Liv wrote:I'm just upset that someone, somewhere decided the Bible was finished at a certain point... How do we really know that "Greensboring" isn't in actuallity the final book of the bible?
The bible was a work in progress, and to a certain extent, still is. In the year 325 A.D. by the order of the Roman Emperor Caesar Flavius Constantine, the Council of Nicea was called in Turkey. This council declared Jesusto be divine and one with the Father. However, it did not (as some people claim) establish the cannon (books of the bible). That was done at another meeting called a Synod, and it was primarily the Synod of Hippo in AD 393 that compiled the foundation of the modern Christian bible. This Synod acknowledged 27 books of the New Testament. Prior to this synod, 21 books were acknowledged by pretty much everybody to be clearly cannon (bible). There were: the 4 Gospels, The Acts of the Apostles (13 chapters), Paul, Peter John, and Revelations.
There were 10 disputed books (Hebrews, James, 2 Peter, 2-3 John, Jude, Ps-Barnabas, Hermas, Didache, Gospel of Hebrews) and several that most all considered heretical—Gospels of Peter, Thomas, Matthaias, Acts of Andrew, John, and a few others.
As you have seen here in this forum, Christians do not agree on the bible. Some denominations exclude chertain chapters, there are different translations, and even disagreement on the meaning and context of the bible itself as well as interpretations of various tracts. New translations may always produce change in some denominations.
How Christians view the bible varies quite a bit among different denominations. Many Christians, believe the bible was inspired by God, but written by imperfect men who may have erred by including some of their own ideas which were not divinely inspired. Others, typically fundamentalists or people who describe themselves as Bible-believing Christians, insist that the entire Bible is the exact Word of God, and was written down perfectly by humans (and some may even believe it was written by God Himself). Still others hold the Biblical infallibility perspective, that is, they believe the Bible is free from error in spiritual matters. Some of those believe it is infallible in both spiritual and scientific matters, others believe it is strictly a spiritual book and not meant to be interpreted in a scientific sense.
While most leaders of the various Christian demominations fiercely reject the idea that any discoveries of additional texts can or should ever modify (either by addition or subtraction) any part of the modern Christian bible versions, there are many Christians who recognize that inclusion of the books of the bible was a very human decision and that those decisions, mostly made between 300 and 500 A.D. may have excluded some things that would have been very important to Christian belief systems. Most of those so-called, "heretical" tracts have been lost to history. However, as you all know, some have been found hidden in caves and other secure places.
The process of changing the teachings of Jesus began very early in the history of Christianity. For example, some people, such as myself, believe that due to middle eastern cultural sensibilities and values, the early role of women in the church was radically suppressed. We know that the role of women during Jesus life and shortly after His death was extremely active--immediately after Jesus' death, many early Christian groups were in fact led by women. Evidence from some of the discovered scrolls and codexes provide some evidence that very early on, Christianity almost became a religion of women. Mary Magdalene was almost certainly an early leader of Christian groups and there was even a gospel written based on her teachings. We only have a small fragment of that gospel (found, in 1896 on a papyrus codex.
Paul (following Peter's biases) worked hard and successfully to suppress the role of women in the Church.
Therefore, there may have been other writings that were rejected by the early Church Fathers and unless copies are discovered someday, they have been forever lost to history.
In any case, I think you can be sure that any additional writings--or even earlier versions of the accepted books that might be found will be rejected by modern churches. The problem is that translations of those documents might change the currently accepted versions of those books and while we know there are some mistranslations in the bible, those existing translations will be held to very tightly by existing church leaders (all churches included).
However, I will never say that changes cannot happen. If, for example, a new text or an earlier version of existing texts are found, translations of which provide different information, and that new information differs from current beliefs, it is always possible that the people could begin to adhere to new beliefs, and force a substantial number of ministers to accept the new beliefs. I simply recognize that change--however strongly resisted by established authorities--can be forced if enough people decide to change their beliefs.
