Final Authority and Final Canonization

[makahiya117]

I wish to present my theory of final authority
and final canonization, not to doubtful disputation,
envy, strive or contention but in sincerity and love.

KJV Romans 14:1 Him that is weak in the faith receive ye,
but not to doubtful disputations.

KJV Philippians 1:15-17
15 Some indeed preach Christ even of envy and strife . . .
16 The one preach Christ of contention, not sincerely . . .
17 But the other of love . . .


Historically and logically, Theology is the master university science.

Academic Theology was central in the development of higher education

at Paris, Oxford, Cambridge, Harvard, Yale and Princeton.

The central critical issue in academic theology is final authority.

KJV 1 Corinthians 15:3-4

3 For I delivered unto you first of all that which I also received,

how that Christ died for our sins according to the scriptures;

4 And that he was buried, and that he rose again the third day according to the scriptures.


-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------


#1. You cannot honestly state you have scripture if you believe

only the original manuscripts were given by inspiration of God.

There are no original manuscripts.

KJV But have renounced the hidden things of dishonesty, not walking in craftiness,

nor handling the word of God deceitfully; but by manifestation of the truth commending

ourselves to every man's conscience in the sight of God.


#2. You cannot honestly say "the bible" or "all bibles" are given by inspiration of God.

There are over 400 (Christian, Catholic, Cult) Greek, Syrian, Latin, German, English,

French, Spanish, etc. bibles which do not match in content, volume or doctrine.


#3. You cannot honestly say "the Greek N.T." or "all N.T. Greek texts"

are given by inspiration of God.

There are over 24 reconstructed (Christian, Catholic, Cult) Greek N.T. texts

which do not match in content, volume or doctrine.


#4. All KJV Holy Bibles are editions of the 1611 KJV first edition.

The human finger prints (typographical errors, spelling errors, missing words, etc.)

further document the testaments and covenants (records) between God and man.

While the 1769 KJV Holy Bible standardized spelling, corrected printer’s errors

and is the select text today, the text of the AV 1611 KJV first edition remains

the principal canon authority of Holy Scripture.

There were no manuscript revisions of the 1611 KJV until the 1881 RV

(Revised Version), only spelling, measurements and punctuation editions.

KJV For we are not as many, which corrupt the word of God:

but as of sincerity, but as of God, in the sight of God speak we in Christ.


#5. God's words were given by inspiration of God.

KJV All scripture is given by inspiration of God, and is profitable for doctrine,

for reproof, for correction, for instruction in righteousness:



#6. God predestined certain individuals to record the words of God.

KJV Paul, an apostle of Jesus Christ by the will of God,

according to the promise of life which is in Christ Jesus,

KJV Moreover whom he did predestinate, them he also called:

and whom he called, them he also justified: and whom he justified, them he also glorified.

KJV According as he hath chosen us in him before the foundation of the world,

that we should be holy and without blame before him in love:


#7. God providentially preserved and canonized the words of scripture.

KJV The words of the LORD are pure words: as silver tried in a furnace of earth,

purified seven times. Thou shalt keep them, O LORD, thou shalt preserve them

from this generation for ever.

KJV Then said I, Lo, I come: in the volume of the book it is written of me,


#8. Inspiration, predestination, providence and preservation continued

throughout final canonization (books and words) and publication of scripture.

KJV For I have given unto them the words which thou gavest me;

and they have received them, and have known surely that I came out from thee,

and they have believed that thou didst send me.

KJV Heaven and earth shall pass away, but my words shall not pass away.


#9. T he words of the AV 1611 KJV Holy Bible were divinely transmitted,

infallible, infinite and eternal.

KJV Now unto the King eternal, immortal, invisible, the only wise God,

be honour and glory for ever and ever. Amen.


#10. KJV Prove all things; hold fast that which is good.

The Record Theory independently answers the questions of final authority

and final canonization (books and words). The dynamic Purified Text Theory

supports the Record Theory, demonstrated categorically and conclusively

in the manuscript evidence, bible canonization, bible doctrine,

billions of bibles and computational linguistics.



I am not a KJV Only or an Original Only.

I believe all scripture is given by inspiration of God.

KJV All scripture is given by inspiration of God,
and is profitable for doctrine, for reproof, for correction,
for instruction in righteousness:

-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Please state you theory of final authority and final canonization.

-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

1 Peter 3:15 But sanctify the Lord God in your hearts:
and be ready always to give an answer to every man that asketh you
a reason of the hope that is in you with meekness and fear:

 

[SilenceInMotion]

The Church fathers put together the canon of Scripture, so to say scripture is the only authority, it must be found in the scripture canonized by the fathers that it is the only authority. Otherwise, you have to concede that the authority was vested in the fathers themselves to place the canon of scripture in the first place.

Ergo, the canon of scripture was placed by the Spirit which succeeded from the apostles to their successors, and this authority does not only exist in scripture anymore then it did before scripture was even written.

The word 'spirit' literally means, in it's original Hebrew, 'breath'. God breathed life into man, and the prophets who descended wrote the inspired word. Scripture is simply a recording of this inspiration, the Spirit is not locked between the pages- scripture is not the only source of authority and enlightenment.

The only authority scripture holds is that it serves as a bull of reproof and correction- teachings outside the Bible cannot contradict what is in the Bible. This is how the Church makes use of Scripture, they do not laborn under any falsehood of 'solo scriptura'. Just because something is not in the Bible doesn't mean it isn't true, or should even be considered less then what scripture states. If it is virtually certain, it is equally valid as the most inspired verse in the Bible.

The only actual authority in any of this is the Spirit. The Spirit moves through men and is intended to move through men, and it didn't simply start with Job and end with John.

This is the very Catholic understanding of authority, and as far as I could always tell, the only one that is proper and makes any real sense.

 

[makahiya117]

Psalms 12:6-7
6 The words of the LORD are pure words:
as silver tried in a furnace of earth, purified seven times.
7 Thou shalt keep them, O LORD, thou shalt preserve them
from this generation for ever.

The Lord preserved his words, not the church and not the scholars.

 

[SilenceInMotion]

If you were aiming to produce circular reasoning, you nailed it.

Circular reasoning- a logical fallacy in which one supports a premise with the premise rather then the conclusion

 

[Rex]

If you were aiming to produce circular reasoning, you nailed it.

Circular reasoning- a logical fallacy in which one supports a premise with the premise rather then the conclusion

Catholic circular reasoning ends with the Pope

The blind and lost come to the conclusion, Christians circular reasoning ends with God

Even examined threw secular eyes its clear to see where faith comes to rest.

 

[aspen]

l guess people who use circular reasoning to help them feel certain and satisfied can plug in the Pope / the Bible / their own image of God or any other part of creation to serve as their idol. All things can be misused, even truth.

 

[makahiya117]

If you were aiming to produce circular reasoning, you nailed it.

Circular reasoning- a logical fallacy in which one supports a premise with the premise rather then the conclusion

Oh, ok, thanks for telling me.


The topic is final authority and final canonization.

The question is do you have scripture ?

Pleases state your theory of final authority and final canonization.




.

 

[ericrun]

makahiya117
How the Bible came to be:

Moses, the prophets, and other leaders of the Hebrew people wrote and copied the OT for centuries. After the restoration of the Temple after the exile, things were pretty quiet for a while. Then, Alexander the Great came to power, and built an empire that stretched from Greece to India. After his death, various other Greek leaders took power in various locations. One such leader, Ptolemy II (Alexandria, Egypt) attempted to build the premier library of the time. It is legend that he gathered Jewish elders and had them translate the OT to Greek. This translation is called the Septuagint.

It is this translation that was used by the early Church as the source of the Old Testament. 90% of OT quotes in the NT come from the Septuagint. In the fourth century, when the question arose which books were in the canon, the council's (First Council of Constantinople?) list of Old Testament books matches the Septuagint. For the New Testament, the Church's criteria were that the Gospels and Letters that were widely distributed among all the Church's would be considered scripture.

For almost the next 1150 years, there was no change or debate on the canon of scripture, other than a few of the Orthodox Church's considering a few extra books as canon. Then, Luther decided to make the Bible the authority of Christianity, he felt he had to make sure he had the right bible. His criteria were different, and he decided that he would use the Hebrew OT rather than the Septuagint that the Apostles used. After this, the Catholic Church entered the already decided books of Scripture into Canon Law which had only been formally established for a few hundred years before, and it hadn't occured to anybody to put the list of books in the canon since everybody knew what the list of books was.

After this time, the KJV was written about 50 years later, using the Luther bible as the definitive source of books.

Now, the question becomes, which list makes more since as the Christian Canon. The OT the Apostles used, plus the NT the Fourth Century bishops agreed upon OR the OT the Apostle's didn't use and the NT the Forth Century bishops somehow managed to get right (but somehow missed on the OT). If you want to say Martin Luther is the more dependable source of a canon, you should probably examine the lives of the men who made the older decision and compare it to Martin Luther's life. While Martin Luther may have made a few good points concerning the selling of indulgences, I would not rest easy if my salvation depended on him having the authority he claimed to have.

Since you did not receive the Bible directly from God, but rather from other men, you need to address why you would take Luther's authority over all others to determine the canon. Your statement "The Lord preserved his words, not the church and not the scholars." rejects that men have had a role in praying and deciding which books should be included. By your words, I could release my own Bible, and if it became popular, and survived for a thousand years, it would be just as good as the Protestant Bible that has existed for 500 years or the Catholic which is existed for much longer. Yes God as preserved his words for our benefits, but we must use reason to decide who did the best job of following God's will in creating the Protestant and Catholic canons.

There are other issues that need to be addressed:

The Protestant guide is that the bible is the authority, with individual interpretation. On what authority do Protestants create new churches that have different beliefs from the universal church that existed before them, since nowhere in the bible was such a thing done? On what authority did Luther, Calvin and the others split from the Church? If this was not a biblical act, then it was an act of defiance against God and his teaching. If you cannot justify this teaching, you cannot follow it's lead and stay in a Protestant Church.

If the Protestant model works, why are there more and more devisions between Protestant denominations instead of less? If the bible is all that is needed, clearly everybody should be able to agree that the bible says clear things, and be in the process of merging Churches together as differences are ironed out and the Truth becomes more clear. But that is the opposite of what has happened. The Protestant model has caused the relativism that is rampant in secular society, because all of the athiests have decided that they have just as much ability to figure out the Truth based on their own reason as anybody else. This is uncontestable by Protestants, because it is the foundation of Protestantism. Now it is true that Protestants try to be led by the Spirit of God, but a Catholic believes were are led by the Spirit, but together instead of individually, so that if my own listening to the Spirit goes awry, I might be led by God's spirit speaking through others. Ultimately, the Church is following the spirit of all believers, but also protected from following secular errors seducing current believers by listening to the wisdom of previous generations who weren't surrounded by the same errors we see in our culture today.

 

[makahiya117]

The topic is final authority and final canonization.

The question is do you have scripture ?

Pleases answer the question and state your theory of final authority and final canonization.

 

[1peterlight]

I am very much interested in the direction of this topic and personal answers as I am curious myself.
My questions are:

1)Which bible(s) do you use and why?
2)do you believe in the apocrypha and other non canonical? why or why not?

 

[makahiya117]

I am very much interested in the direction of this topic and personal answers as I am curious myself.
My questions are:

1)Which bible(s) do you use and why?
2)do you believe in the apocrypha and other non canonical? why or why not?

I completely outlined my theory of final canonization and final authority In my opening statement.

The topic is final authority and final canonization.

The question is do you have scripture ?

Pleases answer the question and state your theory of final authority and final canonization.




.

 

[1peterlight]

Are you asking if I believe God had the final authority on scripture, yes. If it is scripture yes. I am no scholar but from what I have learned of how the bible made its way into our hands and spread, I call that divine. I was not trying to get off topic by my questions but there is a divide about which bibles and whether the non canonicals should have been included. I ask because if the answer is yes then doesn't that pertain to the original questions?

 

[makahiya117]

Are you asking if I believe God had the final authority on scripture, yes. If it is scripture yes. I am no scholar but from what I have learned of how the bible made its way into our hands and spread, I call that divine. I was not trying to get off topic by my questions but there is a divide about which bibles and whether the non canonicals should have been included. I ask because if the answer is yes then doesn't that pertain to the original questions?

KJV Psalms 12:6-7
6 The words of the LORD are pure words:
as silver tried in a furnace of earth, purified seven times.
7 Thou shalt keep them, O LORD, thou shalt preserve them
from this generation for ever.

The Lord preserved his words, not the church and not the scholars.


KJV Holy Bibles are the most published, read and loved bibles of all time.

KJV Holy Bibles are the most published, read and loved books of all time.

Believers will believe, doubters will doubt and haters will hate.

 

[ericrun]

Every one of your points had to do with scripture or specificall the KJV. Protestant model puts the authority in Scripture, and in Catholicism it rests with the bishops who have the bible as a primary source for our beliefs.

As such, I was contesting your asserition that the 1611 KJV bible is the authoritative infallible bible. And by pointing out that the Protestant bibles (including the JKV) were in error, I remind you that the Catholic Church, as the continuation of the biblical church, is "the house of God, which is the church of the living God, the pillar and ground of the truth." (1Tim 3:15), and therefore the final authority of all truth, including specifically the authority to define the bible is dependant upon the Church's authority, and not the other way around.

To sum up, the Church gives us the Bible as a good tool to learn about Jesus, but the Church and Bible both claim that final authority rests in the Church that gives us the Bible, because without that authority, the bible is a questionable document.

 

[makahiya117]

When an individual says " the Bible " that individual is speaking

like a parrot or a deceiver. There are over 400 (Christian, Catholic, Cult)

Greek, Syrian, Latin, German, English, French, Spanish, etc., Bibles

which do not match in content, volume or doctrine.

Additionally, over 6 billion Bibles have been printed.

 

[Episkopos]

Aren't the theologians the ones who decide if a woman is a witch or not.

As in ..."she is a witch".

 

[makahiya117]

KJV But foolish and unlearned questions avoid, knowing that they do gender strifes.

-----------------


The topic is final authority and final canonization.

The question is do you have scripture ?

Pleases answer the question and state your theory of final authority and final canonization.

 

[ericrun]

1peterlight
I use the Catholic RSV, which is one of the oldest modern translations. I've head good things about the Douay-Rheims, which is the oldest English translation.

I do accept the Catholic canon including the what you call the "Apocrypha". As I explained in my long post, the authors of the New Testament primarily quoted from the Greek Old Testament, which includes what you'd call the "Apocrypha". If it's good enough to be in the Scriptures that the Evangelists used to write the new Testament, it's good enough for me.

 

[makahiya117]

Are you asking if I believe God had the final authority on scripture, yes. If it is scripture yes. I am no scholar but from what I have learned of how the bible made its way into our hands and spread, I call that divine. I was not trying to get off topic by my questions but there is a divide about which bibles and whether the non canonicals should have been included. I ask because if the answer is yes then doesn't that pertain to the original questions?

When an individual says " the Bible " that individual is speaking

like a parrot or a deceiver. There are over 400 (Christian, Catholic, Cult)

Greek, Syrian, Latin, German, English, French, Spanish, etc., Bibles

which do not match in content, volume or doctrine.

1peterlight
I use the Catholic RSV, which is one of the oldest modern translations. I've head good things about the Douay-Rheims, which is the oldest English translation.

I do accept the Catholic canon including the what you call the "Apocrypha". As I explained in my long post, the authors of the New Testament primarily quoted from the Greek Old Testament, which includes what you'd call the "Apocrypha". If it's good enough to be in the Scriptures that the Evangelists used to write the new Testament, it's good enough for me.

KJV 2 Timothy 3:16 All scripture is given by inspiration of God,
and is profitable for doctrine, for reproof, for correction, for instruction in righteousness:

Please explain to me how the Catholic RSV is scripture given by inspiration of God.

 

[excubitor]

The notion that older manuscripts are better than new ones is a bitter lie of the devil which has caused a corruption of our modern scriptures. As these KJV scriptures below state, it is clear that God preserves the scriptures so we can be certain that a steady tradition of scripture which spans hundreds if not a thousand years is proof of divine authority. The fact that we had a settled canon for well over 1000 years is a similar evidence and invalidates the changes made to the canon by the reformers.

Older manuscripts are not better. We should expect that a high quality manuscript would be frequently used to and frequently copied and so would be inclined to wear out. Whereas a poor and unreliable manuscript is likely to get tossed into the attic and forgotten. Constant use by the general assembly of the saints is a profound witness of the approval of the Holy Ghost in the preservation of his words through the generations.

God does not preserve his scriptures by stuffing them into a box and hiding them in an attic. He preserves them by putting them to ready use in the lives of his people and the church.

KJV Psalms 12:6-7
6 The words of the LORD are pure words:
as silver tried in a furnace of earth, purified seven times.
7 Thou shalt keep them, O LORD, thou shalt preserve them
from this generation for ever.

The Lord preserved his words, not the church and not the scholars.


KJV Holy Bibles are the most published, read and loved bibles of all time.

KJV Holy Bibles are the most published, read and loved books of all time.

Believers will believe, doubters will doubt and haters will hate.

When an individual says " the Bible " that individual is speaking
like a parrot or a deceiver. There are over 400 (Christian, Catholic, Cult)
Greek, Syrian, Latin, German, English, French, Spanish, etc., Bibles
which do not match in content, volume or doctrine.

Bit strong don't you think?
I reject your claim. I concede that there are corruptions of the scriptures. That was foretold. But the evidence of a counterfeit does not invalidate the existence of an exemplar.

Are you going to throw out all your money because there have been 400 counterfeits produced?
Of course not, you are merely going to be more vigilant to select genuine notes.

It is the same with the scriptures. The fact that counterfeit and corrupted scriptures exist should not cause us to scrap the notion of a canon of scripture. It should cause us to be vigilant and watchful that we only ever use valid and reliable scriptures.

How do we know which scriptures are valid? Interesting question. And that is what the OP is all about. What is the final authority to say that one set of scripture is valid and the other is unreliable or faulty. There is only one authority that has ever made such a statement or judgement and that is the church.

I hope this answer satisfies. Surely you will not continue to consider me a parrot or a deceiver, will you?