Artifacts of a Life Once Lived

What about the Canon of Scripture? Introduction: Everyone hold up their Bible, please? Do you believe this entire book bares the weight of divine revelation and hence divine authority? Yes? Well, turn to the Table of Contents. Is this page divine, inspired, and hence authoritative? Well, no, technically the Table of Contents is not inspired (nor are the commentary notes or the cross-references!). You say this is just semantics. Well, no, it’s not. This list tells you what belongs in your bible thus determining what does not belong in your Bible. Did you know there are Christians who’s Bibles have a different list? Well, then, how do we know which books belong in this list and which do not? This is the question at hand, thus this is necessarily a matter epistemology.  I. Approach  How we approach the canon (the nature of our attitude) must first be established before we ask, “How do we know” what belongs in the canon? Two predominant approaches divide the task of how we go ...

God has a sense of humor. God has sent one into my life who is the prototype of a zealot, and everything that eerks me in fundamentalism. This one believes that God gives them "special insight" into the Bible (i.e. God showed me this truth). This one approached me to "ask" what I thought about Calvinism. (Apparently there is a rising group of heretic calvanists in our church. Really what is meant is that this one is finding out that there are calvanists amongst us and that displeases the person greatly. They are "heretics" because they do not believe what this one believes, and since God "shows" all things to this person there is no error!) I began to talk, because I was asked my opinion, but immediately I was interrupted. I could see that this one really came to talk rather than listen to my opinion. I was even informed by this one that part of the goal was to make sure I was not a heretic, and if I was they wanted to know so they could pray for...

Garrett has a little something to say on this post too... MY RESPONSE to the this . This is a great conversation, and I wish I could respond in detail to much of it, but unfortunately my hands are tied to many other things that I must think about. I am in agreement: 1) Scholars are misleading when they tell us they are getting closer to "finding the originals." However, not all of TC can be brushed away simply because it is not as "certain" a science as, say, mathematics. They are no surer today than they were 100 years ago. However, again, that does not mean I can simply bury my head in the sands of fideism. The bible does not exist in a vacuum. It is subject to the hands of men and has been for thousands of years. Some are faithful some are apostate. God knows. I am in disagreement: 1) I can personally attest to the idea that the awkwardness of the KJV translation is NOT in accordance with keeping with the text. For example: "God forbid!" in the KJV in...