Sacred status

[22zg2293]

The process by which some documents were accorded sacred status and collected to form the Bible must be reviewed with other ancient documents now competing for that sacred status.
Do you agree or disagree? Why?

[Tcg]

The process by which some documents were accorded sacred status and collected to form the Bible must be reviewed with other ancient documents now competing for that sacred status.
Do you agree or disagree? Why?

I'm not sure that I can agree. I can't see any reason why this process should be limited to ancient documents.

If we are going to open the floodgates so to speak, they should be opened fully.

[JehovahsWitness]

The process by which some documents were accorded sacred status and collected to form the Bible must be reviewed with other ancient documents now competing for that sacred status.
Do you agree or disagree? Why?

Emphasis MINE


Hello there. This sounds like homework...



No.


Reason: Review of the validity of a process is not subject to potential rival claims of authenticity, the process itself should stand alone. If a new or more valid method of judging authenticity comes to light then the merits of this should govern a review of any documents available.

To illustrate: A body of ten international judges, assess performance of a number of dancers and select the best three for medals. Five years later, 16 fabulous dancers from Moldavia are discovered by a travelling judge during a family trip. Does this discovery call into question the process of having just 12 judges? The"process" of judging was fine, if new dancers are discovered they shuold be judged by same criteria unless we discover that more than 8 judges results in a faulty result.

If there are new contenders for the claim of "sacred scripture" all things being equal they should pass the same test as those that were previous. Thus my answer "no".


JEHOVAH'S WITNESS

[William]

[Replying to post 1 by 22zg2293]

The process by which some documents were accorded sacred status and collected to form the Bible must be reviewed with other ancient documents now competing for that sacred status.
Do you agree or disagree? Why?

Why think of any 'ancient document' as being 'sacred'? Isn't a sacred object simply something that one chooses to think of in that way?

Perhaps in that, it is simply something one can place their confidence in, and does not even require being from an ancient document in order to have that effect one someone?
The following does that for me;


[font=Comic Sans MS]There is no supplication that stirs me. No prayer that invites me further into your world unless it is attended with the feeling of unity and wholeness. There is no temple or sacred object that touches me. They do not, nor have they ever brought you closer to my outstretched hand. My presence in your world is unalterable for I am the sanctuary of both the cosmos and the one soul inside you.[/font]

[The Tanager]

The process by which some documents were accorded sacred status and collected to form the Bible must be reviewed with other ancient documents now competing for that sacred status.
Do you agree or disagree? Why?

It might depend on the process. For instance, if part of the process of selection required which texts were in wide use by various of the communities at the time, then the discovery of new texts from that time period are not going to affect that process. But if the process were something else, then perhaps a review would be in order.

[brianbbs67]

The process by which some documents were accorded sacred status and collected to form the Bible must be reviewed with other ancient documents now competing for that sacred status.
Do you agree or disagree? Why?

What documents are you talking about? The RCC arranged our current Bible, so I would be open to things, if they are proved contemporary to the Apostles and Christ. I will say, there was a lot of crazy stuff written in the first 4 centuries that are obvious quackery. Like the "Gospel of the Holy 12".

[22zg2293]

In other words
how do the books now in the bible get chosen? Who choses and what was the criteria used? – and is that decision long ago still valid

[William]

[Replying to post 6 by brianbbs67]

I will say, there was a lot of crazy stuff written in the first 4 centuries that are obvious quackery. Like the "Gospel of the Holy 12".

Even just reading the first few chapters of that gospel, I have so far found nothing in any way overly different from the stories of the biblical gospels which would make it obvious to the reader that in comparison, that one can be considered 'quackery' and the others, not.

[The Tanager]

In other words
how do the books now in the bible get chosen? Who choses and what was the criteria used? – and is that decision long ago still valid

It's my understanding that various factors went into it. I think there is some merit to the redemptive-historical perspective. The Tanakh (Old Testament) spoke of redemptive history and pointed to the future Messiah. There is a 400 year break of silence and then we have the new redemptive act surrounding (in the Gospels) Jesus and the earliest attempts to interpret this act (in the Epistles), considering factors such as the texts' connections to the apostles, the connections to the earliest Christian message (say, against a Gnostic message), whether the Christian communities were using these texts, probably among others. Under this kind of criteria, new books aren't really going to challenge that. If they were used by most of the communities, for instance, we would have already known about this books because there would have been more copies of them and lists with their names as respected texts. If anything, I could see a case being made to tighten the Canon, but not to expand it.

Now, of course, different communities (like Gnostic ones) would have had a different canon, but then the question becomes which texts are earlier, which cohere with the wider earliest Christian message, which are historically more reliable in their information about Jesus, etc.

[Elijah John]

[Replying to post 3 by JehovahsWitness]

Why do JWs use the canon compiled by "Christendom", sonce JWs consider "Christendom" apostate? Roman Catholic commitees compiled the canon, then it was reduced by Protestant reformers.