Pseudepigrapha, Fresh Revelations, and an “Open” Canon

Pseudepigrapha, Fresh Revelations, and an “Open” Canon [Excerpts - Part 1]

 “For the time will come when they will not endure sound doctrine; but after their own lusts shall they heap to themselves teachers, having itching ears; And they shall turn away their ears from the truth, and shall be turned unto fables” (2 Timothy:4:4And they shall turn away their ears from the truth, and shall be turned unto fables.
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Lewis Sperry Chafer (1871-1952), the first president of Dallas Theological Seminary, once reportedly said that all heresy is either the Bible plus, or the Bible minus. The work of radical higher criticism, as it has affected, even determined, the liberal view of the Christian faith since the late 1800s, has seen to it that there’s a lot of Bible-minus ideology amongst professing Christians now-a-days, even among so-called evangelicals. Now however, voices are emerging which advocate a Bible-plus view of Holy Scripture. One such voice has stated:

While I do believe that the Holy Bible is Divinely inspired and written by men, I do not necessarily hold to the idea that only the 66 books we now have in our (Protestant) bibles are the sole Divinely inspired books of antiquity. [1] (Rob Skiba, Babylon Rising (BR), Chapter 1, 1, Emphasis added) [2]

Why does Rob Skiba, the author who wrote this statement above, not limit inspiration of ancient books to only to the sixty-six of the Protestant canon? It appears that he and others like Tom Horn, Joseph Lumpkin, and Chuck Missler, need other books of antiquity and mythologies to integrate paranormal activity with the end-times scenario that they are seeking to create, a scenario Skiba calls, “The Genesis Six Experiment” (BR, Chapter 2, 1-2).

In Skiba’s thinking, “The Genesis Six Experiment” takes off from Jesus’ statement in His prophetic sermon (The Olivet Discourse) when he said, “But as the days of Noe [Noah] were, so shall also the coming of the Son of man be” (Matthew:24:37But as the days of Noe were, so shall also the coming of the Son of man be.
See All..., KJV). This statement is then linked to Genesis 6 where Moses records that “the sons of God” (angels) mated with “the daughters of men” thereby generating a race of giants called nephilim. (Genesis:6:1-6 [1] And it came to pass, when men began to multiply on the face of the earth, and daughters were born unto them, [2] That the sons of God saw the daughters of men that they were fair; and they took them wives of all which they chose. [3] And the LORD said, My spirit shall not always strive with man, for that he also is flesh: yet his days shall be an hundred and twenty years. [4] There were giants in the earth in those days; and also after that, when the sons of God came in unto the daughters of men, and they bare children to them, the same became mighty men which were of old, men of renown. [5] And God saw that the wickedness of man was great in the earth, and that every imagination of the thoughts of his heart was only evil continually. [6] And it repented the LORD that he had made man on the earth, and it grieved him at his heart.
See All...). As Skiba states, that’s “why God decided to destroy the world with a Great Flood.” Because the nephilim had corrupted the whole earth, God destroyed the whole earth. In Skiba’s view, the same thing that happened then is happening today. For reason of angel-alien-watchers cohabitating somewhere with human females, a whole new DNA-altered-trans-human-hybrid species is arising, a new nephilim that will corrupt, if it has not already done so, human life on this planet in such a widespread fashion that God will have to wipe out the world again as He did in the days of Noah. To bolster this premise, Skiba and others use ancient writings outside the canon of Holy Scripture. The intent in this writing is not to deal with “The Genesis Six Experiment,” or the “seed thesis” as Skiba calls it [3] The purpose of this article is to deal with the issue of other ancient books, and the attendant question, “Are such ancient writings, if only in part, divinely inspired and therefore endowed with spiritual authority on a par with the sixty-six books of the Protestant Bible?” To support the prophetic scenarios they create, Skiba and others believe they are. In their view such writings, whether in whole or in part, are inspired because they are ancient. [4]

The Apostle Paul states that to the Jews “were committed the oracles of God” (Romans:3:2Much every way: chiefly, because that unto them were committed the oracles of God.
See All...). Any consideration of the extent of the Old Testament canon must begin with the Jews and with Jesus. This of course eliminates all non-Jewish sources from any canon. As He both quoted from and made references to it, did Jesus view the Old Testament canon as closed and consisting exclusively of the thirty-nine books of our Protestant Bible as we have them? Or as Rob Skiba states, did Jesus “clearly” think that some of the books not found in our current Bible to be “worthy of study and quotation”? (BR, Chapter 1, 2) The answer to this question must begin with the Lord Jesus, for after all He claimed that, “All authority has been given to Me in heaven and on earth” (Matthew:28:18And Jesus came and spake unto them, saying, All power is given unto me in heaven and in earth.
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Skiba boldly asserts that Jesus and His disciple-apostles thought other books of antiquity were “worthy of study and quotation.” If so, where can it be documented that He, or for that matter any of the other prophet-apostles, quoted from other books or recommended them as if they possessed the authority of Scripture? Where? Give us chapter and verse. If Jesus thought other books to be worthy, why did He not reference them to Himself like He did the books of the extant Jewish canon of His day? But in no place did He do so. He plainly stated on a few occasions that it was the Law, the prophets and the writings alone which bore witness to Him (Luke:24:27And beginning at Moses and all the prophets, he expounded unto them in all the scriptures the things concerning himself.
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Of the Jewish Old Testament scriptures, Jesus said, “these are they which testify of me” (John:5:39Search the scriptures; for in them ye think ye have eternal life: and they are they which testify of me.
See All...). In other words, the traditional Jewish canon was Christocentric! Indeed as one of the ancient church fathers put it, “Ignorance of the Scriptures is ignorance of Christ.” [6] There is not one instance where Jesus quoted from ancient apocryphal and pseudepigraphal sources to testify concerning His Person. Why—because He did not consider those extra-canonical books to be inspired on a par with the Torah and therefore possess the authority of Scripture. Neither did those writings testify of Him.

http://guardinghisflock.com/2013/01/27/babylon-rising-and-canon-in-crisis/#more-2365

END NOTES
[1] Emphasis added, Rob Skiba II, Babylon Rising: And The First Shall Be The Last, 2011. Online at: (http://www.seedtheseries.com/blog/PDF/BabylonRising.pdf) 275 pages.
[2] All further references to Rob Skiba’s PDF book Babylon Rising, shall be cited in the body of my text as follows: (BR, chapter number, page number). In all, Skiba’s online book consists of fifteen chapters, with documentation and fanciful (or should we think inspired?) pictures.
[3] See Larry DeBruyn, “Demons, Daughters and DNA: The Sons of God, the Daughters of Men, and the Nephilim in Genesis 6,” June 22, 2011, Guarding His Flock Ministries (http://guardinghisflock.com/2011/06/22/demons-daughters-and-dna/#more-1846).
[4] For a resource of the multitude of ancient and so-called sacred texts, one can consult the website, Internet Sacred Text Archive (http://www.sacred-texts.com/index.htm). The Bible is mentioned, but only as “one” sacred text among hundreds of others.
[5] The word heresy means “A taking for oneself, choosing, or choice; and in this connection it has a partisan flavor, and is used for an election of magistrates, in which sides are taken for one against the other.” See J.C. Metcalfe, There Must Be Heresies (Dorset, England: The Overcomer Literature Trust, n.d.): 5.
[6] The quote is Jerome’s (347-420 A.D.).