Some surprising facts about the Bible - part 2 (2021-01-16) ​

0:00:02 there are many different bibles i don't mean different translations but different bibles 0:00:09 with different contents different books what exactly is the bible 0:00:16 well the bible is a library of books it's important to understand that the the bible 0:00:23 is a library of books written over a period of a thousand years or more by mostly unknown authors 0:00:31 today christians still disagree about which books should be in the bible now there are many 0:00:38 different canons of the bible a biblical canon or a canon of scripture is simply a set of books 0:00:45 which a particular jewish or christian religious community regards as authoritative scripture and 0:00:53 the english word canon comes from the greek word canon meaning rule or measuring stick 0:01:01 roman catholics think their bible should contain 73 books including the book of tobit the book of 0:01:08 job the book of judith i should say the first book of maccabees the second book of maccabees 0:01:15 the book of wisdom otherwise known as the wisdom of solomon and the book of sirach which is also 0:01:21 called ecclesiasticus protestant christians think the bible contains just 66 books and none of the 0:01:29 books i've just mentioned are part of their bible then there are orthodox christians you get the 0:01:36 russian orthodox church the greek orthodox church and so on they say the bible contains 78 books in 0:01:44 addition to one and two maccabees in the catholic version they have three and four maccabees 0:01:50 however the ethiopian orthodox church believes the bible contains 81 books the highest figure of all 0:01:59 and the ethiopian broader new testament canon has eight additional books in addition to the one 0:02:06 the canon we normally uh aware of it has the four books of cynodos the two divisions of the book of 0:02:13 the covenant the ethiopic clement and the ethiopic didascalia this is what they're called if you 0:02:21 google uh the ethiopian new testament canon you'll see all these books detailed and discussed 0:02:28 now if we go back in time uh to the codex sinaiticus 0:02:33 this is the oldest complete bible in the world and it's uh in the british library uh just 0:02:39 a couple of miles from where i'm sitting and it's a fourth century christian bible 0:02:45 and the canon there reflects probably most closely the roman catholic canon but in the new testament 0:02:53 we find the epistle of barnabas and portions of the shepherd of hermas 0:02:59 so these are two texts that no one today thinks is the word of god but uh in the fourth century 0:03:05 uh they were accepted as the word of god so it's not just a different but it's not just 0:03:11 a different bible we have today different bibles teach different christian doctrines for example 0:03:18 the question whether it's permissible to seek the intercession of the living for the dead and the 0:03:24 existence of purgatory there's an old testament book called two maccabees this is accepted by the 0:03:30 catholic church and the orthodox churches but not by the evangelical churches and if you look at 2 0:03:36 maccabees chapter 12 verse 43 onwards this speaks explicitly about the prayer of the living for 0:03:45 the dead and it's where the roman catholics also get the doctrine of the purgat of purgatory from 0:03:52 as i say this book is in the roman catholic and the orthodox bible but is rejected by protestants 0:03:57 and all evangelicals so when a christian tells you you must believe in the bible 0:04:05 you must always ask them which one there are so many they teach different things 0:04:13 given there is so much confusion amongst the people of the book about their scriptures and what 0:04:20 they actually teach what does the quran say in response to this well according to 0:04:28 muhammad assad's message of the quran translated and explained by muhammad assad 0:04:33 in verse 48 of surah number 5 it says and unto thee o prophet we have vouchsafed this divine 0:04:42 writ setting forth the truth confirming the truth of whatever there still remains 0:04:48 of earlier revelations and determining what is true therein judged then between the followers 0:04:56 of earlier revelation in accordance with what god has bestowed from on high and do not follow 0:05:03 their errant views forsaking the truth that has come unto thee so this passage seems to clearly 0:05:11 imply that the quran as a criterion as a quality control is to be used to discern what is true and 0:05:19 what is false in the scriptures of the people of the book and to confirm the truth of what remains 0:05:27 in those earlier revelations clearly implying corruption and change and alteration of the 0:05:33 original scriptures given to moses and given to jesus and so on so the quran is as a footnote here 0:05:40 is is described as the determinant factor in deciding what is genuine and what is false in the 0:05:47 earlier scriptures that's muhammad assad's note so i hope that was of interest until next time