sotto voce

There is no variation at all, by any recognised body that sees fit to call itself Christian. It's true that every allegedly Protestant denomination has whored by retaining some of the characteristics of the mother whore. But by their nature, they cannot make a unilateral declaration of NT canon. They can do it only for themselves. But, while they disagree about everything else, i.e the meaning of that canon, they never differ over the definition of that canon; or of the OT canon, for that matter. That is because the NT is self-defining. There is no part of it that can be excluded; there is no contemporaneous work that can be included. Even the most furious christophobes, of what was to become the Romanist/Eastern Orthodox cults, whose works could have been included, did not add or subtract to it, even though they would have willingly done so.

In practice, the Christian canon is defined by bruises. Bruises, and bloodshed, suffering and loss. Because those who inflict such things, who hate honesty, love of justice and mercy, humility and forgiveness, kindness and generosity, find those characteristics in certain people, whose inspiration is the same NT books that are found in all printed Bibles. It is the 'born again' who cause there to even be a Bible, and it is the 'born again' whom the greedy, the lazy, the bullies of the world seek to control. And they like to tell the 'born again' that they owe their Bible to themselves, utter filth.

Net2004

your bruised scribes who were suffering didn't make up bs in thier minds when they modified verses in the nt? how do persecuted people accurately narrate correct version of a story?

Duvduv

This can be associated in another area of the FRDB. This is not where personal theological issues are debated as far as I know. Everyone is welcome as far as I know to discuss or not discuss the analyses of any religion on this Forum.

Sheshbazzar

Yes. You have received the NAME, and the MARK, and the IMAGE of her Nehushtan idol. Gotten into the same bed with her, feasted on her dainties, and committed the same fornications with her paramours the demons.

There is nothing covered, that shall not be revealed; neither hid, that shall not be known.
Do not be deceived. These whoring daughters all of whom have adorned themselves with their mother whore's jewelry, and then went forth and strutted about flaunting her charms so as to seduce men upon every street corner, will surely inherit their mother's reward right along with her.

The cry is 'Come out of her my people'.
But you will not because you are all too enamored of her shining trinkets, and have had the false name of her false god and its mark graven in your head.

The Day is coming when you will understand all of this perfectly. There shall be weeping and wailing and gnashing of teeth in the day that you are cast out.

Woe to the Great Whore, and to all of the whoring daughters begotten of her fornications in that Day.

sotto voce

Awfully good.

Duvduv

So here the BOTTOM LINE is that only an authoritative body could establish a CANON of texts equivalent to the Old Testament rendering the NT texts sacred writ alongside the sacred writ of the Old Testament. This could ONLY have been done through the authority of the Byzantinian regime after Constantine. Otherwise we would find a whole variety of personalized "canons" of letters, biographies gospels (or NONE OF THESE) in the name of true Orthodoxy, and this is NOT found.

sotto voce

:hylidae:

'No longer will a man teach his neighbour, or a man his brother, saying, 'Know the Lord,' because they will all know me, from the least of them to the greatest," declares the Lord. "Because I will forgive their wickedness, and will remember their sins no more." Jeremiah 31:34

Toto

Repeating this does not make it true.

There are lots of religions today that have an agreed upon canon, although they lack a governmental authority to establish it. The Mormons have a church, a voluntary association, but they have their canon, the Book of Mormon. The Scientologists have their canonized works.

What do you think the apocrypha were? The Gospel of Peter, the Didache, and other texts were used by early churches, but were not preserved (except in scraps.)

Duvduv

How do you know that "churches" used the apocrypha?
As far as the Mormons are concerned, their canon contains the Book of Mormon, the Pearl of Great Price, etc. only because they established a Board headed by the President of the Church and his apostles. They maintained the NT texts because they are already canonized by the Orthodox Church for many centuries.
It's not as if self-identified Latter Day Saints could pick and choose for themselves which books to keep and which to reject.

outhouse

What did Israel use in 700 BC?