"Volume of Truth" : Protestant Declaration of Canon?

[Andrew]

[The Bible Cause: History of The American Bible Society; by John Fea, Chapter 6 excerpts]

[Edit; Shortened due to copyright concerns]

The ABS took a decidedly Protestant and American approach to the Bible. The Bible was a book of liberty. It not only taught individuals how to be free from the bonds of sin and the devil, but it was wholly compatible with the kind of political liberty that flowed naturally from the American Revolution.

In the decades prior to the Civil War the ABS made it clear to its constituency that the Roman Catholic Church was a false version of Christianity. If not checked, it had the power to undermine the American republic. At the time of its founding, the ABS seemed willing to include Roman Catholics in the interdenominational Bible Cause.

Though ABS Bibles were popular in the Catholic regions, the Society’s decision to publish them without the so-called Apocryphal or deuterocanonical books, and without Catholic commentary or notes, ultimately presented an obstacle to distribution. But between 1830 and 1870 the Catholic population in America increased by 1,300 percent, from about 318,000 in 1830 to 4.5 million in 1870. Between 1846 and 1851 over 1 million people fled Ireland during the infamous potato famine. By 1850, Catholicism was the largest religious body in the United States.

They had beliefs and practices that were foreign to Protestant America such as transubstantiation, the use of holy water, and the practice of praying to the Virgin Mary.

ABS publications during the 1840s and 1850s described “the rapid influx of foreigners” bringing with them “the prevalence of infidelity, of Papacy, Mormonism, and other soul-destroying delusions” that could only be countered by the spread of the “volume of truth without delay over all our land.” ABS agents feared that “the Papists” were making the city of Indianapolis “one of their strongholds.” It was time for all Bible-loving Protestants to “redouble their efforts” in the dissemination of the Holy Scriptures as the “surest means” of keeping the Protestant settlers of Indianapolis “free from the errors of Popery.”

 

[Faithhopeandcharity]

By what authority?

by what authority did the tradition of men under king James deleted whole books and some chapters for scripture negating the word of God? Dan 13 story of great faith of Susana?

Pope Gregory the sixteenth has an encyclical condemning Bible society’s a good read

Inter praecipuas​

Online or YouTube if you don’t like reading

 

[Josiah]

Here we go again.....


Andrew, the ABS is not Protestantism, it's not even one of the tens of thousands of denominations. There are countless translators and publishing houses - NONE of them is the official, authoritative. binding Ruling Body of Protestantism (there is none).



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[Andrew]

Here we go again.....


Andrew, the ABS is not Protestantism, it's not even one of the tens of thousands of denominations. There are countless translators and publishing houses - NONE of them is the official, authoritative. binding Ruling Body of Protestantism (there is none).



.

It's a protestant based publishing house with direct editing control over book listings in the kjv bible.. I mean what exactly was so wrong with the KJV Christians had been using up to the ABS? Whatever happened to the traditional Lutheran view that it was up to the pious reader what to make of the "Apocrypha" section?

 

[Josiah]

It's a protestant based publishing house with direct editing control over book listings in the kjv bible..

The American Bible Society is not Protestantism. It's not even a church or denomination. What it does has nothing to do with Protestantism doing something.


Sure, a publishing house may put anything it itself wants to put in or leave out anything it wants to in anything it publishes and sells, no doubt driven by one singular reason: what will sell. My tome has LOTS of stuff in it that no one on the planet considers to be Scripture (more than half, I'd guess). WHY? Because customers like me are willing to pay for that stuff. I also have a tome that doesn't have the OT in it (it's just NT) and has no additional resources at all (this tome was given to me, I don't recall when or why).

Brother, if you want a tome with 82 books in it but NO table of contents, NO maps, NO notes, NO cross references it it.... in a genuine imitation leather cover with imitation gold letters spelling out "BIBLE", well, I guarantee you can buy it;. Anything you could want is available because the Bible is sells well and there's no copyright on it. The claim that people are forbidden from buying a Bible with 1 Maccabees or Psalm151 in it is... well... just not true. It's absurd to insist such contents have been "ripped out" is absurd when such is IN bibles (and since they can't show such was ever put IN). Protestants too may buy any edition of the Bible they want - in paperback, hardback, imitation leather or real leather - in red letter editions and/or large print. Atheists, Buddhist and Jews may do so. too. It's just reality, my brother. There is no law (in the USA anyway) that forbids anyone (Protestants included) from buying or using ANY tome they want. Even the JW one. The claim otherwise is simply false.


BTW I have THREE tomes that have more than 66 books in them. All 3 are unique and different from each other. I still have my Catholic tome with 73 books in it, my New English Anglican Bible with 81 books in it (same as the KJV), and Luther's that has 74 books in it. I have yet to be excommunicated or arrested and jailed for buying, owning and using these. And to my knowledge the publishing houses are not violating any law by printing and selling them.




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[Josiah]

Andrew, my brother....


Here's the reality. It might make you uncomfortable but it's the reality nonetheless (sometimes reality works that way);

Protestantism has NEVER officially formally declared what is and is not infallible, normative, inscripturated words of God. Nor what must be included in Bibles and what must be excluded. There is one very, very simple reason for this: There is no universal ruling body in Protestantism... there simply is nothing that speaks for and rules over the 10,000+ "Protestant" denominations and 300,000,000 Protestants. It has not, in part because it cannot. Protestantism has no means to do this. Never has had. Still doesn't. Sorry, it's just the reality.

Yes, a tiny handful of Protestant denominations have done this for it itself exclusively, singularly, individually (because no Protestant denomination has ruling authority over any other). The Anglican Church did this in its own 39 Articles (never edited or deleted) but this ONLY for itself. The Reformed Church did this in the Westminister Confession but ONLY for it itself alone. I think there are some Baptist denominations that have done this, too. I think the Assembly of God did this. But in each of these cases, the decision/declaration was ONLY of it itself alone for it itself alone. The largest Protestant group in the world - the Lutherans - have never done this, we are SILENT on this - perhaps in part because of Luther's view that ONLY a true Ecumenical Council would have the authority to do this, and that would be for ALL denominations and parishes, not just Lutherans. We have had 7 Ecumenical Councils (speaking for and ruling over ALL churches and denomiations) but none of them took up this issue... there has NEVER been a ruling over all Protestants, much less all Christians.

TRADITION is solid around 66 books - and has been for at least 1400 years. And you are right, there has been a lesser embrace of 7-20 more books (or addition to books). And we must remember that until perhaps 400 years ago, the embrace was NOT equal.... while sometimes called Scripture and included in lists of "Scripture" and in tomes called "BIble" these were NOT necessarily all regarded as EQUALLY normative.... there were canonical and deuterocanonical for example.... there was homologoumena and antilegomena. Some materials were "In" and some sort of "in." Some normative, some less so, perhaps some not at all. It was not as "neat" and "clear" as 21st Century folks might assume....

Sorry.



- Josiah




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[Andrew]

Andrew, my brother....


Here's the reality. It might make you uncomfortable but it's the reality nonetheless (sometimes reality works that way);

Protestantism has NEVER officially formally declared what is and is not infallible, normative, inscripturated words of God. Nor what must be included in Bibles and what must be excluded. There is one very, very simple reason for this: There is no universal ruling body in Protestantism... there simply is nothing that speaks for and rules over the 10,000+ "Protestant" denominations and 300,000,000 Protestants. It has not, in part because it cannot. Protestantism has no means to do this. Never has had. Still doesn't. Sorry, it's just the reality.

Yes, a tiny handful of Protestant denominations have done this for it itself exclusively, singularly, individually (because no Protestant denomination has ruling authority over any other). The Anglican Church did this in its own 39 Articles (never edited or deleted) but this ONLY for itself. The Reformed Church did this in the Westminister Confession but ONLY for it itself alone. I think there are some Baptist denominations that have done this, too. I think the Assembly of God did this. But in each of these cases, the decision/declaration was ONLY of it itself alone for it itself alone. The largest Protestant group in the world - the Lutherans - have never done this, we are SILENT on this - perhaps in part because of Luther's view that ONLY a true Ecumenical Council would have the authority to do this, and that would be for ALL denominations and parishes, not just Lutherans. We have had 7 Ecumenical Councils (speaking for and ruling over ALL churches and denomiations) but none of them took up this issue... there has NEVER been a ruling over all Protestants, much less all Christians.

TRADITION is solid around 66 books - and has been for at least 1400 years. And you are right, there has been a lesser embrace of 7-20 more books (or addition to books). And we must remember that until perhaps 400 years ago, the embrace was NOT equal.... while sometimes called Scripture and included in lists of "Scripture" and in tomes called "BIble" these were NOT necessarily all regarded as EQUALLY normative.... there were canonical and deuterocanonical for example.... there was homologoumena and antilegomena. Some materials were "In" and some sort of "in." Some normative, some less so, perhaps some not at all. It was not as "neat" and "clear" as 21st Century folks might assume....

Sorry.



- Josiah




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No, tradition is solid on the fact that these books ARE included in the Holy Bible.

If the ABS never existed, we wouldn't be having this conversation and you would have no objections.

 

[hedrick]

The quotations seem to be from quite some time ago. Protestants attitudes towards Catholics are rather different now. The ABS supplies Bibles with the D-C books. Indeed their own translation (the Good News Bible) has an edition with the D-C books and an imprimature.

 

[Andrew]

The quotations seem to be from quite some time ago. Protestants attitudes towards Catholics are rather different now. The ABS supplies Bibles with the D-C books. Indeed their own translation (the Good News Bible) has an edition with the D-C books and an imprimature.

Only by request of the RCC with its approval by the ABS are these D-C books ever printed.

I prefer the traditional method as being more beneficial in the modern era in understanding prophecy over the ABS censored/edited version of division and confusion of the many, very simple, NT verses that Protestants and Catholics alike have understood throughout Christian history, and without any cause for dispute.. unlike today where all of a sudden we find ourselves faced with all sorts of new explanations and apologetics for what certain NT passages allude to or whether or not some of the prophecies in Daniel have any connection to any biblically confirmed historical events (for many OT prophecies are often fulfilled later on in the OT).