Scriptures New And Old

[Southern Buddhist 1]

A comment in another thread, and my own recent reading, got me thinking. During a discussion of whether some parts of the bible contradicted other parts, Balloon Guy asserted that they are all different books, written independently of one another, and asked, "Does slapping a cover on them make them all one book?"[My answer to that, by the way, is ... yeah. Slapping a cover on a series of pages is pretty much the definition of "book."]At any rate, I've also been reading the companion books Lost Christianities and Lost Scriptures. The first is about the varieties of Christianity that were practiced in the first 300 years of the movement, including Marcionites, Ebionites, and some of the many varied sects now grouped under the name Gnostic. The latter is about books that were held to be holy scripture during the same first three centuries but were not included in the canonical text as finally decreed in 367 CE by Athanasius, bishop of Alexandria. He decreed the canon as we have it today in part to cement the authority of the early church that would become the Catholic Church. Books that disagreed with the ideas of early church leaders were specifically suppressed.Today, scholars widely agree that several books of the bible have been altered (the verses that talk about the Trinity do not appear in the oldest copies of the bible, nor do the last dozen or so verses of Mark). They also do not believe that Paul wrote more than half the books that purport to be by him, and that some of the events cannot have happened as described (for instance, Nicodemus makes a linguistic confusion that can only occur in the Greek language, not in Aramaic or Hebrew).Then there is the discovery of the Dead Sea Scrolls and the Nag Hammadi scriptures. Both consist of books that were held to be holy in the first century. That is, far earlier than the bible as we have it today, these scrolls were the bible of the time, the bible within two generations of Jesus' death. Yet I've never heard a Christian suggest that these books be considered holy at all.The bible, simply put, wasn't always a bible. The letters of Paul at one time were just mail (and some were letters by people claiming Paul's authority in order to promote their own ideas). Within a hundred years of Jesus' death, people were reading, studying, quoting, and praying over the gospels of Mary Magdalene and Didymus Thomas. Even the Old Testament underwent change -- the one in the Christian bible differs from the Jewish Tanakh.The Dead Sea Scrolls and the Nag Hammadi scriptures have both been authenticated by the best methods we have today and are authenticated by time of creation, place, and culture, not by whether or not they conformed to what early Catholic leaders wanted.That said, wouldn't a re-examination of the bible today give us a more authentic one? Couldn't scholars (who have already come to this consensus) together create a "new" bible that consists only of the books that can be well-documented and authenticated, a bible that is much closer to what was actually read and cherished in the first century in the very place it was written?I've heard so many Christians wish that they could live in that imagined purity of time, before historical accretions had appeared, when the first Christians in the world were beginning to gather and spread their message and create the religion.Is there any circumstance by which Christians would even consider accepting a more historically authentic bible?Why or why not?

[brvheart 1,752]

When counterfeiters are trained in the FBI they study real currency so that they can easily spot a fake. (or so I've heard.) Once you know the gospel it's easy to spot a fake. Extra books are just other sources that verify what we already believe and something that Crow should want to suppress. It's harder to discount the bible as lies when there are other books that verify it's contents.In summary, having extra books around would be fine for scholarly reasons, nothing more nothing less. The "Bible" should remain the same.

[crowTrobot 2]

When counterfeiters are trained in the FBI they study real currency so that they can easily spot a fake. (or so I've heard.) Once you know the gospel it's easy to spot a fake.

except the "FBI" consensus is that at least 3, and probably all 4 of the gospels are fakes.

Extra books are just other sources that verify what we already believe and something that Crow should want to suppress.

no idea what you're talking about. i've never tried to suppress anything, and for the most part the "extra books" undermine the historical truth of christian tradition, not verify it.

[HollywoodAFD 0]

some of the events cannot have happened as described (for instance, Nicodemus makes a linguistic confusion that can only occur in the Greek language, not in Aramaic or Hebrew).Is there any circumstance by which Christians would even consider accepting a more historically authentic bible?Why or why not?

" some of the events cannot have happened as described (for instance, Nicodemus makes a linguistic confusion that can only occur in the Greek language, not in Aramaic or Hebrew)."This most likely occurred in translation of the original script. The Old Testament is largely the Hebrew Bible. However, knowledge of Hebrew was rare among the early Gentile Christians. Rather than attempt to create their own version of the Hebrew canon, they adopted a Greek translation of the Hebrew Bible plus some other books, dating from around 250 BC."Is there any circumstance by which Christians would even consider accepting a more historically authentic bible?"I think the problem lies in who would do this? Who gets to determine what scrolls and books are accurate and should be in the Bible?For those who believe in the Bible, it is God’s letter to humanity collected into 66 books written by 40 divinely inspired writers. Who in today's world would Christians listen to and believe has the authority to add or delete from this book?edit: Didn't the Mormons already do this?

[Balloon guy 158]

At any rate, I've also been reading the companion books Lost Christianities and Lost Scriptures. The first is about the varieties of Christianity that were practiced in the first 300 years of the movement, including Marcionites, Ebionites, and some of the many varied sects now grouped under the name Gnostic. The latter is about books that were held to be holy scripture during the same first three centuries but were not included in the canonical text as finally decreed in 367 CE by Athanasius, bishop of Alexandria. He decreed the canon as we have it today in part to cement the authority of the early church that would become the Catholic Church. Books that disagreed with the ideas of early church leaders were specifically suppressed.

For snizzle?

Today, scholars widely agree that several books of the bible have been altered (the verses that talk about the Trinity do not appear in the oldest copies of the bible, nor do the last dozen or so verses of Mark). They also do not believe that Paul wrote more than half the books that purport to be by him, and that some of the events cannot have happened as described (for instance, Nicodemus makes a linguistic confusion that can only occur in the Greek language, not in Aramaic or Hebrew).

A poisoned statement if ever written. There is more scholarly agreement of the validity of the Bible than against. There, now I am right and you are wrong. see how easy making a blanket statement is in poisoning the conversation?

Then there is the discovery of the Dead Sea Scrolls and the Nag Hammadi scriptures. Both consist of books that were held to be holy in the first century. That is, far earlier than the bible as we have it today, these scrolls were the bible of the time, the bible within two generations of Jesus' death. Yet I've never heard a Christian suggest that these books be considered holy at all.

The dead sea scrolls were all pre-Christianity, so I don't see why you would put their place in history on our doorstep, this would be a Jewish issue wouldn't it?As far as the Apocrypha I am on the fence about it. It really was only completely left out of most Bibles in this last century.

The bible, simply put, wasn't always a bible. The letters of Paul at one time were just mail (and some were letters by people claiming Paul's authority in order to promote their own ideas). Within a hundred years of Jesus' death, people were reading, studying, quoting, and praying over the gospels of Mary Magdalene and Didymus Thomas. Even the Old Testament underwent change -- the one in the Christian bible differs from the Jewish Tanakh.

Not a legitimate excuse to argue that since some people feel a book is canonical that therefore all people should consider it. It really comes down to a the basic approach you are using to their legitamacy.

The Dead Sea Scrolls and the Nag Hammadi scriptures have both been authenticated by the best methods we have today and are authenticated by time of creation, place, and culture, not by whether or not they conformed to what early Catholic leaders wanted.

Again, how you approach this question is the key to what answer will satisfy you.

That said, wouldn't a re-examination of the bible today give us a more authentic one? Couldn't scholars (who have already come to this consensus) together create a "new" bible that consists only of the books that can be well-documented and authenticated, a bible that is much closer to what was actually read and cherished in the first century in the very place it was written?I've heard so many Christians wish that they could live in that imagined purity of time, before historical accretions had appeared, when the first Christians in the world were beginning to gather and spread their message and create the religion.Is there any circumstance by which Christians would even consider accepting a more historically authentic bible?Why or why not?

You point out that after the early Gospels and letters were written etc then suddenly a bunch of new ones showed up. There were new books, new schools of thoughts and to be honest new rules. One of these views was that the spiritual life and the physical life were separate, and as such, what you did in the flesh was completely acceptable as long as you kept your spirit pure. Of course what does this mean in terms of sex? That you can do it with anyone anytime because your flesh was lost anyway. This reeks much more of man's influence in finding a reason why he can have lots of unprotected sex without consequences..which is clearly not in alignment with the entire Bible, so is it really a big conspiracy to say that this 'gospel' isn't legitimate?Well in a world where a letter might take 3 months between writing it and getting a response it isn't really a big surprise that the church thought maybe we need to start clarifying which of these letters is real, and which ones are not?I mean you actually are asking to do the exact same thing aren't you? So is your motive to gather only those books that allow you to get the religion you want? Or to find the true books and exclude the false ones?If you want to find the true books, then why do you imply that the early church fathers had a different motivation?If you grant that it's possible that these early church fathers, who taught and lived a life based on honesty and morality, had a motivation to stay true to what God wanted us to know, and as such they laid out conditions that made their choices as accurate as possible, then wouldn't we find the same thing out today?So your approach to this requires you to argue that you know the motivation of the early church fathers, and that our motives today are better. You also want us to open up our Holy Scripture to meet the requirements of people who don't believe in their message. Would you be equally open minded if a bunch of Christians got together to find our the 'true' accurate writings of Islam? Can we let the Southern Baptist have a go at Buddhism to shape it to a more 'accurate' reading of what ti supposed to be, since after all, those original Buddhist just picked the writings that allowed them to conform their religion in a way that kept them in power.

[vbnautilus 48]

You also want us to open up our Holy Scripture to meet the requirements of people who don't believe in their message. Would you be equally open minded if a bunch of Christians got together to find our the 'true' accurate writings of Islam? Can we let the Southern Baptist have a go at Buddhism to shape it to a more 'accurate' reading of what ti supposed to be, since after all, those original Buddhist just picked the writings that allowed them to conform their religion in a way that kept them in power.

Or for that matter, let the 'board of education' in Kansas decide which scientific theories to teach. But I don't think she was asking if you'd like it if other people decided the Bible should change, I thought she was asking if you were open to new revisions yourself. Given that Christians have revised what was included in the bible in the past, under what circumstances would they allow a new book into the bible? Or is it too late and the canon is permanently fixed?

[Balloon guy 158]

Or for that matter, let the 'board of education' in Kansas decide which scientific theories to teach.

VESTIGIAL ORGANS FTL

But I don't think she was asking if you'd like it if other people decided the Bible should change, I thought she was asking if you were open to new revisions yourself. Given that Christians have revised what was included in the bible in the past, under what circumstances would they allow a new book into the bible? Or is it too late and the canon is permanently fixed?

Cannon is fixed. And seeing as how one of the requirements for acceptance into the cannon was an Apostle's direct support, I think if you guys want to open the whole thing up for any new writings feel free as long as you maintain the original conditions.

[vbnautilus 48]

Cannon is fixed. And seeing as how one of the requirements for acceptance into the cannon was an Apostle's direct support, I think if you guys want to open the whole thing up for any new writings feel free as long as you maintain the original conditions.

Well in your world dead bodies come back to life all the time, so I don't see how you can say the canon is fixed.

[Southern Buddhist 1]

Terrifically interesting answers! This is what I want in a religious thread, examination of ideas without necessarily trying to insist on who is right or wrong.I'll comment on just a couple of ideas at a time.

In summary, having extra books around would be fine for scholarly reasons, nothing more nothing less. The "Bible" should remain the same.

But WHY should it remain the same? If there is solid evidence that there are misattributions and also solid evidence that there are other books that were used as scripture in the first century, why not use the research tools we have to make it more like a book a first-century Christian would recognize? What, precisely, do you think are the downsides to changing it? Do you think there is any upside at all?

" some of the events cannot have happened as described (for instance, Nicodemus makes a linguistic confusion that can only occur in the Greek language, not in Aramaic or Hebrew)."This most likely occurred in translation of the original script. The Old Testament is largely the Hebrew Bible. However, knowledge of Hebrew was rare among the early Gentile Christians. Rather than attempt to create their own version of the Hebrew canon, they adopted a Greek translation of the Hebrew Bible plus some other books, dating from around 250 BC.Yes, of course. It's not an important point and not one that changes the essential meaning of the passage. It's just a place where we know for a fact that linguistic needs sometimes resulted in ideas being paraphrased, even though they are represented as though they were quotes."Is there any circumstance by which Christians would even consider accepting a more historically authentic bible?"I think the problem lies in who would do this?Who gets to determine what scrolls and books are accurate and should be in the Bible?For those who believe in the Bible, it is God’s letter to humanity collected into 66 books written by 40 divinely inspired writers. Who in today's world would Christians listen to and believe has the authority to add or delete from this book?edit: Didn't the Mormons already do this?

One of the interesting things about this is that you (collectively as respondents, perhaps not you personally) assume that I want the to say things that are morally different than it does now. I don't care about that. Who would do it, for me, would be experts in Greek and Hebrew as spoken in the first century CD in the area of Palestine, experts on paper and scroll dating, experts on book/scroll bindings, experts in authenticating ancient script, historians of the book (i.e., specialists in the art of transcribing), experts in tracking provenance, experts in the culture and sociology of groups and their belief systems in that era and place, and a few others.All of you sort of went immediately to the theological implications, but I'm taking it one step at a time. Considerations of the theological implications can come later. For the moment, I'm interested in the fact that right now we have the expertise to get together a more technically accurate text, on that would be more familiar to early Christians.So my answer to your linked questions is kind of incomplete, but it would be a group not of theologians but of technicians.As for the statement that for those who believe in the Bible, it is God's word, etc., do you think that's a literal article of faith for every Christian? That every sect believes the bible to be dictated and every book in it (but no other books) to be divinely inspired? My impression is that there are sects that do not believe that, and that the position you stake out is on the conservative side of the spectrum. I could be wrong, but that's my impression. I will say that the position is historically wrong. If they believe that, then they really have no idea how the bible came into existence or the battles that were fought over its contents or the amount of time it took to arrive at a final canon. Wanting to believe in a bible that dropped out of the sky complete and unquestioned doesn't make it true.Your last question is where I think the problem lies. When we say "Christians," I'm including not just the conservative, evangelical strain represented here, but also the billion-plus Catholics (the largest single sect in the world) as well as the whole Protestant spectrum, from UU to snake handlers. But would that whole group trust technicians? The scholars I read are doing their own translations from the now-archaic 1st-Cent. forms of Greek and Hewbrew, because they can read the biblical texts in the original. But if there isn't a political flavor or a definite theological stance, then I think the evangelicals would oppose this hypothetical effort. My sense is that if they can't control what is said, they don't want to see it happen. And that, to bring in a bit of the theological implication, is what I'm asking: IF the group of authenticated first-century texts wound up saying something different, IF we wound up losing some parts of the current bible because it can be shown that they are forgeries, then are people interested in fitting their faiths to a different form of God's word? Or are they more interested that God's word fit their faith?

[Southern Buddhist 1]

Actually, it turns out I just need a whole separate answer for BG, because he raises so many points.

For snizzle?

Yep, for real (though they didn't speak Ebonics). It's the Marcionites who are really interesting.

A poisoned statement if ever written. There is more scholarly agreement of the validity of the Bible than against. There, now I am right and you are wrong. see how easy making a blanket statement is in poisoning the conversation?

I'm not saying the gist of the messages were wrong or that anyone had held a large number of books to be invalid. As I used for examples, it's more a matter of a dozen verses here and there, plus doubts about the authenticity of some of Paul's epistles. Crow and VB can argue about factual reality, but among scholars of the bible I don't disagree with you that there is wide agreement that all but a few verses are valid. We're not in disagreement about that at all.

The dead sea scrolls were all pre-Christianity, so I don't see why you would put their place in history on our doorstep, this would be a Jewish issue wouldn't it?As far as the Apocrypha I am on the fence about it. It really was only completely left out of most Bibles in this last century.

The Dead Sea Scrolls are a Jewish issue, but so is the Old Testament. Christianity is inextricably linked to Judaism. Incorporating the Dead Sea Scrolls would probably alter the Old Testament somewhat.The Dead Sea Scrolls are actually a unique issue here, becauase we know they belonged to one minority group within Judaism, the Essenes. The disputed or lost scriptures belonged not to a single minority group that died out but were shared by groups who cnsidered themselves Christians in full fellowship with all other Christians across the region. They didn't really KNOW they were all using different books -- they all thought that what they were praying over were "the" gospels.

Not a legitimate excuse to argue that since some people feel a book is canonical that therefore all people should consider it. It really comes down to a the basic approach you are using to their legitamacy. Again, how you approach this question is the key to what answer will satisfy you.

That's the question I'm asking. What does 'canonical' really mean? Just because some people were reading Didymus Thomas doesn't make it a gospel. But not everybody was reading Paul, and yet he is considered scripture today. This fact of not being unanimously read: if it de-legitimizes Thomas and Mary, why doesn't it de-legitimize Paul as well?It's likely that only the four gospels would pass the test of being virtually universal (they appear in all first- and second-century bibles). Would you make other books canonical based on 75% universality? 50%? I would absolutely agree with you that if only one sect used a book as scripture, that shouldn't be included. But if many sects used it across Palestine and Judea and it's not in the bible today, should it be?

You point out that after the early Gospels and letters were written etc then suddenly a bunch of new ones showed up. There were new books, new schools of thoughts and to be honest new rules. One of these views was that the spiritual life and the physical life were separate, and as such, what you did in the flesh was completely acceptable as long as you kept your spirit pure. Of course what does this mean in terms of sex? That you can do it with anyone anytime because your flesh was lost anyway. This reeks much more of man's influence in finding a reason why he can have lots of unprotected sex without consequences..which is clearly not in alignment with the entire Bible, so is it really a big conspiracy to say that this 'gospel' isn't legitimate?

That idea isn't really common to many disputed scriptures. That's mostly propaganda from the people who suppressed various gnostic groups. Thomas, for instance, collects a lot of saying of Jesus that are not found elsewhere in the bible. One disputed book (Philip, I think) is about Jesus' childhood. And despite considerable propaganda to the contrary, Gnostics in general were ascetics. There were probably a few sex cults (as there are today), but scholars grasp plainly that those are neither widespread nor did they believe that they were in full agreement with other Christians. I can't think of a scholar who would argue with a straight face that the scripture of solitary esoteric cults who split themselves apart from the rest of Christianity should be included. But most congregations included some Ebionites, some Marcionites, a handful of other adoptionists and anti-adoptionists, some gnostics, some proto-orthodox, and others.

Well in a world where a letter might take 3 months between writing it and getting a response it isn't really a big surprise that the church thought maybe we need to start clarifying which of these letters is real, and which ones are not?

Not surprising, but with better methods for analyzing language, writing, and paper manufacture and age, we now know they got some wrong.

I mean you actually are asking to do the exact same thing aren't you? So is your motive to gather only those books that allow you to get the religion you want? Or to find the true books and exclude the false ones?If you want to find the true books, then why do you imply that the early church fathers had a different motivation?If you grant that it's possible that these early church fathers, who taught and lived a life based on honesty and morality, had a motivation to stay true to what God wanted us to know, and as such they laid out conditions that made their choices as accurate as possible, then wouldn't we find the same thing out today?So your approach to this requires you to argue that you know the motivation of the early church fathers, and that our motives today are better.

Not motives, but methods. As I think I'm beginning to make clearer, I'm more interested in what we can now prove about technical, historic accuracy. Their choices were as accurate as possible for 367 CE, but we have better tools now and a better understanding of archaeology and history. For example, Heinrich Schliemann discovered the site of Troy, but because he was too early to understand the importance of strata in dig sites, he actually dug right through and destroyed the upper layers, including the layer of the Trojan War itself. Today's methods are more careful and extract more useful data. I don't think the early Catholic church chose bad books deliberately in order to win arguments (although they most certainly were interested in suppressing some groups). I simply think we can better date and authenticate books than they could -- and since they lived, we have uncovered not one but two large treasure troves of 1st and 2nd-Century scripture to which they had no access. Had they access, they might have included some or all of these books.

You also want us to open up our Holy Scripture to meet the requirements of people who don't believe in their message. Would you be equally open minded if a bunch of Christians got together to find our the 'true' accurate writings of Islam? Can we let the Southern Baptist have a go at Buddhism to shape it to a more 'accurate' reading of what ti supposed to be, since after all, those original Buddhist just picked the writings that allowed them to conform their religion in a way that kept them in power.

What VB said.I'll throw this out there as well (it's really another way of asking the same original question):Imagine that some group got togther and did create a new bible, including only what was in wide use in the first and second centuries and removing the Pauline epistles that are no longer considered certain to have been written by him. Is what they create God's word or not, or only partially?

[Southern Buddhist 1]

Cannon is fixed. And seeing as how one of the requirements for acceptance into the cannon was an Apostle's direct support, I think if you guys want to open the whole thing up for any new writings feel free as long as you maintain the original conditions.

How can that possibly be, since the canon wasn't fixed for nearly 400 years and even most Christians agree that the attributions came even later?

[Southern Buddhist 1]

Although my comments on method rather than theology may have helped clarify something of my hypothetical question, I'm getting the sense that, if we could and did create a bible that more accurately reflected the faith of the 1st and 2nd centuries, modern Christians actually have no interest in returning to it and they would not consider it holy or even acceptable.True or false?More importantly, why? Was the faith of that time wrong? Was Athanasius in 367 CE divinely led, whereas nobody who created earlier bibles before him had been? Was their archaeological knowledge better than ours? Is there something about first-century faith that you don't want to go back to?

[Southern Buddhist 1]

Another bit of reading that has influenced this line of questioning, just so you know where I'm coming from ...I logged out of here and picked up a book to do some reading before I go to bed. It's about Elizabethan and Jacobean England, and the chapter I'm up to is "The Church."In Shakespeare's day, new bibles were not only issued routinely, but you were told which one to use by law. While the canon was the same, there were subtle differences in translations, so the Bishops' Bible gave way to the Geneva Bible which gave way to the King James. [Even having the bible in English was completely new, having happened for the first time only in Shakespeare's own lifetime.]England in his day had been whipsawed between religions, from a Catholic ruler (Henry VIII) who became a Protestant but in name only, maintaining all the Catholic liturgy in his personal worship. Nevertheless, he began persecuting Catholics. He was succeeded by a Protestant son (Edward the somethingth) who also persecuted Catholics some and maneuvered to kick his Catholic older sister, "Bloody Mary," out of the line of succession. She succeeded him anyway, changed the official faith of England back to Catholic and began persecuting Protestants. She died and was succeeded by Elizabeth, whose mother was beheaded by Catholics. Elizabeth changed the faith back to Protestant and resumed persecuting Catholics.[This is why we have the separation of church and state, and why it's still a good idea.]So in Shakespeare's day (a time period I plan to be immersed in for the rest of my career), faith was something in flux, just as it was in the first couple of centuries CE. In the first centuries, Gentiles were developing a whole new faith, something radically different from Judaism, with different rules, different scripture, etc. In Shakespeare's day, the Protestant schism was still new. Lutherans, Anabaptists, Lollards, Puritans, and other Protestant groups were springing up everywhere and literally inventing the way they would worship God, each sect taking different verses to imply different things and each emphasizing different elements of the Bible. And, each one picking the Bible translation it favored.So two time periods I spend a lot of imaginative and intellectual time in are England circa 1600 and Judea circa 200. What both share is a faith and scripture that is still very much up for grabs.Ask a modern Christian what he or she stands on, and they will proudly say, "I stand on the word of God." But you don't know how lucky you have it, being able to say that. What people of these two eras had to decide was, where do you stand when it's the word of God itself that is in flux? [Or rather, our understanding of it, to anticipate an immediate reaction.]Since I can't ask them (though I'd love to), I'm asking you to put yourselves in that imaginative space with me and help me understand what they had to think about and how you would make the same decisions if you were called on to.

[Southern Buddhist 1]

"Lollards" people who worship LLY

[Balloon guy 158]

Although my comments on method rather than theology may have helped clarify something of my hypothetical question, I'm getting the sense that, if we could and did create a bible that more accurately reflected the faith of the 1st and 2nd centuries, modern Christians actually have no interest in returning to it and they would not consider it holy or even acceptable.True or false?More importantly, why? Was the faith of that time wrong? Was Athanasius in 367 CE divinely led, whereas nobody who created earlier bibles before him had been? Was their archaeological knowledge better than ours? Is there something about first-century faith that you don't want to go back to?

The thing to remember is that this wasn't a bunch of guys who found some manuscripts and decided to work out which ones were accurate. These were guys with long histories of student/teacher relationships, with passed down oral history, and with copies of letters that could very well have been copied from the originals. To pretend that our accuracy levels would be remotely equal, let alone better because we have dating techniques is completely dependent on the idea that both groups of people will be starting off on an equal footing.We can re-write almost 95% of the Bible just from quotes in church father's letters and teachings. Who knows how many other things they had that have been lost, maybe even the original copy of Revelations written in the early AD 90s, or maybe even the 4 original Gospels.So again you are basing your desire on the belief that you can determine what skill sets, what motivation, and what material the original; "What goes in the authentic Bible" group had to work with. And you are deciding that our current state is superior. You have nothing to base this on.And the Lollards were an amazingly devoted people who risked it all to get the Word of God into the hands of the people to remove the power that the church had stolen by controlling the access to the Bible. BTW should this ever happen, I will of course 'find' a copy of the Book of BG and work hard to get it in the cannon which will allow me to collect a portion of the sales of every Bible, which is still the best selling book of all time.

[Balloon guy 158]

How can that possibly be, since the canon wasn't fixed for nearly 400 years and even most Christians agree that the attributions came even later?

I don't know what you mean? The Bible is just a convenient collection of the writings of men that were moved by God to give us the information He wanted us to have. If you never held a full Bible, but just read the book of Matthew, or Mark you could easily gain knowledge of the salvation story and your salvation would not be lacking.Even the Gospels were not written down for a couple decades after the death and resurrection of Christ, Does this mean that salvation wasn't possible? Or that there was no real church? Of course not.The book of Acts was a history book about what happened for the first decades of the Apostles and their missionary journeys...it couldn't have been written till after the acts that it described happened ( well it could have, but it wasn't ) Does this mean the religion didn't have any idea what to do because it hadn't done it, written it down, and put it in a handbook for everyone to read?The purpose of the canon was to confirm the real, and deny the false. The Bible as a book itself is just a convenience, not a requirement for coming to a saving knowledge of Christ.

[Southern Buddhist 1]

We can re-write almost 95% of the Bible just from quotes in church father's letters and teachings. And you are deciding that our current state is superior. You have nothing to base this on.

I hate people who just post links instead of taking the time to discuss, but what references are you using? What letters and what teachings? Where are these letters and teachings today? Are they church fathers who predate 367 CE or postdate? Which church fathers specifically? That's a huge assertion and I don't know what you're basing it on. So, barring some pretty convincing evidence, yeah, I still think today's experts on ancient languages and documents, using today's technology, have the edge.

[Southern Buddhist 1]

I don't know what you mean? The Bible is just a convenient collection of the writings of men that were moved by God to give us the information He wanted us to have. If you never held a full Bible, but just read the book of Matthew, or Mark you could easily gain knowledge of the salvation story and your salvation would not be lacking.Even the Gospels were not written down for a couple decades after the death and resurrection of Christ, Does this mean that salvation wasn't possible? Or that there was no real church? Of course not.The book of Acts was a history book about what happened for the first decades of the Apostles and their missionary journeys...it couldn't have been written till after the acts that it described happened ( well it could have, but it wasn't ) Does this mean the religion didn't have any idea what to do because it hadn't done it, written it down, and put it in a handbook for everyone to read?The purpose of the canon was to confirm the real, and deny the false. The Bible as a book itself is just a convenience, not a requirement for coming to a saving knowledge of Christ.

You said a condition of acceptance into the canon was an apostle's direct support, which sounded to me like you meant a living apostle had to vouch for the text, which sounded impossible as they would not be living when the texts were attributed to them or when the books were in the process of being included or excluded from the canon. Perhaps I misunderstood.

[Balloon guy 158]

You said a condition of acceptance into the canon was an apostle's direct support, which sounded to me like you meant a living apostle had to vouch for the text, which sounded impossible as they would not be living when the texts were attributed to them or when the books were in the process of being included or excluded from the canon. Perhaps I misunderstood.

It was a confirmation verbally that a living Apostle had to write or support a book that made it into the Bible. This is an unusable requirement now because we can't say anything either way. That's why Mark's Gospel was included, even thought he wasn't an Apostle.It's like having good dating techniques, they don't give us any information as to when the original document was written, only when the copy we are testing was written.

[Balloon guy 158]

I hate people who just post links instead of taking the time to discuss, but what references are you using? What letters and what teachings? Where are these letters and teachings today? Are they church fathers who predate 367 CE or postdate? Which church fathers specifically? That's a huge assertion and I don't know what you're basing it on. So, barring some pretty convincing evidence, yeah, I still think today's experts on ancient languages and documents, using today's technology, have the edge.

I am rusty on all this, but this site came from my favorite pastor Charles Spurgeon's site and lists a few of them, a google search can find them all.To truly compare, you have to set the value of being a few generations away from the event pretty low. And you must make the leap of faith that the early church had the same or fewer manuscripts then we have today.I think this assertion places the burden on you to prove.

[Southern Buddhist 1]

I'll follow those links tomorrow. Right now it's 2 AM here in the east and I'm sleepy. (nighty-night after this post)I don't want this thread to be about proving and disproving. I'm really just curious. Are you saying that you feel we are as close to first-century faith today as it's possible to be? Are you saying that looking for first-century faith is the wrong goal? Are you saying that the bible should be maintained in the form set by Athanasius absolutely regardless of whether or not new books are found, rendering any new discoveries now or in the future irrelevant?

[BaseJester 1]

You point out that after the early Gospels and letters were written etc then suddenly a bunch of new ones showed up. There were new books, new schools of thoughts and to be honest new rules. One of these views was that the spiritual life and the physical life were separate, and as such, what you did in the flesh was completely acceptable as long as you kept your spirit pure. Of course what does this mean in terms of sex? That you can do it with anyone anytime because your flesh was lost anyway. This reeks much more of man's influence in finding a reason why he can have lots of unprotected sex without consequences..which is clearly not in alignment with the entire Bible, so is it really a big conspiracy to say that this 'gospel' isn't legitimate?

I'm going to go out on a limb here and guess you haven't read any of the books that SB has in mind. Lots of people think the Gospel of Thomas is one of the oldest gospels and really has quite a lot in common with the Gospel of John. When we spell it out, your position is that other people who were smarter and more holy than yourself decided which books to use and you trust them more than your own judgment. Right?

[Balloon guy 158]

I'm going to go out on a limb here and guess you haven't read any of the books that SB has in mind. Lots of people think the Gospel of Thomas is one of the oldest gospels and really has quite a lot in common with the Gospel of John. When we spell it out, your position is that other people who were smarter and more holy than yourself decided which books to use and you trust them more than your own judgment. Right?

Right.I don't see why I should not trust the men who sat down and hashed out the canonization of the Bible just because you guys don't believe in their motivation.I guess I now know how you feel when I try to get you guys to think beyond the conventional wisdom about evolution and you guys just ignore it and say 'it's proven' 'we're done asking'.

[Balloon guy 158]

I'll follow those links tomorrow. Right now it's 2 AM here in the east and I'm sleepy. (nighty-night after this post)I don't want this thread to be about proving and disproving. I'm really just curious. Are you saying that you feel we are as close to first-century faith today as it's possible to be? Are you saying that looking for first-century faith is the wrong goal? Are you saying that the bible should be maintained in the form set by Athanasius absolutely regardless of whether or not new books are found, rendering any new discoveries now or in the future irrelevant?

Well if you wanting to play "what if" then, If we found a new book, and if it was found to have a reasonable excuse to assume it was written by and or with the authority of an Apostle, AND it didn't deviate from what we know to be truth ( the current Bible ) then I would still not want to change the existing Bible because it is complete and isn't missing anything.Now that doesn't mean I wouldn't attribute a new book to be used along things like other ancient church father's writings etc, things worthy of reflection and meditation. But to change what we have today? I cannot see any purpose, reason or desire to make changes to a 6,000 year old religion.

[crowTrobot 2]

I guess I now know how you feel when I try to get you guys to think beyond the conventional wisdom about evolution

suggesting a test for natural selection that is clearly impossible to execute and pointless isn't thinking beyond conventional wisdom about evolution. it's mentally jacking off.

and you guys just ignore it and say 'it's proven' 'we're done asking'.

your simulation thread doesn't even challenge evolution - only conventional natural selection, and nobody here has ever said we're done asking. stop lying.sorry for hijack. carry on.