Iskander

There is no need for anyone to be anointed for them to be declared a ‘savior’ and be given the name of messiah.



"Although Rabbi Akiva suffered greatly in his life and experienced many calamitous events, arguably the worst was the disastrous Bar Kochba rebellion. Indeed, he was one of the leading supporters of Bar Kochba and declared him to be the Messiah
http://www.jewishhistory.org/rabbi-akiva-2/

The part which Akiba is said to have taken in the Bar Kokba war can not be historically determined. The only established fact concerning his connection with Bar Kokba is that the venerable teacher really regarded the patriot as the promised Messiah (Yer. Ta'anit, iv. 68d); and this is absolutely all there is in evidence of an active participation by Akiba in the revolution.
http://www.jewishencyclopedia.com/ar...iba-ben-joseph

Bar Kochba
It was Rabbi Akiva who ascribed to Shimon bar Kochba the famous messianic verse: “A star will shoot forth from Jacob” (Numbers 24:17). That is how he got the name “Kochba,” which means “star.” In essence, Rabbi Akiva crowned him the Messiah. Rabbi Akiva was so widely respected among the people that if he saw in Shimon messianic qualities then the people immediately elevated him to the level of the Messiah. The helps us understand very well why the Christians would take no part in the war; it would have made one messiah too many
http://www.jewishhistory.org/bar-kochba/

Bar Kosiba's success caused many to believe ― among them Rabbi Akiva, one of the wisest and holiest of Israel's rabbis ― that he could be the Messiah. He was nicknamed "Bar Kochba" or "Son of Star," an allusion to a verse in the Book of Numbers (24:17): "there shall come a star out of Jacob." This star is understood to refer to the Messiah.
http://www.aish.com/jl/h/cc/48944706.html
"

Duvduv

And then he came to be known as Bar Kosiba, Son of Lies......
Ironically he was understood to possess virtually all the qualities early on of the Davidic messiah but was discovered to be false once he refused to adhere to the rabbinical authorities, and this led to the atrocities.
There were also apparently three generations of this family, and it was the first, Shimon, who as deemed mistakenly to have that role. After Shimon there was a short rule of his son, Rufus, and then a longer period with his grandson Romulus.

But boy, have we gone far afield from the original focus of this thread regarding the canonization of the NT.

Iskander

Harnack says that the formation of the canon was made necessary by Marcion.


“This gave rise to the mockery of the heathen, the theological art of the Gnostics, and the radical reconstruction of tradition as attempted by Marcion.

With the freedom that still prevailed Christianity was in danger of being resolved into a motley mass of philosophic speculations or of being completely detached from its original conditions.

It was admitted on all sides that Christianity had its starting-point in certain facts and sayings; but if any and every interpretation of those facts and sayings was possible, if any system of philosophy might be taught into which the words that expressed them might be woven, it is clear that there could be but little cohesion between the members of the Christian communities.”

http://www.gutenberg.org/cache/epub/19613/pg19613.txt

Duvduv

Formation by whom? When? Which synod? By which authority?

Iskander

See #126 and read Harnack

outhouse

spot on.

sotto voce

Harnack, the Lutheran, and yet, warmonger. Not, for a theologian (sorry to pull rank) actually so anomalous as it seems, but a strange choice of supposed authority. Do we get prizes for picking out the lies?

There is a basic conceptual error in the OP. Scripture is not primary, for Christians. It certainly is, for Muslims and Sikhs. For Mormons, JWs, Orthodox and Catholics, it is emphatically the cult leadership that is primary. But there were Christians before there was any Bible larger than what Jews and others had read for 600 years or more.

For Christians, what is primary is the proof of the pudding. No, I tell a lie. For Christians, the essential is conversion, which is evinced by the proof of the pudding; which is called, appropriately enough, the fruits of the Spirit. Kindness, patience, humility, honesty, that kind of thing. The thing is that, humans tend to appreciate that kind of thing when it is applied in their favour, but not so keen when they are called on to apply it for the benefit of others. So the minority who are prepared to apply them get recognised. Picked on, even. They are called by various names, not all of them polite. They are 'born agains' or evangelicals. They are 'fundamentalists' or 'Bible-bashers'. And yes, that's the other thing about them. Without any sort of prompting, they are invariably unanimous about 66 books being of divine origin. Not just because they find 66 books in printed Bibles, because they inspect all other possibilities, and always come to the same conclusion. And, just as these people are recognised, so is their choice of Scripture. Everyone knows what is Christian Scripture before even reading it. Though to read those 66 is to read books like no others on earth.

Now if we assume that human nature has not significantly altered in two thousand years (and historians increasingly talk of people of the past as 'us, then'), we can suppose that those people of the first few centuries CE prepared to apply the fruits of the Spirit, prepared to accept none others but those who provided the proof of the pudding, also had the same perception of what was of divine origin.

So it matters not at all who, according to history, recognised a canon. If people in the early centuries CE happened to recognise the 66 books that evangelicals today force everyone else to accept if they are to be taken seriously, they did so either because they were Christians, or because they wanted to pose as Christians. Without a shadow of doubt, the imperial throne, now supposedly guided by the heavenly one, would have loved to include the works of its puppets such as Ignatius and 'Clement' as canon, but dared not do so, as it would have been dismissed as the counterfeit it was. This of course explains why such people, earlier approved by the Roman imperium despite the illegality of Bible belief, whose works have survived only because they were antichrist, had no authority to declare a canon. They had no constituency to address. Though of course, everyone knew exactly what was canon, then, as we all do now.

Sheshbazzar

I copied and pasted direct from the KJV, and employed the 'spell check' supplied in the 'advanced' setting.
It accepted the 'Thou shalt' and presented the correction to the spelling to 'neighbor'.

BTW 'spell check' likewise rejects your spelling of 'modernise'.

You may quibble about spelling or use of capitalization, but anyone can see you are doing so only as diversion, and way of avoiding the questions.

In reply there has been nothing but blowing wind and crickets.

sotto voce

Now just look at that quote, folks. Is it a miracle? You may think so, but no. The BC&H machinery has a British bias, if a rather tardy one, and has changed 'neighbor' to neighbour'.

Toto

I suspect that the spell check comes from what ever browser you are using, not BCH.