Paidion wrote:The following is for informational purposes only:
It is only in the Old Testament, that the writings vary between the Protestant canon, the Catholic canon, and the Orthodox canon.
The Orthodox Old Testament contains 3rd Maccabees, whereas the RC contains only 1st and 2nd Maccabees.
The Orthodox contains Psalm 151, whereas the other two don't.
Orthodox 2nd Ezra = RC 1st Esdras = Prot Ezra
Orthodox 1st Ezra is a later writing (about 150 BC) containing only 9 chapters. The other two do not contain it.
Orthodox Nehemiah = RC 2nd Esdras = Prot Nehemiah
Orthodox 2 Chronicles includes the Prayer of Manasseh
Orthodox contains "Lamentation of Jeremiah" and "Epistle of Jeremiah" whereas the other two don't.
In the Orthodox, the History of Suzanna is at the beginning of Daniel, and Bel and the Serpent (or dragon) at the end.
This is but a partial list of the differences between the three Bibles. There are also a number of writings found in both the Orthodox and RC Old Testaments which are absent from the Protestant OT.
I obtained my information by comparing the Orthodox Study Bible with the RC Douay.
Here is a site I discovered afterward, that gives a more thorough comparison, and differs a bit from that which I provided above:
http://www.bible-researcher.com/canon2.html
If you go to the site, please scroll down to compare what the three canons do with the deuterocanonical books (called by Protestants "the Apocrypha").
You wrote: Furthermore, I agree with those who also conclude that inspired words ceased after the New Testament era based on 1 Corinthians 13:8 and Revelation 22:18-19. So the book of Mormon is not inspired, nor does it come close to sharing the same quality as the Christian Scriptures, nor liturgies and commentaries.
Paidion wrote:I'm sorry you felt hurt, Jeff, at Randy's suggestion that your statements of faith are the usual "politically correct" ones. I wouldn't have used those terms, but as a former fundamentalist, I was taught the same things in Bible school, and also heard them from the pulpit. When I began to study the (Protestant) Bible for myself, and referred to the Greek New Testament as edited by Westcott-Hort, I began to see that many of my presuppositions were incorrect. Let me discuss just one of your affirmations:
.Actually, Jeff, i was complimenting you
Clearly by "the words of the book of this prophecy," John was referring to the book of Revelation itself.
[email protected] wrote:.Actually, Jeff, i was complimenting you
Super, I'll take it as such and thank you. I wasn't really hurt, but sometimes it seems to me that the holy foolery might lose sight of productive conversation and maybe even love. I am sure it is an appearance only, so no worries.
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"Always smile. Life isn't always full of reasons to smile, but your smile itself is a reason for others to smile too."-- Sebastiano Serafini
LLC wrote:Open up a hymnal for example. These words are inspired by God. What makes the book of Psalms any different?
Jeff wrote:The Psalms are God's word and are without error, hymnals are man's words and are not without error.
[email protected] wrote:Instead he is a consuming fire.
davo wrote:[email protected] wrote:Instead he is a consuming fire.
Good thing Jesus became humanity’s fire insurance appeasing and he rescued us from an angry God…
[email protected] wrote:The Psalms are God's word and are without error, hymnals are man's words and are not without error.
Can one say these stories are not true because they are not in the Bible?
Jeff wrote:Don't you understand? God gave us special books, not merely dictated, but the Holy Spirit picked up men as His writing instrument, using their personalities and gifts to pen the pages of the these special books, without error in the original autographs.
Jeff wrote:He is the one who also drowned the entire world except for 8 people in time past.
God is the one who leveled Jerusalem to the ground for their rejection of Christ bringing unimaginable suffering on man, woman, and child.
Paidion wrote:Jeff wrote:Don't you understand? God gave us special books, not merely dictated, but the Holy Spirit picked up men as His writing instrument, using their personalities and gifts to pen the pages of the these special books, without error in the original autographs.
But how do you KNOW they are without error in the original autographs? The original autographs do not exist, and so there is no evidence that your statement is true. It's only a theoretical, mental concept.
Again, how do you know which writings are the ones that God preserved from error? You say you don't rely on the decisions of church councils.
You say that, "The Christian Scriptures are documents of a special nature distinct from other human writings." But WHICH writings are "The Christian Scriptures", and how do you KNOW?
The Greek copies we have today do not have a great deal of variation. I can display errors, but I am sure that would not convince you of anything, for you would simply say (without evidence) that the error does not exist in the original autograph, and, of course, because the original does not exist, no one can prove otherwise.
Paidion wrote:Jeff wrote:He is the one who also drowned the entire world except for 8 people in time past.
How do you KNOW that it was God who did it?God is the one who leveled Jerusalem to the ground for their rejection of Christ bringing unimaginable suffering on man, woman, and child.
How do you KNOW that God did that?
To say for example, the hymn "Amazing Grace" is somehow of less quality because it is not in the Bible does not make sense to me. Truth is truth and can be found in many places.
The hymn amazing grace is wonderful and contains no theological error that I am aware. Just because a work is not God-breathed does not mean it has to contain an error, but instead simply that it is not guaranteed to be with out error.
I grew up in a world in which the Protestants, who had just proved that Rome did not believe the Bible, were excitedly discovering that they did not believe the Bible themselves.
[email protected] wrote:Can one say these stories are not true because they are not in the Bible?
What? Certainly there are true statements outside the Bible!
If I write 1+1=2 on a slip of paper it is true, and furthermore it is as true as any statement of God inspired word, but that does not then make it the special God-breathed Scriptural message from God! Don't you understand? God gave us special books, not merely dictated, but the Holy Spirit picked up men as His writing instrument, using their personalities and gifts to pen the pages of the these special books, without error in the original autographs, and though he used men to write, He is the author of the Bible and His word is flawless. These special books are then the sum of God's written message to mankind and they contain everything we need to understand God and to learn to please him. The Bible is God's special written message given to mankind.
Of course there are other truthful, valuable, and spiritual written words. The hymn amazing grace is wonderful and and contains no theological error that I am aware. Just because a work is not God-breathed does not mean it has to contain an error, but instead simply that it is not guaranteed to be with out error. So works of men, even if they have no errors are still none-the-less not in the category of God-breathed Scripture and so hymns might contain errors because they are the work of fallible men.
"If you see me talking to myself, don't be alarmed. I'm getting expert advice!" -- Author Unknown
Modern Christian approaches to biblical consistency are reminiscent of the split between Luther and Osiander, and can be broadly divided between inerrancy and infallibility. The former, followed by the Southern Baptist Convention and by evangelical Christians in general, holds that the original Biblical manuscripts have "God for its author, salvation for its end, and truth, without any mixture of error, for its matter", so that "all Scripture is totally true and trustworthy":[23] Its most erudite proponents, such as Gleason Archer, whose reconciliation of difficult texts echoes that of Osiander, allow that textual scholarship and an understanding of the historical context of individual passages is necessary to establish true, original biblical text, but that that text, once discovered, is without error.
The infallibility approach followed by some theologians and scholars, primarily of the Catholic and Anglican churches, and some mainline Protestant denominations, avoids many of the pitfalls of inerrancy by holding that the Bible is without error only in matters essential to salvation,[24] and that guidance is necessary for the correct interpretation of apparent inconsistencies; the latter part being common to all Orthodox and Catholic Christians, regardless of views of Biblical inerrancy, being the primary role of the magisterium.
According to Roman Catholic biblical scholar Raymond E. Brown, this approach found expression in Dei verbum, one of the key documents adopted at the Second Vatican Council, which stated that scripture teaches "...solidly, faithfully and without error that truth which God wanted put into sacred writings for the sake of salvation,"[25]—meaning that Scripture is inerrant only "...to the extent to which it conforms to the salvific purpose of God,"[26][27] without necessarily being reliable on matters such as paleontology or political history; this view is challenged by some conservative Catholic scholars.[28][29]
Regarding God's flawless word I've already point us to ...
In Chapter 54:9 of Enoch,we read, "The chiefs of the East, among the Parthians and Medes, shall remove kings, in whom a spirit of perturbation shall enter. They shall hurl them from their thrones, springing as lions from their dens, and like famished wolves into the midst of the flock." Commenting on the passage, Archbishop Lawrence says, "Now the Parthians were altogether unknown in history until the 250th year before Christ."
Jeff, you wrote:Regarding God's flawless word I've already point us to Proverbs 30:5.
So clearly this book was not written by the historic Enoch, "the seventh from Adam" as Jude had written. So was Jude's statement that he WAS the seventh from Adam, "the flawless word of God"? I don't think so.
Jeff, I also believe the truth of this proverb. But this proverb is a far cry from asseverating that every sentence in the Bible is the word of God.
[email protected] wrote:Certainly every sentence, word, jot, and tittle in the God-breathed Scripture is flawless and without error.
Jeff, you wrote:However, you keep pulling out debated passages as if that were an argument against the claim that God's word is flawless.
The point is that God cannot err in his communication because he is God.
However, the inerrancy only applies to the original autographs.
Geoffrey wrote:[email protected] wrote:Certainly every sentence, word, jot, and tittle in the God-breathed Scripture is flawless and without error.
Amen.
We get flaw and error with our preposterous interpretations of God's precious scriptures. The main point of this message board testifies to this dichotomy: A great many people absurdly believe that God's flawless scriptures teach never-ending damnation, when the truth is that the scriptures clearly teach universalism. Sadly, many unbelievers use the falsehood that the perfect scriptures teach never-ending damnation as a pretext to reject the scriptures.
Scriptures = perfection
our private interpretations = moronic idiocy
The original autographs of what? The Protestant Bible?
It's easy to make a claim for some mental construct that can be neither verified nor disproved.
Would your faith in Christ collapse if an original manuscript were discovered that contained a factual error?
Jeff, you wrote:I guess I'll stop asking you to share your list of God-breathed Scriptures.
Jeff, you wrote:What verification would be proof enough for you that the originals are without err? How would you judge God's word to be true? Against what standard? For me the proof is that when God speaks or writes it is impossible for him to err, just as he said.
It is not your list or my list of "God-breathed Scriptures" that is important. It is what Paul meant in 2 Timothy 3:16.
The first thing to understand is that the Greek word "γραφη" (graphā) can simply mean "a writing" and not necessarily some special writing called "Scripture."
The second thing to understand, is that if Paul did mean a special list of "inspired writings" he probably referred to the Hebrew writings, as those were the ones that the Jewish Christians consulted. It is highly unlikely that he included the writings of "Matthew, Mark, Luke, John, Peter, Paul, etc."
Does the "etc." include the letter of Clement (Paul's fellow worker) to the Corinthians? If not, why not? If another letter written by Paul were discovered, would you include that in your list? Paul indicated that he wrote a letter to the Laodiceans.
"If you see me talking to myself, don't be alarmed. I'm getting expert advice!" -- Author Unknown
Question for Jeff and others: If inerrancy is true, then how to you reconcile the book of Genesis, with modern scientific theories of Evolution, Big Bang, Old Earth, etc.
if miracles ceased to exist, then how do you explain away the alleged miracle of the Holy Fire of Jerusalem
[email protected] wrote:Question for Jeff and others: If inerrancy is true, then how to you reconcile the book of Genesis, with modern scientific theories of Evolution, Big Bang, Old Earth, etc.
There is a lot of more recent Christian research finding fault with evolution and so I am a convinced 7 day creation, young earth advocate.if miracles ceased to exist, then how do you explain away the alleged miracle of the Holy Fire of Jerusalem
I never said miracles ceased to exist. I believe God still works miracles today. 1 Corinthians 13 only says that the gift of tongues will cease and the gift of prophecy fade away. Miracles however still happen!
[email protected] wrote:Sorry no time to discuss the detail on that now... and it might be too for off the trail on the primary 'statement of faith' discussion. Do a google search on 'Creation Science' and it will lead you to the resources that have persuaded me.
[email protected] wrote:It is not your list or my list of "God-breathed Scriptures" that is important. It is what Paul meant in 2 Timothy 3:16.
Yes, precisely. What is meant by 2 Timothy 3:16?
2Tim 3:15 …and that from childhood you have known the Holy Scriptures, which are able to make you wise for salvation through faith which is in Christ Jesus.
cf. Lk 24:45
Holy-Fool-P-Zombie wrote:The only way I see to save "inerrancy" with Genesis, is to look at vast parts, either allegorically or symbolically. Otherwise, we need to run with infallibility.
Geoffrey wrote:Holy-Fool-P-Zombie wrote:The only way I see to save "inerrancy" with Genesis, is to look at vast parts, either allegorically or symbolically. Otherwise, we need to run with infallibility.
I think that Genesis, understood as inerrant and interpreted literally, is 100% compatible with an old earth, a local flood, and biological evolution of all species except for mankind.
Can someone believe in biblical inerrancy and also believe in evolution and millions of years? In his powerful DVD, Inerrancy and the Undermining of Biblical Authority, Dr. Terry Mortenson (PhD, history of geology) wrestles with this question. He shows how many prominent and rightfully respected Christian leaders affirm and defend biblical inerrancy, but then turn right around and inconsistently use man’s ideas about the past to determine how we should interpret Genesis. For whatever reason, they just can’t see ( or don’t want to see) that they are using two different methods of interpreting Scripture: one for Genesis 1–11 and a different one for the rest of the Bible.
Many of these leaders signed or were involved in creating the Chicago Statement of Biblical Inerrancy and the later Chicago Statement of Hermeneutics—two wonderful documents affirming the inerrancy of the Scriptures. Yet these same men who affirmed biblical inerrancy have compromised with man’s ideas in Genesis. Through the use of their own writings, Dr. Mortenson shows that although these leaders claim that the Bible is inerrant in all it says—including in history and science—they deny this belief by their inconsistent treatment of Genesis. They plainly show that they do not accept millions of years, astronomical, geological, or, at times, biological evolution because the biblical text demands it but, rather, because of the supposed scientific data. It’s a clear compromise of God’s Word that undermines biblical inerrancy. Dr. Mortenson shows that while you can believe in biblical inerrancy and millions of years/evolution, to do so is highly inconsistent and even dangerous! For example, the order of events in the Creation account is very different from the proposed order of events in big bang and evolutionary ideas. To accept these old-earth ideas you have to ignore or radically change the details in the biblical text. This puts man’s word as an authority over God’s Word—something that those who believe in inerrancy say never should happen. And yet that’s what they’re doing!
Hi Jeff, you wrote:The first thing to understand is that the Greek word "γραφη" (graphā) can simply mean "a writing" and not necessarily some special writing called "Scripture."
What? Every New Testament usage of G1124 is obviously Scripture. This is the NT word for Scripture even if it had alternate denotations in the Greek world at the time.