Did The Holy Bible exist prior to the 4th Century?

[Cepha]

Did The Holy Bible exist prior to the 4th Century?

If it did; list the canon of that bible, the circumstances under which it was canonized (officially recognized as The Word of God by The Church).

Before anyone answers, check this out (so that no bias can be suggested);

[Cepha]

Timeline of the decisions on the books of the Bible (Canon)

AD 51-125: The New Testament books are written.

AD 140: Marcion, a businessman in Rome, taught that there were two Gods:
Yahweh, the cruel God of the Old Testament, and Abba, the kind father of the New Testament. Marcion eliminated the Old Testament as Scriptures and, since he was anti-Semitic, kept from the New Testament only 10 letters of Paul and 2/3 of Luke's gospel (he deleted references to Jesus's Jewishness). Marcion's "New Testament", the first to be compiled, forced the mainstream Church to decide on a core canon: the four Gospels and Letters of Paul.

AD 200: The periphery of the canon is not yet determined. According to one list, compiled at Rome c. AD 200 (the Muratorian Canon), the NT consists of the 4 gospels; Acts; 13 letters of Paul (Hebrews is not included); 3 of the 7 General Epistles (1-2 John and Jude); and also the Apocalypse of Peter.

AD 367: The earliest extant list of the books of the NT, in exactly the number and order in which we presently have them, is written by Athanasius, Bishop of Alexandria, in his Festal letter # 39 of 367 A.D..

382 --Council of Rome (whereby Pope Damasus started the ball rolling for the defining of a universal canon for all city-churches). Listed the New Testament books in their present number and order.

393 A.D. --the Council of Hippo, which began "arguing it out." Canon proposed by Bishop Athanasius.

AD 397: The Council of Carthage, which refined the canon for the Western Church, sending it back to Pope Innocent for ratification. In the East, the canonical process was hampered by a number of schisms (esp. within the Church of Antioch). However, this changed by ...

787 A.D. The Ecumenical Council of Nicaea II, which adopted the canon of Carthage. At this point, both the Latin West and the Greek / Byzantine East had the same canon. However, ... The non-Greek, Monophysite and Nestorian Churches of the East (the Copts, the Ethiopians, the Syrians, the Armenians, the Syro-Malankars, the Chaldeans, and the Malabars) were still left out. But these Churches came together in agreement, in 1442A.D., in Florence.

AD 1442: At the Council of Florence, the entire Church recognized the 27 books. This council confirmed the Roman Catholic Canon of the Bible which Pope Damasus I had published a thousand years earlier. So, by 1439, all orthodox branches of the Church were legally bound to the same canon. This is 100 years before the Reformation.

AD 1536: In his translation of the Bible from Greek into German, Luther removed 4 N.T. books (Hebrews, James, Jude, and Revelation) and placed them in an appendix saying they were less than canonical.

AD 1546: At the Council of Trent, the Catholic Church reaffirmed once and for all the full list of 27 books. The council also confirmed the inclusion of the Deuterocanonical books which had been a part of the Bible canon since the early Church and was confirmed at the councils of 393 AD, 373, 787 and 1442 AD. At Trent Rome actually dogmatized the canon, making it more than a matter of canon law, which had been the case up to that point, closing it for good.

The timeline section is by Mark Bonocore & Bob Stanley

www.davidmacd.com/catholic/bible_catholics_apocrypha.htm

[redsoxfan]

I'm on a similar discussion on Cusa. I wonder if they realize how much they dance around.

[Cepha]

May 29, 2008 16:02:30 GMT -5 redsoxfan said:

I'm on a similar discussion on Cusa. I wonder if they realize how much they dance around.

I think they refer that to "catching the spirit!"



Wonder why they won't have that discussion here?

[Cepha]

Hey!

I have an idea!

Why don't you post this link!

fideidefensor.proboards80.com/index.cgi?action=display&board=scripturaldiscussion&thread=248&page=1

[yarddog]

We can say that the Holy Bible did exist before the 4th century because all that is in what was canonized existed in written form.

[knuckle]

Hi Cepha------------

Your timeline is a bit incomplete you don't list the compilations of Clement,Ignatius,nor Polycarp who all started to gather the NT together well before Marcion raised the dualistic God argument

much love--------------knuckle

[Cepha]

Jul 14, 2008 9:55:41 GMT -5 knuckle said:

Hi Cepha------------

Your timeline is a bit incomplete you don't list the compilations of Clement,Ignatius,nor Polycarp who all started to gather the NT together well before Marcion raised the dualistic God argument

much love--------------knuckle

None were canonized so they don't count.

No where in history does there exist the current canon of The Holy Bible before The 4th Century.

[Cepha]

Jul 14, 2008 8:08:52 GMT -5 yarddog said:

We can say that the Holy Bible did exist before the 4th century because all that is in what was canonized existed in written form.

We can't because The Books were not canonized until The 4th Century. Up until that point, it was not known if we could trust them or not so that position wasn't pushed.

It was only "after" they were canonized that they could be trusted as The Word of God.

The word "Holy Bible" means "Sanctified Collection of Books".

That sanctification (guidance of The Holy Spirit) didn't come until The Church canonized The Bible (collection of books).

[knuckle]

Hi Cepha-----------------

that is a straw argument because the church accepted their work--- It is like saying that the guy who poured the concrete didn't work on the house because he was done and gone when the roof went on

much love-----------knuckle

[yarddog]

Jul 14, 2008 12:28:10 GMT -5 Cepha said:

We can't because The Books were not canonized until The 4th Century. Up until that point, it was not known if we could trust them or not so that position wasn't pushed.

It was only "after" they were canonized that they could be trusted as The Word of God.

The word "Holy Bible" means "Sanctified Collection of Books".

That sanctification (guidance of The Holy Spirit) didn't come until The Church canonized The Bible (collection of books).

Hello Cepha,

Did the Books exist or not. Canonization did not change the truth within the writings. There was much disagreement among the early Fathers as to which books were worthy or not but canonization did not magically make them worthy.
The Books, which were later canonized, were just as worthy when written as when accepted. It was the readers which either accepted or rejected them which were right or wrong about them.

Yarddog

[Cepha]

Jul 14, 2008 13:26:14 GMT -5 yarddog said:

Hello Cepha,

Did the Books exist or not.

Great question. The Books existed, but God hadn't revealed to men yet which were to be used in The Bible. That was left for The Church to decide under the guidance of The Holy Spirit.

Canonization did not change the truth within the writings.

Of course not, but it did separate the truths from the false gospels (over 100) that were floating around at the time. That's why canonization was important.

How could one believe that Jesus "didn't" die, that he was married, that he had children? Those books were floating around too and were being taught by heretical sects. So you see, it wasn't known to be "truth" until The Church revealed this.

And, they didn't exist as they do today within The Holy Bible. There were different compilations, but none were held to be The Holy Bible.

There was much disagreement among the early Fathers as to which books were worthy or not but canonization did not magically make them worthy.

Canonization "did" in fact make them worthy. Until they were authorized for Church teaching, any book was up for grabs as to be believed in. Again, remember all of the false gospels out there.

Discussion between The Fathers was great...it removed all doubt from The Canonized Books once they were established. And that was never challenged by Christians until the 16th Century in Northern European countries.

The Books, which were later canonized, were just as worthy when written as when accepted. It was the readers which either accepted or rejected them which were right or wrong about them.

If you're referring to The Deuterocanonical Books, they were always included in The Canon (even during Jesus' time).

Again, without The Church, we wouldn't know today what is to be considered The Word of God. God chose it to reveal The Canon. There had to be a reason that some books were chosen and others were rejected.

And the fact is that no Holy Bible existed before The 4th Century although uncanonized Scriptures did.

Remember brother YD, it is The Church (and not The Bible) that supports The Truth and that reveals The Truth. The Bible is only a tool "of" The Church. The Church existed before The Bible and it is The Church that The Bible talks about whenever it talks about The Church.



Pax.

[knuckle]

Cepha----------------

according to you the "catholic church" started with Peter so how do you view Clement or Polycarp or Irenaeus are they the beginning of the church as well?

To accept Marcion's cannon (which still wasn't complete and contained the heretical Gospel of Marcion) over the others seems a bit odd

much love----------knuckle

[Cepha]

Jul 14, 2008 16:19:31 GMT -5 knuckle said:

Cepha----------------

according to you the "catholic church" started with Peter so how do you view Clement or Polycarp or Irenaeus are they the beginning of the church as well?

I've never known those persons to have claimed that they started The Church.

If Peter started The Church, how could any of those others have "also" started it?

Maybe I'm misunderstanding your question.

To accept Marcion's cannon (which still wasn't complete and contained the heretical Gospel of Marcion) over the others seems a bit odd

Who accepted Marcion's canon?

[knuckle]

I thought you did about 6 posts up

[knuckle]

My point is you dismiss the cannon gathered by Polycarp,Clement etc----weren't they THE church at the time?

[Cepha]

Jul 14, 2008 18:36:43 GMT -5 knuckle said:

My point is you dismiss the cannon gathered by Polycarp,Clement etc----weren't they THE church at the time?

They "never" gathered a canon.

Who told you that they canonized any bible?

The Bible wasn't canonized until The 4th Century.

[knuckle]

Of course they did---it wasn't complete but they put together what they had access to, each building upon the other

Paul including Luke's work-- Peter adding still then Polycarp the writings of John,Irenaeus and Hippolytus building upon it and by 185 the church had a New Testament of 22 books all of which were confirmed at the council of Hippo but not until 200 years later

much love---------knuckle

[Cepha]

Jul 14, 2008 21:19:57 GMT -5 knuckle said:

Of course they did---it wasn't complete but they put together what they had access to, each building upon the other

Paul including Luke's work-- Peter adding still then Polycarp the writings of John,Irenaeus and Hippolytus building upon it and by 185 the church had a New Testament of 22 books all of which were confirmed at the council of Hippo but not until 200 years later

much love---------knuckle

First, let's define the word "canon", then you pick out of the various definitions you are referring to.

Now, for me, I'm referring to the creation of what Christianity recognizes as The Holy Bible today, not just various "versions" that existed, but the "canonized" authentic Word of God that we knew could be trusted as divinely inspired (not suggested, not offered, but literally chosen by The Church).

can·on
–noun
1. an ecclesiastical rule or law enacted by a council or other competent authority and, in the Roman Catholic Church, approved by the pope.
2. the body of ecclesiastical law.
3. the body of rules, principles, or standards accepted as axiomatic and universally binding in a field of study or art: the neoclassical canon.
4. a fundamental principle or general rule: the canons of good behavior.
5. a standard; criterion: the canons of taste.
6. the books of the Bible recognized by any Christian church as genuine and inspired.
7. any officially recognized set of sacred books.
8. any comprehensive list of books within a field.
9. the works of an author that have been accepted as authentic: There are 37 plays in the Shakespeare canon. Compare apocrypha (def. 3).
10. a catalog or list, as of the saints acknowledged by the Church.
11. Liturgy. the part of the Mass between the Sanctus and the Communion.
12. Eastern Church. a liturgical sequence sung at matins, usually consisting of nine odes arranged in a fixed pattern.
13. Music. consistent, note-for-note imitation of one melodic line by another, in which the second line starts after the first.
14. Printing. a 48-point type.

[Cepha]

According to The American English definition of the word "canon", no "canon" of The Holy Bible existed before The 4th Century because The Church hadn't canonized The Holy Bible until The 4th Century.

Christian canons
The Biblical canon is the set of books Christians regard as divinely inspired and thus constituting the Christian Bible. Though the Early Church used the Old Testament according to the canon of the Septuagint (LXX)[12], the apostles did not otherwise leave a defined set of new scriptures; instead the New Testament developed over time.

n his Easter letter of 367, Athanasius, Bishop of Alexandria, gave a list of exactly the same books as what would become the New Testament canon,[18] and he used the word "canonized" (kanonizomena) in regards to them.[19] The African Synod of Hippo, in 393, approved the New Testament, as it stands today, together with the Septuagint books, a decision that was repeated by Councils of Carthage in 397 and 419.

Thus, from the fourth century, there existed unanimity in the West concerning the New Testament canon (as it is today),[25] and by the fifth century the East, with a few exceptions, had come to accept the Book of Revelation and thus had come into harmony on the matter of the canon.[26]

en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Biblical_canon#Christian_canons

There does not exist, historically speaking, a complete 73 Book Canon of The Holy Bible (nor any reference to any "Holy Bible") before The 4th Century.

The universal (non-denominational) Bible has always held a 73 Book Canon since it's inception. All other bibles are "versions" based on The Holy Bible. All universal non-denominational Christian Doctrine originated from The Holy Bible (not from any "versions" of it).