This is something that has been on my mind since reading this thread:

http://forumserver.twoplustwo.com/13...tament-854582/

To start, perhaps "Canonical" is not the right word to use here. What I mean is, why are the Epistles, in particular, the Pauline Epistles taken as God's commandments? This is a question specifically for Christians who consider the Epistles "God's Word", and that it must be followed as closely as those words in the Gospels.

I ask, because in the "Last Testament" thread, Concerto said:

(Q for Concerto: I'm sure i'm taking this completely out of context, but if not, are the Epistles not considered Biblical texts?)

Also, in many other threads, topics that relate to things Paul wrote in his letters are hotly debated. For example:

"But I do not allow a woman to teach or exercise authority over a man, but to remain quiet." - 1 Timothy 2:12

Now some churches (and Christians) take this verse very seriously, and follow it as closely as possible. Other churches believe that this is merely Paul's own conviction/opinion, and since he is writing a letter specifically *to* Timothy, it is not something that applies to churches today, etc, etc.

I don't want this thread focusing on this particular topic (woman teaching), but in general, we see a lot of these types of disconnects in Christianity today (obey governmental authority, homosexual behavior, etc). So I ask, should the Epistles be taken as God's word and commandments, or should they be used merely as reference to life in the early church, and all statements made by Paul (and Peter, John, etc) ignored because they were not specifically made by Jesus Himself, or made towards *all* Christians (but usually specific churches)?

To put it more bluntly, should the only things a Christian consider a commandment from God be things that Jesus Himself explicitly commanded, *and* explicitly commanded to *all* present and future Christians (this last part is important because apparently a lot of what Jesus said only applies to His disciples at that time)?

1st Class Poast

I guess the theory is the epistles were written by the apostles, and therefore they are the shizzle.

It is an excellent question, but it puts Christians outside their comfort zone. Most are probably afraid to answer it.

They even have a term (derogatory) for Christians who have enough audacity to place special emphasis on what Jesus allegedly said. They are called ...


Most Christians will only recognize the correct answer when told.

Canon of scriptures was largely determined by what was actually being used liturgically at Mass. The society was a very oral society, and it wasn't until it became a problem that the Church decided to make a canon of scriptures. Many false writings (Gospel of Thomas, etc) were being issued from non-apostolic sources and heresies were being spread creating confusion among the faithful, and creating a Canon helped solve these problems.

A group of Bishops gathered and determined which scriptures were actually canon. There was much disagreement among Church Fathers, and some (like Hebrews) almost didn't make it in, but eventually a consensus was reached. The Church officially declared Canon in the late 4th century.

Later, Luther decided to remove many OT books. The OT books Luther decided on where from the Hebrew speaking Jews, largely because many of them did not fit with his doctrine of justification, while the OT books decided on in 397 were what the Greek-speaking Jews used as Scripture.

Sheep, waiting to be told why the Epistles are considered canonical.

The inter-testamental books were never considered divinely inspired by the Jewish people. Considering that it was their books, we should agree with them. It was not until Luther reacted against them that the RC institution started putting them on the same level as the rest of the bible.

That is of course not to say that Luther (and subsequent protestants) are correct in throwing them out either.

Jerok's view is close to correct. Where I would quibble is that we really don't know what was taught orally in early Jesus following groups, and we have no idea if the church councils chose the correct texts, whether the non-canonical texts were actually correct, or whether none of it is.

But his basic point-- that church councils a couple of centuries out chose the canon and at least said they were basing their decision based on which texts were already in use and were not heretical-- is correct.

you just were. Or did he not type slow enough for you? The earliest church put emphasis on these books. That is easily seen by the fact that you can almost completely recreate the NT through the writtings of the earliest church fathers. books like the gospel of thomas were almost never quoted if at all. And of course it is very likely that much of what looks to be "quoted" of those books could have been ad hoc.

Are they really books?

Jib:

Actually the synoptic problem indicates that SOME Gospel of Thomas style book of sayings was a source for at least two of the canonical gospels. Also, we really don't know to what extent the epistle authors and gospel authors were cribbing from each other. So I wouldn't be so quick to say that the symmetries between some of the canonical gospels and some of the epistles establishes that the gnostic works were incorrect.

Like the performance of public miracles, the function of Biblical authorship was intrinsic to the Old Covenant age, which ended in 70 AD meaning after the New Testament was written.

In other words, there is no timing problem.

Let's go with this answer instead of something from another discussion.

ok, the question is why? its obvious that most of the epistles are written specifically to a certain group of people, so using that logic, its easy to say that those things should not apply to Christians today. (in the same way Christians like Concerto believe that commandments like "sell all your posessions" or "go and make disciples of all nations" don't apply to Christians today) I'm also fairly certain that catholics only consider a small portion of the Epistles as canonical.

Anyways, just because the earliest church put emphasis on a bunch of Paul's letters doesn't mean they were right. If theres a common theme throughout the bible, its that human reasoning (in terms of what they believe God wants), is completely wrong.

I don't see whats wrong with ignoring the Epistles and just focusing on what Jesus said (aka Red Letter Christians). That seems the safest and most full proof way to do it imo.

As Christians the Jewish council that decided the OT canon has no authority over us. In fact Early Church Fathers considered throwing out the Old Testament entirely.

It was the Septuagint that we accepted as OT Canon, and we have no reason to question the decision of the early Christians.

Edit - I can see the argument both ways too. The reformers throw much of the Tradition of the Church so it really comes down to if you believe that the Magisterium is guided through the Holy Spirit into all Truths. Sorry for off-topicness.

The apostle Peter vouched for Paul, who wrote most of the books in the New Testament.

2 Peter 3:15-16 Bear in mind that our Lord's patience means salvation, just as our dear brother Paul also wrote you with the wisdom that God gave him. He writes the same way in all his letters, speaking in them of these matters. His letters contain some things that are hard to understand, which ignorant and unstable people distort, as they do the other Scriptures, to their own destruction.

DK, the people who do this continually get it wrong and have thousands of interpretations of what Jesus said.

This is why Tradition is so important. Those who knew Jesus personally, knew those who knew Jesus personally, will have a MUCH better understanding of Jesus (especially the apostles who lived with him for 3 years.) and Paul had the vision of Jesus and was specially selected for this task.

We look at what Jesus says and we look at what the people closest to him do with his words to have the best understanding of Him.

based on a reading of the Gospels, its pretty clear that the people who knew Jesus the best (i.e. his apostles) had a VERY POOR understanding of Jesus, especially while he was alive. Thats a very clear and common theme throughout the Gospels.

i just find it so interesting that Christians put so much faith in Paul's writings, when very little of what he wrote is directly supported by any words or actions of Jesus ... actually i guess its not that surprising.

I read somewhere back that you go to church, am I correct? If so, why?

As for your question about the validiaty of the church epistles. Most of the people on this forum do not have the respect for the bible to even be able to answer this for them, I am not sure where your at respect wise?

Basically what I mean, is that the answers to your questions have to come from the bible itself and if you do not believe the bible that you read, then whats the point in answering your question?

Because the correct answer will have to come from within the bible, and if you do not respect or believe in it, then its just a waste a time.

As for the atheist on this forum who cares, they dont want to believe, they just want to find a reason to stay in their unbelief.

if you dont want to answer then dont. Its not like this question is keeping me up at night, just something i was planning on asking for a while, but didnt have the time to write up the OP until today.

regardless, i'm unsure why explaining the answer to a question about the bible using the bible is somehow useless. Perhaps trying to answer a question about something unrelated to the bible using the bible is useless, cause i can agree to that.

So if today we have no way to determine which books ought to be Canon other than accepting these bishop's consensus, why should we believe that they had an accurate way to differentiate?

The early church fathers never saw the inter-testamental books to be divinely inspired. In other words, they never held them on the same level as the rest of the bible. It was not until much much later that the RC institution did this.

You are quite right that it comes down to if one believe the magisterium is guided by the Holy Spirit. I obviously reject this as there is no evidence for, and tons of evidence against the magisterium being guided by the Holy Spirit.

As to why, I would say that it is because these writings for the most part were either from the Apostles or someone very close to the Apostles. So basically it is the closest connection to Jesus.

You are right that there are things said to specific people and should not be look at out of context. That doesn't mean that we cannot learn from them, but we need to be careful. With something like Jesus saying to the man to sell of his possessions, now we know that he was specifically saying that to specific person, he did not teach that to all people. In fact he told other things contradictory to that. So we need to ask ourselves, "Why would Jesus say that to that man" and what can we learn from that.

Well, I definitely understand what you are saying here. I am most certainly more inclined to listen to someone who actually walked with Jesus then some other random person. But as far as how do we know that these are actually divinely inspired and are the word of God? That's an awesome question that I have yet to find a satisfactory answer to.

As far as human reasoning being wrong, I don't know that I would completely agree. I would say that anytime someone adapts the reasoning of the world they come to spurious conclusions.

You would be loosing so much if you did that. Even if you do not accept that the epistles are divinely inspired, there is so much that can be learned from them. I don't actually think that Boyd's books are divinely inspired, but they are a great learning tool for me.

I also think there needs a balance. If one is only looking at what Jesus said, who will ever put them in check? If I come to a conclusion that disagrees with something that someone who walked with Jesus, shouldn't that at least cause pause?

Jesus dying on the cross while using his last breath to say "LORD forgive them the know not what they do" is the ultimate revelation of God. The litmus test of everything should be whether or not it reflects this revelation. IMO, this is the only fool proof way to "do it".

The apostles made mistakes at first. They were part of the same generation which Jesus criticized so much, to the extent of predicting it would receive the final judgement. However, after Pentecost, the apostles understood all necessary details.

Mark 1:8 I indeed have baptized you with water: but he shall baptize you with the Holy Ghost.

Jesus appointed Peter, who in turn told us that Paul's writings are part of inspired scripture (as I cited earlier).

Matthew 16:18-19 And I say also unto thee, That thou art Peter, and upon this rock I will build my church; and the gates of hell shall not prevail against it. And I will give unto thee the keys of the kingdom of heaven: and whatsoever thou shalt bind on earth shall be bound in heaven: and whatsoever thou shalt loose on earth shall be loosed in heaven.

Thomas Jefferson was a Unitarian; he did not believe in trinity and the divinity of Jesus. Instead, Jefferson saw Jesus as a great teacher and a man of righteousness. He also believed that Jesus never claimed that he is the son of God, nor his first followers. Paul, in the other hand, invented all the idea of trinity, resurrection, salvation etc... In other words, he founded what become known as "Pauline Christianity", which had become the dominant group of Christendom for a long time. Jefferson believed that the doctrines of Pauline Christianity contradict with the doctrines of Jesus himself. Thus, Paul was the "first corrupter of the doctrines of Jesus".

Albert Schweitzer

"Where possible he (Paul) avoids quoting the teaching of Jesus, in fact even mentioning it. If we had to rely on Paul, we should not know that Jesus taught in parables, had delivered the sermon on the mount, and had taught His disciples the 'Our Father.' Even where they are specially relevant, Paul passes over the words of the Lord."

Carl Jung

"Paul hardly ever allows the real Jesus of Nazareth to get a word in."

So they not only would not include them in the Canon, they believe some of the Epistles were deliberate distortions of the teachings of Jesus.

It doesn't seem possible to go directly from the red letter words of Jesus directly to this ...



or this ...



You need the canonized Epistles to justify it.