The end of the world

Replies are closed for this discussion.

Replies to This Discussion

Permalink Reply by Kate McKay on November 3, 2009 at 6:41pm

There are a host of problems with taking the Bible literally. One of the biggest being that "The Bible" as we know it today was a work of progress that took hundreds of years to finally come together in the form we read it today (and Catholics will disagree that the Protestant form is even correct).

In fact, many Christian canons over the centuries did not include the Book of Revelation and early church leaders could not decide on its legitimacy. Even Martin Luther rejected it. He said, "to my mind it bears upon it no marks of an apostolic or prophetic character... Everyone may form his own judgment of this book; as for myself, I feel an aversion to it, and to me this is sufficient reason for rejecting it."

So to return to the problem of believing in the Bible literally...the question really is: what Bible? It is a historical fact that the words of Jesus weren't written down for decades after his death, and then it was up to early church leaders to pick and choose what went into the canon. They were pickers and choosers so why not us?

Permalink Reply by Herb Munson on November 3, 2009 at 7:39pm

Hi Kate, thanks for jumping in. Your view of canonicity is flawed, in my opinion. In the compiling of the New Testament cannon, the Church merely recognized those writings that were, by their very nature, obviously inspired. They did not pick and choose. Dr. Norm Geisler has done a very good job defining the Canonicity of the Bible.

The last I checked, both the Catholic Bible and all of the Protestant Bibles include the book of Revelation. That is because the entire Christian Church recognizes it as the Word of God ... otherwise it would not be there. Again, a book of the Bible is Canon because God wrote it and the Church of Jesus Christ merely recognizes it as such. They didn't choose it and therefore it was made so. Scripture is Scripture. As you have it in 2 Timothy 3:16-17...

"All Scripture is given by inspiration of God, and is profitable for doctrine, for reproof, for correction, for instruction in righteousness, that the man of God may be complete, thoroughly equipped for every good work."

And again, in 2 Peter 1:20-21...

"...knowing this first, that no prophecy of Scripture is of any private interpretation, for prophecy never came by the will of man, but holy men of God spoke as they were moved by the Holy Spirit."

With all due respect, the Church (either Roman or Protestant) has never taught its people that they can simply determine for themselves what is and what is not the Word of God in the Bible. That matter was settled long ago. Again, not by arbitrary choosing amongst writings ... but in a process of simple recognition of that which was the Word of God and that which obviously was not.

As for the differences between the Catholic Bible and the Protestant Bibles, there the individual has a choice. One must simply read the Apocrypha for themselves and determine if it is Scripture or not. That's one of the reasons that I am a Protestant.

Permalink Reply by Kate McKay on November 3, 2009 at 8:11pm

Can you explain what the difference is between choosing what is the word of God and recognizing that something is the word of God? Either way what you have is fallible men, fallible councils of men, deciding what is and what is not the Word of God. This is also the way that you decided that the Apocrypha was not the word of God. But if you are a fallible human, not God, and not even an angel, how do know you have ability to correctly recognize what is and is not Scripture? After all some people say that the Book of Mormon is the word of God and some people say that the Qu'ran is the word of God. So how do you know that you are right and they are wrong?

The truth is that the recognization of Scripture, the way what was determined to be "obviously inspired" is based on one's preconceived notions of what is truth. Thus the early church leaders accepted and rejected what was "obviously scripture" based on a Christian theology that had been influenced by Greek philosophy.

Biblical literalists face an enormous contradiction in believing that the Bible is both perfect and yet complied and translated by wholly imperfect people.

"With all due respect, the Church (either Roman or Protestant) has never taught its people that they can simply determine for themselves what is and what is not the Word of God in the Bible."

I never said that those churches taught that-I am merely arguing that that is what logically follows if you study the history of how the Bible was put together.

Permalink Reply by Herb Munson on November 3, 2009 at 8:36pm

There is a supernatural element here, in my opinion. God himself was involved in the giving of his Word. And, although he chose certain men through whom he wrote it ... it was He Himself who was speaking (as I previously quoted from the passages in 2 Peter 1 and 2 Timothy 3). I believe there is a similar supernatural element in its reception as well. Jesus speaks of it in John 10:2-4; 16, 27...

"But he who enters by the door is the shepherd of the sheep. To him the doorkeeper opens, and the sheep hear his voice; and he calls his own sheep by name and leads them out. And when he brings out his own sheep, he goes before them; and the sheep follow him, for they know his voice."

"And other sheep I have which are not of this fold; them also I must bring, and they will hear My voice; and there will be one flock and one shepherd."

"My sheep hear My voice, and I know them, and they follow Me."

All of the Scriptures, Old and New Testaments are the Word of Christ. Those who know him, know his voice and recognize that to be so. Hence, His Church has always been able to recognize Scripture when they hear or see it.

Permalink Reply by Will on November 3, 2009 at 8:57pm

It's not a *contradiction* to think the Bible is inerrant (literalism is a separate matter) and compiled by imperfect people. It requires God to intervene in human affairs, but then that would be true whether it was compiled by imperfect people or divinely revealed by any other method, wouldn't it?

Permalink Reply by Kate McKay on November 3, 2009 at 9:11pm

I suppose it wouldn't be a contradiction if the results seemed more clearly designed by God. What I mean is that if God was involved in every step of the current canon's creation (and that would be a lot of involvement-from the writers to the scribes to the councils to the translators) then one would imagine that the result would something resembling consensus. But Protestants don't accept the Apocrypha while Catholics do and even getting to the widely accepted canon of today took many phases and disagreement. I guess we could say that God was inspiring some of the early leaders while others thought they were inspired but were not, but that of course means that Protestants must concede that their leaders were not inspired while Catholic ones were or vice versa.

I'd also submit that a God that could create a Bible that was perfect through all the stages and debate it went through, would have to be involved in the world in a way that to me contradicts my view of God, a God which prizes the free agency of humans. Which is to say, in order to make sure that those who were inspired had the final say over those who were equally zealous but not inspired, He would need to employ more than inspiration, it would involve serious strong arming.

Permalink Reply by California Scott on November 3, 2009 at 9:32pm

Actually, the Roman Catholic Church considers the Apocrypha to be Deuterocanonical (secondary canon) and does not place it on the same theological level as the rest of the Bible.

Permalink Reply by Kate McKay on November 3, 2009 at 9:59pm

But you're still left with the question, well if the Catholic leaders were inspired even to create a secondary canon, then the Protestant leaders were not inspired. And the question extends far past the Apocrypha, that's just easy short hand for the debate.

For example:
-The Codex Sinaiticus, which is the oldest New Testament collection available, a fourth century manuscript found in a monastery on Mount Sinai, contains two writings which are excluded in the modern New Testament, the Shepherd of Hermas and Barnabas.
-In A.D. 200, a Christian in Rome wrote a list of books considered to be canonical. This list is now known as the Muratorian Canon, named after the man who discovered it in Milan. The list does not include Hebrews, James, 1 Peter, or 2 Peter, and includes only two of the letters of John. The canonical works did include the Apocalypse of Peter and the Wisdom of Solomon.
-Initially the Roman Church resisted John, while the church in Asia Minor embraced John. The Syrian Church did not accept all four Gospels of the modern Bible until the fifth century, and also ignored for a time the Epistles of John, 2 Peter, and the Book of Revelation.

Anyway, I could go on at great length....

Permalink Reply by Herb Munson on November 3, 2009 at 10:26pm

I believe you are using a confusion of terms here. Inspiration is a word that belongs solely to the Scripture. The word itself means "God-breathed." It is the Scripture, when all is said and done, that carries the embedded quality of being God-breathed. Men are not inspired ... either Protestant or Catholic.

Your observations, if I am understanding you correctly, are those that relate to the process of the compiling of the Canon. Did the Church look at a wide range of writings during the process of discovery of that which was Canonical and that which was not? Of course. Yes, they had lists of works to examine. They, no doubt, had submissions of books. Those that carried the mark of Canon on them, they received and the others they rejected.

The conclusion? It was a haphazard "luck of the draw" process that ultimately compiled an unreliable and merely man-made Bible. Absolutely not. Were there non-Christians involved in the process? Personally, I would be surprised if there were not. In which case the process was made far more difficult. But, the outcome, over a prolonged period of time, produced all the documents that were Canon ... whole, complete and trustworthy. Thus, the Church compiled all of the Canon that God had written.

Permalink Reply by Will on November 3, 2009 at 11:13pm

The council that established the canon could be inspired, even if that canon was not known from the beginning, surely.

I know about some of the books that were left out; I have seen a few. Wow. Let's just say that modern skeptics would have an even harder time with them. They are notably different in tone.

This seems to come down to 2 questions:

Can God divinely inspire a community?
...and can that community have moral authority?

This gets into the Catholic-Protestant split. Catholics tend to say that the church has moral authority when speaking together on matters of the faith (I know I got that wording way wrong), and that if that were not true, we couldn't trust the Bible, since it was compiled by the church. I'm not sure. As long as the church had moral authority or inspiration in that one case, it should be enough. Of course, you'd have to have a reason to think that was so. Already believing in Christ himself, and thinking that God is not inclined to play impenetrable tricks on us (by having all of Christendom agree on almost all of the Bible), seems good.

And I definitely don't want to get into Catholic-Protestant disagreements; I just don't think they're worth anything, compared to the faith itself.

Permalink Reply by Jamie on November 3, 2009 at 4:56pm

"Remember, god gave you choice, you can do that and still go to heaven. "

How much of the rest of the Bible are you "ignoring," as well? By that token, why are you paying any attention to the parts that mention going to heaven?

Permalink Reply by Christatos Aristad on November 3, 2009 at 5:43pm

Well I pay a particular lack of attention to the parts having to do with poly-blend fabrics, Pauls opinion on veils, and the proper manner of dealing with interpersonal disputes as outlined in Numbers 35:19. Do you require absolute biblical literalism?

• First
• Previous
• Next
• Last