What makes something a scripture is that it is taken to be holy by a community. The inclusive and catholic nature of Hinduism is able to assimilate 'foreign' scriptures like the Bible on those terms.
The three Judaic religions have canons. The Greek word canon means list. The early Christians did not know that they were writing the 'New Testament.' They thought that they were writing gospels or epistles within the Hebraic tradition. The oldest written material of Christianity are the letters of Paul. The Gospels were, in fact, written 20-30 years after the letters of Paul. 1st Thessalonians, dated around 50 CE, constitute the oldest letters of Paul. The communities that received the letters would normally keep the originals and circulate copies to other communities.(Some of the scribes were trained slaves who would make copies of the epistles.) The authorship of Paul for a few of the Colossian letters (e.g. 4:16) and the whole of Ephesians is now disputed. The writer is probably a pseudepigrapher. A lot of these letters were circulated in Paul's name but written by others.
So, Paul's letters were being imitated and new ones written in his style. Even some of the writings ascribed to peter are not really written by him. "Carnal things in return for spiritual things" is from Paul and cannot be traced to Jesus in the Gospels. Jesus in fact says 'Take no scrip ...". Matthew and Luke were both written after Mark and they use mark as sources. There was a 40 year gap between the death of Jesus and the appearance of the first gospel; that of Mark. Luke in fact was not an eyewitness to Jesus? Presbyters means elders.
Coming long after the apostles Papias, for example, collected his ideas of Jesus from the living traditions of some of the elders who had seen Jesus, rather than from the writings. Justin Martyr was killed around 150 ce. Martyr uses the terms "Memoirs of the Apostles" instead of 'Gospels.' That means that he treats them as written documents. Apart from the canonical gospels, there are Gospels of Thomas and, now, also the Gospel of Judas. There's the Gospel of Mary and many other gospels that were floating about at the time.
Marcion, who died around 160, was from Asia Minor, modern day Turkey, came to Rome and donated a lot ogf money to the Church and got an honorable position in it. Marcion, however, criticized the criticized the Jewish scriptures and the Jewish Gosd and he said that He was not the same as the God Jesus called his Father. Marcion published his own canon with Luke's Gospel and the ten edited letters of Paul. Marcion was, in this sense, the first 'Christian' canon editor. Until the fourth century there was no creed and, therefore, no orthodox Christianity. There were multitudinous Christianities like twhat we term world Christianities today. Marcion was ostracized as heretical and the churches or peoples around Rome stuck to the canonoicity and theology of the Jewish scriptures.
Marcion, however, through his 'heretical' enterprise sowed the seeds of 'canon formation' in the Roman church. To for4estall any future Marcions, the Church now had to decide upon a canon. Tatian created the diatesseron, i.e., he took the four Gospels and strung one Gospel narrative out of them.
The three Judaic religions have canons. The Greek word canon means list. The early Christians did not know that they were writing the 'New Testament.' They thought that they were writing gospels or epistles within the Hebraic tradition. The oldest written material of Christianity are the letters of Paul. The Gospels were, in fact, written 20-30 years after the letters of Paul. 1st Thessalonians, dated around 50 CE, constitute the oldest letters of Paul. The communities that received the letters would normally keep the originals and circulate copies to other communities.(Some of the scribes were trained slaves who would make copies of the epistles.) The authorship of Paul for a few of the Colossian letters (e.g. 4:16) and the whole of Ephesians is now disputed. The writer is probably a pseudepigrapher. A lot of these letters were circulated in Paul's name but written by others.
So, Paul's letters were being imitated and new ones written in his style. Even some of the writings ascribed to peter are not really written by him. "Carnal things in return for spiritual things" is from Paul and cannot be traced to Jesus in the Gospels. Jesus in fact says 'Take no scrip ...". Matthew and Luke were both written after Mark and they use mark as sources. There was a 40 year gap between the death of Jesus and the appearance of the first gospel; that of Mark. Luke in fact was not an eyewitness to Jesus? Presbyters means elders.
Coming long after the apostles Papias, for example, collected his ideas of Jesus from the living traditions of some of the elders who had seen Jesus, rather than from the writings. Justin Martyr was killed around 150 ce. Martyr uses the terms "Memoirs of the Apostles" instead of 'Gospels.' That means that he treats them as written documents. Apart from the canonical gospels, there are Gospels of Thomas and, now, also the Gospel of Judas. There's the Gospel of Mary and many other gospels that were floating about at the time.
Marcion, who died around 160, was from Asia Minor, modern day Turkey, came to Rome and donated a lot ogf money to the Church and got an honorable position in it. Marcion, however, criticized the criticized the Jewish scriptures and the Jewish Gosd and he said that He was not the same as the God Jesus called his Father. Marcion published his own canon with Luke's Gospel and the ten edited letters of Paul. Marcion was, in this sense, the first 'Christian' canon editor. Until the fourth century there was no creed and, therefore, no orthodox Christianity. There were multitudinous Christianities like twhat we term world Christianities today. Marcion was ostracized as heretical and the churches or peoples around Rome stuck to the canonoicity and theology of the Jewish scriptures.
Marcion, however, through his 'heretical' enterprise sowed the seeds of 'canon formation' in the Roman church. To for4estall any future Marcions, the Church now had to decide upon a canon. Tatian created the diatesseron, i.e., he took the four Gospels and strung one Gospel narrative out of them.
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