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Author Topic:   Superiority of the 'Protestant Canon'?
Dr Adequate
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Posts: 16113
Joined: 07-20-2006


(2)
Message 17 of 154 (663898)
05-27-2012 5:53 PM
Reply to: Message 8 by Jzyehoshua
05-26-2012 4:42 AM


My newest writing on the subject is here:
...al criticism - CreationWiki, the encyclopedia of creation science
Essentially we have the Dead Sea Scrolls showing the Old Testament was in its current form before the time of Christ, around 250-50 B.C. The Great Isaiah Scroll in particular was even carbon dated as old as 335 B.C.
Concerning the New Testament, we have more than 24,000 manuscripts with 99.5% internal consistency showing the New Testament we have today is accurate with regard to the original autographs. No other ancient historical document has nearly this level of evidence. The closest is the Iliad with 643 manuscripts. Many documents like Caesar's Gallic Wars are considered accurately preserved with just 5-10 manuscripts dating 1,000 years or more after the originals.
However, we have manuscripts for the New Testament dating less than a century after the original documents (autographs) like the John Rylands Papyrus (P52), P104, P90, P64+67, and P98. We have complete or nearly complete copies of the New Testament dating as early as 200-400 A.D. like the Sahidic Coptic Version, Sinaitic Curiac Version, and Codex Vaticanus and Sinaiticus.
Thus, we can look at these early documents to see whether later translations (like the King James Version) were reliable translations of the original Greek/Hebrew text seen in such early manuscripts.
But this has nothing to do with what should or shouldn't be included in the canon, does it?
The Dead Sea Scrolls also contain:
(1) The Book of Enoch in the original Aramaic. This is regarded as orthodox by Ethiopian Jews, the Ethiopian Orthodox Church and the Eritrean Orthodox Church, but not by Protestants.
One interesting thing about Enoch is that it is quoted in the book of Jude, which Protestants do count as canonical.
Enoch, the seventh from Adam, prophesied about them: See, the Lord is coming with thousands upon thousands of his holy ones to judge everyone, and to convict all of them of all the ungodly acts they have committed in their ungodliness, and of all the defiant words ungodly sinners have spoken against him.
It would seem on the face of it that a Biblical literalist would have to believe that the book of Enoch really was written by Noah's great-grandfather, and was a genuine prophetic work rather than pseudephigraphic.
(2) Fragments of three copies of the Wisdom of Sirach in Hebrew. This is is the Catholic Canon, the Eastern Orthodox canon, and the Septuagint, but not the Protestant Canon.
(3) The book of Tobit in Aramaic and Hebrew. This is in the Catholic and Orthodox canons and the Setuagint, but not the Protestant canon.
(4) The Epistle of Jeremiah in Greek. This is in the Orthodox canon, the Catholic Canon, and the Septuagint.
(Of course, when one says 'the" Protestant canon, there's a certain amount of ambiguity there. Luther for example, put the Epistle of Jeremiah in his translation of the Bible into German. Now, if Luther wasn't a Protestant, who was?)
So, anyway, the point is that it doesn't matter what is or isn't in the Dead Sea Scrolls --- or if it does matter, then the Protestant canon is definitely wrong. So what does justify the Protestant canon?
Edited by Dr Adequate, : No reason given.
Edited by Dr Adequate, : No reason given.

This message is a reply to:
 Message 8 by Jzyehoshua, posted 05-26-2012 4:42 AM Jzyehoshua has replied

Replies to this message:
 Message 20 by Jzyehoshua, posted 05-28-2012 8:26 PM Dr Adequate has replied

  
Dr Adequate
Member
Posts: 16113
Joined: 07-20-2006


Message 24 of 154 (664068)
05-28-2012 9:15 PM
Reply to: Message 20 by Jzyehoshua
05-28-2012 8:26 PM


As for who the real Protestants were, Protestantism actually goes back about 1700 years.
I didn't say Luther was the first Protestant, just that he was one --- if he isn't, who is?
So the idea of a Protestant canon is a bit dubious, and becomes more so if we throw in the other groups we mentioned. Not everyone whom we would call Protestants would have removed the Apocrypha from the canon.
Enoch and Jubilees are the two books found in substantial numbers and thus could merit consideration.
I don't see why you would figure out canonicity by counting Dead Sea Scrolls. Why would we assume that the people who hid the scrolls had the right canon?

This message is a reply to:
 Message 20 by Jzyehoshua, posted 05-28-2012 8:26 PM Jzyehoshua has replied

Replies to this message:
 Message 26 by Jzyehoshua, posted 05-28-2012 9:24 PM Dr Adequate has replied

  
Dr Adequate
Member
Posts: 16113
Joined: 07-20-2006


(1)
Message 31 of 154 (664091)
05-28-2012 10:24 PM
Reply to: Message 26 by Jzyehoshua
05-28-2012 9:24 PM


Well, thing with Luther is he supported persecuting Protestants like the Anabaptists in the same way the Catholic Church did. Calvinists and Lutherans were actually right there with Catholicism in warfaring persecution and martyring of Protestants like the Anabaptists. So I've never really liked Luther as a Protestant example myself.
Sure, Protestants have been mean to one another for centuries. I'm afraid they're still Protestants, though.
Well, I figure if the Bible is God's Word, and God did want it preserved, then the strongest examples of that preservation should show what that Word is.
All the books under consideration for membership of the canon have been preserved. The idea of counting manuscripts seems an odd one. One would have to draw the line somewhere: "The Epistle of X just scrapes into the canon with 5 early copies still extant, whereas the Prophetic Book of Y barely misses being the Word of God with only 4."

This message is a reply to:
 Message 26 by Jzyehoshua, posted 05-28-2012 9:24 PM Jzyehoshua has replied

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 Message 32 by Jzyehoshua, posted 05-29-2012 1:54 AM Dr Adequate has not replied

  
Dr Adequate
Member
Posts: 16113
Joined: 07-20-2006


(3)
Message 36 of 154 (664151)
05-29-2012 11:45 AM
Reply to: Message 26 by Jzyehoshua
05-28-2012 9:24 PM


Well, I figure if the Bible is God's Word, and God did want it preserved, then the strongest examples of that preservation should show what that Word is. The Dead Sea Scrolls against much probability have come down to us from over 2,000 years ago, providing an accurate record with which to cross-check the Old Testament.
So it stands to reason what they best preserve might well be God's Word, and if that includes 1 Enoch and Jubilees, well, that's more reason for me to give those two books serious consideration in canonicity. The Dead Sea Scrolls otherwise preserve perfectly all the books of the Old Testament - the scrolls best preserved are the books of the Old Testament - along with those 2 books.
But if it was God's plan to show us which books are canon by arranging the preservation of this or that ancient manuscript, then God's plan has been a total failure, insofar as there is no-one at all whose canon consists of, and only of, the core books of the OT + Enoch + Jubilees + the NT.
OFF TOPIC
AdminPD
Edited by AdminPD, : Warning

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Dr Adequate
Member
Posts: 16113
Joined: 07-20-2006


Message 40 of 154 (664821)
06-05-2012 3:38 PM
Reply to: Message 39 by Theodoric
06-05-2012 11:13 AM


Re: Bump for Jz
Jzyehoshua has mentioned on another thread that he can only find time to post at weekends. You'll just have to wait. The Christian canon's been around for a coupla millennia, I guess there's no hurry.

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 Message 39 by Theodoric, posted 06-05-2012 11:13 AM Theodoric has not replied

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Dr Adequate
Member
Posts: 16113
Joined: 07-20-2006


Message 45 of 154 (671281)
08-24-2012 2:57 AM
Reply to: Message 43 by foreveryoung
08-24-2012 1:14 AM


Re: What is a Canon?
The protestant old testament canon is the only one that has all the books referenced by the true new testament canon ...
Er, no. The canon of every other Christian tradition includes everything in the Protestant canon plus some books. So if the Protestant OT canon has "all the books referenced by the true new testament canon", then so do all the others.
Besides which, as has been pointed out, the Protestant OT canon doesn't contain the Book of Enoch, which is referenced in the book of Jude. And the book of Jude is in the Protestant NT canon. So if it was true that "the protestant old testament canon is the only one that has all the books referenced by the true new testament canon", then the Protestants have the wrong NT canon, since the book of Jude is in the Protestant NT canon but the book of Enoch isn't.

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 Message 43 by foreveryoung, posted 08-24-2012 1:14 AM foreveryoung has replied

Replies to this message:
 Message 47 by foreveryoung, posted 08-24-2012 10:08 AM Dr Adequate has replied

  
Dr Adequate
Member
Posts: 16113
Joined: 07-20-2006


Message 57 of 154 (671352)
08-24-2012 1:22 PM
Reply to: Message 47 by foreveryoung
08-24-2012 10:08 AM


Re: What is a Canon?
Only the protestant canon has all the books referenced in the New Testament ...
I've shown you the evidence. It's not really deniable. Every other Christian canon of the OT includes all the books in the Protestant canon. They've got every single one of the books in the Protestant canon. There is not a single OT book in the Protestant canon that is not also in every other Christian canon.
So they've got all the books. The argument you need to make as a Protestant is that they've got too many books. But you can't make an argument that Protestants are special because they've got all the genuinely inspired OT books, because all the other Christians have got these books too.
I'm not going to argue with you about anything else unless you admit that. Also, I don't think anyone else on these forums should try to argue anything with you about anything until you can admit that, because until you can admit that a subset is always a subset of its superset, then I don't see how anyone can try to argue with you as though you were a rational person.

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