"dissidents threw out the parts they did not like"
The father of Protestant rebellion was Martin Luther. Luther took out several books out several books out of the historical Christian bible. He took out several out of the Old Testament and three out of the New Testament--James, Hebrews and 2Peter. The French and English protestants later restored the the New Test. books but continued to reject the Old Testament books.
A little historical and theological background will help understand the Protestant logic behind their tampering with the historical Word of God. The scriptures had been established and canonized in the historical Christian churces--Catholic and Orthodox--for many centuries before the Protestant rebellion attempted to remove books from both the Old and the New Testaments. The deep corruption and sinfulness in the Catholic hierarchy encouraged Luther and subsequent Protestant leaders to reject not only the sinfulness and corruption of these leaders but also many of the divine and timeless spiritual doctrines which had been given and inspired by the Holy Spirit. In effect, they threw out the baby with the bath water. Some Church leaders had become spiritually corrupt and the Church desperately needed spiritual reform. But the Protestant zealots failed to discern between the weak, human and temporal elements in the Chruch and the eternal Holy Spirit inspired elements. Central in this lack of discernment was the Protestant rejection of the Divine Liturgy (the divine order of spiritual worship of the Christian Church) and also the rejection of the Holy Spirit inspired canon of scriptures. Both the Liturgy and the New Testaement Scriptures were written and shaped under the inspiration of the Holy Spirit during the first few decades of the Church. God divinely ordained and formally organized leadership of the Church(organized by Jesus when he chose the first twelve Apostles to formally lead his Church) to canonize the scriptures (to formally recognize the rule of divine scriptures and worship (the Bible and the Liturgy--worship).
Since the Protestants were in rebellion against the historical Christian Church--the Catholic and Orthodox, they rejected both the God-ordained rule or canon of scriptures (the books that makeup the Bible) as well as the canon or rule of worship--the divine Liturgy( both Orthodox and Catholic). In other words, the canon of Scripture and Liturgy. The Liturgies of St. James, St. Basil and St. Chrysostom were all rejected. In addition, Martin Luther also set himself up as an INDIVIDUAL and infallible judge of both Church scriptures and Church worship. He also rejected several books from the Old Testament as well as several from the New. As I said before, the French and English Prostestants later returned Luther's New Test. rejections but continued with Luther's Old Test. rejection.
This was a way for Protetants to declare that they had equal or greater authority than the historical Christ-ordained Church leadership.
Why did Luther and other Protestants choose to exclude certain books from the Old Testament? The answer to this question is central to understanding both Protestantism and modern Christian-Zionism. The Protestant rebellion had rejected the historical Christian Church and then substituted this God-ordained authority with with the rabbinical authorities from the Synagogue of Satan.
After the destruction of the Temple in 70 AD, the antichrist rabbis and leaders of the Jews who rejected Christ held a council in Jamnia which became known as the Council of Jamnia. Since these Jewish leaders had rejected Christ, they no longer had the Holy Spirit to guide them. In fact, the Holy Spirit calls the congregation of these Jewish leaders the SYNAGOGUE OF SATAN in the book of Revelation. So here we have antichrist Jewish leaders trying to change the canon of Scriptures recognized during the old covenant era. We have clear historical proof of the content of the Old Testament by simply looking at the books contained in the Septuagint translation. In 250 B.C., the God-ordained leadership of ancient Israel had ordained a translation of the Hebrew Scriptures into Greek. This translation contained the books of the Old Testament found in the Catholic Bible today. So we know that the Hebrew scriptures of 250 BC as well as the Greek translation contained the books we have in the Catholic Bible today. But in the Council of Jamnia, the antichrist Jewish leaders who had lost the guidance of the Holy Spirit because of their rejection of Jesus attempted to change the canon of the Old Testament in contrast to what had been normally recognized by the historical Holy Spirit-inspired Hebrew leaders. These self-ordained pseudo-priests or rabbis at Jamnia had an axe to grind with the Jewish leaders in the new Christian Church. Since the Jewish Apotolic leaders had chosen the Septuagint and the historical Hebrew scriptures, the antichrist Jewish leaders at Jamnia chose to change the Old Testament canon from its historical content. They simply removed books from the Old Testament.
When the Protestant removed books from the Bible during the Protestant rebellion, they chose to follow the decisions of the antichrist rabbis or pseudo-priests at Jamnia rather the decisions of the Christ-ordained leaders of the historical Christian Churche as well as the the God-ordained Priestly leaders of the historical Hebrews of antiquity.
This is the key to understanding the differences in the Protestant Old Testament and the historical Christian Old Testament.
Today, the fundamentalist Chrsitian-Zionist do the same when they chose to follow antichrist Israel and antichrist Talmudic Judaism rather than the teachings of the historical Christian Church.
We can thank God that today the New Testament Scriptures are the same in both the Protestant bibles as well as the Catholic and Orthodox. |
