If the Bible is the infallible, inerrant Word of God, then why is what we have today not the complete Bible?

Question

There was a council in the Middle Ages/Renaissance to determine what went into the Bible and what didn't based on the beliefs of those in attendance. Based on that, who is to say that any of the other books that have been discovered over time have absolutely no validity whatsoever in comparison? There was a reason those books were written in the first place yet they were shunned as blasphemy even today. What gives man the right to decide what God agrees with and doesn't? If the Bible was truly infallible and inerrant (its many discrepancies aside) why are those other books not included by man's decision? God could have ordered that they be included and then ignored.

Even if the Catholic Bible was the true Bible, wouldn't they need to update it to include other books that have since been discovered? Or are those non-applicable?

Answer 1

There were even books in the Bible that were later removed. That is why the Catholic Bible contains books not contained in other Bibles. The Ethiopian Bible contains still other books. The whole process seems more like the whim of man than the inspiration of God.

Answer 2

I won't go into the age where you said that it was, there have been plenty of posts to give you the time it was constructed.

What I'd like to add is that I think that it was done well. I do not think that the Letter of James is very good at all, but there is a bit of good stuff in it. It's just that James wasn't saying the samething as Paul and the rest of the Bible.

What I will not agree with is that the Bible is inerrant. As you seem to have found. I don't have to, and as I have been taught by by old pastor, English itself must be looked around to get a better example of the words used.

But it IS the inspired word of God. Balaam's ***, Paul, me, all of those touched by God's workings are inspired, and none are perfect. The Inerrant Word of God sat down at the right hand of the Father. So if you are looking for inerrancy, look to God only. The rest is not infallible any more than it is incorruptable.

Answer 3

This comes up almost daily. You have lots of facts not quite right. One primary problem is the date at which the content of the canon was established. This was done effectively by 200 A.D. when the current canon of the New Testament was all recognized as authoritative. During that time a few people held that:
Epistle of Barnabas
The Epistles of Clement
The Shepherd of Hermas
...Should be included as well, but that was a minority and the internal and external evidence did not support their inclusion.

The catholic church accepts some OLD TESTAMENT "books" and passages WHICH THE JEWS THEMSELVES NEVER CONSIDERED AUTHORITATIVE, thus we have the "deuterocanonical" or second canon books.

All of these were included in the Septuagint (often denoted LXX), an ancient Greek translation of the Old Testament. This translation was completed during or before the second century B.C. and was in common use during the time of Christ. The translation was NOT done FOR THE PURPOSES of the Jews, but for the Greek library at Alexandria, Egypt, thus its contents were those desired by the library. This, in part, led many of the Jews to reject it by the end of the 2nd century.

Jerome, in the 5th century produced the "Vulgate." This was a complete bible in common Latin. It included both the Hebrew scriptures that we know as the "Old Testament" and those of Greek or Aramaic origin from the LXX. The Vulgate became the OFFICIAL Bible of the Roman church, so its content formed the 2nd canon.

There are SEVERAL books which have been found over the last few centuries, including substantial fragments of what is called the "Oxyrhynchus 1224 Gospel." (See http://www.earlychristianwritings.com/ for info about these, along with some translations.) This and others MAY be authentic, inspired teachings, but what we have is SUFFICIENT: John 20:30 "Jesus did many other miraculous signs in front of his disciples. They are not written down in this book. 31 But these are written down so that you may believe that Jesus is the Christ, the Son of God. If you believe this, you will have life because you belong to him."

The TRUTH of scripture did not change during the middle ages.

Answer 4

What is in the Bible has been determined to be Canon by tradition and everything thus agreed was compared to the rest of the Scriptures for agreement. It took a lot of work to make that determination and some lately discovered books didn't appear until hundreds of years after the events they purportedly written about.

Answer 5

Simple. You said it yourself, the Bible is the word of God, not the COMPLETE word of god. Whatever "test" the council of Nicea applied to the bits of the bible they had to test *could*, in theory also be applied to the Quran, The Baghavad Gita, The Yoga Sutras, etc. We could conjecture that many, many books would pass that test. The Church is pretty busy right now figuring out how to prevent abortions and embryonic stem cell research or I'm sure they would.

Answer 6

An important determining factor in deciding which books to place into the bible was the number of handwritten manuscripts that they had. The ones that made it into the bible far outnumbered the others that didn't .

Answer 7

They failed to meet the requirements of canonicity. Some of them were not consistent with the teachings of Jesus and so were dropped. Many others were Gnostic. The complete Bible is the one used by Catholics. After the Protestant Reformation many books were removed by Martin Luther because they contradicted his theology.
Peace and every blessing!

Answer 8

Alot of the other books that have been found were in pieces, some very faded,big chunks missing out of the pages.Like with the Dead Sea Scrolls, yes the majority of them are in great shape but there are some pages that cant be read because of fading, and worn away

Answer 9

"The purpose of the council was to resolve disagreements in the Church of Alexandria over the nature of Jesus in relationship to the Father; in particular, whether Jesus was of the same substance as God the Father or merely of similar substance. St. Alexander of Alexandria and Athanasius took the first position; the popular presbyter Arius, from whom the term Arian controversy comes, took the second. The council decided against the Arians overwhelmingly (of the estimated 250-318 attendees, all but 2 voted against Arius)."
-Wikipedia--Council of Nicaea



The council was in 325 A.D.



"St. Alexander of Alexandria, Pope of Alexandria, date of birth uncertain; died April 17, 326.

He is prominent because his appointment to the patriarchal see excluded Arius. Arius had begun to teach Arianism in 300 when Peter, by whom he was excommunicated, was Patriarch. He was reinstated by Achillas, the successor of Peter and then began to scheme to be made Patriarch. When Achillas died Alexander was elected, and Arius was irked because he had been passed over. Alexander tolerated him in the beginning, but came to dislike Arius. Finally Arius' teachings were condemned in a council he called in Alexandria in 318, and later on in the Council of Nicaea in 325, which Alexander attended and whose Acts Alexander is credited with having drawn up."
-Wikipedia--St. Alexander of Alexandria


Arianism was not ever considered as biblically sound.

If you're wondering about the books that were excluded from the canon, all of them were written a long time after the apostles died.

Answer 10

Don't forget, God never picked up a pen!!! The bible was written solely by man!!!

If the bible is infallible, then we are all descendants of incest. But wait, the bible says that incest is morally wrong!!! But Adam and Eve were the only two beings procreating... Therefore either their progeny inter-related or their parents inter-related with their kids. (ewww)