>Paul quotes from Luke’s gospel (Luke 10:7):
>"For the Scripture says, "Do not muzzle the ox while it is treading out the grain," and "The worker deserves his wages." "(1 Tim. 5:1
No. Paul's first "scripture" is from Deuteronomy 25:4.
There's no evidence these very simple aphorisms have to be taken by Paul directly from Luke (there's no reason to believe Luke was written yet, and who would've got it from Deut 25). Without being shown the reference, can anyone actually believe the very first "scripture" in Paul's Jewish tradition of centuries to simply relate workers&deservedwages was 1 Tim.?
Speaking of which...
>shortly thereafter [the end of the first century] the three pastoral letters (1 Timothy, 2 Timothy, and Titus) were added.
...whose authorship is a matter of great scholarly controversy
http://www.bibletexts.com/glossa...lossary/
tit.htm
Note the poor inerrancy source Heddle, the careful scientist, gets his information from.
Gee OA,
I'm certainly convinced given that you can supply a link that reports that some scholars question the authorship. For rebuttal, I offer my own link, to the Catholic Encyclopedia.
http://www.newadvent.org/cathen/...then/
14727b.htm
Regardless, what is clear, and what is actually the point of this post, is the early church deemed them to be canonical.
By the way, OA, If Paul just uttered "The worker deserves his wages." then your criticism would be legit.
By he writes: For the Scripture says, "Do not muzzle the ox while it is treading out the grain," and "The worker deserves his wages."
He is clearly indicating that "The worker deserves his wages." is in scripture. The only possibility is Luke 10:7.
Mr. Heddle,
Would you agree that when Jesus referred to Scripture, his hearers would have understood him to be referring to the Old Testament?
To expand on the previous question, instead of looking at how the church defined scripture centuries later, isn't it natural to use the word Jesus would have used it? If anything is clear from this post, it is that there were multiple definitions of scripture among the early churches.
Incidentally, you are too dismissive in your rejection of OAs question. It is probably true that the majority of NT scholars would view 2 Peter as a pseudepigraph. These are important questions that any defender of the canonical process must seek to answer, and referring to the Catholic Encyclopedia as an authority on this subject is hardly convincing, since they are committed to inerrancy.
To say the early church regarded 2 Peter as canonical is extreme; it was in all likelihood not even written till the second century. As you note, it was not in the Muratorian canon.
"The only possibility is Luke 10:7"?
Apparently it's impossible that it's a paraphrase of the commands Deuteronomy 24:15 & Leviticus 19:13.
Jesus of Luke 10:7 and the author of 1 Tim are merely reciting a very simple, probably well-known aphorism for the slightly more specific OT passages.
Are you 100% SURE that the phrasing isn't more like this:
Thought 1: For the Scripture says, "Do not muzzle the ox. And
Thought 2: The worker is worthy of his wages.
There are several possibilities: That "Scripture says" modifies both phrases, that it modifies only the first phrase with the 2nd disconnected, that it modifies only the 1st with the 2nd is connected in that it's recognized by Paul and Timothy as a familiar saying of Jesus and thus of equal weight as Scripture, or, finally, that "Scripture says" modifies the first with the 2nd a traditional rabbinic gloss on Deut 25:4 use approvingly by both Jesus and Paul.
There are certainly more possibilities than "Paul is saying Luke is Scripture."
The idea that the issue was settled by the fourth century is just plain false. Notable fathers who are universally recognized as orthodox disputed some books well into the seventh century at least - particularly Revelation. This is shown in that it was never made a part of the lectionary of the Eastern Church. The Council of Laodicea was never recognized as an Ecumenical Council and so its decisions were limoted geographically. In particular, Revelation was always questioned in the East. The issue was probably settled finally when the seventh ecumenical council (Nicea II) accepted the decisions of the councils of Carthage and Hippo. Also, as a side note, the Church outside the Roman Empire (the Church of the East often erroneously labeled "Nestorian") - which for a time stretched from Persia to China - never accepted the disputed books.
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