Transparency of Christianity in relation to the Bible

I've been in some discussion lately with some Muslim. Most of it centers around attacks on Scripture and why there would be different books in the Catholic and Protestant Bibles. For the reason why Muslims are so dead set on discrediting the Bible, see this blog. Here is my answer, which I think you will enjoy. (It will also help you debunk Davinci Code theories)

The transparency of Christianity in relation to its texts is a virtue, not a weakness. We don't destroy alternate copies, we preserve them and can show why, how, and when mistakes in copy were made, and can prove definitively what the originals said. The same cannot be said of the Quran...all you have is one edited compiled copy, and you have to trust that the one doing the editing wasn't mistaken, since all of the evidence of other texts has been destroyed. You can't prove it. We can. (But I'm not arguing the Quran has accumulated errors in its transmission, just showing you that if you follow this line of argument you will tear your own Quran apart by the exact same faulty arguments.)

A lot of what we know about early Christianity is a result of attacks upon it. The early Gnostics attacked the Christian teachings on the nature of the Trinity and Christ. Consequently, counsels were held to write statements against such false beliefs and to formulate in a written code exactly what is orthodox and what is not. It isn't that something new was decided (as The Davinci Code says), it is that there was never a need to make a point by point list of what orthodoxy was before someone attacked it. (For comparison, there is a modern movement called "Open Theism" that says God doesn't really know the future. As a result, new statements are added to confessions of faith (like the BFM2000) that refute "open theism." God sovereignly knowing the future is not a new belief, it just hadn't been attacked in that way, and hadn't needed to be formulated in a statement before then.)

In relation to the Christian cannon, those books Christians hold to be inspired by God and thus infallible, we know much from attacks upon the cannon. The early heretic Marcion made a list of which books of the Old and New Testament he considered to be false, and which were true (even some he edited to fit his strange theology.) By telling us which documents he thought were correct and which he did not, that tells us exactly which documents the early church held to be inspired. Ecclesiasticus, the Maccabees, and a few other books in the Catholic Bible are not on those lists. Marcion did not need to argue that these books were uninspired, because no one believed they were when he was writing. Does that make sense?

There are a number of other lines of reasoning and evidences, such as which Old Testament books are quoted in the New Testament, and so on, but that should suffice I think to show which books the early church father accepted as inspired.

If that didn't make sense yet, here are a couple illustrations to explain further....

I'm not necessarily asking if you agree and think the Bible is inspired or anything, just if the argument is rational. Let me give one last example: Suppose a document were found from the 7th or 8th century which made claims that Surah's 1-100 are not correct, only 101-114 are correct. (I didn't want to list the names of each of the Surah's, but suppose the author had mentioned them by name.) What would that tell us? It would tell us the Muslims of the 7th and 8th century held that Surah's 1-114 are legitimately part of the Koran, otherwise this heretic would not have needed to argue against something no one believed. The author would not need to argue that the Works of Josephus were not a part of the Koran. Why? Because no one thought they were.

In the same way, the heretic Marcion listed all of the 66 books we have in the Bible, arguing some were inspired and others were not. We know why he argued as he did, because he was a Gnostic, trying to mix strange paganism with Christianity. But Marcion didn't argue that The Works of Josephus were not a part of Scripture, nor that they were a part. He didn't even mention them. Why? Because no one thought they were a part of Scripture, hence no reason to even bring them up. the same goes for the extra books of the Apocrapha.

So yes, the 66 books are inspired. Again, this is not why the 66 books were 'chosen.' (that is a whole different subject, and one which we have to cover on a book by book basis...quite a lengthy process) But from our perspective 1900 or so years later, we can know exactly which books of the Bible the early church fathers (those who were the direct disciples of the Apostles) believed were inspired due to attacks upon it, and the true church's response to Marcion in defense of those same 66 books.