The Bible as a Canon..Fascinating..

2.19.08...At institute last week, I volunteered to do the thought on how the Bible is canonistic-Well, Brother Welch told me he had some ideas for my presentation and stayed after class with me for about 45 minutes explaining to me the canonistic version of our Bible. I'm sure you already understand it, but I didn't; so he started from the basics: Canon literally means measuring rod or official decree. In the Dead Sea Scrolls, the book of Isaiah is 55 feet long! And there were many many books, so the question began to be, which of these were authoritative and should religion be based off of? Each group of people had a different idea of the answer; Hellenistic Jews had one set, the scribes had another (they didn’t like the psalms or the words of the prophets), the Pharisees had another-theirs was expansive with proverbs, psalms, etc…
When Christianity came along, there began to be three criteria doctrine would be measured against: 1. Did Jesus Christ quote it? (Psalms, for example). 2. Did the gospel writers quote it? And 3. Is there prophesying of Christ’s coming or his teachings? Well, in the 3rd century, Papias, a well-known historian, compiled a work. It was added to and taken from until the 7th century, where the New Testament in the form we know it starts to appear. Though it’s a complicated situation, we as Latter Day Saints are blessed to have the Prophet’s words as our “measuring stick” against all writings.
Brother Welch told me his personal opinion on something, which in my eyes is worth a lot: 60 years after Christ died, there was a work written called the Shepherd of Hermas which spoke of a time every x-amount of days where people would fast and then give the money they would’ve used to the poor. Revelation for fast-offerings wasn’t received for our day until much later. In the book, there is the stipulation that the receiver of the gift must in turn pray for the giver and give gratitude unto God. Brother Welch thinks that should be added into the scriptures :). Anyway, it seems that the principles are revealed again to us as we are ready for them.
My apologies for the length of today’s entry, I am just bursting to share things I’m learning. Tomorrow should be a fantastic day-I will visit the Rodin museum in the morning, start my research project in the Louvre, and attend the play L’école des femmes in the evening with a group. Ecstatic and enthused, goodnight…