The Bible

[shag]

What (or who) determines what is allowed, or authorized as NT scripture?

What did they(whoever all they is)base their acceptance or rejection off of, in the 3rd century(or whenever exactly) as to the acceptance into the nt cannon?

What (or even who) exactly("besides God") is stopping anyone from adding to the cannon now if they wanted to?

Why can't the existing nt be added to anymore?




Im not saying it can be added to, I just want to read some responses of why it cannot.

[Sean]

Originally Posted by shag

What (or who) determines what is allowed, or authorized as NT scripture?

"What" is more appropriate bro...The thousand of manuscripts making up the received text of the N.T. are used as the text of the KJV. They are exact copies with only a few exceptions, of manuscripts in many languages, mostly Greek'. These are revered as our "word of God" dating back into history by those that kept these documents secure around the world. They were brought together as a collection. We are simply agreeing with these "keepers" of the word as what they considered sacred.


What did they(whoever all they is)base their acceptance or rejection off of, in the 3rd century(or whenever exactly) as to the acceptance into the nt cannon?

When the Catholic church was formed, they compiled their own collection and set out to preserve and cannonize the manuscripts they had in their possession. However, over time, they "modified" these texts to fit their religion.

The thousands of manuscripts used in the development of the KJV were not handled or tampered with by the Catholic church. These manuscripts were kept in places the Catholics could not get to.


What (or even who) exactly("besides God") is stopping anyone from adding to the cannon now if they wanted to?

Nobody is stopping anyone from tampering with what was handed to us on a blood soaked platter.
We must use our own God given, Spirit led sensitivity to decide which books are false and which are the word of God.
These "extra" books laying around must be read with caution. There are reasons dating back centuries for their rejection by the "keepers" of the texts we use. Our job is to see why they rejected them and take heed. We dont want our Bible to be "kinda" right, but we want it to be "exactly" right and harmonize perfectly.



Why can't the existing nt be added to anymore?

Because the "outsider" books, many times, do not fit the narrative and are many times contradictory to the "accepted" books.


Im not saying it can be added to, I just want to read some responses of why it cannot.

This is a fantastic video that may shed some light on this subject you are raising.....

https://www.google.com/url?sa=t&rct=...Z3S9J_PqHROyfw

[Scott Pitta]

F F Bruce wrote a easy to read book about how the books of the NT became the New Testament. It is called "The Canon of Scripture". Spent twenty bucks and all your questions will be answered.

[Disciple4life]

Most local churches decided their own cannon at first.
So give or take a book or two most everybody was using what we now consider the New Testament canon.
Most of Paul's letters were accepted, the gospels were accepted. There is history of saints saying we got this letter from Paul or we got this gospel from Mathew.
I know everybody wants a conspiracy but our cannon is reliable.

[shazeep]

yes--but it is not the only extant canon; we have several varieties of Bible in the world.

Originally Posted by Scott Pitta

F F Bruce wrote a easy to read book about how the books of the NT became the New Testament. It is called "The Canon of Scripture". Spent twenty bucks and all your questions will be answered.

it's free--

http://media.sabda.org/alkitab-2/PDF...0Scripture.pdf

[shag]

Is not the dividing point of what was, is, or is not allowed in the NT cannon, primarily based on apostolic authority, the apostles being eye witnesses to Jesus?

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In the process of addressing the standards by which the early Christians judged which books should be included in the New Testament canon, J.N.D. Kelly wrote:

"the criterion which ultimately came to prevail was apostolicity. Unless a book could be shown to come from the pen of an apostle, or at least to have the authority of an apostle behind it, it was peremptorily rejected, however edifying or popular with the faithful it might be." (ECD, 60)

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This link is a lot faster explanation than reading an entire book.

http://triablogue.blogspot.com/2009/...testament.html

[Jito463]

Originally Posted by Disciple4life

I know everybody wants a conspiracy but our cannon is reliable.

[Scott Pitta]

Interesting question. Luke wrote 2 books but he was not one of the 12. Mark was the disciple of Peter. We do not know for certain who wrote James or Hebrews. The same can be said for Jude.

The early church fathers, like Irenaeus, had much influence on which books were worthy to be in the canon.

The church never officially determined which books would be in the canon. Unless you value the 15th century council of Trent.

If you examine the actual Bibles themselves, some very popular books were included in some of them. Like the Shepard of Hermes.

[Sean]

There was no "official" true church in the last 1700 years that we know of. Independent scholars preserved the books from destruction by the Catholics for us to figure out what we consider "sacred". The KJV was made in 1611 for any Christian faith to read and be blessed by.

[Scott Pitta]

The KJV, like many other Bibles before it, included books we do not now have in the canon. I have no axe to grind with Catholicism. Those that we now possess do not represent a single theological tradition.