This video is a response to Catholics who say Sola Scriptura is untenable because Protestants do not have an infallible Canon. Further, I respond to James White’s historically unsubstantiated claim that the Book of Esther was laid up in the Temple.
Ed: This article was made when I was a Protestant and upon greater learning and reflection my thoughts may have evolved.
Orthodox Christian Theology 
Forgive me if I’ve missed a couple of points – I had a few kid interruptions – but your position seems sound. I do have a few questions, however.
1. What are the characteristics of Scripture? You think Maccabees is likely Scripture because the doctrine and prophecies are right, but does that mean any writing with correct doctrine and accurate prophecy is Scripture?
2. You reject characteristics often put forward, i.e. written by the apostles or close associates of the apostles (for NT anyway) because the early church debated strenuously over the Shepherd of Hermas. Does that mean theoretically a person from the 150s until now could write doctrinally correct accurate prophecy and have it accepted as Scripture? Or could it be the recognition of the canon be progressively developed and corrected throughout the years to include the characteristic re. the apostles?
3. There were no doubt many accurate prophecies in the NT church. If they were written down, would they be Scripture? If yes, why didn’t Paul instruct the Word of God to be written down in 1 Corinthians 12, 14? If no, why not?
4. What to do with books that are not diadactic or prophetic?
5. Your conclusion re. Scripture seemed to me to be, “My sheep hear my voice.” I appreciate what you are saying, but doesn’t that open up a whole area of subjectivity?
6. I’m confident that if the Church did not provide significant support for a book being Scripture you would not accept it. Is that right? In that case, would multiple testimony to a writing being Scripture be a characteristic?
1. Origen thinks Maccabees is Scripture. Personally, I think it should be rejected as it contains no real theology and the writer of 2 Maccabees even apologizes fif he got anything wrong.
Scripture, characteristically, contains prophecy, theology, and teaching that helps us understand God’s nature/foretells of Christ. It must meet the criteria in 2 Tim 3:16.
2. No, I do not reject the standard that an APostle, normatively, has to be a writer for the New Testament. My point was, rather, that we lack a hard and fast criteria which is why the early Church was not universal on books such as Shepherd. Traditionally, we accept Mark and Luke on the assumption they faithful re-present Peter and Paul. Even then, we make the additional presumption that God made them inerrant in recalling what the Apostles taught them and putting pen onto paper. It is only convincing if you presuppositionally accept that it is true.
3. Prophecies, which come from God, could be Scripture but obviously God would have preserved them if He intended to make them the Scripture. Most prophecises were like “don’t go to Jerusalem Paul” and interpretative in nature (as not all of the NT was revealed yet.) I think, though cannot know for certain, that the NT preserves for us all of the reliable content of those prophecies.
4. Can you give an example?
5. Yes, Calvin conceded the whole thing is very subjective. This is why I always tell Protestants to be very gracious on this issue. The CHurch historically was subjective and critical (they did try to historically decide what was originally intended as Scripture). Catholics, in a sense are objective.
6. Yes, multiple testimony would be necessary because the hallmarks of Scripture are that all the APostles accepted it. Hence, the churches they left behind accepted them. THis gives greater weight to earlier dates for John and Revelation then that tradition gives.
My apologies. You said Wisdom of Solomon, not Maccabees…though let me be less dogmatic. Am I right in saying you thought Wisdom of Solomon is very likely Scripture?
The problem with allowing non-apostle writers of Scripture (which we must) is that there is no Biblical argument that discounts the inclusion of later writings of non-apostles, as long as their writings are in line with sound doctrine.
I’m not convinced myself that written accurate prophecies could be Scripture merely by virtue of being prophecy. It seems that Biblically the two are considered in quite different ways. The part of the book of Enoch Jude quotes would then have to be considered Scripture since Jude quotes it as true prophecy.
Examples of non-diadactic and non-prophetic books would be, Song of Songs, some historical books like Esther, or Ruth. While it can justly be argued that God can teach from those books, there is no teaching that can be measured against true doctrine, and no prophecy that can be tested in terms laid out in the Law, for example.
I agree with you that grace is needed on this issue.
“Am I right in saying you thought Wisdom of Solomon is very likely Scripture?”
I am edging towards 60/40. Its prophecy and Paul’s quoting of the book as s ource of major doctrines encourage me towards the view. It should at the very least be taught in churches even if it is not declared to definitely be Scripture.
“”The problem with allowing non-apostle writers of Scripture (which we must) is that there is no Biblical argument that discounts the inclusion of later writings of non-apostles, as long as their writings are in line with sound doctrine.”
True. We can remove Luke, Acts, Mark, and possibly Jude (as Paul records that James saw the resurrected Lord after the 500 in 1 cOR 15. Do we know if Jude even saw the resurrected Christ? In the letter, he speaks of the Apostles and does not include himself as one.) Would our doctrines be radically affected if we removed these books? No. But we include them because of the testimony of history. So, we admit the possibility of non-apostolic NT authors of Scripture. However, no book not in the NT had universal acceptace among the Church like Luke and Mark, and as for he Catholic Epistles their rejection was not overly common, unlike Shepherd.
“The part of the book of Enoch Jude quotes would then have to be considered Scripture since Jude quotes it as true prophecy.”
Not exactly. He was quoting a concept to illustrate a point. Paul quotes Euripides, I think, (Greek poet) and obviously a Greek poem is not Scripture. Jesus speaks of wolves in sheeps clothing, which comes from one of Aesop’s fables. So, I think Jude’s quotations do not really pose us a real problem. Wisdom, which has prophecy and NT parallels throughout, is a different story altogether.
“Examples of non-diadactic and non-prophetic books would be, Song of Songs, some historical books like Esther, or Ruth. While it can justly be argued that God can teach from those books, there is no teaching that can be measured against true doctrine, and no prophecy that can be tested in terms laid out in the Law, for example.”
Well, Songs, Esther, and possibly Ruth (cannot remember) were doubted by some jews. We accept them because of the overwhelming testimony of history.
God bless,
Craig