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To: A.A. Cunningham
Protestants are notorious for abridging, editing and deleting Scripture many centuries after the Canon was closed, too.

I think you'd have to establish authority for a canon before one can be accused of abridging it. Given that Paul notes specifically that the Oracles of God (the OLD covenant scriptures) rested in the hands of the house of Israel, where do you suppose Catholics gained authority to meddle in a canon that not only doesn't apply to Christians; but, that the Israelites never gave authority to tamper with.

I've been down that road and have solicited citation from Jewish authority on it. The Deuterocanon was never canonized by the Jews. It isn't that it was and was later removed - according to them, it never became canon - ever. And it's something of an absurd joke that such could be considered seriously. The authority I approached was provided with the basis of Catholic claim - that being a matter of some supposed 1st century council at Javneh (Jamnia). I have the email traffic from the exchange. There was no council of Javneh and to the extent that there was a meeting of any kind there, it didn't bother itself with canon which was closed according to the Talmud before the 1st century.

So, I think it's more proper to say that Protestants and Christians have largely recognized the proper authority on OT canon rather than the non-authority of the Catholics who Usurped authority and then crafted a lie to present the appearance of authority granted where none existed. In other words, as I noted prior, Protestants cannot abridge something that arose from no proper authority to begin with. It's akin to you making up a rule that NBA players can only score left handed and then shouting to the world they've abridged the rules when right handed scoring is allowed to go on. The rules weren't abridged because you had no authority to make a rule to begin with and thus no actual "rule" ever existed.

To even begin to pretend that you have any authority, You need to establish two things which I know you cannot because I've been down this road with many from your camp now. You would need to prove:
A)There ever was a "Council" of Javneh(Jamnia) and that
i) said council addressed the matter of a deuterocanon.
ii) said council modified the canon of scripture at all
iii) to the extent that i and ii can be established, one would then need to prove that the deuterocanon was part of any matter of official pronouncement of canon.

B)The original makeup of the LXX and whether the LXX was ever, in fact, considered canon. This may seem odd; but, there are numerous differing versions of the LXX and none of them can be necessarily called an authentic unmodified original. Furthermore, there is no evidence that the LXX was canonized or that it even could meet requirements as OT canon. The Hebrews, in my experience and reading require a Hebrew text as a precursor to any serious consideration for a given book.

Finally, the Jewish scholars I've read and talked to via email have noted that the Canon for them was closed well prior to the first century AD. If they know that, how is it that a group claiming to be the "one true" church is largely ignorant of it? I think it's safe to say that claims require something more than opening one's mouth to say something. Without authority and without proof, one merely has hot air amounting to nothing.

102 posted on 09/08/2005 3:27:05 AM PDT by Havoc (Reagan was right and so was McKinley. Down with free trade. Hang the traitors high)
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To: Havoc

The Hebrew Canon which Protestants rely on was closed after the Palestinian - Greek Canon which the Catholic Church used for over 11 centuries before Luther started throwing things out. On what authority do you accept the Canon of the New Testament?


104 posted on 09/08/2005 7:47:45 AM PDT by A.A. Cunningham
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