Chanukah - by Mel (Suspected Antisemite Now Wants To Tell The Story Of Maccabees)

NY Daily News ^ | March 17, 2004 | DEREK ROSE

[britishtim]

Thanks for the reference. Although I am a Protestant, I have used Maccabees (which the Jews also use as a historical resource because it is the oldest source concerning Hanukkah) and other books of the Apocrypha in sermons on occasion. I also think that there are other possible allusions or at the least borrowing of concepts from apocryphal (or deuterocanonical, if you prefer) works in other New Testament writings. However, I would argue that the earliest disciples would not have regarded works originally written in Greek as part of the Scriptures. This was a later development. I could be wrong, but it seems that the two most consistent positions on the canon are represented by Augustine (the only true scriptures for the Christian Church are the Septuagint [or translations there from]) or Jerome (the true OT scriptures are the Hebrew scriptures and works translated directly from them) rather than an amalgam of the two diametrically opposed views which is what the Western Church (until Luther) adopted. All I meant to suggest is that the question of canon is actually quite complicated.