Did the Early Church Have the Bible?
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- เผยแพร่เมื่อ 12 ก.ย. 2024
- Some anti-Protestant apologists allege that the early church did not have a "Bible" or scripture, and that therefore they could not have practiced Sola Scriptura for centuries. This argument would be great, if it wasn't completely false. Find out why.
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"THERE WAS LITERALLY NO CANON BEFORE CONSTANTINE LEGALIZED CHRISTIANITY" Melito of Sardis: 😥
HAHAHAHAHA
Facts
That clip from that other channel broke my spirit. "Brute fact", complete misunderstanding of Protestantism, and the obligatory "39,962 denominations (and counting)". It's like a parody 😭
Yes protestants are a sick parody at this point.
Notice the sneaky switch they pull equating Scripture with "The Bible™". The Church may not have had The Bible™, but it had Scripture. The Bible is a compilation of the total corpus of God-breathed Scripture, each individual text of which was possessed by the Church from the moment the original documents were received and read in the first century. This is kind of similar to fallacies they commit regarding "The Septuagint™" but almost in the opposite direction, there they assert that "The Septuagint™" contains the Roman deuterocanonical books and the early Church used "The Septuagint™" therefore the early Church considered the Roman deuterocanon to be inspired.
On point
@@TheOtherPaul Hello there, Mr. Paul,
Pardon me, hopefully this will reach you, but have you heard of a certain Catholic priest called Fr. Darwin Gitgilano? He's a Filipino Catholic priest, I swear this man has videos spread throughout TH-cam and been saying things against Sola Scriptura and other things. Perhaps you could check out at least a few videos about the way he debates. He mostly speaks in Cebuano but I reckon there are subtitles in those videos.
Thank you and God bless you
@@frennysala7039 If this guy takes on a priest he will be destroyed. He is no where in their leauge.
given the mess protestants are they really don't have a leg to stand on for anything. They are so outside the boundaries of even the bible now its a sick joke.
Then how did Paul preach in Galatian 2:1-2?
He didn't preach with muh bible. No preach it orally through a revelation. The same way the Apostles preach the gospels orally not with scripture
@@houbertcanitio2199 Hello there,
Aye, there's no question he did. It was first spoken before it was written. Sola Scriptura does not exclude the role of oral tradition but that does not mean there was never Scripture.
Given all the chaos and disunity in Romanism I'm kinda surprised Catholic apologists still use the disunity/denominations argument.
I'd propose that most Papists are actually pro-abortion and pro-gay mirage.
They still use it because there are still Protestants who don't know much of anything about Romanism as it really exists, and that's their target audience.
The former EO priest Paul interviewed said a similar thing about western EO converts, they don't see the disunity and controversy early on because there's a lot of superficial unity on things the convert is unfamiliar with. With Romanism I think the disunity is more visible, but it can be rationalized as outside elements trying to enter and change the communion while the good guys are standing strong against it rather than real division within the communion (this plays into the broader Roman apologetic).
@Αλέξης
Δημόπουλος I understand that's the assertion. Of course the Romanists say they are the one true church and you broke from them (not the other way around).
@Αλέξης
Δημόπουλος Although I am in agreement with you in rejecting the papacy I don't share your sentiments towards Protestantism.
We are still unified under the Pope, some may disagree or dislike what the Pope does but they still belive in the Authority Christ gave Peter and passed down through the Popes to the current one
"Dear Timmy, you have known the Scriptures from your youth because your mom and grandma are really faithful Christians. Love Paul. P.S.- Don't worry about being kinda young."
Well, arguably enough, “the Scriptures” Paul refers to is the Septuagint translation of the OT, not any New Testament writings
@@joseortegabeede8233 that's the point.
@@danielsmith8700 Allegedly, but even then, it was very early on to even consider the shadow of a NT canon during the apostle’s time. That doesn’t mean that the church had no guidance nor other scriptures, obviously
I’m starting to feel that I don’t understand why people feel so confident when they downplay sola scriptura by saying it wasn’t practical in the early church and say that oral tradition was this high and mighty thing. It’s not like oral tradition was fail safe even at that time. Heresies and issues pop up right away. You wouldn’t be able to just trust what people were calling oral tradition because we know with the game of telephone that things get messed up real quick.
@@ACReji, of the apostles, not 2nd+ century bishops
@@ACReji so where are these Marian dogmas and various oral traditions proved to be past on from 1st century apostolic?
@Ashwin Cherian Reji you have to make you case, you are the one claiming they are apostolic, the burden of proof is on the one making the positive claim.
@@ACReji It is quite obvious they are later developed traditions.
@Ashwin Cherian Reji Paul says hold on to the traditions YOU WERE GIVEN (past tense) whether by word of mouth or letter. So show me where the 1st century oral tradition is and what it's specific contents are...its not enough to say Paul says x. You have to show its additional contents that are not already contained in Scripture. There is 0 evidence to claim Marian dogmas are 1st century apostolic tradition. It is a trick to anachronistically insert later developed doctrines back into that proof text in an attempt to justify so called oral tradition doctrines that were not apostolic 1st century.
Intellectual convert to Christianity: I don’t know which church to join, there’s so many! 😂
St. John Chrysostom: well, what does the Bible say? 😎
Exactly what his commentary says.
@Αλέξης
Δημόπουλος where does the Scripture say that? And which 'true Orthodox church' are you talking about?
@@bersules81. have you read John on 1 Corinthians chapter 3, his homilies on it? He clearly didn't think that passage taught purgatory.
2. What passage do you think he taught 'almsgiving for souls in purgatory?' citation please.
3. What does that mean 'almsgiving for souls in purgatory?'
4. Can you give citations for 'prayer to saints?'
5. In what sense does he pray to saints, that is, does he appeal to their merits to propitiate sin?
6. Could he be in error on 'prayer to saints?
7. Do you agree with what John taught about everything?
8. Do you agree with what John taught on the Virgin Mary?
@Αλέξης
Δημόπουλος no, they haven't. Remember the Lord Jesus will judge the secrets of men. He will vindicate the truth and condemn all false teachers, including the Pope and his former followers the EO 'bishops.'
@Αλέξης
Δημόπουλος the scriptures are actually in biblical Hebrew, Aramaic and koine Greek. Not modern Greek.
So the Lord Jesus said that 'whoever believes in Him is not condemned' (John 3) yet you condemn those who believe in Him? Remember that God shall judge the secrets of men by Jesus Christ. (Romans 2).
All humans are born in sin, Romans 5. Only Jesus Christ can save from sin. There is no other name under Heaven given among men by which we must be saved, Acts chapter 4. Read the scriptures and repent.
"Who are these guys? Protestants?" 🤣
Them dirty Prots and their Holy Scripture 😤
@@TheOtherPaul😂😂😂😂
Rome says that they accept the canon of St Augustine of Hippo. This is problematic for two reasons. The first is that St Augustine of Hippo considered the Septuagint, not the Masoretic Text, to be inspired. This is why he opposed the Vulgate of St Jerome of Stridon, which according to Trent is the official Bible of the Roman Catholic Church. The second problem is that if they do accept the canon of St Augustine of Hippo, just not his view on the Septuagint, then they're certainly missing a canonical book, because St Augustine of Hippo accepted Greek Esdras, not Ezra, as I Esdras (The City of God 18:36).
Well done, exactly. And people like Trent Horn reject that Paul wrote Hebrews yet will appeal to writings that taught he did.
@@truthisbeautiful7492 I agree completely. The Eastern Orthodox Church is at least more correct when it quotes from church fathers to get their canon and their doctrines than Rome is. Such as the word immaculate which can be found in the Lateran Council of 649. To a catholic, the word is a seed that morphs into the immaculate conception idea. But Orthodoxy takes the original intent of the word, free from personal sin, just not original sin. I couldn't truly be roman catholic because a lot of stuff like papal infallibility and the immaculate conception are no where to be found in the early church. While the pope was certainly a first amongst equals like you would find with the Archbishop of Canterbury or the Patriarch of Constantinople, he certainly didn't have universal jurisdiction, like you see in Rome today
Whether the LXX or Vulgate. It doesn't matter. The Councils list titles of books not textual variants.
Second, prove me that Hippo and Carthage canonized the Greek Esdras. It only says, Esdras 2 books. (Hint: take a look at the canonical lists of the fathers and see how they compare it to the Jewish combined book of Ezra).
Fantastic video and argumentation king.
Much appreciated king
@@TheOtherPaul what about this guy? Seems like he's got some interesting thoughts?
th-cam.com/video/5QW2YEqrqdI/w-d-xo.html
The absolute lack of any basic theological, historical knowledge from the proposition of the point “the early church had no bible” is insane and inane. Just lack of common sense as well. Lord give me strength.
they didn't it simply had not been created yet. The Catholics did it. because they likely were the only guys that could at the time.
The early church in the apostolic era did have no bible. When did Jesus have a personal scribe and write his own works? All of his gospels are attributed by men who know or at least retelling of Jesus by oral traditions pass down by the Apostles
melito of sardis:😢@@redink71
If the Bible didn’t exist, then what in the world are the Apostles talking about when they talk about the scriptures????
Well, when the apostles speak of the scriptures, they usually just refer to the Old Testament, not the new
So then, they did have a Bible…
@@TheOtherPhilip yes but the argument here is more for the NT canon instead of the OT canon, is what I mean
Correct. But then you see that the argument, once corrected, becomes absurd. How could the earliest Christians get by without a New Testament? Well, the authors of the New Testament taught them personally, then wrote them letters and sent teachers to guide them. It’s like asking how JK Rowling’s husband could know the plot of the 2nd Harry Potter book before the 2nd Harry Potter book was even written? Uh…the author told him….
@@TheOtherPhilip No. "A Bible" Contains the Old testamnent AND the new testament. Since there was NO new testament OR gospel written ( or colated yet) There was no Bible.
Good video Paul! I’m so glad now that I did not listen to this other guy you referenced in your video. Where did the guy get his faulty information from? Wikipedia, social media like Facebook, and comments below TH-cam channels? He obviously did not research this at all. In the brief clip that you showed, he made a ton of errors! And he also seems to be embracing the common fallacy of equating “scripture alone“ with “Bible alone.“ he doesn’t seem to realize there’s a difference, because the “Bible“ refers to every single book in the canon including the New Testament, while “Scripture” would simply refer to divinely revealed scripture in a particular time. so the Jews in Jesus time could’ve easily employed scripture alone, without having the New Testament. And that’s because Jesus, and by extension his apostles, knew the boundaries of the Old Testament Scriptures, since Jesus expected the Jews to know what they were.
The problem is your methodology to decide whats canon and not canon was decided by the capadocian fathers and early church fathers who base it on their tradition pass down by their teachers
There was no 66 book Christian Bible matching the current Protestant bible. That’s the key difference missing to this discussion. And no evidence at all of God choosing the books speaking of a bible. Anyone can claim the Holy Spirit did something
Cool, not relevant at all to my video.
People were accountable to God's law before He ever gave a written law. People are accountable to know God's word before they ever had a written word.
This notion of authority is so overblown. We need to be discussing responsibility. People are responsible and accountable to God's word. Before any council. Before any dogmatic declaration of the canon. Jesus said "He who has ears to hear, let him hear". Jesus expected His listeners to understand what He was saying, and He held them accountable to that.
@@ACReji You're conflating epistemology with ontology. That was not the point of my comment.
Whether or not there are apostolic oral teachings that we are still in possession of today is a wholly separate issue.
I follow you on twitter but i didnt know you made videos lol
Irenaeus was a second century Church father literally quotes 90% of the New Testement books lol. The Apostolic fathers quoted the gospels, the deuterocanon and the rest of the Old Testement. Even Marcion compiled a "bible" by 140 AD. Most Christians knew there were at least 21 books in the New Testement.
However, I do believe there were many that dismissed certain books (especially revelation) and i do believe the council in Rome in 382 helped "lock" or "close" the New Testement canon in the ultimate sense.
The EO, OO, RCC, and Georgian church all have different canons to this day.
Not the New testament canon
@@theonik6082The point is that if being a part of the apostolic church means you will have the "one right canon," the evidence points otherwise.
In reality, of course, the Protestant canon is virtually identical to the OO and EO canons because they mean something different by "canon" than RCC mean. Canon were books recognized, not just inspired scripture, which was a subset of that originally. RCC likes playing up the role of a central body which never existed and didn't have the role they think it did.
@@toomanymarys7355 I don't care what the RCC says
@@theonik6082 That's kinda the point.
@@toomanymarys7355 Sola scriptura says that only canonical scripture is infallible
Firstly, thank you for this video. Even for Catholics this is great content for how not to argue stupidly but to be more genuine and devoted towards the truth.
Secondly, I wonder if after reading 'The Biblical Canon Lists from Early Christianity' you have concluded that any books other than the 66 should be considered Sacred Scripture?
If you still only recognise the 66 books I would assume this would partly be based on the early "common consensus" among patristics, though please correct me if I am wrong.
God bless!
Put back the books that Luther removed for starters, and correct the passages he changed too.
Do that and you'll be catholic because your prot stuff will look like Joe Biden trying to complete an extemporaneous sentence! That is to say very foolish!
Well said Paul, concise and informative. Amazing how the hyper skeptical arguments of how can we have the canon of scripture without a sacred infallible tradition promulgated by the Jesuits and Andrada at the Council of Trent are still used by the papists today.
If you can prove to me with no margin of error that Revelations and Hebrews are the inspired Word of God (without appealing to any infallible tradition), I will become Protestant.
How do you know your tradition is infallible?
@@briand4622 that is not what I asked. Can you answer my question?
It’s a ridiculous question because no one can tell with no margin of error whether Hebrews and Revelation are part of the canon
@@briand4622 Thanks. I suspected that, but now I know for certain. You Protestant are not even sure if the books you have in your Bible are inspired by God or not. Why are you even yelling 'sola scriptura' left and right, if you do not even know what 'scriptura' is exactly?
Love this new format! 😌
You're totally missing the point of the argument that's being made, although the RC apologists don't do much help here, because not many of them have been trained in philosophy, or really read many of the Fathers/Councils. Here's an alternate argument:
We have a canon list allegedly from Marcion, from the 2nd century. He rejected all books except for the Gospel of Luke and Paul's epistles.
How do we know that Marcion's canon is false, and that our current canon is correct? You cannot appeal to our current canon or the Bible, because these two things are the things in question, and that would be the fallacy of begging the question (circular reasoning). You also cannot appeal to "inspiration by the Holy Spirit," because a Marcionite can just invoke that too in favor of their position.
Clearly you need to appeal to some normative authority such as the authority of the Church, or of Sacred Tradition to adjudicate rival Holy Spirit claims, or to determine which canon is correct. Since RC and Orthos can both do this, they avoid the problem. Prots cannot answer this question without assuming an RC/Ortho paradigm of authority which places the Bible, the Church, and Tradition on at least equal levels of authority.
Here's a point that's potentially even more damning: from all estimates, it seems that the Epistle to the Galatians is the earliest book of the NT, written in ~54 AD. (If anyone disputes this, and says that the Gospels came prior, then why doesn't Paul quote from the written text?) If Sola Scriptura was always the case, and Christ instituted the Church ~30 AD, then how could there have been Churches in Asia Minor, Rome, Palestine, etc. that had NONE of the NT writings for 24 YEARS after Christ? How is this possible under Sola Scriptura? During that point in time, it was clearly more "Sola Traditio" than it was Sola Scriptura.
Then the line of reasoning follows that if Sola Scriptura was not always the case for the Church, then it is a Protestant innovation, and should be rejected.
The sols garbage was never mentioned until after 1500 or so. It is a prot invention.
The issue is that, as Jimmy Akin pointed out in the debate, if you include one uninspired book in your canon or if you exclude one inspired book from your canon, then the doctrinal data pool which you are supposedly required to ground all teachings on faith and morals upon is skewed and can therefore not be workable. Therefore, your rebuttal, “so what” is inadequate. Wouldn’t you think that the apostles would outline what scriptures ought to be included in the canon of scripture had they intended to leave the Church with only the inspired writings as the ultimate authority? Further, the historical argument that the canon was not set prior to the late 4th century is not the only part of the argument. It is also notable that the earliest Christians relied upon sacred tradition in addition to sacred scripture to inform their doctrinal reasoning. Finally, the fact that these early fathers inherited a set of books from their predecessors without having a council or pope to tell them which books actually belonged in the canon doesn’t = Protestantism. The persecuted church had far less ability to gather and decide on doctrine than the post-Edict of Milan church. That’s why the christological disputes couldn’t be entirely settled beforehand.
Thanks for the comment boss :)
The problem with your response is it assumes I'm arguing against a specific argument that I'm not. Akin's argument, while very similar, is not quite pointing to the same thing. The one I addressed (exemplified by Gordon) is that the early church simply didn't have scripture, period, and I demonstrated that this was patently false when we consider what the fathers themselves believed. Akin's argument doesn't deny there was scripture per se (as far as I'm aware) but that the time it took to fully organise it would make Sola Scriptura impracticable for doctrinal unity. I'll still address it here since it's very related:
"if you include one uninspired book in your canon or if you exclude one inspired book from your canon, then the doctrinal data pool which you are supposedly required to ground all teachings on faith and morals upon is skewed and can therefore not be workable."
First, as I think I pointed out to Akin in the debate if memory serves correct, this objection doesn't really mean anything in the abstract. It's entirely possible that one could include an uninspired book that doesn't substantially add significant claims at all, or at best only minor ones, for which God would not fault someone who doesn't know better (as the Catholic Church is more than willing to grant for the invincibly ignorant, including on more grave errors). So without a concrete example, this objection doesn't mean anything.
With that said, I do recognise certain books with not-so-insignificant (tho I and many others would argue not definitional) claims were hotly disputed, say, the Apocalypse of John. I grant this could affect the teaching of the faithful, and thus getting this wrong is a real risk (tho not a one of salvation or damnation). However, all that this proves is that this is a real risk, not that Sola Scriptura is not true, which I base on logically necessary conclusions from the facts of history. If we applied this to so-called Sacred Tradition, the problem greatly multiplies. Many churches and fathers had varying levels of access to the sources of sacred tradition; some, like the library of Caesarea, had a great collection of patristic texts and thus excellent access to the traditions of the Church (alongside scripture); others, like a backwater village in Northern Gaul, would have nothing close to that collection, and thus *could* (tho not necessarily) have a skewed view of faith and morals, just like how people with differing biblical canons *could* (tho not necessarily) have a skewed view. In fact, we see precisely this issue of the clash of traditions play out many times in history, first in the Quartodeciman Controversy, where most of the Church received the tradition of celebrating the Paschal Feast on the first Sunday after the Vernal Equinox, whilst all of Asia Minor received a different tradition and celebrated it on the 14th of Nisan in the Jewish calendar. Likewise with the Rebaptism controversy, icon veneration, and so on. So, the problem of skewed data is perennial, and we simply have to make sense of it. As a Reformed Christian it doesn't worry me at all, because I don't assume that God is just trying His best to save as many as He can via free will and providence, but that He has an elect people whom He *will* bring to the fullness of the truth by whatever means. So, He will bring those whom He calls His own to the necessary sources for full saving knowledge.
"Wouldn’t you think that the apostles would outline what scriptures ought to be included in the canon of scripture had they intended to leave the Church with only the inspired writings as the ultimate authority?"
It's a dangerous game to speculate on what historical figures "would" do without solid evidence. My own reply to this is no, not necessarily; they need only see the need to preserve their teachings in writing and pass them on individually, which is exactly what we see. We then need to ask why they saw the need to write down their teachings and why the Church strove to preserve them if the preserved oral teachings alone were fine for preserving the faith and correcting error. And even further, regardless of whether the Apostles foresaw the need for a principle like SS, it's demonstrated by the logical implication of historical facts, as I argue elsewhere, so the question of the thought processes of the Apostles and what they did/did not do is not really relevant.
"Further, the historical argument that the canon was not set prior to the late 4th century is not the only part of the argument."
But I'm not addressing "the argument" that you're bringing up; I'm addressing the one I am in the video, exemplified by Timothy Gordon. According to him, the lack of a universally promulgated canon before the 400s *is* the argument.
"It is also notable that the earliest Christians relied upon sacred tradition in addition to sacred scripture to inform their doctrinal reasoning."
This is a raw assertion that I emphatically deny, assuming you appeal to the Romanist concept of "sacred tradition." First, what did the fathers mean when they appealed to "tradition"? As Martin Chemnitz points out (Examination of the Council of Trent, Vol. 2), there are at least 7 different definitions of "tradition" present in patristic literature and which Protestants can and do affirm alongside Sola Scriptura, such as the tradition of the canon or the tradition of the Regula Fidei (the faith in summary form), to be used as a central interpretive tool of scripture, yet which itself is also derived from scripture. There are good studies on this issue like R.P.C. Hanson's Tradition in the Early Church, which show that the earliest conceptions of tradition are not even close to the modern Romanist/Eastern conception and are more than compatible on the classical Protestant paradigm. I would point to my stream on Tony Costa's channel where I did such a case study of Irenaeus of Lyons. Link and summary of my case here: www.theotherpaul64.com/post/a-summary-of-irenaeus-views-on-apostolic-tradition
" Finally, the fact that these early fathers inherited a set of books from their predecessors without having a council or pope to tell them which books actually belonged in the canon doesn’t = Protestantism."
This was more a tongue in cheek joke, since those like Gordon who make this argument seem to think having the Bible without an official promulgation is a Protestant novelty. Well learned Romanists/Easterners I know and official Magisterial teaching on both those sides take for granted that the fathers could and did utilise scripture as scripture without a council of Pope. The argument itself is really a poor pop apologetic, tho it's common enough that it's worth addressing.
"The persecuted church had far less ability to gather and decide on doctrine than the post-Edict of Milan church. That’s why the christological disputes couldn’t be entirely settled beforehand."
I'm not totally sure what this has to do with the vid, but I partially agree. Where I disagree is the implication (correct me if I misinterpret you) that the early church always had the desire to meet and definitively resolve disputes in ecumenical councils but just couldn't do so. I think that's ad hoc and is falsified by really large local councils like the Council of Carthage under Cyprian, with over 80 bishops meeting. Additionally, we know factually how the first ecumenical council came about; not by the Church requesting one, but by Constantine wanting to ensure Christian unity. Before then, everything was done via local synods and communication between bishoprics. So from the data we do have, the very institution of the ecumenical council was a state institution, not a divine one. This isn't to say it's bad or wrong, of course.
Anyway I apologise for the mini essay, but I like to be thorough. Have a good one boss :)
If Gordon's argument was a good one, it wouldn't support Roman Catholicism or Eastern Orthodoxy, it would simply undermine Christianity.
So I didn't hear you address this specifically so I'll say it here. I think what you address and what most Protestants always seem to address is a weak argument of "there was no Bible in the first 4 centuries of the church". Nobody intelligent is saying that. What we are saying is that there was no unified promulgation of the new testament in the early church with various churches possessing some but not all of the new testament scriptures which if you are going to hold to a Sola Scriptura mindset then that's a problem. We know that individual church fathers had cannons of scripture. You don't need the church to have "a canon" of scripture. What you do need tho is the church to make said cannon infallible. All those lists you listed agree largely but also disagree in key areas and because of that the church needed to step in and spread the complete gospel to all the churches. Now in the end you accused our position of looking only at the top down rather the ground up but we fully recognize how the scriptures were preserved by individual churches over hundreds of years. We still bear witness to the tremendous efforts of the church's who preserved the scriptures in their liturgy and their living traditions so they could bear witness to it to all of us. This is something that unfortunately is completely lost on Protestants when they say the decisions to form the cannon was based on scripture revealing scripture.
Exactly. It all goes back to the same principle. If you cannot know with no margin of error what is Scripture and what is not Scripture, talking about sola scriptura is meaningless. But to know with no margin of error what is Scripture and what is not Scripture, you need an infallible authority that certifies that.
@@thejerichoconnection3473 How do you if it is infallible, then? You're just adding an extra step that results in every pre-Reformation body claiming that everyone else is the schismatic. Embarrassing, to say the least.
Serious question , doesn’t this disregard the point of the argument in the first place . Is it’s whole purpose not to ask the how one knows definitively what is to be considered scripture? I’m Anglican and I take the Anglican position on the deuterocanon but say a Baptist would make the claim that isn’t scripture , how do I know I’m right? How do they know? What’s the standard , are all the scriptures used at the time of the church fathers regardless of difference in lists to be considered scripture , or no?
That is exactly the point that no Protestant will ever be able to answer.
Sola Scriptura claims that no infallible authority exists outside Scripture. But to know what books are part of Scripture, you need an infallible authority that declares that (Scripture does not provide a table of content). If you try to "prove" the Protestant canon of Scripture by historical methods, textual criticism, early church consensus, rabbinic tradition, whatever you want, you will always end up with a list that was obtained by a fallible man by putting together fallible sources. In other words, it will not be reliable 100%, no matter how hard you try.
As an example, if you can prove to me with no margin of error that Revelations and Hebrews are the inspired Word of God (without appealing to any infallible tradition), I may consider becoming Protestant.
The problem is the earliest Church fathers that were the closest to being actual disciples or one generation away from the apostles very clearly say there was no writings that were considered authoritative at all and we're only used for devotional purposes and that includes the writings now that the Catholic Church 400 years later of course wants to make authoritative and universally binding. So that's why we have disagreement one Council after another but even disagreement with the earliest writings of the earliest Church fathers so what we see is a degradation of the church that is clear from all the writings and really there was a lot of hypocrisy politics and greed involved as the church got older and older and so we see in any history of any movement as it goes on longer it becomes further and further away from its Origins and very ambitious man then take over the organization and turn it into something else.
"My Dear Queitamus Leander Maximus, i'm having trouble in my spirit concerning the efficacy of the cross on my salvation. For I visited a most beautiful Temple of Dionysius in Pergamus and was emraptured by its glory, wine, art and beauty. Their adherents sang the most beautiful and reverant hymns. Are we the baddies, Queatimus Leander Maximus?"
Acts 17:11“These were more noble than those in Thessalonica, in that they received the word with all readiness of mind, and searched the scriptures daily, whether those things were so.”
Nah bro there was no Bible until 400 AD, sorry.
@@Niko-zg6uq Luke 16:29 Abraham saith unto him, They have Moses and the prophets; let them hear them.
@@Niko-zg6uqThe early church run by the original apostles, taught directly by Jesus, used the Old Testament scriptures (the law and the prophets) to preach the Gospel of Jesus Christ.
@kykyloves2240 sorry I should've done a better job showing my sarcasm. I believe what you believe
@@Niko-zg6uq No, it is my fault! My apologies, I am very bad at detecting sarcasm, especially online.
We also see the Apostle Paul referencing Luke as Scripture:
"And remain in the same house, eating and drinking what they provide, for the laborer deserves his wages. Do not go from house to house." - Luke 10:7
"For the Scripture says, 'You shall not muzzle an ox when it treads out the grain,' and, 'The laborer deserves his wages.'" - 1 Timothy 5:18
1_Corinthians 11:2
Now I praise you, brothers, that you remember me in all things, and hold firm the traditions, even as I delivered them to you.
2_Kings 11:14
and she looked, and behold, the king stood by the pillar, as the tradition was, and the captains and the trumpets by the king; and all the people of the land rejoiced, and blew trumpets. Then Athaliah tore her clothes, and cried, "Treason! Treason!"
2_Thessalonians 2:15
So then, brothers, stand firm, and hold the traditions which you were taught by us, whether by word, or by letter.
2_Thessalonians 3:6
Now we command you, brothers, in the name of our Lord Jesus Christ, that you withdraw yourselves from every brother who walks in rebellion, and not after the tradition which they received from us.
Acts 22:3
"I am indeed a Jew, born in Tarsus of Cilicia, but brought up in this city at the feet of Gamaliel, instructed according to the strict tradition of the law of our fathers, being zealous for God, even as you all are this day.
Oh wow he is doing the old 39,000 denominations lie...just Google search the phrase "we need to stop saying there are 33,000 denominations " written by a Catholic from national register and he totally debunks that and even says Protestants should not take Catholics serious for saying that. I actively watch Mr. Gordon's show from time to time to get trad Catholic perspective and some conservative political commentary. These comments by him give me the impression he is more amateur than i thought.
Absolutely, it's a perfect litmus test for someone's learning in the area.
ok maybe 20,000. Start a list. How many are there? A freaking butt load all niggling over teeny tiny insignificant differences. And now splitting over clear bright biblical lines!
Yeah you guys are headed for one man churches!
@@redink71according to the same source there r almost 400 denominations wat do u think
So what? Therefore, sola scriptura is a later inovation because there was no universally shared complete scripture, and considering protestants consider the church to be fallible, they have to engage with the issue of why they should believe the church compiled all the books of the canon correctly.
by that time there was for well over 1200 years.
"Such, then, is their system, which neither the prophets announced, nor the Lord taught, nor the apostles delivered, but of which they boast that beyond all others they have a perfect knowledge. They gather their views from other sources than the Scriptures; and, to use a common proverb, they strive to weave ropes of sand, while they endeavour to adapt with an air of probability to their own peculiar assertions the parables of the Lord, the sayings of the prophets, and the words of the apostles, in order that their scheme may not seem altogether without support. In doing so, however, they disregard the order and the connection of the Scriptures, and so far as in them lies, dismember and destroy the truth." -St. Irenaeus, Against Heresies, Book 1, Chapter 8.
Irenaeus, what are you doing? Using Scripture to refute heretics? You can't do that man, it's the 2nd century! You don't even have a Bible yet!
So many papists just don't know church history.
The papist view of Scripture is worse than the evangelical view of tradition (another papist accusation that has no meaning)
Official magisterial teachings have much more respect for scripture, but their apologists from the Reformation onwards saw the danger in a high authority and power for scripture, so they eventually developed this maneuver.
@@TheOtherPaul Still. If you have "mega exegetical bias" towards romanism and are not even willing to examine what others are saying, no matter how much authority you regard Scripture as having, I believe this is a very bad spot to be in.
Timline
450 BC - Tanach (Tanahk). 24 books, 3 sections
300-100BC - Septuagint (contains WoS, Baruch, Tobit, Judith, 1,2 Maccabees, Ecclesiasticus)
85 - Marcion of Sinope attempts a canon. much herasey in his ideology, ex-commed from early church. forced church to respond with a canon.
180 - Muratorian Canon. 22 of 27 books. did not include Hebrews, James, Peter 1 & 2, 2 John 3 John, it did include Apocalypse of Peter and Wisdom of Solomon.
313 - Christianity Decriminalized by Constantine.
393 - Synod of Hippo (Hippo Canon) 27 book NT, Recognised by early church. New 33 book OT canon. 1st Offical Catholic Canon.
384 St. Jerome did not want to include additional books, compelled by church to include them anyway
397 Counsel of Carthage - Hippo canon confirmed and binding by catholic church
1522 - Martin Luther canon moved OT (WoS, Ecclesiasticus, Judith, Tobit, Baruch, Maccabees books to Apocrypha. Considered Hebrews, James, Jude, Revelation as disputed
1545 - Council of Trent. Added back books Luther removed and gave them new title "Deuterocanonical"
1820s - Paper cost increases lead to publishers removing Deuterocanonical books 73 to 66 books
Peter himself refers to Paul’s letters/epistles as scripture, which were being distributed among the churches while the Apostles were alive. That’s pretty early 🤔 “and regard the patience of our Lord as salvation; just as also our beloved brother Paul, according to the wisdom given him, wrote to you, as also in all his letters, speaking in them of these things, in which are some things hard to understand, which the untaught and unstable distort, as they do also the rest of the Scriptures, to their own destruction.”
2 Peter 3:15-16
Boy this guy misses the whole point apologist was talking about the 27 books of the New Testament being the Bible of the early church as we know from many other writings that the amount of Old Testament writings that were actually used by the early church were very limited to about 300 prophetic scriptures or what the book of Hebrews calls the Oracles of God which are the prophetic utterances regarding salvation by the Messiah and it even says that clearly in 2nd Timothy 3:15 as these are alone the ones that were able to make him that is Timothy wise unto salvation in Jesus Christ by faith add words are always defined by context so the Greek word for all usually does not mean the entirety or the whole of but every of a certain class and always Define by context what that class is and in this case it's very clearly by the words Paul uses in verse 16 refer to these Old Testament prophecies about Jesus Christ that we know we're collected and used to catechize or convert Jews to Christianity. So it's really a shame that this guy was not even really listening to the apologist who had a very good argument indeed about the spurious use of Christian writings in the New Testament time period and when you look at the time period in which the writings became important to collect and talk about then you'll find out the Catholic church at the time had become very corrupted by politics and power and greed and so it was being called out by the prophets and so they needed to stop this prophecy and put their faith in something else and that was more writing and we always see this in every religion this dependency on writings in the New Testament uses a term stoicheion that means the fundamental ABCs or Elementary teachings of something and it refers to the Oracles of God as being just this and certainly if they are classified as such for little children even infants still needing milk of rote learning instead of the gymnastic like practice of discernment by the Holy Spirit which is the solid meat of the New Covenant then any other writings would certainly be treated as such
⠀
Beast mode! Thanks bro.
Consider linking recommended books in the description. Thanks for the video.
Good idea! And not a problem
Wondering why you're wearing an Orthodox cross?
Why’s this guy wearing an Orthodox cross?🤔☦️
Haha exactly! I just posted that myself!
Protestants reject what the Fathers teach almost wholesale so it’s pretty silly for Protestants to appeal to the Fathers. They believed in baptismal regeneration, no salvation outside the church, tradition is as authoritative as scripture, real presence in the Eucharist, the necessity of the episcopacy, continuity with what came before, etc.
Why do you assume all protestants reject baptismal regeneration, real pressence and so on? 😂
@@CMartin04 because 99% do.
@@redink71the majority don’t lol
You can turn it around as much as you want, but if, as you concede, there was no definite canon of Scripture agreed upon at least until the end of the 4th century, it means that the concept of Scripture was not well defined. And if the concept of Scripture was not well defined, we need to conclude that the concept of sola scriptura was not well defined either. Therefore, we can safely conclude that sola scriptura, as intended by Protestants today, could not possibly have been a viable principle, at least for the first 4 centuries.
The fact that some Fathers assumed that some books were inspired is irrelevant. What matters is that, since the Church had not yet figured out nor declared exactly which books were inspired or not (some thought that First Clement or Didache were Scriptures, some thought that Hebrews or Revelations were not Scriptures, etc.), we must deduce that the Church did function, at least for the first 4 centuries, in opposition to the principle of sola scriptura.
The principle of sola scriptura is meaningless if we do not know WITH NO MARGIN OF ERROR what books are inspired and what books are not.
End of story.
Eh no
The roman church did not invent the concept of scripture.
People were citing scripture as authoritative since the very begining
@@goyonman9655 I agree with both your statements.
Not sure how these two statements contradict or refute the argument I was making above, though. Can you please elaborate your argument?
@@thejerichoconnection3473
You claimed the concept of scripture wasnt well defined, which by your own admission is nonesense
@@goyonman9655 when I said, “the concept of Scripture” I meant, “the list of books that make up Scripture.”
I was not referring to the platonic idea of Scripture.
Everyone agrees that Scripture are books inspired by God. The problem comes when you ask the question, “which books are those?”
@@thejerichoconnection3473
That's not what the meaning of "concept" is. Dont be sneaky
People disputed what boooks belonged in the bible in the 1st century. As they do now
Whatever books they regarded as scripture, they treated authoritatively. As do people now
Rightfull
I’m wondering when the earliest recognition of apostolic writings as Scripture was. Do you know? To clarify, I am not looking for references to the Old Testament as Scripture but specifically New Testament writings. When did the early Church first refer to them explicitly as Scripture? I’m particularly looking for anything before or during the response to gnosis. Not merely lists of writings, but reference to those writings as Scripture. Thanks for any help!
They were quoted from the beginning with the authority of scripture. Read Clement!
Romanist teenagers trying not to copy and paste a Catholic Answers straw man(impossible) (blasphemy committed!!!)
Seems like the lack of a canon/Bible for hundreds of years, if that were true, does more to hurt Rome's claims regarding authority and tradition than anything else.
I would argue it would not. It would actually help bring more support to it. If there was no infallibly defined canon than that would show nobody really thought the canon was that important, due to apostolic preaching and the church. That’s why iranaeus of lyons in the second century literally asked is his against heresies “what if the apostles did not send us writings? Would it not be fitting to follow the traditions of the church?” The answer is yes, the church would have been just fine without the New Testament, they only needed the church, which held all the answers they would need.
There where. I Protestants until Martin Luther
Great video Paul. Embarrass the single-digit IQ Romanists who still say stuff like "no Bible" or "39,000 denoms."
As a follow up, why not go through instances where Fathers appeal to Scripture as primary, over tradition? I believe Augustine and Irenaeus both do this in several places, as well as others. A Romanist could grant this video but still hold that tradition had the primary place in the early church, with Scripture being secondary. Why not show that argument to be false?
Many thanks! I definitely want to do that one day, an investigative series into the level of authority scripture held in the fathers. From what Ive studied so far it was clearly at the top, tho in what way it way at the top needs more investigation. The key trick for such a series will be very carefully defining terms and positions, so that we can most clearly and quickly see whether a certain father fits one paradigm or another.
Irenaeus said the Shepherd of Hermes was scripture
@@CPATuttle and?
@@TheOtherPaul He was wrong.
Yes... we had the scriptures since the first century as we see in the writings if the early Church, but we did not have the canon of scripture until the councils of Hippo, Orange and Rome. There were many other letters or books that some considered inspired by some but not by others. There came a time that the canon of scripture had to be decided.
Jesus left us His Church to guide us and we see the authority of Christ's Church being exercised at the Council of Jerusalem and we see this same authority being exercised in the ecumenical councils throughout Christian history. Jesus did not leave His authority with one faithful congregation or one faithful man. Jesus gave His authority to His apostles and through the Church for the past 2000 years. Or as Augustine once put it:
“The Catholic Church is the work of Divine Providence, achieved through the prophecies of the prophets, through the Incarnation and the teaching of Christ, through the journeys of the Apostles, through the suffering, the crosses, the blood and death of the martyrs, through the admirable lives of the saints…. When, then, we see so much help on God’s part, so much progress and so much fruit, shall we hesitate to bury ourselves in the bosom of that Church? For starting from the apostolic chair down through successions of bishops, even unto the open confession of all mankind, it has possessed the CROWN OF TEACHING AUTHORITY.” (emphasis mine)
- Augustine, “The Advantage of Believing 35…392 A.D.
The early church didn't have the bible... Because it wrote the bible lol
Lol except none of the authors that wrote it ever heard of a 66 biblical cannon, that Protestants use, or any bible at that
In your video called "Demonstrating & Defending Sola Scriptura" with "Revealed Apologestics" you said that Chemnitz appealed to tradition, and even regarding the canon (Timestamp 22:22)
This is also what Chemnitz wrote in his Examination of the Council of Trent, book 2, page 185, paragraph 21 about the "spurious books" of the NT:
"Of the books of the New Testament which lacked sufficiently able, firm, and harmonious testimonies of their certainty and authority in the first and ancient church, these are listed ..." Chemnitz cites church fathers that list the spurious books like The epistle of James, Jude, 2 Peter, 2 and 3 John, the Apocalypse of John,...
After that on page 187, paragraph 23 Chemnitz says: "Against these clear testimonies of antiquity the Council of Trent, in the fourth session decrees: >>If anyone does not accept these books whole, with all their parts, as they are contained in the old Vulgate Latin edition, as sacred and canonical, let him be anathema.
Everything in this comment is completely irrelevant to the video and the argument it responds to, so I'm not going to entertain this and distract from my argument; please engage with what I actually argued here, otherwise have a good day. It's simple; the claim is the early church could not have practiced sola scriptura because they lacked the scriptures/bible, and I refuted that by citing fathers who either list their own canons (or "Bibles" if you will) or who cite certain texts as scripture which ipso facto shows that they have a perception of the canon. Why the fathers have differences among their canons, how one can decide what to include or not, and the historical viability of the usual Prot canon are totally distinct questions not covered here.
I saw your comment under Revealed Apologetics, and I am very certain I actually wrote a lengthy response and sent it, but when I checked again it wasn't there; maybe it got filtered by TH-cam.
@@TheOtherPaul
Ok let me ask you this way and please answer sincerely.
Is my Bible, that has the deuterocanon in it, infallible?
@YAJUN YUAN then what Paul wrote in his comment is irrelevant. My question was not about whether a church father knew what is his canon, but whether its an infallible canon.
@YAJUN YUAN understood. But if Paul says the fathers knew (yet they all had a different canon than MODERN protestants) than we can know as well. That however does not answer the crucial question. If we cannot have an infallible canon than SS is a delusion. You just pretend you have an infallible collection of books. Well I can pretend too, everybody can pretend. Delusion.
Paul, a fascinating discussion! I must confess, I have not ventured into the realm of church history like this ever before, but I sure appreciate your work, your argument was clear and most effective, thank you. Now to a question, do you have any evidence to say that the first century Christians followed 'the scripture' more closely than Christians today in the Western world? I suspect you do, so having a 'secure canon of scripture' has not protected us from 'gross deception'. Shalom, Jim
Thanks heaps for the kind words Jim!
On that question, we don't really have access to the daily lives of 1st century Christians so it's hard to tell. But I'd wager that, since the scriptures would be among the only texts theyre acquainted with (vs our flood of mass media), theyd have had a much higher ratio of focus on those scriptures, not to mention their thoroughly supernatural worldview. We can see this come out in 1st century texts, including the NT itself, but also others like 1st Clement and the Didache. Hope this is a decent answer: thanks again!
@@TheOtherPaul A most decent answer thank you so much. I think it is really good for us to 'reflect' on 1st Century Christianity now and then. It certainly helps us see how pampered we are today and what a reminder of the nature of faith as they knew it. Blessings, have an awesome week!
You have to send your video to Doreen Virtue
Who's that?
@@TheOtherPaul a ex-newage woman that met Christ and in one of here videos she said that the early christians had the Canon sripture
What Timothy said in his video is true, and that’s that there was no universally recognized canon of scripture as admitted by you when you said that different fathers had different lists. Can you tell me what was the purpose of the council of Nicaea, and did they appeal to scripture alone to establish a definitive teaching that should be believed by all faithful believers?
There is only one Church, the Holy, Catholic Church. Keep studying and open your closed mind, God will lead you to Rome
At this point The protestants are protesting against God himself by their affirming LGBTIA+++ crap. Its embarrassing. I'd run from them at this point.
There was no absolutely any doctrine as "sola scripture", that doctrine was an invention of Luther. Of course, there was already most of the writings of the New Testament in circulation, but also there were writings of the apostolic fathers too, these are the traditions of the church.
A raw assertion: what is asserted without evidence can be dismissed without evidence. I know there is a common attitude among Romanists and Easterners who engage Protestants where you just assume your position is the default and can declare it without further argument, but I'm here to change that: your position is not the default, you don't get to throw assertions unchallenged. If you make claims in my comments you will back them up, or not make them at all.
@@TheOtherPaul In what way is he supposed to elaborate? Is it not true that you have both the works of the New Testament along with the writings of the Apostolic Fathers? Why would they not be held as part of the traditions of the Church? It makes less sense to reject their teachings than to accept it.
@@TheOtherPaul You are just Mad because he is correct. There was no bible alone in the early church. There was no Bible at all.
Given where prots have ended up.. I wouldn't defend a single thing the stand for.
It like a whore saying she is a virgin at this point.
The Canon of Sacred Scripture has been handed to us by Tradition and affirmed by the Apostolic authority of the bishops.
Yes.
guys what is a good study Bible
Orthodox Study Bible.
RCIA!
I’m pretty sure that the Bible that the early church had contained the apocrypha 😂
There was no "the Bible" of the early Church. Different fathers reckoned up different canons; some with various deuterocanonical books, others with little to none, and even then a number had conceptions of different layers of canon, such as proto vs deuterocanonical. For example, our earliest Christian OT canon list from Melito of Sardis (2nd century) contains no deuterocanonicals.
@@TheOtherPaul didn’t all of them (or most) just use the Septuagint (which included the OT apocrypha)?
@@joseortegabeede8233 the idea of a Septuagint canon is a wide myth. Initially, the Septuagint was only the translation of the 5 Books of Moses, but over time the other books of the OT were translated (with varying degrees of quality). Virtually all the Church Fathers used the Septuagint, and yet they still had varying canons that either rejected all books beyond the 66 Protestant Canon or accepted almost all of them.
@@TheOtherPaul hadn’t seen it that way, although, I would argue that, even if there was no explicit canon, the traditional books were very respected, even in that translation, as the apostles cite the Septuagint (even when it differs from the masoretic text, which did not exist at the time but one would expect to be “purer”)
@YAJUNYUAN it was a translation yes, during a time where many Jews couldn’t read the original Hebrew anymore, and where there wasn’t actually yet an explicit canon. The Septuagint translation has a few clear differences with the masoretic text , which interestingly enough, are what the apostles quote in their letters vs the current masoretic text.
So no, it is not “just a translation” in the historical sense, because of what it implied at the time
W video
based
You don’t look British
First