portion of a post I made to religiousdebate

[novapsyche]

The persons who determined what scriptures were to be included in the official Bible were very political people living in very political times. Thus, the Bible itself could be said to be a political document.

Comments

[gbdances.livejournal.com]

Not only that, but most of the books of the Bible (as allegedly written) were originally intended to serve some kind of political or evangelical purpose. Take the four gospels, for example: Matthew's was written to prove Jesus' Jewishness, Luke's to present the story in a manner palatable to Greeks, Mark's to focus on mission to humanity, and John's to appeal to the symbolists and hard-line mystics.

What has been included historically definitely has been politically biased, as well as translated with an ear (eye) to that political agenda.

[badsede.livejournal.com]

The persons who determined what scriptures were to be included in the official Bible were very political people living in very political times.

Not quite as much as you might think. The tetramorph Gospel including Mt., Mk., Lk. and Jn. was already established by the early second c., before most of the apocryphal Gospels were even written - interestingly, Basilides who founded perhaps the first Christian gnostic school is one of our sources for this. The prominance of Paul's epistles is attested to by other Patristic and Apostolic epistles, including Peter and Clement of Rome, so certainly by the end of the 1st c., probably around the time of the writing of the Mt. and Lk.

The final canon was not set until the late 4th c., when the final say on Jude, the Shepherd of Hermes, Clement's epistle to the Corinthians, Hebrews, Revelations and a few others was made. However, the core of the canon was established by prominance when Christianity was still an underground religion in fear of state persecution.