Originally posted by riverm:
Thanks for the post pointing me to your response, but that doesn’t answer the questions posed. There was no bible, as we know of it today in the first half of the century. Granted they had an Old Testament, but my question revolves around the New Testament.
This is where you are wrong. There was a Bible in the last half of the first century. Every book of the New Testament was written between 50 A.D. and 98 A.D. Thus the entire canon of Scripture was completed by the end of the first century. It was completed by God the Holy Spirit, not by the RCC. They had nothing to do with it. Think for a minute. And you must think outside of your western mindset. I am a missionary. I travel to variuos third world nations. I know one nation that has the Word of God published only in the Gospel of John. That is all they have in their native language. Does that mean that the Word of God does not exist elsewhere? I think you know the answer to that. When I go witnessing from door to door, I often take a New Testament with me that contains all of the NT plus the Book of Psalms. Does that mean that Bible is incomplete? I hardly think so! To those that are interested in further information I give out booklets of John and Romans. OOPS!! Only part of God's Word are in their hands! Does that mean that the whole of God's Word is not in existence? I think you know the answer. Many people even in our own country do not have ALL the books of the Bible in their possession, even though they are available to them. In the first century, and especially the second century (when all the books were completed), just because believers did not have all the books of the Bible in their possession, did not mean that they did not exist.
There are forgeries today, and there were forgeries then. Ask the Catholics? They claim that those 14 forgeries in their Bible are actually inspired! Imagine that, even though they weren't officially accepted into the canon by them until 1532.
Peter, Paul and John all wrote more letters than those we see in our New Testament. WHO determined which of these were authoritative and which of these weren’t?
Paul wrote as many as four letters to the Corinthians alone. He also wrote a letter to Laodicea. Why are they not included? Because Paul knew which letters were inspired of God as Scripture, and to be preserved as such. That knowledge was passed down and shared with first the other Apostles, and then with the other early beievers. The Catholic Church had nothing to do with this. The preservation of the Bible was done through Bible Believing churches entirely outside the corrupt Catholic Church. Lets look at Scripture itself.
2 Peter 3:2 That ye may be mindful of the words which were spoken before by the holy prophets, and of the commandment of us the apostles of the Lord and Saviour:
--Peter outlines to his readers that they be mindful of the words of the: prophets, and of "us the Apostles." He says that the words of the Apostles are just as important as the holy prophets, which the Jews regarded so highly, and whose writings they considered inspired of God. Thus the writings that the Apostles claimed as inspired were to be accepted as inspired by others. Theirs was the final authority.
2 Peter 3:15-16 And account that the longsuffering of our Lord is salvation; even as our
beloved brother Paul also according to the wisdom given unto him
hath written unto you; As also
in all his epistles, speaking in them of these things; in which are some things hard to be understood, which they that are unlearned and unstable wrest,
as they do also the other scriptures, unto their own destruction.
Note that Peter refers to the epistles of Paul were Scripture. Apparently he knew which of his epistles were Scripture and which were not. He speaks of thos that "wrest the Scriptures to their own destruction," as the many cults and also the RCC do.
Are we to be so naive to think that the Apostles could not ascertain which books the Holy Spirit were giving them by inspiration and which were simply their own writing. Christ himself gave this promise in this regard:
John 14:26 But the Comforter, which is the Holy Ghost, whom the Father will send in my name, he shall teach you all things, and bring all things to your remembrance, whatsoever I have said unto you.
--Christ promised that would bring to remebrance whatever he said unto them. Although this Scripture may have other applications, I believe that the main interpretation here is Christ's promise to His disciples is the retention of His Word's that would be accurately recorded and inspired by the Holy Spirit. We have an inspired Bible. Its inspiration comes from God, not from the RCC. The RCC takes too much credit. They are proud, arrogant, puffed up, and ungodly. Throughout the centuries they have been the murderers of true Christians and the destroyers of our Bible, not the keepers of it.
I’m not a Catholic, but would like to know, how we got the bible in the final condition it is in and who was responsible for determining which books made the cut and which didn’t.
The Holy Spirit was instrumental. The Apostles taught the early believers which were inspired, and which was not. If you read the First Epistle of John, he teaches his readers how to recognize false teachers, the spirit of antichrist, etc. It was the early churches that preserved the Bible in its original form, not only in the Greek, but also in other translations. There is a very early translation called "Itala," one of the earliest. It is virtually identical to the Bible we have today.
Concerning the “Trinity”, my Pastor just done a bible study on Islam last year and he used The Story of Civilization, by Will and Ariel Durant for all his research. I went to my library to read some of these books and research the Authors, since he was promoting these books so heavily and found that these books claimed that the “Trinity” was a rip off from pagan ancient Egypt. When I brought this to his attention he ‘bout flipped out. Now I wonder just how much information he used about Islam was the actual truth.
The "trinity" as pertaining to the God of the Bible is not a pagan concept. If you want to argue that way, then monotheism as opposed to polytheism is a pagan concept that Christianity adopted. Ridiculous!
Jeremiah 17:9 The heart is deceitful above all things, and desperately wicked: who can know it?
Ecclesiastes 1:9 The thing that hath been, it is that which shall be; and that which is done is that which shall be done: and
there is no new thing under the sun.
Recent theological terminology do not refute that which has been taught in the Bible throughout the ages, ever since the Bible has been written:
trinity,
rapture,
eschatology,
theology
Christophany
anthropormorphism,
antinomianism,
ex nihilo
We use terms that are not in the Bible. So what! That does not mean that the Bible does not teach the concepts that are behind the terms. Christ appeared as a man in the Old Testament in the figure of Melchizadek. This is verified for us in Hebrews chapter 7. We call this a Christophany. Or, do we say that the RCC invented the word "Christophany," and there were no such things in the Bible as "Christophanies" until the RCC came along. That is pure garbage. And thus it is with the trinity. The trinity is taught in the Bible, and has been for ages. It may have been taught with other words, and terminology, but it was taught nevertheless. I don't give the RCC any credit for that at all. What else do they want credit for: that Christ is the Messiah??
So how did we get the term “Trinity”?
I am not sure. I haven't looked it up. Any reliable dictionary can give you that answer. It really doesn't matter, since the theology of the trinity is taught in the Bible.
The word isn’t found in the bible, but the idea is certainly there. I also remember seeing a discovery channel special, maybe a year or two ago and the special stated groups believed in the Father and Son, but other groups were adding the Holy Spirit and this was causing a problem and a council was called to research this and make a doctrine. Was all this fact or fiction? I guess it depends upon the source as I stated above conflict using The Story of Civilization.
If you study world relgions, you will find that Satan is a great imitator. Many world religions have gods that come in triads. Hinduism has some triads of gods. Many of them do have a concept of Father and Son, and then go off into some other kind of spirit or god. Our authority is the Bible. What is taught in the Bible, not in Tradition, and not in anything outside of the Bible, is our final authority. Thus what the RCC or others say is not important. Thus Baptists believe in sola scriptura.
I would seriously like to know the above questions, please feel free to PM me any resources that I could investigate this on my own.
Thanks
John MacArthur has a good series of messages on the Bible. He deals with the canon of Scripture, and the sufficiency of the Scriptures for us today. You can find his website at the following URL, and then scroll down until you come to "Bible"
MacArthur
