Who determined which Bible books are inspired? (page 2)

Momofmany

For what was actually allowed into the Bible of today it was left to the Catholic church. They decided what was to become the Bible we know today.

I have a question here. Why does my Catholic Bible have books that is not in other bibles?

"Canon" implies orthodoxy. The sects of Judaism differed greatly about what texts and in what recensions of those texts was authoritative. There was no such thing as an OT 'Canon' prior to the late second century or even arguably the 4th century CE. Even then there was no universal concensus, and remains so today.

Xtians likewise differed greatly in their opinions about both OT and Xtian writings. 3rd and 4th century Church Fathers and manuscripts for example had very different opinions about what books to accept. Books not in our present 'Canon" were valued equally or higher than those we have. It was not until the council of Trent in the 16th century that the Catholics decided upon a "Canon"! Martin Luther differed from the Trent ruling and so rejected Esther and 7 other OT books had problems with 3 or 4 NT books as well.
The order of the OT books was shifted as well to place the "Prophets" including the book of Malachi just before the NT to give the impression that Jesus was a natural next step and that Israel was hoplessly apostate.

IMO it was the invention of the printing press that established the Canon! For the first time one opinion about a Canon was mass produced and because of familiarity became fixed.

peacefulpete

BTW 2 Tim was written in the late 2nd century, obviously not by Paul.

Bart Erhman's book, "Lost Christianities" does a fair job of giving an overview of the process of Christian revisionism that included book choice and redaction.

Narkissos

Momofmany: the "extra" Catholic books (or additions in Daniel and Esther) in the OT all come from the Jewish Septuagint (LXX) Greek tradition, although some of them (such as Ecclesiasticus = Siracides or Tobit) were actually translated from Hebrew. Following the fall of Jerusalem in 70 CE and the clear separation between "Christianity" and "Judaism" they were excluded by the Pharisaic/Rabbinical redefinition of Judaism. Those texts, as well as many others (such as 1 Enoch which is quoted in the epistle of Jude), were part of the very broad corpus of "Scripture" used by early Greek-speaking Christians. At the 16th century Reformation, for dogmatic reasons, the Protestants decided to align with the current Jewish Canon, while the Catholic council of Trent declared a limited number of those texts (those you find in your Catholic Bible) to be "canonical" (the exact term was "deuterocanonical", but this doesn't mean lesser authority as far as the Catholic interpretation is concerned). The Protestants called this books "Apocrypha" but still maintained them in their Bibles for centuries. In French Bibles they were usually printed in smaller type, with an "avertissement" following Luther's teaching (approximately) that those books were "not inspired yet useful to read". Only in view of the pressure of fundamentalism in the English and American Bible Societies in the 19th century did they disappear totally from the French Protestant Bibles.

simwitness

Strictly speaking, the "Roman Catholic Church" would have been a by-product of the creation of the official text.

It was Emporer Constantine, in and about 325 AD that created the "Nicean Council" in order to establish the one "true" religion. It was this council that decided the canon, and it was all done by voting. Those that disagreed were banished. It's interesting to note that the Emporer was not a baptized christian, but did see the power an official "church" would have over his people.

Sargon

Simwitness:

You beat me to it. It is interesting to note that following the council of 325, all Gospels that didn't coincide with their preconceived notions of christiabity were sought out and destroyed.

gumby

Hi VM44,

This question of yours was one of the first questions I had when I began to question the bible. I started a thread on it in May of 2202.

Here's the thread if you can use any of the info.

http://www.jehovahs-witness.com/6/27932/1.ashx

BTW.....excellent question. It will open your eyes a bit to do a little study on this subject.

Gumby

Balsam

Found this discussion, glad to see it.

I've been doing a lot of research on this, and was shocked to find the bible canon we accept today as inspired today, is nothing more than a bunch of men rushed into picking out books that THEY DECIDED people needed to live by and understand. That huge portion of writing were left out.

Once again we have mislead my men, concerning the bible, and organized religion.

I am glad this information is now available to examine throughly. Those who were known as the Gnostics the earliest of Christians along before Paul, and their writing were chased down and killed by the men who decided their writings did not belong in the bible canon.

Balsam

Sargon

here's a gem that didn't make it into the bible as composed at the council of Nicea; it's from the Gospel of Thomas:

Jesus said, "the kingdom of the father is like a certain woman who was carrying a jar full of meal. While she was walking on the road...the handle of the jar broke and the meal emptied out behind her on the road. She did not realize it; she had noticed no accident. When she reached her house, she set the jar down and found it empty." (saying 97)

If they'd included all the gospels about Jesus' life that were floating around in 325, people back then would have realized it was all a bunch of crap. Instead, they culled the information; keeping only what books aided in keeping the people in subjection to their new Christian Emporer and the Bishop of Rome. We've been duped by the conspiricy ever since.

seedy3

Irenious and Paypheus had the most influence on what should and should not be in the bible, Eusebus also had an input, being he was the Church Historian, but during the council of Nicea, Constintine, contrary to popular beleif did not follow the trinitarian way until the council had got under way. See he was influenced much by Eusebus who was not originally a trinitarian, but to save face he switched sides to save influence and his power in the church. after this time he (Constintien) became more influenced by Irenious who was a trinitarian. It was said that just prior to his death, Constintine switched back to the arian view.

Seedy

Who determined which Bible books are inspired?

Share this