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OffTopic, Long - NewTestament Provenance (was: Biblical Inerrancy)



I saw a note in a current sectarian newletter
[Episcopal Life - Oklahoma's Mission June 2004] that
speaks to the topic of Biblical Inerrancy.

Teachers in general have little opportunity to see
differences of religious opinion aired.

I thought you might find interesting, this
contribution from Rev. William G. Gartig who
teaches religion in Cincinnatti area colleges.

I place his column below the contributions of
Aaron and Justin.


At 01:30 PM 4/26/2004, Aaron Titus, you wrote:
///
I am a person of faith as well as a physicist.
//
Feynman says that "everything we know is an approximation
to the complete truth"...
AT
BTW I believe in the inerrancy of Scripture.
I do not believe in the
inerrancy of Scriptural interpretation.


[Justin Parke]

.... Inerrency does not mean that
every word in the Bible is literally true as some language is clearly
meant to be poetic and interpreted in light of that. For example, one
passage describes God as sheltering His people under his wing but I do not
know of anyone who interprets this to mean that God literally has
wings. Inerrency *does* mean that the passage was meant to be in the
Bible, it is not included by mistake.

I hope this is not too far off topic but since we are discussing science
teaching and religion I thought it was important for all of the terms to
be properly defined. ///

Justin Parke


[Rev. W.G. Gartig]

Q: How was it decided which books would be included in the
New Testament?

A: "First, though many devout people have assumed that
there must have been one, no "voice from heaven" ever
declared which books belonged in the Bible.
Second, no ecumenical council defined the canon
(the list of books comprising the Bible) until the Council
of Trent(1545-63), when, countering the Reformation,
the Roman Catholic Church reaffirmed the inspiration of
the Apocrypha. No church council to this day has
produced an authoritative canonical list for Eastern
Orthodoxy.
Third, it is hard to argue that inspiration can be
known by observation or "the inner testimony of the
Spirit," since Christians have not always agreed about
which books are inspired.
For example, in Syria until about 400, the four gospels
were not used at all. Instead the Diatessaron .(a weaving
together of the four gospels into one longer composite
narrative) was used. Syriac Christianity also did
not
consider canonical any of the catholic epistles (James, 1
and 2 Peter, 1, 2 and 3 John and Jude) or Revelation.
That changed in about 400 when the Syriac translation
called the Peshitta came into use. It added James, 1
Peter and 1 John, but not the shorter catholic epistles or
Revelation. They still are lacking from the Bible of the
Nestorian Church.
The whole Greek-speaking. eastern half of the
Mediterranean was slow to accept Revelation (and. to
this day, Revelation is absent from the Greek Orthodox
lectionary), while the Latin Church was slow to accept
Hebrews (until Jerome and Augustine argued for it).
Individual congregations seem to have made their
own decisions about what books to read in Worship
services. How did they decide what to read? We know of
two criteria they used:
"Was the book written by an Apostle?" (apostolicity)
and "Is it theologically orthodox?"

Since they were taught by Jesus himself, the apostles
could be presumed to know what was correct and to not
teach anything false. Those whom the apostles taught
personally could similarly be trusted.
But the claim of having been written by an apostle
was not enough. since there were many gospels, acts
and epistles attributed to apostles but with (mainly
Gnostic) theology contrary to the Christianity handed
down over generations within congregations. So, for
orthodox congregations, a book had to be theologically
orthodox as well as attributed to an apostle. If its
theology was heretical, then apostolic authorship had to
be mistaken or a falsification.

What are we to conclude? Books got into the New
Testament through a complicated historical process,
involving both the belief in a book's apostolicity and the
congruence of its theology with tradition, the Christianity
handed down in churches. "
[Gartig]