Jabin said:

---

Of course you can have canon without councils. The church had a canon for hundreds of years prior to the first council. You guys state RCC dogma as if were evidence or even persuasive argument.

And we do not know what was actually debated or decided at those councils because, as far as I know, no records were kept.

---

Quote:

---

The Apostolic Church excluded it.

---

Redstone said:

---

A major criteria was some measure of "conformity" to the teachings of the Apostles and their successors, hinted at, for example, in the writings of Clement - which were almost included in the canon.

---

Redstone said:

---

We have plenty of records, in fragments and in whole. The debaters wanted an audience, generally.

https://shop.catholic.com/the-bible-is-a-catholic-book/

---

Redstone said:

---

Let's be specific.

Council of Rome (AD 382)
Synod of Hippo (AD 393)
Council of Carthage (AD 397)
Council of Carthage (AD 419)

Related, the meetings of why many Catholic and Orthodox use the term "Apostolic," agreeing as we do on the canon: Council of Florence (1431 to 1449)

These meetings are why the canon is so thoroughly Catholic. These meetings are major reasons WHY Enoch is out, despite being quoted in Jude, and the quite controversial Revelation was in.

---

Redstone said:

---

In the 300s, Barnabas was included in an important early Bible, Codex Sinaiticus.

Christians thought it important (like much of Scripture, authorship is "school of" and "in honor of")….

Barnabas was widely read.

So, why not for us?

The Apostolic Church excluded it.

---

Terminus Est said:

---

AgLiving06 said:

---

Terminus Est said:

---

AgLiving06 said:

---

Terminus Est said:

---

AgLiving06 said:

---

Terminus Est said:

---

Quote:

---

As our resident EO has pointed out, they don't read Revelation during their Divine Service.

---

These sorts of throw away lines are why it is hard to take you seriously. You get backed into a corner; so you just say something that while true, isn't germane to the topic at hand.

What is the quote trying to achieve? Are you claiming Revelation is actually not a part of scripture as the Orthodox don't use it in their Liturgy?

How does this speak to Redstone's statements that Revelation being included in Biblical canon, whereas Enoch was not, despite its heavier bonafides as proof of the necessity of the Church? I'll hang up and listen.

---

It's absolutely true and germane to the discussion.

There is a recognition of tiers among all kinds of groups understand and acknowledge that though books may be "part of the canon," that does not make them "equal."

---

What does this have to do with whether they're considered scripture or not? Or with the process that deemed them so?

---

Because it causes significant issues for you and Redstone. Restone's claim is that "the Church established the canon in an active role with councils and what not.

However, history shows that the vast majority of the canon did not require councils or anything of that nature. So then we see that there is a historical understanding, that differs within groups, that some books took longer to be accepted and their acceptance comes with a "second tier status."

Redstone has a problem. He can't point to a mythical church or council that unified the canon. What we see is a church that came to agree with what the the majority of believers already knew to be canon. So the role of the church is one of passive (thank the Lord) and not active

---

You are incoherent, you brought up the point about the absence of Revelation in Orthodox Liturgy as a red herring so you wouldn't have to answer Redstone's question about why some books were included in the canon and some weren't. Much like my "who is the church" question on another thread, you can't give straight answers; because a straight answer would invalidate your position. You have to make oblique references, say things that while true aren't even tangentially related to the topic at hand, and then of course; declare that no one else is making sense.

So once again, you claim that the "vast majority of the canon didn't require councils"; I would argue that all of the canon required councils because without the councils they're just someone's preferred reading list; but even with that; what about the books that weren't included in the "vast majority"? What about the very books that Redstone has named that you've yet to explain how they became to be canonical?

You have no canon without the councils; it doesn't matter what a majority of people believe; look at the Arian heresy for a great example of where the majority can be in the wrong. This does make me better understand the structure of Protestant belief however; where it's believed that if enough people want something magically it becomes the new canon. Certainly explains the huge liberalization of beliefs concerning contraception, lgbtq issues and divorce within the Protestant sphere that magically coincided with societal liberalization.

---

I've answered (I think) every question that I've been asked by Redstone.

The problem is that you want me to accept as fact something I will not do...namely that an infallible church or councils or whatever are necessary to have a canon. That's a statement that lacks historical evidence and frankly just doesn't hold up.

So I've answered clearly that a council, defined by some infallible source, was not necessary and not apart of christian history.

Revelation shows that there has been a long tradition of seeing that something can be later accepted into canon by a group (still not this mythical church) and treated in a different manner, while seeing many of the books as having never been disputed.

Your third paragraph is just Roman Catholic nonsense. You don't even attempt to defend it other than nonsensical claims. Not worth a further response.

Last paragraph as well is just nonsense and built on the presupposition that you need a council when the history of the Church disagrees.

---

I don't think you are capable of accepting facts as such because of what that realization would entail. Your position is that important issues such as dogmas, biblical canon, heresies, were all either confirmed or refuted based on some sort of group consensus without needing a conciliar ruling. This is preposterous since the entire purpose of the early church councils were to make rulings on issues that had questions. There would have been no need for councils, if Christianity had progressed in the way that you claim; with everyone somehow agreeing on everything. This is evidenced by the Arian heresy, as I've mentioned, and with the exclusion and inclusion of certain books in the canon.

I have zero clue how you can have any knowledge of your faith and say that councils are not part of Christian history. It speaks to a faith that begins in the 16th century, and not the 1st. Again, this is evident in the fact that that your beliefs wander all over the map, because they are tied to nothing other than "what most people agree on". Again, this is why you have Homosexually married clergy, approval of birth control, and even abortion; the ELCA calling for abortion to be "legal, regulated and accessible" was an eye opener, it was of course issued by a female "bishop".

You can't just pretend things don't make sense or are nonsense when you can't argue against them.

---

Redstone said:

---

How exactly is a document exposed by a Catholic researcher parallel to arguments of canon, debated and decided within councils for that purpose?

---

Redstone said:

---

Quote:

---

That the Holy Spirit was active in protecting the Word of God should not be surprising.

---

Of course it's not surprising. This protection is exactly what I'm arguing for. Once again, the question is method and means - just as Christ used the Apostles and their successors in His missions, …. WHO DECIDED CANON, AND HOW ?

---

Redstone said:

---

The Church has endured major credibility issues ever since St. Peter, newly ordained priest at the Last Supper, embraced Luciferianism and explicitly denied Our Lord three times. It has a major problem now with Francis, who is truly awful. Nothing new.

The Church is human and supernatural at the same time, in the same space. We always need prayer and repentance.

There was a lot of ugliness and personal attacks as the Apostolic Church codified canon over 400 years. How blessed are we to have this holy product? Let's be glad for it, and for the many priests who exposed forgeries via science, and also gave the world hospitals, universities, and hotels.

Peterine primacy is 2,000 years old.

The Orthodox even accept it….

They just want Antioch / Alexandria / Constantinople included, and their arguments are solid. The future is communion. So, no, let's not be dramatic. I'm happy forgeries are exposed, and also happy when science validates, as it has with the Shroud of Turin.
https://texags.com/forums/15/topics/3187078

"Infallible" is very narrow. Here's a good exercise: when was the last declaration? What did that look like? It's very different from the nonsense many Bishops, including Francis, spew. The Holy Spirit protects, thank God.

---

Redstone said:

---

The concept and reality is similar, abstractly, to annulment: a declaration of what exists.

The dogmas of St. Mary have been taught for 2,000 years by Apostolic, East and West.
….since proclaimed by the First Vatican Council in 1870, invoked once in defining a dogma ex cathedra that all Catholics must believe.

Pope Pius XII declared that all Catholics (including us, today) must accept "that the Immaculate Mother of God, the ever Virgin Mary, having completed the course of her earthly life, was assumed body and soul into heavenly glory."

This is the fourth of the Marian dogmas of the Church. Codified after 2,000 years - I suppose we tend to "think" in centuries, which is healthy.

Weaponized ambiguity, including by many Catholics, is lamentable. I hope our leaders return to clarity.

---

Quote:

---

This is where is gets very dicey for your position. You attempt to nuance and qualify your position as if it was the clear, historical position of Christians and that the "disputed books" are sort of scripture but when push comes to shove you side with the position of not equal to Scripture so NOT SCRIPTURE.

Of course you admit the books were in the Bible for more than 1,000 years but they were not actually IN the Bible. They were just printed in the Bible but everyone just knew they were not Scripture because Jerome used the word "apocrypha" to describe them before he translated them and included them with the real Scriptures in the same Bible.

---

Quote:

---

Your answer here begs the question of HOW and WHEN did GOD decide Revelation was in and Enoch out? What was the process and how do WE KNOW was GOD decided? Please be specific with this answer.

---

Quote:

---

This is where your preconceived animosity toward Rome interferes with your ability to be objective, and is why you are unable to provide a direct, logical, coherent response to what are simple, straightforward questions.

Furthermore, you fail to see that it is YOUR position (not the Catholic or Orthodox) that places YOU in the terrifying position of relying on the actions of man acting on their own.

---

Quote:

---

Jesus promised he would send the Holy Spirit to guide the CHURCH. The church is comprised of fallible men. In the same way the Holy Spirit guided the men leading the church who wrote Scriptures (Paul, Luke, Matthew, etc.) and protected them from error (infallibility), the Holy Spirit guided the men leading the same church to collect, discern, and recognize which of these writings would be included in the Bible and protected them from error in that process (infallibility).

---

Quote:

---

Yet another example of your twisting the meaning of what others are saying. Jesus established his NT Church ON Peter and the Apostles and through them the NT Church came to be. It was the precise reason Jesus chose them to follow him. Jesus breathed on them commanding them to receive the Holy Spirit. So yes, Peter and the Apostles did exist before the NT Church was born so to speak

---

Quote:

---

This is not what Redstone has claimed. You are putting words into Redstone's mouth. You have twisted his words to mean something slightly different in an attempt to make a point. Typical straw-man.

---

Quote:

---

Are you saying that some of the cannon required councils or something similar? Again, WHO decides/decided? Why isn't Enoch considered Scripture? It was treated as Scripture by many in the early days, and was referenced by Jesus himself THE WORD. How is it that Enoch can be excluded from the canon using your "historical" view?

---

Redstone said:

---

1. The Assumption was assumed for 1,500 years. During that time, how many writings can you find against it?

2. St. Epiphanius' Panarion, Refutation of All Heresies, written about 350

"Like the bodies of the saints, however, she has been held in honor for her character and understanding. And if I should say anything more in her praise, she is like Elijah, who was virgin from his mother's womb, always remained so, and was taken up, but has not seen death (Panarion 79)."

---

Quote:

---

1. We have learned from none others the plan of our salvation, than from those through whom the Gospel has come down to us, which they did at one time proclaim in public, and, at a later period, by the will of God, handed down to us in the Scriptures, to be the ground and pillar of our faith. For it is unlawful to assert that they preached before they possessed "perfect knowledge," as some do even venture to say, boasting themselves as improvers of the apostles. For, after our Lord rose from the dead, [the apostles] were invested with power from on high when the Holy Spirit came down [upon them], were filled from all [His gifts], and had perfect knowledge: they departed to the ends of the earth, preaching the glad tidings of the good things [sent] from God to us, and proclaiming the peace of heaven to men, who indeed do all equally and individually possess the Gospel of God. Matthew also issued a written Gospel among the Hebrews in their own dialect, while Peter and Paul were preaching at Rome, and laying the foundations of the Church. After their departure, Mark, the disciple and interpreter of Peter, did also hand down to us in writing what had been preached by Peter. Luke also, the companion of Paul, recorded in a book the Gospel preached by him. Afterwards, John, the disciple of the Lord, who also had leaned upon His breast, did himself publish a Gospel during his residence at Ephesus in Asia.

---

Quote:

---

1. When, however, they are confuted from the Scriptures, they turn round and accuse these same Scriptures, as if they were not correct, nor of authority, and [assert] that they are ambiguous, and that the truth cannot be extracted from them by those who are ignorant of tradition. For [they allege] that the truth was not delivered by means of written documents, but viv voce: wherefore also Paul declared, "But we speak wisdom among those that are perfect, but not the wisdom of this world."663 And this wisdom each one of them alleges to be the fiction of his own inventing, forsooth; so that, according to their idea, the truth properly resides at one time in Valentinus, at another in Marcion, at another in Cerinthus, then afterwards in Basilides, or has even been indifferently in any other opponent, who could speak nothing pertaining to salvation. For every one of these men, being altogether of a perverse disposition, depraving the system of truth, is not ashamed to preach himself.

---

Quote:

---

2. But, again, when we refer them to that tradition which originates from the apostles, [and] which is preserved by means of the succession of presbyters in the Churches, they object to tradition, saying that they themselves are wiser not merely than the presbyters, but even than the apostles, because they have discovered the unadulterated truth. For [they maintain] that the apostles intermingled the things of the law with the words of the Saviour; and that not the apostles alone, but even the Lord Himself, spoke as at one time from the Demiurge, at another from the intermediate place, and yet again from the Pleroma, but that they themselves, indubitably, unsulliedly, and purely, have knowledge of the hidden mystery: this is, indeed, to blaspheme their Creator after a most impudent manner! It comes to this, therefore, that these men do now consent neither to Scripture nor to tradition.

---

Quote:

---

1. Since therefore we have such proofs, it is not necessary to seek the truth among others which it is easy to obtain from the Church; since the apostles, like a rich man [depositing his money] in a bank, lodged in her hands most copiously all things pertaining to the truth: so that every man, whosoever will, can draw from her the water of life

---