One of the most enduring Protestant Myths is that in 1546, at the Council of Trent added to the Sacred Canon the books which are commonly termed the Apocrypha, or more recently, the Deuterocanon. In fact, contrary to this myth, what the Council did was to affirm what had been the Traditional Canon since the early Church.
NEWARK, N.J. – Their strict intermarriage customs are meant to preserve ancient bloodlines that date back to the fourth century in India and the Middle East, so many families in the Knanayan Syriac Orthodox church know each other, regardless of where they live.
The world, however, would learn of their rich cultural and religious heritage only after a fatal shooting at a church in the suburbs just west of New York City. The tragedy cast light on the lesser-known Christian sect of the Syriac Orthodox called the Knanaya (pronounced kah-nahn-NIGH’-ya), whose members largely hail from the South Indian coastal state of Kerala.
Believe it or not, there are more Christian sects than just Catholics, Baptists and Pentecostals.
I do not celebrate Christmas in the common way, holding it rather is a family day, however, there are times and seasons when things seemingly are appropriate. This is the time and season for songs about the Saviour’s birth; however, here is a song never heard on the radio – although it is somewhat more enjoyable than the usual fare. It is in Arabic, but it is subtitled. Enjoy.
Today is born of a Virgin, he who holds creation in the hollow of his hand.
As a mortal he is wrapped in swaddling rags, he who in his being cannot be handled.
God lies in a manger, who of old established the heavens in the beginning.
He is nourished with milk from the breast, he who rained Manna on the People in the desert.
He summons Magi, the Bridegroom of the Church.
He accepts their gifts, the Son of the Virgin.
We worship your birth, O Christ.
Show us also your divine Epiphany.
HT
Jews and Christians throughout the centuries have produced bibles that vary in content and organization. This chart is a sampling of the different bibles used today.
Protestant Reformers like Martin Luther doubted the canonicity* Canon: (kanōn; κανών) comes from the Greek word for “reed” or “rod,” used as a straight edge or ruler for measurement. In biblical studies, when we talk about a canon, we mean that list of books that a community considers both authoritative and inspired. Canonical books form the standard against which other writings, doctrines and practices are measured. of the Apocrypha*Apocrypha: Jerome, the translator of the early Latin Bible, maintained a distinction between those books he considered canonical and the non-canonical books that should be read for the edification of the church. With some modification, this list of edifying books is sometimes called the “Apocrypha.” Other theologians, such as the influential Augustine, did not maintain this distinction, and were more inclusive in their canon lists. , but when Luther prepared his translation of the Bible into German, he did not remove the Apocrypha; he simply moved those books to an appendix. This tradition continues in many European bibles.
The English were the first group of people to remove the Apocrypha altogether. In 1599, an edition of the Geneva Bible was published without the Apocrypha. In 1615, during the reign of King James the First, George Abbot, the Archbishop of Canterbury, declared the penalty for printing a Bible without the Apocrypha to be a year in prison! But over the next three centuries the growing influence of Puritans and Presbyterians over the populace, the government, and the British and Foreign Bible Society led to a strong tradition of printing bibles containing only 66 books.
The situation today reflects this bifurcation. The bibles used by many European Protestants, as well as the Anglican Church, still include the Apocrypha. Most other English-speaking Protestant churches have bibles without the Apocrypha.
via here.
Bob Burns at the Biblicalist group has released a spreadsheet or two as well.
The table as an XML spreadsheet:
http://www.summascriptura.com/files/apocrypha.xmlAs an MS Excel spreadsheet:
http://www.summascriptura.com/files/apocrypha.xlsAs an image file:
http://www.summascriptura.com/image/apocrypha.jpg
The above can act as a widget, but you will have to get the HTML code at that site. For those interested, I would have the canon to be similiar to that of pre-1546, with some understanding as to what should be considered inspired and others merely helpful. Also, I would have the Pslams of Solomon printed as an appendix.
via Byzantium: the chosen ones from a visceral civilisation – Times Online
In Rimini there is a small square – the Piazza Ferrari. Here you can buy ice-creams, mooch under the linden trees, and peer down at 1,400-year-old Byzantine corpses. Excavations have just finished at the Surgeon’s House, discovered in 1989 when the piazza was being reland-scaped. Laid out on Gothic mosaics are the skeletons of a Christian community. The graves have been roughly gouged out of the tesserae, the bones are protected by crude roofing tiles. The Christians died during the turf wars of the 6th and 7th centuries – when the Goths and Byzantium both laid claim to Italian lands.
Rimini, just 40km (25 miles) along the coast from Ravenna (famous for its wonderful Byzantine decoration in the Church of San Vitale) reminds us that Byzantium – the subject of a major exhibition opening at the Royal Academy later this month – is not just about icons, gold mosaics and pretty churches – it represents a visceral civilisation, a world power whose tentacles stretched from Tripoli to St Petersburg, from North Africa to Trebizond. Byzantine control spanned a millennium. Many of our geopolitical boundaries, in the Balkans, the Middle East, Russia and Europe, were laid by Byzantine hands. Far from being an esoteric moment in art history, Byzantium is the story of us.
