God doesnt claim it as his word
Submitted by Drifter on 2002-09-6 09:18:41, Friday
In reply to Re: Gospel of Thomas submitted by drew on 2002-09-5 23:23:19, Thursday
|
>the Bible is the ONLY book that God has claimed as HIS word. The Old Testament God (through Jesus) has claimed as his word, but not the new. As I explained, the verse in II Timothy cannot possibly be reffering to the bible we know it, because it simply did not exist at the time that verse was written. Not only was the bible not compiled by then, but not all of the books in the bible had been written yet. Therefore it is more likely that Paul was reffering to the Old Testament. Accepting the most broad explenation imaginable, perhaps it may have been reffering to Paul's writings, but Paul calling his own writings the word of God and useful for teaching is not very convincing. If you read the bible with an understanding of the fact that this book is a collection of scriptures never meant by their authors to be part of one compilation, then you begin to understand this more clearly. Because neither Jesus, nor Paul, nor any of the other apostles ever established what should go in the bible, we are faced with the choice of either accepting the decision of the council of Nicea without ever questioning their authority, or we can question them and come to our own conclusions. Also, unless you read a catholic bible, you are not only trusting the council of nicea to be correct, but you are also trusting the Council of Jamnia, a non-christian (Jewish) council that is responsible for removing the deuterocanonical books from the Old Testament (these are Baruch, Judith, Sirach, Tobit, Wisdom, I and II Macabees, and parts of Daniel and Esther), and you are trusting Martin Luther's much more recent (1521) decision to abide by the earlier Jewish council of Jamnia (christians had ignored it until then). As you find these things out, you begin to realize that in order for a person to believe the 'sola scriptura' (bible only) philosophy they must trust not just in God, but in 2 later councils, one of them catholic and one of them jewish, and the decision of Martin Luther to abide by the jewish council. That is where the problem lies, do you blindly trust these people made the right decisions? what makes you think they did or didnt? If they did make the right decision, who made the right decision and who made the wrong one and how do you know? was it the council of Nicea and its 73 books of the bible? or was it the Council of Jamnia and Martin Luther with their 66? These are the tough questions that as we grow closer to God we must settle in our hearts and minds. It isnt an issue of faith in God, its an issue of faith in the men of God who comprised these various councils. Just like any other book, it is possible to believe parts of it and not others. If you dont understand the concept of agreeing with parts of a book and not others perhaps youve never read non-fiction. Pick up any book at a christian bookstore and read it, you will rarely agree 100% with everything the author says, but many times even the worst book has some truth. |
Follow ups: