Comments on: Now, THAT’s a Bible.

By: Huw

Huw — Sat, 05 Jul 2008 16:15:33 +0000

I think (but can’t prove) the Coptic Church’s development in this regard was recent: Copts and Protestants work very closely together b/c of the political/religious situation in Egypt.

Yes, I guess: the Ethiopians are, in a sense, rather like the Galapagos islands in some respects (their webpage on the Bible implies as much), although, if one takes the view that the Monophysites are in error, it must be noted that the Chalcedonians prove the evolution of doctrine and we’re back to the Dix assumptions that I’ve noted several times in recent days. Dix says, clearly, it is the conservatives who refuse to evolve who remain in schism.

By: Fr. Ernesto

Fr. Ernesto — Sat, 05 Jul 2008 15:49:46 +0000

So, in a sense you are saying that they are like the Galapagos Islands or Australia. Some oddities survived in those places that had disappeared in others–for instance, the duck-billed platypus. In the New Testament, we have both the example of Apollos and of the brethren whom St. Paul baptized in the Holy Spirit because they only had the baptism of John the Forerunner. In both cases, corrections needed to be made, the brethren were not simply accepted and told that everything was all right. I would argue that the same would need to happen with the Ethiopian/Eritrian Church.

You are right that there is the oddity that the Coptic Church never made a move to correct, especially since the Coptic Church appears to share the same New Testament with the rest of the Church. (I realize the Old Testament is not held in common.) There is an interesting article on the Coptic Bible at http://www.coptic.net/articles/TheStoryOfTheBible.txt

Before you head to that article, go to the home page http://www.coptic.net. I think you will enjoy the design and the music it plays.

By: Huw

Huw — Sat, 05 Jul 2008 14:32:36 +0000

Fr E - following up on your research I was clicking around here:

http://www.copticchurch.net/

There was an online Arab-English Protestant Bible (missing even the Orthodox or RC “Apocrypha”) but no listing of the canon.

What I find curious is that the Egyptian church didn’t pester the Ethiopians, when they were under her care, to correct their errors of Biblical expansion.

I’ve heard it said that one of the issues with Chalcedon was the distance: some people just didn’t get invited. And some people were so far away as to not be able to come. And some people didn’t care to come. And some people were on (or beyond) the political fringes of Byzantium and didn’t recognise the Authority of the emperor over their part of the church. I wonder if the distance (or any of these other factors) could be the reason that the Canon keeps growing in Ethiopia.

The scriptural canon for Beta Israel (Ethiopian Jewry) is also different. They, too, would have been out of the loop for Jamnia, etc.

By: Huw

Huw — Sat, 05 Jul 2008 13:23:59 +0000

They also claim that one of their Anaphoras came from Jesus at a Post-Pascha Appearance.

By: Fr. Ernesto

Fr. Ernesto — Sat, 05 Jul 2008 12:55:31 +0000

But one patriarchate, by itself, does not a Bible make.

I did do some checking, and only the Ethiopian (and its derivative Eritrian) Orthodox Church have that large a canon. Not even the mother Coptic church ever added to the New Testament. The Ethiopian Orthodox are certainly an oddity!