Jobar

Well, chili, that's a, um, unique POV.

I too would like to hear Albert's commentary. Amos' too, for that matter. I daresay the conversation would call for mods at the ready with the firehoses, but it would no doubt be interesting!

Oh yeah- Biff, didn't the Catholics also throw out a bunch of stuff at Nicea (IIRC)? The Apocrypha, Gospel of Thomas, etc.?

Pyrrho

That isn't a very fair representation of what is going on. First of all, the Bible was assembled from other books sometime around the 4th century CE, by a committee who did not all agree about what should and should not be present in the collection that was to be regarded as sacred. What they came up with has been called the Bible. Well, one can easily disagree with their selection, and insist that they included too many books, too few, or the wrong versions of what was included.

I think the problem is that people tend to assume that the Bible just came magically to them whole, in their version, without people meddling in the matter. So much meddling, in fact, that anyone who realizes this should find it impossible to ever trust anything anywhere in it.

Biff the unclean

Around that time the Roman Catholics threw away most of the books of the Bible. But if the Protestants were claiming to be true Christians like those in the pre-Roman church wouldn't you expect them to restore that which was lost instead to throwing away even more books?
The Catholic banned books may not have been available in Luthors day, but they certainly are now. Yet I hear no Protestant quoting from the Sophia of Jesus Christ or the Apocryphon of John. Mainly, I assume, because these early pre-Roman Christians believed something completly different from what Protestants believe.

Gawen

I wonder if this merits a quick look through in BC&H? I too look forward to debate of the OP.

Pyrrho

The Apocrypha is part of the Catholic Bible.

Biff the unclean

I'm sure he meant the Apocryphon (of John)

Jobar

Er- no, I didn't realize that the Apocrypha was included in Catholic editions of the Bible. I'm not real familiar with Catholicism- here in Ga. they aren't too common. (It may be the pseudopigraphica I was thinking of...)

Pyrrho

Before the Catholics assembled a "Bible", there was no Christian "Bible" at all. There were many relatively short books dealing with Jesus and Moses and so forth. Some were collected together and were then called the "Bible", and other books were discarded. The point, though, is that they had not all been collected together as one book prior to that time.

There is, of course, a good deal of truth in your thought that most Protestants don't bother with the earlier discarded books because their views are different from some of the early Christians.

But in the case of the Apocrypha, I seem to recall the reason why most Protestants rejected it was because it was not part of the "Hebrew Bible" (as it is sometimes called), and yet it deals with pre-Jesus events. The Protestant position (I know there is more than one Protestant position, but let us keep this as simple as possible; I am writing about the majority, not all) is that Christianity grew out of Judaism, and just added the stuff about Jesus. Since the Apocrypha is not about Jesus, nor is it recognized as part of the "Hebrew Bible", it is not accepted. See:

http://etext.lib.virginia.edu/apocrypha_exp.html

http://nc.essortment.com/whatapocrypha_rgcf.htm

http://www.biblequery.org/apoc.htm

You can do more searching on this if you are interested, but the rejection of the Apocrypha is not the arbitrary exclusion that you suggested earlier.

TySixtus

That's what I was getting at. Catholics were the first Christians, in that the start of the Catholic Church as a world power (after the collapse of the Roman Empire) was the remnants of the Holy Roman Church. Hence "Roman" Catholic. Catholocism is the oldest form or Christianity. All other forms come FROM Catholocism. So how can anyone claim with any seriousness that Catholics aren't Christian?

The trinity is a perfect example of this. When I point out the logical absurdity of it, Christians get all huffy. Then I tell them that the Catholic idea of Trinity is 1+1+1=1. "Well then the Catholics have it all wrong!"

They invented the damn idea- how is it wrong? Same with the bible. They assembled the first one. We are somehow supposed to be believe that the later versions (King James springs to mind) are 'more true'? From a pure story telling standpoint, it's wrong across the board.

On top of all of that, a Christian professes belief in Christ's divinity. Christians may argue over the meaning if they want, but I think it's a fairly accurate statement. Catholics profess a belief in Christ's divinity.

Ergo, they are Christian.

Ty

Pyrrho

First of all, I think saying Catholics are not Christian is pretty crazy. However, putting together the first "Bible" does not make Catholics the first Christians. If having a Bible were needed for one to be a Christian, then there were no Christians at all until a few hundred years after Jesus supposedly lived. For an interesting look at some very early Christians, see The Gnostic Gospels by Elaine Pagels.