The close of the NT Canon... according to Protestants?

[Kolbitar]

To those who take Bible alone as their rule of faith -- with no Tradition, and no interpretive Authority -- how do you answer the question of an open Canon? In other words, where in the Bible alone can you find not just the table of contents, but a close to that table? Where does the Bible alone say something like “it is finished?”

Generalizing from Revelation 22: 18+19, by the way, just won't do – I’m not even sure Revelation was the last book written (?).

Jesse

[Theo]

Also, IIRC the inclusion of Revelation itself in the canon was quite strongly contested in the early Church, and it's not hard to see why. I'm actually more surprised that it was eventually included.

[Kolbitar]

[Karen]

[Kolbitar]

[Karen]

[Kolbitar]

::And around and around we go..... [/quote]

Alright, well let's keep it to the train of logic I set forth so we don't chase our tails.

You wrote:
But surely believing that the Councils were guided by God in this matter doesn't necessarily mean that all subsequent pronouncements of the Church were also so guided?

In post preceding that, within the set of logical steps, I wrote:
If they accept one of the two as Authoritative on this matter, then why not all matters?

To have kept us grounded perhaps I should have asked, in direct relation to your question, "...then why not all matters?" I open the question to all...

Jesse

[Adam Linton]

With only a few books still in question (Hebrews, 2 John, 3 John, Revalation, for example) the Canon of the New Testament was substantially fixed well before the decisive final Councils. Athanasius of Alexandria was the first (that we know of) to list the 27 books exactly as we have them. But the critical phase, even before this, I'd say, is what we see by engaging in 2nd and 3rd Century patristic studies.

Best single volume on the development of the New Testament, in my opinion, is Bruce Metzger's The Canon of the New Testament, Oxford/Clarendon. Highly recommended.

It is worthy to note (although it may seem strange to Protestants and Roman Catholics) that, as far as the Old Testament Canon - comparing and contrasting Greek and Russian Orthodox Bibles** makes clear that even now, the exact parameters of the Bible are not even now exactly tacked down in the Eastern Church. But this does not, by any means, imply that all is up for grabs -- that there is not a vivid sense of an Old Testament. It simply represents an earlier way of engaging with the issue of biblical canon.

** and both of these have more than the Latin Vulgate OT.

[Adam]

[Kolbitar]

[Kolbitar]

[Adam]

[Kolbitar]

::Hahaha. Yes indeed I am.



::I agree that the Scripture requires an outside authority, not only to interpret it, which is an argument which has occured here for some time, but even to define it, as you suggest. And I know for certain, having held the position once myself, that official Protestant doctrine authorizes both the Scripture and the even of canonization as the work of the Spirit, it does not authorize the people or the community involved in these events; the idea that the Spirit works in a book and in history but not in humanity is abhorrent to me now, having left the doctrines of depravity, which are the result of a belief in original sin, firmly behind me, for the optimism of the Greek understanding of the image of God in man.

Methinks you're leaning Orthodox...

[Adam Linton]

[WolfVanZandt]