Table of Contents of the Bible = Unbiblical, Catholic Tradition

The canon of the New Testament, i.e. the Table of Contents of the Bible, was determined by the authority of the Catholic Church. Prior to Church proclamations in the late 4th century, there were plenty of disagreements among eminent Church fathers about individual books and whether they were divinely inspired or not. These controversial individual books included some that are in the Bible today: Philippians; 1 and 2 Timothy; Titus; Philemon; Hebrews; James; 1 and 2 Peter; 1, 2, and 3 John; Jude; and Revelation.

Thus the New Testament canon, the Table of Contents page of every Bible, is indubitably an authoritative unbiblical tradition that Protestants accept in contradiction to sola Scriptura, to their own rule of faith. Scripture never contained its own Table of Contents page; that had to be authoritatively decided at the Council of Carthage in 397. Without this council, there would be no Bible as it is today.

Without the Bible as it is today, sola Scriptura is impossible. But the Protestant has to accept a 1600+ year old, binding, infallible, authoritative decree of the Catholic Church in order to get his Bible’s New Testament as it is today. This raises huge problems of internal incoherence. Protestants are forced to either make a huge exception to their rule of faith (and then one asks, on what basis do they do this?, etc.), or simply ignore the difficulties raised by discussion of the canon (the usual insincere recourse).

There’s only three options: 1) admit sola Scriptura is incoherent and thus false, 2) admit sola Scriptura is incoherent and irrationally embrace the incoherence, or 3) ignore this entire post as if you had never read it, putting your soul at risk.

Jesus, Peter, Paul, Matthew, James, and Jude Rejected Sola Scriptura

If some parts of extrabiblical (non-Old Testament or non-gospel) traditions can be cited as true in the New Testament, then it stands to reason and is quite plausible that other parts can be true (and hence, authoritative) without being cited in the New Testament.

Protestants simply assume without argument that anything that is fully authoritative must be in the Bible. But then why do Jesus, Matthew, Peter, James, Paul, and Jude cite traditions that we can’t find in our Bibles?

Our Lord Jesus Christ and the gospel writer St. Matthew did not believe in sola Scriptura. “Moses’ Seat” (Matthew 23:1-3) is an example of a tradition that is not in the Old Testament and yet confirmed as authoritative by Jesus and Matthew:

Then said Jesus to the crowds and to his disciples, “The scribes and the Pharisees sit on Moses’ seat; so practice and observe whatever they tell you, but not what they do; for they preach, but do not practice….”

Jesus says that the Golden Rule can be found in the law and the prophets, but it’s not in the Old Testament (least not in this positive form):

 So whatever you wish that men would do to you, do so to them; for this is the law and the prophets. (Mt 7:12)

Matthew refers to another prophecy that cannot be found in the Old Testament:

And he went and dwelt in a city called Nazareth, that what was spoken by the prophets might be fulfilled, “He shall be called a Nazarene.” (Mt 2:23)

St. Peter did not believe in Sola Scriptura either. He also cites an oral, unbiblical tradition about Jesus that can’t be found in the written gospels:

For Christ also died for sins once for all, the righteous for the unrighteous, that he might bring us to God, being put to death in the flesh but made alive in the spirit; in which he went and preached to the spirits in prison, who formerly did not obey, when God’s patience waited in the days of Noah, during the building of the ark, in which a few, that is, eight persons, were saved through water. (1 Pt 3:18-20, emphasis mine)

St. Paul did not believe in sola Scriptura either. He cites the unbiblical tradition of a rock that follows Moses and the Israelites in the desert:

“For they drank from the supernatural Rock which followed them, and the Rock was Christ.” (1 Cor 10:4)

The Torah speaks only about a rock from which water issued, but rabbinic tradition amplified this into a spring that followed the Israelites throughout their migration.

Paul also names Pharaoh’s magicians even though the Old Testament gives them no names:

As Jannes and Jambres opposed Moses, so these men also oppose the truth, men of corrupt mind and counterfeit faith; but they will not get very far, for their folly will be plain to all, as was that of those two men. (1 Tim 3:8-9)

Paul also quotes a saying of Jesus that is not in the gospels:

 …remembering the words of the Lord Jesus, how he said, ‘It is more blessed to give than to receive.’”

St. James also did not believe in sola Scriptura. He refers to a tradition about Elijah and a lack of rain that cannot be found in the relevant Old Testament passage 1 Kgs 17:

Eli’jah was a man of like nature with ourselves and he prayed fervently that it might not rain, and for three years and six months it did not rain on the earth. Then he prayed again and the heaven gave rain, and the earth brought forth its fruit. (James 5:17-18)

Jude also refers to an extrabiblical, tradition that cannot be found in the Old Testament:

But when the archangel Michael, contending with the devil, disputed about the body of Moses, he did not presume to pronounce a reviling judgment upon him, but said, “The Lord rebuke you.” (Jude 9)

Jude also directly quotes 1 Enoch  1:9, which is not in the Bible:

It was of these also that Enoch in the seventh generation from Adam prophesied, saying, “Behold, the Lord came with his holy myriads, to execute judgment on all, and to convict all the ungodly of all their deeds of ungodliness which they have committed in such an ungodly way, and of all the harsh things which ungodly sinners have spoken against him.” (Jude 14-15)

If Jesus, Matthew, Peter, James, Paul, and Jude were not Scripture Alone Christians, then why should anybody be?

Dobson accuses Obama of ‘distorting’ Bible

Dobson is right about Obama distorting biblical teaching. Hopefully, every Christian will recognize this. 

At the same time though, I can’t help but laugh ironically at conservative Protestants like Dobson who try to argue with liberal Protestants like Obama based on the ”traditional understanding of the Bible.” Tradition?! What happened to sola Scriptura? Surely, Obama can read the Bible for himself and reach a correct conclusion inspired by the Holy Spirit and by his own private judgment and reason, no? Seems like an arbitrary appeal to obedience to tradition when it suits one’s own personal preferences. Obama and his church embody the real and deep divisions within Christianity that were created by Protestantism and sola Scriptura.

Dobson is right, but his own theology leaves him helpless to combat the false doctrines and interpretations of Obama. When will Protestants realize that sola Scriptura inexorably leads to theological relativism which in turn leads to moral relativism which in turn strengthens liberalism and corrupts American politics?

http://apnews.myway.com/article/20080624/D91G8E200.html

By ERIC GORSKI 

COLORADO SPRINGS, Colo. (AP) – As Barack Obama broadens his outreach to evangelical voters, one of the movement’s biggest names, James Dobson, accuses the likely Democratic presidential nominee of distorting the Bible and pushing a “fruitcake interpretation” of the Constitution.

The criticism, to be aired Tuesday on Dobson’s Focus on the Family radio program, comes shortly after an Obama aide suggested a meeting at the organization’s headquarters here, said Tom Minnery, senior vice president for government and public policy at Focus on the Family.

The conservative Christian group provided The Associated Press with an advance copy of the pre-taped radio segment, which runs 18 minutes and highlights excerpts of a speech Obama gave in June 2006 to the liberal Christian group Call to Renewal. Obama mentions Dobson in the speech.

“Even if we did have only Christians in our midst, if we expelled every non-Christian from the United States of America, whose Christianity would we teach in the schools?” Obama said. “Would we go with James Dobson’s or Al Sharpton’s?” referring to the civil rights leader.

Dobson took aim at examples Obama cited in asking which Biblical passages should guide public policy – chapters like Leviticus, which Obama said suggests slavery is OK and eating shellfish is an abomination, or Jesus’ Sermon on the Mount, “a passage that is so radical that it’s doubtful that our own Defense Department would survive its application.”

“Folks haven’t been reading their Bibles,” Obama said.

Dobson and Minnery accused Obama of wrongly equating Old Testament texts and dietary codes that no longer apply to Jesus’ teachings in the New Testament.

“I think he’s deliberately distorting the traditional understanding of the Bible to fit his own worldview, his own confused theology,” Dobson said.

“… He is dragging biblical understanding through the gutter.”

Interpret the Bible with the Hebrew Mindset, Not With Your Own!

“First of all you must understand this, that no prophecy of scripture is a matter of one’s own interpretation.”
-2 Peter 1:20

The Bible is not simply clear and understandable on its face. First of all, we are reading English translations, and anyone who knows something about languages and translation knows the difficulties in creating equivalent meanings from one language to the next. Some concepts as expressed in particular languages are never fully translatable. Second, let’s remember that we are not merely reading text translated from Greek and Hebrew but moreover the ancient forms of these languages! Languages themselves change over time. The distance of time is enormous. Third, the distance of place and culture is also huge. Only a careful and thorough study of the culture, geography, and other circumstances at the time and place when and where the Bible was written can reveal the truth of the text.

We must take on and study the Hebrew context and mindset when translating and interpretting the language of the Bible. We should NOT bring our modern, Western/American, democratic connotations and assumptions to the words and phrases we read in the Bible. The challenge and our obligation is to find the Hebrew connotation (for the Bible was written by Jews or Jewish Christians), so that we may truly know the Truth. This is what the Catholic Church does, but I am afraid that Protestants far too often would rather neglect this mindset and substitute their own private interpretations and mindsets (sola Scriptura and supremacy of private conscience and interpretation) for that of the original and traditional mindset (the Jewish one) which wrote and interpretted the Bible.

America does not have an evolving or “living Constitution;” the Church does not have evolving Scripture.

The History of Sola Scriptura (Revised)

In this discussion, I would like to focus only on the history of the doctrine of sola Scriptura and what it means to the Protestant. I appreciate your charitable cooperation in confining your comments to these subjects alone.  Surely Protestants have some appreciation for history, no?

I would like to know the answers to the following questions: Historically, who held this belief of sola Scriptura? When did these believers live? Who were the very first people to hold this belief? When in history did these first believers live? etc.

As far as I know, the first people to hold the doctrine of sola Scriptura, or something like it, were the early (first four centuries AD) heretics such as the Arians. They believed this because they couldn’t trace the doctrine further back than their leader Arius (d.c. 336). And except for these heretics, early Christians did not believe in sola Scriptura. In fact, strictly speaking, such a doctrine was impossible: there was no commonly defined “Scripture” to which one should “only” refer until 397 AD when the canon was created by the Church. Additionally, Bibles were not plentiful or capable of being mass produced. The Gospel was preached, not handed out. If the first 400 years worth of Christians, those closest to the time and culture of Christ and the Bible’s authors, did not believe in sola Scriptura, why should today’s Christians?

The Church Fathers (e.g. St. Augustine, Origen, Irenaeus, etc.) certainly did not hold this view. They always appealed to the history of doctrine and apostolic succession, which for them were always the clincher and coup de grace in their arguments against heretics.

With this past history (or, more appropriately, lack thereof) in mind, one can conclude that the doctrine of sola Scriptura, for all practical purposes, was created by Martin Luther (and thus widely adopted because of him) in 1521 at the Diet of Worms, a whole 15 centuries after the life of Christ.

The implications of this fact of history for the Protestant are quite interesting and profound. He would have to believe that all Christians from the time of St. Peter up until the time of Luther were all dead wrong in not accepting the doctrine of sola Scriptura. That’s a long time and a lot of people weighed against Luther’s conscience and “plain reason.” In fact, it seems as if the Protestant, to hold true to sola Scriptura, must despise all of historical precedent and the opinions of his spiritual ancestors (like a modern American liberal actually), at least selectively on particular important issues, which they are also the ones they disagree with Catholicism on. Additionally, he would be conferring greater authority on one man, Luther, than 15 centuries of consistent Christian thought and tradition on this issue going back to the very beginning of the Church. You tell me, does this seem plainly reasonable?

Now, I am open to objections to this account of history. Tell me why it is wrong and cite your historical sources for me, if you would be so kind. No groundless conspiracy theories please.

More Contra Sola Scriptura

“The Bible is all we need, not the Pope, not the Church!” Unfortunately, the Bible alone theory is not what the Bible teaches. The Bible teaches us and shows us that the Church came before the Bible. After all, what books did Jesus write? None! Jesus deliberately chose NOT to write. Instead He chose to establish a Church to teach in His name!

The Catholic Church believes that both the Bible and Church are both necessary and one cannot exist without the other. Here are some questions non-Catholics must consider…

Scripture Alone (Sola Scriptura) Itself is Not Biblical

This begins a series aimed at Protestantism. I don’t mean to attack you, my good Protestant friends. Please don’t take this personally. You are some of the best people I know and better than many Catholics I’ve had experience with over the years. This is a matter of truth and ecumenism, a matter of trying to reunite the one Body of Christ as He intended it to be. Moreover, in a show of good faith (pun intended), I will meet you on your on playground, on your own terms: Scripture.
I take most of these arguments from “A Biblical Defense of Catholicism” by Dave Armstrong, a convert to Catholicism from evangelical Protestantism. Let’s consider this an ecumenical dialogue, so please offer your thoughts/objections in comments. Let’s remember 1 Peter 3:15 “Always be prepared to make a defense to anyone who calls you to account for the hope that is in you, yet do it with gentleness and reverence.” Aptly, Armstrong has this verse on a page all to itself before the Table of Contents. Attack the argument, not the arguer.

Tradition, even in the extensive Catholic sense, permeates Scripture. Scripture does not teach sola Scriptura. Scripture alone should lead the impartial seeker to the Tradition of the Catholic Church. Scripture must be viewed within its proper context and accepted on its own terms.