Ukutsgp:
Why is it that the roman catholic went and added more books to the inspired books in the bible?

Did they have the right to do so?

Are those additional book accepted by the early church?

Are they inspired of God?

Are the teachings contained in those books in line with what is found in the 66 books of the bible?

Those are some questions that are begging for answers.

What do you have to say about this?

AnodaIT:
Catholic added more books? That is laughable

Do your research more, the Roman Catholic actually reduced the numbers of books used for teachings and compiled the ones they could verify and gave Christendom the Bible. They just decided to keep the other books separate cos there was no convincing verification at that time though it was still edifying.

Roman Catholic Church gave us the Bible in this form.

Ukutsgp:
they did nt reduce, they added to the 66 books. Their own contains about 73 instead of 66. The catholic did nt give us the bible but God.

AnodaIT:

The books of the bible, the individual scriptures were given by God and written by men inspired by God. And there were many of these books, [color=000099]some questionable[/color]. Who took all these inspired scriptures and compiled them into one book and declared it to be used by the church? Roman Catholic.

Go and read about the Council of Hippo, Trent, Nicene etc when the Church decided to create a unified system of Worship because of the clashes that occurred when some people preferred to follow Peter's teaching or Paul's teaching. This gave birth to the Universal Catholic Church and the Bible

Raiders:
you need to read about the history of the bible. The bible is more than 66 books. It was a pope ( cant remember his name) who reduced the number of books in the bible to 66 books to form what we call the bible.

AgreatMan:
wrong topic, it should be: 'why did the catholics reduced the books of the bible to just 66?

d op is an ignorant man, which is not an issue. The issue is he is either too lazy to make his research or simply wants to criticize at all course or mayb he's looking 4 attention so as 2 mk fp.

wonder what y sm people hv ish with one denomination, my church is where Jesus is, join me or ur soul will burn in Hell. What happened to d greatest commandment, LOVE?

italo:


No Pope reduced the books to 66.

The books of the Bible have been 73 right from the inception of the Bible in the 4th century.

It was Martin Luther who removed books that didn't fit his heresy.

He also attempted to remove the book of James. He called it "Epistle of straws."

Ukutsgp:
u are the most ignorant of all. Do u think i'm looking for fame on a faceless forum like this? Monkey like u.

U need to update your knowledge. I dnt even know why i'm replying ur silly post.

AgreatMan:


There is no point starting a rather pointless argument with u n for dat, dis monkey will shut-tup n eat his babana.

italo:
Who made it 66, and when?

When did the Catholic Church add books?

Ukutsgp:
it was 66 books that were canonised. the other books added were not accepted as inspired.

Ukutsgp:
u should have allowed people that have brains to comment before u insult people.

Ukutsgp:
u should have allowed people that have brains to comment before u insult people.

italo:
Who made it 66, and when?

When did the Catholic Church add books?

italo:
Who canonised the 66, and when?

AgreatMan:


I could have lectured u on d topic but d way u presentated it clearly shows u r an attention seeker, hoping d topic will generate enough arguments n counter arguments. Of course, u know what traffic does to a thread. A topic like this is to enlighten folks n not to create religious division n I will not aid d course of a bigot.

Good news 4 u tho, the other people who have brains will explain it to u.

italo:
Who canonised the 66, and when?

vest:
hmm!when i c debate like dis i alway rememba a niaralander with username start with E and ends with a.

Ukutsgp:
the question is, is the additional books added by the Roman catholic accepted as scriptures? are they inspired by God? that is the question here?

twosquare:
read it first, if you have the Spirit of Christ in you, you will know whether it is or not.

Ukutsgp:
i read few of the books and it does nt sound inspired. many errors and false teachings were contained in it. they were not of God.

Ukutsgp:
@italo


How do we know that the 66 books in
our Bible are the only inspired books?
Who decided which books were truly
inspired by God? The Roman Catholic
Bible includes books that are not found
in other Bibles (called the Apocrypha).
How do we know that we as christians
have the right books? These questions
are addressed by a study of canonicity.

“Canon” is a word that comes from
Greek and Hebrew words that literally
means a measuring rod. So canonicity
describes the standard that books had to
meet to be recognized as scripture.
On the one hand, deciding which books
were inspired seems like a human
process. Christians gathered together at
church councils in the first several
centuries A.D. for the purpose of
officially recognizing which books are
inspired. But it’s important to
remember that these councils did not
determine which books were inspired.
They simply recognized what God had
already determined.

it is important to point out the tests of
canonicity that were used, the history of
canonization and a brief explanation of
why certain disputed books are not
scripture.


II. Summary: The collection of
66 books were properly
recognized by the early
church as the complete
authoritative scriptures not
to be added to or subtracted
from.


III. Tests of Canonicity
The early church councils applied
several basic standards in recognizing
whether a book was inspired.

A. Is it authoritative (“Thus saith the
Lord”)?

B. Is it prophetic (“a man of God”
2 Peter 1:20 )?
- A book in the Bible must have the
authority of a spiritual leader of Israel
(O.T. – prophet, king, judge, scribe) or
and apostle of the church (N.T. – It must
be based on the testimony of an original
apostle.).

C. Is it authentic (consistent with other
revelation of truth)?

D. Is it dynamic – demonstrating God’s
life-changing power (Hebrew 4:12)?

E. Is it received (accepted and used by
believers – 1 Thessalonians 2:13 )?
(Norman L. Geisler & William Nix, A
General Introduction To The Bible. pp.
137-144).

IV. The History of
Canonization

A. Old Testament Canon – Recognizing
the correct Old Testament book

1. Christ refers to Old Testament
books as “scripture” (Matthew 21:42 ,
etc.).

2. The Council of Jamnia (A.D. 90)
officially recognized our 39 Old
Testament books.

3. Josephus, the Jewish historian
(A.D. 95), indicated that the 39 books
were recognized as authoritative.

B. New Testament Canon –
Recognizing the correct New
Testament books

1. The apostles claimed authority for
their writings (Colossians 3:16 ;
1 Thessalonians 5:27 ;
2 Thessalonians 3:14 ).

2. The apostle’s writings were
equated with Old Testament
scriptures (2 Peter 3:1, 2, 15, 16 ).

3. The Council of Athenasius (A.D.
367) and the Council of Carthage
(A.D. 397) recognized the 27 books in
our New Testament today as
inspired.

V. The Disputed but non-canonical
books

A. The Apocrypha is not scripture.


The Apocryphal books are 15 books
written in the 400 years between
Malachi and Matthew. They record
some of the history of that time period
and various other religious stories and
teaching. The Catholic Bible (Douay
Version) regards these books as
scripture. The Apocrypha includes some
specific Catholic doctrines, such as
purgatory and prayer for the dead (2
Maccabees 12:39-46), and salvation by
works (almsgiving – Tobit 12:9).

Interestingly, the Catholic Church
officially recognized these books as
scripture in A.D. 1546, only 29 years
after Martin Luther criticized these
doctrines as unbiblical.

Below are listed several additional
reasons for rejecting the Apocrypha as
inspired:

1. The Jews never accepted the
Apocrypha as scripture.

2. The Apocrypha never claims to be
inspired (“Thus saith the Lord” etc.) –
In fact, 1 Maccabees 9:27 denies it.

3. The Apocrypha is never quoted as
authoritative in scriptures. (Although
Hebrews 11:35-38 alludes to
historical events recorded in 2
Maccabees 6:18-7:42).

4. Matthew 23:35 – Jesus implied that
the close of Old Testament historical
scripture was the death of Zechariah
(400 B.C.). This excludes any books
written after Malachi and before the
New Testament.

nigizjay:
All the books you made mention of are found in the old testament. The hebrew literature or old testament have been in existence even before the time of jesus and there existed two types; one written in hebrew and the one written in greek for the jews in diaspora who spoke greek.
The extra books you made mention of were originally found written in greek and were first rejected by the jews as not inspired major reason been greek was considered a pagan foreign language and also when luther broke away, he adopted the old testament approved by the jews.
The catholics church believe that those extra books are also inspired word of God major reason being that Jesus christ himself made some quotations from that literature and also some quotations made by st paul also suggest that he may have drawn them from that same literature.