God Said What?

Around 90 AD a group of men decided, Enough already! And the canons were closed on what Christians have come to call the Old Testament. In 473 AD the council in Hippo reaffirmed that the 27 works which had been listed in councils in 367 AD, 382 AD and 393 AD were indeed the last word on what would ever more be the canonical books of The New Testament. The canons were closed. It didn’t mean that men would stop saying God talks to them. It just meant that whatever they claimed came from God’s mouth to their ear would not be added to the canonical works of the Jewish and Christian faiths. Back in the good old days when theocracies ruled the world, the one who had the most political clout could declare that his Ambassador to God had the only bona fide two-way connection. And whatever the inspired prophet reported God said became gospel. It also usually benefitted the Ruler of the World at the time. That’s the way it worked. And that’s the way religious zealots would like for it to work today. The interesting thing about people who say God speaks to them is that nothing has changed since the year aughty-aught. People made claims about God’s partisan politics then as they do now. And God doesn’t seem to get exercised about pronouncements of his political endorsement one way or the other. But having political power plus a personal 800-number to God surely ain’t what it used to be. The words of a King’s favored prophet used to end up inscribed in Greek and Hebrew calligraphy in books revered by millions for millennia. Now we know it’s just Karl Rove talking in Bush’s earpiece again.