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I have always determined canon by early church fathers usage. The early Christians still had spiritual gifts to determine inspiration, but those passed away.
I guess that is kind of what I am trying to understand. The early Christians included the Deuterocanonicals/ apocryphal books for nearly 1,500 years which is why both the Orthodox and Catholics include them. The original King James Bible included them because Christian Tradition had always included them. These books have been included in the Christian bible for nearly all of our 2,000 year history. Even the KJV Bible included these books until 1885 - so the KJV has only excluded them for the past 135 years.
If, as you say, the gift to determine scripture has passed away then who are you - or who am I to "determine Canon"? Who was rightfully able to make that decision in 1885, or in the 1500's for that matter?
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We have the bible now so we no longer need new revelation.
This is precisely the problem isn't it? Our Bibles are not the same so either yours is missing something or mine has too much but which is it? How can we know we are correct some 1900 years after the last word was written?
If you believe in Sola Scriptura I would think this is a pretty major issue.
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Determining what is inspired we rely on what the early church considered canon. Believe it or not we have a lot of info on the usage of the different books in the early church writings, and that's why everyone generally agrees on most of scriptures credibility. We are discussing the controversial here.
That's why I want to hear strong arguments for and against their inclusion into canon.
My argument that they are in fact canonical is that they have been included in the Bible by the apostolic church that Christ founded. This is evident in both the Orthodox and Catholic Traditions and goes all the way back to the beginning.
No individual human being today - not you, or me, or the Pope, or Martin Luther, or anyone - has the ability or authority to determine scripture or what is inspired. This can only be done through the church, guided into all truth and protected by the Holy Spirit.
The Bible is the inspired word of God. It was written by fallible men under the inspiration of the Holy Spirit. In a similar way, over many generations, these inspired writings were collected by fallible men who tested them (and many other writings) against the Traditions and Faith that had been passed down through the Apostles. These fallible men were inspired to determine and recognize which books belonged in the Canon and which did not. This is an example of the Holy Spirit guiding the Church with infallibility. For this reason i would submit that these books belong in the Bible.