There is no such thing as The Bible

Any book can be claimed to be diviny inspired. You seem to be falling back on the 'It's not divinely inspired' tact. Why should anyone take one book to be divinly inspired over another? I mean, The Revelation of JOhn narrowly was not included into the canon by he just a narrow vote.What criteria do you have to say if something is 'divinely inspired' or not? Your opinion? Pulling it out of a hat? Just plain politics?

Ramoss,
All good questions, here is a summary -
The OT:
1) Prophetic authorship tested by
a) Accurate short-range predictions
b) Content agrees with previous revelation
2) OT evidence for prophetic authorship of OT books
3) Extra-biblical evidence for " " " " "
4) Christians, of course, also have NT evidence for " " " " "
as well.
The NT:
1) Internal evidence of Apostolic Authorship
2) Early Church evidence " " "Once Prophetic/Apostolic Authorship was established, the books were considered inspired.

The Jews of the time wouldn't know that Enoch himself wasn't the author. The quiotes I provided seem to show that they believed that he was, in fact, the original author.In any case, I'm not arguing for its inclusion - I'm pointing out that the decisions regarding the cononicity of scriptural writings were not always sound, and the various Churches have not always agreed. In other words, as the thread title says, there is no such thing as the Bible, at least in a standardized form. It is therefore silly to say that one version of the Canon is inerrant, while books present only in another version of the Canon are not "God-breathed."

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Every time a fundy breaks the laws of thermodynamics, Schroedinger probably kills his cat.

I presented the standards for inclusion in the OT a couple of messages ago, if the Jews did not include it with their canon, obviously the book of Enoch failed to meet the test. Again, that doesn't mean all the other writings not included necessarily had no value, maybe some historical or devotional value, some truths...but not divinely inspired as a whole book.

But Christians did include 1 Enoch in their Canon. So from a Christian perspective, it did meet the test.

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Aslan is not a Tame Lion

You're missing my point. The Jews of the time did consider it a Scriptural writing. Many Christian sects, as Jar pointed out, also consider Enoch I to be part of the Canon.The whole point of this thread is that there is no single, universally accepted Bible. There are several different versions of Canon, and some books are added or missing depending on which version you examine. Enoch I is a single example. Obviously many Christian "authorities" believe it to be "divinely inspired," and pass the test for Canonicity. Others disagree, ant it is absent from their version of the Canon. There are other examples of added or missing books across different versions of Canon, but Enoch serves as a good example.There is no single Canon. There is no single Bible. There are many.Are they all inerrant? Is only one? Which one? What's the difference?

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Every time a fundy breaks the laws of thermodynamics, Schroedinger probably kills his cat.

Frankly, if the Jews say an OT writing is not canonical, I would not feel comfortable disagreeing with them. Which Christians are we talking about here, I haven't seen this book, even in the RCC apochrypha! If you are referring to NT Christians, again, just because they quote a book does not necessarily mean they think it's divinely inspired as a whole, they also quoted pagan poets too!

Where do you get this idea that Jews/Christians did consider the book of Enoch part of the Canon?? I feel like there's something you're not sharing with me. Based on what you have told me, your argument seems a stretch.
Anyway, I'm going out for the day, but look forward to continuing our discussion later.

I'm talking about official Canon of Christian Faiths. Enoch (actually both Enochs) are included in the Ethiopian Christian Church, one of the oldest extant Christian Faiths, predating even the Roman Church.

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Aslan is not a Tame Lion

Gosh, with those particular requirements, it appears that NONE of the Old testament or new testament is 'divinely inspired'.It also seems to totally ignore the structure of the Tanakh with the torah, the prophets, and the writings.

What Jar said.It is part of the Canon for several churches, even today. Check this out.

quote:

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# The smallest Bible is claimed by the Samaritans, who recognize only the first five books of the Bible (the Pentateuch).
# The largest Bible is that of the Ethiopian Orthodox church, which has 81 books

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quote:

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The Ethiopian Orthodox church's narrower Old Testament canon includes the books of the Hebrew Bible, all of the Apocrypha, and "Jubilees, 1 Enoch, and Joseph ben Gurion's (Josippon's) medieval history of the Jews and other nations."

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Not all Judeo-Christian faiths use the exact same Bible, though they have a lot in common.In other words, there is no such thing as a single, universal Bible. The Bible is different depending on the specific denomination, in some cases having fewer or even more books than other denominations.

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Every time a fundy breaks the laws of thermodynamics, Schroedinger probably kills his cat.

Well,
Re. the Apochrypha the RCC accepts, there is little doubt in my mind that they made a mistake in pronouncing it as part of the canon, for reasons I have stated earlier.
As to the other books, why the worldwide church should accept certain books based on the lists from 2 or 3 countries' national churches would seem odd to me...I don't have time to read the links in the website tonight...but I wonder if they are following manuscript traditions within their own respective countries, hence the differences...understandable to be patriotic about textual traditions in your own country, but that would seem to me to be a narrow view to take, especially when the events described in the books don't take place in the country you are living in.
Finally, I guess the key issue here is, do these other books (RCC Apochrypha aside) teach doctrines that are alien to the historic Christian faith? If they don't, I guess we aren't missing anything anyway, if they do, then obviously they should not be canonical.

Obviously the people in those times felt differently, I think they would know better than any of us would. As per usual, you critics assume these folks were total idiots...but I bet they knew these writings better than we do...I think we should be careful not to look down our nose at them too much...which is often a symptom of having an evolutionary view of the past, at least, that's how I used to view them when I was an atheist.
As to the structure, not sure what difference that makes really. Content would be the same, just a different order...so what?

What the hell are you talking about.The Ethiopian Christian Church pre-dates the Roman Church.The Syrian and Samaritan Churches pre-date the Roman Church.They ARE the Historic Christian Church.

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Aslan is not a Tame Lion

I still say any Christian church that thinks it is more capable of determining which documents should be in the OT than the Hebrews who wrote them, and who lived close to the times they were written, is on very thin ice indeed, whether they be Samaritan, Ethiopian, Syrian or Roman Catholic churches. The only differences between the Protestant and Hebrew OT's are in form only (books split into two), not content. I just don't know on what basis anyone could know better.
The site I was given a link to did not give me any info on the NT canon for the Samaritan, Syrian or Ethiopian churches you mentioned, so I can't comment on those at this point.
Re. the NT, the books not in the Canon were omitted for the reasons listed above in one of my posts from the last day or two.