Grimer wrote:
Catholics have always believed in the bible as interpretted by the teaching
authority of the church. After all, unlike some holy books, the bible did
not come down from the sky and land on someone's head. The bible is simply
a particular collection of books which the teaching authority of the
Catholic Church said were divinely inspired works.
So when one accepts the bible as the word of God one is implicitly accepting
the teaching authority of the Catholic Church. It is therefore illogical to
accept Church authority in relation to what the books of the bible are, and
not accept it in relation to what the words in those books mean.
Well put!
Indeed, the particular collection was selected by a committee, and to
this day there doesn't seem to be complete agreement on which books
should be included in the Canon -- Wisdom and Maccabees, in particular,
are included in the main body in some versions and relegated to the
apocrypha in others, IIRC.
Jewish tradition is somewhat more explicit about this, with the books of
scripture divided into several categories depending on various factors,
including whether the book's presence in scripture has been challenged
(the category of books which have been challenged is the "antilegomena",
which, ironically, includes Ezekiel, which one could argue is among the
most important books of the OT, but so it goes, humans rarely agree
completely about anything).
