In the Jewish and Christian communities, our Bibles play very important roles. In both communities we hold and believe that the Bibles we have today are based on revelation from God and thereby are "inspired" from God. In both the Jewish and Christian communities we find that they teach that their doctrines are based on "the" Bible. Let us investigate and see if the claim of infallibility and inspiration can truly be applied to the Bible we have today after we come to the facts of how the Bible has been handed down to us today.
This becomes somewhat more confusing as we recognize that there are two basic camps in the Christian community: Catholic and Protestant. It goes without saying that the Bibles of these two communities differ in the number of books that they contain. When we include the Jewish community in this equation we soon arrive at the grand total of "three" Bibles. This presents us with our first question: "Which Bible is 'the' Bible?" I am sure that if a Jew, a Catholic, and a Protestant was asked that question the expected response would be "MINE!"
The Bibles of the Jewish , Catholic, and Protestant communities contain certain books which fall into three basic categories:
Below I have given you a breakdown of the three basic Bibles:
Notice, that all three faiths (Jewish, Catholic, and Protestant) are all in agreement that the Tanakh (Christian Old Testament) is an inspired document, but that is where the agreement stops. Notice also that the Catholic and Protestant communities are in agreement that the New Testament is "inspired", but not the Jewish community. But only the Catholic community considers the Apocrypha in the same category as the Tanakh and the New Testament.
Since each Bible is directly linked to a community, our first question must begin with the origin of each of the communities in question.
Answer for yourself: When did each of these communities originate?
The Jewish community originated with Abraham who lived in the time period of approximately 1700 B.C.E. (B.C.). The Catholic community began around 400 C.E. (A.D.). The Protestant community originated with Martin Luther who was born November 10, 1483 and died February 18, 1546 C.E. Let us also understand that the origin of the community is not synonymous with the origin of their Bible (canon).
The development of the canon proved to be a revolutionary step in the history of religion. This concept is distinctive and characteristically Jewish. Regardless of what you have seen in the way of bumper stickers of late, the Jew's "canon" caused other nations to call the people of Israel "the People of the Book." The Jewish concept of "canonization" was to be largely adopted by Christianity and later Islam.
Canon is the Greek word that originally meant "a straight rod." Later it was used to mean a "carpenter's measuring rod." Finally it became a figurative term for "a standard by which other things could be measured." As applied to Biblical canonization, it designated "the closed nature of a body of sacred literature which had been accepted as 'authoritative'." This is because it has come to be understood in our day that a "canon" is "divinely revealed" to the community, regardless of whether it was or it wasn't!
Although the process of assigning authority to a select group of books and thus creating a "canon" originated with the Jewish nation, the word "canon" and the word "bible" originated within the Greek language. Most reputable scholars agree that there was no canon of the Hebrew Scriptures (Tanakh) until the end of the 1st century C.E. (A.D.). Prior to that time there were a number of pieces of Hebrew literature with varying degrees of authority. The authority of this material, as well as the material itself, depended on the particular sect or community within Judaism.
Tribal traditions, collections of community laws, cultic and ritual laws, songs and hymns, oracles from priestly circles, utterances of the prophets, sayings attributed to wise sages, and chronicles of court events were gathered together and preserved. Not all of the materials recorded were related to the religious practices of the community, although much of it did concern their religious life. As national life stabilized and the "RELIGIOUS BELIEF SYSTEM" of the community developed, literary material of this kind was used in the religious rituals and woven into historical narratives telling the story of the community of Yahweh's people. Gradually, and most unconsciously," there emerged out of this body of literature certain writings which the community recognized as speaking with unique authority for their religious life. As such it was given a special designation and treated with a reverence not accorded to other writings in use among them.
In Israel the community came to recognize these words as God speaking to them. Once the words became an approved collection, this "collection" developed into the basic authority for Israel's "RELIGIOUS BELIEF SYSTEM." The books that make up the Bible did not comprise the whole literary production of ancient Israel. The Scriptures make mention of the existence of an extensive literature which is now lost! Let us examine:
In the process of determining which books would be included in the canon we have a record of the disputes between the rabbis as to the validity of certain writings. Customs and traditions were used as one of several guidelines for including or excluding questionable books. Other criteria included the content of the book and the position of the writer within Jewish history.
The Bible as Yeshua knew it considered of some twelve to twenty scrolls of different sizes and did not include the New Testament which did not exist at that time. The writings we call the New Testament are grouped into the Gospels, Acts of the Apostles, Epistles, and the book of Revelation. One tradition indicates that about five years after the resurrection of Yeshua the true and real apostle Matthew wrote an original life story of Yeshua in the Hebrew language. The story was then copied into Greek and other languages. It appears that the writers of our modern Gospels used these copies and other information to write their Gospels.
Most of Paul's writings were in circulation prior to the writing of the four Gospels. Paul's letters began to exercise a powerful influence upon Christian life and though. Nevertheless, it was a long time before Paul's letters were publicly read in the church or considered EQUAL to the words of the Tanakh. Paul's letters were the first step in creating the New Testament canon! By the year 200 C.E. a great variety of canons were in use, some fairly well defined, others more informal. Each reflects "local beliefs and traditions."
Marcion, in 145 C.E., created a fixed canon which eliminated all of Yeshua's Bible (Tanakh) and most of the writings of the early Jewish believers with the exception of Paul and a part of Luke's Gospel. Several factions of Christianity (Messianic Judaism-the Yeshua Movement of the first century within Judaism) retained the Tanakh and most of today's New Testament canon but added as many as fourteen additional writings (called the Apocrypha). In northern Mesopotamia the early Messianic Community of Judaism (Christianity) included a Gospel of Thomas, since Thomas was the one who had brought the Gospel to that regions. Even after the canon officially closed in the late 4th century, new writings appeared that were considered "inspired" by those individual communities (notice there was no unity of opinion!). Early printed editions of Bibles in the Armenian church contained a book entitled, "Third Corinthians."
I am sure you can imagine the "erratic practices" that developed from one group to the next.
Answer for yourself: Where was to be the authority?
Answer for yourself: Had God already given it as the Jewish Scriptures and they overlooked it?
Answer for yourself: Where was unity to be found with every community having their "own canon" and "authority" for their own beliefs actions, and often using "their canon" to correct other communities?
Such inconsistencies were perceived as a big danger by the leaders of the young Gentile Church. These inconsistencies between different communities prompted these leaders to define what was "sacred" or "inspired."
Answer for yourself: Who were these leaders and what were their credentials to decide what was "inspired" or "infallible" when they prayed to dead saints, baptized for the dead, prayer to Mary, and bought prayers for the dead to escape purgatory? Think for a minute about that.
Answer for yourself: How can we trust their other decisions knowing the terrible errors that they were immersed in? Finally, in the latter part of the 4th century the church's canon was closed. The last two books to be admitted were Hebrews and Revelation.
Once the canon was "closed" by the Gentile leaders of the Christian church (no longer a Jewish Messianic Movement within Judaism), the church was free to establish their doctrines and dogmas. Besides relying on the Scriptures, the Gentile leaders of the Christian community, particularly Irenaeus and Tertullian, did irreparable damage to "the faith" by relegating the Jewish Scriptures to "second place" in matters of doctrine and authority (the Gentile Church-the Roman Catholic Church was to be the primary authority). Tertullian developed a universal antidote for all heresy in his argument which cuts off heretics at the outset. He denied every right of appeal to the Holy Scriptures on the grounds that the Holy Scriptures were intrusted to the church of Christ, and only in her (Gentile Christian Church) and by her can they be rightly understood. This is totally blasphemous! For your information this violates Scripture for in Romans 9:3 the apostle Paul states: "Who are Israelites (notice he did not say Christians); to whom pertaineth the adoption, and the glory, and the covenants, and the giving of the law, and the services of God, and the promises; whose are the fathers, and of whom as concerning the flesh Christ came, who is over all, God blessed for ever. Amen." Did you notice that Paul contradicts Tertullian by saying the Scriptures were given to Israel (and not the Roman Catholic Church) and from Israel would come the Scriptures teaching concerning covenants, law or commandments, services (worship), promises (again allusion to Scripture), and who has been established as the "authority" over all flesh by God....Israel!
Tertullian's "belief system" is an example of "replacement theology" which is so violently contrary to the Scripture of the Bible. The KJV version of the Bible says the exact opposite of what Tertullian and modern preachers preach today...God's authority was given in the Bible to Israel to teach and rightly interpret the Scriptures for the Gentiles! In this proclamation by Tertullian he establishes a "false" succession of Gentile authority and mistakenly gives it to the Gentile community in hopes to protect them from sects of heretics.
There is only one problem! The Jews were not the heretics, in fact, the Jews are the vehicle given to us, the Gentile church, by which we are to learn about the Jewish Scriptures (every book in the Jewish Bible was written by Jews and not one was written by a Gentile). Ironically, in supposedly protecting the Gentile church from error, he accomplished what he tried to prevent. We need only look to the over 2000 different Protestant denominations present today, with over 1500 different interpretations of the same Bible, and the lack of unity which abounds among them to discern that at least 1499 have not rightly divided the Word of Truth.
Answer for yourself: Why so much diversity and so little unity?
The reason; God gave the Jews as the interpreters of the Jewish Book called the Bible and not the Gentiles. For me to say that a Baptist's interpretation of the Bible is just as valid and correct as the Jew's interpretation of the Bible is no less ludicrous than saying that an Apache Indian is just as valid an interpreter of Eskimo tribal legends as the Eskimo himself. Think about that for a moment.
At the end of the 15th century when, through the actions of Martin Luther, the Protestant Reformation was born, this "choke-hold" of Roman Catholic authority had to be wrestled from Rome. The mechanism for achieving this was the Bible. Martin Luther simply removed the Catholic Church as the final authority and substituted his personal belief system and deleted the Apocrypha from the Catholic Bible. The effect of this was that he not only created a "new Bible," the Protestant Bible, but he provided a new standard for interpretation for the Bible.
Answer for yourself: First of all, don't you think it strange that a Catholic priest create a Protestant Bible?
The effect of Luther deleting sacred books from the Bible helped to give authority to the Gentile leaders of the newly emerging religious community and the people of God to interpret or misinterpret Scriptures for themselves as they pleased. Training and education in Scriptural analysis, both linguistical, historical, cultural, and political was not necessary according to Luther. The Holy Spirit will guide us into all truth. Really now! I know Christians that will tell me the same thing as Luther, that the Holy Spirit taught me...this...or that...yet they are 180 degrees opposite in their understanding on the same matter.
Answer for yourself: How can the Holy Spirit teach of the same doctrine yet arrive at diametrically opposite conclusions and not be schizophrenic?
History teaches us that five factors fueled the growth of the Protestant movement and paved the way for countless numbers of denominations, non-denominations, inter-denominations and cults in the 20th century:
Answer for yourself: What has history recorded for us concerning the last four hundred and fifty years since Martin Luther began his protest?
Even before his death Luther was confronted by those who were protesting "his" belief system and within a few years the cycle was repeated over and over again.
Today, society, both ethical and religious, is overcome by sectarianism.
Answer for yourself: Is there a cure for this malady?
For those willing to pay the price the answer is "yes."
We must be willing to go back behind Protestantism, Catholicism, and Rabbinic Judaism, back to the time period in which the concept of canon began to first take hold. Be must begin with the "faith once given to the saints." Such a faith is the faith of Yeshua...Second Temple Judaism.
We must begin with our first feeble steps trying to understand what was common to all canons....the Hebrew Tanakh (see beginning of this paper). To do this we must examine the culture of the people who gave us the Tanakh. Since the majority of the words from the New Testament originate in the Tanakh, and since these New Testament writers were faithful members of the early Jewish community, we will also need to examine their words as understood from their own culture, within their own time period, and according to the original language they were spoken from...the Jewish language.
If our understanding of the Bible is different from the understanding we would have had in the first century...they we have the wrong understanding today. If the words of our Bible are interpreted in English, and they have different meanings when examined from the Jewish viewpoint, then we have the wrong meanings attached to these words today, regardless of what Webster says. Once we have this information we will be able to examine Judaic, Catholic, and Protestant belief systems and their interpretations of these Scriptures. With the wrong interpretation, with the wrong meanings attached to English words, and with little study on our parts to discern the truth in order to obey the Scriptures, can God be pleased with our mistaken disobedience?
Let us now turn to a intense study of the Canon of the New Testament and it's cumulative formation in 380 C.E.