by Dagsannr » Sat Feb 18, 2012 12:56 pm
I think it was less a case of why is the OT included as more like that they'd never have dared leave it out. The process by which the books that were decided to be included in the christian bible was a highly political proceess. Some, much more sensible, but gnostic in nature books were eliminated totally as the gnostic tradition was out of favour at the time. Similary, I suspect a lot of books were left out as they featured women prominently (or had female authorship) and the highly patriarchial nature of the church and state made such a think unthinkable. The OT was 'safe', in that it was an established collection and provided legimacy to the books that eventually formed the NT. However, there's still debate, as there's a bunch of books the Catholics like, but the Protestants and Orthodox don't.
Now, if you're a christian, you take on faith that the process, political or not, was guided by god and therefore the books included were the books that god meant to be included, that no human influence would've made a difference. If you're not a christian, or you're a more liberal christian prepared to accept god isn't as interdictory as some like to think, then the whole canon is suspect and someone's faith should be based on a personal decision, not by the dogmatic adherance to what a bunch of old rich men decided on 1600 years ago.
Add into this that the authorship of all biblical texts is highly suspect, it renders most of the bible, let alone the OT, as a document of dubious authenticity.
If we're going to split hairs about why the OT, then I think we also need to examine why not the apocrypha, or why not the Q gospel, or why not the gospel of Thomas. They're questions of equal importance that have equally important implications about the nature of christianity and how literal it should hold the bible.
There are 2 types of people in the world:
Those who can extrapolate from incomplete data.