So, what is canonical?

What is canonical to the bible, I mean. The word canon can be loosely described as "official". So, what is the canon bible?

As I have mentioned in my introductory post there are three different number of books in three distinct type of bibles that are of different sub-groups within the umbrella of Christianity. We have the Protestant bible (which is the most common bible today) with 66 books, the Roman Catholic Bible with 73, and the Eastern Orthodox Bible with 77. This then begs me to ask: What does the word bible mean? In Koine Greek it simply means the books. So, if there is such a huge difference  (when in reality there should be no difference at all) between the number of books, which bible is the true Word? Not one of them are truly accurate, I'm afraid.

The Roman Catholic bible was canonized by the Council of Trent in the middle of the 16th Century. The Lutheran Bible was formed in 1522 before the Council of Trent convened and "canonized" the Roman Catholic bible by none other than Martin Luther himself. Unfortunately I have not been able to find any information on the Eastern Orthodox Bible but if any kind person finds out the origin of the Eastern Orthodox bible, do let me know! The Protestant Bible stems from the Lutheran Bible as the Lutheran bible has the same number of books as the Roman Catholic bible but it reclassified a number of the books from the Old Testament into what we call the Apocrypha today. In the 19th century the Bible Society removed the Apocrypha from the continued printing of the bible as they thought that anything not divinely inspired should not be added into the bible.

As some may know, Martin Luther is one of the first few people to break away from the Roman Catholic Church as he thought that the Roman Catholic Church was corrupt with power, greed and many negative attributes. I can agree with that, but in all honesty, anything run by people, no matter how good the intentions were when the church was first founded, will eventually fall into corruption or some other temptation of sin. Some argued that Martin Luther himself was not a model man, and that he altered the bible to his preference as he didn't like some of the doctrines of the Catholic Church that reflected poorly on his sinful behaviors. Now, on a political level that may seem like a serious case but in reality if we were to judge a man based on a man's past, we should rule out all of Paul's teaching in the New Testament as well, no?

Based on what I have just written here, I hope you understand that in no way I am attacking God or His Word, but our understanding and perception of the Word. Using humanity's finite wisdom to determine what is and what isn't to be divinely inspired was not and never will be a smart move but throughout history there have been notable articles that claim to be of scriptural strength but in reality are false teachings. Some of the more notable individuals who led these beliefs are Marcion and Jospeh Smith.

To conclude, I would like to point out that in the end that human wisdom has been entered into what we consider to be the Word of God, or the bible. What we have is a copy, of a copy, of a copy that was translated by a human person from a language to another that was originally in another language that was translated from another language. I am only dealing with the more recent years of Christianity but in the future there might be time for us to dabble into other things as well.

If I have left out any details in this post by all means let me know and I will answer them to the best of my understanding but at the same time I encourage you to do your own research. We have the internet, it's a great tool. Use it. A dear friend of mine implied that she trusts the teachers of the church more than the internet but I would have to disagree. Anything that we ask pertaining religion will come from someone. So instead of asking your self to ask who in order to find your answers, ask yourself : What should I ask that will lead me to what I am looking for in the clearest way? In my next post I will discuss
the Historical evidence of the bible.

An introduction.

To whomever that reads this,

Let me first introduce myself. My name is Chris. I am from Malaysia, a little tropical country in Southeast Asia. Excellent food, great environment, GREAT politics (If you know what I mean), and tons of other great things.

Now, I must warn you. The things that I am about to say may put a lot of Christian culture on the line. Some people may think this is heresy, some people may think that I am trying to dissuade people from Christianity, or that I am trying to say that the bible is false. But the point that I am trying to make (which is the current conclusion based on current premises) is that what we now call the bible, the most popular book sold in the whole world, may have human interference. Not only in translational differences, but human tampering. God is perfect. Religion, is not.

Let me get this clear. I am a Christian. And recently it has caught my attention that we have so many denominations among churches, among other interesting facts. This then led me to ask a question: Why? Not only does it happen between Protestant believers but between Protestants and Catholics. A rough search on the internet led me to another question: The Word is God (John 1: 1), and God  is Perfect (Matthew 5: 48). Why do we have a different number of books between bibles of different Christian faiths? (bluntly put, why do we have so many versions of the bible?). One logical answer to the question is that human opinion has invaded the bible (blasphemous statement, but being ignorant of the possibility is worse, as  I will explain in a later post). 

The fact is this. We have at least three forms of the bible that are "canonical" (I will get to that as well in my first post). The New Testament in all three are pretty much the same except a few discrepancies. The Old Testament on the other hand, varies between the three. What we have today are the Lutheran Bible (Most if not all protestants use this), The Catholic Bible (which contains the apocrypha, which are books that are not found in the Lutheran Bible), and the Eastern Orthodox Bible (which has more books of the bible than both). So, why the difference? If we are united in faith, shouldn't we be united in truth as well? Shouldn't we all have the same truth? One truth? Why do we have so many denominations among Christians?

Now, I'm not saying that we believe in a different God in each, rather I will use a good analogy that a friend of mine told me. He said :"We are all looking at the same deer, but looking from different directions." Adding on to that, "We also see different parts of the deer that are important". The deer is God, and we look at it in different perspectives. But whose perspective is right? It is the deer's perspective that counts. We should follow in God's footsteps. Truth is relative to the person, an elder told me. He is right in that. That is what causes so much conflict among Christians. Why do we have so many denominations among Christians? Even among protestants we have so many different groups. Based on what I understand of it, it is a problem of interpretation of what the passages dictate.

The aim of this blog is to show you what I have read, and found out. I will make this study as unbiased as possible, with references to anti-Semitic texts that counter Christianity on a factual basis and Semitic texts that support Christianity on a factual basis. This isn't an argument between Evolutionism and Creationism, although I can take time to show you evidence that supports Creationism over Evolutionism.

Thus far I have concluded that what Christians believe in are fundamentally true, no matter what or where or how people of different denominations and of different beliefs point at it. There list of fundamentalChristian beliefs are in this website :

http://christianity.about.com/od/christiandoctrines/a/basicdoctrines.htm

This is a good outline of the fundamentals, at least in my opinion.

Now, do I think this is important? On a personal note, yes. Does it challenge the fundamentals of Christianity? No, I don't think so. So if you are happy with what you have now, by all means stop reading this post. But if you are interested, I ask that you join me, on an adventurous ride through history, philosophy and perhaps cultural psychology to find Truth. I do encourage, however, that you ask these questions yourself. I am not asking you to trust me. But I am asking you to trust in the Lord to give us Truth.

I know.. I know. I'm only like what, 20? Age matters, but what matters more is faith. Faith is like steel, there is a need to put it through fire in order to strengthen it. Always find ways to strengthen your faith, but do so in with a clear conscience (1 Peter 3: 15,16).  Where does my faith stand? I have done some amount of reading and googling (or in a more professional term, RESEARCH) on this topic and thus far it has not only not shaken my faith, but it has strengthened it as well. I will admit, that it was shaken at first, but that was because my faith was built from sand. Trust in the Lord with all your heart, and lean not on your own understanding. In all your ways acknowledge Him, and He will make your paths straight (proverbs 3 :5,6). I trusted Him to guide me, and he replaced that sand with bricks. And maybe even better things in the future.

Why am I doing all this? This is just a personal fantasy but I am in search of Truth. Why do I search for it? Because as humans we have made a lot of excuses for ourselves. The Truth is there, all we have to do is search for it but we think ourselves that we can never be like God, we can never be perfect. It is true in that respect, that we can never be perfect. To be perfect means that we have to have no fault from the start of our lives. And that not possible as it is. But it doesn't mean that we should just give up. We should always seek God in everything that we do.

I hope this didn't relinquish your view of what I believe in or what you believe in. But I hope that I create a hunger, a hunger that will strengthen the faith that you believe in. By all means, counter the points that I am trying to make if I am wrong in them. I am learning, and I wish to inspire learning, not just in myself but in everyone. You can leave a comment in the comment box below or you can take it up with me on Facebook and I will try to understand it from your point of view.