This Catholic Journey
You clearly have an extensive knowledge of the Bible and have thought deeply on this subject. A very good case made for the one true Church.
Good post, but I'm not sure I agree with your assertion that the Church didn't have Bibles until 350. Where are you getting that from?
I've read that the canon of the Bible was not completed until the end of the fourth century. I also thought I heard this mentioned on Catholic radio... I'll make the correction to my post... I was estimating based on what I'd remembered reading.
Sources: http://www.catholic.com/thisrock/2000/
0011fea4.asp
This source indicates the first complete OT and NT canons at Council of Rome (382):http://open-encyclopedia.com/Biblical_Canon
Hmmm... that second link didn't work:
Biblical Canon
That's what I thought. It's a little more complicated than that.
First, the OT canon was fairly established in the early Church because they used the Septuigent, which had been around for a couple of centuries. In fact, almost all, if not every one, of the OT quotes in the NT are from the Septuigent. So to say that the Church didn't have an OT canon until the end of the 4th century is not quite right. Rather, we should say that the Church hadn't defined a canon until the end of the 4th century. Why did they wait so long? Well, that would simply take too long to explain here.
Things are a bit more complicated with the NT since it wasn't finished until around 100 (or even as late as 120, according to some scholars). Yet, by the end of the 2nd century we have lists of the entire NT, complete and accurate. Of course, there were questions about various books (Hebrews being one of them). But again, it's not entirely accurate to say the Church didn't have a NT canon until the 4th century; rather, we should say that the Church hadn't "officially" decided on a canon until the 4th century.
But then there's another problem. The Council of Rome in 382 wasn't an ecumenical council; we would probably call it a Synod nowadays. So to get really technical, the Church did not officially define the books of the OT and the NT until the Council of Trent in the 1550's. Why then? Because the Protestant Reformation was the first serious challenge to the traditional canon.
I promise you, I am not nitpicking here. If we say that the Church didn't have a canon of Scripture until the 4th century, then we could conclude this hierarchical Church simply decided on a canon in order to keep marginal Christians out. I'm not making this up, either. This is the claim made by people who think that the gnostic Gospel of Thomas or Revelation of Paul are authentic.
If we say that the Church did not form her canon until the 4th century, how are we to answer that challenge? Rather, we should stress that the Church had a complete canon of Scripture by the end of the 2nd century. The "Counicl" of Rome in 382 simply made it offical.
Again, I'm not trying to be nitpicky here. But today, when nonsense like THE DA VINCI CODE and THE GOSPEL OF JUDAS and so forth are believed by so many people, it is essential to understand the complicated history of the canon of the Bible.
Thank you, Jeff, for the specifics and clarification! :)
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