How do you determine which NT-era books are authoritative?

[Kansasdad]

Kansasdad I have to disagree about something. In the early church there was alot of disagreement about the trinity and dual nature of Christ. Hence the need for the Nicean creed and Apostles creed. It took bishops over fifty years to settle the issues surrounding the Nicence Creed. It was much a product of compromise than orthodox definition. When the christians fell into theological debate they looked first to scripture and tradition, then to exegesis and reason. However the true teachings of the apostles were consistent across all the diverse Christian comunities. When we confess a catholic and apostolic faith, we embrace the historical strength of the core inheritance (the Gospel, sacraments) and the breadth of its rich variations. Roman christianity was essential to apostolic tradition but it should not overrule scripture or override local custom. Rome, and not the reformers was the one guilty of theological innovation, though the reformers were guilty of annulment of the scriptures based on doctrine.

Tradition by itself should not be the foundation of church practice, noting the differences in the early churches (though the sacraments were same throughout). Liberty from dogmatic authority as well as veneration of the past is integral to use of tradition. Scripture and tradition have lived out of critical thinking.

Embrace the authority of tradition but declare only scripture is necessary for salvation.

OK not sure where we disagreed? I absolutely agree that not everything said lined up with scripture. One must always weigh it against scripture. Through the years there has been many practices that were NEVER considered apostolic Tradition, but merely the practice of some bishop. It was never considered infallible. It is important to determine which is which.

[Kansasdad]

So we clearly know that the books of the Bible are indeed scripture, (the words of God) because we know these men were taught by the Apostles and therefore knew what the Apostles taught, and could recognise false teachings.

Scripture is scripture, and the apostles who wrote it are the apostles we need to heed. None others.

We can trust only that God preserved His word throught the work of valuable, yet fallible individuals, just like you and I. that is the miracle of God's Word.

It is getting rather grating to read the phrase, "Apostolic Tradition" over and over like it was some sort of mantra. Is there another song in your repertoire?

Ok how about Apostolic teaching.

And you have once again side stepped the question at hand. If you continue to say what they taught about scripture was false then you can not turn around and say they had the protection of God to recognise true scripture from false. You cannot have it both ways. If they were not capable of recognising the Words of God then they were not capable of putting together the Bible. Which puts you back to the same delima. You can not claim that the books in the Bible are in fact the only accurate words of God in print with out also recognising the men who made that determination. If you denounce one you have to denounce the other. If you recognise one you must recognise the other. I know this puts you in a real difficult position. However if you maintain your position then the OP has a legitimate claim and you have no basis to refute him.

Didn't I just communicate that God used fallible men in the process? It isn't their own minds that were at work in the "project". It was the supreme mind of God. His intelligence, His Spirit, His decision-making all filtered through fallible , weak gray matter.

I am not in any difficult position and I do not have any illusions about these men.

So once God was done creating the canon of the Bible, did all this knowledge just disappear. God abandoned them then? OH and what happened for the several hundred years after the Apostles and before the bible. How was his word protected for those generations?

[Floatingaxe]

So we clearly know that the books of the Bible are indeed scripture, (the words of God) because we know these men were taught by the Apostles and therefore knew what the Apostles taught, and could recognise false teachings.

Scripture is scripture, and the apostles who wrote it are the apostles we need to heed. None others.

We can trust only that God preserved His word throught the work of valuable, yet fallible individuals, just like you and I. that is the miracle of God's Word.

It is getting rather grating to read the phrase, "Apostolic Tradition" over and over like it was some sort of mantra. Is there another song in your repertoire?

Ok how about Apostolic teaching.

And you have once again side stepped the question at hand. If you continue to say what they taught about scripture was false then you can not turn around and say they had the protection of God to recognise true scripture from false. You cannot have it both ways. If they were not capable of recognising the Words of God then they were not capable of putting together the Bible. Which puts you back to the same delima. You can not claim that the books in the Bible are in fact the only accurate words of God in print with out also recognising the men who made that determination. If you denounce one you have to denounce the other. If you recognise one you must recognise the other. I know this puts you in a real difficult position. However if you maintain your position then the OP has a legitimate claim and you have no basis to refute him.

Didn't I just communicate that God used fallible men in the process? It isn't their own minds that were at work in the "project". It was the supreme mind of God. His intelligence, His Spirit, His decision-making all filtered through fallible , weak gray matter.

I am not in any difficult position and I do not have any illusions about these men.

So once God was done creating the canon of the Bible, did all this knowledge just disappear. God abandoned them then? OH and what happened for the several hundred years after the Apostles and before the bible. How was his word protected for those generations?

Just the FACT that it WAS preserved, is satisfactory for me! No knowledge has disappeared! God abandoned no one! I don't know what you are egging me on about. He used ordinary people, fallible and imperfect, just like us, to carry the Word to the present. They are mostly unheard of by the majority, and that's OK, as it is the content and the power of the Word that overshadows its beginnings.

If you consider it important to know the history, then be my guest and learn of it. For me, I would rather know what is between the covers of the 66-book library we have, preserved for us in all its perfection and power! Praise be to God!

I prefer and choose to not be distracted by side arguments. God is sovereign and He has given us His perfect Word!

[hatsoff]

Here's a short list of invaluable writings which could have been preserved:

The Gospel Q

The Egerton Gospel

Gospel of the Hebrews

The Apocalypse of Peter

Interpretations of the Sayings of the Lord

[Guest]

God is sovereign and He has given us His perfect Word!

"Heaven and earth shall pass away: but my words shall not pass away." (Mark 13:31)

"Thy word have I hid in mine heart, that I might not sin against thee." (Psalms 119:11)

"For I testify unto every man that heareth the words of the prophecy of this book, If any man shall add unto these things, God shall add unto him the plagues that are written in this book: And if any man shall take away from the words of the book of this prophecy, God shall take away his part out of the book of life, and out of the holy city, and from the things which are written in this book." (Revelation 22:18-19)

[Kansasdad]

Just the FACT that it WAS preserved, is satisfactory for me! No knowledge has disappeared! God abandoned no one! I don't know what you are egging me on about. He used ordinary people, fallible and imperfect, just like us, to carry the Word to the present. They are mostly unheard of by the majority, and that's OK, as it is the content and the power of the Word that overshadows its beginnings.

If you consider it important to know the history, then be my guest and learn of it. For me, I would rather know what is between the covers of the 66-book library we have, preserved for us in all its perfection and power! Praise be to God!

I prefer and choose to not be distracted by side arguments. God is sovereign and He has given us His perfect Word!

I truly understand that you do not see how this is important, and I am not trying to pick on you.

The reason this is important is exactly because of the situation we have on this thread. If what you say is true that Gods word was protects through basically unknown men that were unheard from by the majority, then how do we place our trust in the group of guys that gave us the cannon of the Bible. There are other groups who claim that other written material are infact Holy Scripture, written words like, The Gospel Q, The Egerton Gospel, Gospel of the Hebrews, or the Apocalypse of Peter. These writings have survived and we have them today so one could claim that God protected them. If we have no criteria to base our trust in the men that came up with the Bible, Then how can we trust that we had the right group of men in the first place. Without some criteria we open the door to questions like the one presented in this thread and we have no way of defending our position. Their claim is not that God didn't protect his word their claim is that we are not following that which God protected.

The only defense one can have is that these men can trace their teaching back to the Apostles. Therefore any group that can not trace their teaching back to the Apostles would not be considered to have this protection from God. Otherwise the poster has a valid claim. That is why this is important.

[Floatingaxe]

Just the FACT that it WAS preserved, is satisfactory for me! No knowledge has disappeared! God abandoned no one! I don't know what you are egging me on about. He used ordinary people, fallible and imperfect, just like us, to carry the Word to the present. They are mostly unheard of by the majority, and that's OK, as it is the content and the power of the Word that overshadows its beginnings.

If you consider it important to know the history, then be my guest and learn of it. For me, I would rather know what is between the covers of the 66-book library we have, preserved for us in all its perfection and power! Praise be to God!

I prefer and choose to not be distracted by side arguments. God is sovereign and He has given us His perfect Word!

I truly understand that you do not see how this is important, and I am not trying to pick on you.

The reason this is important is exactly because of the situation we have on this thread. If what you say is true that Gods word was protects through basically unknown men that were unheard from by the majority, then how do we place our trust in the group of guys that gave us the cannon of the Bible. There are other groups who claim that other written material are infact Holy Scripture, written words like, The Gospel Q, The Egerton Gospel, Gospel of the Hebrews, or the Apocalypse of Peter. These writings have survived and we have them today so one could claim that God protected them. If we have no criteria to base our trust in the men that came up with the Bible, Then how can we trust that we had the right group of men in the first place. Without some criteria we open the door to questions like the one presented in this thread and we have no way of defending our position. Their claim is not that God didn't protect his word their claim is that we are not following that which God protected.

The only defense one can have is that these men can trace their teaching back to the Apostles. Therefore any group that can not trace their teaching back to the Apostles would not be considered to have this protection from God. Otherwise the poster has a valid claim. That is why this is important.

My trust is in God alone, not a group of guys. I certainly salute them for their wonderful efforts working hard fulfilling the calling of the God they love, and God will reward them for their heroic work, and I would love to meet them someday in heaven, but right now, what is most important is living the Word of God, and bringing people to the Saviour.

I don't give a fig what other groups would like to include in the canon. I trust God! He has seen to it that we have what we need, as He has done it all! They can trace their teaching back to any apostle all they want, but unless it has the power to convict men of sin, change lives and heal and cut through lies, as the Word of God does, being even sharper than double edged sword, then it is more than useless.

[Kansasdad]

Just the FACT that it WAS preserved, is satisfactory for me! No knowledge has disappeared! God abandoned no one! I don't know what you are egging me on about. He used ordinary people, fallible and imperfect, just like us, to carry the Word to the present. They are mostly unheard of by the majority, and that's OK, as it is the content and the power of the Word that overshadows its beginnings.

If you consider it important to know the history, then be my guest and learn of it. For me, I would rather know what is between the covers of the 66-book library we have, preserved for us in all its perfection and power! Praise be to God!

I prefer and choose to not be distracted by side arguments. God is sovereign and He has given us His perfect Word!

I truly understand that you do not see how this is important, and I am not trying to pick on you.

The reason this is important is exactly because of the situation we have on this thread. If what you say is true that Gods word was protects through basically unknown men that were unheard from by the majority, then how do we place our trust in the group of guys that gave us the cannon of the Bible. There are other groups who claim that other written material are infact Holy Scripture, written words like, The Gospel Q, The Egerton Gospel, Gospel of the Hebrews, or the Apocalypse of Peter. These writings have survived and we have them today so one could claim that God protected them. If we have no criteria to base our trust in the men that came up with the Bible, Then how can we trust that we had the right group of men in the first place. Without some criteria we open the door to questions like the one presented in this thread and we have no way of defending our position. Their claim is not that God didn't protect his word their claim is that we are not following that which God protected.

The only defense one can have is that these men can trace their teaching back to the Apostles. Therefore any group that can not trace their teaching back to the Apostles would not be considered to have this protection from God. Otherwise the poster has a valid claim. That is why this is important.

My trust is in God alone, not a group of guys. I certainly salute them for their wonderful efforts working hard fulfilling the calling of the God they love, and God will reward them for their heroic work, and I would love to meet them someday in heaven, but right now, what is most important is living the Word of God, and bringing people to the Saviour.

I don't give a fig what other groups would like to include in the canon. I trust God! He has seen to it that we have what we need, as He has done it all! They can trace their teaching back to any apostle all they want, but unless it has the power to convict men of sin, change lives and heal and cut through lies, as the Word of God does, being even sharper than double edged sword, then it is more than useless.

I understand that. I am not disputing Gods promise at all.

But how do you know God used those particular group of Guys to do his work?

How do you know that God didn't use a different group?

[EricH]

So we clearly know that the books of the Bible are indeed scripture, (the words of God) because we know these men were taught by the Apostles and therefore knew what the Apostles taught, and could recognise false teachings.

Scripture is scripture, and the apostles who wrote it are the apostles we need to heed. None others.

We can trust only that God preserved His word throught the work of valuable, yet fallible individuals, just like you and I. that is the miracle of God's Word.

It is getting rather grating to read the phrase, "Apostolic Tradition" over and over like it was some sort of mantra. Is there another song in your repertoire?

Ok how about Apostolic teaching.

And you have once again side stepped the question at hand. If you continue to say what they taught about scripture was false then you can not turn around and say they had the protection of God to recognise true scripture from false. You cannot have it both ways. If they were not capable of recognising the Words of God then they were not capable of putting together the Bible. Which puts you back to the same delima. You can not claim that the books in the Bible are in fact the only accurate words of God in print with out also recognising the men who made that determination. If you denounce one you have to denounce the other. If you recognise one you must recognise the other. I know this puts you in a real difficult position. However if you maintain your position then the OP has a legitimate claim and you have no basis to refute him.

Didn't I just communicate that God used fallible men in the process? It isn't their own minds that were at work in the "project". It was the supreme mind of God. His intelligence, His Spirit, His decision-making all filtered through fallible , weak gray matter.

I am not in any difficult position and I do not have any illusions about these men.

So once God was done creating the canon of the Bible, did all this knowledge just disappear. God abandoned them then? OH and what happened for the several hundred years after the Apostles and before the bible. How was his word protected for those generations?

That is a logical jump. We woulod only say God abandoned people if He left no alternative. Since the scriptures contain all that is needed for salvation and life, He has not abandoned them. Your question regarding the encoding of scripture is a non issue. If you read textual history, you will see than most churhces before the canonization process had in their possession copies of the texts of the NT and OT. In addition, there was near universal agreement regarding which apostolic writings should be considered authoritative, and which should not. By the time of the councils there were only 1 or 2 books that were under discussion.

You question makes it sound like we had not texts until the councils. That is simply not true. The word was protected by God himself. Jesus made that promise

[Floatingaxe]

Just the FACT that it WAS preserved, is satisfactory for me! No knowledge has disappeared! God abandoned no one! I don't know what you are egging me on about. He used ordinary people, fallible and imperfect, just like us, to carry the Word to the present. They are mostly unheard of by the majority, and that's OK, as it is the content and the power of the Word that overshadows its beginnings.

If you consider it important to know the history, then be my guest and learn of it. For me, I would rather know what is between the covers of the 66-book library we have, preserved for us in all its perfection and power! Praise be to God!

I prefer and choose to not be distracted by side arguments. God is sovereign and He has given us His perfect Word!

I truly understand that you do not see how this is important, and I am not trying to pick on you.

The reason this is important is exactly because of the situation we have on this thread. If what you say is true that Gods word was protects through basically unknown men that were unheard from by the majority, then how do we place our trust in the group of guys that gave us the cannon of the Bible. There are other groups who claim that other written material are infact Holy Scripture, written words like, The Gospel Q, The Egerton Gospel, Gospel of the Hebrews, or the Apocalypse of Peter. These writings have survived and we have them today so one could claim that God protected them. If we have no criteria to base our trust in the men that came up with the Bible, Then how can we trust that we had the right group of men in the first place. Without some criteria we open the door to questions like the one presented in this thread and we have no way of defending our position. Their claim is not that God didn't protect his word their claim is that we are not following that which God protected.

The only defense one can have is that these men can trace their teaching back to the Apostles. Therefore any group that can not trace their teaching back to the Apostles would not be considered to have this protection from God. Otherwise the poster has a valid claim. That is why this is important.

My trust is in God alone, not a group of guys. I certainly salute them for their wonderful efforts working hard fulfilling the calling of the God they love, and God will reward them for their heroic work, and I would love to meet them someday in heaven, but right now, what is most important is living the Word of God, and bringing people to the Saviour.

I don't give a fig what other groups would like to include in the canon. I trust God! He has seen to it that we have what we need, as He has done it all! They can trace their teaching back to any apostle all they want, but unless it has the power to convict men of sin, change lives and heal and cut through lies, as the Word of God does, being even sharper than double edged sword, then it is more than useless.

I understand that. I am not disputing Gods promise at all.

But how do you know God used those particular group of Guys to do his work?

How do you know that God didn't use a different group?

It's called faith and trust in the Father. The evidence is in the Word itself. It is living and has power as nothing else does.