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exGreek
Posts: 1381
Joined: Oct 27, 2004
Location: Spring Lake, Michigan
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 Posted:
Jan 11, 2007 - 10:57 AM |
 
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Lately I've been struggling with Faith big time. One of the many reasons I converted to Orthodoxy several years ago was basically this line of thinking: "I accept the Bible as God's authentic and inspired Word. But the canon of this Bible was authorized by the Orthodox, Catholic Church. Therefore, to be consistent, I must also accept the authenticity and inspiration of the Orthodox, Catholic Church." But now I am questioning the very validity of this canon. There's no doubt in my mind that there's something "real" and "genuine" about the power of Jesus and His resurrection. But I'm beginning to wonder: Might the Church have gotten the canon wrong? Or, more significantly, might the very idea of a "canon" be a little naive to begin with? What if there is truth in the Gospel of Thomas, for example? Sure, it might contain falsehood, but don't some scholars say that historical falsehoods exist in the canonized Gospels as well?
Thank you for your patience and guidance. |
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AMoussa01
Posts: 535
Joined: Jan 08, 2007
Location: St. George and St. Joseph in San Jose California
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Jan 11, 2007 - 12:08 PM |
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lol.....have you read the gospel of Thomas? Dude, Jesus sounds like a bully in there. Of course we know Christ, being the son of God, would never strike back, especially if it involves a young child. "Turn the other cheek." Anyway, i know this doesnt fully answer your question but the gospel of Thomas is completely ludicrous... |
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AMoussa01
Posts: 535
Joined: Jan 08, 2007
Location: St. George and St. Joseph in San Jose California
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Jan 11, 2007 - 04:10 PM |
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I would also like to add that the Gospel of Thomas is contradictory to Christ's teachings. If your arguement would be that there are many things contradicting in the bible, then i would have to say your WRONG. It all depends on how you interpret such things...
Pray for me
Tony |
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Fortunatus
Ask me for help!
Posts: 403
Joined: Sep 04, 2003
Location: the Coptic Orthodox Church
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Jan 12, 2007 - 09:12 AM |
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+Iryny nem `hmot
,
Hey ExGreek,
Long time no see.  Anyway, the rejection of some of the gnosittic texts does not suggest that there is absolutely nothing of any merit whatsoever in them. A combination of fact and fiction, however, cannot be considered canonical.
Origen, within the first and a half century AD, was already referring to only fourg gospels as being surely canonical, so it's not like we made it up in the 4th century on whim. Some of the other gnostic texts have actual sayings of our Lords, and we know from John's gospel and from plain reality that even the canonical texts do not and cannot contain all the words and teaching s and miracles of our Lord. We can, however, from what we know to be correct (the four Gospels) rule out what is contrary to those teachings (e.g. that women should become men to enter the Kingdom of heaven, as found in the Gospel of Thomas, for example...)
So, it is possible to find something that is c orrect in non-canonical texts, and they are often quoted by some of tthe fathers, but that's tnot to make the entire text canonical. Something needs to be sound and correct wholly in order to be canonical. Again, it should be emphasised that the tradition of the texts were already there before the official "canonisation" of them...
Please pray for me. |
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exGreek
Posts: 1381
Joined: Oct 27, 2004
Location: Spring Lake, Michigan
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| Posted:
Jan 12, 2007 - 12:42 PM |
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Thank you for your feedback, AMoussa1 and Fortunatus. But this still doesn't answer the more general question of, "What meaning, if any, is attached to the idea of having a 'canon'?" Couldn't the Church equally have said, "Here are all the materials collected so far in relation to Jesus....you figure it out." And isn't the idea that the books in the canon are somehow more "divinely inspired" than the non-canolical books a little naive? Protestant, perhaps...or even Koranic? |
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AMoussa01
Posts: 535
Joined: Jan 08, 2007
Location: St. George and St. Joseph in San Jose California
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Jan 12, 2007 - 04:43 PM |
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The protestaunts were the ones wanting to deny the traditions or the teachings. However, everything was handed down to us through tradition. Read 1 corinthians chapter 11 verse 2. The church did not add any new canons. these ecumenical councils were formed just to confirm the canons that were passed down to us by the apostles. Those teachings were called the didachi or doctrines. Read second epistle of John verse 10. The church didnt say " we will take this and leave this out".......that didnt not happen. Everything we got was already handed down to us by the apostles. |
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Biboboy
Posts: 726
Joined: Sep 28, 2004
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Jan 12, 2007 - 07:01 PM |
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Agape,
Didn't we bring up the topic of canonization elsewhere? I recall writing a response for you once on this topic, so have a look at it if you can find it.
What Fortunatus said is correct, but there's one thing I'd like to add: before Origen there was even the witness of Irenaeus of Lyons, who in his (huge!) collection of 5 books "Against Heresies" wrote clearly that the Church Universal already accepted 4 Gospels only. You should read the first 2 books - if you can understand it, you'll find that the Gnostic writings are really... umm... what to say... bizarre!
The first person recorded historically to have formed a canon was Marcion - a Gnostic heretic. His canon did not include the OT, but did include edited versions of the Pauline letters and parts of the Gospel of Luke. The formation of an orthodox canon of accepted writings by the Church Universal was a response to Marcionism. Again, read Irenaeus. He goes into the Gnostics in such great detail.
I don't think I've ever heard that canonical writings are "more inspired" than non-canonical writings. Canonical writings are the ones accepted by the whole church everywhere on earth and has guided the faith and the formation of doctrine. What this means is that the Scriptural canon gets the highest priority in guiding the church's faith because it was defined by the church's experience of that faith. It's not a matter of being "more inspired" or anything of that sort. By saying "more" you're saying that it is relative to something else. But the Shepherd of Hermas, which is not in the canon, has direct inspiration and revelations from the heavenly angels (as the content shows), so from what perspective can one say that it is "less" inspired than the canon - the point I'm making is that there's no such thing as being "more" or "less" inspired. However, it may be the case that a writing may not have been inspired at all by the Spirit - as we say about the Gnostic Gospels, which in my opinion are inspired by human deceit. |
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Truth.Seeker
Posts: 432
Joined: Feb 25, 2008
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Mar 20, 2008 - 09:01 AM |
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exGreek,
This is a year after the last post was written in the topic, but it looks like, with the exception of Biboboy's response, the responses you got were defensive, and not complete. Biboboy's response was good, but it required much outside reading (and I would take a different approach to your question). Here it goes...
There's this old saying that doctrine is not codified until it comes under attack. It was in the fourth century that heterodoxy started to largely infiltrate into Christianity. So, it was at this time, that it was decided to "once and for all" codify what we believe in, and that would be it.
In other words, the New Testament was canonized to stand in the face of any heterodoxy that arises. The twenty seven books of the New Testament were first said to be such, i.e. the books of the NT, by St. Athanasius in 367 AD in a paschal letter while he was in exile. That same list of books was then canonized at a Synod in Rome in 382 AD and a Council of Carthage in 397 AD.
Since then, no Christian entity has questioned them. On a sidenote, our Protestant brethren question the canonicity of some of the Old Testament books that we accept.
You may have known all this, but I'm just giving the facts to set up the analysis:
The Church went through the following requirements in canonizing the books of the NT:
1) The Book be written by an Apostle.
2) The Book be consistent with the beliefs of the Church.
3) The Book be in wide circulation.
In a sense, each of those three ties back into the other two. Wide circulation assures that someone didn't just write it randomly at some place. If a book is not consistent with the beliefs of the Church, then it couldn't have been written by an apostle. Etc...
If you read Acts 15, the Apostles equate their decision on circumcision of gentiles to that of the Holy Spirit. If you read Timothy I and II, you'll see that much of this authority was passed down through the laying on of hands.
The Church cannot say "here are all the books, you figure it out," because the Church is supposed to teach. It is the responsibility of the Church to teach, edify, etc (again, in Timothy I and II). St. Paul warns Timothy against not teaching and edifying.
For those same reasons, it's not naive of the Church to say "this is it," because as I've mentioned, one of the requirements was apostolic authorship, by the fourth century the apostles had written all that they were going to write. Since the apostles wrote early on, their writings would have circulated by the fourth century (so, that was another requirement). Lastly, anything that goes against the Church's teaching was automatically wrong (because the Church received its teachings from the apostles themselves).
So, the requirements were perfect in weeding out what was wrong and keeping what was not wrong. |
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