and Nix, "A General Introduction To The Bible"
There are two additional books that give added help but no matter what I teach you regarding the Canon of Scripture, there are people hell bent on adding to the Canon and they will work very hard at confusing you so that you accept their books.
I think people really need to start from Deuteronomy 18 to help determine the cannon. God said He would raise up a prophet and if people don't listen then God would require it of him (v. 19). It also says if the prophet speaks in the name of other gods (plural) or if the thing doesn't come to pass (v. 22) then the prophet is in a lot of trouble.
You might ask what a prophet has to do with the "Cannon" of Scripture? It all has to do with claims of authority to speak for God since the Church which was "...built upon the foundation of the apostles and prophets, Jesus Christ himself being the chief corner stone;" (Ephesians 2:20).
Then you have a framework to start asking questions like: Who were the apostles and prophets? One clue comes from Jesus and it is important for everyone to know their Bibles. "That the blood of all the prophets, which was shed from the foundation of the world, may be required of this generation; From the blood of Abel unto the blood of Zacharias, which perished between the altar and the temple: verily I say unto you, It shall be required of this generation."-Luke 11:50-51
There you start with a genealogy of the prophets which was from Abel to Zacherias. If you have books before or after these men then you have to have other Biblical support from Jesus or they have to be classified apart from the Prophets.
Another evidence for what was included in the Canon comes from Jesus. “…that all things must be fulfilled, which were written in the law of Moses, and in the prophets, and in the psalms concerning me.”-Luke 24:44 Jesus gives the division of scripture and it doesn’t include the Apocrypha because the division is "The Law of Moses", "The Prophets" and the "Psalms".
A lot of people think the denial of the Apocrypha is a Protestant invention. The truth is that the development of the Cannon of Scripture is not an invention of any one person, group, church, denomination or council. I do feel that the Protestants have recognized what the majority has recognized since the church fathers.
It is a lot of reading and you have to know your Bible. If you don't know your Bible then someone may claim authority that they don't have. If someone claims authority that they shouldn't have them they come between God and that person. There are also numerous warnings not to add to or subtract from the Word of God. |
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Sosthenes
Joined: 18 Feb 2008
Posts: 60
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| Posted: Sat Nov 08, 2008 1:48 pm Post subject: |
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| ummyasmin wrote: |
Sosthenes replied:
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Then how do you reconcile Monotheism, Polytheism, Pantheism and Dualism? |
Islam teaches that all of the prophets and messengers originally taught monotheism: "Not an apostle did We send before thee without this inspiration sent by Us to him: that there is no god but I; therefore worship and serve Me."(Q21:25) but over time, people fell away from monotheistic worship.
There is evidence of this when we look at primitive religions, in which the existence of "high gods" demonstrates that monotheism is not a later development as secular science has long presumed. (Rodney Stark, Discovering God: The Origins of the Great Religions and the Evolution of Belief, HarperOne, 2007: 55-56)
So, whilst Prophet `Isa, peace be upon him, taught Islamic monotheism, later Christians introduced manmade doctrines such as the Trinity into their belief. |
You still need to explain how to reconcile Monotheism, Polytheism, Pantheism and Dualism if we are all blind men looking at the same elephant and the problem is that the elephant talked.
Christianity believes in Monotheism and always has. I've had an Orthodox Jew question us on this.
Deuteronomy 6:4 Hear, O Israel: The LORD our God [is] one LORD:
Deuteronomy 6:4 is what Christians believe and we are also Monotheists.
What is the nature of man? You are body, soul and spirit. Are you one or three? Are you a tricotomy or a di-cotomy? I haven't really probed the depths of that distinction: tricotomist or dicotomist. I have a head, two arms, two legs, two eyes, two feet, etc. Am I one or many?
Acts 20:28 Take heed therefore unto yourselves, and to all the flock, over the which the Holy Ghost hath made you overseers, to feed the church of God, which he hath purchased with his own blood.
To me this is a clear statement of deity that God purchased the church with His own blood.
This God is revealed with three persons in the one God and I can see how some would not understand the Trinity because it is hard to understand something that has to be revealed and it is hard to understand something we cannot see. This does not mean that we think the persons are separate or that we worship three gods.
I had an Amiga computer and it had three co-processors inside it. Was it three computers or one? There were some IBM computers that had math co-processors. Would they be two or one? They were one unit but inside the Amiga there were three micro processors comprising one computer.
You haven't really offered any claims or evidence to support that the Trinity is a man made doctrine.
I don't really need you to refute these links but this is why we don't believe that we can reconcile Islam and Christianity as having the same God. But let me just suggest that Mohammad was a politician trying to unite the different tribes and that he needed to borrow our Bible because people weren't going to just follow him. I'll try to pick up on this a little in my next response as it deals with some of the other issues you posted.
Allah doesn't exist in the Bible
http://www.answer-islam.org/ElahhisntAllah2.html
Allah of Islam, Is He Yahweh God of the Bible?
http://www.answering-islam.org/Responses/Abualrub/allahs_identity.htm |
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Sosthenes
Joined: 18 Feb 2008
Posts: 60
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| Posted: Sat Nov 08, 2008 2:32 pm Post subject: |
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| ummyasmin wrote: |
But the Codex Sinaiticus was written in the fourth century CE! Which means that fourth century Christians had a different version of the Bible than the one on your bookshelf.
Let's compare the composition of the Bible and the Qur'an:
How many authors?
BIBLE: Many. Some are even traditionally unknown, such as the authors of Tobit, 3 Maccabees and Hebrews. Most of the traditional list of authors are disputed by modern scholarship.
QUR'AN:One. The Qur'an was given by God to the angel Gabriel, who imparted it only to the Prophet Muhammad, peace be upon him.
Who decided whether a text is Scripture?\ |
Deuteronomy 13:1 If there arise among you a prophet, or a dreamer of dreams, and giveth thee a sign or a wonder,
Deuteronomy 13:2 And the sign or the wonder come to pass, whereof he spake unto thee, saying, Let us go after other gods, which thou hast not known, and let us serve them;
Deuteronomy 13:3 Thou shalt not hearken unto the words of that prophet, or that dreamer of dreams: for the LORD your God proveth you, to know whether ye love the LORD your God with all your heart and with all your soul.
How do you know if a prophet is lying? Anyone can claim to be a prophet but God proveth you. Suppose a false prophet comes after the true. How will you know? "Proveth" means to test or try so I don't know what extent God allowed false prophets to come into the world but He did so to prove to us whether we love Him or not.
Matthew 13:3 And he spake many things unto them in parables, saying, Behold, a sower went forth to sow;
Matthew 13:4 And when he sowed, some [seeds] fell by the way side, and the fowls came and devoured them up:
Matthew 13:19 When any one heareth the word of the kingdom, and understandeth [it] not, then cometh the wicked [one], and catcheth away that which was sown in his heart. This is he which received seed by the way side.
The fowls represent the wicked one who devours the Word of God.
Matthew 13:31 Another parable put he forth unto them, saying, The kingdom of heaven is like to a grain of mustard seed, which a man took, and sowed in his field:
Matthew 13:32 Which indeed is the least of all seeds: but when it is grown, it is the greatest among herbs, and becometh a tree, so that the birds of the air come and lodge in the branches thereof.
At that time, the mustard seed was the least of all seeds which represents the church. When the Church is full grown, the birds of the air come and lodge in the branches. The birds in the previous parable represent the Wicked one. And so it is with Christianity that when it is full grown, the false Christians and the false teachers set up shop and lodge in the branches to devour the word of God.
To answer your question, the approcrapha was appended in the fourth century. It was never in the canon of Jesus, Josephus and Jerome. The Protestant canon was the canon of Irigen, Cyril of Jerusalem and Athanasius. (Geisler, Baker Encyclopedia of Apologetics, p. 31-32.) "No canonical list or council of the Christian church accepted the Apocrypha as inspired for nearly the first four centuries." (Geisler, Baker Encyclopedia of Apologetics, p 33). And I've read so much on this that the apocrapha was only accepted at the Council of Trent because the Catholics were fighting Martin Luther and needed something to defend their false teaching so that is the only real motivation for the Catholics to canonize the apocrapha.
According to Josh McDowell in "A Ready Defense", there were maybe five principles for determining whether a book was canonical: Was it authoritative, prophetic, authentic, dynamic and was it received (was it received, collected, read and used - was it accepted by the people of God? The problems are the Apocrapha fails a lot of these tests so the question is not why did the fourth century Codex Sinaiticus have it appended but the real question is why these books were never fully accepted by part of the church until 1546? And now we know why.
John 10:16 And other sheep I have, which are not of this fold: them also I must bring, and they shall hear my voice; and there shall be one fold, [and] one shepherd.
John 10:8 All that ever came before me are thieves and robbers: but the sheep did not hear them.
I don't hear the apocrapha because it is not God's voice. There are a lot of voices that immitate the nature of God but I can tell.
1 Cor. 1:22 For the Jews require a sign, and the Greeks seek after wisdom:
There are going to be false signs and one of them is that in the end times, fire is going to come down out of heaven and people are going to use that to prove the false messiahs, false prophets or antichrist has authority. The problem is they don't know the Biblical exception because they don't concern themselves with reading truth:
Job 1:12 And the LORD said unto Satan, Behold, all that he hath [is] in thy power; only upon himself put not forth thine hand. So Satan went forth from the presence of the LORD.
Job 1:16 While he [was] yet speaking, there came also another, and said, The fire of God is fallen from heaven, and hath burned up the sheep, and the servants, and consumed them; and I only am escaped alone to tell thee. |
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Sosthenes
Joined: 18 Feb 2008
Posts: 60
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| Posted: Sat Nov 08, 2008 3:12 pm Post subject: |
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| ummyasmin wrote: | | Quote: | | Christians died for the text and if they corrupted it, they certainly wouldn't have died for a lie. |
But the earliest Christians -- the disciples of Jesus -- didn't have a common scriptural text. Besides, how do you account for the plethora of gnostic and extra-canonical texts such as the Shepherd of Hermes?
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They did have a common scriptural text. It was the apostles themselves:
Acts 2:42 And they continued stedfastly in the apostles' doctrine and fellowship, and in breaking of bread, and in prayers.
The Church which was "...built upon the foundation of the apostles and prophets, Jesus Christ himself being the chief corner stone;" (Ephesians 2:20).
Despite man being fallible, they were obedient when they wrote down the words of God so that the foundation would last and because God made them remember, it was what God wanted them to say:
John 14:26 But the Comforter, [which is] the Holy Ghost, whom the Father will send in my name, he shall teach you all things, and bring all things to your remembrance, whatsoever I have said unto you.
Despite their differences, God chose fallable people to proclaim scripture:
2 Peter 1:21 For the prophecy came not in old time by the will of man: but holy men of God spake [as they were] moved by the Holy Ghost.
The early church had the apostles and when the Holy Spirit spoke, the disciples wrote down the scriptures.
I usually get an argument when I quote "All scripture is given (breathed out) by inspiration of God, and is profitable for doctrine, for reproof, for correction, for instruction in righteousness:"-II Timothy 3:16
The argument is that the New Testament cannot possibly be scripture and what Paul is referring to is the Old Testament. This is a wrong assumption because of I Timothy 5:18:
"For the scripture saith, Thou shalt not muzzle the ox that treadeth out the corn. And, The labourer is worthy of his reward."-I Timothy 5:18
Paul links scripture with Deuteronomy 25:4 and Luke 10:7 because "...men of God spake [as they were] moved by the Holy Ghost."
You argue that the disciples were wrong because Paul rebuked Peter. God chose fallible people from the start:
Mark 9:34 But they held their peace: for by the way they had disputed among themselves, who [should be] the greatest.
The nature of man is that we aren't without sin so how could sinful man help in any way at all? It is a miracle that God used man at all but what you are saying is that God can't superintend fallible people because of the debates and so forth. God's word corrects people even like Peter because fallible church leaders like Peter are just a 'pillar and support of the truth'. (1 Tim. 3:15) Scripture is truth in itself because scripture is "God breathed" and God superintended it Himself. |
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Sosthenes
Joined: 18 Feb 2008
Posts: 60
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| Posted: Sat Nov 08, 2008 5:26 pm Post subject: |
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| ummyasmin wrote: |
But the Codex Sinaiticus was written in the fourth century CE! Which means that fourth century Christians had a different version of the Bible than the one on your bookshelf. |
One of the things I said before was the Jewish temple in Jerusalem was destroyed in 70 A.D. which caused people to disperse and there was four manuscripts in four different geographic regions and no one person or group had control over all of the manuscripts. And I wrote that if someone added something, you would think that you could compare the manuscript to the other three. You offered support for only one of the manuscript families to have the apocrypha amended (added) so since you can't prove the other three had the apocrypha, I have to believe the apocrypha was added and this proof should be evident to everyone unless you have other evidence and I want to go back and research the evidence again so as to not miss anything but I noticed this so I hope you do as well. |
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