BIBLE


"The Roman hierarchy claims authority over the Holy Scriptures."


Controversial topics include the canonicity of the "Apocrypha", the issue of the Bible as the sole authority (sola scriptura), private judgement of scriptural interpretation, the charge that Catholics changed the ten commandments, and the charge that Catholics do not encourage the reading of the Scriptures.


CATHOLIC ENCYCLOPEDIA:

PAPAL DOCUMENTS:

CATECHISM OF THE CATHOLIC CHURCH:

ENVOY MAGAZINE:

VARIOUS ARTICLES:


RELATED:
==> Various Bible Links
==> English versions of the Bible
==> On St. Jerome (encyclical by Pope Benedict XV)
==> Intro. to the Bible (NAB translators)
==> Revised Protestant Version" (humor page by Gary Hoge)
==> the Lindisfarne Gospels (a non-english translation from the 7th-century)  [old]

Something interesting caught my attention when I happened to come across Gospelcom's RBC "Answer to Tough Questions":

They have two short articles (written by the same person) regarding the Canon. The first one addressed the question of who determined the canon [link] while the second one addressed the question of the standards for judging a candidate book [link]. If I'm reading those articles correctly, there seems to be an inconsistency between them. Please read with me the following sentence from the 3rd paragraph of the first article: "Although the New Testament Canon was officially confirmed in its present and final form by the third council of Carthage in 397, the 27 documents it contains were accepted as authoritative from the very beginning". Now read the 3rd paragraph of the second article: "Actually,the fact that a few books were received officially by the church at a later date is more a demonstration of the church’s discretion and caution than it is an indication that these books are in some way unreliable". Do you see an inconsistency here? The first article says that the 27 books of the NT were accepted at the very beginning. But the second article says that there were a few books accepted at a later date. I assume the author was saying that there were a few books whose authenticity was still debated. So then how is it that 27 books were accepted from the very beginning?

Other inconsistencies included the fact that the same Council they referred to (ie: Carthage 397AD) also authoritatively listed the OT canon which was not 39-book. [proof]

A more honest (and detailed) Protestant article are these ones: [Christian Canon], [Q's about the Christian Canon], and [Apocrypha Controversy]
These apologetics articles were written by the same author. The second-half of the first article is somewhat philosophical in content. The second article addressed concerns about the first one. And the third article provides some history of the OT canon. Although they have a certain Protestant apologetics character to it (examples of which I will not point out right now), links to these articles are provided nonetheless for your information.


Searchable Scriptures (RSV)

  Go back to my: Apologetics Page | Religion Page. Last Updated: 17:21 08/28/2005