Banned from the Bible

@Didymos Thomas,

Didymos Thomas wrote:

Official canon contradicts itself, so similar difficulties with apocryphal literature are not, in my view, harmful to the credibility of any of the works.

Were you saying that canon contradicts itself in a literal sense perhaps?

@Dustin phil,

Quote:

Were you saying that canon contradicts itself in a literal sense perhaps?

I was saying that canon is full of contradictions, both literal and theologically. In one Gospel, Jesus delivers the Sermon on the Mount, in another, Sermon on the Plain.... same sermon.

Apart from literal issues, depending upon how we read them, we can also pick out deeper issues. The first three canonical Gospels (synoptic gospels) are quite a bit different than John's Gospel. Only in John does Jesus talk about himself at great length. Modern scholarship has been especially critical of John as having any reliable information about the life of Jesus.

@Didymos Thomas,

Didymos Thomas wrote:

Apart from literal issues, depending upon how we read them, we can also pick out deeper issues.

A friend recently said to me, "If everything in the bible could be said to "make sense" narratively speaking, I believe many people would simply leave it at that and never seek for anything else."

I thought it was quite significant...

@Dustin phil,

The "Bible" shouldn't make sense narratively. The literature in the New Testament was not written to be a New Testament. The volume we call the Bible was put built from texts circulating individually among early Christian communities. Of course we find differences.

As for your friend's words, I disagree. First, we have to understand that the book would be entirely different if it did follow as if written by a single author. However, many other books do not have multiple authors, speaking from different perspectives, and still manage to find an audience. Even religious works with a single author have managed to keep mass attention and affection (Koran for example).

@Didymos Thomas,

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Banned from the Bible

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