Baptists: When did your denomination decide the canon?

And we could say, we dont see how Catholics cant look at history and see there whole believe system is a product of syncretism. As time progressed they expanded their cannon in order to "prove" their false beliefs are true.

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Some non-Catholics love to denigrating the Catholic Church as being non Scriptural. Often they ask Catholics, where in the Bible is ….. I’ll turn it around and say where in the Bible is the Canon of the Bible? I just saw a post that said the NT canon was decided by the early church. Wow, a Christian doctrine that isn’t defined by the Bible Alone. The official canon of the NT is “extra” or “added” from God’s word.

 

There is 3 attributes of NT canonicity. Divine qualities, corporate reception, apostolic origins. The NT is self-authentivating. Michael Kruger wrote a fantastic book on NT canonicity called "Canon revisited".

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Why should I believe this book or this author?
It’s not part of the Bible and this author is not an author of the Bible.
Where are these attributes in the Bible?

 

You don't need to believe the author. You should however consider the methods that the apostles used to recognize scripture. Did apostles recognize other apostle writings as scripture? You should also look at what did the early church consider scripture. You should also consider what to do when other writings contradict the widely accepted apostolic writings.

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My statement still stands correct that “The official canon of the NT is “extra” or “added” from God’s Word.” Now I’ll add to that: how to determine (or qualifications) the Canon. So these two items are Traditions someone must accept in order to be able to say I go by the Bible Alone. Since all the books of the NT are “self-authenticating”, why was there so much confusion in the Early Church over the inspiration of books? I have considered the methods the apostles used and it wasn’t the Bible Alone (considering there wasn’t a defined canon in their day). I also considered the how the Early Church viewed scripture and it too wasn’t the Bible Alone (again not a defined Canon until close to the 4th century). In fact, I read this a few years back that there was a two-fold test that a book would go through to see if it was inspired and both were based on Tradition. 1st- Is this in an agreement with traditional doctrine and 2nd-is there a tradition that this has been used in the Church since the first century. And if something didn’t meet either one of those criteria’s it wasn’t included in scripture.

 

When I had mentioned 382 A.D. earlier, I was talking about the decree of the council of Rome regarding Biblical canon. It is as follows:

"Likewise it has been said: Now indeed we must treat of the divine Scriptures, what the universal Catholic Church accepts and what she ought to shun. The order of the Old Testament begins here: Genesis...."

It then goes on to list the same exact canon used by the Catholic Church today.

I'll also quote Wikipedia regarding the Synod of Hippo in 393: "...the first time a council of bishops listed and approved a Christian Biblical canon that corresponds to the modern Roman Catholic canon...."

This was further ratified, (confirmed, approved, endorsed) by later councils in 397, 419, 787, 1442 and 1546.

So, what I'm trying to point out is this: our Bible goes waaaay back, and it is not the result of one man who had a wild hair.

When was the canon expanded? It has been the same since 382.

This is above our pay grade to figure out, and if there is any truth to it, the same could be said of other Christian faiths.

 

I can see this is beyond your grasp at this point in your life, and unless you want to start a thread regarding this subject, lets drop it.

 

He kinda knew he didn't. He LEFT the baptist church because understood the necessity of apostolic succession. When he started the baptist church he baptized himself. There was no handing down of Christianity. The TRUE CHURCH of Jesus Christ by what ever you identify it as has to teach it to you.

He left for the Mennonites.

Mennonites/Anabaptists. Don't believe in Faith Alone.

 

Bible Alone can’t prove the canon of the Bible nor can it prove how to determine the canon since God did not reveal by way of written revelation to us. You can read every book of the Bible and you’re not going to find any of them that specify the Bibles own table of contents. In fact, I’m going to add to the list of things that is “extra” or “added” from God’s word. You could read every book of the Bible and your not going to find written in any of the books of the Bible, the doctrine that we should consult the Bible Alone to determine the content of our Christian faith.

So when Christ made previsions to hand on the faith. He never told the Church, as your handing on the faith, be sure to consult this list of books, these 27 canonical books in the NT and define everything against that standard. He never said that. On the contrary, Christ delivered his teaching orally as a tradition and trusted it NOT to a book but to individuals, to living people and commanded them to pass it on and gave them a promise of Divine assistance. (Sacred Tradition, teaching office of the Church, and the sacred liturgy. He said Do this in memory of me, He said to baptize, He said who ever sins you forgive are forgiven.)

If you think about it, if you go read the NT. The NT is not a manual on Christian worship. There is no document in the NT that says when Christians come together this is how you should worship. This is the order of worship. This what the liturgy should look like, this is what the one who presides should do. There’s nothing like that. Rather the NT, presumes the preexist of the sacred liturgy. St Paul writes to members of the Churches like they know what’s going on. Because he knows that they know it by Sacred Tradition.

 

Jerome and Rome didn't consider Hippo binding or authoritative.

Athanasius would say the books were added and "Indeed not received as canonical"

If they were Canon, sure Jesus would have rebuked the Jews for rejection of God's word, but instead he rebuked them from adding anything to the Jewish Scripture.

The 4th century claim of a adopted canon by the RCC cannot be sustained

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The self authenticating model does not do such.

The attributes for canonicity listed above do not suggest such. It does however limit what man can demand to be called scripture. To grant sola ecclessia as the model to select the word of God is to give man authority over the voice of God and ultimately over God. We do not determine what God says. He does.


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You brought the topic up, not me.

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Which is exactly how the whole Christian faith was set up, it was indeed the leaders of Church, of the newly evolving Christian faith who decided things, not the individual adherent and his Bible alone. Such a thing brings anarchy to the Body of Christ, not harmony.

 

Someone had to compile the Canon of the Holy Scriptures, and if it wasn't the Church, than who? Every day people of different faith traditions are indeed determining what God is saying, so who then is getting it right?

 

St. Paul was the "higher authority", a leader of the Christian Church of his day. HE was writing and telling the outlying churches where they were going wrong and what they had to do to rectify things. He was what we call today a part of the central authority of the Church, a man, a living human being. None of these outlying churches was just sent a copy of the scriptures and told to decide things for themselves.

 

I am glad you said "complie". But we must be careful not to confuse that with "determination" That is easy and your assumption(as I read it being presented)is correct. The model cited in regards to "self authentication"....the canonicity model uses, as one point, "corporate reception". The Holy Spirit made sure the Scripture was well distributed and accepted as such. The 27 books had great wide spread distribution and acceptance...some more than others, but all signficant. The apocrypha was never accepted as such until much later than its production. We must not confuse the apocrypha with the NT. Even the council's of Hippo and Carthage separate the two(Yes they are not Universal, authoritative councils...but they have been cited regularly). The determination of the apocrypha as scripture would be the same as the book of Genesis or any other OT book. We know the Jewish people excluded the apocryphal works as scripture.

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The Jewish people also rejected their Messiah, so they did make bad decisions.

 

...and Jesus called them out for that. Never for using the wrong Scriptures.

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