18 Qeo.n ouvdei.j e`w,raken pw,pote\ monogenh.j qeo.j o` w’n eivj to.n ko,lpon tou/ patro.j evkei/noj evxhgh,satoÅ (John 1 NA27) How can Protestants reject a necessary doctrine, when that same doctrine was under dispute in orthodox circles 1,000 years previously, by Augustine’s own admission? Joe, I must respectfully disagree in very strong terms. Col. 4:16; 1 Thess. 2:1; (b) that the books were authoritative—Joshua 1:7-8; 23:6; 1 Kings 2:3; 2 Kings 14:6; 21:8; 23:25; Ezra 6:18; Nehemiah 13:1; Daniel 9:11; Malachi 4:4. Of the 142 books of the Roman history of Livy (59 B.C-A.D 17), only 35 survive; these are known to us from not more than twenty MSS of any consequence, only one of which, and that containing fragments of Books III-VI, is as old as the fourth century. The evidence declares that “all Scripture is God breathed and profitable …” (2 Tim. In all of the above Greek translations, it is clear that his adherence to the belief in resurrection was fine and noble–not specifically the prayer. How they got there – which books of the Bible they read, and how the understood what they read – was of secondary importance, as long as they arrived at the right place. The Masoretic text of the Hebrew Old Testament contains twenty-four books, beginning with Genesis and ending with 2 Chronicles. For our part in the Church of England we spend most of our theological training learning how to do ‘theological reflection’, which means considering what Scripture, Tradition and Reason (and sometimes also personal experience) might have to say. Therefore, the doctrine of the Trinity is a certainty. that take pleasure in pointing out discourse within the Vatican and the Church in general…That’s also not very respectful or kind. God became Jesus’ father again by saving him out of death, by resurrecting him. Craig – However, a sola scriptura view DOES NOT mean everyone should be extrapolating their own doctrines from the Scripture. In fact, I will avoid even getting into more details on these texts, simply because I have written enough here and they are worthy of Joe and everyone else here taking a very careful look at. 6:10; John 12:40; Rom. People and councils only recognized and acknowledged what is true because of the intrinsic inspiration of the books as they were written. There was no canon of scripture in the early Church; there was no Bible. Ryrie summarizes these issues as follows: 1. So Catholics rightly find support for Purgatory and veneration (not worship) of the Saints in 2 Maccabees, for exorcisms in Tobit [and Matthew 10:8 and other parts of the New Testament, but who’s counting? “However, a sola scriptura view DOES NOT mean everyone should be extrapolating their own doctrines from the Scripture. Add over 10,000 Latin Vulgate and at least 9,300 other early versions (MSS) and we have more than 24,000 manuscript copies of portions of the New Testament. Accordingly, canon indicates what books are accepted as the authoritative word of God, while giving us the image of measuring our lives against the Scripture. Jesus did not say that God is 3 spirits! Some questioned whether it was right to accept (as was being done) Esther, Ecclesiastes, and the Song of Solomon. Even if a letter of Paul were discovered, it would not be canonical. http://www.perseus.tufts.edu/hopper/morph?l=pa%2Fnu&la=greek. The text is not just about “belief in resurrection is good”. Rather you’ll probably need to show that this is a teaching found in Scripture… which requires a prior sense of what does and doesn’t constitute as “Scripture.” Is it enough to show that these prayers are found in 2 Maccabees? The other Lutheran denominations in America today are rather quick to excommunicate, so your example could apply to them. So by making the trinity doctrine the central doctrine of the Roman Catholic faith, that church was auto selecting brainwashed people. Here’s RSV’s version: “In doing this he acted very well and honorably, taking account of the resurrection.”. Was it doctrinally accurate? In Mark 12, the Sadducees approach Him with a question meant to make the idea of bodily resurrection look ridiculous. Rather, they were thinking well and religiously on behalf of the resurrection (ἀναστάσεως). Rejection by the Jewish Community. Enns summarizes these: (1) Spurious writings as well as attacks on genuine writings were a factor. In acting in this way, the early Christians were following the pattern laid down by Christ. 26). (2) Old Testament quotations by Jesus Christ. 32 For example, whoever speaks a word against the Son of man, it will be forgiven him, but whoever speaks against the holy spirit, it will not be forgiven him, no, not in this system of things nor in that to come (Matthew 12). If so, then tell that to your fellow Protestants. Their canonicity was inherent within them, since they came from God. Thoughts on +Welby’s plan to begin untangling the Anglican Communion? Must he not be always ready to receive better information ; must he not admit the possibility, that by nature study of Scripture another result may be obtained, then that which has already been arrived at?” Josephus. You, and only you, have to read the Bible and decide for yourself what it means. These men affirmed that only the Scripture is inerrant, and Athanasius specifically refused to accept doctrines that could not be demonstrated from the Scriptures. Laird Harris (R. Laird Harris, Inspiration and Canonicity of the Bible, Grand Rapids, Zondervan, 1969, pp. “an action fine and noble”, “doing therein very well” etc etc. The pre-Reformation Church focused almost exclusively upon making sure that everyone arrived at the fullness of the orthodox Catholic faith. Your “under dispute” is under dispute. So God sent Jesus forth, and God himself remained entirely in heaven whilst Jesus was on the earth. Further, as Joe and I already argued on 2 Maccabees, it is arguable that 2 Maccabees 12 speaks of prayers to the dead (or Tobit and Sirach of satisfaction, and etcetera). For example, St. Hippolytus of Rome (170-235 A.D.) said that the Sadducees “do not, however, devote attention to prophets, but neither do they to any other sages, except to the law of Moses only, in regard of which, however, they frame no interpretations.” Likewise, Origen (184-253) said that “although the Samaritans and Sadducees, who receive the books of Moses alone, would say that there were contained in them predictions regarding Christ, yet certainly not in Jerusalem, which is not even mentioned in the times of Moses, was the prophecy uttered.”. John Calvin, in his “Antidote” to the Council of Trent admits that support for some of the controversial Catholic teachings can be found in the Catholic Bible: Add to this, that they provide themselves with new supports when they give full authority to the Apocryphal books. 18 qeo.n ouvdei.j e`w,raken pw,pote\ o` monogenh.j ui`o,j( o` w’n eivj to.n ko,lpon tou/ patro.j evkei/noj evxhgh,sato (John 1 STE) (c) Minute statistics were also kept as a further means of guarding against errors: in the Hebrew Bible at Leviticus 8:8, the margin has a reference that this verse is the middle verse of the Torah. Since A.D. 397 the Christian church has considered the canon of the Bible to be complete; if it is complete, then it must be closed. 23 But each one in his own rank: Christ the firstfruits, afterward those who belong to the Christ during his presence. All of these give us the data for being assured of having an accurate text of the Old Testament.65. that is, My God, my God, why have you forsaken me? NOW, you can argue it is BAD HISTORY, and I agree, but we need to portray this perspective. I’d agree that “the general lived experience of the Church” is the chief means believers understand correct doctrine. Rev Dark Hans – CK, you present an interesting question by flipping it around to excommunication in the Lutheran church. 18 qeo.n ouvdei.j e`w,raken pw,pote\ monogenh.j qeo.j o` w’n eivj to.n ko,lpon tou/ patro.j evkei/noj evxhgh,satoÅ (John 1 UBS4) There are many Protestant apologetics saying that “The Apocrypha inculcates doctrines at variance with the Bible, such as prayers for the dead”. B. 60 Merrill F. Unger, Introductory Guide to the Old Testament, Zondervan Publishing House, Grand Rapids, 1951, p. 47. You cannot take anybody else’s word for it. Jews and conservative Christians alike have recognized the thirty-nine books of the Old Testament as inspired. Was it of proper spiritual character? CK, you present an interesting question by flipping it around to excommunication in the Lutheran church. Please provide an accurate reference not pointing to your opinions. This three-fold division was also attested to by Josephus (A.D. 37-95), Bishop Melito of Sardis (ca. He says: You are my God. But of course you didn’t mind going through the other Latin verses: “45 et quia considerabat quod hii qui cum pietate dormitionem acceperant optimam haberent repositam gratiam 46: sancta ergo et salubris cogitatio pro defunctis exorare ut a peccato solverentur”. 3:16). 8 Although he was a Son, he learned obedience from the things he suffered; Josh. I read the blog you linked to in your post. And how can you be certain if you are not 100% certain you have a complete bible? Although these reasons are important, I do not think they are sufficient. Those are much better odds. The Bibleis the inspired, infallible Word of God. We can confidently accept the Bible today as God's Word, reading and living by its teachings that have been revealed and preserved for us today (2 Timothy 3:16-17). Not everything an apostle wrote was inspired, for it was not the writer who was inspired but his writings, and not necessarily all of them. Just how reliable are the New Testament documents? “A name on the church door won’t save you”, that’s what they say about “denominations”. . That’s the point I was trying to make. The fact of the many documents plus the fact that many of the New Testament documents are very early (hundreds of parchment copies from the 4th and 5th centuries with some seventy-five papyri fragments dating from A.D. 135 to the 8th century) assures us we have a very accurate and reliable text in the New Testament. Required fields are marked *. In Matthew 23:35, Jesus said, “that upon you may fall the guilt of all the righteous blood shed on earth, from the blood of righteous Abel to the blood of Zechariah, the son of Berechiah, whom you murdered between the temple and the altar.” The murder Jesus spoke of is recorded in 2 Chronicles 24:20-22. The problematic books at this time were Hebrews, James, 2 Peter, and 2 and 3 John. You say–“So, according to almost all translations from the Greek, well/fine + honestly/nobly refer to the action [of the sacrifice].”. We must not underestimate the importance of this question. So Protestants had better be getting the canon right, or they’re in serious doctrinal trouble (as they deny doctrines that they should affirm). Thank you so much! I’ll leave others here to judge whether your position is a sensible one. 18 God no one has seen at any time; only-begotten god the (one) being into the bosom of the Father that (one) explained. Sola scriptura does not mean everybody extrapolating their own doctrines. Protestantism has already given every cherry-picker of scriptures out there the license to start his own church. As I’ve mentioned before, it’s because the Sadducees’ Bible only included the Torah (Genesis, Exodus, Leviticus, Numbers, and Deuteronomy). The recognition given a particular book by the church was important. Recognising that everyone prioritises these authorities differently in different circumstances, we may sometimes come to different conclusions about God’s nature and will, but we also learn to respect (and argue against) those who come, legitimately, to different positions. How can you respond to a person who claimed that the canon of the Bible should still be open? A Lasting Legacy: Choosing A Wife For Isaac (Gen. 24:1-67). It is crucial for Christians to trust that the books in the Bible are God’s very words, have absolute authority, and are without error. 66. It was that they denied the Deuterocanon and denied the doctrines that portion of Scripture taught. It only means that the only doctrines we can be certain of are revealed in the Scripture.”. Period. I just feel well in that church”. One of the terms used in describing the books that belong in Scripture is the word canon. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Peshitta. In this area, there is unity in reconciled diversity”(ApC 448).(82). So, it affirmed the existence of the resurrection. 209. Before the Reformation, the Church’s canon of Scripture was clear (the Biblical list is given, for example, by the Council of Florence in 1442), but it wasn’t until the Council of Trent, in the wake of the Reformation, that the Church took the trouble to define this 73-book list infallibly. If we believe that God exists as an almighty God, then revelation and inspiration are clearly possible. The word canon, in classical Greek, is properly a straight rod, "a rule" in the widest sense, and especially in the phrases "the rule of the Church," "the rule of faith," "the rule of truth," The first direct application of the term canon to the Scriptures seems to be in the verses of Amphilochius (cir. So who is going to tell Protestants that it is wrong to extrapolate? All Old Testament books are quoted except Esther, Ecclesiastes, and the Song of Solomon. Literally, it means (a) a straight rod or bar; (b) a measuring rule as a ruler used by masons and carpenters; then (c) a rule or standard for testing straightness. And if any teaches, beside the sound and right faith of the Scriptures” (Ch. And surely, Jesus and the early Christians have their priorities in the right order. So they have no ‘unity of Godhead’. Probably 90% of the population could not read and even less had access to written Scripture in the 1400s and no one probably had the access to early Christian writings like we do today. Me – but what doctrines are certain if you exclude oral Tradition and some kind of authority to help us be certain? “inculcates” those doctrines — not for you. Eventually, this becomes more specific: everyone should start from the 66 books of the Protestant Bible. Once I said here that for Protestants, truth doesn’t matter, and somebody disagreed. In most things I read, the underlying belief is simply that true doctrine is as unreacheable as the ultimate scientific truth, that doctrines are just conjectures, falsifiable hypotheses, or (at the same time!) Augustine wrote that: “But who can fail to be aware that the sacred canon of Scripture, both of the Old and New Testament, is confined within its own limits, and that it stands so absolutely in a superior position to all later letters of the bishops…the authority of Councils; and further, that the Councils themselves, which are held in the several districts and provinces, must yield, beyond all possibility of doubt, to the authority of plenary Councils which are formed for the whole Christian world; and that even of the plenary Councils, the earlier are often corrected by those which follow them” (Against the Donatists, Book II, Chap 3). (3) Apostolic writings were used in public worship, hence, it was necessary to determine which of those writings were canonical. CK: There are now more than 5,300 known Greek manuscripts of the New Testament. Ryrie has an important note in connection with Martin Luther’s opinion of the epistle of James. If you read the verses that follow, there’s even an explanation for the reason why belief in the resurrection makes it a reasonable attitude. Whereas of course Jesus has died. You cannot just go into a shop and ask for a copy of the Bible. If you want to persuade a Protestant that prayers for the souls in Purgatory are a proper part of Christian prayer, it won’t suffice (as it might have for, e.g., a Christian of the fourth century) to show that it’s been part of Christian Liturgy and prayer from the very beginning, or that the Church has routinely reaffirmed the orthodoxy and import of these prayers. (3) Was the book historically accurate? The Council of Jamnia in A.D. 90 is generally considered the occasion whereby the Old Testament canon was publicly recognized (while debating the canonicity of several books). There are a number of important considerations that must be kept in mind when considering the issue of canonicity or how the books of the Bible came to be recognized and held to be a part of the Bible. When Athanasius wrote in A.D. 367 he cited the twenty-seven books of the New Testament as being the only true books. This was one of Sir Isaac Newton’s anti trinity arguments. It is not in the Bible. I converted to the Catholic Church in January of 2015, and am still struggling to find a Bible I like to read. So anybody who actually, seriously, believes in sola scriptura has to read every book which is in the Bible and decide for himself whether or not he agrees that they are all inspired AND THEN go off and read all the other books which have at one time or another been considered to be inspired and decide which of those books he considers to be inspired. The term only begotten (literally – only generated) God sinks the trinity completely unless you buy the concept that a son can be begotten/generated without being created which is an abuse of language. This process began immediately with the writers recognizing that their own writings were the Word of God (Col. 4:16; 1 Thess. believe that the Canon of the Old Testament is the rule of faith, the standard for judging all controversies of religion. Other designations such as “The Scripture” (John 10:35) and “The Sacred Writings” (2 Tim. The Hebrew Bible of today is substantially the same as the original writings, with only physical changes like the addition of vowel pointings, reading aids in the margins, and a change to a more open form of the letters, etc. A.D. 170), Tertullian (A.D. 160-250), and others (Gleason L. Archer, Jr., A Survey of Old Testament Introduction, Moody, Chicago, 1964, pp. So God has not died and will never die. There are some here (Maybe one?) Third and finally, this shows why a fourth-century Catholic could get away with an incomplete canon in a way that a modern Protestant can’t. The Catholic response is fast and fierce, denouncing Marcionism as the heresy that it is, and affirming that the God of the Old Testament is one and the same good God as the God of the New. By this standard, a number of books were rejected. The word comes from the Greek kanwn and most likely from the Hebrew qaneh and Akkadian, qanu. NOW, you can argue it is BAD HISTORY, and I agree, but we need to portray this perspective.”, I argued no such thing. He also took up a collection, man by man, to the amount of two thousand drachmas of silver, and sent it to Jerusalem to provide for a sin offering. There are three reasons for this shift. No Bible book became canonical by action of some church council. What people fail to realize is that Luther didn’t want to leave the Church (you may believe that unless you read his letters before his break with Rome), as long as she agreed with him. They are guilty of violating your opinion on that silly doctrine. Your Greek “interlinear” makes no sense, while the only translation that stands out to agree with you is a Latin one. Are any inspired books missing? Question: What is the official Protestant definition of “sola scriptura”? But that’s only if there were no Scriptural evidence. In Matthew 5:17-18, the Lord declared that the Law and the Prophets, a reference that includes all of the Old Testament, then summarized as “the Law” in verse 18, would be fulfilled. That God would provide and preserve a Canon of Scripture without addition or deletion is not only necessary, but it is logically credible. The "canon" of Scripture is defined as the books of the Bible officially accepted as Holy Scripture. This contrast is startling and tremendously significant. Note also Joshua 6:26 compared with 1 Kings 16:34; Joshua 24:29-33 compared with Judges 2:8-9; 2 Chronicles 36:22-23 compared with Ezra 1:1-4; Daniel 9:2 compared with Jeremiah 25:11-12. The Sinaiticus, the VaticanB and the Syriac Peshitta have only begotten God. Compare the following references: (a) God was speaking through the human author—Ex. Learn how your comment data is processed. Evangelical Protestants have recognized the twenty-seven books of the New Testament as inspired. Therefore Jesus is not God – QED. Exercise faith also in me (John 14). 2. 1:20-21). Rather, I argued that “With the Reformation, you simultaneously see the rejection of 2 Maccabees as Scripture and the rejection of some of its teachings — so it becomes critically important to establish whether or not 2 Maccabees is orthodox and inspired.”. Craig – However, a sola scriptura view DOES NOT mean everyone should be extrapolating their own doctrines from the Scripture. The canon of Scripture was written early, determined early, and has been unchanged since those times. 53. But it’s important to remember that these councils did not determine which books were inspired. Before the Reformation, major figures had indicated the ecclesial plurality of interpreters…When Vatican II speaks of the church having an ‘ultimate judgment’ (DV 12) it clearly eschews a monopolistic claim that the magisterium is the sole organ of interpretation, which is confirmed both by the century-old official promotion of Catholic biblical studies and the recognition in DV 12 of the role of exegesis in the maturing of magisterial teaching” (ApC 407). (John 1 KJVi) I think a plain inference one can draw from the article is that the Scriptures are not sufficient in of themselves to teach doctrines and this is why a formulated Canon was not necessary for 15 centuries. Jesus himself was entirely on earth and God was entirely in heaven when he said this! As you might imagine, Marcionites threw out the entire Old Testament. It is a pleasure to be able to reveal the truth behind this despicable mind game that the Roman Catholic Church has relied on for 1700 years. to the time of Malachi (400 B.C.). It is essential to remember that the Bible is self-authenticating since its books were breathed out by God (2 Tim. “The fact that the text fails to say that the prayer was even good”. 18 No man hath seen God at any time; the only begotten Son, which is in the bosom of the Father, he hath declared [him]. I also prefer the formal translations. 18 God no one hath ever seen; the only begotten Son, who is on the bosom of the Father — he did declare. 42 True, I knew that you always hear me; but on account of the crowd standing around I spoke, in order that they might believe that you sent me forth (John 11). What was done because of that belief was also good. A canonical book is one that measures up to the standard of Holy Scripture. How can a prayer based on a false belief be good? I miss my KJV. Our gift has been that we have somehow managed to live with it, and even make a virtue of it! My point wasn’t that they denied the Deuterocanon because they denied the doctrines that portion of Scripture taught. A biblical canon or canon of scripture is a set of texts (or "books") which a particular Jewish or Christian religious community regards as authoritative scripture. By the way, the first translation I got was the Jerusalem Bible, which I thought you’d gladly accept. 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