This thesis (number 6) is an important one for “Biblical Interpretation”,  since I feel that the Biblical Record is most valuable to us as an ancient conversation that seeks to tell the story of a trek with God.  Some call it “Salvation History”.  Even within its pages,  the Bible shows an evolution in the writings toward conversartion.  Paul writes “letters” to specific communities,  with questions posed and issues raised.  I have often wondered that if Paul were doing this today,  or if the Internet were avialble then,  that the record would have included the responses and conversations around the subjects of his epistles. 

That the Internet “enables new kinds of conversations” should have bearing for us on how we view the role of revelation today.  I do not believe there ever should have been a “closing of the canon”.  This seems to imply that the stream of revelation from God to the world stopped when the Council met and determined the canon.  There we had a defining moment that seemed to have been geared toward limiting the scope of the “inspired works” to the selected pieces which the educated felt they had “authority”. 

The Bible was a “mass media” of the heirarchy – and perhaps,  for its time,  needed some sense of “containment” in order to guard against contamination with competing philosophies.