Relay-Version: version B 2.10 5/3/83; site utzoo.UUCP
Posting-Version: version B 2.10.1 6/24/83; site unc.UUCP
Path: utzoo!linus!decvax!harpo!eagle!mhuxl!ulysses!unc!bch
From: bch@unc.UUCP
Newsgroups: net.religion
Subject: Re: Catching up
Message-ID: <6365@unc.UUCP>
Date: Sat, 3-Dec-83 15:15:11 EST
Article-I.D.: unc.6365
Posted: Sat Dec  3 15:15:11 1983
Date-Received: Sun, 4-Dec-83 22:48:41 EST
References: <678@qubix.UUCP>
Organization: University of North Carolina Comp. Center
Lines: 43

>>Byron Howes cast doubts on any divine authority of Paul's writings.
>>Why not take it a step further and doubt the authority behind anything
>>in the Bible; after all, weren't the words written down by mere men?
>>:-( The authority of the Bible is one of the two presuppositions of the
>>Christian faith ("G-d is, and He has spoken in the Bible"). If each man
>>can judge the authority of a passage, who needs G-d?

>>A book has no more authority than its canonizer(s). If the Council of
>>Carthage canonized the New Testament, then it has only as much
>>authority as the Council (and hardly that of the Word of G-d). To be
>>the Word of G-d, with the authority of G-d, the books had to be
>>canonical *when they were written.* All man can do is recognize what
>>G-d has done. Paul recognized Luke's writings; Peter recognized Paul's;
>>in the era just after the apostles, virtually all of the New Testament
>>books had been de facto accepted. (The writings of the early church
>>fathers prove most helpful here. It is noted that their writings
>>include all but 11 verses of the New Testament.)

Larry, that is not what I said.  I see the Bible is a mixture of divine
authority, political dogma and transcription errors.  It is also as
important as to what was *not* included in the process of canonization
as to what was included.

In terms of Paul's words, I tend to think that much of what he said
which cannot be inferred from his original charge (to spread the name
and word of Jesus) is not necessarily divinely inspired.  This does not
cast doubt upon *all* of his writings, nor upon *all* of the Bible.

What was generally recognized in the first century was a much larger
body of works than is in The Bible.  If you adopt apostolic consensus
as your criterion, are you not saying the Bible is necessarily
incomplete? Right now, those who believe that the Bible is entirely
divinely inspired and that there are no divinely inspired words outside
the Bible are accepting the decision of other men, not of G-d.

Why are individual judgements about the Bible necessarily mistaken? Has
G-d died?  Does not the Creative force work through you or I just as
much today as it did then?
-- 

					Byron Howes
					UNC - Chapel Hill
					decvax!duke!mcnc!unc!bch