Did God Really Say?
The Differing Bibles of Believers
Submitted by Barrett Evans
Over the course of my somewhat lengthy deconstruction process, I frequently discovered that reasons for doubting traditional Christian ideas were actually much stronger than I had initially suspected. Perhaps one of the clearest examples of this general dynamic came while learning about the complex history of the formation of the biblical canon. Like seemingly every other area of Judeo-Christian theology, the authoritative list of scriptural books has been — and continues to be — a matter of great dispute.
Old Testaments and Apocryphas
An early Christian group known as the Marcionites had a 0-book Old Testament, asserting that the Hebrew Bible was of an entirely different spirit and came from a false god. Followers of the Persian prophet Mani (216-c.276), who claimed to embody the true “Church of the Holy Spirit,” also rejected all the Old Testament books. Members of the Paulician and Albigensian Christian sects were known to do likewise.
The Samaritans, a now tiny sect which has persisted from ancient times, still holds to a 5-book Bible: Genesis, Exodus, Leviticus, Numbers, and Deuteronomy. The long-extinct sect known as the Sadducees, who denied the doctrine of the resurrection of the dead (Acts 23:8)…
