Christians: Why do you trust the choices the early church made about which books to include in the bible?

Question

There are many other books written about Jesus that were not included. Why are they less valid?

Why don't you read them yourself and make your own judgement?

Answer 1

Because the final decision of what would and what would not be included was made by the Emperor Constantine based on his political needs. It was his intention to use the christian church he was creating for the control of the masses. That was why he made the proto-orthodox churches the state religion of Rome and destroy all other organisations following the teachings of Jesus that would not buy into the orthodox system. It was all about politics then as it is now.

Answer 2

Many "non-cannon" books simply aren't as good as the ones included in the Bible. The Gnostic Gospels, for instance, are often of limited scope, or have stories that do not relate important ideas to the reader. Many of the books not selected were written to appeal to a specific group of people, and don't carry very much importance to others outside of that group and time.

Also, Christianity has grown around the books the early church chose to include in the Bible. After 1500 years or so, the books chosen have been given importance by Christians, so they may be more illuminating to us then they were to the Early Christians.

And finally, Faith is not a search for a specific group of facts (although some people treat it as such.) It is a search for meaning. Therefore, we don't need to examine all facts, all possible books, and all possible intreprations in order to find God. Instead, we need to search are hearts, with the help of some scripture, some support from clergy and fellow believers, some tradition, and some self reflection, and hope to find God along the way.

Answer 3

How 'bout because I HAVE read them, know when they were written (NONE before the second century AD), and understand the "theology" of their writers. Some, like the Infancy Gospel of Thomas just ring through the ages with fantasy. Just describing an activity is insufficient for belief. One must know WHY Jesus behaved as He did. NO Gnostic writing does this or even attempts it.

No, the Council was quite right to anathematize this stuff. All of it is aimed at convincing people that if they'd only learn the secret knowledge (gnosis... where did you think that epithet came from?) they could save themselves. After all, Jesus wasn't God. He was merely a Aeon, or an angel, or some other being sent as a messenger to show the way. BAH!!

A Christian accepts that Jesus is truly God and truly man. If they don't, then by definition, they are NOT Christians! That holds true even today.

Answer 4

Few Christians know that before the council there were many, many books and writings that made up the "new testament". These books were voted on based partly on popularity rather then actual investigation.

Many books that DID make it into the New Testament Apocrypha have been left out of the modern Bibles for convenience sake!

Fewer still Christians have studied the Apocrypha themselves to form their own conclusions.

ADD: Many Protestants insist that Apocrypha is a Catholic thing despite the fact that Martin Luther included extensive Apocrypha in his Protestant Bible.
More importantly he included the Talmud (extensive Jewish legal writings that expand upon and explain the laws of the Original Testament) in the middle of his Bible and called it the Middle Testament.
Again these are often left out of modern printings not because they were no longer believed to be important, but for the convenience of printing.

Answer 5

They aren't less valid. Just unlucky enough not to be picked by some Council as ok enough to be included in the canon.

E. g., the Book of Isaiah was picked out of a slew of prophetic books for one main reason: it was the longest.

I guess I "trust" the choices the early church made because it's convenient to pick up one bible and read what's in it.

I have read some apocrypha, though, like the Acts of Thomas and The Secret Book of Moses.

I do read the bible that has the deuterocanonical books that the Catholics include as sacred.

Answer 6

I don't like the later church councils much at all. But the one thing they did pretty well is construct the many books which are found in the Bible.

What they did after that was mistake after mistake. I suppose that they had good intentions for a time, but later I think that other things worked into the church councils. One of those things was to create an 'official church' recognized by the 'state'. That was perhaps the biggest mistake made.

If I want to read the other books that were not included, I can. And I have on some accounts. Many of them have a Gnostic fingerprints on them. They tell about things that are agreeably spurious. But I like a few of them: The Book of Enoch, The Book of Jasher, The Apocrypha ( even with it's historical inaccuracies I find it intriguing that there are a set of books which are referred to as "Hidden") , etc.

Answer 7

i am not christian but it does tell me that if despite the choosing and deleting that was done, they still came up with a very contradicting, insane holy book then i can only wonder what it would have looked like if all the other books were included. Doesn't it just make you appreciate the accuracy and truth behind all those claims from centuries ago? You gotta love that faith

Answer 8

They are less valid because they were read, tested, and not judged to be inspired by the Holy Spirit.

There are LOTS of texts back then, that does not make them divinely inspired.

And yes, I trust the early Church fathers more because they were closer to the time of Jesus.

Why would I put more trust in what Men "Feel" 2000 years later?

That is why I am Catholic!

Peace!

Answer 9

The Biblical canon of books was not decided early.
It was around 1600, & is not uniformly decided even today.
There were many popular books about Jesus in circulation.
Validity was based on authors who knew Jesus personally,
or were in touch directly with those who did (i.e. Apostles).

Answer 10

In Revelations 22 the last couple of verses says not to take or add anything to this book!

Which I don't read much of anything except the Bible or a Christian Magazine or book. I'm Not a big reader.
I know its sad!