11 September, 2006

Did the Church Make-up the Bible?

I am not sure where the switch has occurred in Protestant thinking, but it seems that many people, when thinking about the formation of the Scriptures, want to attribute them to a counsel, more than to God. The idea taught in a lot of Christian schools is that at Nicea the Christian church declared that our 66 books of the Bible were the Word of God. This may be because the Church no longer believes the Scriptures thanks to the influences of Liberal "scholarship".

Although true, Nicea did affirm, the Scriptures, but had not the Christian Church been using all of these books since the late-middle of the first century? As the Bride of Christ, we must know our place, and not declare ourselves over our Lord.

In this affair, then, the Church is a servant and not a mistress; a depository and not a judge. She exercises the office of a minister, not of a magistrate...She delivers a testimony, not a judicial sentence. She discerns the canon of the Scriptures, she does not make it; she has recognized their authenticity, she has not given it-The authority of the Scriptures is not founded then, on the authority of the Church: It is the Church that is founded on the authority of the Scriptures. -Louis Gaussen

4 comments:

steveandjanna said...

As I understand it, Nicea did little more than affirm the 66 books of the Bible while rejecting various other gospels that this group or that group were using at the time. I always understood the rejection of various other books to be more important than anything else as it got rid of those books that were not the word of God from the church.

Anonymous said...

Did it ever occur to you that the Old Testament was written by G-d and the New Testament was written by mortal men.

Men naturally are able to exagerate and lie. Do you think it could happen?...I do.

Anonymous said...

Seems like Mr Anonymous might have a veil still upon him.

Anonymous said...

What veil is upon the anonymous one? I believe he asked a good question. I have often wondered that myself.