The Bible is essentially a collection of books. The early Church decided which books should be included or excluded. How can the Bible be authoritative if the Church is not? If the Church is not authoritative, how do you know the Bible is authoritative? If the answer to both of those questions is that it inspires you, can a Muslim rightly say that the Quran is authoritative because it inspires them?
2007-05-08 03:31:47 · 6 answers · asked by ? 2 in Society & Culture ➔ Religion & Spirituality
OneWay - you are essentially trusting men when you trust that the deuterocanonical books should be discarded! Also, it was the state that burned people for bad translations, not the Church. William Tyndale and Thomas More were executed by the state for their religious beliefs and they were opposite sides of the fense religiously. Thank God for the separation of Church and state!
2007-05-08 04:13:50 · update #1
cidyah - According to the Muslims, God personally wrote and bound the Quran and gave it to Mohammed. They are trusting in one man's word. With the New Testament, the Holy Spirit guided many man's hand in writing the books, and it further guided many men's judgement in recognizing those books as inspired by God. Do you see the difference?
2007-05-08 04:17:46 · update #2
ladybird: In 2 Timothy 3:16-18 it says:
All Scripture is God-breathed and is useful for teaching, rebuking, correcting and training in righteousness, so that the man of God may be thoroughly equipped for every good work.
I see two problems here. At the time Paul wrote that, scripture was only the Hebrew Scriptures. Also, he says that scripture is useful he never said it was sufficient.
So why do you consider the New Testament "scripture"?
2007-05-08 04:27:20 · update #3
Does the Bible state It is the sole or final authority of Christianity? No. Neither this statement nor anything even close to it appears anywhere in the New Testament. In fact, Christ said that the Church is to resolve disputes among Christians, not Scripture (Matthew 18:17). That church that Christ spoke about is the Holy Roman Catholic Church.
Martin Luther, the Protestant Reformer, stated about the Bible. In his "Commentary On St. John," he stated the following: "We are compelled to concede to the Papists that they have the Word of God, that we have received It from them, and that without them we should have no knowledge of It at all." Regardless of what non-Catholic Christians may think or say, according to secular, objective historians, the Catholic Church alone preserved Sacred Scripture throughout the persecution of the Roman Empire and during the Dark Ages. All non-Catholic Christian denominations owe the existence of the Bible to the Catholic Church alone. Why did God choose the Catholic Church to preserve Scripture if It is not His Church?
2007-05-08 05:44:10 · answer #1 · answered by tebone0315 7 · 1⤊ 0⤋
It should be, P-Squared, but tradition tends to predominate:
There were so many tenents of mythology that crept into church that it solidified me in an athiestic state. Then I decided to reject preachers and study the Bible myself--read 10 different translations, and still wouldn't trust preachers with my salvation.
The Jewish Bible is broken into several parts, and has remained intact; except, when the Septuigent was translated for the Greeks, there was some extra books. The Bible Socitey eleminated those about 150 years ago--the Catholic and Jerusalem Bibles still contain them.
As for the New Testament, a scholar, religious teacher, and curator of the Ceasarean Library studied the available sermons of the 1st-century church elders and documented exactly what epistles they quoted from, and how often.
Eusebius suggested the Gospel order and listed the epistles in the order they were quoted most. For example, Hebrews is larger than most letters, but is shifted towards the back of the N.T. He translated 50 Greek Bibles for Constantine the Great
Several years later Jerome, in Asia Minor, translated the Latin Bible. The Catholic Church tends to think it is the language of Heaven, and actually killed people who preached, translated, or published in other languages.
Personally, I think English will be the official language of Heaven. Why? because most who speak it can not learn a second language.
There are two sites you should visit. One breaks a hidden Bible code; The other explains why Christian nations fell to Islamists, and solidifies the boundaries of Muhammedanism.
Blessings, One-Way
2007-05-08 03:49:24 · answer #2 · answered by Anonymous · 0⤊ 1⤋
God is his Word and the Word is God. When he spoke in the beginning that is how he formed creation and all things. God is so magnificiant that he can perform any act he desires and his desire was to creat us humans so we could understand what reading and writing are all about and he created us so we could have faith that he could write a book through his Spirit, using men, to show us who he is and what he is all about. This is what the bible is.
In the bible God explains all of this and tells us that if we truly seek after the truth then we will find it in the scriptures of the bible and it would set us free. I sought and I found and I can truly say I am free.
2007-05-08 03:47:12 · answer #3 · answered by Bobby B 4 · 1⤊ 0⤋
God is the sole authority of Christianity.
2007-05-08 03:42:58 · answer #4 · answered by Fish <>< 7 · 1⤊ 0⤋
If you claim that you are a true Christian, then the Bible is the sole authority. If you claim that you are a true Muslim, then the Quran is the sole authority.
2007-05-08 03:50:21 · answer #5 · answered by cidyah 7 · 0⤊ 1⤋
Jesus is my authority on Christianity, since its based on faith in him.
2007-05-08 03:50:28 · answer #6 · answered by Rob 3 · 1⤊ 0⤋