DFrechetteNH

My question for discussion is why has the New Testament not been updated with all the discovries made in the 20th century?

I am talking about the discovered non-canonical books and forgeries such as Timothy II.

It seems funny to me that fundies disagree so much with Catholics. But, it's Catholics that put the books together. Chose which ones to keep and which ones to get rid of.

Are there mainstream fundies out there that include different books in their bible based on these discoveries?

Toto

Hi D -

Calling someone a fundy is not the best way to get a response from them.

But the fundamentalists have an answer. They believe that God inspired the selection of books for the canon, and later corrupt Catholic bishops went astray. Some of them believe that God also inspired the committee that translated the King James Version.

Human rationalization is limitless.

DFrechetteNH

Thanks for the reply.

I understand that christians of the day believed that god inspired the canonical selections but why still today? Are there no modern mainstream groups that embraced the discovery of the gnostic gospels?

They think jesus' turning water into wine is a miracle but not the discovery of books after more than 1500 years?

Sorry about the use of the word Fundies. Didn't realize it was a derrogatory term. Should have known though, cause the word FUN was involved and that would be just ridiculous.

Toto

There are various people who have embraced the gnostic gospels, but they tend not to be orthodox Christians, or people who believe in the inerrancy of scripture in the first place. The Jesus Seminar has adopted the Gospel of Thomas as its 5th gospel, but since they only accept about 18% of the words attributed to Jesus as genuine, they are not about to revise the canon.

There are people like Elaine Pagels (author of The Gnostic Gospels (or via: amazon.co.uk) and, on a less academically impressive level, the readership of the Da Vinci Code.

There is actually a Gnostic Church in my city. But the gnostics do not worship the text; the text is just a means to self discovery.

Philip Jenkins, writing even before the Da Vinci Code, in Hidden Gospels, gives the standard view of the NH texts, and sees the gnostic gospels as part of a new mythology, which he thinks is essentially just anti-Catholic: Jenkins is the author of Hidden Gospels: How the Search for Jesus Lost Its Way (or via: amazon.co.uk).

Peter Kirby

For a Catholic, the statement of the Council of Trent on the extent of the canon does not easily permit the extension of the canon with newly discovered books, such as a Gospel of Thomas or a Gospel of Judas. There is also the question of whether the newly discovered books would meet any of the criteria originally applied to determining canon, not least of which is that they were being read in the early Christian churches. Some, such as the Gospel of Peter, seem to have been read in some of the churches; others, such as the Gospel of Thomas, do not.

I hope this is of help. Also, the word fundie is a corruption of fundamentalist, which comes from the emphasis on the "fundamentals" and indeed does have nothing to do with fun.

Huon

I thought it was a funny pun...