Construction of the Bible and infallibility

It is often said by creationists that everything in the Bible must be taken as literally true, and all of it divinely inspired. I have seen questions raised here and there about how this can be true given that it was constructed by humans, and indeed put through an artificial editorial process by others not even connected with the original writings. The fact that there was debate at all on what was good should raise an eyebrow.I just found a site regarding the canonization of the Bible. It is:
http://www.ntcanon.orgIt is not a debate site, nor one I am citing because it has an some slant about whether the Bible is true or not. It just looks like an interesting and useful site regarding the process humans went through to construct the Bible we see today.I recommend especially that people go go and view the table of New Testament writings and opinions on them.Personally I found one statement on the history of the Bible quite interesting... Thus, even the canonization was not enough to make everything within the Bible stick for early Xians, and what fundamentalist Xians today regard as absolute truth was essentially the result of an order by the Catholic Church in 1546, without the benefit of a unanimous vote from the Church.I also found it interesting to read of some of the heretical Xian writers who were quite popular in some sections, yet held radical views compared to what we think of Xianity today. For example one guy thought the Old Testament was only for the Jews by the God of Justice who created and ruled them, but the New Testament was for everyone else by the greater God of Goodness (who created the whole world). He had been quite influential and if his churches had not been blocked one wonders what Xianity might look like today... By the way his writings centered on spotting inconsistencies in the Bible, and that was before full canonization ever happened.I would like to know if this does not raise a question with Xians as to whether they need to believe it is all 100% inspired and literally true, and that other writings (since they are not in the canon) cannot be just as true and inspired? And if it doesn't, why not?I guess I should note that I am actually raising two issues here that have puzzled me. Stating that the Bible as we see it now is the one and only literal truth, means to make the knowledge of God a static thing, which has not actually existed in history before. So in addition to the question above, does anyone see a problem in making the quest for God and knowledge of God a static thing, which up until very recently has been dynamic?

Do you think it's worthwhile to note that everything you included so far only deals with developments within one of the cannon in the modern Christian Communion and there are similar examples and histories for the other Cannons such as the Syrian and Ethiopian Churches?

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Yes, it would be worthwhile, though many may find it irrelevant to the discussion because Syrian and Ethiopian church canons are not necessarily considered "right" to US fundamentalists. That is it is not a part of the literal truth as they see it at this time.I was trying to pick out the elements which actually constitute the literal truth today.The site I linked to does mention Syrian and Ethiopian developments. It has a brief discussions on the closing of both the Western and Eastern canons.

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holmes
"...what a fool believes he sees, no wise man has the power to reason away.."(D. Bros)

Okay, I'll move it up to A&I.

Thread moved here from the Proposed New Topics forum.

The bible's construction was done by a head monk, (forgot his name) This was to give guidelines for his monks to read. This means that the bible I read today may be missing books of great quality and of great truth. My brother looked into the Gospel of Thomas and found an amazing book. This must mean that the "Catholic Bible" has more of the apocryphae, more books means more information. So really these books are sort of a good thing, and putting limits, restrictions on what is divinely true is pointless. It's so sketchy, so really what we have to do is read the books and decide for ourselves. I have spoken to a theologian about this, and this is what he decided would be the best alternative, this holds true for most things in life.On to World of Warcraft

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Social Darwinism enjoyed widespread popularity in some European circles, particularly among ruling elites during the late 19th and early 20th centuries. During this period the global recession of the 1870s encouraged a view of the world which saw societies or nations in competition with one another for survival in a hostile world. This attitude encouraged increasing militarization and the division of the world into colonial spheres of influence. The interpretation of social Darwinism of the time emphasized competition between species and races rather than cooperation.

bump

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holmes
"...what a fool believes he sees, no wise man has the power to reason away.."(D. Bros)

quote:

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In April 8 1546, by a vote of 24 to 15 with 16 abstentions, a decree (De Canonicis Scripturis) was issued in which, for the first time in the history of the Church, the question of the contents of the Bible was made an absolute article of faith and confirmed by anathema.

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I note the abstentions plus votes against would have enjoyed a significant majority. And that there are more abstentions than votes against. This looks a lot like serious backroom deal type stuff - such a proportion of abstentions is unusual.

I'm sorry more folk have not joined in yet. The content of the Canon is a subject of both interest and importance. I always found it interesting that Constantine does not seem to have had any input or direction on the content of the Original Christian Bibles other than a request that they be beautiful and awe inspiring.

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Aslan is not a Tame Lion

Unless they were simply out of town at the time? I have no knowledge but I wonder if they were there and abstaining or not present and abstaining?Chrisedited to fix a stupid grammar mistake. Problem with the internet is that these things will last forever and could be seen by anyone.This message has been edited by cmanteuf, 05-02-2005 04:29 PM

It is possible he had some input (perhaps like making sure his own administration would not get slammed by anything within it) but you are right that there does not seem to be much evidence that Constantine actually coerced the system which created the canon.That said, I have seen a documentary on the making of the Bible which noted that his money being tied to a certain production schedule forced a reconciliation on issues just to get the Bible to "press". If true that tends to suggest that those within the process were not totally inflexible on inclusion of less than "perfectly inspired" works, and perhaps even some that were not in agreement with their own view of God.It would be easy to read into it that the people involved were money grubbing jerks willing to slap whatever together for the money and so the Bible is tainted. I think that is a less important (even if logically possible) interpretation of the events. We can assume they were sincere and that the money did not buy an opinion, but instead that it shows they were practical and less involved in the kind of squabbles we are having today regarding absolutist literalism.In any case, I do wish more Xians would say something. This isn't even anti-Xian. I'd think it would be interesting.

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holmes
"...what a fool believes he sees, no wise man has the power to reason away.."(D. Bros)

The connection with Constantine is even more intriguing since he wanted the Bibles to grace the pulpits of the churches to be built in his new capital city and what would become the Greek Orthodox branch of Christianity.

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Aslan is not a Tame Lion

I'd also like to add a link in case no one knows of this site and would like to read something like The Gospel of the Egyptians.Early Christian Writings: New Testament, Apocrypha, Gnostics, Church Fathers

quote:

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It is possible he had some input (perhaps like making sure his own administration would not get slammed by anything within it) but you are right that there does not seem to be much evidence that Constantine actually coerced the system which created the canon.

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That said, I have seen a documentary on the making of the Bible which noted that his money being tied to a certain production schedule forced a reconciliation on issues just to get the Bible to "press". If true that tends to suggest that those within the process were not totally inflexible on inclusion of less than "perfectly inspired" works, and perhaps even some that were not in agreement with their own view of God.

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There is an imporatnt point to note here which is rarely considered in the west where we are heavily influenced by Prtoestantism which is really a subset of Roman Catholicism.
The origins of these movements do lie within the Roman empre, as noted, but "Christianity" also became established independently, geographically, eccliasitically and theologically outside the Roman empire in Persia.
One thousand years ago the so called "nestorian church" was said to have been larger than both the roman and greek Churches combined.
Following tamerlane these numbers were greatly reduced and have never recovered.This independent group settled on much the same canon (five NT books were not accepted until the 6th century and even then were not put on a par with the other 22).But as I mention they came to accept much the same books independently, so the Constantine connection seems irrelevant.
To this day they still believe the Nt was penned in Aramaic rather than greek.History of the PeshittaThis message has been edited by judge, 04-06-2005 06:10 PMThis message has been edited by judge, 04-06-2005 06:11 PM

I guess the Qumran Scrolls show that both Aramaic and Hebrew were in use as scripts, but which language was spoken by Jesus and his followers might be a different matter. If the ordinary Jew was talking Aramaic, did they use koine Greek to deal with authorities? Was koine the lingua franca of the Roman Empire?