Is there evidence of Constantine telling the various bishops and theologians what the canon must be? Would the Christians of the time have felt compelled to follow his directions if there were any?
Do Eastern Catholics use the eastern canon of scripture (49 books in the OT) or the Roman Catholic canon defined at Trent (46 books in the OT)? Or is it up to individual churches to make this decision? Thank you!
The doctrine of Sola Scriptura states that Scriptures (NT and OT) are the sole infallible sources of divine authority (as opposed to an institution, such as the Catholic Church). I believe most Protestants believe in this doctrine.
The problem I see with Sola Scriptura, however, is the question of how Protestants establish the proper canon of the Bible - specifically the New Testament. If the Bible is the sole source of divine authority - how do we know specifically what books comprise it? There is nothing in the New Testament that specifies the criteria for books to be considered canonical. The Book of Revelation, for example, took a long time to be considered canonical, and some Eastern Christian churches do not consider it canonical to this day. The authorship of Matthew is also still a matter of some debate.
So, it seems to me that, in order to properly establish a New Testament canon (Or OT, for that matter), one must appeal to some authority outside of the Bible in order to determine the proper canon, such as tradition or church history. As such, the doctrine of Sola Scriptura cannot hold, because it implicitly assumes a equivalent authority to the Bible that can determine what books properly belong in the Bible.
The only objection I've heard to this view is that the New Testament canon is somehow "self-authenticating". In other words, we can tell what books belong in the Bible because their inspired nature is readily apparent. I don't see this as sufficient, because one individual may view books as inspired that others do not.
So, in summary, the concept of Sola Scriptura appears to collapse in on itself due to the question of canon. Are their any arguments in favor of the doctrine that would contradict my points?
Thanks and God Bless.
I like to devote some time each morning to work through Bible topics. I save my notes and reference them when replying in the other Christian subs. I’m currently working on the development of the Bible canon. I’m good up to the 382 Council of Rome and afterwards, but the actual Council of Rome seems – clunky. If anyone could, please help me to navigate past this section and break it down in layman’s terms. Thanks.
From what I have so far:
1. 382 Council of Rome: local/general council under the authority of Pope Damasus. The council produces a decree. The first part of the decree is known as the Decree of Damasus. The second part has an opening section that’s known as the Galasian Decree.
2. The Galasian Decree: get’s its name from a later Pope Gelasisus (492-496AD)
Clunky: Gelasisus (492-496) but, Council of Rome is in 382?
3. The Gelasisus opening section of the second part of the 382 decree, deals with listing Bible books and the canon catalogue, “what the universal Catholic Church accepts and what she ought to shun”.
It seems Pope Gelasisus (492-496) had the previous 382 decree edited and added the Deuteros to the canon catalog.
It seems as though Roman Catholicism considers the 382 Decree of Damasus, with Gelasusus’ later edit, to be an authentic act of the 382 Council of Rome because the edit represents a tradition that can be traced back to Pope Damasus I, and reflects Roman practice in the development of the Biblical canon, so they consider it an authrntic act of the 382 Council of Rome.
Is that what I’m reading? Thanks.
Please DM me if you’ve had to encounter this apologetic before and would be willing to work with me formulating a reply.
Like the Gospel of Thomas? The Epistle of Clement? The Epistle of Polycarp? The Acts of Paul and Thecla? Why were these rejected, but something like the Johannine epistles considered canon?
I've heard there was a lot of Jewish apocalyptic literature and I was curious how and why Revelation was selected for inclusion in the bible? I've also read it had mixed reception in the early church.
The Messiah vs the monkey king
No prep
Random encounter
In character but determined to win
All feats from respective religion is applicable.
Who wins?
I have been thinking about this lately since I decided to convert from atheism to Episcopal/Anglicanism. It would be intellectually lazy to say that “our angels and are legit but their spirits are just superstition”. The traditional view is that pagan gods were demons makes sense to some extent. People in the past without any need for actual supernatural inspiration of any sort naturally personified natural phenomena and create stories gods and spirits that they pass down as belief. If demons are real then it is not surprising that they might take the guise of a deity in a people’s belief system or reveal itself to a person and claim to be a god in order to benefit from sacrifices or encourage evil acts like Moloch in Phoenician/Canaanite culture where they did child sacrifice. But is seems strange to claim that part of Satan’s grand plan is to take the guise of a mountain spirit to fool people in Japan into offering him rice, but to mention the problematic aspects of that. It seems more likely that there isn’t a spirit behind this and people just personalized a mountain in the past and passed the belief down. It also makes sense that non fallen angels may be mistaken for gods. But another thing I am interested in is folk belief. Irish Catholics in the countryside believed in faeries for centuries. A common explain they had for them was that they were angels who stayed neutral in the War in Heaven and thus although not demons. If this holds any water could explain a number of spirit beings people around the world belief/believed in, outside of or along side the explanation of the passing down of manmade legends and stories. I would love to hear your guys thought, but at the very least thank you for tolerating my mad musings
So there’s a common myth that the council of Nicaea determined which books made the biblical cut and others that did not. This never happened but rather certain books stayed in favor over the years and others fell out of favor or were dismissed entirely. Catholics and Protestants disagree on a number of books and many remain in the catholic bible that were discarded by the reformers. So since it was essentially decided via which books were favored by early church teachers and which books they chose to teach from how do we know that God intended for these books to remain and other books were uninspired or downright heretical? Especially when we look at books that have cultural biases that would be favored or considered normal by ancient cultures, so of course they would teach them but then they kept on getting taught through inertia.
It seems bizarre that the spiritual texts were decided via trial and error instead of the early church making official decisions.
I'm at a particular part of my desconstruction where I'm looking at biblical canon. Does anyone have any good resources about understanding why and how it was made that doesn't involve "Because God picked it through people perfectly"
What are the influences that the broader canon, with the nine books not included in the traditional western canon, can bring to the narrative of the bible as we know it?
Most of yall probably know this but I thought it was funny so here ya go.
Hello all,
Every so often I hear someone call out the devil for some evil in the world.
This has got me thinking about "where exactly is the devil mentioned in bible?"
Satan, as I understand, translates to "adversary" and is more a role/position more than one individual. Like a prosecuting attorney.
That got me thinking about where this "devil" idea came from. I know a lot of Christianity is pulled from other world religions and hijacked by Jesus (as it is called on TvTropes).
Where is Lucifer's fall from heaven ever mentioned? Wasn't that only referred to in Milton's "Paradise Lost"? If so wouldn't that be a fan-fiction becoming cannon?
This has got me thinking about what else is commonly thought to be from the Bible but is just tie-in books and stories.
Also, should Christians be following anything from the Old Testament? Didn't Jesus tell them that he came not to abolish the old law, but to fulfill it? Distilling the Ten Commandments to just two: 1- Love god above all else 2- Love each other as Love you.
Seems like the OT is no longer in the modern religion thanks to the Jesus retcon.
In Supernatural (which is not at all Biblical canon), they are corrupted human souls. I've also heard that when Lucifer fell he took with him the 1/3 of angels who were loyal to him, and those are the demons. However, demonic possession seems to be a big thing in the Bible whereas angelic possession is rarely / never mentioned.
Is there more nuance to this than I may expect?
I've been meaning to. I'd like to understand the mythos. It's kinda fascinating (at times...) A lot of it is just so dry and informative.
I have to assume at least a few former Christians on here have done the deed.
After a recent discussion in which the place of Scripture in my personal faith has came up, I have been looking into the composition of biblical canon which I'm familiar with and the canons of various groups within the Christian family and, as I'm sure many of us are aware, there is no coherent biblical canon for all Christians, and even within branches, there is not always cohesion. Furthermore, it's well documented that the canon differed over the centuries as well with diverse Christians including or excluding books as it fit their faith understanding.
That brings me to my original question: what would a truly ecumenical Christian biblical canon look like? I understand that this opens discussion up to a range of titles and may ultimately be arbitrary in its appearance were it to have one, but if we only consider the canons of modern Christian groups, as well as more-or-less authoritative ancient canons as found in translations or manuscripts such as the Septuagint or the Vulgate, how might such a biblical canon look like? I'm not saying this discussion should consider the array of theological reasonings why one group accepts or rejects a certain book or group of books, or whether it would even be plausible to physically compile such an ecumenical canon for all Christians, but rather which books would be included in a more ecumenical Christian canon.
Personally, my answer to this question tries to be as open as possible as to be considerate of diverse canons, but as cautious as possible as to avoid every and any ancient text being included. In doing so, I've identified 101 books for what seems an ecumenical canon as seems reasonable to me:
- The 24 books of the Tanakh, as arranged in the traditional 39-book Christian "Old Testament" format;
- Included are the 7 books that Catholics call "deuterocanonical";
- As well as the books of 1-2 Esdras, 3-4 Maccabees, and the Prayer of Manasseh found in some form in various Eastern canons, as well as in older Western canons which now classify them as "apocrypha";
- The books of Enoch, Jubilees, 3 Baruch prominently found in the modern Ethiopic canon, as well as the Testaments of the Twelve Patriarchs found in other Oriental canons;
- The Psalms of Solomon and 2 Baruch, often found in the Septuagint and the Peshitta, respectively;
- The traditional 27 books of the "New Testament";
- And 1-2 Clement, the Epistle of Barnabas, the seven Epistles of Ignatius, the Epistle of Polycarp, the Martyrdom of Polycarp,
For Christians, including Protestants who excluded all these texts including the seven deuterocanonical texts in both Roman Catholic and Orthodox Catholic canons, seeking a fuller understanding of the broader Old Testament, of course in theology, but more so in the capacity of learning the content and context of the text, especially in relation to the New Testament, would these books not aid with that?
For example, could the Psalms of Solomon not assist in providing significant context and content relating to the history of Judea, the Hasmoneans, pre-NT Judeo-Roman relations, sectarian politics, and Jewish (Pharisaic?) theology concerning messianism, resurrection, and other eschatological-soteriological developments in the first century BCE? While the theological merits of this book and the rest of the LXX Deuterocanon mentioned above are subjective, would their non-theological significance provide sufficient merit for inclusion in Christian biblical canon?
It is my understanding that most scholars agree that the Pastorals have not been written by Paul, although their author claims to be Paul.
Several scholars seem to have noted that although the author may not have been Paul, the practice of writing in the name of an authority figure (pseudoepigraph) was known and accepted at the time.
But it is also my understanding that most recent studies (Ehrman) have concluded that pseudoepigraph works were seen in early christian centuries as deceitful, from which we must conclude that they are, in fact, forgeries.
In light of these latest developments, have any christian scholars (by this I mean non-agnostic or atheist) called for these epistles to be removed from the canon? If no, why not? If yes, were there any notable reactions from their church?
Like the Gospel of Thomas? The Epistle of Clement? The Epistle of Polycarp? The Acts of Paul and Thecla? Why were these rejected, but something like the Johannine epistles considered canon?
I have been thinking about this lately since I decided to convert from atheism to Episcopal/Anglicanism. It would be intellectually lazy to say that “our angels and are legit but their spirits are just superstition”. The traditional view is that pagan gods were demons makes sense to some extent. People in the past without any need for actual supernatural inspiration of any sort naturally personified natural phenomena and create stories gods and spirits that they pass down as belief. If demons are real then it is not surprising that they might take the guise of a deity in a people’s belief system or reveal itself to a person and claim to be a god in order to benefit from sacrifices or encourage evil acts like Moloch in Phoenician/Canaanite culture where they did child sacrifice. But is seems strange to claim that part of Satan’s grand plan is to take the guise of a mountain spirit to fool people in Japan into offering him rice, but to mention the problematic aspects of that. It seems more likely that there isn’t a spirit behind this and people just personalized a mountain in the past and passed the belief down. It also makes sense that non fallen angels may be mistaken for gods. But another thing I am interested in is folk belief. Irish Catholics in the countryside believed in faeries for centuries. A common explain they had for them was that they were angels who stayed neutral in the War in Heaven and thus although not demons. If this holds any water could explain a number of spirit beings people around the world belief/believed in, outside of or along side the explanation of the passing down of manmade legends and stories. I would love to hear your guys thought, but at the very least thank you for tolerating my mad musings
