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READER FEEDBACK

Genuine Issues Concern the Canon

Posted On: 03/26/06 06:10:13 AM

Age 34, IN

Was Bishop Athanasius right in the acceptance of the books of the canon and apocrypha and the rejection of others, or are any rejected books useful in the faith? Our church creeds do not list our canon, the collection of accepted books of the Bible. In Christ I ask the following questions concerning the canon and the personal authorship of its books. (1) The most prominent Christian named St. Theophilus lived circa 400 A.D., yet Luke and Acts are apparently written to him who is not clearly presented to us in capital Greek as a boy or man who must have lived in the First Century A.D. and whom St. Luke must have known. In the absence of a saint's story of some First Century Theophilus, I dare to lower-case his name and to translate it as "pious one" (lover of God, friend of God, etc.), in which case St. Luke has written Luke and Acts to each reader alone, held to honorable and deep faith, in his or her quiet time and not at all for public preaching from our pulpits. I conclude, then, that the books of Luke and Acts should be preached from our pulpits only for reproof, etc. and for completeness in reading the whole New Testament aloud. In public please teach the Virgin Birth from Matthew and the Last Supper and Passion narratives from Matthew, Mark, or John. Luke and Acts are, however, suitable for small group Bible studies. From the pulpit, however, Luke and Acts must surely spoil our congregations out of reading St. John's and St. Paul's writings. (2) The writings of the New Testament are written intimately without the other names of multiply named authors. For instance, St. Peter gives his name as Peter rather than Simon son of Jonah Zebedee and also known as Cephas and Peter. We readers are thus responsible to recognize the other names by which these authors were known. Thus, we must be prepared for St. Mary, for instance, to leave out her identification. I believe that this happened with St. Luke (a.k.a. St. Matthew?) and St. Mark (St. John son of Mary and surnamed Mark: Acts 12:12). Fourth Century church fathers may have understood or been in the dark concerning which names represented the same man. Four witnessing Gospels may represent quite less than four different men bearing witness. (3) A major reason for rejection of some Gospels and other books under consideration for the New Testament canon must surely have been the hard fact that Fourth Century Imperial Christianity included very few speakers of Hebrew. The church fathers were moral strangers to Hebrew, and they worshipped in august basilicas with scant place for the laity, let alone women, to teach. Can we leave these books beyond the ken of the Fourth Century Church out forever? I have found that despite our government's policies in favor of English and our people's loathing of learning foreign languages, I can impose Hebrew moral training upon American English-speaking Christians in this dissolute land by criticizing our ways in terms of Hebrew morals. When I explain that "Mishphot." means "judgment", my seeming microphone from a middle pew grips their attention. This stands in contrast to Greek, Latin, Italian, French, Spanish, and Portuguese, which are quiet languages subject to discipline (in Spanish, "grosero/a") for speaking too loud. Furthermore, all these languages lack some sounds of "Mishphot.im" meaning "judgments". Attempts to instruct these peoples in Hebrew morals to read the rejected books must have failed due to numerous new sounds to learn and hushing by social custom. I conclude that any Fourth Century Christians knowledgeable concerning Hebrew manners and morals who were contemptible enough to judge must have had none of the independence of the Blessed St. Mary and thus that they were not willing to suffer for their speech. Nevertheless, in English which is loud and clear, I am able to impose Hebrew moral training upon Christians who do not already care to learn Hebrew. Here, we have ears to hear what was discarded in the Fourth Century. Definitely, Moses' judgments have place in English speaking countries. Let us open our ears and hearts to the full Word of God which pertains to our cultures.