Tigers!

The books that were considerd authorative were put into the canon. They didn't become authorative because they were put in the canon. Don't put the cart before the horse.

Julian

There is no evidence that the canon was voted upon that I can see. Johnny, you cannot infer from the text that there was a vote as to what went into the bible and what was left out. It seems to have been a long-winded process of additions and eliminations until the 16th century.

Julian

Steven Avery

And then of course one of the Gospel writers, Luke, did write in detail about Paul, making the discussion of the non-reference in the Gospels that much more pointless.

Steven Avery

Hi, Julian, no such long-winded process can be documented with the New Testament canon, for which there was no discussion of change,or concern of any kind, from the 4th century on.

The only significant canon issues after the 4th century of which I am aware are Tanach apocrypha, not New Testament issues, especially the RCC Council of Trent in the 16th century assigning deutero-canonical status to a number of apocrypha books. Again, those are pre-NT writings.

And for the most part the issues up to the 4th century were some resistances to including certain NT books into the canon, such as Revelation and Hebrews and a few others. One exception, there were five NT books in the eastern Aramaic church that had less that full canon status even after the 4th century. Maybe Ethiopia had some special situations as well.

Shalom,
Steven Avery
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/Messianic_Apologetic

Johnny Skeptic

Nor is any really needed. While skeptics have no obligation to reasonably prove a negative, Christians most certainly have an obligation to reasonably prove a positive, meaning that they must reasonably prove that God chose the writings that were included in the New Testament canon, and specifically who God told which writings should comprise the canon.

In another thread, you said that Peter considered some of Paul's writings to be authoritative. Will you please tell us by what means Peter considered some of Paul's writings to be authoritative, and yet considered other writings not to be authoritative?

1 Corinthians 1:12-13 say "Now this I say, that every one of you saith, I am of Paul; and I of Apollos; and I of Cephas; and I of Christ. Is Christ divided? was Paul crucified for you? or were ye baptized in the name of Paul?" Was that not a vote of sorts?

Today, it would be a simple matter for some skeptics to alter parts of the New Testament, go to some remote jungle regions, and deceive some people with their revisions.

Since God has allowed hundreds of millions of people to die without ever having heard the Gospel message, why would he care which writings comprise the New Testament?

Hebrews 8:6 says "But now hath he obtained a more excellent ministry, by how much also he is the mediator of a better covenant, which was established upon better promises." So why did God choose to offer a much worse covenant for so long, and why was the old covenant offered only in the Middle East and only to the Jews?

everettf

Would Gutenberg have had any influence on the chapters printed? It seems he could have picked what he wanted.

Just asking.

Johnny Skeptic

Message to hatsoff: You said:

I replied:

Did you read that post?

Steven Avery

Message to Johnny -- when I have answered your multitudinous conjectural canon-related questions, with sincere and forthright answers, you have ignored those answers, and simply repeated the same questions in variant format a day or three later.

Go back to the first dialog we had, cut-and-paste in here, and then if you have a sensible follow-up question, it would be my pleasure to try to respond.

Shalom,
Steven Avery

Johnny Skeptic

You most certainly have not sufficiently answered my canon-related questions. You became evasive months ago in another thread about the New Testemante canon, and you are still evasive now. I ask you clear, direct questions, and all that I usually get from you is an evasive runaround. I have come to expect evasiveness from fundamentalist Christians when they don't want to embarrass themselves by answering my questions. In one of your previous posts, you said:

I replied:

You didn't reply to any of that anywhere in this thread, or in the other thread on the New Testament canon, nor do I expect you to.

Steven Avery

Then I will challenge you to find the link and post my answer, (my supposed evasion) as a starting point.

Otherwise, drop the issue with me.

As far as I'm concerned you simply are involved in gamesmanship, and you ignore the answers if you don't think they are satisfactory or 'sufficient', and in your construct, no answer is 'satisfactory.

Shalom,
Steven Avery