Hi Denise,
Ray had a whole conference that he dedicated to 'How We Got The Bible.' He spent a whole year researching, countless hours, to put that material together. So don't think we have no idea how we got the Bible. What we have in a Bible, translation error and all, is everything God needs to teach us, as He will provide a teacher to bridge the gap there might be.
This is from the transcript of 'How We Got The Bible,' it should give you some idea of how the New Testament was canonized.
http://forums.bible-truths.com/index.php/topic,5815.0.html ------
Isaiah 8:16 Bind up the testimony, seal the Law among My disciples.
But that’s a prophecy for when Messiah comes. So there is a statement that He will bind up the testimony of God, and seal the Law among My disciples. So just keep that in mind as a starting point in the Old Testament, for how God is going to bring about this Scripture of the New Testament.
So we have got 22 books with the 22 letters of the Hebrew alphabet in the Old TestamentNow that God has a new revelation, He is going to use a new language. At least as far as we know the language was Greek But some insist Matthew was written in Hebrew, we don’t know that for a fact. I don’t think we can prove that.
But just like Ezra and Nehemiah closed out the Old Testament canon, we are going to see that Peter and John close out the New Testament.
Now the Catholic church knew that the canon was complete long before they came on the scene with their Ecumenical Councils. II Peter makes it clear that Peter knew what was Scripture, and John finalized everything. Just as Ezra penned the last book (II Chronicles) of the Old Testament, John penned the Last book of the New Testament (Revelation).
Many things were known to be true and of God, long before they were officially and publicly canonized or written down in books by God’s high servants.
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Because there was apostasy coming in the church. There is crime and corruption entering in; false prophets, antichrists, strong delusions. It says men shall be lovers of themselves, disobedient, proud, vain, booster, lovers of pleasure (II Tim. 3) and all of these things are coming into the church. So they need to be sure that everybody knows what is the Truth. Now they are going to set aside the books for the final canonization, as what are the Scriptures.
Now look a little bit at what we can gleam, there are all kinds of outside information, tradition and some history. There are traditions of the Jews that I could bring in here, but I wanted to stick pretty much just to the Scriptures. So we can see from the Scripture how and why God brought everything together.
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The Catholic Church did not canonize the Scriptures, nor did the Protestant Church canonize the Scriptures. They were already canonized by God's servants hundreds of years earlier!
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II Peter 3:16 as also in ALL his epistles, speaking in them of these things;
What did Peter know about “all his (Paul’s) epistles”? Because Peter had them. He had them all. How did he get them?
II Tim. 4:11 Only Luke is with me. Take Mark, and bring him with you; for he is useful to me for ministering.
v. 12 But Tychicus I sent to Ephesus.
v. 13 The cloak that I left at Troas with Carpus, bring when thou come, and the books, ESPECIALLY THE PARCHMENTS.
These are Paul’s letters. These are not the books, but the vellums, these are his epistles. Why would he want all his epistles? Didn’t he know what he said? Well he knows his time is near the end and Paul knows what he has written is Scripture. We read many Scripture showing that he knew that he was writing ‘Bible verses’ if you will.
Now Paul wants Mark to come and bring those letters, because he’s going to go through them. In fact he’s going to edit some of them.
Eph 1:1 Paul, an apostle of Christ Jesus through the will of God, to the saints that are at Ephesus,
It doesn’t just say to the saints of God, but “that are in Ephesus,” That was editorialized, because his first letters apparently do not contain that. But then he edited it, so that they would know where this letter went.
Of course Ephesus was really the head quarters for the Asian church.
Remember there are 7 churches on a mail route; Ephesus, Smyrna, Pergamos, Thyatira, Sardis, Philadelphia and Laodicea. But the head church was always in Ephesus.
So he says, bring the parchments ‘especially’ I want those, these were Paul’s epistles. Now Mark returned to Peter in Babylon. Remember Peter wrote from Babylon.
II Peter 5:13 The church is in Babylon, elect together with you, greets you; and so does Mark my son.
So Paul said sent Mark and be sure to bring the vellums and he must have brought them. Paul then edits them and says these are the ones. He started with the most important one of all for basic information, the book of Romans. It sets the doctrinal standards, but it’s mostly milk as far as doctrine goes. This leads up to his last epistles written from prison, Ephesians, Philippians and Colossians. These are the most spiritually strong Scripture in the whole bible.
Now Mark is back in Babylon with Peter and then when we go to II Peter, guess what? Peter has all of Paul’s epistles. There was a reason why Mark got them and took them to Paul. Then Paul sent them with Mark and he gave them to Peter. Now Peter has got them all, at least all the ones that Paul wanted to be sent to him. So Peter is definitely in charge of the Scriptures and here he talks about his epistles and the OTHER Scriptures. So he knows what the other Scriptures are.
So obviously the Apostles had all the Scriptures.
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This is only a small part of what Ray explains at that conference about how they canonized the NT. At the very least you should consider what Ray teaches before advocating another source.
mercy, peace and love
Kat
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Topic: gnosticism (Read 9477 times)