A few brief comments before moving to the historicity of the Bible.

I do believe that reason, experience, and tradition are important ways that we can learn about the world. I do not believe that sola scriptura argues against that. Sola scriptura argues that scripture stands above the others as primary in our understanding of God, ourselves, and the world God created. It has primacy and ultimate authority because it is direct revelation of the only ultimate being, our creator. All other forms of gaining knowledge are "checked" against the authority of scripture. In this way, scripture rises above the rest to the role of sola scriptura. In areas that scripture does not address or leaves out details, experience, tradition, and reason fill in the gaps or confirm what the Bible reveals.

Your historical generalization and references are devestatingly misleading. Your characterization of the Bible as being chosen by the church at the council of Trent is either utterly ignorant of church and canonical history or intentionally misleading. If there is another option, I'm open to it, please correct me.

The council of Trent was not until the year 1546 and was a council at which the Roman Catholic church decided what would be it's official version of the Bible. They included the Apocrypha, as they believed that not only authoritative teaching, but helpful teaching should be included in the canon. The council of Trent did a number of other things that were additional departures from early church teaching.

You are missing roughly 1500 years of history in your cursary look at the reality of how we got our Bible. That's a lot when you consider that ignores 3/4 of the time from Christ until today. You are framing your arguments in the traditional Roman Catholic history, not the broader context of all of Christian history.

You argue for the Catholic view of the Bible by placing the Bible's authority under/alongside the church's. The Catholic church has long argued that the church is supreme and is somehow coauthoritative or even over scripture. The Protestant view is that the Bible rises above the church because the church DIDN'T decide on it. You apparently give no credence, thought, or argument to the Protestant view.

The church was given the Bible as individual books, written by the apostles, who learned directly from Jesus. The few books that don't fit in this category were accepted because they were from other people who learned directly from Jesus (i.e. James - Jesus brother) or were accepted and authenticated by the apostles (i.e Luke - Gentile doctor and friend of Paul).

The greatest debates over canonicity were not about WHAT should be included, but over WHO was the author. Therefore it was concluded that II Peter was indeed authoritatively scripture, when the case was strongly made based on history and textual criticism that the apostle Peter actually wrote it (over 1000 years before the council of Trent). Hebrews was accepted as a part of the canon because the eastern church ascribed it to Paul, therefore it was apostolic. The western church disagreed about authorship (they thought Barnabas wrote it) but agreed that regardless of authorship, it was authoritatively the apostles teaching. The Shepherd of Hermes was booted from the canon (though considered an excellent teaching tool) because it was not apostolic.

The "church" was not a large organization that had a board meeting and voted on what they wanted to be their Bible. It was a bunch of scattered groups that were overseen by numerous leaders that over time and geographic dispersion found that they were in agreement (based on tradition, the Holy Spirit's guidance, the teaching itself which matched with oral tradition they had received from their parents and grandparents,etc.) about the same collection of books.

Paul Wegner, in his book, The Journey from Texts to Translations: The Origin and Development of the Bible, says this. . .

"It is important to remember that the Christian church did not canonize any book. Canonization was determined by God. But the early church needed to know how to recognize canonicity."

History bears witness that the following early church fathers recognized the canonicity of the same New Testamant we have today.

Clement of Rome (c. 60-100) used 6 books, Ignatius (c. 60-117) alludes to 10 books, Polycarp (c. 69-155) recognized at least 16 books, Justin Martyr (c.100-165) was aware of 12-13 books, Marcion (c.85-160) 11 books, Iranaeus (c.130-202) quotes from 24-25 books -- research here is from Paul Wegner. I've only listed a few of these early church fathers that from the beginning believed our NT was authoritatively the apostles teaching, the very word of God to man.

All of these are part of the New Testemant we still have today. There is virtually no disagreement or argument about the Old Testament. Nearly all of the Protestant Bible we have today has been undisptuedly God's revealed word throughout the history of the church. The main disputes have been over the general epistles (Hebrews, James, I & II Peter, I, II, III John, Jude) and mainly about the issues of authorship or apostolic authority, not content. The New Testament books, within 150 years, had spread all around the Mediterrranean and were recognized as the authoritative embodiment of the apostles teaching, stamped by God as the canon from which his church locally and globally must take their instruction.

To make a post like this insinuating that the church waited 1500 years and picked what it wanted for its Bible is dangerously misleading and revises or ignores the historical record. It is simply not accurate and ignores the Reformation's historical foundation for arguing "sola scriptura" in favor of an assumed Roman Catholic view of the church and the Bible.

Point well taken Kristen. I only know that the people I've heard argue for Sola Scriptura say that scripture is the ultimate standard and all we need. However, they still value the experiences they have had, the usefulness of logic in their mind, and the traditions of their heritage.

Sola scriptura may not be the best label for arguing scripture as primary (it clearly isn't), but I've never met anyone that said sola scriptura and meant it in a hyperliteral fashion to the exclusion of all reason, tradition, and experience. In fact, scripture uses and speaks to tradition (especially cultural), experience and reason in a way that certainly shows they are not mutually exclusive.

Your point is well made and certainly more accurately depicts the reality of people's position, including the reformers, who clearly were heavily involved in reason (i.e. rationalism), experience (i.e. Geneva), and tradition (which was certainly their weakest point). The reformers were reacting (in some cases overreacting) to the disaster of the Roman Catholic church at that time and the political power of the Holy Roman Empire's attempt to justify its control theologically. From that correction came "sola scriptura" as a way to distinguish themselves from the Catholic view of the church as primary / coauthoritive with the Bible.

The political influences of the councils were certainly there, but long after the canon had been established among the local churches. The councils simply formalized what had long ago been recognized by the church.

Mitch, after a quick jaunt around the internet, and a peek or two in the Ryrie Study Bible, what I've come to understand is that Sola scriptura speaks to the idea that ONLY scripture is needed to authenticate scripture, or by scripture alone can you authenticate scripture.

You spend a good portion of your post explaining how history and tradition played important roles in understanding the canon. It seems that by your post you would also disagree with Sola scriptura would you not? Have I googled and wikipedia'd myself into ignorance here?

IF (and I know it's an IF) I'm correct in my understanding, I really don't think it's "hyperliteral" to nail down the definition of Sola scriptura. You also may want to be careful about listening to the people you say you've heard discuss Sola scriptura, because it sounds like they don't represent it correctly.

You can click my name to view the Wikipedia article related to Sola scriptura. It also includes a contrast with Prima scriptura. I've also looked it up in the study Bible I have, but it's a lot easier to link to wikipedia :) Anyone is welcome to correct me if I'm wrong.

Thanks Kristen, I should have said "authenticating" instead of "understanding" in my second paragraph (especially since NOT misrepresenting its meaning was my whole point...doh) my mistake.

As I said in my first paragraph, I think Sola scriptura means authenticating scripture by scripture alone.

This seems to be circular reasoning to me though. Perhaps I still misunderstand it.

from the horse's mouth (the Catechism)

http://www.vatican.va/archive/catechism/ccc_toc.htm

II. THE RELATIONSHIP BETWEEN TRADITION AND SACRED SCRIPTURE

One common source. . .

80 "Sacred Tradition and Sacred Scripture, then, are bound closely together, and communicate one with the other. For both of them, flowing out from the same divine well-spring, come together in some fashion to form one thing, and move towards the same goal." Each of them makes present and fruitful in the Church the mystery of Christ, who promised to remain with his own "always, to the close of the age".

. . . two distinct modes of transmission

81 "Sacred Scripture is the speech of God as it is put down in writing under the breath of the Holy Spirit."

"And [Holy] Tradition transmits in its entirety the Word of God which has been entrusted to the apostles by Christ the Lord and the Holy Spirit. It transmits it to the successors of the apostles so that, enlightened by the Spirit of truth, they may faithfully preserve, expound and spread it abroad by their preaching."

82 As a result the Church, to whom the transmission and interpretation of Revelation is entrusted, "does not derive her certainty about all revealed truths from the holy Scriptures alone. Both Scripture and Tradition must be accepted and honored with equal sentiments of devotion and reverence."

The Magisterium of the Church

85 "The task of giving an authentic interpretation of the Word of God, whether in its written form or in the form of Tradition, has been entrusted to the living teaching office of the Church alone. Its authority in this matter is exercised in the name of Jesus Christ." This means that the task of interpretation has been entrusted to the bishops in communion with the successor of Peter, the Bishop of Rome.

86 "Yet this Magisterium is not superior to the Word of God, but is its servant. It teaches only what has been handed on to it. At the divine command and with the help of the Holy Spirit, it listens to this devotedly, guards it with dedication and expounds it faithfully. All that it proposes for belief as being divinely revealed is drawn from this single deposit of faith."

For most Protestants, referencing the Tridentine Council is akin to seeking support from the Quaran or other non-Christian texts. It is important to remember that around the same time as the Tridentine Council, the 39 Articles of the Anglican Church, and the Westminster Confession both affirmed their versions (shortened though they be) of the Canon (Old and New Testaments). Lutherans did as well, though they initially left out Hebrews, James, and a few others.

Protestants actually took out several deuterocanonical books that had been part of the Christian canon (that loose, generally decided-upon canon as Mitch describes) for 1000+ years. Most of the Church Fathers quote from the deuterocanonical books just as they quote from the protocanonical ones. It is, therefore, even more important for a Protestant Christian to understand the role of authority in deciding the canon, since it was they who authoritatively shortened the canon.

I can, therefore, agree with Mitch that, for Protestants, the Council of Trent had no input as to the constituent members of the canon. But only an historically uninformed person would deny the influence of any human authority.

Dan,

I know and believe that God used men to write the scriptures and to recognize that they were scripture. Then they collected those they recognized together as one book less than 200 years after the NT books had been written. God did write them and choose them. There was not a global church (i.e. Roman Catholic) that had a council to figure it out. Rather the early bishops gathered from each other their different regions and came to huge agreement about what NT books were indeed scripture. The OT Canon had been decided long ago by the Jewish people. If you or Rachel want to claim the church decided the Bible, you are free to do so. I won't argue that people had nothing to do with it because God clearly used people (though the Council of Trent and most of the other formal councils that happened much later had nothing to do with it from a Protestant perspective). The point is that the original post was heavily one-sided and painted the Bible as a human invention rather than a divine one. God used humans to preserve his divine communication and to insinuate otherwise is dangerous and misleading.

Mitch, I disagree that "...the original post was heavily one-sided and painted the Bible as a human invention rather than a divine one."

To come to that conclusion, you'd almost have to stop reading the post after the second sentence of the second paragraph where Rachel says "The Council of Trent put it together." and then incorrectly interpret the phrase "put it together" as "write it."

guitar425, you agree that "[God] used man to write and put [the Bible] together." and then you quickly jump to "[what] would make you want to declare it errant or say you can't trust it because man put it together?"

Not trusting the Bible and not believing it to be inerrant are two separate issues. Frankly, I don't think I raised either one. However, since you brought up inerrancy... where does the Bible claim it's self to be inerrant? Is it really a good idea to ascribe something like that to the Bible if it doesn't claim it?

Please know I'm not unaware of 2Timothy 3:16, and would ask you to consider the idea that neither God's inspiration nor the scriptures usefulness are the same things as inerrancy.

I personally am not sure what to think about inerrancy, mostly because I haven't seen where the Bible actually claims to be without error.

You may say, how can you possibly toy with the notion that the Word of God could have any errors? It's the Word of God, He's without error so it's without error! - maybe you wouldn't say this, but someone probably will :) -

Well... Would you agree that we are the direct creations of a perfect God, and yet we are imperfect? If you can believe God's direct creation can be imperfect, why is the idea of God's indirect, inspired, creation - meaning text written and interpreted by errant humans - so hard to believe?

(If someone else wants to comment with something more directly related to the post, don't let me stop you, I realize this is related, but a little off topic.)

Here's why I came to the conclusion that the post was one-sided:

1. Rachel quoted Chris, "The very texts of Scripture were canonized by the authority of the Church."
-- they were canonized by God as he used men which is a huge difference!

2. Rachel said, "The Council of Trent put it together. So anyone who has faith in the authority of Scripture ultimately places his or her faith in the authority of the Council of Trent, trusting that the Holy Spirit was present among church leaders as they chose which writings would be canonized."
-- This is a great argument to have with Catholics, Eastern Orthodox, and Anglicans. However it has nothing to do with a Protestant view of scripture since the Protestants had nothing to do with the Council of Trent. As I also pointed out, it ignores rougly 1500 years before the council of Trent.

3. Rachel said, "Paul’s letters were included in the Bible because the Church decided to include them in the Bible, not because the Bible itself called for it.
-- Again Rachel emphasizes that "the Church" decided to include I Timothy in the Bible, with no mention that God might have been involved.

4. Rachel says, "My hope is that as evangelicals move beyond the modern paradigm of individual autonomy (particularly as it applies to biblical interpretation), we will begin to appreciate church tradition as an undeniable foundation for our faith."
-- again Rachel declares man, "church tradition as an undeniable foundation for our faith." I say Jesus Christ is teh undeniable foundation and that he is chiefly declared through the Bible which was given by God four our benefit through the ancient writers as they were moved by God. God preserved those writings by moving men to recognize that they were from God. They recognized this almost immediately but the writings were geographically dispersed so it took about 200 years to round them up into one place and settle any lingering questions (i.e. the Synod of Laodicea (363AD), the Council of Hippo (393AD), the Synod of Carthage(397AD) and the Council of Carthage (419AD)). These synods and councils all affirmed the 27 books of the NT we have today. There was no dispute about the OT because it had been settled long ago.

5. Rachel said, "Too often we forget that for centuries, Christians relied on the Church for the communication and interpretation of the Bible."
-- I agree that for the first 2 centuries the early Christians relied upon the apostles teaching passed down orally, especially through their church leaders, the early bishops. This was largely because they only had little bits of the NT. They did have the entirety of the OT though.

Most of the reliance on the church traditions that Rachel refers to was the result of Roman Catholicism's restriction and interference with the Bible being translated into the language of the people. While not all Roman Catholics felt this way, the Magesterium of the Church, led by the Popes, did. This was the Dark Ages where largely for the sake of political power, the Catholic Church kept the people uneducated and reliant upon the church's traditions, as Rachel points out.

The Reformers stood up against the church and declared that people should be free to read the Bible in their own language, not forced to only read the Latin Vulgate. For this, great men like William Tyndale were burned alive (by the Magesterium of the Church because of its traditions) rather than recant his view that the Bible was for ALL MEN in their own language. The church knew that the lies they were teaching would be exposed (as they were) when people could read the Bible themselves.

My point is that people's reliance upon the church was largely forced upon them by the Holy Roman Empire, not by choice as I think Rachel implies in this quote.

I do not interpret "put it together" as "write it". I understand it to mean canonization, not authorship. I imply that God canonized the Bible as well as wrote it by directing men. Ultimately it was God supernaturally intervening in human history to ensure we got His words.

Dan said, "Is that collection of books the same as the Bible we recognize today?" (in reference to my claim that the Bible was recognized long before the council of Trent)
--Yes. The very same Bible we have today was affirmed with certainty by the Council of Hippo in 393. Though there is a bit of uncertainty, it is likely affirmed as well by the Synod of Laodicea in 363 (with the possible exception of Revelation). In 397 and 419 these same 27 books were again confirmed as the NT canon.

There were individuals much earlier that recognized in large part the NT canon we have today.

Clement (60-100), the early bishop of Rome (possibly the Clement mentioned in Philippians), likely used paraphrases from Acts, Romans, 1 Cor., Ephesians, Titus, Hebrews, & I Peter.

Ignatius (60-117), early bishop of Antioch, alludes to Matthew, Luke, John, Romans, 1 & 2 Cor., Gal, Eph, and 1 & 2 Tim.

Polycarp (69-155), diciple of John, bishop of Smyrna, recognized 16 of the 27 we have as canonical.

Irenaeus (130-202), bishop of Lyon in France, was trained by Polycarp. He quotes our current NT canon and identifies 24 of our 27 as canonical. He did not mention Philemon, Jude, and 3rd John.

The Muratorian Canon, a document discovered in the 8th century that dates to 190 AD listed 20 of the 27. It's only a partial document however and since it calls Luke the 3rd Gospel and includes John, it likely had Matthew and Mark as well (making it 22 of 27).

I could go on and on but I'm tired of typing. Most of this info comes from Paul Wegner's in-depth book, The Journey From Texts to Translations. Another great resource is Dr. Mike Wittmer, an expert in early church history that teaches at Grand Rapids Baptist Theological Seminary. His 1 hour overview of all this can be found www.westcannon.org on the sermon for February 17, 2008 titled "How Did We Get Our Bible".

Finally, I do believe that it is foolish to say that God did not communicate scripture inerrantly in His original writing of the Bible. To say otherwise is to say that God's attempt to communicate through scripture's writers was thwarted by these mere men before he could even get His words out to us. That is foolishness.

I do however believe that the preservation of that message is a different issue. Textual criticism is needed and has been applied to the Bible we have today in numerous ways. In fact, more scrutiny has come upon the Bible's texts than any other written text in history. The result is that with overwhelming consistency (especially backed by the Dead Sea Scrolls) we have found that the Bible has indeed been preserved over the centuries with very few textual discrepancies at all in the OT or NT.

Conclusion -- we can trust that we have God's word, written for our instruction, to find out about Him, and how we can please Him. The Church's traditions are absolutely subordinate to God's revealed word.

guitar425, I agree that Bible's silence on its own perfection is actually one of its strengths, but I think we disagree on the importance of inerrancy. (please note that I do not equate inerrancy with trustworthiness, usefulness, or authority.)

I do not believe that it is slanderous (or foolish as Mitch says) to disagree with the tradition of Biblical inerrancy.

If the Creator's inerrancy is the equivalent of his creation's inerrancy (text or otherwise)... wouldn't it stand to reason that calling ANY part of creation errant should also be considered foolish and slanderous? I'm open to being wrong on this, because one thing I do believe in is my own errancy :)