(carrying on from my last post)
2. Did the Catholics put the Bible together? You're going to have to back that up with a source. Or, should I check out that "CatholicChics" website?
Haha! Feel free to check out the ‘CatholicChics’ website if you want! But I posted all the data they provide on this on my original post!
I’m not really sure what kind of a ‘source’ you want. All the names & dates of the people and Councils were provided on the original post, so all you really have to do is research them to see whether they are accurate or not!
Here is a separate, unrelated website with the same information on.
My University library has copies of the documents produced at the various Church Councils involved in making the decisions about which of the hundreds of letters & writings floating around at the time belonged in the New Testament.
Perhaps your local University (or large) library will have a copy of these too. I suspect however that they should also be avaliable online somewhere so if you are interested in reading them then it shouldn't be too hard to find.
Some of the Church Councils involved in making decisions about the books in the Bible that you could read up on include;
- The Council of Rome (AD 382)
- The Council of Hippo (AD 393) (where the majority of the ‘arguing out’ went on as to which books should, or shouldn’t be, included).
- The Council of Carthage (AD 397)
- The Ecumenical Council of Nicaea II (AD 787)
- It actually wasn’t till the Council of Florence (in 1442) that entire Church recognized all the books currently in the New Testament.
….and the Protestants only have their Bible because of all these Councils and because of all the decisions made by the Catholic Bishops and Priets (and yes, by the year 300 these people were, beyond any shadow of a doubt, CATHOLIC!!!!)
Again, as with the last post, this is really a matter of historical fact, and so not very difficult to prove if you familiarise yourself with the history.
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4 comments:
Nice post!
What books should have been in the Bible were not self-evident. There were around 60 or so Gospels alone in the first few hundred years of the Church. Add to that various letters, Acts, Apocalypses, etc and there were many options for inclusion in the Bible. The Church chose what books were inspired, mainly through the testimony of the Church Fathers and as you mention local councils of bishops. The canon was finally closed at the councils of Florence and Trent.
Another point to note is that the term Catholic was used to distinguish the Church from various heretical sects too. The Fathers emphasized being a part of the Catholic (universal) Church as opposed to a sect. The 3rd century Church Father Tertullian challenged these sects to show their unbroken line of bishops from the apostles. The Catholic Church could demonstrate that succession, while the heretical groups could not. Many of these heretical groups used different books than our current Bible (for example the heretic Marcion only accepted a mutilated version of Luke's Gospel).
It's interesting and somewhat surprising that Protestants typically accept the Catholic Church's choice of books without any reservations.
Hey Jonathan! Thanks so much for posting!! You are so much more knowledgeable about this than I, please feel free to correct me if I err and to supplement what I post!
Thanks!
:-)
-x-
ps- I agree, it is very surprising! :-)
the last 3 posts have been pretty detailed stuff, wow Antonia, is this what you did while I was sleeping?
haha! :-) Yes it is what I have been doing while I was supposed to be sleeping too! :-) -x-x-x-
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