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HOW CAN PROTESTANTS TRUST THECANON OF SCRIPTURE?
Introduction
We live in a day that tends to shrug its shoulders when confronted with error. Insteadof asking, like Pilate, “What is truth?” postmodern man says, “Nothing is truth” or perhaps“There is truth, but we can’t know it.” We’ve grown accustomed to being lied to, and many people seem comfortable with the notion that the Bible contains errors, too.The doctrine of Biblical inerrancy is an extremely important one because the truthdoes matter. This issue reflects on the character of God and is foundational to our understandingof everything the Bible teaches. The reliability and trustworthiness of Scripture in its legitimatecanonical composition is an important article of the Christian faith. As F.F. Bruce asserts,Christianity is a historical religion. Our article of faith traces our faith as Christians on thedoctrine of the Son of God becoming part of historical mankind, and our Scripture necessarilymust, even as a record of history be a reliable inerrant record and guidance that we can trust.
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Survey of Various Positions
We shall discuss two alternative views to the belief in the trustworthiness of theChristian canon. These alternative views include the following:1.The opinion that the Bible is not the Word of God.2.The view that the Protestant canon is corrupted and/or lacking in the inspired books.
1. The Bible is Not the Word of God
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F.F. Bruce,
The New Testament Documents: Are They Reliable?
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th
ed. (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans,1960), [online], accessed March 20, 2009, http://www.bible.ca/b-new-testament-documents-f-f-bruce.htm; Internet.
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To declare that a particular book is a part of the canon, or that a book is the Word of God, is a declaration that the book is inerrant and infallible.Practically all religions in the world have scriptures that these religions proclaim asdivinely inspired. For example, Muslims also proclaim the Qur’an as the “locked” divinerevelation – the Scripture, handed down to the Prophet Muhammad by the angel Gabriel. In factMuslims accept the “authenticity of divine revelations” in the Judeo-Christian Scripture. Theonly Muslim reservation against the Bible is that it has been “corrupted” by translational errors.
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To nonbelievers, Catholics and Protestants both proclaim their Scripture as the Wordof God. However these two major Christian groups differ in their respective canons – the list of recognized books in the Scripture. Each side says that their canon is the true and God-givenScripture and each side presents “proof” of their view. A very confusing, and oft timesirreconcilable, dichotomy exists for the nonbeliever to wade through. Without help, it is almostnatural for someone to adopt the view that either all are right or all are wrong in their assertions.Among these many and conflicting claims of divine authenticity, can there be just onedivine revelation that was handed down to mankind in the form of a book? Or should a detachedscholar view all these claims with objectivity and consider all these claims as no more thanreligious claims? How can God entrust his teachings only to those who can read and write?These questions clearly imply a negative answer, which sweeps the Bible under the rug, as oneof the scriptural traditions that deserved to be lumped with other scriptures pretending to bedivinely inspired.
2. The Protestant Canon is Corrupted and/or Lacking in the Inspired Books
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Canon Of The Bible
, [online], accessed March 18, 2009, http://www.islamic-awareness.org/Bible/Text/Canon; Internet.
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This alternative view believes that the canon as Protestants or early Christians heldthem is corrupted. As indicated above, the corruption of that Judeo-Christian
 
Scripture is thereason why, from the point of view of the Muslims, the Qur'an was
 
divinely revealed to theProphet Muhammad. The Muslims in this case are referring not just to the Protestant canon, butto the entire scriptural tradition of Christendom in its entirety, which includes the Catholic canonof scripture.From the point of view of the Catholic Church, the Protestant canon omitted certain books in the Old Testament that the Church considered and held as divinely inspired. Thoughthe Catholic branches of Christianity also hold differences with each other on their OldTestament canons, all Christian religions agree on the constitution of the New Testament canon.
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The Catholic Canon contains fifteen more books in their Old Testament than theProtestant canon. These books are collectively called the Apocrypha from the Greek word“άπόκρυφα” meaning “those having been hidden away.” The Protestant canon accepts sixty-six books, of which thirty-nine came from the Jewish Old Testament written primarily in Hebrew butwith some minor portions in Aramaic, and twenty-seven originally written in Greek forming the New Testament.While Protestants consider the interpretation of scripture to be open to each person,though with the assistance of the Holy Spirit, the Catholic Church is on the opposite side of theinterpretational spectrum. At the Council of Trent, the Catholic Church decreed that no one, inmatters of faith and morals, should interpret Scripture contrary to official church interpretation, backing up this warning with threats of penalty.
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Canon Of The Bible.
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Canons and Decrees of the Council of Trent: Decree Concerning the Canonical Scriptures,
[online],accessed March 18, 2009, http://www.bible-researcher.com/trent1.html; Internet.
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