Adel (my teacher) and I were talking about various things between Christianity and Islam today. One thing that came up was how the Bible was constructed. He had actually heard of the Apocrypha but didn’t really understand what they were. Ooog, I gave up trying to explain in Arabic and did the best I could. I’ve found that teaching is the best way to learn how much you really know. I have had several instances when a question was asked and my first reaction was, “I don’t know that..” but with a little reflection it turned out that I did, I just hadn’t thought of it before.
His question about the Apocrypha brought a lot of loose ends together in my head… I explained that for a long time, there wasn’t a single text that Christians based their faith on, there were many texts that purported to tell some of the story. What has become known as the Catholic (and guess the Orthodox) church had ecunenical councils in 692 (the so called Quinisext council) and the more famous council of Trent in 1545 to determine what books were orthodox and which were not. They based this decision on the practices of the church which supposedly had been passed down from Peter and the rest of the Apostles down to the present day. They already had an idea of what was orthodox, the church had its practices down and the Bible was going to reflect those practices. When the Bible was put together, it was corroborating the church’s practices. I’m sure that the people involved at the time would never have thought to try to understand the Bible separate from the church’s beliefs and practices.
Of course when the Reformation came along, the attempt was made to strip the Bible from the church that created it. Nowadays, a basic article of faith in most Protestant churches is that the Bible is the word of God and infallible. But I’ve never heard of any serious attempt to reexamine what books make up the Bible despite the fact that the newer churches don’t look or practice anything like the Catholics.
Here’s where my issues come into play. I really don’t think that the Bible is complete without the background that the church brings to the table (as the Orthodox and Catholics believe from the teachings of the Apostles). This is totally missing from the Protestant churches, and I can’t really take them seriously. On the other hand, I have issues with the Catholic and Orthodox churches. So Adel asked me, “So which is it? The book or the church?” Of course it’s neither for me. I gotta believe that there’s some truth in both, but that neither by themselves pass “The smell test” and that in combination they (IMO) reek of humanity and have very little holiness in them. Adel was of the opinion that I was going to have to choose a church, I don’t think that’s true. Things have been going just fine without having to rely on a book or an organization completely, and until that changes, I don’t see why I should have to subjugate myself to something that I can’t believe…