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Title: How Did the Early Church Recognize the Canonicity of a Book?
Source: Christian Apologetics
URL Source: http://www.toughquestionsanswered.o ... nize-the-canonicity-of-a-book/
Published: Feb 12, 2015
Author: Bill Pratt
Post Date: 2015-02-12 17:48:40 by redleghunter
Keywords: None
Views: 15557
Comments: 56

There is a misconception, popularized by books like The Da Vinci Code, that the way the books of the Bible were chosen consisted of politically infused church councils voting on the books they liked, and voting out the books they didn’t like. However, a careful reading of church history totally disproves this misconception.

As noted in a previous post, the church understood its role as recognizing what books God, himself, had inspired. This job of recognition was something the early church took very seriously, but how did they go about doing it? What were the criteria they used?

We know that propheticity was a necessary condition for canonicity, but sometimes church fathers who were trying to assess propheticity of a book were removed by decades, or even centuries, from the original composition of the books. So what did they do?

Norman Geisler and William Nix, in their book A General Introduction to the Bible, describe the criteria that were actually employed by the early church in this process.

1.Was the book written by a prophet of God? This was the most fundamental criteria. Once this was established, the book’s inspiration was recognized.

2.Was the writer confirmed by acts of God? If there were doubts about the author’s being a true prophet of God, miracles served as divine confirmation.

3.Did the message tell the truth about God? According to Geisler and Nix, “Any teaching about God contrary to what His people already knew to be true was to be rejected. Furthermore, any predictions made about the world which failed to come true indicated that a prophet’s words should be rejected.”

4.Does it come with the power of God? Geisler and Nix explain, “Another test for canonicity was the edifying effect of a book. Does it have the power of God? The Fathers believed the Word of God is “living and active” (Heb. 4:12), and consequently ought to have a transforming force for edification (2 Tim. 3:17) and evangelization (1 Peter 1:23).”

5.Was it accepted by the people of God? Geisler and Nix point out that “the initial acceptance of a book by the people to whom it was addressed is crucial. Paul said of the Thessalonians, “We also constantly thank God that when you received from us the word of God’s message, you accepted it not as the word of men, but for what it really is, the word of God” (1 Thess. 2:13). For whatever subsequent debate there may have been about a book’s place in the canon, the people in the best position to know its prophetic credentials were those who knew the prophet who wrote it. Hence, despite all later debate about the canonicity of some books, the definitive evidence is that which attests to its original acceptance by the contemporary believers.”

Geisler and Nix summarize:

The most important distinction to be made at this point is between the determination and the discovery of canonicity. God is solely responsible for the first, and man is responsible merely for the last. That a book is canonical is due to divine inspiration. How that is known to be true is the process of human recognition. How men discovered what God had determined was by looking for the “earmarks of inspiration.”

It was asked whether the book (1) was written by a man of God, (2) who was confirmed by an act of God, (3) told the truth about God, man, and so on, (4) came with the power of God, and (5) was accepted by the people of God. If a book clearly had the first earmark, the remainder were often assumed. Of course the contemporaries of the prophet (apostle) knew his credentials and accepted his book immediately. But later church Fathers sorted out the profusion of religious literature, discovered, and gave official recognition to the books that, by virtue of their divine inspiration, had been determined by God as canonical and originally recognized by the contemporary believing community to which they were presented.

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#31. To: redleghunter (#0)

An illuminating discussion would be headed by "It's canonical...SO WHAT?"

For some traditions,canon is everything because the Book is the Alpha authority. For others, it is. Interesting but not ultimately of central importance.

Vicomte13  posted on  2015-02-14   10:07:33 ET  Reply   Untrace   Trace   Private Reply  


#32. To: Vicomte13 (#31)

Indeed. Or even better...it wasn't really hard for those guided by the Holy Spirit then, why now?

redleghunter  posted on  2015-02-14   18:03:47 ET  Reply   Untrace   Trace   Private Reply  


#33. To: redleghunter (#32)

Indeed. Or even better...it wasn't really hard for those guided by the Holy Spirit then, why now?

In large part it's hard now among those who place final authority in the text. Those guided by the Holy Spirit back then did not. They placed great authority in it, but not final authority. Final authority reposed in some nebulous territory between written texts, unwritten traditions, living authorities, consensus practices of the Church, and the particular persuasiveness of charismatic individuals.

The Bible became the ULTIMATE source of authority for the FINAL resolution of ALL disputes with the Sola Scriptura doctrine of Martin Luther. That doctrine didn't exist before Luther, and it still doesn't exist in the Catholic, or Oriental or Eastern Orthodox Churches.

Those latter three no longer come to decisions the same way they did back in the day either. The Catholics have concentrated the final authority into a "Magisterium", with loosely defined borders but with a clearly supreme papacy at the head of it. The Orthodox rely very heavily on the authority of the ancient traditions and the decisions of past Councils. To Catholics and Orthodox both, there is far less discretion in decision-taking than there was, say, back in the time of the early Councils. For Catholics and the two flavors of Orthodox, those decisions taken long ago are themselves canonical, and set the rules (albeit in different ways). Scripture is NOT more authoritative than, say, the Council of Nicaea, to Catholics or the Orthodox because the Holy Spirit is believed to be have been as fully present and inspirational at Nicaea as He (or She) was when Paul or John were wielding their pens.

That last piece is not present in Protestantism: the equal authority of Church to Bible. In fact, it's heresy to the Protestants.

In turn, the refusal to acknowledge the authority of the Church over Scripture is, to Catholics and the Orthodox, to elevate the Bible over the Church, and is bibliolatry.

These two positions cannot be logically reconciled.

They are why the Catholic and Orthodox Churches were united for 1000 years despite having slightly different books of the Old and New Testaments. That is still true of different Orthodox Churches today: some have a few more books in both Testaments. This would be an absolutely fatal flaw preventing unity of Protestants with either. because Protestants consider the Bible to be of the highest authority, so if there is disagreement about THAT, there can't be unity.

Catholics and the Orthodox, and the Orthodox among themselves, were not and are not held apart by differences of the canon, because what Councils say, and Popes, and magesteria over the ages are also canonical. Canon law is canonical. It's ALL canonical, but the canon doesn't MATTER as much in any of its individual pieces.

Put in political science terms, the Catholics and Orthodox have an unwritten, living Constitution which God CAN amend at any time. Catholics believe that God very rarely actually does. Orthodox are more likely to think that God HASN'T for 1500 years or so, but in theory COULD. Protestants have a fixed written Constitution that cannot be altered until Christ returns.

The real issue is less what is IN the Canon so much as what the Canon itself MEANS. Protestants MUST fight to the last trench over what is IN the Canon, because the Canon is fixed, final and absolute - it is the ONLY perfect revelation of God to the earth, and it cannot be altered until the end of the world (and there cannot be any new revelation, for the age of prophesy has ended, therefore, anything new is by definition Satanic if it is not in the Bible and would contradict something that is).

Catholics and the Orthodox CAN'T fight to the last trench over Scripture, because that would be to elevate what is, after all, just a very holy book over what is the more Holy Church that WROTE the book, and to whom God STILL gives revelations.

My own approach is to read the Scriptures LIKE a Protestant, in order to be able to talk to Protestants in terms they will accept. I think that the Catholic canon is canonical, and accept the wider Canon of the various Oriental Orthodoxies as also being holy writings. Given that there are contradictions within the Bible itself - some pretty glaring ones when one reads carefully - there is always a process of discernment and engagement one must do in deciding what one really thinks is accurate and what isn't.

NONE of the established Churches will admit THAT. The Protestants will assert (wrongly) that the Bible does not contradict. (It does.) The Catholics and the Orthodox will, more of less strongly, say that no, you as an individual cannot decide what is accurate and what is not. You have to accept the authority of "the" (meaning: "your respective") Church.

Both of these assertions don't hold up. In the former case, the Bible does contradict quite violently in English. It contradicts very little in Hebrew or Greek...but at the price of nullifying many doctrines that hang upon the English. And there is nothing, in my experience, that will lead to more explosive arguments faster than to tell somebody that a Hebrew or Greek word doesn't mean something that it HAS to mean for a doctrine to make sense. THEN we move instantly away from a battle over the authority of Scripture itself, and straight to a battle over the authority of translators and who has the right and power and ability to TRULY translate the Scriptures.

And it rapidly becomes a waste of my time and I leave the debate.

In the latter case, the "you must submit to the decisions of the Church!" the problem, for me anyway, is that I CANNOT "submit" to something when it comes to belief. I don't tell myself "Oh, I believe THAT" and just believe it. I can't "believe" things that I don't think are true, and I can't NOT believe things that I DO think are true. To pretend I could would be dishonest.

So, the Church CAN say "If you don't believe thus and so, you are wrong". Lots of people say that. But if I am not presented with a persuasive argument that causes me to substitute that set of beliefs for what I think, threatening authority certainly isn't going to persuade me of anything...other than that whoever is threatening me with authority has got bad facts and poor logic and is just trying to bully a consensus. All that bullying can ever do with me is to cause me to lie in order to avoid the bullying. "Yes, sure, I believe and accept that"...now please go away and stop bothering me.

This is why, when the Thirty Years War and the Huguenot Wars in France, and the English Civil War/Puritan Dictatorship/Reformation in England, the net result of all of it was the collapse of faith everywhere that there had been a civil war. The Age of Reason replaced the Age of Faith because the Age of Faith ended up with bullying, and people had mental reservations. With all of the death, people paid a lot of lip service but out of fear, not love. And with the Age of Revolution, they turned the tables and exacted revenge (or justice, depending on how one looks at it) on the old bullying institutions that harmed them.

One finds a curious analogy today with cigarette smoking. Cigars are more popular than ever, and marijuana is being legalized, but cigarettes, in particular, are vilified and persecuted, even to the point of preventing people from using VAPOR cigarettes that have no second hand smoke and that are, objectively, not very harmful at all.

Why the jihad on cigarettes? Because a young generation grew up in a place where people smoked everywhere, including offices and buses and airplanes, and those who didn't smoke HATED IT, and found it oppressive...and were ignored and told to shut up and had it imposed on them by parents and older people. The wheel turned and those who had been bullied came of age, gained power, and became the majority, and now they have turned the tables and used the LOGIC that was used on them when they were little: "Now I AM IN CHARGE, and YOU are weaker. I hate cigarettes, and YOU will go stand outside in the cold if you want to smoke. (Oh, and fuck you. Don't like it? GOOD. Submit! Respect ma authoritah!)"

That is the mindset that drives the anti-smoking jihad (in all its illogic), and it's also what drove the hard lines against religion (in all their illogic). Bullying begets bullying. Bully people in "faith" and command them to "believe", or else, and you will get an outward show of obedience, and massive inward resistance.

So, when it comes to the "Canon", there are several. The Catholics have one. The Greek Orthodox have one. The Slavonic Orthodox a slightly different one (the Maccabee books). The Oriental Orthodox have Enoch and the Shepherd of Hermas and 1 and 2 Clement, and the Didache, and some others. The Protestants have their Canon. They all think they're right, but it only really makes a DIFFERENCE across the divide between Protestantism and the rest of Christianity.

The best solution? Read them all, and limit yourself to the Canon of your interlocutor (at least if you want to have a discussion - if you just want an argument, then go out of your way to find something from a book he doesn't accept as canonical, and make the canon the Big Deal that it really isn't.)

Vicomte13  posted on  2015-02-17   17:17:23 ET  Reply   Untrace   Trace   Private Reply  


#34. To: Vicomte13 (#33)

In large part it's hard now among those who place final authority in the text. Those guided by the Holy Spirit back then did not. They placed great authority in it, but not final authority. Final authority reposed in some nebulous territory between written texts, unwritten traditions, living authorities, consensus practices of the Church, and the particular persuasiveness of charismatic individuals.

The Bible became the ULTIMATE source of authority for the FINAL resolution of ALL disputes with the Sola Scriptura doctrine of Martin Luther. That doctrine didn't exist before Luther, and it still doesn't exist in the Catholic, or Oriental or Eastern Orthodox Churches.

The early fathers of the post apostolic period did place Scriptures as a final authority.

The Scriptures were used to validate what they proposed.

For example Cyril of Jerusalem:

"This seal have thou ever on thy mind; which now by way of summary has been touched on in its heads, and if the Lord grant, shall hereafter be set forth according to our power, with Scripture proofs. For concerning the divine and sacred Mysteries of the Faith, we ought not to deliver even the most casual remark without the Holy Scriptures: nor be drawn aside by mere probabilities and the artifices of argument. Do not then believe me because I tell thee these things, unless thou receive from the Holy Scriptures the proof of what is set forth: for this salvation, which is of our faith, is not by ingenious reasonings, but by proof from the Holy Scriptures."

Gregory of Nyssa:

"The generality of men still fluctuate in their opinions about this, which are as erroneous as they are numerous. As for ourselves, if the Gentile philosophy, which deals methodically with all these points, were really adequate for a demonstration, it would certainly be superfluous to add a discussion on the soul to those speculations. But while the latter proceeded, on the subject of the soul, as far in the direction of supposed consequences as the thinker pleased, we are not entitled to such license, I mean that of affirming what we please; we make the Holy Scriptures the rule and the measure of every tenet; we necessarily fix our eyes upon that, and approve that alone which may be made to harmonize with the intention of those writings."

Those are just two. Many more. I've read these fathers of Christian theology. They proved their claims with scriptures. They knew they were fallible men.

redleghunter  posted on  2015-02-17   17:31:33 ET  Reply   Untrace   Trace   Private Reply  


#36. To: redleghunter (#34)

I've read these fathers of Christian theology. They proved their claims with scriptures.

Go back and read Gregory of Nyssa as he quotes Sirach, Baruch, and Wisdom, and St. Cyril quoting those plus Bel and the Dragon, Susanna and others.

You're going to find yourself with the Catholic or the Orthodox canon if you rely on them in the way you're trying to.

Or you're going to be forced into doing something that, if you read them and see how they integrated the deuterocanonical works without asterisks, will feel dishonest to you: pretending that they didn't treat books that Luther says isn't the canon just like the other books.

The arguments of the 1500s should stay in the 1500s. One of the reasons that Pope Leo, Calvin and Luther's and Knox's arguments are so very easy to rip to shreds today is that they were bullies living in a world of religious bullies. The net result is that they produced strongly opinionated works, and lived in lands where those who strongly disagreed and took firm and unyielding stands against them died for it.

Luther cheered on the slaughter of the Anabaptists. And we know about Calvin's Geneva and Pope Leo's realm. We know about both the Protestant and Catholic martyrs of England. The net result of all of that killing of people who disagreed is that the arguments of the "great" theologians of the 1500s are spit and tissue paper and don't stand up to direct hostile attack using facts, available by quick computer searches, by men that those violent worthies of that day cannot kill.

Leo was corrupt. Calvin wrote the first edition of his Institutes as a teenage law student AND IT SHOWS.

People back THEN had to treat these bellicose men as serious, but in fact their intellectual reasoning is that of belligerent children, and their scholarship does not stand up.

The early Church fathers were much better, because they couldn't KILL each other over disagreements, and they did not come up with the rigid malarky of the 1500s.

The early Church Fathers show how it was done, and it was neither Sola Scriptura NOR "sin has no rights - burn 'em at the stake" infallible priggishness either.

Christian institutions were once humble, and when they were, they didn't behave like the bellicose men of the 1500s.

Read Gregory of Nyssa: yes, he did back what he wrote up with Scripture - score a point for Luther. But no, he never said "scripture ALONE" - take a point from Luther. And he quoted the "apocrypha" just like any other Scripture - score a point for Trent - and he never wrote a word about any infallible anything. Take a point from Trent. Score? Match null.

Best result? Read Gregory and ignore the hard doctrines of the 1500s, because Gregory was right, and the theologians of the 1500s lacked any effective peer review. And since the 1500s, everybody has become ossified and ridiculous about it. Best? Let it go and read the Scripture directly, focusing on what GOD said, just like God says to. That clears all the freight.

Vicomte13  posted on  2015-02-17   19:45:32 ET  Reply   Untrace   Trace   Private Reply  


Replies to Comment # 36.

#38. To: Vicomte13 (#36)

Go back and read Gregory of Nyssa as he quotes Sirach, Baruch, and Wisdom, and St. Cyril quoting those plus Bel and the Dragon, Susanna and others.

You're going to find yourself with the Catholic or the Orthodox canon if you rely on them in the way you're trying to.

Or you're going to be forced into doing something that, if you read them and see how they integrated the deuterocanonical works without asterisks, will feel dishonest to you: pretending that they didn't treat books that Luther says isn't the canon just like the other books.

I agree with your final conclusion. However want to address the initial point above.

A prominent Cardinal of the reformation era and before Trent said the following:

"Here we close our commentaries on the historical books of the Old Testament. For the rest (that is, Judith, Tobit, and the books of Maccabees) are counted by St. Jerome out of the canonical books, and are placed amongst the apocrypha, along with Wisdom and Ecciesiasticus, as is plain from the Protogus Galeatus. Nor be thou disturbed, like a raw scholar, if thou shouldest find anywhere, either in the sacred councils or the sacred doctors, these books reckoned as canonical. For the words as well of councils as of doctors are to be reduced to the correction of Jerome. Now, according to his judgment, in the epistle to the bishops Chromatius and Heliodorus, these books (and any other like books in the canon of the Bible) are not canonical, that is, not in the nature of a rule for confirming matters of faith. Yet, they may be called canonical, that is, in the nature of a rule for the edification of the faithful, as being received and authorised in the canon of the Bible for that purpose. By the help of this distinction thou mayest see thy way clearly through that which Augustine says, and what is written in the provincial council of Carthage." (Cardinal Cajetan, "Commentary on all the Authentic Historical Books of the Old Testament," cited by William Whitaker in "A Disputation on Holy Scripture," Cambridge: Parker Society (1849), p. 424)

Luther never set a canon. Trent did. Cajetan gave us a good summary of the historic view of the church views on the Canon. Trent was a disaster IMO.

redleghunter  posted on  2015-02-17 20:41:24 ET  Reply   Untrace   Trace   Private Reply  


End Trace Mode for Comment # 36.

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