Scripture - Its Use And Abuse

Euphemia said:
The Apocrypha is rife with errors and that is why it is not considered scripture.

http://carm.org/errors-apocrypha
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Do you not have a problem with there being 66 books in the Bible?

Also, you can just as easily Google errors in the Bible and get just as many "errors" there also. The point is whether or not they are useful in our understanding of the faith, those that are both useful and inspired are canonical, those that are just useful are duterocanonical.
 
Big Moose said:
Is the Bible Holy Spirit inspired? Is it just a reference book, or THE guidebook for our life?

2 Timothy 3:16 All Scripture is God-breathed and is useful for teaching, rebuking, correcting and training in righteousness, 17 so that the servant of God may be thoroughly equipped for every good work.

2 Peter 3:15 Bear in mind that our Lord’s patience means salvation, just as our dear brother Paul also wrote you with the wisdom that God gave him. 16 He writes the same way in all his letters, speaking in them of these matters. His letters contain some things that are hard to understand, which ignorant and unstable people distort, as they do the other Scriptures, to their own destruction. 17 Therefore, dear friends, since you have been forewarned, be on your guard so that you may not be carried away by the error of the lawless and fall from your secure position.
Peter considered Paul's letters to be scripture. Hence the reason the New Testament was bound with the Old to make our Bible. The apostles and early church fathers used the New as scripture also.
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I can't find my way to interpreting 2 Tim 3:16 to be inclusive of the present canon, but the opinion of Peter and the early church fathers is where I would start too :)
 
We don't even need to argue about the deuterocanonical books. All we need to agree on is that the original Bible had more books than 66. And if books were removed it's not because God thought they were bad.
 
apocrypha - writings or statements of dubious authenticity
Webster's Dictionary.
Just because they are useful history books and have truthful statements in them, does not mean we should include them in the Bible. Otherwise we could constantly be adding to the Bible with new authors. Bill O'Reilly's book "Killing Jesus" could be added on that basis. Thousands of years of scrutiny should be enough to validate the Bible for the unsure. When wikipedia is around for a thousand years, then I will go there for facts.:D
 
Big Moose said:
apocrypha - writings or statements of dubious authenticity
Webster's Dictionary.
Just because they are useful history books and have truthful statements in them, does not mean we should include them in the Bible. Otherwise we could constantly be adding to the Bible with new authors. Bill O'Reilly's book "Killing Jesus" could be added on that basis. Thousands of years of scrutiny should be enough to validate the Bible for the unsure. When wikipedia is around for a thousand years, then I will go there for facts.:D
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"Apocrypha" is slightly derogatory and not used by the Catholics/Orthodox Christians. They are called the deuterocanonical books. Luther separated them but did not REMOVE them, that happened later. Regarding their removal from the original Bible, all we know is God wasn't the one who took them out. So the reasoning is largely political, and in fact the books are still in the Catholic Bible and some Lutheran ones.
 
Big Moose said:
apocrypha - writings or statements of dubious authenticity
Webster's Dictionary.
Just because they are useful history books and have truthful statements in them, does not mean we should include them in the Bible. Otherwise we could constantly be adding to the Bible with new authors. Bill O'Reilly's book "Killing Jesus" could be added on that basis. Thousands of years of scrutiny should be enough to validate the Bible for the unsure. When wikipedia is around for a thousand years, then I will go there for facts.:D
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I mean, the deuterocanonical books were there for about 1500 years. They've been useful in developing a lot of important Christian traditions, like the universal martyrdom of the Apostles. In any case, wasn't it kind of wrong to remove them completely instead of just sliding them in the back with a note: "Hey, we can't confirm these are authentic scriptures, but you can read them and decide for yourself."

The story about the woman caught in adultery is not found in the oldest manuscripts of John's Gospel, but no one would dream of taking that out.

Plus, having 66 books seems sacrilegious to me. We should at least have one more to make it 67, which would nicely represent the relationship between God and man in the scripture.
 
MMurphy said:
I mean, the deuterocanonical books were there for about 1500 years. They've been useful in developing a lot of important Christian traditions, like the universal martyrdom of the Apostles. In any case, wasn't it kind of wrong to remove them completely instead of just sliding them in the back with a note: "Hey, we can't confirm these are authentic scriptures, but you can read them and decide for yourself."

The story about the woman caught in adultery is not found in the oldest manuscripts of John's Gospel, but no one would dream of taking that out.

Plus, having 66 books seems sacrilegious to me. We should at least have one more to make it 67, which would nicely represent the relationship between God and man in the scripture.
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Great comments.

I think the reasoning has to do with Peace's original post. Scripture can be terribly, terribly abused for any number of reasons. For those that controlled the transmission of the early letters there was undoubtedly strong temptation to alter the text for reasons as innocuous as "improving clarity" to the more sinister chance to nudge doctrine closer to personal preference(be that political or spiritual). In view of this it seems wise to be conservative in view of what constitutes "inspired" messages from God. But I do wish we didn't dismiss our other ancient texts so completely. I'm all for the primacy of the current canon, but I'm not really comfortable knowing that average Joe Christian has read more MacArthur than apocryphal books, or Augustine, or Clement etc.
 
DavidG said:
Great comments.

I think the reasoning has to do with Peace's original post. Scripture can be terribly, terribly abused for any number of reasons. For those that controlled the transmission of the early letters there was undoubtedly strong temptation to alter the text for reasons as innocuous as "improving clarity" to the more sinister chance to nudge doctrine closer to personal preference(be that political or spiritual). In view of this it seems wise to be conservative in view of what constitutes "inspired" messages from God. But I do wish we didn't dismiss our other ancient texts so completely. I'm all for the primacy of the current canon, but I'm not really comfortable knowing that average Joe Christian has read more MacArthur than apocryphal books, or Augustine, or Clement etc.
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Well, there was probably a very real fear of altering a passage. If anything was going to spark the wrath of God, perverting His sacred texts would be it.
 
Euphemia said:
Christians are often accused of using “circular reasoning” when they do what they are supposed to be doing, which is using scripture to interpret and prove scripture. We are criticized by those who say that we cannot do that, but their argument is flawed. The bible is a library of 66 books, authored by about 40 men, from different centuries and from different continents. Each set of writings has been thoroughly scrutinized and tested and have not been found wanting, but have only proven to be completely reliable as a witness to God’s communication with man. The circular reasoning argument is not valid when it comes to God’s word…it is just a tactic of warfare against God and His people.
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Who says they use circular reasoning? I'd say that most non fundamentalist extremists use the Bible just fine and they use Scripture to interpret Scripture too. Some people use their hate to interpret Scripture though. That's where we get the haters.

By the way, there is no reason to be passive aggressive. :)
 
MMurphy said:
Do you not have a problem with there being 66 books in the Bible?
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Not one bit. Do you?

Also, you can just as easily Google errors in the Bible and get just as many "errors" there also. The point is whether or not they are useful in our understanding of the faith, those that are both useful and inspired are canonical, those that are just useful are duterocanonical.
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There are no errors in the bible.
 
PeaceLikeaRiver said:
"Apocrypha" is slightly derogatory and not used by the Catholics/Orthodox Christians. They are called the deuterocanonical books. Luther separated them but did not REMOVE them, that happened later. Regarding their removal from the original Bible, all we know is God wasn't the one who took them out. So the reasoning is largely political, and in fact the books are still in the Catholic Bible and some Lutheran ones.
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Yeah, God willed they be removed.
 
MMurphy said:
Yes I find 66 Books a problem!
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That's sad.

And I could say there are no errors in the apocryphal. It doesn't mean I'm right.
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That's right. You wouldn't be.

Also why did God wait till the 16th century to do this?
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My belief (as well as many others) is that people were spiritually deaf to Holy Spirit during the Dark Ages. He burst the stronghold wide open with the Reformation.
 
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