Christianity and Bible

The original korean text: http://blog.naver.com/stevision/50025430043

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(donga.com's netizen forum, Sep. 10, 2005)

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If one doesn't understand what the Bible is, he is liable to give an opinion that damages the nature of God, and to become a heretic who destroys Christianity. Usually those who fall away from Christianity praiseworthily(!) place implicit trust in the Bible, but interpret it so carelessly that they say differently from the orthodoxy and become prey to the devil and go to hell. What is the problem? The problem arises in the process of confrontation between the orthodoxy of Christianity which interprets the Bible correctly and the irrelevant interpretation of an individual which interprets the Bible indiscreetly. Which is right? Naturally, inevitably, the orthodoxy is right. The reason is as follows.

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Christianity is based on the birth, works in the world, death on the cross and resurrection of Jesus Christ. He called himself the Son of the God of Israel and revealed his divinity during his lifetime. Here, the Christianity and the Old Testament are connected. The Bible used by Jews at the time of Christ was Septuagint. Septuagint is the Greek translation of the Hebrew Bible. Septuagint is the Greek Bible which the Jews got by translating the Jewish Bible into Greek (the global language at that time), for those who had lost their country and lived as Diaspora (the Jews living in other countries) and forgotten their mother language (Hebrew). By the way, there are two kinds of the Old Testament. The Alexandrian Canon includes the original Old Testament(39 books) and 15 books as well which was written during late Judaism period. This Canon was read by the people at the time of Jesus. However, when the Christians appeared and tried to make the Old Testament their bible, the orthodox Jews made the original Old Testament, which didn’t include the 15 books, their bible in the council of Jamnia, AD 90. We call it the Palestinian Canon. At the time of Reformation, the Protestantism adopted only the original Old Testament (the Palestinian Canon, 39 books), while the Catholicism adopted as the bible even the 15 books, the literature of late Judaism, as well, at the Council of Trient (1545-1563). Protestants call the 15 books Apocrypha. They adopted the Old Testament as the bible because the books in it were recognized as the >experience expressed in various literary genre< that the people of Israel met God who is the only God, and as the books written by inspiration. The proof of the inspiration was that the writings revealed the attributes and will of God well, and aroused pious faith in the mind of the readers.

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The New Testament is the books that the church of Christianity adopted as the bible, the books which the believers of Jesus who met him directly or indirectly wrote concerning their experience of having met him, after he had resurrected and ascended into the heaven. They were generally written in the latter half of the first century AD. Now Protestants and Catholics both have 27 books in the New Testament. There were many books holding confessions of the faith of the believers. But the first person to set the bound of the current New Testament was Athanasius, choosing some out of many confessional books. He presented the current list of the books of the New Testament in a letter sent to communities of the church in Egypt at Easter, 367. In the Council of Hippo (393 AD) and the Council of Carthage (397 AD), the range of the New Testament that had been proposed by Athanasius was officially adopted as the Scripture, and this Scripture, the New Testament, is recognized as the Bible in the Protestantism and the Catholicism today. By the way, the criterion to be selected as the bible among many writings that Athanasius as well as other Christian leaders of the time set was if the writings accorded with the confession of the faith which they had inherited from the disciples of Jesus, the apostles. The faith handed down by the apostles to them is summarized into the present >Apostles' Creed<.

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- ​ Apostles' Creed -

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I believe in God, the Father almighty,

creator of heaven and earth.

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I believe in Jesus Christ, God's only Son, our Lord,

who was conceived by the Holy Spirit,

born of the Virgin Mary,

suffered under Pontius Pilate,

was crucified, died, and was buried;

he descended to the dead.

on the third day he rose again;

he ascended into heaven,

he is seated at the right hand of the Father,

and he will come to judge the living and the dead.

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I believe in the Holy Spirit,

the holy catholic Church,

the communion of saints,

the forgiveness of sins,

the resurrection of the body,

and the life everlasting. Amen.

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So the Christian Bible (Old Testament and New Testament) is like a building built on the Apostles’ Creed. Thus an interpretation of the words of the Bible must be within the faith of this Apostles’ Creed in order that it can be orthodox. Therefore, any interpretation of the Bible which is outside the scope of the Apostles' Creed is utterly worthless (and even meaningless). To say nothing of the interpretation with which a heretic criticizes the orthodox Christianity, referring to several passages of the Bible. It is nothing but a wild idea! (Also, it is illegal for an unauthorized person to interpret the Bible in his own way!) M.S.M. and his followers have been doing this for decades! Notice what Athanasius who first determined the books of the New Testament did. He is a man who strived and risked his life to create the Nicene-Constantinopoltan Creed, which is the core of the orthodox doctrine of Christianity. It has contents that the God is Trinity, and that Jesus, the second Person of the Trinity, is the real God and a real man also.

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Suppose you have a wife who is precious to you and whom you really love. She also really loves and respects you. But wouldn’t it be ridiculous if a brazenfaced old man, your next-door neighbor, says to other people that your wife is in fact his wife and that he and your wife have been loving each other? Metaphorically speaking, the Bible is the bride of Christian faith and of the church. The Bible exists only for Christian confession and for Christianity itself, and is being loved by the church. However, M.S.M., a queer next-door old man, is disgracing the Bible, using it to idolize (glorify) himself. Is there any other brazenfaced, nonsensical cult-leader in the world?

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The Bible, the Old and New Testaments, is the book that the Church have made her sacred bible by divine providence. Therefore, only orthodox Christian churches have the right and authority to interpret the Bible and to use the interpretations of the Bible. It is mere theft and robbery for other men to interpret and use the Bible for any other purpose. (The Bible is to be used only for the purpose of the orthodox church, the bride of Jesus.)

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