Last Will And Testament-Will And Testament

age of metternich:

One reason why various Christian Bibles are not similar is because the churches themselves are not similar. There is much diversity among the various denominations of Christian churches. It has always been hard for the Christian churches to agree on anything. Just look at Protestantism and the Roman Catholic Church. And the Roman Catholic Church and the Eastern Orthodox Church.

Don H:

They are different because they all want to be right. They all see their version as the one true and only correct version. These people believe in very different versions of God. They want their religious text to reflect the idea of God that they believe in.

In this way they create a God in their own image and likeness. A God that hates as they **** and punishes as they would punish and seeks vengeance that they would call justice.

When they are all done they say that this God that they have created, created them in its own image and likeness. They do this to fool themselves into thinking this is true.

Love and blessings Don

kait:

“The Apocrypha refers to 14 or 15 books of doubtful authenticity and authority that the Roman Catholics decided belonged in the Bible sometime following the Protestant Reformation. The Catholic Council of Trent (1545-1563) canonized these books. This canonization took place largely as a result of the Protestant Reformation. Indeed, Luther had criticized the Catholics for not having scriptural support fur such doctrines as praying for the dead. By canonizing the Apocrypha (which offers support for praying for the dead in 2 Macabese 23:45-46), the Catholics suddenly had “scriptural” support for this and other distinctively Catholic doctrines.
Roman Catholics argue that the Septuagint (the Greek translation of the Hebrew Old Testament) contained the Apocrypha. As well, church fathers like Iranians, Tortellini, and Clement of Alexandria used the apocryphal books in public worship and accepted them as Scripture. Further, it is argued, St. Augustine viewed these books as inspired.
Protestants respond by pointing out that even though some of the Apocryphal books may have been alluded to in the New Testament, no New Testament writer EVER quoted from ANY of these books as holy Scripture or gave them the slightest authority as inspired books. Jesus and the disciples virtually ignored these books, something that wouldn’t have been the case if they had considered them to be inspired.
Moreover, even though certain church fathers spoke approvingly of the Apocrypha, there were other early church fathers – notable Origin and Jerome – who denied their inspiration. Further, even though the early Augustine acknowledged the Apocrypha, in his later years he rejected these books as being outside the canon and considered them inferior to the Hebrew Scriptures.
The Jewish Council of Jamie, which met in A.D. 90, rejected the Apocrypha as Scripture. Combine all this with the fact that there are clear historical errors in the Apocrypha (especially those relating to Obit) and the fact that it contains unbiblical doctrines (like praying for the dead), and it is clear that these books do not belong in the Bible. In addition, unlike many of the biblical books, THERE IS NO CLAIM IN ANY APOCRYPHAL BOOK IN REGARD TO DIVINE INSPIRATION.

Acts 4:12:

Kait gave an excellent answer and I would like to add how the Old Testament came into existance.

The formation of the Old Testament canon was gradual, and was composed of the writings which spread over many centuries. Moses commanded that the books of the law be placed in the ark. This–with the addition of the book of Joshua–was done, and the sacred books were kept there during the wilderness journey, and also were in the ark during its permanent residence in Jerusalem. (Deuteronomy 31:9,26, cf. 2 Kings 22:8; Joshua 24:26; 1 Samuel 10:25.)

Then were gathered and placed in the temple the historical and prophetical books from Joshua to David’s time. On the construction of the temple Solomon deposited in it the earlier books (2 Kings 22:8, Isaiah 34:16), and enriched the collection with inspired writings from his own pen, and also some prophetic writings. So we find Daniel (9:2, R.V.) referring to “the books,” Isaiah to “the book of the Lord” (29:18, 34:16). After Solomon’s day a succession of prophets arose, Jonah, Amos, Isaiah, Hosea, Joel, Micah, Nahum, Zephaniah, Jeremiah, Obadiah, and Habakkuk. These all flourished before the destruction of the temple, and enlarged the collection of existing sacred books by valuable additions.

After the Babylonian capture, when the temple was rebuilt and worship re-established, then doubtless were added the writings of Haggai and Zechariah. About fifty years after the temple was rebuilt Ezra made a collection of the sacred writings (Neh. 8:2,3,14). To this collection were added the writings of Nehemiah, Malachi, and Ezra. It is a fact of history that Nehemiah gathered the “Acts of the Kings and the Prophets, and those of David,” when founding a library for the second temple, 432 B.C.
The canon of the Old Testament in the form we now have it, was the work of Ezra and the Great Synagogue. This fact is borne witness to in the most ancient Jewish writings. The Great Synagogue was composed of Ezra, Nehemiah, Haggai, Zechariah, and Malachi. There is no doubt but that such a collection of books existed in the time of our Lord and the apostles (Luke 24:27,44). As far as the members of the Great Synagogue is concerned the Hebrew canon was closed until the next Elijah comes (Malachi 4:5)

The apocryphal books are not found in the Hebrew canon. Josephus, when writing about the history of the Jews and their religious writings, limited the Hebrew canon to twenty-two books. (The equivalent of the 39 that we have today, Kings and Chronicles were 1 book, Ezra and Nehemiah were one book, the minor prophets were 1 book) He knew of the other writings, but he also knew they were not regarded as having equal authority.

As Kait responded, Jesus and his disciples never quoted from the apocryphal books as Scripture.

There are 7 primary reasons why the apocryphal books were rejected
1. They were never included in the Hebrew Old Testament.
2. They were never accepted as canonical by Jesus and His Apostles.
3. They were not accepted by early Jewish and Christian writers.
4. They do not evidence intrinsic qualities of inspiration.
5. They have been shrouded with continual uncertainty.
6. They cannot be maintained on a compromise basis.
7. Objections to them cannot be overruled by dictatorial authority.

snail:

some denominations believe that some of the books that may be in other denominations Bibles were not divinely inspired so when they compiled the books together they got rid of the books they felt that way about.

Getting churches to agree on a unified Bible would be like starting a new holy war. I’m sure there are places on the internet where you could buy these varies versions of the Bible but I have not done the search myself. Some people even have some of the books available online for reading for free. Just try searching for Bibles or the particular Bible you are looking for and I’m sure you will find one.

Isabella:

The Bible Indicates that In Addition to the Written Word, we are to accept Oral Tradition.
Perhaps the clearest Biblical support for oral tradition can be found in 2 Thessalonians 2:14, where Christians are actually commanded: “Therefore, brethren, stand fast; and hold the traditions which you have learned, whether by word, or by our epistle.”
Sacred Tradition complements our understanding of the Bible and is therefore not some extraneous source of Revelation which contains doctrines that are foreign to it. Quite the contrary: Sacred Tradition serves as the Church’s living memory, reminding her of what the faithful have constantly and consistently believed and who to properly understand and interpret the meaning of Biblical passages. In a certain way, it is Sacred Tradition which says to the reader of the Bible “You have been reading a very important book which contains God’s revelation to man. Now let me explain to you how it has always been understood and practiced by believers from the very beginning.”

The Catholic Church emphasized that the Scriptures must be read in light of the apostolic Tradition that was handed down through the ages.
As Saint Peter writes in his epistle, Scripture is not a matter of personal interpretation.
It therefore must mean that it is a matter of public interpretation, and that is the interpretation of the Church.
The Church has always encouraged reading the Scriptures.
In fact, the Catholic Church is the one who first translated the Scriptures into the vernacular.
Since the Catholic Church holds that the Bible is not sufficient in itself, it naturally teaches that the Bible needs an interpreter. The reason the Catholic Church so teaches is twofold: first, because Christ established a living Church to teach with His authority. He did not simply give His disciples a Bible, whole and entire, and tell them to go out and make copies of it for mass distribution and allow people to come to whatever interpretation they may. Second, the Bible itself states that it needs an interpreter.
The doctrine of Sola Scriptura overlooks – or at least grossly underemphasizes – the fact that the Church came before the Bible, and not the other way around. It was the Church, in effect, which wrote the Bible under the inspiration of Almighty God: the Israelites as the Old Testament Church (or “pre-Catholics”) and the early Catholics as the New Testament Church.
To say that the early Church believed in the notion of “the Bible alone” would be analogous to saying that men and women today could entertain the thought that our civil laws could function without Congress to legislate them, without courts to interpret them and without police to enforce them. All we would need is a sufficient supply of legal volumes in every household so that each citizen could determine for himself how to understand and apply any given law. Such an assertion is absurd, of course, as no one could possibly expect civil laws to function in this manner. The consequence of such a state of affairs would undoubtedly be total anarchy.
Since the Bible did not come with an inspired table of contents, the doctrine of Sola Scriptura creates yet another dilemma: How can one know with certainty which books belong in the Bible – specifically, in the New Testament? The unadulterated fact is that one cannot know unless there is an authority outside the Bible which can tell him. Moreover, this authority must, by necessity, be infallible, since the possibility of error in identifying the canon of the Bible would mean that all believers run the risk of having the wrong books in their Bibles, a situation which would vitiate Sola Scriptura. But if there is such an infallible authority, then the doctrine of Sola Scriptura crumbles.

Another historical fact very difficult to reconcile with the doctrine of Sola Scriptura is that it was none other than the Catholic Church which eventually identified and ratified the canon of the Bible. The three councils mentioned above were all councils of this Church. The Catholic Church gave its final, definitive, infallible definition of the Biblical canon a the Council of Trent in 1546 – naming the very same list of 73 books that had been included in the 4th century. If the Catholic Church is able, then, to render an authoritative and infallible decision concerning such an important matter as which books belong in the Bible, then upon what basis would a person question its authority on other matters of faith and morals?

Protestants should at least concede a point which Martin Luther, their religion’s founder, also conceded, namely, that the Catholic Church safeguarded and identified the Bible: “We are obliged to yield many things to the Catholics – that they possess the Word of God, which we received from them; otherwise, we should have known nothing at all about it.”