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Are there any Christians who reject the canonicity of the standard protestant Bible? For example: Protestants reject the Books and additions which Catholics and Orthodox accept as canonical and which are commonly known as the Apocrypha. So I want to know if there are any groups of Christians who reject the Old Testament and any New Testament writings as canonical.

curiousdannii
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Frank Peter Coleman
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  • Are you asking about groups that have some other inspired canon, or groups that don't think God inspired any texts at all? If God hasn't inspired any scriptures, then there's not much basis for a religion to be built on, is there? Maybe the so-called "Christian Atheists" would meet your criteria? – curiousdannii Jun 12 '21 at 08:37
  • Quite simple really. Are there any defined groups of Christians who reject the Old Testament as canonical? Also: Many Biblical scholars regard some of the letters of Paul, for example, as forgeries. Therefore, by extention, are there any Christian groups which reject some of the books of the New Testament as scripture? – Frank Coleman Jun 12 '21 at 09:30
  • Some is not the same as all... see this question for some who reject some of the Protestant canon: https://christianity.stackexchange.com/q/52597/6071 – curiousdannii Jun 12 '21 at 09:49
  • The Wikipedia article Biblical canon, and in particular the section Western Church, has all the useful answers. – Miguel de Servet Jun 12 '21 at 10:39
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    sorry, your framing is wrong. additions which Catholics and Orthodox accept as canonical -- They had been agreed canon for about 1000 years before protestantism even happened and implemented subtraction – KorvinStarmast Jun 12 '21 at 13:07
  • Welcome to Christianity Stack Exchange. To find out how we are different to other sites and what we look for in well-researched question, please take our Tour: https://christianity.stackexchange.com/tour – Lesley Jun 12 '21 at 15:15
  • Frankly, I am not qualified to answer your question. I will, however, point you to an online article that centers around some theological quirks that Charles Stanley's son, Andy Stanley, has about inerrancy. Here it is: https://grandmageri422.me/2018/06/02/andy-stanley-the-virgin-birth-is-of-no-importance-charles-stanley-should-ban-his-son-from-preaching-at-his-church/ – rhetorician Jun 13 '21 at 03:07

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I have not found any Christian denominations that reject the 66 books of the Protestant Bible -- it would be particularly difficult to claim to be a Christian without some teachings of Christ to go with it -- but there are individual Christians and groups of Christians who reject much of the Bible.

I'm not referring to people who reject all but one Biblical translation, or those who accept other books as canonical as well--in these cases they still believe in and accept the Bible.

Rather, there are Christians who reject portions of the Bible:

  • Implicitly: they never use some of it (let's all be honest here, when was the last time we read Obadiah? =) )
  • Explicitly: they claim that portions of the Bible are a fraud

Since there are Christian seminaries that teach that 20 of the 27 books of the NT are frauds/forgeries, and their opinion on the authorship of the OT is even worse, I think it is fair to say that there are Christians who reject most of the Bible. Or they treat it as "wisdom literature" rather than "authoritative". Which incidentally runs quite contrary to what Jesus taught (see John 5:39).

There have been theologians who rejected all 66 books of the Bible (e.g. Bruno Bauer), but this position is generally considered neither "Christian" nor "scholarly", especially once JB Lightfoot demonstrated the overwhelming quantity of historical evidence for several books of the New Testament (see Lightfoot Apostolic Fathers parts 1 & 2).

Hold To The Rod
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