Why I Believe that our Canon is Fallible . . . and am Comfortable with it

# on 14 Sep 2008
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29 Responses to “Why I Believe that our Canon is Fallible . . . and am Comfortable with it”

1. Daniel Eaton on 14 Sep 2008 at 10:54 pm #

   Very good post. Loved that line about “We have a term that we use for people who require infallible certainty about everything: “mentally ill.” ” LOL

2. David Oldham on 14 Sep 2008 at 11:35 pm #

   Here’s another thought. Just because man is fallible doesn’t mean every decision is wrong. There will be correct ones from time to time.

   If God is capable of preserving His Word for us to read. And He is. I have to believe that He’s quite capable of making sure the books that contain His Word are included on the list. So I believe that the men who selected the books to include in the canon were not inspired, but the selections were inspired.

   I believe, as you, that our canon of scripture is correct. But I’ll go further and state that I believe it to be an infallible list as well.

3. Leslie on 15 Sep 2008 at 12:58 am #

   Helpful thoughts, Michael. Thanks!

4. Shane Vander Hart on 15 Sep 2008 at 2:01 am #

   Great post Micheal. While our list may be fallible I believe that the evidence that we do have gives us confident that our canon is complete.

5. Jugulum on 15 Sep 2008 at 10:42 am #

   Or in other words, “Just because it’s possible that I’m wrong doesn’t mean that it’s reasonable for me to think that I am.”

   It’s fundamentally unreasonable to think that the Spirit inspired Scripture, but then didn’t providentially work to ensure that his people recognized it. My confidence in our canon of Scripture does not come from confidence in the Church, but from confidence in the providence of God, and confidence in his promise that his word does not go forth without accomplishing its purpose.

6. Fr Alvin Kimel on 15 Sep 2008 at 3:12 pm #

   I am trying to imagine what arguments count toward the probabilistic judgment that a specific book belongs to the canon of Scripture but others do not. It’s all fine to talk abstractly about the matter, but what kind of evidence would actually persuade one way or the other?

   For purposes of the discussion, I’ll restrict myself to the question of the canonical status of the deutero-canonical books. What considerations make it more probable that the books of the Protestant canon are authentic and inspired by God but that the deutero-canonical books of the Catholic and Orthodox canons are not?

   Perhaps one might assert that because the deutero-canonical books were not recognized as Scripture by 1st century Palestinian Jews, and presumably therefore by Jesus, therefore they must be excluded from canon. This would be a compelling argument IF this principle had been operative in the apostolic and post-apostolic Churches, but in fact it appears not to have been a decisive consideration. One can cite the example of Jerome, but Jerome’s views were rejected by the overwhelming majority of Christian Churches. From very early on the deutero-canonical books appear to have been accepted canonical by Christian Churches outside the bounds of Judea. Does not this judgment by the early Church support the the judgment of the Catholic and Orthodox Churches on this matter over against the Churches of the Reformation?

   Perhaps one might assert that the deutero-canonical books must be excluded from the canon because of theological considerations. For example, one might argue that II Macabees should be judged noncanonical because it appears to justify the practice of praying for the departed, a practice deemed unbiblical by Protestant Christians. But of course this argument begs the question. One can easily run the argument the other way: because early Christians prayed for the dead and considered this practice to be fully consonant with the gospel, therefore, it is probable that Protestantism is wrong about II Macabees.

   Perhaps one might assert that the deutero-canonical books must be excluded because Protestants do not experience them as inspired by God. But why should the discernment of Protestants outweigh the discernment of the overwhelming majority of Christians for the past two thousand years? Yes, it’s possible that a small minority can be right on a given matter and the large majority wrong; but as a general rule we generally go along with the majority position in the absence of compelling arguments. The majority of scientists may be wrong about global warming, but do I possess sufficient knowledge on the matter to cast my vote for the minority position?

   And so I ask: What arguments count toward the probabilistic judgment that a specific book belongs to the canon of Scripture but others do not?

7. A fallible canon? « Philosophia Perennis on 15 Sep 2008 at 11:17 pm #

   [...] The latest instance of an argument for that claim, to be found at the ever-reliable Reformed site Parchment and Pen, only reinforces my puzzlement. I think everybody ought to be puzzled—including and especially [...]

8. Peter on 16 Sep 2008 at 12:17 am #

   As far as I see, even introducing the word “infallible” into the canon discussion is a protestant plot so that they can introduce the rebuttal we have just seen to the introduced straw man.

   Yes, canon means “rule” or “measuring rod”. The question then is not about whether there is infallibility, but whether there is sufficient authority to use such and such a book as scripture.

   Why do we need sufficient authority if we are not aiming for infallibility? Because there can be no church discipline or “rule” of faith, without someone to establish a rule as an authority.

   What if someone in a protestant church thinks Macabbees is scripture (yes, these people exist), and starts praying for the dead in church? There’s not much you can say against it other than launch into a 6 hour lecture about the history of the canon, and your rather inconclusive assessment of those facts.

   Lack of infallibility doesn’t let you escape from the conundrum. Scripture needs to act as a rule of faith, and without the authority to set its bounds in the church, it can hardly be rule without a corpus.

   How about writing an article explaining why you don’t need an agreed upon canon. About how your church can survive when the canon is open-ended.

9. C Michael Patton on 16 Sep 2008 at 12:26 am #

   Peter,

   “How about writing an article explaining why you don’t need an agreed upon canon. About how your church can survive when the canon is open-ended.”

   That is an odd request. No major tradition agrees upon the canon. This does not mean the canon is open ended. How could it?

   The point of my post here is not to say we need an authritative pronouncement but a evidential pronouncement. What else can we go by and have integrity. Shall we outsource our beliefs? If so, on what basis? A belief that the institution we outsource to is infallible? Well, if so, we are back to square one. And that is my point. We are all fallible. Right?

10. rayner markley on 16 Sep 2008 at 8:18 am #

    We cannot answer the question ‘How do you know what books belong in the Bible?’ until we state what the purpose of Bible is. Is its purpose to be our primary authoritative guide for faith and practice? Jesus made no mention of a new scripture for that purpose. On the contrary, He said that Peter and the apostles, the church itself, the body of Christ, would make decisions that would be honored in heaven. Are we Protestants in the unusual position of saying that the church used its authority to relinguish that role when it created the formal canon in fourth century councils?

    A second consideration must be the original purpose of the canonical writings, many of which were intended for specific readers or hearers–Ephesians, Timothy, 7 churches in Asia Minor, etc. So they were inspired for specific audiences and not necessarily for everyone. That doesn’t prevent everyone from benefiting greatly from the canon, but it seems to mean that the we, the church, again by its authority, have cut off the Holy spirit from inspiring any more revelations to new audiences.

    Jesus said that the Holy Spirit would guide believers into all truth. Do we believe that our present canon contains all that Jesus intended by that statement?

    So, I believe I have not answered ‘What is the purpose of the Bible?’ But perhaps an unintended consequence of establishing an official canon has been to de-emphasize, though not eliminate, the role of the Holy Spirit.

11. Phil W on 16 Sep 2008 at 8:27 am #

    The Eastern Orthodox should not be counted on the side of Roman Catholics when it comes to the Canon.

    Orthodox scholar Timothy Ware writes:

    “These [1 Esdras; Tobit; Judith; 1-3 Maccabees; Wisdom of Solomon; Sirach; Baruch] were declared by the Councils of Jassy (1642) and Jerusalem (1672) to be ‘genuine parts of Scripture’; most Orthodox scholars at the present day, however, following the opinion of Athanasius and Jerome, consider that the Deutero-Canonical Books, although part of the Bible, stand on a lower footing than the rest of the Old Testament.” (Timothy Ware, The Orthodox Church (2nd ed.; Penguin, 1993), 200)

    Similarly, Orthodox scholar Bradley Nassif writes:

    “The Orthodox Church still needs to clarify its position on the text and boundaries of the Old Testament canon for doctrinal use (the Hebrew text versus the Greek Septuagint). Without making a rigid separation between the two, we might view the Hebrew text as the final court of appeal for doctrine, while retaining the primary role of the Septuagint for worship and devotion. The late Father John Meyendorff … seemed to take this approach. If it is so adopted, evangelical and Orthodox theologians will derive their doctrines from the same biblical sources.” (Bradley Nassif, “A Response to Edward Rommen” in James J. Stamoolis (ed.), Three Views on Eastern Orthodoxy and Evangelicalism (Zondervan, 2004), 251)

12. Fr Alvin Kimel on 16 Sep 2008 at 10:58 am #

    I accept Phil’s qualification regarding the Eastern Orthodox, though with the added qualification that Orthodoxy should also not be counted on the side of Protestantism. But I did overstate my case and minimized canonical disagreements within the Eastern tradition, disagreements that continue to the present and will not doubt continue indefinitely into the future or perhaps until the eschatological pan-Orthodox council is convened.

    But it is quite one thing to recognize two levels within the Old Testament; it’s quite a different thing to reject the deutero-canonicals and exclude them from the canon of Scripture. Given that Orthodoxy understands the relation between Scripture, Tradition, and Church very differently than Protestantism, perhaps not a great deal depends on this question. Orthodoxy knows quite well, e.g., that prayer for the faithful departed is divinely mandated, even if II Maccabees is noncanonical.

13. Fr Alvin Kimel on 16 Sep 2008 at 11:36 am #

    From the website of the Orthodox Church in America:

    QUESTION:

    What is the position of the Orthodox Church regarding the books that the Protestant churches refer to as the Apocrypha? Maccabees, Tobit, Ecclesiasticus, etc.

    ANSWER:

    The Old Testament books to which you refer — known in the Orthodox Church as the “longer canon” rather than the “Apocrypha,” as they are known among the Protestants — are accepted by Orthodox Christianity as canonical scripture. These particular books are found only in the Septuagint version of the Old Testament, but not in the Hebrew texts of the rabbis.

    These books — Tobit, Judah, more chapters of Esther and Daniel, the Books of Maccabees, the Book of the Wisdom of Solomon, the Book of Sirach, the Prophecy of Baruch, and the Prayer of Manasseh — are considered by the Orthodox to be fully part of the Old testament because they are part of the longer canon that was accepted from the beginning by the early Church.

    Thus this OCA writer appears to agree with the judgment of the Orthodox Synod of Jerusalem (1672):

    Following the rule of the Catholic Church, we call Sacred Scripture all those which Cyril [Lucaris] collected from the Synod of Laodicea, and enumerated, adding to Scripture those which he foolishly and ignorantly, or rather maliciously, called Apocrypha; specifically, “The Wisdom of Solomon,” “Judith,” “Tobit,” “The History of the Dragon” [Bel and the Dragon], “The History of Susanna,” “The Maccabees,” and “The Wisdom of Sirach.” For we judge these also to be with the other genuine Books of Divine Scripture genuine parts of Scripture. For ancient custom, or rather the Catholic Church, which has delivered to us as genuine the Sacred Gospels and the other Books of Scripture, has undoubtedly delivered these also as parts of Scripture, and the denial of these is the rejection of those. And if, perhaps, it seems that not always have all of these been considered on the same level as the others, yet nevertheless these also have been counted and reckoned with the rest of Scripture, both by Synods and by many of the most ancient and eminent Theologians of the Catholic Church. All of these we also judge to be Canonical Books, and confess them to be Sacred Scripture.

    But the Orthodox will need to speak for themselves on this matter.

14. Phil W on 16 Sep 2008 at 12:27 pm #

    “But the Orthodox will need to speak for themselves on this matter.” Note that my quotes were of Orthodox writers (Ware and Nassif, who counted Meyendorff as sharing his views).

    Here’s one from a Roman Catholic writer, Raymond F. Collins:

    “Since the 19th cent., however, Russian Orthodox theologians generally have not accepted the deuterocanonical books. … A draft statement for the proposed Great Council of the Orthodox Church … opts for the shorter canon, as does the negotiation between the Orthodox and the Old Catholics (Beckwith, OT Canon 14).” (Raymond F. Collins, “Canonicity” in Raymond E. Brown, Joseph A. Fitzmyer & Roland E. Murphy (eds.), The New Jerome Biblical Commentary (Prentice Hall, 1990), 1043)

    Here’s another Roman Catholic, J. C. Turro:

    “In Russia, throughout the 18th century, opinion was fluid regarding the deuterocanonical works. Finally, in the 19th century Russian Orthodox theologians universally excluded them from the canon.” (J. C. Turro, “Canon, Biblical: History of Old Testament Canon” in New Catholic Encyclopedia (2nd ed.; Gale, 2003), 3:27)

    Note that, in viewing the extra books as less than canonical, Orthodox scholars are merely returning to the state of the canon before the Protestant Reformation. The seventeenth-century Orthodox councils, not unlike the Council of Trent, were strongly influenced by knee-jerk reactions.

    Both Protestants and Roman Catholics tend to exaggerate when talking about the state of the canon before the sixteenth century. The fact is that many Christians, from the second century to the dawn of the Reformation, can be shown to hold to the shorter canon, while many other Christians can be shown to hold to the longer canon.

    The complete exclusion of the Deuterocanon is, however, difficult to find in history, even in the first 100 years of Protestantism.

    Luther’s German translation of the Bible (1534) included the Deuterocanonicals in an appendix between the OT and the NT. He titled the appendix: “Apocrypha: Books which are not held equal to the Sacred Scriptures and yet are useful and good for reading.”

    Another Protestant Bible of this period was the Geneva Bible (1560), produced by English Protestants who fled to Geneva during the reign of Mary Tudor. The Apocrypha followed the Old Testament, and in an introduction said that they were not to be read and expounded in the Church, nor serve to prove any point of doctrine, but as books proceeding from godly men were to be read for the knowledge of intertestamental history and for the instruction of godly manners.

    In 1561, the Belgic Confession (Reformed) distinguished between the canonical books and the apocryphal books, “All which the Church may read and take instruction from, so far as they agree with the canonical books; but they are far from having such power and efficacy as that we may from their testimony confirm any point of faith or of the Christian religion; much less to detract from the authority of the other sacred books” (Article 6).

    In 1571, the Thirty-Nine Articles (Church of England) accepted the Protocanonical OT, excluding the Deuterocanonical writings from the canon (Article 6): “And the other Books (as Hierome [Jerome] saith) the Church doth read for example of life and instruction of manners; but yet doth it not apply them to establish any doctrine …”

    A harder line was taken in the 1647 Westminster Confession (Reformed), which accepted only the Protocanonical OT books (Chapter 1): “The books commonly called Apocrypha, not being of divine inspiration, are no part of the canon of the Scripture, and therefore are of no authority in the Church of God, nor to be any otherwise approved, or made use of, than other human writings.” In 1689 and 1742, this was reiterated in the London Baptist Confession of Faith (Chapter 1) and the Philadelphia Confession of Faith (Chapter 1), respectively.

15. Talacker29 on 16 Sep 2008 at 12:41 pm #

    If you believe in a fallible canon, but recognize all 66 books as infallible scripture, then don’t you believe the canon is infalliable, insomuch as nothing is included that should not have been? That would leave as the only possibility the chance that books that should have been included have not been.

    If it’s a fallible canon, is it then up to the individual to decide which books are authoritative and the true word of God? Can I be a good Christian if I don’t recognize the authority of II Peter?

16. Peter on 16 Sep 2008 at 9:57 pm #

    “That is an odd request. No major tradition agrees upon the canon. This does not mean the canon is open ended. How could it?”

    Because the “major traditions” accept their traditions on the basis of tradition. They can even sometimes accept differing traditions based on each other’s authority. For example, I’m sure many or most Roman Catholics would be comfortable letting the Eastern church have their wider canon without feeling an absolute necessity to synchronise it with their own canon, because they would recognise the authority of each church to use their own sets of books as they see fit.

    But this can’t be compared with the protestant churches which recognise no such authorities. You can’t distinguish between the case of Maccabees and Huckleberry Finn. You don’t recognise a canonically formed and authoritative jurisdiction to make rulings about the acceptability of using books. So when someone rocks up to your church wanting to use Maccabees or Huckleberry Finn, or conversely, who doesn’t recognise Hebrews or 2 Peter or Titus, you’ve got nothing to say but to point to your tradition, but you don’t accept your tradition as an authority, so you really can’t say anything at all.

    “The point of my post here is not to say we need an authritative pronouncement but a evidential pronouncement.”

    You can have an evidential personal list, but you can’t have an evidential pronouncement, because you don’t recognise anyone with authority to make it. You can have a personal evidential list, but you can’t have a canon, because a canon implies a rule, and a rule implies someone has authority to make such a rule and standard. You can agree with a bunch of friends about a particular list, but then you’ll have to divide the body of Christ between you and your friends, and the ones who disagree with your friends, not because of an objective ruling, but just because they don’t agree.

    “What else can we go by and have integrity. Shall we outsource our beliefs? If so, on what basis? A belief that the institution we outsource to is infallible? Well, if so, we are back to square one. And that is my point. We are all fallible. Right?”

    You already outsource your beliefs to the bible. And 99% of Christians outsource their canon, even if they’re not educated enough to know why they outsource it to whomever they do.

    But again you’re back to the “infallible” thing. You don’t outsource necessarily because you’re looking for infallibility, but because you’re looking for authority. If you’re not going to outsource, then you are your own authority. If you are your own authority, you don’t have a canon or a rule of faith for the church, the best you have is a rule of faith for yourself, and a personal belief, but nothing that would form the basis of the body of Christ in a larger scope. This might work if Christianity was an individualistic religion, but it is not.

17. Michael on 17 Sep 2008 at 9:17 am #

    A couple of question from the uninformed if I may…

    What new insights, practices, or theology is contained in the Deuterocanonical books?

    Since scripture cannot be broken (John 10:35), are any of these new insights, practices, or theological concepts in opposition to what the Protestants refer to as the completed canon?

    Fr. Alvin Kimel:

    How do we “know” that prayer for the faithful departed is divinely mandated?

18. Fr Alvin Kimel on 17 Sep 2008 at 10:53 am #

    How do we “know” that prayer for the faithful departed is divinely mandated?

    I’m glad you asked this, Michael. Because Christians have, at least from the 2nd century if not from the very beginning, prayed for the faithful departed and offered the Divine Liturgy on their behalf-. The ancient liturgies universally include commemoration of the faithful departed–lex orandi, lex credendi. “Not in vain,” St John Chrysostom declared, “was it decreed by the apostles that in the awesome mysteries remembrance should be made of the departed.” And also St Augustine: “The universal Church observes this law, handed down from the Fathers, that prayers should be offered for those who have died in the communion of the Body and Blood of Christ, when they are commemorated in their proper place at the Sacrifice.”

    But, one asks, how can we know that this practice is actually approved by God if we cannot find explicit reference to the practice in the New Testament? Yet the Church knows this truth regardless–and that is a critical difference between both Catholicism and Orthodoxy and Protestantism.

19. Michael on 17 Sep 2008 at 10:57 am #

    So, if I understand your post correctly, we “know” that prayer for the faithful departed is mandated because Christian tradition as referenced by Chrysostom and Augustine supported the practice…not that it is mandated, suggested, or even mentioned in scripture.

    Am I reading this correctly?

20. Fr Alvin Kimel on 17 Sep 2008 at 11:57 am #

    Sure, why not? Of course, I would qualify this by saying that prayer for the faithful departed is implicitly presented in Scripture, but I know that will probably not satisfy. But I see absolutely no reason to accept the extra-biblical, nonpatristic, uncatholic reductionist principle that God’s revelation in Christ is limited to that which is explicitly and unambiguously mentioned in the Bible. Christians have uncontroversially prayed for their dead from the very early days. It was not just permitted; it was a duty and privilege, a duty and privilege flowing from the gospel and their experience of divine grace.

    Lex orandi, lex credendi: the law of prayer, the law of belief. The Bible is to be read and interpreted within the liturgical life of the Church. I know that God approves of prayer for the faithful departed because such prayer is included in all the canonical liturgies of the ancient Church. The Scriptures cannot be read rightly if they are divorced from the Divine Liturgy. In the words of St Irenaeus: “Our teaching is in accord with the Eucharist and the Eucharist, in its turn, confirms our teaching.”

    Of course, I could cite 2 Maccabees 12:38-46 as biblical support for the practice of praying for the dead, but I do not believe that the practice depends on a single text.

    I also believe that God fully approves of the Church’s practice of baptizing infants, even though I cannot prove this by clear and unambiguous citation of the Bible.

    I suggest, in other words, that the relation between Scripture, Church, doctrine, and liturgical practice is different than is often construed in Protestantism. Consider, e.g., the teaching of St Basil the Great:

    “Concerning the teachings of the Church, whether publicly proclaimed or reserved to members of the household of faith, we have received some from written sources, while others have been given to us secretly, through apostolic tradition. Both sources have equal force in true religion. No one would deny either source–no one, at any rate, who is even slightly familiar with the ordinances of the Church. If we attacked unwritten customs, claiming them to be of little importance, we would fatally mutilate the Gospel, no matter what our intentions–or rather, we would reduce the Gospel teachings to bare words.”

21. Joel Asher on 17 Sep 2008 at 4:53 pm #

    I don’t look at the Bible as a magic book of spells anymore to help me get through life. The Bible is a history book of things that happened in the past. I study it in that manner like I would American history. Yes, there are transcultural principles and spiritual truth contained in it but it records history. I don’t worship the Bible. I read and study the Bible and look for the original intent but it’s still a history book.

    Yes, I believe it records history rather well but I am open to finding out later while in heaven that there were other documents that were also reliable but not considered canon by Christians of any century.

22. Phil W on 17 Sep 2008 at 5:42 pm #

    Alvin, what do you think is included in “others have been given to us secretly, through apostolic tradition”? From Basil’s perspective, what were these secret teachings? From your perspective, did all of these secret teachings come from the apostles, or were some invented later (in which case they were not actually passed down secretly, but invented secretly)?

23. rayner markley on 19 Sep 2008 at 10:15 pm #

    Jesus said that after He went away the Holy Spirit would continue to reveal truth. He did not indicate any limit of number of writings (e.g., 27) or limit of time (e.g., 1st century). While the approved canon deserves a special place because of the proximity of the writers to Jesus in His earthly ministry, there is no reason to assume that the Spirit ceased after the 27 were finished.

    The gospel of Christ is a living force, not a frozen text (or ‘bare words’ as Alvin quoted St. Basil). In the historical context, I understand why the Protestant reformers went back to the NT for inspiration because of abuses in the church at the time, but a long term consequence of relying so heavily on the canon, where every idea must be supported there, may have been to restrict the role of the Spirit.

    I’m not advocating that we add new writings giving them equal authority to the canon, but we need to allow for Christian thought to develop.

24. David Oldham on 19 Sep 2008 at 11:15 pm #

    I don’t believe the Holy Spirit ever stopped either. Without Him there would be no hope of comprehending any of God’s Word. I also believe the Spirit is also the source for the inspiration of the books of the canon, the chapter and verse divisions as well as giving translators the correct phrasing of passages in a given language to preserve the intent of the Word as originally given.

    God wants us to know and trust Him. Its matters very little what books are on the list if we aren’t willing to learn the lessons or abide by the authority contained therein. Some believe that they have reason to reshape the Bible…thing is, it is we who should allow the Bible to reshape us. Do we trust God? That is the question. When we come to the end of the day and we have had more trust in men for books, chapters, verses or words, then can we honestly say we are people of faith?

25. Scripture, Authority, and the Development of Doctrine « Reason in the Light of Faith on 21 Sep 2008 at 5:23 pm #

    [...] started with C. Michael Patton over at his popular blog, Parchment and Pen. In his post entitled, Why I Believe That Our Canon is Fallible… And Am Comfortable With It, Patton (following R.C. Sproul) argues that while Scripture is infallible, the list of books which [...]

26. britphil on 26 Sep 2008 at 6:24 am #

    “I believe that all 66 books are inspired, inerrant, and infallible.”

    Michael, There is something here which has troubled me for a long time. I can fully understand the argument behind the belief that the original books of Scripture are “inspired, inerrant, and infallible”.

    But what about the further translations that have been carried out down the ages in order to ensure that the ancients truths of the faith are presented in contemporary language so that people can connect with biblical truth or when they are translating the Bible into a different language/dialect than English to help people have versions of the Bible in their own tongue..

    I hesitate to go further, as I anticipate a rash of comments from fervent admirers of the Authorised Version of the Bible arguing that the AV is the onlty true inspired, inerrant and infallible version of the Bible and we should tamper with it at our peril. But even ardent adherents of the King James Version realised the need for an update hence the production of the New King James Bible (NKJV), Is this version as “infallible and inerrant” as its predecessor allegedly was.

    I get the feeling that some people will reply saying that we need to trust God’s providential hand will rest upon interpreters and authors of contemporary versions/translations of Scripture in order to maintain the inspiration, inerrancy and infallibility of Scripture. However, for me this is too big an ask. In this instance I have no problem whatsoever with believing that such versions/translations are inspired - even the AV had to be translated into English many years ago so before AV aficionados start jumping for joy I would include the AV in this next statement - in that I am sure translators are prayiing for the Holy Spirit’s guidance and inspiration as they carry out their work of translation, but I feel it is too big a leap to declare dogmatically that all translation/versions of the Bible without exception are totally inerrant and infallible.

    Detractors of the The New International Version have delighted in nicknaming it the “Nearly Infallible Version”, but in many ways they may be paying it the greatest compliment in that nearly infallible and inerrant would be quite an achievement! I also tend to find that people mock other versions of the Bible as being deficient purely on the grounds of preference and prejudice. As I say even the beloved AV was a contemporary, cutting edge translation when it was first published yet it is often held up as the perfect unbeatable exemplar of divinely inspired, inerrant and infallible Scripture. Personally, methinks that is too great a claim to be made on its behalf.

    Can it not be claimed that there is a possibility that some of the infallible, inerrant truths may have been lost in translation down the ages?

    Permit me to finish with a reflection on the battle that raged when deciding which books should be incuded in the Canon of Scripture. From what I understand, there were huge debates about whether the book of James ought to be included in the New Testament Canon. I for one am so glad that the supporters of James’ inclusion won the day because if any book has the spark of inspiration, the whiff of inerrancy and the possibility of infallibilty it is the book of James. Both Scripture, and ourselves, are the richer for it.

27. Ken Temple on 27 Sep 2008 at 9:45 am #

    Chronciles was the last book written in Hebrew around the time of Malachi.

    It was later divided into 2 books.

    Jesus confirmed the limits of the OT by “from the blood of Abel (Genesis) to the blood of Zachariah ( 2 Chronicles 24)

    Matthew 23:35
    Luke 11:51

    Also, Jesus confirmed the 3 parts of the OT in Luke 24:44
    Law of Moses
    Prophets
    Psalms ( poetic books)

    Jews
    Josephus
    Rabbis
    Jerome
    Jesus

28. Ken Temple on 27 Sep 2008 at 9:54 am #

    Chronicles was the last book written in Hebrew around the time of Malachi. (around 450-430 BC) All other OT books written before these. Jews then and today, stop their canon at Chronicles; it is the last book in their Tanakh; and the same OT canon as Protestants.

    It was later divided into 2 books.

    Jesus confirmed the limits of the OT by “from the blood of Abel (Genesis) to the blood of Zachariah ( 2 Chronicles 24)

    Matthew 23:35
    Luke 11:51

    Also, Jesus confirmed the 3 parts of the OT in Luke 24:44
    Law of Moses
    Prophets
    Psalms ( poetic books)

    So, the witnesses for no Apocrypha are,

    Jews
    Josephus
    Rabbis
    Jesus
    Jerome; Athanasius, Melito of Sardis

    Also, Gregory (Pope, about 601 AD) and even Cardinal Cajetan (who opposed Luther) also agreed.

    They are all witnesses that Apocrypha does not belong in Canon.

29. Ken Temple on 27 Sep 2008 at 9:57 am #

    Sorry two posts went through; I did not realize that - computer issues.
    Sincerely,
    Ken Temple

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