Thankyou for watching, I hope this was educational & entertaining! Below are the resources I would first recommend on researching the canon. My #1 Book Recommendation: Willíam Whitaker's disputation on Holy Scripture archive.org/details/disputationonhol00whituoft/page/n9/mode/2up [Edit: Some clarifying/additional comments to the video after interactions with Equinox2345 & others]. To make a very concise points on why I don't think "the canon problem" is a problem. The early Church functioned under the principle of Sola Scriptura while also holding an open canon, I see no problem why it should be an issue for us when it wasn't for them. By open canon, and acknowledging the New Testament Canon wasn't complete as it is now, I do not mean they had no canon (as some falsely claim). They did have the agreed upon books of the Old Testament & the agreed upon core of the New Testament corpus. Even though there were some disagreements they all still had the same core of books. It was not simply an array of competing canon list with no agreement. Additional, if the one who defines the canon, defines the Scriptures this posits two immense problems. 1st, it means we should all be Pharisees, which I think Jordan B Cooper explains masterfully here: ruclips.net/video/WqGc_nW4L-0/видео.htmlsi=SrzF6A3LPok67hKb. 2nd, then how were any of the Prophets writings and words to the people ever expected to be held as Scripture when they didn't accept them? The corrupt Priesthood & False Prophets of Israel taught something else but were "the official" religious voice for many within Israel, yet Isaiah & the other Prophets as God's mouthpiece testified against them & held them accountable. Some Introductory Books - "How We Got the Bible" by Neil R. Lightfoot - a.co/d/gpczSLg - "Scribes and Scripture: The Amazing Story of How We Got the Bible" by John D. Meade and Peter J. Gurry - a.co/d/fUofTAQ - "The Canon of Scripture" by F. F. Bruce - a.co/d/ha8ND9j - "Who Chose the Books of the New Testament?" by Charles E. Hill and D. A. Carson - a.co/d/hbh0hbw - "WHY PROTESTANT BIBLES ARE SMALLER: A Defense of the Protestant Old Testament Canon": a.co/d/5RrNqMv Some more in depth books - "Canon Revisited: Establishing the Origins and Authority of the New Testament Books" by Michael Kruger - a.co/d/3VroXMJ - "The Question of Canon: Challenging the Status Quo in the New Testament Debate" by Michael Kruger - a.co/d/epUtLXb - "The Old Testament Canon of the New Testament Church: and its Background in Early Judaism" by Roger T. Beckwith: a.co/d/bqSxAjV - "The Biblical Canon Lists from Early Christianity: Texts and Analysis" by Edmon L. Gallagher and John D. Meade - a.co/d/dWfHfui - "Redating the New Testament" by John A. T. Robinson - a.co/d/21YGB1q "A Scholastical History Of The Canon Of The Holy Scripture" by John Cosin: archive.org/details/scholasticalhist00cosiuoft Some books by Roman Catholics -"Why Catholic Bibles Are Bigger: Revised Second Edition" by Gary Michuta: a.co/d/7IFxKvb - "Case for the Deuterocanon - 2nd edition" by Gary Michuta: a.co/d/eS5STCB -"The Bible Is a Catholic Book": a.co/d/4QY6cXG - "The Use of the Apocrypha in the Christian Church" by William Heaford Dabney: a.co/d/3wbjY4R My playlist on the topic: ruclips.net/p/PL4VeIAMo4PNU_eAM5DHVDfU_l4SYXU9Qt
Tertullian in "Prescription Against Heretics" (155ish) talks about how to solve debates regarding the scriptures (such as which books are scripture or how to interpret them). He says, very clearly, that all doctrine must agree with the apostolic churches. Moreover, in a later chapter, he says you will know what churches are apostolic because they have preserved the apostolic succession. Below is a quote, but I urge everyone to go read "Prescription Against Heretics" paragraphs/chapters, like, 15-28 and try to tell me "Scripture Alone" was the majority opinion in the early church. It's almost like people who say that haven't actually read the early fathers. "From this, therefore, do we draw up our rule. Since the Lord Jesus Christ sent the apostles to preach, (our rule is) that no others ought to be received as preachers than those whom Christ appointed; for 'no man knows the Father save the Son, and he to whomever the Son will reveal Him.' Matthew 11:27 Nor does the Son seem to have revealed Him to any other than the apostles, whom He sent forth to preach - that, of course, which He revealed to them. Now, what that was which they preached - in other words, what it was which Christ revealed to them - can, as I must here likewise prescribe, properly be proved in no other way than by those very churches which the apostles founded in person, by declaring the gospel to them directly themselves, both vivâ voce, as the phrase is, and subsequently by their epistles. If, then, these things are so, it is in the same degree manifest that all doctrine which agrees with the apostolic churches- those moulds and original sources of the faith must be reckoned for truth, as undoubtedly containing that which the (said) churches received from the apostles, the apostles from Christ, Christ from God. Whereas all doctrine must be prejudged as false which savours of contrariety to the truth of the churches and apostles of Christ and God."
@@AnUnhappyBusiness 1) Diversity of opinion on certain things is not necessarily disagreement. 2) Trent is an Apostolic Church council. But sure, cope more lol.
This tired Apostolic argument? We don't know, that's why we follow the liturgy and reason to best of our ability. I bet YOU also think your denomination is best, that's how opinions work.
@@Pretty_Fly_White_Guy And we actually respect your decision to believe that as it's a sincere belief based on your experience. It is still a denomination whether you like it or not though. You might think it is the correct denomination, that's fine.
The early Church Fathers did not each have their own "canon" of OT books. The had their own ideas of what should be considered Scripture. Nothing was set in stone until the Catholic Church stated what was canonical, what was duterocanonical (sp?), and what was false scripture.
As a protestant teetering on the edge of Orthodoxy, I'm afraid to say that you haven't quelled my worries. I don't think what you discussed here refutes the point that cannon comes from tradition. Especially for most protestants who consider the cannon closed. If you say "Sola Scriptura", and I ask "which scripture?", and you say "the cannon is open but most of scripture is agreed upon"; That has not inspired confidence in me. How is it not preceded by tradition? The fact that there was a time with no formal cannon does not disprove the fact that the cannon we have NOW comes from the tradition of the body of Christ. And the fact that there are different cannons does not disprove it either. It just means there are different traditions (yes, even within the same, in communion, church). I may have misunderstood your point, or it may have gone over my head. But I was hoping for a clear and concise refutation.
I recommend the playlist on my channel titled the canon for more in depth work, and the resources in the pinned comments. But that is very much my point. The early Church functioned under the principle of Sola Scriptura while also holding an open canon, I see no problem why it should be an issue for us when it wasn't for them. On the topic of Sola Scriptura itself I also have these resources: ruclips.net/p/PLpM8NONVX-il0UlrnCjLoyOW310HZMGxJ & in my discord (linked in the description) I have a plethora of books (free & otherwise) to be delved into. And will be doing more work on it including a presentation coming in September. In the meantime the ministry I serve in is exactly for helping deal with Ecclesial anxiety if you'd be interested. discord.gg/8fUX22cE. SSBS will also have the same book resources I have in my own server.
In addition to all I said, and I think Jordan B Coopers video on this nails it on the head. If the people who define the canon are the people we must submit to (rather than the churches job being to recognize Scripture not define it as I argue for) then we should all be Pharisee's as they were the one's who defined the canon of their time. They were the ones who were in the Seat of Moses as Jesus Himself says.
@@PracticalChristianLessonsDr. Cooper’s work is fantastic. It’s what introduced me to Lutheranism (I am now a Lutheran) and it is what finally and definitively dispelled my long term thoughts about converting to Roman Catholicism or Eastern Orthodoxy.
Your position puts you into a double bind. Does the closure of the canon imply the perfection of the Church? If yes, then the Church cannot be refuted or reformed. If no, then how can the canon be closed if it is open to revision?
You realize for the many of us who have an "open canon" this is no problem at all? Though I still fail to see how a closure of the canon 1 implies perfection, and 2 why either of the conclusion put forward would be the logical conclusion. How can the Church be perfected here on Earth while we still live in a fallen world and thus have fallen sinners who will be imperfect within the Church?
@@PracticalChristianLessons If the Church is subject to further intervention, then the purpose of the Incarnation is obscure. The revelation we have now through the mystery of Jesus would not be complete, and so the faith is neither "once for all delivered." You do not have the faith yet promised, you are waiting on more Apostolic witness. You may as well still be in your sins awaiting the salvation of God. The Church is the Body of Christ. If it is not perfect and blameless, it cannot belong to Christ, for that is the state in which it will be presented. Even if the Church is composed of sinners, the Church herself is not stained by them.
@@j.johnson2190 The purpose of the incarnation was to bring about the salvation of man, and the work He has started will be completed. Death has been defeated, and will be fully defeated later. Christ's bride is being perfected and will be presented as perfect in the last times. But it is not yet so. This hardly obscures the incarnation. God took on flesh to save man & redeem us, just because we are not yet perfect doesn't mean that it isn't so. To say the Church doesn't still need intervention ignores the clear calls in the New Testament for constant leaning upon & correction from the Lord. Does not Jesus Himself cry out to the churches to correct their errors (Revelation 2), let alone the epistles He spoke through His apostles to the various churches going astray. The Faith has been delivered once and for all, and as Ambrose says the Church is like a boat that gets leaks that need patched.
@@PracticalChristianLessons If the faith was delivered once and for all, then how is an open canon possible? If the Incarnation is the full revelation, how is revision to revelation possible?
@@j.johnson2190 Revelation is not being revised, that has never once been taught by any of the Protestant reformers or modern Protestants as far as I'm aware. Anyone teaching that has strayed from the Apostolic faith. And if an open canon is a problem, why was Rome's canon not closed by an ecumenical council for 1500 years? And why do the East & others still have an open canon?
That is a good point. I should have brought that up when I noted how the EO have a slightly different view on what it means to be canonical than we do in the West.
@@PracticalChristianLessons Also, the book of Revelation is not read during the liturgy in Eastern Orthodox churches, but is still considered scripture. In the west, scripture and canon are "mostly" synonymous. In the Catholic Church, some verses from 4 Esdras are used for the antiphon despite 4 Esdras not being part of scripture.
Google the table of contents for the 1611 King James Bible. This is well after the reformation and is obviously Protestant. Do you see extra books? How’s that?!? What happened. 😮
If the selection process for inclusion in the NT canon was so well done over such a long time, why are there still so many competing theologies today as there were in the early church? The canonization of Christian writings doesn't seem to have created theological consensus.
This part of seeing "through a veil" now. One day we will see all clearly. That being said, even between traditions of great disagreement, there is on average far more unity between traditions (as in, consensus on Biblical teachings) than disagreement. Not that the disagreements are small matters or unimportant, but we tend to agree on far more than we disagree.
Hello Eastern Orthodox here, I take it you hold to a nuanced sola scriptura position wherein scripture alone has a unique authority even if Apostolic tradition has some authority? It’s a bit of an anachronism to say Roman Catholicism existed during the council of hippo, and you are correct about the variation in our canons being not the same as the western view. While you may be correct that the simple Roman Catholic critique doesn’t hold up since you do lend some credence to tradition and trusting in the providence of the Holy Spirit guiding the Church and that early Christians had an open canon. I’d argue that position of the early church gives more credence to the Orthodox position that the early Church found its unity in its liturgical practice and apostolic Tradition (whether sourced from scripture, deuterocanonical texts like the didache, or even apocryphal books containing some true traditions), and that the Protestant movement and traditions (being charitable we will assume magesterial Protestants only) do not have continuity in Ordination and praxis with the early Church tradition. Whether their is theological continuity is a bit more murky given that Protestantism is largely informed of the theology of the fathers especially taking inspiration from St Augustine, but I think it’s historical revisionism to say there is liturgical and ordination continuity in Protestantism. Firstly the Roman schism had many breaks from their previous liturgical practices pre schism (unleavened bread, communion of one kind, changes in the form of baptism, etc) and add on to that the Protestants as a whole and certain factions had further breaks from the apostolic tradition even if they fixed some practices such as receiving communion in both kinds, for example altering the liturgical language regarding what the Eucharist is, using ordinary vessels to hold the species, removing antimens and the concept of an altar in place of a table in the center of the congregation (fundamentally confusing love feasts with the Eucharist), iconoclasm, etc. now sure there are magisterial Protestant with more and less authentic liturgical practice but that in itself shows it’s not the basis of unity in Protestantism that it is for Orthodoxy and the early Church. If I am mistaken on any particular point I do appreciate feedback and we should only follow the whole truth and not accept adulterations of it for the sake of factionalism.
I meant to give the implication (I should've said this more clearly) when I talk later in the video about the "when the Church was one" then X should be the case, to talk about Hippo & such happened before the later schism's that formed the distinct traditions. As for Protestants and succession, and this will be a video for a later time, I would argue at least us Magisterial Protestants do have a valid physical succession & do not hold to that as historical revisionism. And of course Protestantism is not a single tradition, so many of the things you list don't hold water for all Protestants. It would be like if I had said, "all Ecclesialist have the same problem of..." & then listing something say only Coptic Orthodox do. Or if I talked about Icon Veneration in one way, when there are some Ecclesialist traditions that do not have the same understanding of Icons as others (most notably the difference in say the Oriental Orthodox to the Eastern Orthodox & Roman Catholic position on Icons).
@@PracticalChristianLessons You may view it that way but it’s undeniable that many radical Protestants and campbelists hold to a radical sola scriptural view. Again I think the more troubling critique for your view of sola scriptura is that you in all likelihood believe other magersterial Protestants have salvific grace but have no external sign of unity be it liturgical, theological, praxilogical, or even as you admit according to their view of the canon (unless I’m mistaken and you consider calvinists heterodox as an Arminian Wesleyan). Again the early Church could be one without having the same canon and even some minor theological distinctions (though I’d say not to the extent that exists in even Roman Catholicism let alone between Protestant groups) due to their apostolic liturgical unity, from which the Roman Catholic Church has admitted to departing from and the Protestant confessions inherited these liturgical breaks having not known any better. Regardless of if you view your magisterial Protestant tradition as being the one true tradition, it is easily verified that it’s not in continuity with pre schism chalcedonian Orthodox Catholicism, and therefore not in continuity with the pre-chalcedonian and pre-nicene churches.
@@andrew2715 What radical Protestants do, is not my concern nor does it impact me, if they are even really Protestant. I do not hold the Roman Catholics responsible for what the Sedevancatist hold to, or the Eastern Orthodox for what the True Orthodox hold to. For us Magisterial Protestants we would acknowledge we lack unity in some areas (just as you lack unity with Rome, it is the same situation), but we do have overlapping theological unities & are agree on the core of the faith. And no, it is not "easily verified." We in fact, as the Reformers, would argue otherwise and stand on that claim, of which I will be making plenty of videos on over the years that you can see and look into for yourself. But the writings of the Reformers address all these same claims. I would recommend looking into them if you wish to dig into it further. If your mind is already made up, then it is already made up.
@4:07 you skipped the part where you are supposed to say the reason why it's not an issue and instead go into arguments against Catholicism. This is one of the biggest issue with all Protestant traditions, if the canon of scripture is handed down to you by sacred tradition as you admitted @3:39, there is no valid argument against the canon that tradition handed down for almost 1500 years. The councils HAD to clarify and define the canon for the church because of the confusion and disagreements you mention. A handful of bad theologians rejecting canon do not have the authority to redefine it.
This is addressed in various comments on this video, and my ¨Why Sola Scriptura is True¨ video. Nor did I say, it is simply handed down via sacred tradition, even if many in the Church simply accept their canon because it is part of their specific tradition. My only question to you would be, which canon passed down via sacred tradition? The Ethiopian canon, the RC canon, the Russian Orthodox canon, the Greek Orthodox Canon, the ACOE canon? Having a sacred tradition doesn´t resolve the so called canon problem, but I know if I were alive in Isaiah or Jeremiahs day I was expected to know he was a prophet speaking on Godś behalf as opposed to the many other voices speaking from the priesthood of Israel.
@@PracticalChristianLessons you words were "does tradition have a role to play in [how we determine what those books are]? Absolutely". I never claimed that you said it is simply handed down, nor do I hold that it is simple. As for the canons of the other rites, if you analyze the differences, they are minor in comparison to the differences created when the reformers removed books from the canon. All the books removed by the reformation were present in the Roman, Eastern, Ethiopian, and ACOE rites. All the books in the Roman rite are present in the other Catholic rites (with the exception of Maccabees in the Ethiopian rite). The texts the Eastern rites recognize that the Roman rite do not are not evidence that the Protestant canon is valid. I agree that tradition alone does not solve the canon issue, that's where the teaching authority of the church as well as scripture itself help us. Your argument fails to show that the church did not have the authority to define canon, and there is no verse in any scripture that supports the idea that scripture alone is sufficient to define the canon of scripture.
@@BibleonaBoat The reformers didnt remove books. I addresses this in various other comments. And Im not asking about if our canon is valid (though that shouldnt be in question since all these same books are accepted elsewhere, the only thing in question is if we should have more not the validity of what we have). And I stand by my statement. The churches authority is not to define the canon, but to recognize Gods words to us. Gods word gets authority from its author, not from His servants.
@@BibleonaBoat Also I fail to see how this is not the same problem for you. If the Church has the authority, which tradition and which canon? Which is its own much larger topic that I dont think is something that should be hashed out in a YT comment section. That is a much larger topic worth several videos & much inc has been spilled over. But the starting point of the discussion cannot be the conclusion/presupposition.
@@PracticalChristianLessons I'm not seeing it addressed in other comments but I'll take your word for it. Would you go as far as saying a Bible containing only Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John is valid canon? Since you hold to sola scriptura, the burden is on you to show that scripture backs up your statement that the church does not have the authority to reject certain books from the canon of scripture. Where do the protestant traditions get the authority to say that Tobit isn't God's authoritative word, when Christ himself alludes to it in Matthew 7? Or Sirach, alluded to in Matthew 6? Or Wisdom when Paul quotes it in Romans 11?
The Council of Laodicea gave what is effectively the Protestant New Testament minus Revelation. The argument Orthodox and Catholics make of “700 years of uncertainty concerning scripture” is just not true.
I don't think the problem arises from differing canons _in se._ Rather, it is the combination of _sola scriptura_ and *denying* the inspiration of other books. I don't think that position can be rationally defended. Leaving aside whether the early church was _sola sciptura_ (I don't think it was), the innovation of limiting inspiration to other books was done to vouchsafe the new beliefs about justification. All Christian churches and the overwhelming majority of people accepted the same basic Bible, and to get anything different you have to _Trail of Blood_ your way through history with all the same weaknesses that book has. The idea that only those books are inspired really has to be justified. I was a Baptist, and the entire issue about this subject nearly made me leave the faith before I became Orthodox. Take Jude 14-15 and I Enoch. Jude is quoting I Enoch as prophecy. *All* prophecy is inspired by definition. It is someone moved by a deity and speaking for it. Jude also uses the Scriptural formula "X prophesied saying..." This is a formal contradiction to the Protestant canon, and none of the responses work. For instance, "The Bible quotes other books like pagan poets," but it never does so with a Scriptural formula nor does it call them a prophecy. It's an invalid comparison. If I Enoch is inspired, then inspiration cannot be limited to the Protestant Bible. If that's the case, it's very, very hard to deny inspiration to books all Christians accepted. If it's not, then there are far worse problems for the Protestant Bible in Jude (and an Matthew and Luke but less obviously). Then there is the issue that the other books were demoted precisely to make the Bible able to say what Reformers wanted it to say. With II Maccabees, other passages like I Corinthians 3 became strong evidences of some form of purgatory. Rather than fit their beliefs to the Bible, they changed the Bible to support their beliefs. Next came where it came from. Almost the entire line of _Trail of Blood_ arguments are full of people who got their position from Jerome. Jerome was wrong on almost every point. Most of the books were written in Hebrew. There was widespread variation, but it was eliminated in the first and second centuries, and the Jews did have an open canon (e.g. we have records of them removing Sirach and debating books into the second century). All the facts Jerome built his case on were wrong except for Origen monkeying with the LXX. Those fathers that don't depend on Jerome people like don't reflect the Protestant canon. Athanasius both used the Apocrypha with Scripture formulations and said the Shepherd of Hermas is good to read. It claims to be a prophecy. If it's not inspired, it's literally a false prophet. Cyril adds a category for "books that are read" at the end of the quote people want (often snipped out), and he quotes from them. All the ones that don't depend on Jerome follow this pattern. Even having a three category canon is irreconcilable: they have a canonical list (inspired), books to be read (which they also treated as inspired), and books not to be read (and some authors used some of those as inspired). These authors contradict the Protestant canon. Even Josephus betrays it not just in having a different number of books than the rabbis, but in that he uses Esther with additions and I Esdras instead of Ezra-Nehemiah. He simply didn't use the later rabbinic canon, no matter how many anachronistic arguments people use for that. Add to that that most arguments on the subject directly contradicted one of the things that persuaded me to be a Christian. "There were over 500 witnesses people could go and ask, so if it was false, it'd be found out" type of argument. To support the Protestant canon, I regularly heard arguments like "The Apocrypha never claims to be inspired" compared to II Esdras 2 or the fact that most of it is an addition to biblical books (Esther, Daniel, Jeremiah, II Chronicles, Psalms). This is simply false. All someone would have to do is load up a KJV with Apocrypha on a Bible site and search "thus saith the Lord" and read the background of the books. They couldn't be bothered. Another was "The NT never quotes apocrypha with a Scripture formula." Jude 14-15 shows that to be false. These require no specialized knowledge at all, no special skills, so they border on lies. However people wouldn't check them. Why should I believe people in antiquity would travel hundreds of miles on foot to talk to strangers when people I know couldn't even log onto a computer to do a search? My professors in Bible college only made this worse by how they addressed things. I had to ask, "Why would people tell such transparent and verifiable lies?" I found out why. The Hebrew Bible was standardized in the second century under a Akhiva. He needed a standardized text for his novel method of interpreting Scripture, so he set about doing that. This is why Jerome had a stable text four centuries later. He also wanted to purify Judaism, so he spearheaded many discussions on canons. He and his students after him condemned apocryphal books, often alongside the Gospels, as part of that process. The other big thing he did was anoint Simon bar Kokhba the Christ, and they waged a three and a half year against the Romans together. So all Protestant Bibles go back to Jerome. Jerome's claims go back to the rabbis. The rabbis go back to a literal antichrist in the second century. The Protestant canon cannot be defended unless it denies the inspiration outside of it, so it must be a closed canon in practice. You're right about there not being an issue with an open Bible. It's when you cross that red line of denying inspiration that all these problems arise. However if you have a more open Bible, you can have something like _sola scriptura,_ but you cannot reach the conclusions it was designed to reach, and you will almost certainly be forced to adopt one of the catholic canons since the usefulness of omitting II Maccabees disappears. Gor the English-speaking world this would probably look like the KJV with Apocrypha; III Maccabees has never had traction in the west. In either case, though, it's really hard to justify a Protestant position, and in one it's impossible.
So I only have 4 notes, the rest can be & is covered elsewhere. Such as many comments in my Sola Scriptura vieo. 1, we're not all Baptist. The Trail of Blood isn't a thing for the rest of us. It's not even a thing for all Baptist. 2, if Enoch is Scripture why don't all the various Orthodox tradition & the Roman Catholics count it as Scripture? Because they don't. A small amount do. 3, if the "invention" was to "protect a new doctrine." Well that's easy enough to disprove because several fathers taught not only Sola Scriptura, but also Sola Fide, which I will be making a video on at some point that you can engage with then. 4, Read Josephus's canon list. The "different number" comes from the naming of books. Those "differences" don't come from different books. They are the same content, and the books were named differently at times. Such as some had all the minor prophets in a single book, it combines 1st & 2nd kings into one book, 1st & 2nd Chronicles, Ezra & Nehemiah, etc.
@@PracticalChristianLessons I don't think you understand my arguments. I didn't dispute _sola scriptura_ beyond saying I didn't think it was held historically. For the purposes of my argument, I really don't care if it's true. I'm not concerned with _sola scriptura_ in pretty much any form save its intersection with denying inspiration to books that have been held as inspired. The doctrine is so elastic now that it's pretty much meaningless. When I was a Baptist we said Methodists don't believe in SS. Of course you do believe in it, but you mean something else by it. It's neither clear, nor understood until a person explains what they mean. If anything, it's an encumbrance, because the meaning is almost always assumed, and it changes both from church to church and person to person. It's not a necessary doctrine. It's no longer clear. It's not useful. I can certainly affirm some forms of it, but I rarely see the point in trying to affirm or deny it. 1. I don't think you understand why I referenced the _Trail of Blood._ Since it argues Baptists are the true church, I'm not so foolish as to believe a Methodist would subscribe to it. I was assuming you reject it. The appeal to historical canons to prove the Protestant canon is the same class of argument as the ToB. It takes things that contradict and don't agree (different books in the canon, a three-fold canon), then it finds anybody who rejects a book from the Roman Catholic Bible, or can even seem to reject one, whether he's heretical or orthodox, and then lists that person as affirming the Protestant canon. It's the _Trail of Blood,_ but with book lists instead of Baptist churches. These types of arguments are like gematria or astrology. You can always find what you want. Take Cardinal Cajetan, whom you mentioned as evidence the Protestant canon was historically grounded. He didn't hold the Protestant canon. He held something else, and he was incredibly ambiguous to boot: "These are not canonical, but they are held as canonical." ToB arguments are inherently unsound for reasons like that. 2. That doesn't address the problem I Enoch poses at all. I'll break the syllogism down clearly so that all premises are clear: A. -1. All prophecies are inspired by definition. -2. "X prophesied saying..." is everywhere else a Scripture quotation formula. -3 Jude quoted I Enoch as "Enoch prophesied saying" -Con. Jude called quoted I Enoch as Scripture B. -1. The Protestant canon lists 66 books. -2. Only books in the canon are inspired. -3. Inspiration gives some sort of infallibility -4. Jude treats I Enoch as Scripture (Syllogism A above) -Con. Jude contradicts the Protestant canon. Orthodox can deal with this; we don't affirm B2. We have an actual open canon not a rhetorical one so that we don't have an issue. Roman Catholics have had an open canon historically and can technically still don't officially deny books they didn't affirm. They need only call it "private revelation, but which is affirmed as valid by Scripture." They don't have an issue. This syllogism is only a problem for the Protestant canon, because everybody else has some open-ended spot for inspiration in other books. 3. I feel about _sola fide_ about the same I do _sola scriptura._ My Latin isn't good enough to know the range of meaning for _fides_ for certain, but if we translate that to μονῇ πιστεῖ I could affirm it. The problem is πίστις can mean "belief, trust, loyalty, faithfulness, evidence, or a deposit," and that isn't exhaustive. What I would mean by it would be denied by others, and there's a good chance by you. What you mean will be denied by others. It also doesn't matter if the Church fathers affirmed it. That's not black and white at all, as I can quote mine denials for every author people quote mine affirmations from, and people are rarely willing to get into the weeds on one author. It's easier to quote mine the Fathers than it is the Bible, after all. There's a lot more, and they are a lot more ambiguous. I've seen plenty of lists for and against, often with the same quotes. I have a few I keep handy as a quick way to learn who's copying and pasting and who's actually read the books. What is more relevant is that when the Reformers were proposing it, it was radical and novel. They were arguing for a new doctrine in their context, and they needed to change the Bible to support it. II Maccabees, Sirach, and Tobit all affirm things they wanted to deny. It just happened to be II Maccabees that got the axe first. It could not be supported with those books as a part of Scripture, so they were eliminated. This is completely backwards of how things should go. We argue our doctrine from Scripture. If we need to change Scripture, then we have to argue that before we argue our doctrine. In the opposite direction, it just shows the doctrine is unsound. 4. Josephus gives no canon list. He simply says they have 22 books and that Jews don't dare to add or take from it because there is not exact succession of prophets after that. That's all he says relevant to the canon. It's not a canon list, because it has no list at all. Saying he gives a canon list is like saying "I have a grocery list" but the list doesn't have any items. Neither does he say that's the only things they regard as Scripture, because he may be differentiating by quality, whether this overlap from one author to the next, or something else. Neither did he necessarily mean πιστεύω in the religious sense, as he never really uses it that way. The statement can still be true and have Scripture written after that that he affirmed. It's even possible, based on some of his wording, he thought he was a prophet writing Scripture. It's a pretty ambiguous statement. We know the later Hebrew Bible didn't exist then as a universally held canon, so he couldn't enumerate a book list that had not yet developed. We know Ecclesiastes, Song of Songs, and Esther were disputed for at least another hundred years, because we have receipts for debates into the second century. For those books, we know he uses a different Esther than what made it in. It has the additions in the LXX. His story of Ezra follows I Esdras almost exactly, with only one departure. Therefore we know the "Ezra" he used and called universally accepted wasn't the one that made it in. Anybody can verify this by taking the stories, their wording, and comparing what is present and absent and in what order it comes to both I Esdras and Ezra-Nehemiah. Josphus didn't seem to even know the Ezra-Nehemiah that was canonized a century later. We also know that Sirach was in the broadly accepted Bible, because we have the record of its removal in the second century. Other than playing with numbers, I see no evidence Josephus held the rabbinic Bible, and positive evidence he held something else. All of this together goes with, I agree with you that an open canon isn't a problem. However, I don't think open canons as legal fictions ("We have the only inspired books; they have books that are just human") or stop gaps are actually open canons.
@@kainech I understood your argument, and no the Reformation was not a bunch of new and radical teachings. It was teachings that were already present & had always been so. And if "denying inspiration" is the charge, then every church that denies it (including the Ecclesiasts) still has the same problem in your point above they simply don't have Sola Scriptura.
@@PracticalChristianLessons If you understood my position, why did you respond as if I thought you believed the _Trail of Blood?_ Not being in the canon does not make it not inspired. You even mentioned in the video that Orthodox Churches hold this position. You can't shift to this tactic on the syllogism here. It's only a problem if inspiration is denied. Inspiration hasn't been treated as a binary in history either, so it's within the lines to say it's inspired but not say it's infallible. However, if even if I granted your argument, then the conclusion would still follow. It would just mean everybody but Ethiopia was formally wrong. Your _tu quoque_ doesn't resolve the issue. It's a formal contradiction.
@@kainech I did think you were equating it to all Protestants, but I understood what you meant by using it as a comparison. And you also make a mistake in the Protestant position overall. Not all Protestants hold to a closed canon, and accept things like Enoch might be inspiried even if we do not accept it as cannonical. The Anglicans in particular take a stance much more similar in their view of the Apocrypha. Nor am I interested in the supposed "to quoque" not solving it [which I do not grant because 1 it's not a tu quogue, and 2 it in fact does poke a giant hole in the supposed dilemna put forth]. I don't hold to Enoch being inspired, and even if it was I would take the stance of the majority of the Church in holding it is not canonical. I could have a long talk about how various things are inspired, and what that means, and go through many examples of the fathers holding things as inspired but not to the same level as Scripture. Which is not alien to the Reformation thought.
Since you claim to have this great authority of scripture yourself, and deem anyone who invokes the authority of the early church "in the minority" I challenge you to defend your claims in a debate with Militant Thomist or any Catholic Scholar with even a basic knowledge of the early church fathers, the ecumenical councils, and basic ecclesiology. If not, then you preach in vain and concede against your own arguments of authority.
The councils of the Church established the Canon. If not, there is no way to authenticate which books belong in the NT and which do not. Also, if you read contemporary accounts of Christianity during the first century, like the Didache, you see that the first Christians were very liturgical in their worship, believed in the Holy Eucharist as the true substance of Christ, infant baptism, etc. The early Church was Catholic. It was represented in both the East and the West.
"you see that the first Christians were very liturgical in their worship, believed in the Holy Eucharist as the true substance of Christ, infant baptism, etc." Just as the Magisterial Protestants. I address your other claim in many comments under my video "Why Sola Scriptura is True."
My brother in Christ, I respect your fervor for the Lord, but Orthodoxy and Catholicism have the same books. Saying otherwise is disingenuous, even within the argument of "when the canon was resolved." Secondly, you don't do yourself a service when you go, "I don't study Church history" then say "based on Church history, here's why I think this is canon." You can't have an admitedly incomplete view on Church history and say you don't like the argument of apostolic succession having precedence then try to give your own historical reasoning behind canon. It's just like having your own interpretation of the scripture content itself. Thats why you have to end up having an "open canon" because you're only focusing on denying what's canon, not defining why and where your canon comes from. The Church defines, yet again Protestants "protest".
I did not argue about what books are in the Eastern Orthodox Canon (though there are in fact different canon list among the different Orthodox traditions) and Roman Catholicism. We do share the same core of books even if we disagree on a few others. I do study Church history, I never said I don't study Church history. If I did, that was a mistake in my speech.
@@Steve_Trotta @Steve_Trotta I have listened back, I definitely misspoke. I meant to say I do not study the detailed history of the debates, I have studied the history of the development of the canon. I am aware of many of the debates, I am simply not interested in digging into the fine details of those debates.
At Jesus baptism there was a voice from Heaven announcing he is God's Son. At mount Sinai the Israelites heard God's voice and got ample verification that what Moses spoke is what God endorsed. Yet, for the New Testament canon, it's crickets. I can't find any tangible evidence that the risen Christ, or the Holy Spirit endorses the 27 book N.T. canon. Yet, every Bishop and his Deacon, want me to confess that Jesus endorses all of it and that I had better do all of what is contained within it. Strange times. Strange times. I don't think St Anthony of the Desert had to put up with that.
Thankyou for watching, I hope this was educational & entertaining! Below are the resources I would first recommend on researching the canon.
My #1 Book Recommendation: Willíam Whitaker's disputation on Holy Scripture archive.org/details/disputationonhol00whituoft/page/n9/mode/2up
[Edit: Some clarifying/additional comments to the video after interactions with Equinox2345 & others]. To make a very concise points on why I don't think "the canon problem" is a problem. The early Church functioned under the principle of Sola Scriptura while also holding an open canon, I see no problem why it should be an issue for us when it wasn't for them. By open canon, and acknowledging the New Testament Canon wasn't complete as it is now, I do not mean they had no canon (as some falsely claim). They did have the agreed upon books of the Old Testament & the agreed upon core of the New Testament corpus. Even though there were some disagreements they all still had the same core of books. It was not simply an array of competing canon list with no agreement. Additional, if the one who defines the canon, defines the Scriptures this posits two immense problems. 1st, it means we should all be Pharisees, which I think Jordan B Cooper explains masterfully here: ruclips.net/video/WqGc_nW4L-0/видео.htmlsi=SrzF6A3LPok67hKb. 2nd, then how were any of the Prophets writings and words to the people ever expected to be held as Scripture when they didn't accept them? The corrupt Priesthood & False Prophets of Israel taught something else but were "the official" religious voice for many within Israel, yet Isaiah & the other Prophets as God's mouthpiece testified against them & held them accountable.
Some Introductory Books
- "How We Got the Bible" by Neil R. Lightfoot - a.co/d/gpczSLg
- "Scribes and Scripture: The Amazing Story of How We Got the Bible" by John D. Meade and Peter J. Gurry - a.co/d/fUofTAQ
- "The Canon of Scripture" by F. F. Bruce - a.co/d/ha8ND9j
- "Who Chose the Books of the New Testament?" by Charles E. Hill and D. A. Carson - a.co/d/hbh0hbw
- "WHY PROTESTANT BIBLES ARE SMALLER: A Defense of the Protestant Old Testament Canon": a.co/d/5RrNqMv
Some more in depth books
- "Canon Revisited: Establishing the Origins and Authority of the New Testament Books" by Michael Kruger - a.co/d/3VroXMJ
- "The Question of Canon: Challenging the Status Quo in the New Testament Debate" by Michael Kruger - a.co/d/epUtLXb
- "The Old Testament Canon of the New Testament Church: and its Background in Early Judaism" by Roger T. Beckwith: a.co/d/bqSxAjV
- "The Biblical Canon Lists from Early Christianity: Texts and Analysis" by Edmon L. Gallagher and John D. Meade - a.co/d/dWfHfui
- "Redating the New Testament" by John A. T. Robinson - a.co/d/21YGB1q
"A Scholastical History Of The Canon Of The Holy Scripture" by John Cosin: archive.org/details/scholasticalhist00cosiuoft
Some books by Roman Catholics
-"Why Catholic Bibles Are Bigger: Revised Second Edition" by Gary Michuta: a.co/d/7IFxKvb
- "Case for the Deuterocanon - 2nd edition" by Gary Michuta: a.co/d/eS5STCB
-"The Bible Is a Catholic Book": a.co/d/4QY6cXG
- "The Use of the Apocrypha in the Christian Church" by William Heaford Dabney: a.co/d/3wbjY4R
My playlist on the topic: ruclips.net/p/PL4VeIAMo4PNU_eAM5DHVDfU_l4SYXU9Qt
Tertullian in "Prescription Against Heretics" (155ish) talks about how to solve debates regarding the scriptures (such as which books are scripture or how to interpret them). He says, very clearly, that all doctrine must agree with the apostolic churches. Moreover, in a later chapter, he says you will know what churches are apostolic because they have preserved the apostolic succession. Below is a quote, but I urge everyone to go read "Prescription Against Heretics" paragraphs/chapters, like, 15-28 and try to tell me "Scripture Alone" was the majority opinion in the early church. It's almost like people who say that haven't actually read the early fathers.
"From this, therefore, do we draw up our rule. Since the Lord Jesus Christ sent the apostles to preach, (our rule is) that no others ought to be received as preachers than those whom Christ appointed; for 'no man knows the Father save the Son, and he to whomever the Son will reveal Him.' Matthew 11:27 Nor does the Son seem to have revealed Him to any other than the apostles, whom He sent forth to preach - that, of course, which He revealed to them. Now, what that was which they preached - in other words, what it was which Christ revealed to them - can, as I must here likewise prescribe, properly be proved in no other way than by those very churches which the apostles founded in person, by declaring the gospel to them directly themselves, both vivâ voce, as the phrase is, and subsequently by their epistles. If, then, these things are so, it is in the same degree manifest that all doctrine which agrees with the apostolic churches- those moulds and original sources of the faith must be reckoned for truth, as undoubtedly containing that which the (said) churches received from the apostles, the apostles from Christ, Christ from God. Whereas all doctrine must be prejudged as false which savours of contrariety to the truth of the churches and apostles of Christ and God."
Yes I am aware of the quote. That doesn't change the fact those apostolic churches had disagreements on the canon.
@@PracticalChristianLessons Which were then solved in successive Church councils.
@@AluminiumT6lol except they didn't which is why there were still disagreements about the fringes of the canon until Trent for the West
@@AnUnhappyBusiness 1) Diversity of opinion on certain things is not necessarily disagreement.
2) Trent is an Apostolic Church council.
But sure, cope more lol.
@@AluminiumT6 lol well then, Protestants simply have diversity of opinion lol
And which Methodist church is the legitimate one?
His denomination, of course.
@@eucharistenjoyer exactly
This tired Apostolic argument? We don't know, that's why we follow the liturgy and reason to best of our ability.
I bet YOU also think your denomination is best, that's how opinions work.
@@DIY_Miracle what tired Apostolic argument? Catholicism isn’t a denomination, it’s true
@@Pretty_Fly_White_Guy And we actually respect your decision to believe that as it's a sincere belief based on your experience. It is still a denomination whether you like it or not though. You might think it is the correct denomination, that's fine.
The early Church Fathers did not each have their own "canon" of OT books. The had their own ideas of what should be considered Scripture. Nothing was set in stone until the Catholic Church stated what was canonical, what was duterocanonical (sp?), and what was false scripture.
As a protestant teetering on the edge of Orthodoxy, I'm afraid to say that you haven't quelled my worries. I don't think what you discussed here refutes the point that cannon comes from tradition. Especially for most protestants who consider the cannon closed.
If you say "Sola Scriptura", and I ask "which scripture?", and you say "the cannon is open but most of scripture is agreed upon"; That has not inspired confidence in me. How is it not preceded by tradition? The fact that there was a time with no formal cannon does not disprove the fact that the cannon we have NOW comes from the tradition of the body of Christ. And the fact that there are different cannons does not disprove it either. It just means there are different traditions (yes, even within the same, in communion, church).
I may have misunderstood your point, or it may have gone over my head. But I was hoping for a clear and concise refutation.
I recommend the playlist on my channel titled the canon for more in depth work, and the resources in the pinned comments. But that is very much my point. The early Church functioned under the principle of Sola Scriptura while also holding an open canon, I see no problem why it should be an issue for us when it wasn't for them. On the topic of Sola Scriptura itself I also have these resources: ruclips.net/p/PLpM8NONVX-il0UlrnCjLoyOW310HZMGxJ & in my discord (linked in the description) I have a plethora of books (free & otherwise) to be delved into. And will be doing more work on it including a presentation coming in September. In the meantime the ministry I serve in is exactly for helping deal with Ecclesial anxiety if you'd be interested. discord.gg/8fUX22cE. SSBS will also have the same book resources I have in my own server.
In addition to all I said, and I think Jordan B Coopers video on this nails it on the head. If the people who define the canon are the people we must submit to (rather than the churches job being to recognize Scripture not define it as I argue for) then we should all be Pharisee's as they were the one's who defined the canon of their time. They were the ones who were in the Seat of Moses as Jesus Himself says.
@@PracticalChristianLessonsDr. Cooper’s work is fantastic. It’s what introduced me to Lutheranism (I am now a Lutheran) and it is what finally and definitively dispelled my long term thoughts about converting to Roman Catholicism or Eastern Orthodoxy.
@@unit2394 Dr Cooper is a fraud like his god Martin Luther
Your position puts you into a double bind. Does the closure of the canon imply the perfection of the Church? If yes, then the Church cannot be refuted or reformed. If no, then how can the canon be closed if it is open to revision?
You realize for the many of us who have an "open canon" this is no problem at all?
Though I still fail to see how a closure of the canon 1 implies perfection, and 2 why either of the conclusion put forward would be the logical conclusion. How can the Church be perfected here on Earth while we still live in a fallen world and thus have fallen sinners who will be imperfect within the Church?
@@PracticalChristianLessons If the Church is subject to further intervention, then the purpose of the Incarnation is obscure. The revelation we have now through the mystery of Jesus would not be complete, and so the faith is neither "once for all delivered." You do not have the faith yet promised, you are waiting on more Apostolic witness. You may as well still be in your sins awaiting the salvation of God.
The Church is the Body of Christ. If it is not perfect and blameless, it cannot belong to Christ, for that is the state in which it will be presented. Even if the Church is composed of sinners, the Church herself is not stained by them.
@@j.johnson2190 The purpose of the incarnation was to bring about the salvation of man, and the work He has started will be completed. Death has been defeated, and will be fully defeated later. Christ's bride is being perfected and will be presented as perfect in the last times. But it is not yet so. This hardly obscures the incarnation. God took on flesh to save man & redeem us, just because we are not yet perfect doesn't mean that it isn't so. To say the Church doesn't still need intervention ignores the clear calls in the New Testament for constant leaning upon & correction from the Lord. Does not Jesus Himself cry out to the churches to correct their errors (Revelation 2), let alone the epistles He spoke through His apostles to the various churches going astray. The Faith has been delivered once and for all, and as Ambrose says the Church is like a boat that gets leaks that need patched.
@@PracticalChristianLessons If the faith was delivered once and for all, then how is an open canon possible? If the Incarnation is the full revelation, how is revision to revelation possible?
@@j.johnson2190 Revelation is not being revised, that has never once been taught by any of the Protestant reformers or modern Protestants as far as I'm aware. Anyone teaching that has strayed from the Apostolic faith.
And if an open canon is a problem, why was Rome's canon not closed by an ecumenical council for 1500 years? And why do the East & others still have an open canon?
Not all the books in the Ethiopian canon are considered scripture. Some are more similar to canon law. Also, the whole Ethiopian Bible is 81 books.
That is a good point. I should have brought that up when I noted how the EO have a slightly different view on what it means to be canonical than we do in the West.
@@PracticalChristianLessons Also, the book of Revelation is not read during the liturgy in Eastern Orthodox churches, but is still considered scripture.
In the west, scripture and canon are "mostly" synonymous.
In the Catholic Church, some verses from 4 Esdras are used for the antiphon despite 4 Esdras not being part of scripture.
Google the table of contents for the 1611 King James Bible. This is well after the reformation and is obviously Protestant. Do you see extra books? How’s that?!? What happened. 😮
@@vaughncj Yes I am aware of this. If you watch my Apocrypha series I cover this.
If the selection process for inclusion in the NT canon was so well done over such a long time, why are there still so many competing theologies today as there were in the early church? The canonization of Christian writings doesn't seem to have created theological consensus.
This part of seeing "through a veil" now. One day we will see all clearly.
That being said, even between traditions of great disagreement, there is on average far more unity between traditions (as in, consensus on Biblical teachings) than disagreement. Not that the disagreements are small matters or unimportant, but we tend to agree on far more than we disagree.
Nice Saint Benedict rosary
Hello Eastern Orthodox here, I take it you hold to a nuanced sola scriptura position wherein scripture alone has a unique authority even if Apostolic tradition has some authority? It’s a bit of an anachronism to say Roman Catholicism existed during the council of hippo, and you are correct about the variation in our canons being not the same as the western view.
While you may be correct that the simple Roman Catholic critique doesn’t hold up since you do lend some credence to tradition and trusting in the providence of the Holy Spirit guiding the Church and that early Christians had an open canon.
I’d argue that position of the early church gives more credence to the Orthodox position that the early Church found its unity in its liturgical practice and apostolic Tradition (whether sourced from scripture, deuterocanonical texts like the didache, or even apocryphal books containing some true traditions), and that the Protestant movement and traditions (being charitable we will assume magesterial Protestants only) do not have continuity in Ordination and praxis with the early Church tradition. Whether their is theological continuity is a bit more murky given that Protestantism is largely informed of the theology of the fathers especially taking inspiration from St Augustine, but I think it’s historical revisionism to say there is liturgical and ordination continuity in Protestantism. Firstly the Roman schism had many breaks from their previous liturgical practices pre schism (unleavened bread, communion of one kind, changes in the form of baptism, etc) and add on to that the Protestants as a whole and certain factions had further breaks from the apostolic tradition even if they fixed some practices such as receiving communion in both kinds, for example altering the liturgical language regarding what the Eucharist is, using ordinary vessels to hold the species, removing antimens and the concept of an altar in place of a table in the center of the congregation (fundamentally confusing love feasts with the Eucharist), iconoclasm, etc. now sure there are magisterial Protestant with more and less authentic liturgical practice but that in itself shows it’s not the basis of unity in Protestantism that it is for Orthodoxy and the early Church.
If I am mistaken on any particular point I do appreciate feedback and we should only follow the whole truth and not accept adulterations of it for the sake of factionalism.
I would say the position you put forth is simply the proper position of Sola Scriptura. (more shortly)
I meant to give the implication (I should've said this more clearly) when I talk later in the video about the "when the Church was one" then X should be the case, to talk about Hippo & such happened before the later schism's that formed the distinct traditions.
As for Protestants and succession, and this will be a video for a later time, I would argue at least us Magisterial Protestants do have a valid physical succession & do not hold to that as historical revisionism. And of course Protestantism is not a single tradition, so many of the things you list don't hold water for all Protestants. It would be like if I had said, "all Ecclesialist have the same problem of..." & then listing something say only Coptic Orthodox do. Or if I talked about Icon Veneration in one way, when there are some Ecclesialist traditions that do not have the same understanding of Icons as others (most notably the difference in say the Oriental Orthodox to the Eastern Orthodox & Roman Catholic position on Icons).
@@PracticalChristianLessons
You may view it that way but it’s undeniable that many radical Protestants and campbelists hold to a radical sola scriptural view. Again I think the more troubling critique for your view of sola scriptura is that you in all likelihood believe other magersterial Protestants have salvific grace but have no external sign of unity be it liturgical, theological, praxilogical, or even as you admit according to their view of the canon (unless I’m mistaken and you consider calvinists heterodox as an Arminian Wesleyan). Again the early Church could be one without having the same canon and even some minor theological distinctions (though I’d say not to the extent that exists in even Roman Catholicism let alone between Protestant groups) due to their apostolic liturgical unity, from which the Roman Catholic Church has admitted to departing from and the Protestant confessions inherited these liturgical breaks having not known any better. Regardless of if you view your magisterial Protestant tradition as being the one true tradition, it is easily verified that it’s not in continuity with pre schism chalcedonian Orthodox Catholicism, and therefore not in continuity with the pre-chalcedonian and pre-nicene churches.
@@andrew2715 What radical Protestants do, is not my concern nor does it impact me, if they are even really Protestant. I do not hold the Roman Catholics responsible for what the Sedevancatist hold to, or the Eastern Orthodox for what the True Orthodox hold to.
For us Magisterial Protestants we would acknowledge we lack unity in some areas (just as you lack unity with Rome, it is the same situation), but we do have overlapping theological unities & are agree on the core of the faith.
And no, it is not "easily verified." We in fact, as the Reformers, would argue otherwise and stand on that claim, of which I will be making plenty of videos on over the years that you can see and look into for yourself. But the writings of the Reformers address all these same claims. I would recommend looking into them if you wish to dig into it further. If your mind is already made up, then it is already made up.
@4:07 you skipped the part where you are supposed to say the reason why it's not an issue and instead go into arguments against Catholicism. This is one of the biggest issue with all Protestant traditions, if the canon of scripture is handed down to you by sacred tradition as you admitted @3:39, there is no valid argument against the canon that tradition handed down for almost 1500 years. The councils HAD to clarify and define the canon for the church because of the confusion and disagreements you mention. A handful of bad theologians rejecting canon do not have the authority to redefine it.
This is addressed in various comments on this video, and my ¨Why Sola Scriptura is True¨ video. Nor did I say, it is simply handed down via sacred tradition, even if many in the Church simply accept their canon because it is part of their specific tradition. My only question to you would be, which canon passed down via sacred tradition? The Ethiopian canon, the RC canon, the Russian Orthodox canon, the Greek Orthodox Canon, the ACOE canon? Having a sacred tradition doesn´t resolve the so called canon problem, but I know if I were alive in Isaiah or Jeremiahs day I was expected to know he was a prophet speaking on Godś behalf as opposed to the many other voices speaking from the priesthood of Israel.
@@PracticalChristianLessons you words were "does tradition have a role to play in [how we determine what those books are]? Absolutely". I never claimed that you said it is simply handed down, nor do I hold that it is simple. As for the canons of the other rites, if you analyze the differences, they are minor in comparison to the differences created when the reformers removed books from the canon. All the books removed by the reformation were present in the Roman, Eastern, Ethiopian, and ACOE rites. All the books in the Roman rite are present in the other Catholic rites (with the exception of Maccabees in the Ethiopian rite). The texts the Eastern rites recognize that the Roman rite do not are not evidence that the Protestant canon is valid. I agree that tradition alone does not solve the canon issue, that's where the teaching authority of the church as well as scripture itself help us. Your argument fails to show that the church did not have the authority to define canon, and there is no verse in any scripture that supports the idea that scripture alone is sufficient to define the canon of scripture.
@@BibleonaBoat The reformers didnt remove books. I addresses this in various other comments. And Im not asking about if our canon is valid (though that shouldnt be in question since all these same books are accepted elsewhere, the only thing in question is if we should have more not the validity of what we have). And I stand by my statement. The churches authority is not to define the canon, but to recognize Gods words to us. Gods word gets authority from its author, not from His servants.
@@BibleonaBoat Also I fail to see how this is not the same problem for you. If the Church has the authority, which tradition and which canon? Which is its own much larger topic that I dont think is something that should be hashed out in a YT comment section. That is a much larger topic worth several videos & much inc has been spilled over. But the starting point of the discussion cannot be the conclusion/presupposition.
@@PracticalChristianLessons I'm not seeing it addressed in other comments but I'll take your word for it. Would you go as far as saying a Bible containing only Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John is valid canon? Since you hold to sola scriptura, the burden is on you to show that scripture backs up your statement that the church does not have the authority to reject certain books from the canon of scripture. Where do the protestant traditions get the authority to say that Tobit isn't God's authoritative word, when Christ himself alludes to it in Matthew 7? Or Sirach, alluded to in Matthew 6? Or Wisdom when Paul quotes it in Romans 11?
The Council of Laodicea gave what is effectively the Protestant New Testament minus Revelation. The argument Orthodox and Catholics make of “700 years of uncertainty concerning scripture” is just not true.
I don't think the problem arises from differing canons _in se._ Rather, it is the combination of _sola scriptura_ and *denying* the inspiration of other books. I don't think that position can be rationally defended.
Leaving aside whether the early church was _sola sciptura_ (I don't think it was), the innovation of limiting inspiration to other books was done to vouchsafe the new beliefs about justification. All Christian churches and the overwhelming majority of people accepted the same basic Bible, and to get anything different you have to _Trail of Blood_ your way through history with all the same weaknesses that book has. The idea that only those books are inspired really has to be justified.
I was a Baptist, and the entire issue about this subject nearly made me leave the faith before I became Orthodox.
Take Jude 14-15 and I Enoch. Jude is quoting I Enoch as prophecy. *All* prophecy is inspired by definition. It is someone moved by a deity and speaking for it. Jude also uses the Scriptural formula "X prophesied saying..."
This is a formal contradiction to the Protestant canon, and none of the responses work. For instance, "The Bible quotes other books like pagan poets," but it never does so with a Scriptural formula nor does it call them a prophecy. It's an invalid comparison. If I Enoch is inspired, then inspiration cannot be limited to the Protestant Bible. If that's the case, it's very, very hard to deny inspiration to books all Christians accepted. If it's not, then there are far worse problems for the Protestant Bible in Jude (and an Matthew and Luke but less obviously).
Then there is the issue that the other books were demoted precisely to make the Bible able to say what Reformers wanted it to say. With II Maccabees, other passages like I Corinthians 3 became strong evidences of some form of purgatory. Rather than fit their beliefs to the Bible, they changed the Bible to support their beliefs.
Next came where it came from. Almost the entire line of _Trail of Blood_ arguments are full of people who got their position from Jerome. Jerome was wrong on almost every point. Most of the books were written in Hebrew. There was widespread variation, but it was eliminated in the first and second centuries, and the Jews did have an open canon (e.g. we have records of them removing Sirach and debating books into the second century). All the facts Jerome built his case on were wrong except for Origen monkeying with the LXX.
Those fathers that don't depend on Jerome people like don't reflect the Protestant canon. Athanasius both used the Apocrypha with Scripture formulations and said the Shepherd of Hermas is good to read. It claims to be a prophecy. If it's not inspired, it's literally a false prophet. Cyril adds a category for "books that are read" at the end of the quote people want (often snipped out), and he quotes from them. All the ones that don't depend on Jerome follow this pattern. Even having a three category canon is irreconcilable: they have a canonical list (inspired), books to be read (which they also treated as inspired), and books not to be read (and some authors used some of those as inspired). These authors contradict the Protestant canon. Even Josephus betrays it not just in having a different number of books than the rabbis, but in that he uses Esther with additions and I Esdras instead of Ezra-Nehemiah. He simply didn't use the later rabbinic canon, no matter how many anachronistic arguments people use for that.
Add to that that most arguments on the subject directly contradicted one of the things that persuaded me to be a Christian. "There were over 500 witnesses people could go and ask, so if it was false, it'd be found out" type of argument. To support the Protestant canon, I regularly heard arguments like "The Apocrypha never claims to be inspired" compared to II Esdras 2 or the fact that most of it is an addition to biblical books (Esther, Daniel, Jeremiah, II Chronicles, Psalms). This is simply false. All someone would have to do is load up a KJV with Apocrypha on a Bible site and search "thus saith the Lord" and read the background of the books. They couldn't be bothered. Another was "The NT never quotes apocrypha with a Scripture formula." Jude 14-15 shows that to be false. These require no specialized knowledge at all, no special skills, so they border on lies. However people wouldn't check them. Why should I believe people in antiquity would travel hundreds of miles on foot to talk to strangers when people I know couldn't even log onto a computer to do a search?
My professors in Bible college only made this worse by how they addressed things. I had to ask, "Why would people tell such transparent and verifiable lies?" I found out why. The Hebrew Bible was standardized in the second century under a Akhiva. He needed a standardized text for his novel method of interpreting Scripture, so he set about doing that. This is why Jerome had a stable text four centuries later. He also wanted to purify Judaism, so he spearheaded many discussions on canons. He and his students after him condemned apocryphal books, often alongside the Gospels, as part of that process. The other big thing he did was anoint Simon bar Kokhba the Christ, and they waged a three and a half year against the Romans together.
So all Protestant Bibles go back to Jerome. Jerome's claims go back to the rabbis. The rabbis go back to a literal antichrist in the second century. The Protestant canon cannot be defended unless it denies the inspiration outside of it, so it must be a closed canon in practice. You're right about there not being an issue with an open Bible. It's when you cross that red line of denying inspiration that all these problems arise. However if you have a more open Bible, you can have something like _sola scriptura,_ but you cannot reach the conclusions it was designed to reach, and you will almost certainly be forced to adopt one of the catholic canons since the usefulness of omitting II Maccabees disappears. Gor the English-speaking world this would probably look like the KJV with Apocrypha; III Maccabees has never had traction in the west. In either case, though, it's really hard to justify a Protestant position, and in one it's impossible.
So I only have 4 notes, the rest can be & is covered elsewhere. Such as many comments in my Sola Scriptura vieo.
1, we're not all Baptist. The Trail of Blood isn't a thing for the rest of us. It's not even a thing for all Baptist.
2, if Enoch is Scripture why don't all the various Orthodox tradition & the Roman Catholics count it as Scripture? Because they don't. A small amount do.
3, if the "invention" was to "protect a new doctrine." Well that's easy enough to disprove because several fathers taught not only Sola Scriptura, but also Sola Fide, which I will be making a video on at some point that you can engage with then.
4, Read Josephus's canon list. The "different number" comes from the naming of books. Those "differences" don't come from different books. They are the same content, and the books were named differently at times. Such as some had all the minor prophets in a single book, it combines 1st & 2nd kings into one book, 1st & 2nd Chronicles, Ezra & Nehemiah, etc.
@@PracticalChristianLessons I don't think you understand my arguments. I didn't dispute _sola scriptura_ beyond saying I didn't think it was held historically. For the purposes of my argument, I really don't care if it's true. I'm not concerned with _sola scriptura_ in pretty much any form save its intersection with denying inspiration to books that have been held as inspired. The doctrine is so elastic now that it's pretty much meaningless. When I was a Baptist we said Methodists don't believe in SS. Of course you do believe in it, but you mean something else by it. It's neither clear, nor understood until a person explains what they mean. If anything, it's an encumbrance, because the meaning is almost always assumed, and it changes both from church to church and person to person. It's not a necessary doctrine. It's no longer clear. It's not useful. I can certainly affirm some forms of it, but I rarely see the point in trying to affirm or deny it.
1. I don't think you understand why I referenced the _Trail of Blood._ Since it argues Baptists are the true church, I'm not so foolish as to believe a Methodist would subscribe to it. I was assuming you reject it. The appeal to historical canons to prove the Protestant canon is the same class of argument as the ToB. It takes things that contradict and don't agree (different books in the canon, a three-fold canon), then it finds anybody who rejects a book from the Roman Catholic Bible, or can even seem to reject one, whether he's heretical or orthodox, and then lists that person as affirming the Protestant canon. It's the _Trail of Blood,_ but with book lists instead of Baptist churches. These types of arguments are like gematria or astrology. You can always find what you want.
Take Cardinal Cajetan, whom you mentioned as evidence the Protestant canon was historically grounded. He didn't hold the Protestant canon. He held something else, and he was incredibly ambiguous to boot: "These are not canonical, but they are held as canonical." ToB arguments are inherently unsound for reasons like that.
2. That doesn't address the problem I Enoch poses at all. I'll break the syllogism down clearly so that all premises are clear:
A.
-1. All prophecies are inspired by definition.
-2. "X prophesied saying..." is everywhere else a Scripture quotation formula.
-3 Jude quoted I Enoch as "Enoch prophesied saying"
-Con. Jude called quoted I Enoch as Scripture
B.
-1. The Protestant canon lists 66 books.
-2. Only books in the canon are inspired.
-3. Inspiration gives some sort of infallibility
-4. Jude treats I Enoch as Scripture (Syllogism A above)
-Con. Jude contradicts the Protestant canon.
Orthodox can deal with this; we don't affirm B2. We have an actual open canon not a rhetorical one so that we don't have an issue. Roman Catholics have had an open canon historically and can technically still don't officially deny books they didn't affirm. They need only call it "private revelation, but which is affirmed as valid by Scripture." They don't have an issue. This syllogism is only a problem for the Protestant canon, because everybody else has some open-ended spot for inspiration in other books.
3.
I feel about _sola fide_ about the same I do _sola scriptura._ My Latin isn't good enough to know the range of meaning for _fides_ for certain, but if we translate that to μονῇ πιστεῖ I could affirm it. The problem is πίστις can mean "belief, trust, loyalty, faithfulness, evidence, or a deposit," and that isn't exhaustive. What I would mean by it would be denied by others, and there's a good chance by you. What you mean will be denied by others.
It also doesn't matter if the Church fathers affirmed it. That's not black and white at all, as I can quote mine denials for every author people quote mine affirmations from, and people are rarely willing to get into the weeds on one author. It's easier to quote mine the Fathers than it is the Bible, after all. There's a lot more, and they are a lot more ambiguous. I've seen plenty of lists for and against, often with the same quotes. I have a few I keep handy as a quick way to learn who's copying and pasting and who's actually read the books.
What is more relevant is that when the Reformers were proposing it, it was radical and novel. They were arguing for a new doctrine in their context, and they needed to change the Bible to support it. II Maccabees, Sirach, and Tobit all affirm things they wanted to deny. It just happened to be II Maccabees that got the axe first. It could not be supported with those books as a part of Scripture, so they were eliminated. This is completely backwards of how things should go. We argue our doctrine from Scripture. If we need to change Scripture, then we have to argue that before we argue our doctrine. In the opposite direction, it just shows the doctrine is unsound.
4.
Josephus gives no canon list. He simply says they have 22 books and that Jews don't dare to add or take from it because there is not exact succession of prophets after that. That's all he says relevant to the canon. It's not a canon list, because it has no list at all. Saying he gives a canon list is like saying "I have a grocery list" but the list doesn't have any items. Neither does he say that's the only things they regard as Scripture, because he may be differentiating by quality, whether this overlap from one author to the next, or something else. Neither did he necessarily mean πιστεύω in the religious sense, as he never really uses it that way. The statement can still be true and have Scripture written after that that he affirmed. It's even possible, based on some of his wording, he thought he was a prophet writing Scripture. It's a pretty ambiguous statement.
We know the later Hebrew Bible didn't exist then as a universally held canon, so he couldn't enumerate a book list that had not yet developed. We know Ecclesiastes, Song of Songs, and Esther were disputed for at least another hundred years, because we have receipts for debates into the second century. For those books, we know he uses a different Esther than what made it in. It has the additions in the LXX. His story of Ezra follows I Esdras almost exactly, with only one departure. Therefore we know the "Ezra" he used and called universally accepted wasn't the one that made it in. Anybody can verify this by taking the stories, their wording, and comparing what is present and absent and in what order it comes to both I Esdras and Ezra-Nehemiah. Josphus didn't seem to even know the Ezra-Nehemiah that was canonized a century later. We also know that Sirach was in the broadly accepted Bible, because we have the record of its removal in the second century. Other than playing with numbers, I see no evidence Josephus held the rabbinic Bible, and positive evidence he held something else.
All of this together goes with, I agree with you that an open canon isn't a problem. However, I don't think open canons as legal fictions ("We have the only inspired books; they have books that are just human") or stop gaps are actually open canons.
@@kainech I understood your argument, and no the Reformation was not a bunch of new and radical teachings. It was teachings that were already present & had always been so. And if "denying inspiration" is the charge, then every church that denies it (including the Ecclesiasts) still has the same problem in your point above they simply don't have Sola Scriptura.
@@PracticalChristianLessons If you understood my position, why did you respond as if I thought you believed the _Trail of Blood?_
Not being in the canon does not make it not inspired. You even mentioned in the video that Orthodox Churches hold this position. You can't shift to this tactic on the syllogism here. It's only a problem if inspiration is denied. Inspiration hasn't been treated as a binary in history either, so it's within the lines to say it's inspired but not say it's infallible.
However, if even if I granted your argument, then the conclusion would still follow. It would just mean everybody but Ethiopia was formally wrong. Your _tu quoque_ doesn't resolve the issue. It's a formal contradiction.
@@kainech I did think you were equating it to all Protestants, but I understood what you meant by using it as a comparison. And you also make a mistake in the Protestant position overall. Not all Protestants hold to a closed canon, and accept things like Enoch might be inspiried even if we do not accept it as cannonical. The Anglicans in particular take a stance much more similar in their view of the Apocrypha.
Nor am I interested in the supposed "to quoque" not solving it [which I do not grant because 1 it's not a tu quogue, and 2 it in fact does poke a giant hole in the supposed dilemna put forth]. I don't hold to Enoch being inspired, and even if it was I would take the stance of the majority of the Church in holding it is not canonical. I could have a long talk about how various things are inspired, and what that means, and go through many examples of the fathers holding things as inspired but not to the same level as Scripture. Which is not alien to the Reformation thought.
Since you claim to have this great authority of scripture yourself, and deem anyone who invokes the authority of the early church "in the minority" I challenge you to defend your claims in a debate with Militant Thomist or any Catholic Scholar with even a basic knowledge of the early church fathers, the ecumenical councils, and basic ecclesiology. If not, then you preach in vain and concede against your own arguments of authority.
Rawrr screeched the cat
You need to take it to at least a double dog dare
Scary
The councils of the Church established the Canon. If not, there is no way to authenticate which books belong in the NT and which do not. Also, if you read contemporary accounts of Christianity during the first century, like the Didache, you see that the first Christians were very liturgical in their worship, believed in the Holy Eucharist as the true substance of Christ, infant baptism, etc. The early Church was Catholic. It was represented in both the East and the West.
"you see that the first Christians were very liturgical in their worship, believed in the Holy Eucharist as the true substance of Christ, infant baptism, etc."
Just as the Magisterial Protestants.
I address your other claim in many comments under my video "Why Sola Scriptura is True."
I give up christianity.
Jesus loves you.
My brother in Christ, I respect your fervor for the Lord, but Orthodoxy and Catholicism have the same books. Saying otherwise is disingenuous, even within the argument of "when the canon was resolved."
Secondly, you don't do yourself a service when you go, "I don't study Church history" then say "based on Church history, here's why I think this is canon." You can't have an admitedly incomplete view on Church history and say you don't like the argument of apostolic succession having precedence then try to give your own historical reasoning behind canon. It's just like having your own interpretation of the scripture content itself. Thats why you have to end up having an "open canon" because you're only focusing on denying what's canon, not defining why and where your canon comes from. The Church defines, yet again Protestants "protest".
I did not argue about what books are in the Eastern Orthodox Canon (though there are in fact different canon list among the different Orthodox traditions) and Roman Catholicism. We do share the same core of books even if we disagree on a few others.
I do study Church history, I never said I don't study Church history. If I did, that was a mistake in my speech.
@@PracticalChristianLessons fair enough
@@Steve_Trotta @Steve_Trotta I have listened back, I definitely misspoke. I meant to say I do not study the detailed history of the debates, I have studied the history of the development of the canon. I am aware of many of the debates, I am simply not interested in digging into the fine details of those debates.
@PracticalChristianLessons i can see what you meant now. You were referring to a specific subset of Church history topics.
At Jesus baptism there was a voice from Heaven announcing he is God's Son. At mount Sinai the Israelites heard God's voice and got ample verification that what Moses spoke is what God endorsed. Yet, for the New Testament canon, it's crickets. I can't find any tangible evidence that the risen Christ, or the Holy Spirit endorses the 27 book N.T. canon. Yet, every Bishop and his Deacon, want me to confess that Jesus endorses all of it and that I had better do all of what is contained within it. Strange times. Strange times. I don't think St Anthony of the Desert had to put up with that.