The Bible as sole source of authority?

Question

We all agree that the Bible is inspired, but if the Bible is our sole source of authority as Christians, where in the Bible is the list of the books/letters that should be in the Bible?

The Bible has no contradictions in it. The only contradictions are the interpretations of it. I so far have not been able to find a list of every book that is inspired and should be in the Bible. How do we know that every book in there is inspired? Wouldn't that be trusting in the outside authority that put it together? What is that authority?

Answer 1

There isn't a specific list in the Bible (I'm not talking about the table of contents. Some people that said that are just trying to be funny!) That is one reason why I'm Catholic! The Catholic Church decided in 393 A.D. in the Council of Hippo which books were to be included in the canon of scripture. She ratified that in 397 A.D in the council of Carthage.

There was controversy over hundreds of documents and letters before that. The Catholic Church, under the influence of the Holy Spirit, decided which books were inspired, and we still have that same Bible today. (Except for the Old Testament, which Martin Luther took out because he did not like that 2 Maccabees says praying for the dead is a holy thing!)

Whether you know it or not, you trust the Catholic Church because you use the Bible that she put together. How do you know which books are inspired? Because the Pope told you so!

God Bless you in your search for the truth!

Answer 2

The Catholic Church does not use Holy Scripture as the only basis of doctrine. It could not. The early Catholic church existed before and during the time that the New Testament was written (by Catholics).

There were hundreds of Christian writings during the first and second centuries. Which New Testament writings would become official was not fully decided until about 400 AD.

Catholics believe that the Holy Spirit was guiding the early church (and is guiding the church today) to make the correct choices about things like:
+ The Holy Trinity (which is also only hinted at in the Bible)
+ Going to church on Sunday instead of Saturday (which is actually directly against one of the Ten Commandments)
+ The Communion of Saints
+ Which writings include in the New Testament?

Things that are even more modern like
+ Slavery is bad. Slavery is never declared evil in the Bible. This was one of the justifications for slavery in the Confederate States.
+ Democracy is good. The Bible states that either God should be the leader of the nation like Israel before the kings or kings should be the leader, "Give to Caesar that which is Caesar's." This was talked about a lot during the American Revolution.

This second source of doctrine is called Holy Tradition.

With love in Christ.

Answer 3

There is no such list in the Bible. The early Church used the same 66 books we use today as early as 100 A.D. There were about 5 books that were questioned by some churches but that was solved very early. Eventually the books were tested or measured against a standard or canon. This was done early in the 4th century. The 66 books we use today were the only ones which passed the canon. The Catholic church officially added books to their Bible in the 1600's after the first revision of the King James Bible removed the "deutero-canonical" books (deutero=second). King James had hoped to bring the church back together by giving the people an English version, which they wanted, and by adding books favored by Rome to appease the Catholics. This repulsed the Christians. So King James revised his version to contain only the 66 canonical books.

Answer 4

Hi Biblechristian,
Great question, my thumbs up to you.
Here is a list of verses for you to look up and you will see that the writers of the Bible books refer to other books that they considered authoritative scripture that they quote from.

Exodus 24:7 Book of the covenant
Numbers 21:14 Book of the Wars of the Lord
Joshua 10:13 Book of Jasher
1 Samuel 10:25 Manner of the kingdom
2 Samuel 1:18 Book of Jasher
1 Kings 11:41 Book of the Acts of Solomon
1 Chronicles 27:24 book of the Annals of King David
1 Chronicles 29:29 Samuel the Seer-Nathan the prophet-Gad the seer
2 Chronicles 9:29 Visions of Iddo the seer-Nathan the prophet-Prophecy of Ahijah the Shilonite
2 Chronicles 12:15 Iddo the seer-Book of Shemaiah the prophet
2 Chronicles 13:22 Story of the prophet Iddo
2 Chronicles 20:34 Book of the kings of Israel-Book of Jehu the son of Hanani
2 Chronicles 26:22 The acts of Uzziah
2 Chronicles 33:19 Written among the sayings of the seers
1 Corinthians 5:9 I wrote you in a epistle (apparently we really have 2nd and 3rd Corinthians)
Ephesians 3:3 as I wrote afore (once again 1st and 2nd Ephesians)
Colossians 4:16 Epistle from Laodicea
Jude 1:3 diligence to write unto you
Jude 1:14 Book of Enoch

The early Christians had over 200 scriptures that they read from, all considered authoritive.
Do not listen to Bro John, he has not much knowledge of the original Bibles and has bought into false church teachings. I wish I could show him my collection. Hopefully he will study this out without church help. I am sure he means well but is mistaken. He can e-mail me for a Bible history lesson also.
Once Bibles started getting translated into English and German (Luthers) they all had 80 books in them with the exeption of a few rare printings. This was the case until the mid 1880's when the protestants removed them from American printings. Even the famous KJV had 80 books until 130 years ago. 39 OT, 14 Apocrypha, 27 NT. I own many antique Bibles and they all have 80 books, my oldest KJV is a 1660 with 80 books. Every single council that every happened that was to decide the cannonization of books consitently cannonized the Apocrypha books. The source that has always determined this and headed up the councils has alwys been the Roman church. Get on e-bay and search antique Bibles and see for yourself or go to http://www.greatsite.com and look at the ones for sale.
Churches do not like these books because they started changing their belief structures also in the 1880's. Christ himself read and quoted from the Apocrypha. There are many other scriptures outside of the Bible that teach us things such as who Cain married but I will not go into another list.
As too the statement that there are no contradictions, I would re-think that if I were you. Here is some homework for you : look up the resurection story in the four gospels and pay close attention to how many angels are at the tomb and where they are located. This has nothing to do with interpretation.

If you would like, I can e-mail you a lesson outline from a class I teach and an explanation with it as to our Bibles history and how it came to be for no charge to all who ask. You can contct me through my below website if interested.
I know this was long but it is hard to condense the topic and I left a lot out already. I hope this is sort of what you are looking for.

Answer 5

The Bible itself was the guide for that. When they decided to put the various manuscripts together there was no doubt about most of the books as they were used by Jesus and the Apostles etc. The few books that some had doubts on were subjected to the Bible test. If the known Books quoted from these others or they were used as Scripture by Jesus or the Apostles, also that they agreed with the other Books of the Bible.So the Bible itself did tell us which Books.

Answer 6

i've got faith the Christians' Bible says scripture is the source of authority, regardless of if it would not say what scripture. because of the fact the Christians' Bible had no longer been compiled on the time that e book replaced into being written, the be conscious 'scripture' in all probability refers to a scripture that already existed - like the Hebrew Scripture.

Answer 7

This is my conclusion.
WE HAD TO HAVE THE BIBLE IN END TIME TO PREPARE FOR THE SECOND COMING OF JESUS
God will abide by the law of the land.

KJV Bible 1611 CE published + 303 years to 1914 CE and excepted translation.
Matt.24:3,7,14,15,22,34,36-38 [ all prophecy is here, hugh war, the word, Daniel's words ];
Dan.8:12-14 [ 2300 less 606 BCE is 1694 + 303 years bible circulation 1994, now we know we are in the end times and the truth or God's word has been in the world, so we can not blame God, it is here ];

Satan from Eden has time in seven full world Empires, he is down in the 8th for a short time. Jesus was in Empire #6, crucified, resurrected and ascended until Gen.3:15 is
fulfilled, Satan and unholy angels put down by Michael and holy angel for their short time in the 8th Empire to the reign of Jesus.

Answer 8

Hundreds of years ago a group called the ecumenical council assembled and studied all the then books that had been assembled as the bible. Several of these books did not conform to the guidelines set forth by these men, and were discarded.
Those books retained were scrutinized carefully for 'threads' of similarity, and referenced to one another. These survived and are what we today except as the bible, God's word.

Answer 9

That depends on what you mean by "source of authority".
If what you mean is that the Bible is the "sole authority" about who God is, what he requires of us, then yes. If otherwise, then no.

The Bible's author is God. And, we are made into the likeness of his image. That means we have common sense--the ability to discern things.

That having been said, then we should look for "Biblical Principles" in guiding our daily lives, rather than looking for "specific instructions".

Thus, if the Bible says: "keep clean physically, and morally", then it behoves right thinking Christians not to smoke ( this makes us physically unclean. Not to watch porno, this makes us morally unclean, and things like that.

Answer 10

The Bible as a book is full of knowledge, But Who's words are they, it has been changed so many times, I'm sure its not close to how it was written..