Tigers!

When you speak of a vote are you not implying the fact there is something to be recognised?
Christians, not the church, have always held that certain books are inspired. The church's assent via the synods gives assent to an already existing reality.
Don't exaggerate the church's role in fixing the canon.
No synod ever promulgated a canon reading. The synod merely recognises books alraedy regarded as canonical.
The synods never said "here is a new book". It simply recognised of an existing situation.
Leon Morris, "I believe in Relevation", Hodder & Stoughton, 1976. 1st edn p.82
* my underlining

The list below is a good list of the criteria used.

robto

Please clarify what you mean by "arrived at by a vote". What group voted when?

I get annoyed when I hear the objection that a canon "arrived at by a vote" is automatically discredited. (I'm a sceptic, too, btw.) If the canon had been decided by one person, then I'm sure we'd hear the objection that it's only one person's decision, so how can it be authoritative?

Was Bush's election (the second one, I mean ) illegitimate because it was arrived at by a vote?

Steven Avery

Was the last election decided by a vote ? Or by voting machines ?

hatsoff

And this matters how...?

What vote would this be?

Julian

I would like to direct people's attention to the link supplied by TomboyMom above. Judging from some of these posts it seems like not everyone has read it.

Johnny Skeptic

I refer readers to ancient historian Richard Carrier's scholarly artitlce on the New Testament canon at http://www.infidels.org/library/mode...r/NTcanon.html.

Following are some excerpts:

Contrary to common belief, there was never a one-time, truly universal decision as to which books should be included in the Bible. It took over a century of the proliferation of numerous writings before anyone even bothered to start picking and choosing, and then it was largely a cumulative, individual and happenstance event, guided by chance and prejudice more than objective and scholarly research, until priests and academics began pronouncing what was authoritative and holy, and even they were not unanimous. Every church had its favored books, and since there was nothing like a clearly-defined orthodoxy until the 4th century, there were in fact many simultaneous literary traditions. The illusion that it was otherwise is created by the fact that the church that came out on top simply preserved texts in its favor and destroyed or let vanish opposing documents. Hence what we call "orthodoxy" is simply "the church that won."

Astonishingly, the story isn't even that simple: for the Catholic church centered in Rome never had any extensive control over the Eastern churches, which were in turn divided even among themselves, with Ethiopian and Coptic and Syrian and Byzantine and Armenian canons all riding side-by-side with each other and with the Western Catholic canon, which itself was never perfectly settled until the 15th century at the earliest, although it was essentially established by the middle of the 4th century. Indeed, the current Catholic Bible is largely accepted as canonical from fatigue: the details are so ancient and convoluted that it is easier to simply accept an ancient and enduring tradition than to bother actually questioning its merit. This is further secured by the fact that the long habit of time has dictated the status of the texts: favored books have been more scrupulously preserved and survive in more copies than unfavored books, such that even if some unfavored books should happen to be earlier and more authoritative, in many cases we are no longer able to reconstruct them with any accuracy. To make matters worse, we know of some very early books that simply did not survive at all (the most astonishing example is Paul's earlier Epistle to the Colossians, cf. Col. 4:16), and have recently discovered the very ancient fragments of others that we never knew existed, because no one had even mentioned them.

Consequently, to tell the story of how the Bible came to be requires an essay of some length, organized into sections of roughly chronological order. This is a summary of the consensus of scholars on the formation of the New Testament, drawn from Bruce Metzger's far more detailed survey of the subject, The Canon of the New Testament: Its Origin, Development, and Significance (Clarendon, 1987). All numbers in parentheses followed by "M" are pages in this text. I must excuse the tediousness of this essay--for the subject matter is inescapably complex and confusing. But I have condensed the material of Metzger's 300+ pages to less than 30 pages, added some of my own observations, and emphasized those facts most relevant to secularists and seekers.

It is most curious that there was never any pronouncement by any central authority such as the Pope in all of Christian history as to which books belonged in the Bible, until 1443 A.D. at the conclusion of the Council of Florence--yet this only carried weight in the West. This pronouncement excluded Laodiceans and included Hebrews, thus effectively ratifying the 27 books that had been the staple of orthodox opinion since the 4th century A.D. (M 240). This no doubt arose because for the first time in almost a thousand years scholars were once again starting to question the authenticity of certain books in the canon, for example the authorship of Hebrews. A telling case is that of Erasmus, who, after being chastised by the Church, renounced his rational doubts about this and various Biblical books, on the ground that "the opinion formulated by the Church has more value in my eyes than human reasons, whatever they may be" (Response to the Censure of the Theology Faculty at Paris, 9.864; M 241). No freethinker he. No one can trust the opinions of such a man. Nevertheless, the canon of Florence was still not enforced by threat of excommunication until the canon was made an absolute article of faith at the Council of Trent in 1546 A.D. Almost all the Protestant churches followed suit within the next century with essentially identical conclusions (M 246-7), dissenting only by excluding the OT apocrypha held as canonical by the Catholics.

Microsoft Encarta Encyclopedia Deluxe 2004

The beginning of canon law may be seen in the New Testament (see Acts 15; 1 Corinthians 11). During the 2nd and 3rd centuries a number of church orders (for example, the Didache and the Apostolic Tradition) described as normative certain customary practices of the community. Canon law in the sense of enacted legislation originated in the 4th-century regional councils held in Asia Minor. The enactments of these councils (Ancyra, Neocaesarea, Antioch, Gangra, and Laodicea), together with those of the ecumenical councils of Nicaea (325), Constantinople (present-day İstanbul) (381), and Chalcedon (451), formed the nucleus of subsequent collections. They dealt with the structure of the church (the provincial and patriarchal organization), the dignity of the clergy, the process of reconciling sinners, and Christian life in general.

Johnny: It all goes back to the very first church leaders who decided which writings to call authoritative. In another thread, Praxeus said that Peter considered certain writings to to authoritative, but by what means other than by faith did Peter consider certain writings to be authoritative? If it was clear which writings were authoritative, why was there a need for so many councils?

hatsoff

I'm still waiting to hear about this secret vote Johnny discovered which decided the NT canon.

Johnny Skeptic

What is the matter with you? I mentioned a vote, but most certainly not a secret vote. Did you not read my previous post? I said:

It is reasonable to assume that votes were taken by the councils. Consider the following:

http://www.newadvent.org/cathen/03274a.htm

From the Catholic Encyclopedia

THE FORMATION OF THE NEW TESTAMENT CANON (A.D. 100-220)

The idea of a complete and clear-cut canon of the New Testament existing from the beginning, that is from Apostolic times, has no foundation in history. The Canon of the New Testament, like that of the Old, is the result of a development, of a process at once stimulated by disputes with doubters, both within and without the Church, and retarded by certain obscurities and natural hesitations, and which did not reach its final term until the dogmatic definition of the Tridentine Council.

Before entering into the historical proof for this primitive emergence of a compact, nucleative Canon, it is pertinent to briefly examine this problem: During the formative period what principle operated in the selection of the New Testament writings and their recognition as Divine?--Theologians are divided on this point. This view that Apostolicity was the test of the inspiration during the building up of the New Testament Canon, is favoured by the many instances where the early Fathers base the authority of a book on its Apostolic origin, and by the truth that the definitive placing of the contested books on the New Testament catalogue coincided with their general acceptance as of Apostolic authorship. Moreover, the advocates of this hypothesis point out that the Apostles' office corresponded with that of the Prophets of the Old Law, inferring that as inspiration was attached to the munus propheticum so the Apostles were aided by Divine inspiration whenever in the exercise of their calling they either spoke or wrote. Positive arguments are deduced from the New Testament to establish that a permanent prophetical charisma (see CHARISMATA) was enjoyed by the Apostles through a special indwelling of the Holy Ghost, beginning with Pentecost: Matth., x, 19, 20; Acts, xv, 28; I Cor., ii, 13; II Cor., xiii, 3; I Thess., ii, 13, are cited. The opponents of this theory allege against it that the Gospels of Mark and of Luke and Acts were not the work of Apostles (however, tradition connects the Second Gospel with St. Peter's preaching and St. Luke's with St. Paul's); that books current under an Apostle's name in the Early Church, such as the Epistle of Barnabas and the Apocalypse of St. Peter, were nevertheless excluded from canonical rank, while on the other hand Origen and St. Dionysius of Alexandria in the case of Apocalypse, and St. Jerome in the case of II and III John, although questioning the Apostolic authorship of these works, unhesitatingly received them as Sacred Scriptures. An objection of a speculative kind is derived from the very nature of inspiration ad scribendum, which seems to demand a specific impulse from the Holy Ghost in each case, and preclude the theory that it could be possessed as a permanent gift, or charisma. The weight of Catholic theological opinion is deservedly against mere Apostolicity as a sufficient criterion of inspiration. The adverse view has been taken by Franzelin (De Divinâ Traditione et Scripturâ, 1882), Schmid (De Inspirationis Bibliorum Vi et Ratione, 1885), Crets (De Divinâ Bibliorum Inspiratione, 1886), Leitner (Die prophetische Inspiration, 1895--a monograph), Pesch (De Inspiratione Sacræ, 1906). These authors (some of whom treat the matter more speculatively than historically) admit that Apostolicity is a positive and partial touchstone of inspiration, but emphatically deny that it was exclusive, in the sense that all non-Apostolic works were by that very fact barred from the sacred Canon of the New Testament They hold to doctrinal tradition as the true criterion.

Catholic champions of Apostolicity as a criterion are: Ubaldi (Introductio in Sacram Scripturam, II, 1876); Schanz (in Theologische Quartalschrift, 1885, pp. 666 sqq., and A Christian Apology, II, tr. 1891); Székely (Hermeneutica Biblica, 1902). Recently Professor Batiffol, while rejecting the claims of these latter advocates, has enunciated a theory regarding the principle that presided over the formation of the New Testament Canon which challenges attention and perhaps marks a new stage in the controversy. According to Monsignor Batiffol, the Gospel (i.e. the words and commandments of Jesus Christ) bore with it its own sacredness and authority from the very beginning. This Gospel was announced to the world at large, by the Apostles and Apostolic disciples of Christ, and this message, whether spoken or written, whether taking the form of an evangelic narrative or epistle, was holy and supreme by the fact of containing the Word of Our Lord. Accordingly, for the primitive Church, evangelical character was the test of Scriptural sacredness. But to guarantee this character it was necessary that a book should be known as composed by the official witnesses and organs of the Evangel; hence the need to certify the Apostolic authorship, or at least sanction, of a work purporting to contain the Gospel of Christ. In Batiffol's view the Judaic notion of inspiration did not at first enter into the selection of the Christian Scriptures. In fact, for the earliest Christians the Gospel of Christ, in the wide sense above noted, was not to be classified with, because transcending, the Old Testament. It was not until about the middle of the second century that under the rubric of Scripture the New Testament writings were assimilated to the Old; the authority of the New Testament as the Word preceded and produced its authority as a New Scripture. (Revue Biblique, 1903, 226 sqq.) Monsignor Batiffol's hypothesis has this in common with the views of other recent students of the New Testament Canon, that the idea of a new body of sacred writings became clearer in the Early Church as the faithful advanced in a knowledge of the Faith. But it should be remembered that the inspired character of the New Testament is a Catholic dogma, and must therefore in some way have been revealed to, and taught by, Apostles.--Assuming that Apostolic authorship is a positive criterion of inspiration, two inspired Epistles of St. Paul have been lost. This appears from I Cor., v, 9, sqq.; II Cor., ii, 4, 5.

hatsoff

The "secret" comment was sarcasm. Here's what you did say:

...which of course is absolutely false.

Johnny Skeptic

What is false? Are you saying that you "can" take a vote to decide what God wants you to do? I gave ample evidence in my previous post regarding the haphazard way that the New Testament canon was put together. By what means do you believe that the New Testament canon was put together? Do you believe that Paul had any idea that some of his writings would be included in the New Testament canon?

The Microsoft Encarta Encyclopedia 2004 says that "Paul, circa ad 3-62," was "the greatest missionary of Christianity and its first theologian, called Apostle to the Gentiles," and yet, none of the Gospel's mention Paul, even though he died before Mark, the earliest Gospel, was written?