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STRONG BIBLE RESEARCH!
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00:00The most sold book in the history of humankind, starting at the creation of everything, to
00:18the incarnation of the God-man Christ, and ends with the end of time as we know it.
00:27What did Christians do before these vital books of the New Testament were written and
00:34compiled?
00:38How did they discern between the false teachers and the true apostles that knew Christ and
00:45preserved his teachings?
00:48Who decided that these books are in the Bible, and not these?
00:53The true answer to these questions has largely been unknown in the West over the past centuries.
01:00But the truth has been preserved and can still be found today, just as it was 2,000 years
01:09ago.
01:12When we speak of the Bible, we speak of a collection of books.
01:15The earliest of these existed in oral form long before they were written down, but attained
01:22a written form many centuries before the birth of our Lord.
01:26The latest of these books were written many years after his resurrection, the very latest
01:31probably as late as the end of the first century, some 60 or more years after the resurrection.
01:36The former, of course, comprises the Old Testament, and the latter, the New Testament.
01:44When St. Paul speaks of scripture, it is to the Old Testament that he refers.
01:49Few of the New Testament books had even been written yet, and complete agreement in the church
01:55as to which books comprise the New Testament was yet several centuries off.
01:59The church existed for nearly 500 years before anything identical to what we now call the
02:07Bible could have been printed.
02:09Curiously, nonetheless, the notion common amongst many Protestants is that Catholics have a different
02:16Bible from that which they acknowledge, and therefore presumably Orthodox Christians.
02:21This question, different Bible, is likely to be one of the first to arise in any fundamental
02:27conversation between Orthodox Christians and Protestants.
02:39The books of the Old Testament are quite varied in character, and have discrete histories.
02:44Generally speaking, they fall into four broad groups.
02:47The books of the law, the history books, the prophets, and the books of wisdom.
02:56It might be interesting to note in passing that the first disagreement concerning the table
03:00of contents of the Old Testament long predates the Christian era.
03:05The Samaritans were distinguished from the Jews by their refusal to acknowledge as scripture
03:09any books other than those of Moses and the Pentateuch.
03:13Most of the books of the Old Testament were written originally in Hebrew or Aramaic, or a mixture
03:19of the two.
03:20There is, however, a whole group of books which are an exception, having been originally written,
03:26or at least only known to us in Greek.
03:29These books are usually called the Apocrypha, or hidden books, which is a complete misnomer,
03:36as there is nothing hidden about them.
03:37They were an integral part of the Greek text of the Old Testament, as it was in use at the
03:43time of our Lord.
03:45Many quotations from the scriptures, the Old Testament, in the books of the New Testament
03:49are identifiable from this Greek text.
03:52Nowhere, of course, do any of the New Testament books make any distinction between the various
03:57books of the Old Testament.
03:58It is of all this material that the Holy Apostle Paul writes when he says,
04:03It must be said that any volume which claims to be the Bible, and yet does not contain these
04:18books, is at best an abbreviated or expurgated Bible, and at worst an outright misrepresentation.
04:26It would be tedious and unnecessary to list all of the books in question, but the quickest
04:31way to determine whether a volume at hand is complete is to check the Table of Contents
04:36for the two best-known books, The Wisdom of Solomon and Ecclesiasticis, not to be confused
04:42with Ecclesiastes.
04:44All these books formed part of the original text of the King James Version of the Bible,
04:49and are simply deleted from the text in Protestant printings.
04:53Concerning the Table of Contents of the Old Testament, there was little serious discussion
04:57in the early church.
04:59The apostles and the fathers alike consistently used the text of the Septuagint.
05:04They frequently cited their writings passages which existed only in the Greek edition, or
05:10in which there is a significant difference in sense between the Greek and the Hebrew editions,
05:15as is frequently the case in the Psalms, and even more so in the book of Jeremiah.
05:20This was no less true of the other Jews of the time of our Lord.
05:27These apocryphal books came to be an issue, not for the Christians, but for the post-resurrection
05:33Jews.
05:34They, in many cases, clearly prophesied concerning our Lord, and so were an embarrassment to those
05:40who refused to accept his divinity.
05:41Consequently, they were officially barred from the Jewish canon, and the scriptures at the
05:48Jewish Council of Jamnia at the end of the first century AD, 60 or so years after the
05:54resurrection.
05:55The Protestant reformers of the 16th century chose to accept the authority of this Jewish
06:01council in preference to that of the apostles and the fathers.
06:04It makes no sense that they should object to these books on the same basis as that of the
06:10rabbis of Jamnia.
06:12The answer to the question, the puzzle, is quite simple.
06:17The books, some of them, also make quite evident, prophetically, the special role of the Theotokos,
06:24the mother of God, the maiden Mary of Galilee, and God's plan of salvation.
06:34Numerous passages from them are cited quite effectively by the fathers in discussing the
06:45church's understanding of the role of the Theotokos.
06:52Consequently, the reformers simply opted to get rid of the books they disliked, using the
06:58pretext provided by the rabbis that the books did not exist in the Hebrew text.
07:02Martin Luther did not quite have the courage or the pretext to continue the pattern and
07:09delete the epistle of James, which flatly contradicts his teaching that salvation is by grace alone.
07:17But he did attempt to rearrange the order of the books of the New Testament, placing this
07:21epistle at the very end.
07:26This revisionism, however, unlike the other, was not generally accepted.
07:30The, quote, pick-and-choose approach to the scriptures has proved to be the normal method
07:36of Western interpretation.
07:39We can see the logical consequence of such proceedings today.
07:43A thousand and more Protestant sects each claim to be based on the Bible and the Bible alone.
07:48Each claims to accept the Bible as the inspired word of God.
07:52Each quarrels with the other as to what the Bible says.
07:54Why?
07:57Quite simply, because the approach to the scripture is what is called the proof text method.
08:03Those portions of scripture which happen not to support or even flatly contradict one's already
08:17established belief are either explained away or ignored, just as the reformers simply threw
08:22away a whole collection of books of the Old Testament, which they found troublesome.
08:26To dwell too long on this matter of the apocryphal books of the Old Testament, however, could
08:32be very misleading, because in some significant respects it is entirely beside the point.
08:38Because in order for these issues to be meaningfully or intelligently addressed, it is first necessary
08:44to understand and accept that certain things happened in a certain order at certain times, and
08:50that, at least to a meaningful extent, we can determine what these were.
08:57We must admit that the church existed on the Monday after Pentecost, but that, at that
09:04point, none of the books of the New Testament yet existed, and most of them would not be written
09:10for yet another twenty or more years, and few not until nearly the end of the century.
09:15If we, or those with whom we discuss the faith, deny the existence of this history, refuse to admit
09:22facts as part of divine truth, then we really have nothing to discuss in this video at all.
09:32In the first weeks, months, years of her existence, the church had no written documents
09:38whatsoever, except the books of the Old Testament as indicated earlier.
09:45The events of the Gospels were related from one believer to another by word of mouth.
09:53Those who came to accept the faith heard them from the believers.
10:00This was entirely in keeping with the culture in which the church lived, which was above all
10:06else an oral culture.
10:08Relatively few people were able to read, let alone write, and so they heard the word of God
10:13and they kept it.
10:16The Holy Apostle Paul insists upon this matter, when he says,
10:20Therefore, brethren, stand fast and hold to the traditions which you have been taught,
10:24whether by word or our letter.
10:27In due course, as the church began to spread beyond her place of origin in Jerusalem and
10:32Galilee, communications between the local churches became necessary, and letters were written.
10:36Some of these were of such great importance to the understanding of the faith that they began
10:43to be read in church, along with the scriptures, the Old Testament.
10:48But copies existed initially only in the local churches to which they had been addressed,
10:53although in time in many others as well.
10:55As travelers moved from one place to another,
11:05they carried handwritten copies of the letters for the edification of other believers.
11:16Some of these letters were written by the apostles,
11:18but there were others written by other believers as well.
11:25Eventually, some of them came to have the character of what we now call
11:29open letters addressed to the church as a whole,
11:33rather than to any particular congregation.
11:36These are the universal or Catholic or general epistles.
11:48As the church spread,
11:52it also became necessary to commit the central core of the events of our Lord's life
11:56and His teachings to writing,
11:59to provide a written gospel for those who came to the faith
12:02far from the little out-of-the-way province of the empire
12:05in which the Lord had lived and died and rose again.
12:08So it was so
12:15that the four written gospels came into being.
12:21But this came to pass only after the gospel had been proclaimed
12:24and passed from one believer to another by word of mouth,
12:28by tradition,
12:30handing on for many years.
12:33It is readily apparent upon comparison
12:35that no one of the written gospels contains the entire story.
12:40As the gospel of St. John concludes,
12:43there are also many other things which Jesus did.
12:46If they should be written,
12:47every one,
12:48I suppose that even the world itself
12:50could not contain the books that should be written.
12:58To be sure,
12:59all that is essential of the Lord's life and teaching
13:03is to be found in the gospels.
13:05But not all that is desirable or helpful to our salvation.
13:10Neither any one nor all four of the gospels together
13:12were written to be absolutely exhaustive and final.
13:16Were that the case,
13:17of course,
13:18we would have no need of the rest of the New Testament
13:20nor the Old Testament either.
13:23Though there have been many heretics
13:25who have claimed such outrageous foolishness.
13:27The revelation of St. John the Theologian,
13:32more properly translated,
13:34the Apocalypse,
13:35and the Acts of the Apostles
13:36are, of course,
13:37special cases.
13:39The former
13:39is agreed by most scholars
13:41to have been written by St. John
13:43near the end of his life.
13:45It is the only book of the New Testament
13:47concerning which
13:48there was a significant disagreement
13:49in the church.
13:50There were parts of the church
13:53for several centuries
13:54in which it was not accepted
13:55as part of the scriptures.
13:57We'll talk about this more
13:58later on in the video.
14:00The Acts of the Apostles,
14:01written by the evangelist Luke,
14:03could not have been completed
14:04any earlier than A.D. 63,
14:07as it refers to St. Paul's imprisonment at Rome,
14:10which continued into that year.
14:13So, the complete picture
14:16that we have
14:17is that of a growing body
14:18of church literature
14:19throughout the first 70 years
14:21of the church's life.
14:25Some of these books
14:26were originally known
14:27in only one or a few local churches.
14:30Others more rapidly gained
14:31a widespread audience.
14:34What was considered scripture
14:35in a particular local church
14:37was that which was read
14:38at the church's service,
14:40along with the books of the law
14:42and the prophets.
14:43and the psalms
14:44from the Old Testament.
14:45But we have not yet touched
14:46on the fact that
14:47within this rich climate
14:49of the oral tradition
14:50of the church
14:51and the new books
14:52which spoke of salvation,
14:54there were also
14:54other books.
14:57Quite a number of them, in fact.
15:03Some of them were written
15:04even during the same time
15:06in which the books
15:06of the New Testament
15:07came to be.
15:08Others were written
15:09shortly later.
15:11These books, however,
15:12should not be confused
15:13with the inauthentic books
15:15written in the 2nd and 3rd centuries
15:17by various heretics
15:18who attributed their forgeries
15:20to the apostles
15:20in an attempt to authenticate
15:22their heretical teachings,
15:24such as the Gospel of Thomas,
15:26the Essene Gospel of Peace,
15:28and various others.
15:31Some of these other books
15:32may indeed have been written
15:34by the apostles themselves,
15:36such as the Epistle of Barnabas,
15:37the Apostolic Constitutions.
15:40Others were written
15:41by other members
15:42of early Christian church
15:43or by the immediate successors
15:46of the apostles
15:46in the governance
15:47of the church,
15:48such as the Shepherd of Hermas,
15:52the Epistle of St. Ignatius.
15:55Some of these books
15:56were regarded as Scripture,
15:59exactly on par with the Gospels
16:01and the other books
16:02of the New Testament
16:02as we now have it.
16:03The earliest indication
16:08we have that
16:09any of these books,
16:10both those we now regard
16:12as the New Testament
16:12and the others,
16:14were regarded as Scripture,
16:15is evidence of their use
16:17in the worship of the church
16:18and of their citation
16:19in the writings
16:20of the church fathers.
16:21The early decades
16:35of the church's life
16:36were preoccupied
16:37with missionary activity
16:38and persecution.
16:42If it occurred to anyone
16:44to make a written
16:45table of contents,
16:47we have no indication
16:50of it.
16:51The earliest known list
16:56comes from about
16:57the year A.D. 130
16:58and it is known
17:00as the Muratorian Canon.
17:05Portions of the work
17:06have been lost,
17:08but it is apparent
17:09that it includes
17:10the four Gospels
17:11and most of the Epistles
17:12of St. Paul,
17:14as well as various other books.
17:16But doubts existed
17:17in portions of the church
17:18concerning the Epistles
17:20to the Hebrews,
17:22the Epistle of Jude,
17:23the Second Epistle of Peter,
17:25the Second and Third
17:26Epistles of John,
17:27and the Apocalypse.
17:30It is not until the year
17:31A.D. 369,
17:33with St. Athanasius'
17:35festal epistle
17:36for that year,
17:36that we can find
17:38a table of contents
17:39for the New Testament,
17:40which corresponds
17:42exactly to that
17:43which we now accept.
17:47For 336 years,
17:49the church
17:50had been living,
17:52growing,
17:53developing,
17:54under the guidance
17:55of the Holy Spirit.
17:57And only then
17:58would it have been possible,
18:00though not even yet
18:01with universal acceptance,
18:02to print the Holy Bible
18:04as we now know
18:05and accept it.
18:14This, of course,
18:16is already four decades
18:17after the Council of Nicaea,
18:20after the Creed
18:21had been written,
18:23and after the Church,
18:26as many Protestants
18:27would have it,
18:28had been finally
18:30and ultimately corrupted
18:31by St. Constantine.
18:33L.A.D. 2
18:34L.A.D. 3
18:57If we think this is
18:59just logical,
19:00this is the one
19:00that Christians
19:01is closer to the
19:02and closer to the Christian God than the Islamic foundation,
19:05which is human and human.
19:32For more information, visit www.fema.org
20:02The formal liturgical worship of the Church at this point in history
20:15is already well defined and is so similar to that of the Orthodox Church today.
20:32That a believer transported in time from then
20:38to an Orthodox Church service now
20:41would find himself completely at home.
20:49What can one make of this?
20:53We now have to come back to this momentarily.
20:56But first, we need to conclude the history of the Table of Contents.
21:03Only five years earlier than St. Athanasius' epistle,
21:07the Council of Laidosia promulgated a list of the books of the New Testament
21:11which was identical,
21:13except that it did not include the Apocalypse.
21:16It was not for quite some time yet
21:18that there was truly universal agreement as to the books of the New Testament,
21:22and it was yet to be another thousand years
21:24before there would be a single book identical in contents
21:27to what we now call the Bible.
21:32It was the life of the Church
21:33throughout the first 70 or so years of her existence
21:36which, guided by the Holy Spirit,
21:39gave rise to the written texts
21:41which were to comprise the New Testament.
21:44And it was the continuing life of the Church
21:48for more than another 300 years
21:50which was required to refine and define
21:53the exact contents of the Scriptures.
21:59Thus, it is pointless and misleading
22:02and even dangerous to discuss the Scriptures
22:04apart from the life of the Church.
22:07If the Scriptures as we know them
22:09could only come into existence
22:10through the action of the Holy Spirit
22:12upon and in the Church
22:15over a period of hundreds of years,
22:18then obviously the rest of the experience of the Church
22:21during those same centuries
22:22and subsequent ones as well
22:24is of vital importance to their understanding.
22:28But what is this Church?
22:33It is the same Church
22:34which was founded by our Lord,
22:36governed by the Apostles in the earliest decades,
22:42later guided and shepherded
22:44by their successors, the bishops.
22:47It is the same Church
22:48which suffered persecutions for 300 years,
22:52which finally attained freedom
22:54under the reign of St. Constantine,
22:56which, by the guidance of the Holy Spirit,
22:58defined the meaning of the Scriptures
23:00as it confronted the perpetrators
23:02of the various heresies.
23:03It is the same Church
23:06which, in the Holy Councils,
23:08wrote the Nicene Creed,
23:11summarizing the very essence
23:12of the faith in the Scriptures,
23:15which, in these same councils,
23:17wrote the canons
23:17which are the guidelines
23:18even to this day for its life.
23:23This is the same Church
23:24which teaches us
23:25to venerate the saints
23:26and their relics.
23:28Inspired by the Holy Spirit,
23:30the Church learned
23:31how to celebrate the Holy Liturgy,
23:33the Lord's Supper,
23:35with dignity and splendor,
23:37long before the time
23:41at which we can identify
23:42a final agreement
23:43concerning the contents
23:45of the Bible.
23:51And so, we are forced,
23:53if we confront the facts
23:55with honesty and integrity,
23:56to one inescapable conclusion.
24:02It is only through the Church
24:04that we have access
24:05to the Bible at all.
24:08And it is likewise
24:09to the Church
24:10that we must churn
24:11for its understanding.
24:12This classic riddle
24:23is very much
24:24to the point here.
24:25It should be apparent
24:26that the Church
24:27long precedes the Bible
24:28as an integral collection
24:30of books,
24:31and considerably precedes
24:32even the individual books
24:34of the New Testament.
24:35Thus,
24:36it is quite certain
24:37that the Church
24:38founded by our Lord
24:39was not based
24:41on the Bible.
24:42The Church,
24:44created by the Holy Spirit
24:45on Pentecost,
24:46had no Bible
24:46as we know it,
24:48and didn't need to have it
24:50to be truly the Church.
24:53It can be said
24:54with some justification
24:55that if every single copy
24:57of the Bible
24:57in existence
24:58were suddenly destroyed,
25:00the effect upon the Church
25:02would be minimal.
25:03even though we are assured
25:04this will never come to pass
25:05because the gates of hell
25:07shall not prevail against it,
25:08the Bible would not be sufficient
25:10to provide
25:11what is needed
25:12for our salvation.
25:15If we doubt
25:16the truth of this,
25:17we need only
25:18to cast our glance
25:19over the spectacle
25:20of what happens
25:21when people attempt
25:22to create their own churches
25:24based upon their own
25:25private interpretations
25:27of the Holy Scriptures.
25:28We must, then,
25:32look to the Church
25:33if we are to have
25:35any correct understanding
25:36of Scripture.
25:46St. Peter insists,
25:48no prophecy of Scripture
25:49is of private interpretation.
25:52But we must not accept
25:53to find this understanding
25:55by acquiring some compendium
25:56of the true meaning
25:57of the Bible.
25:59It is of wisdom,
26:01divine wisdom,
26:02that we now speak.
26:06And this is not
26:07to be reduced
26:08to a series of sentences
26:09and paragraphs
26:10in books of merely
26:11human writing,
26:12inspired or otherwise.
26:15No.
26:22It is to the life
26:23of the Church
26:24that we must churn
26:25if we are to understand
26:27the Bible.
26:29This life
26:30cannot be ours
26:31except by participation.
26:35We must be saturated
26:37in it
26:37through the prayers
26:38of the Church,
26:40through reading
26:41in the wisdom
26:41of the nearly
26:422,000 years
26:43of writings,
26:45through the daily life
26:46of the Christian community.
26:49Apart from this life,
26:51there can be
26:52no real understanding,
26:53but only misunderstanding
26:55and perversion.
26:58The millennia
26:59of the Church's history
27:00are filled with such heresies
27:02as are the shelves
27:03of any large library.
27:06Wherever a man tries
27:07to rely upon his own reason
27:09rather than upon
27:11God's wisdom
27:11as imparted
27:12in the Holy Church,
27:14heresy
27:14is the certain outcome.
27:17Separation
27:17from the truth.
27:22But where,
27:23an honest inquirer
27:25can legitimately ask,
27:26are we to find
27:27the Church?
27:30This question
27:31could have been
27:31easily answered
27:32in the first few years
27:33of the Church's life.
27:36But it wasn't long
27:37before there were
27:38those who wished
27:38to substitute
27:39their own
27:40misunderstandings
27:41for divine understanding.
27:42Even in the epistles
27:46of the Holy Apostle Paul
27:47we can read of such.
27:49Long before the canon
27:50of Holy Scriptures
27:50was firm,
27:52it was necessary
27:53for the Church
27:54to reject
27:54the false teachings
27:55of the Gnostics
27:56who taught that salvation
27:57was to be attained
27:58by knowledge.
28:00Of Arius
28:01who refused
28:02to acknowledge Jesus
28:03as the Son of God
28:04and of many others.
28:07And now we have
28:07a thousand and more sects
28:09claiming to be
28:10either a part of the Church
28:11or the only true Church.
28:14Nevertheless,
28:15there truly is
28:16and never has been
28:17but one Church.
28:21That Church
28:22has always been
28:23at one with the teachings
28:24of the Holy Apostles
28:25and always in genuine
28:27historical and spiritual
28:28continuity with them.
28:31That Church
28:32first had to define
28:33itself as Catholic,
28:35as universal,
28:37in distinction
28:38from the particular
28:39or partial understandings
28:41of some of the early heretics.
28:45Later,
28:45it had to define itself
28:47as Orthodox,
28:49as of the same faith
28:51as the Apostles
28:52and the Church
28:53throughout the ages,
28:55in distinction
28:56from those
28:56who were heterodox,
28:58accepting another faith.
28:59from the very beginning,
29:03there has been
29:05much tolerance
29:06for sinners,
29:07but none
29:07for false teachings,
29:09for heresy.
29:12If any man preach
29:13any other gospel
29:14unto you
29:15than that ye have received,
29:17let him be accursed.
29:23Throughout,
29:24it is one
29:25and the same Church.
29:26At first,
29:27it existed only
29:28in the immediate area
29:29of Israel,
29:31soon throughout
29:32the Roman Empire.
29:33It then continued
29:35to grow
29:35and spread
29:36for nearly a thousand years
29:37with the falling away
29:39of various heretical groups
29:40here and there,
29:41most of which
29:42have faded from existence.
29:44Before the
29:45cataclysmic schism,
29:47which plunged
29:48almost the entirety
29:49of Europe
29:49into the darkness
29:50of heresy,
29:51the schism
29:53which created
29:54the Roman Catholic Church.
29:57In the West,
29:58the continuing decay
29:59of the Roman Church
30:00produced yet heresy
30:02upon heresy,
30:03the manifold
30:04Protestant sects
30:05and their offspring.
30:08But throughout
30:09the rest
30:10of the Christian world,
30:11all of the Middle East
30:12and parts of Asia,
30:14the one true Church
30:15continued to grow
30:16and flourish.
30:21Today,
30:26the true Church,
30:27the Orthodox Church,
30:28is once again
30:29present in the West.
30:30The Church,
30:36is once again
30:39the Eastern motion
30:42of the United States
30:44and the Eastern
30:44of the United States
30:48and submit yourselves
30:51for God is with us.
31:00If we are to attain to the end which God intends for us,
31:09we must submit ourselves and our lives and our minds
31:12to the guidance of the Holy Spirit, of the Church.
31:18Only in the life of the Church is it possible for the Bible to be, for us,
31:23the living, life-giving Word of God.
31:26Torn away from the true Church as a child ripped untimely from his mother's womb,
31:33the Scriptures bring not life but death.
31:38Only in the Church can we become one with our Lord Jesus Christ,
31:45He in us, and we in Him, that we all may be one in Him.
31:56He in us, and we are not here, our God is with us.
32:05Amen.
32:06Amen.
32:07Amen.
32:08Amen.
32:09Amen.
32:10Amen.
32:11Amen.
32:12Amen.
32:13Amen.
32:14Amen.
32:15Amen.
32:16Amen.
32:17Amen.
32:18Amen.
32:19Amen.
32:20Amen.
32:21Amen.
32:22Amen.
32:23Amen.
32:24Amen.
32:25Amen.
32:26Amen.
32:27Amen.
32:28Amen.
32:29Amen.
32:30Amen.
32:31Amen.
32:32Amen.
32:33Amen.