Date: Tue, 17 Sep 2002 09:46:50 -0700 (PDT) From: "Neal E. Westfall" <nwestfal@directvinternet.com> To: Lawrence Sica <lomifeh@earthlink.net> Cc: chat@FreeBSD.ORG Subject: Re: Why did evolution fail? Message-ID: <20020916091115.J71904-100000@Tolstoy.home.lan> In-Reply-To: <13D4513B-C688-11D6-A85D-000393A335A2@earthlink.net>
next in thread | previous in thread | raw e-mail | index | archive | help
On Thu, 12 Sep 2002, Lawrence Sica wrote: > > The Christian canon is not based on the dead sea scrolls. The canon is > > based on what the church has always recognized as the scriptures. The > > concept of canonicity was inherited from the Jewish church from whom it > > received the Old Testament scriptures. The New Testament scriptures > > were received gradually by the church from the apostles and their close > > associates, and as such were approved by the apostles, who were in turn > > commissioned by Christ Himself. > > Not exactly, the Bible in its current state was decided over 300 years > after Jesus walked on earth. What you mean is that it was formally canonized 300 years after Jesus walked the earth. That does not change the legitimacy of the canon, since the criteria for determining the canon was apostolic authenticity. > And like I have said before there were > hundreds of books and gospels. There were hundreds of books and gospels written by all kinds of people who did not have apostolic authority. Why does it seem so surprising that the church would want to weed all of these dubious sources out? > Constantine began the process of > canonization of the Bible. The reason for it was to make sure everyone > was on the same page so to speak. No, the reason was because the heretic Marcion attempted to repudiate all of the old testament and most of the new testament scriptures as well. > The word itself is greek btw. They > wanted to stop heretics, and thus the orthodoxy was established in the > canon of the Bible. And while one takes it on faith that the books > included were inspired by God's Will. One has to ask, if all the books > were inspired by God why were they not all included? Why were some > deemed right and wrong, and what was the criteria? The criteria was apostolic authenticity. If a book was to be considered part of the canon, it had to be penned either by an apostle or one of their close associates. Books like "The Gospel of Thomas" were recognized to be of dubious authority and as such were rejected. By the way, just by reading most of these books one can see why they would be considered of dubious authority. The stories are silly and pointless. > Books that would > have preached that the church was not always needed would have been > removed for example. Thus politics, in this case, the survival of the > Church, came into play. What this line of thinking fails to take into account is that the kind of God that we find in the scriptures would be willing and able to preserve those books which He intended to be preserved for all ages. God providentially preserved those books which needed to be preserved for the church in all ages. Speculation about political motivations and such are somewhat irrelevant, unless you reject the existence of God from the outset. Presuppositions have determinitive function in how you view the canon. > Plus remember the man who started this was a > political figure, and wanted to further his chosen religion above all > others in his empire, hence that would also have a bearing on the > outcome. Yes, but it was not Constantine who decided on the canon, it was the church which received the scriptures from the apostolic tradition and later formally canonized them. All political considerations are incidental. > >> Is the true canon the dead sea scrolls? Or is it the King James > >> translation into English of the Bible? > > > > What has *any* English translation have to do with it? The canon > > was received from the apostles, who were commissioned by Christ. > > The principle by which the church eventually agreed on what was to > > be included in the canon was the historical tradition of apostolicity. > > > > English translation has a lot to do with it. Look at the the name > Jehova. If you take two versions of the Bible translated by different > people, you will have two slightly different books. Yes, but the overall message will be much the same. This is why we don't just do one-man translations. Every English translation we have is the result of the work of many scholars. This by no means is an indication that we have a "perfect" translation anywhere, but it does mean that overall, we can trust it. There is always more work to be done of course, and as scholarship improves our translations will also improve. > That is why a > translation has a lot to do with it. History itself is full of > mistranslations of words not only in the Bible. Which is why scholarship is important. It doesn't mean we just throw up our hands and give up altogether. As Christians, we believe in objective truth and that there are ways to resolve these kinds of disputes. Maybe not to everyone's satisfaction, but they can be resolved. Neal To Unsubscribe: send mail to majordomo@FreeBSD.org with "unsubscribe freebsd-chat" in the body of the message
Want to link to this message? Use this URL: <https://mail-archive.FreeBSD.org/cgi/mid.cgi?20020916091115.J71904-100000>