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Does the Bible teach Sola Scriptura?
- Thread starter YeshuaRedeemed
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- bibje
Yes, it does. Galatians 1:6-9...especially vs.8
We need only the accepted Bible Canon -- all of it, the entire 66 books -- but nothing more.
Even with that, the misinterpretations of it make it seem a convoluted mess! That's where we need God's - Jesus' Father's - help, as Luke 10:21 emphasizes.
We need only the accepted Bible Canon -- all of it, the entire 66 books -- but nothing more.
Even with that, the misinterpretations of it make it seem a convoluted mess! That's where we need God's - Jesus' Father's - help, as Luke 10:21 emphasizes.
YeshuaRedeemed
Revelation 3:10
agreed.
The only "Bible" that existed when Galatians was written was the Torah, you can't add a whole bunch of books to the Bible later and claim that verse refers to the whole Bible, parts of the bible weren't even written when Galatians was written.
True. The only Scriptures were the Hebrew Scriptures, which II Tim 3:16 refers to as being
inspired by God, useful for teaching, refutation, for correction, and for training in righteousness so that one who belongs to God may be competent, equipped for every good work. In the liturgies of the early church the reading of the 'gospels' were simply called the 'memoirs' of the apostles. God is the principal, inspired author with the writer as the human collaborator, the scriptures are the word of God in human language.
whirlingmerc
Well-Known Member
The Bible does teach that "you should not go beyond the scriptures 1 Cor 4:6"
Do Not Go Beyond What Is Written from Desiring God
Praise finale Psalms: part 5 - Ps 150
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whirlingmerc
Well-Known Member
The 'do not add' should be taken in context... do not add to the Torah... do not add to the book of Revelation...
metis
aged ecumenical anthropologist
But in the Christian tradition, the NT is an addition to Torah.
OTOH, Aquinas felt that the Torah/Tanakh was far from being inerrant, therefore he felt that the NT supersedes Torah.
Hi Lyndon, I like your point regarding the specific misinterpretation of using sacred texts to support ones personal premise. While I understand the concept of "sola Scriptura", I've actually never met a real, live "sola scripturist" since all individuals add to the various canons that exist geographically and historically. However, we cannot escape our own provincial limitations. For example, while HockeyCowboy speaks of his western canons "... all of it, the entire 66 books", the eastern Christian (ethiopian), may say the same regarding his 81 book cannon. What is true of geographical differences is also true of different eras of time. For example, the modern western Masoretic bible will lack books such as barnabas and hermas that the Christian of the 4th century had in their Sinaiticus Bible. The translators that create bibles for the masses also will create a text that differs enough to create differing theologies. This underlies the reason why a different set of 10 commandments that existed in protestant vs Catholic Bibles after Luther created his first translation. The Samaritan 10 commandments in their bibles were different still. Thus, I agree with HockeyCowboys point that "...the misinterpretations of it make it seem a convoluted mess!" Hockey Cowboy in (Post #2)
I very much agree with 2 Tim 3:16, that all inspired writings are good for teaching and correction, but inspired writings in their various forms and versions still must be made sense of and inspiration of the spirit is, in my opinion, a needed supplement in order to make the best personal sense of the principle underlying the text. However, if one is using the spirit, then one is not a "sola scripturist" since they are then using more than the scriptures to make sense of the text. If one uses historical or language or another area of expertise or bias, then they are not using "sola scriptura".
I don't think anyone can use the bare principle of "sola scriptura". At least I've never seen it on the forum or anywhere else so far. Good luck in your own spiritual journey and in making sense of the text.
Clear
δρειτζω
whirlingmerc
Well-Known Member
I would say 'solo scripture' relates to the idea from the New Testament Pail tried to emphasis when he said to 'learn not to go beyond what is written"
The Super Epic Psalms
YeshuaRedeemed
Revelation 3:10
Oh, good point, I did not know that scripture was there. Thank you.
whirlingmerc
Well-Known Member
Oh, good point, I did not know that scripture was there. Thank you.
It appears to be both a popular teaching saying of the apostles and one that made it into the New Testament If you are proud you might go off on something built on human wisdom or your own only in some prideful manner
1 Corinthians 4:6, Paul seems to sum up what he has been writing, saying:
Now, brothers and sisters, I have applied these things to myself and Apollos for your benefit, so that you may learn from us the meaning of the saying, “Do not go beyond what is written.” Then you will not be puffed up in being a follower of one of us over against the other.
I do agree we can be historically informed by teachers through the centuries in the church but the scriptures seem to be the weightiest consideration We can also be informed as to what phrases or the cultural context was.
whirlingmerc
Well-Known Member
The Bible Jesus read would have been more than the Torah
Actually it would have been the Tenach which stands for law (Torah) , writings (like Psalms and Proverbs) and prophets ( like Isaiah)
Paul refred to a place in the gospels as scripture and Peter refered to Paul's writings as scripture so the apostles views their writings as scripture.
metis
aged ecumenical anthropologist
The canonical books in Judaism had not yet been selected during Jesus' time, so we can't be sure which books he and his followers may have been familiar with. We know from other writings that there was a multiplicity of books, including some variations of the same books, and that this did cause some confusion such as what show's up in an introduction to "Sirach" written by Jesus ben Sirach whereas he says he doesn't know which books he should use as there are varying copies. The selection of that canon after Jesus' time was to try and select which books and which copies of books would be "official", however even that didn't satisfy all.
whirlingmerc
Well-Known Member
The most heavily quoted books are a clue. Most quotes most though 10th are
Psalms, Isaiah, Deuteronomy, Genesis, Exodus, Leviticus, Proverbs, Zechariah, Jeremiah, Hosea
Those cover the law, poetry and prophets which would be the Tenach but another clue is what the Septuagist the Bible put together by Egyptian greek speaking Jews and that is like the Tenach in organization and in existence during Jesus day
The Super Epic Psalms book 1- what the longer Psalm point to
metis
aged ecumenical anthropologist
True, but book selections based on popularity do not necessarily reflect which are the most accurate. It is things like this that made the selection of the canon so difficult, in the case of the Christian canon it taking over 1/2 a century, and even then they couldn't even agree on what we now call the "Apocrypha", thus putting that decision off for later consideration.
whirlingmerc
Well-Known Member
The psalms are also quoted in Hebrews as scripture and even referred to as part of the law, interestingly enough.
metis
aged ecumenical anthropologist
When referring to the "Law", one has to be careful because of varying context. These can be referred to as being the "Law": Torah, Tanakh (includes the Psalms), and/or "halacha" (the 613 Jewish Commandments and their interpretations and some applications per the Talmud).
In regards to the selection of the Christian canon, one of the points that the bishops looked for was which books had verses quoted or paraphrased in the NT, even though most of the OT books are not quoted.
The Anglican theologian William Barclay did an excellent job, imo, with showing the difficulties in the selection of the canon in his book "Introduction To the Bible", which is no longer in publication, unfortunately.
Hi Whirlingmerc :
A) REGARDING SOLA SCRIPTURA AND ITS INABILITY TO BE USED TO CREATE A BELIEF SYSTEM
I very much agree with you that the modern concept of "Sola Scriptura" can be described as "not going beyond" what is written in the text. It is of course with this definition in mind that I made my comments in post #9 that I have never met any Christian, nor seen an example of modern Christians who had a belief system that actually USED sola scriptura (given your definition of sola scriptura), nor do I think anyone is able NOT to add prior biases, prior knowledge, prior contexts, their own understanding, their level of education, their specific historical knowledge (or lack of), their own linguistic skill and knowledge level, etc, etc, etc. It is unavoidable.
The ancient apostles obviously did not use this principle as you defined it. For example, Paul uses quotes and ideas from the early greek philosophers and intellectuals. He applied many of the pagan quotes to principles found in the early Christian movement and I think he was correct in trying to use these pagan quotes and principles to better communicate parallel true principles of the Christian movement.
B) REGARDING METIS' POINT THAT WE DO NOT KNOW WHAT EARLY SPECIFIC TEXTUAL "CANONS" WERE
Metis said : "The canonical books in Judaism had not yet been selected during Jesus' time, so we can't be sure which books he and his followers may have been familiar with. We know from other writings that there was a multiplicity of books, including some variations of the same books, and that this did cause some confusion such as what show's up in an introduction to "Sirach" written by Jesus ben Sirach whereas he says he doesn't know which books he should use as there are varying copies. The selection of that canon after Jesus' time was to try and select which books and which copies of books would be "official", however even that didn't satisfy all."
I very much agree with Metis in his point that we do not know what specific "canons" were that were used by the various early Judaisms.
For example, the pseudographics writings were popular enough to appear in the later jewish canons. For example, the book of Daniel, a pseudographic text created by an unknown author of a later age, was popular enough to be makes its way into the later Jewish canon (though the Jews placed pseudographic Daniel at a lower level among the "writings" and not among the "prophets"). This alone is enough to tell us that the canon was not closed at this point since books of a later age became included in the Masoretic Bible.
Several of the psalms are now believed to have originated in the maccabean age (numbers 44, 77, 83 and more) rather than in the earlier time periods.
Jewish Tobit is included in several of the earliest Uncial O.T. such as C. Vaticanus, C. Alexandrinus, C Sinaiticus etc. A version of the legend of the seven brothers in the New Testament (Matt ch 22) which Jesus discussed with his detractors is found in Tobit.
Obviously the Jews used other, larger sets of writings from which the current texts were taken. For example, Joshua 10:13 refers to an "authentic book" (ישר = jasher, which means, upright, correct, authentic, etc.) which describes the source of the story being described. When David speaks to "the sons of Judah" (2 Sam 1:18), his teachings are referred to as existing in a similar record, an authentic, upright, correct (etc.) record. It simply doesn't tell us the name of this authentic record of Davids' teaching to the "sons of Judah".
Jewish Enoch was both quoted in the New Testament by Jude, and it was the ONLY book outside the pentateuch and psalms that was popular enough to exist in double digits in the ancient Jewish Library found at Qumran.
The Talmud tells us that Hilkiah did not find just one Torah in the temple ruins at the time of King Josiah (the Biblical version of the story is found in 2 Kings ch 22), but instead, found three versions that did not agree. They created a fourth version by the rule of majority (a bad way to create a bible) and presumably, this fourth version is the one read to the people. Thus, even the torah/scriptures they had at that time, existed in multiple conflicting versions.
The point is, that Metis' is correct in his assertion that the "canon" as typical Jews and Christians describe it, was not set in stone and not only differed among different time periods and different groups, but the texts themselves come from earlier texts and legends of which we often have little concrete knowledge other than that they served as source materials for text and served as inspirational texts to those that believed in them and used them.
In any case, I hope your spiritual journey is wonderful..
Clear
φισιακω
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