Category: Composition of the Bible

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vVbYNmKj_Zk Apocrypha comes from a Greek word “apokryphos”,  which means “to hide”, “what is hidden”.  And the English word apocryphal has come to mean “false”.  So when people talk about the Apocrypha,  as a Protestant Evangelical,  I'm talking about additional books  that I don't believe are part of the canon,  but additional books that some Christian traditions,  like Catholicism, and Eastern Orthodoxy  include within their Old Testament canon.   There's no debate about the content of the New Testament  among major Christian traditions.  It's as some people have said, it's amazing  when you look at the diversity and geographical spread,  and there's this affirmation  of the 27 book New Testament canon that we have.  But depending on how you divide it up,  because there's portions of books and so on,  whether…

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2BQV10KMyog We talk  about the Council of Nicaea, this  group of men getting together to decide  what's gonna be in our Bible today. But that's not what happened. The point is that the New Testament  documents were recognized very early by  the early church fathers, between 106 and 110 AD. Basically early church  fathers like Ignatius and others  recognized 25 out of the 27 books we  call the New Testament canon that early. The councils came  much later largely  because you couldn't have councils work  while Christianity was on the run. Christianity was persecuted a good  portion of the first three centuries. It wasn't until Constantine made  Christianity tolerable in about 311 AD  that Christians could freely associate  and do these kind of things from all  over the Roman Empire…

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Vf1VN65dJPI I'm holding a copy of the New Testament,  27 books in all. How were they chosen? Were they imposed on the church hundreds  of years after Christ by the Emperor  Constantine as The Da Vinci Code would  have you believe? Let's investigate.  According to The Da Vinci Code, the Bible  as we know it, was the product of a Roman  Emperor in the fourth century, who used  it as a tool for consolidating power.  “Who  chose which Gospels to include?” Sophie asked. “Aha!” Teabing burst and with enthusiasm. “The fundamental irony of Christianity! The Bible, as we know it today, was  collated by the pagan Roman Emperor  Constantine the Great.” (The Da Vinci Code  page 231) Is it true that Constantine,  ruling more than 270 years after the end …

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eOgXofMfwYo The Old Testament was written from  roughly 1400 to 430 BC  and you can see within the documents  themselves God giving guidelines for whether prophetic words were true or  really from him. For example, in  Deuteronomy 18  and it seems there's this progressive recognition through time of the prophets truly speaking for God  and their their writings being preserved. It's clear when you get to the time of  the New Testament, the way that Jesus and  the apostles referred to the Old  Testament, the way it's quoted, the way those quotes are introduced, there's  a recognition that these writings are closed, this Old Testament prophetic canon is  not continuing to be written  and these things are authoritative. As  Jesus says in John 10, the scripture  cannot be broken. Josephus,…

In 2 Machabees, we have the reference cited by the Catholic Church to support Purgatory. 12:43 And when he had made a gathering throughout the company to the sum of two thousand drachms of silver, he sent it to Jerusalem to offer a sin offering, doing therein very well and honestly, in that he was mindful of the resurrection: 12:44 For if he had not hoped that they that were slain should have risen again, it had been superfluous and vain to pray for the dead. 12:45 And also in that he perceived that there was great favour laid up for those that died godly, it was an holy and good thought. Whereupon he made a reconciliation for the dead, that they might be delivered from sin. Protestants do not…

Who chose the books of the New Testament? https://youtu.be/Vf1VN65dJPI Transcript of the video The New Testament used by Christians also contain the books that were accepted by the community during Jesus’ time. How were the books of the New Testament chosen? We noted earlier that they were circulated during the time when the eyewitnesses of Jesus were still alive. These people could verify with their own experiences whether what the New Testament writers wrote were true or false. They would accept a writing as authentic only when they knew that the reports concerning Christ were true. The early church also knew who the disciples or subsequent apostles of Christ were. Only their teachings were regarded as authentic. At a very early date it appears that the 4 gospels were united…

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2BQV10KMyog Transcript of the video It is true that the church had come up with lists of books that were accepted as Scripture. The earliest known list was in AD 393. However, the accepted books were not decided by these communities. The committees merely stated formally what was already accepted by the community. As stated above, we have evidence from as early as Jesus’ days that the Old Testament we have is accepted by the community. We also have evidence from as early as the second century that the books we have in the New Testament have been accepted by the community. Not only that, we also have in possession complete copies of manuscripts of the Bible -  Codex Vaticanus and Codex Sinaiticus - which were written 40 to 50…

What is the apocrypha? [embed]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vVbYNmKj_Zk[/embed] Transcript of the video Today, the most noticeable difference between Catholic and Protestant versions of the Bible is the absence of seven whole books and parts of two others from the Protestant version. These are Tobias, Judith, Wisdom, Ecclesiaticus, Baruch, I & II Machabees. These books are what we call the apocryphal and it refers to certain books whose authenticity and authority were debated throughout the centuries. They were first declared to be Scripture by the Roman Catholic Church in the fourth century though the Protestant Church still rejects any divine authority attached to them. Roman Catholics who attribute divine authority to these books and advocate them as Scripture argue that the writers of the New Testament quote mostly from the Septuagint (Greek Translation of…