Posted on 10/06/2019 9:00:00 AM PDT by NRx
many times debunked but if you say it enough you might get someone to believe you.
In A.D. 367, the great defender of orthodox belief, Athanasius bishop of Alexandria, wrote a letter. In this letter he affirmed all the books of the present Old Testament canon (except Esther) as well as all the books of the present New Testament canon. He also mentioned some of the books of the Apocrypha. Of those he said.
[They are] not included in the canon, but appointed by the Fathers to be read by those who newly join us, and who wish instruction in the world of godliness.
As I showed above, in the context of the passage he was doing no such thing. To persist in such fanciful eisegesis is beneath you, eagleone.
"God moved the early ekklesia to recognize the authoritative books we have in the Bible today."
By "early ekklesia" I presume you mean the early Church. The one founded by Jesus Christ which historically and logically is the Catholic Church.
So, in light of that let me ask you another question (although my original question was left unanswered): How did this "recognition" by the Early Church of the canon work, and who had the authority to do the recognizing and make the final determination? Did everyone just kind of vote on it? Where and when did this happen? And how did it become binding on all Christians and by whose authority?
As a Catholic, I have good reason to accept the 73 books in my Bible (and you can read about it in the references I recommended above). Non-Catholics, on the other hand, have no real way, other than by the authority of the Catholic Church, to even know definitively what goes in their Bibles. The table of contents in our modern Bibles are added by publishers and are not part of the inspired text. There is no "inspired table of contents." This is an insolvable dilemma for Protestants, especially if one holds to the man-made doctrine of Sola Scriptura. Faulty eisegegis and historical revisionism just won't do on such a critical issue.
Notice the date on Athanasius’ letter: 367. The North African Councils were 393 (Hippo), 397 and 419 (Carthage). Then there are the Council of Rome (382), Rufinus of Aquileia (c. 400), Pope Innocent I (405). From this point on there was universal acceptance of the Deuterocanonical books in the West. They would subsequently also be accepted in the East. There were always less controversy about them in the West than in the East. The occasional questioning from isolated theologians does not change this fact. Only with Martin Luther in the 16th century was there a serious rejection of the Deuterocanonical books. History does not support the Protestant version of the development of the Canon.
The claim that the Council of Rome (382) approved an infallible canon is contrary to Roman Catholic statements which point to Trent, and depends upon the Decretum Gelasianum, the authority of which is disputed (among RC's themselves), based upon evidence that it was pseudepigraphical, being a sixth century compilation put together in northern Italy or southern France at the beginning of the 6th cent. In addition the Council of Rome found many opponents in Africa.” More: http://www.tertullian.org/articles/burkitt_gelasianum.htm
(405). From this point on there was universal acceptance of the Deuterocanonical books in the West.
Which is more propaganda that is contrary to even RC sources such as the The Catholic Encyclopedia. See above, by the grace of God.
By what authority did other Catholic scholars have for not accepting all the canon that you hold to now?
What infallible, indisputable canon did Luther differ from?
What books of your Bible did Luther not include in his translation?
What binding canon did Luther set forth?
By what authority did a man in a hairy garment who are insects have in reproving those who sat in the seat of Moses?
By what authority did people have for following itinerant preachers such as the above when said authorities rejected them?
Which would mean that Catholic scholars could not disagree on it, but which they did, even right into Trent, until it dogmatically set the canon. After the death of Luther in 1546.
Repeating refuted propaganda only makes Catholics look bad. Give it up.
Be back in the AM, by the grace of God.
What infallible, indisputable canon did Luther differ from?
What books of your Bible did Luther not include in his translation? What binding canon did Luther set forth?
By what authority did a man in a hairy garment who are insects have in reproving those who sat in the seat of Moses?
By what authority did people have for following itinerant preachers such as the above when said authorities rejected them?"
All good questions and very answerable. However, since nobody has bothered to answer the questions I have repeatedly asked, I won't waste my time answering these until I get some answers. The way a conversation works is that one side asks a question, then the other side answers. Then the other side asks their own questions, and then the first side answers, and so forth. One sided conversations where people let themselves get led around by the nose are for chumps.
Ball's back in your court.
The Roman Catholic really begins to run into trouble IF they are pointing to this as "evidence" for the apocrypha.
Th DC rejected a whole bunch of other books and considered them to be damned; one of which was the Gospel of James, or The Protoevangelium of James.
It is from this rejected source Rome derives it's error prone history of Joseph and Mary.
So which is it going to be for the Roman Catholic?
Accepting the all of the ruling or just part of the ruling of the DC?
Either way, it leaves the Roman Catholic in a quandary.
All good questions and very answerable. However, since nobody has bothered to answer the questions I have repeatedly asked, I won't waste my time answering these until I get some answers. The way a conversation works is that one side asks a question, then the other side answers. Then the other side asks their own questions, and then the first side answers, and so forth.
Oh really? Then while appealing to authority you reprove no less an authority than the Lord Jesus Christ, who, when also asked a question as to authority, asked a question (regarding the very figure i did) rather than giving a direct answer. For as with my questions, answering them provides the answer, refuting the premise of the 1st question asked Him:
And they come again to Jerusalem: and as he was walking in the temple, there come to him the chief priests, and the scribes, and the elders, And say unto him, By what authority doest thou these things? and who gave thee this authority to do these things? And Jesus answered and said unto them, I will also ask of you one question, and answer me, and I will tell you by what authority I do these things. The baptism of John, was it from heaven, or of men? answer me. (Mark 11:27-30)
Likewise the question on authority you asked and I responded to is based upon a false premise, that one needs Rome to tell us what is from God, and that it had infallible authority as the steward of Divine revelation, and that the early church made a the final determination (which went it finally came, was after an informal vote whether to dogmatically define it), as are your other questions which I will deal with separately this morning.
Well, at least you do not parrot the typical RC propaganda, that the canon was settled in the 4th c. and then Luther removed the Deuteros.
In reality, scholarly disagreements over the canonicity (proper) of certain books continued down through the centuries and right into Trent, until it provided the first "infallible," indisputable canon after the death of Luther.
Thus Luther was no maverick but had substantial RC support for his non-binding canon. Furthermore, the (standard) RC objection against the Protestant lack of an assuredly true and reliable complete canon via an infallible magisterium would also apply to the majority of RC history, in addition to the time of Christ, despite the Lord and the apostles referencing so many OT writings as as being the word of God, as being Scripture, as having authority, which their opposition never contended against as being so.
However, history tells us that,
● Origen in the 2nd century (c. 240) rejected the apocrypha as he held to the Palestinian canon (plus the Letter of Jeremiah), and likewise Cyril of Jerusalem (plus Baruch), but like St. Hilary of Poitiers (300-368) and Rufinus who also rejected the apocrypha, Origen used them or parts thereof , as others also did with these second class books.
● Jerome (340-420), the preeminent 3rd century scholar rejected the Apocrypha, as they did not have the sanction of Jewish antiquity, and were not received by all, and did not generally work toward "confirmation of the doctrine of the Church." His lists of the 24 books of the O.T. Scriptures corresponds to the 39 of the Protestant canon,
Jerome wrote in his Prologue to the Books of the Kings,
“This preface to the Scriptures may serve as a helmeted [i.e. defensive] introduction to all the books which we turn from Hebrew into Latin, so that we may be assured that what is outside of them must be placed aside among the Apocryphal writings. Wisdom, therefore, which generally bears the name of Solomon, and the book of Jesus the Son of Sirach, and Judith, and Tobias, and the Shepherd [of Hermes?] are not in the canon. The first book of Maccabees is found in Hebrew, but the second is Greek, as can be proved from the very style.
In his preface to Proverbs, Ecclesiastes, and the Song of Songs he also states,
“As, then, the Church reads Judith, Tobit, and the books of Maccabees, but does not admit them among the canonical Scriptures, so let it read these two volumes for the edification of the people, not to give authority to doctrines of the Church.” (Shaff, Henry Wace, A Select Library of Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers of the Christian Church, p. 492)
J. N. D. Kelly finds,
"Jerome, conscious of the difficulty of arguing with Jews on the basis of books they spurned and anyhow regarding the Hebrew original as authoritative, was adamant that anything not found in it was ‘to be classed among the apocrypha’, not in the canon; later he grudgingly conceded that the Church read some of these books for edification, but not to support doctrine."Kelly, [J. N. D. (1960). Early Christian Doctrines. San Francisco, USA: Harper. p. 55.
The Catholic Encyclopedia (in the face of ancient opposition) states,
An analysis of Jerome's expressions on the deuterocanonicals, in various letters and prefaces, yields the following results: first, he strongly doubted their inspiration; secondly, the fact that he occasionally quotes them, and translated some of them as a concession to ecclesiastical tradition, is an involuntary testimony on his part to the high standing these writings enjoyed in the Church at large, and to the strength of the practical tradition which prescribed their readings in public worship. Obviously, the inferior rank to which the deuteros were relegated by authorities like Origen, Athanasius, and Jerome, was due to too rigid a conception of canonicity, one demanding that a book, to be entitled to this supreme dignity, must be received by all, must have the sanction of Jewish antiquity, and must moreover be adapted not only to edification, but also to the "confirmation of the doctrine of the Church", to borrow Jerome's phrase. (Catholic Encyclopedia, Canon of the Old Testament; http://www.newadvent.org/cathen/03267a.htm)
Like as Luther's inclusion of books in his Bible which he disallowed as canonical, the apocryphal books had been disallowed by Jerome as properly canonical even though they were included in them.
It is argued that Jerome later accepted the apocrypha due to him later translating them and including them in his Latin Vulgate, but what he translated with certainty only includes a couple (Tobit and Judith), and which was due to a request in the later case and (likely) pressure in both, and which he could allow due to some Catholic sanction. Regarding Judith he states, “But because this book is found by the Nicene Council to have been counted among the number of the Sacred Scriptures, I have acquiesced to your request.” And as regards Tobit: “But it is better to be judging the opinion of the Pharisees to displease and to be subject to the commands of bishops.”
These do not reflect his own judgment on them as inspired Scripture, but that of a church yet in flux as regards the status of all the apocrypha. Some think Jerome later defended the apocrypha based on comments about Daniel, but which is countered here
● Athanasius of Alexandria (c. 367), excluded the Book of Esther (which never actually mentions God and its canonicity was disputed among Jews for some time) among the "7 books not in the canon but to be read" along with the Wisdom of Solomon, Sirach (Ecclesiasticus), Judith, Tobit, the Didache, and the Shepherd of Hermas. (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Athanasius_of_Alexandria#New_Testament_canon)
Gregory of Nazianzus (330 – 390) concurred with the canon of Anastasius.
● The list of O.T. books by the Council of Laodicea (363) may have been added later, and is that of Athanasius but with Esther included. It also contains the standard canon of the N.T. except that it omits Revelation, as does Cyril, thought to be due to excessive use of it by the Montanist cults
● John of Damascus, eminent theologian of the Eastern Church in the 8th century, and Nicephorus, patriarch of Constantinople in the 9th century also rejected the apocrypha, as did others, in part or in whole.
● The fourth century historian Euesibius also provides an early Christian list of both Old and New Testament books. In his Ecclesiastical History (written about A.D. 324), in three places quoting from Josephus, Melito and Origen, lists of the books (slightly differing) according to the Hebrew Canon. These he calls in the first place 'the Canonical Scriptures of the Old Testament, undisputed among the Hebrews;' and again,'the acknowledged Scriptures of the Old Testament;' and, lastly, 'the Holy Scriptures of the Old Testament.' In his Chronicle he distinctly separates the Books of Maccabees from the 'Divine Scriptures;' and elsewhere mentions Ecclesiasticus and Wisdom as 'controverted' books. (http://www.bible-researcher.com/eusebius.html)
● Cyril of Jerusalem (d. circa. 385 AD) exhorts his readers “Of these read the two and twenty books, but have nothing to do with the apocryphal writings. Study earnestly these only which we read openly in the Church. Far wiser and more pious than thyself were the Apostles, and the bishops of old time, the presidents of the Church who handed down these books. Being therefore a child of the Church, trench thou not upon its statutes. And of the Old Testament, as we have said, study the two and twenty books, which, if thou art desirous of learning, strive to remember by name, as I recite them.” (http://www.bible-researcher.com/cyril.html)
His lists supports the canon adopted by the Protestants, combining books after the Hebrew canon and excludes the apocrypha, though he sometimes used them, as per the standard practice by which the apocrypha was printed in Protestant Bibles, and includes Baruch as part of Jeremiah.
● Likewise Rufinus:
38.But it should also be known that there are other books which are called not "canonical" but "ecclesiastical" by the ancients: 5 that is, the Wisdom attributed to Solomon, and another Wisdom attributed to the son of Sirach, which the Latins called by the title Ecclesiasticus, designating not the author of the book but its character. To the same class belong the book of Tobit and the book of Judith, and the books of Maccabees.
With the New Testament there is the book which is called the Shepherd of Hermas, and that which is called The Two Ways 6 and the Judgment of Peter.7 They were willing to have all these read in the churches but not brought forward for the confirmation of doctrine. The other writings they named "apocrypha,"8 which they would not have read in the churches.
These are what the fathers have handed down to us, which, as I said, I have thought it opportune to set forth in this place, for the instruction of those who are being taught the first elements of the Church and of the Faith, that they may know from what fountains of the Word of God they should draw for drinking. (http://www.bible-researcher.com/rufinus.html)
●Summing up most of the above, the Catholic Encyclopedia states,
And as the Catholic Encyclopedia states,
At Jerusalem there was a renascence, perhaps a survival, of Jewish ideas, the tendency there being distinctly unfavourable to the deuteros. St. Cyril of that see, while vindicating for the Church the right to fix the Canon, places them among the apocrypha and forbids all books to be read privately which are not read in the churches. In Antioch and Syria the attitude was more favourable. St. Epiphanius shows hesitation about the rank of the deuteros; he esteemed them, but they had not the same place as the Hebrew books in his regard. The historian Eusebius attests the widespread doubts in his time; he classes them as antilegomena, or disputed writings, and, like Athanasius, places them in a class intermediate between the books received by all and the apocrypha. The 59th (or 60th) canon of the provincial Council of Laodicea (the authenticity of which however is contested) gives a catalogue of the Scriptures entirely in accord with the ideas of St. Cyril of Jerusalem. On the other hand, the Oriental versions and Greek manuscripts of the period are more liberal; the extant ones have all the deuterocanonicals and, in some cases, certain apocrypha.
The influence of Origen's and Athanasius's restricted canon naturally spread to the West. St. Hilary of Poitiers and Rufinus followed their footsteps, excluding the deuteros from canonical rank in theory, but admitting them in practice. The latter styles them "ecclesiastical" books, but in authority unequal to the other Scriptures. St. Jerome cast his weighty suffrage on the side unfavourable to the disputed books... (Catholic Encyclopedia, Canon of the Old Testament, eph. mine)
● The Catholic Encyclopedia also states as regards the Middle Ages,
In the Latin Church, all through the Middle Ages [5th century to the 15th century] we find evidence of hesitation about the character of the deuterocanonicals. There is a current friendly to them, another one distinctly unfavourable to their authority and sacredness, while wavering between the two are a number of writers whose veneration for these books is tempered by some perplexity as to their exact standing, and among those we note St. Thomas Aquinas. Few are found to unequivocally acknowledge their canonicity. The prevailing attitude of Western medieval authors is substantially that of the Greek Fathers. The chief cause of this phenomenon in the West is to be sought in the influence, direct and indirect, of St. Jerome's depreciating Prologus (http://www.newadvent.org/cathen/03267a.htm)
There is a very interesting comment by Origen in his letter to Africanus
IIRC I cited Origen once to a RC and he dismissed what he said due to Origen becoming a heretic.
Christians should use the texts preserved by the Church, and not feel like we have to go cap in hand to the Jews to find out what the Bible is.
Nor dismiss them. Note that as with all authority, submission is conditional upon lack of conflict with the word of God, but the Lord enjoined submission to those who sat in the seat of Moses, and whose Palestinian canon is thought to be the smaller tripartite canon which Christ referred to in Lk. 24:44. And there clearly was a body of authoritative writings established by the time of Christ, but nowhere are texts of the Deuteros referred to as "Scripture," the "word of God/the Lord," "It is written," denoting doctrinal authority, which only writings from the Hebrew canonical canon were referred to.
Here Origen gives an interesting meaning to the term "Apocrypha" (hidden books). His argument is that the story of Susanna was omitted in the Hebrew text because it made the Jewish elders look bad. If you look at the Wisdom of Solomon, you could see how they might also have had incentive to have hidden this book too.
Nice try but if the making the Jewish elders look bad was cause for exclusion then to be consistent other texts shoulh have been censored as well.
And as for the prophet, and the priest, and the people, that shall say, The burden of the Lord, I will even punish that man and his house. (Jeremiah 23:34)
For this city hath been to me as a provocation of mine anger and of my fury from the day that they built it even unto this day; that I should remove it from before my face, Because of all the evil of the children of Israel and of the children of Judah, which they have done to provoke me to anger, they, their kings, their princes, their priests, and their prophets, and the men of Judah, and the inhabitants of Jerusalem. (Jeremiah 32:31-32)
Her prophets are light and treacherous persons: her priests have polluted the sanctuary, they have done violence to the law. (Zephaniah 3:4)
The heads thereof judge for reward, and the priests thereof teach for hire, and the prophets thereof divine for money: yet will they lean upon the Lord, and say, Is not the Lord among us? none evil can come upon us. (Micah 3:11)
This text was used very effectively by Christians in the Early Church, and the Jews had good reason to want to dismiss it.
And the Lord, Stephen, and Paul all invoked canonical texts against the Jews, but they did not reject those.
They are found in the Greek translations of the Old Testament, made by the 70 translators of the Septuagint three centuries before the birth of Christ (271 B.C.).
Which 70 translators story is held by scholars to be a fable.
The story of the origin of the LXX was embellished as time went on and is considered a fable by scholars, and Jerome chided Augustine for criticizing his differences from it and misunderstanding the nuances of his translations (http://www.bible-researcher.com/vulgate2.html).
Moreover, Catholics argue that since Christ and the NT quotes from the LXX then we must accept the books we call the apocrypha. However, this presumes that the Septuagint was a uniform body of texts in the time of Christ which contained all the apocryphal books at that time, but for which there is no historical evidence. The earliest existing Greek manuscripts which contain some of them date from the 4th Century and are understood to have been placed therein by Christians.
Edward Earle Ellis writes, “No two Septuagint codices contain the same apocrypha, and no uniform Septuagint ‘Bible’ was ever the subject of discussion in the patristic church. In view of these facts the Septuagint codices appear to have been originally intended more as service books than as a defined and normative canon of Scripture,” (E. E. Ellis, The Old Testament in Early Christianity [Baker 1992], 34-35.
British scholar R. T. Beckwith states, Philo of Alexandria's writings show it to have been the same as the Palestinian. He refers to the three familiar sections, and he ascribes inspiration to many books in all three, but never to any of the Apocrypha....The Apocrypha were known in the church from the start, but the further back one goes, the more rarely are they treated as inspired. (Roger T. Beckwith, "The Canon of the Old Testament" in Phillip Comfort, The Origin of the Bible [Wheaton: Tyndale House, 2003] pp. 57-64)
Manuscripts of anything like the capacity of Codex Alexandrinus were not used in the first centuries of the Christian era, and since in the second century AD the Jews seem largely to have discarded the Septuagint…there can be no real doubt that the comprehensive codices of the Septuagint, which start appearing in the fourth century AD, are all of Christian origin.
Nor is there agreement between the codices which the Apocrypha include...Moreover, all three codices [Vaticanus, Sinaiticus and Alexandrinus], according to Kenyon, were produced in Egypt, yet the contemporary Christian lists of the biblical books drawn up in Egypt by Athanasius and (very likely) pseudo-Athanasius are much more critical, excluding all apocryphal books from the canon, and putting them in a separate appendix. (Roger Beckwith, [Anglican priest, Oxford BD and Lambeth DD], The Old Testament Canon of the New Testament Church [Eerdmans 1986], p. 382, 383; http://triablogue.blogspot.com/2008/01/legendary-alexandrian-canon.html)
Likewise Gleason Archer affirms,
Even in the case of the Septuagint, the apocryphal books maintain a rather uncertain existence. The Codex Vaticanus (B) lacks [besides 3 and 4] 1 and 2 Maccabees (canonical, according to Rome), but includes 1 Esdras (non-canonical, according to Rome). The Sinaiticus (Aleph) omits Baruch (canonical, according to Rome), but includes 4 Maccabees (non-canonical, according to Rome)... Thus it turns out that even the three earliest MSS or the LXX show considerable uncertainty as to which books constitute the list of the Apocrypha.. (Archer, Gleason L., Jr., "A Survey of Old Testament Introduction", Moody Press, Chicago, IL, Rev. 1974, p. 75; http://www.provethebible.net/T2-Integ/B-1101.htm)
The German historian Martin Hengel writes, “Sinaiticus contains Barnabas and Hermas, Alexandrinus 1 and 2 Clement.” “Codex Alexandrinus...includes the LXX as we know it in Rahlfs’ edition, with all four books of Maccabees and the fourteen Odes appended to Psalms.” “...the Odes (sometimes varied in number), attested from the fifth century in all Greek Psalm manuscripts, contain three New Testament ‘psalms’: the Magnificat, the Benedictus, the Nunc Dimittis from Luke’s birth narrative, and the conclusion of the hymn that begins with the ‘Gloria in Excelsis.’ This underlines the fact that the LXX, although, itself consisting of a collection of Jewish documents, wishes to be a Christian book.” (Martin Hengel, The Septuagint as Christian Scripture [Baker 2004], pp. 57-59)
Also,
The Targums did not include these books, nor the earliest versions of the Peshitta, and the apocryphal books are seen to have been later additions, and later versions of the LXX varied in regard to which books of the apocrypha they contained. “Nor is there agreement between the codices which of the Apocrypha include. (Eerdmans 1986), 382. The two most complete targums (translations of the Hebrew Bible into Aramaic which date from the first century to the Middel Ages) contain all the books of the Hebrew Bible except Ezra, Nehemiah and Daniel. And Cyril of Jerusalem, whose list rejected the apocrypha (except for Baruch) exhorts his readers to “read the Divine Scriptures, the twenty-two books of the Old Testament, these that have been translated by the Seventy-two Interpreters,” the latter referring to the Septuagint but not as including the apocrypha. (http://www.bible-researcher.com/cyril.html) To complicate matters further, if you look at the Russian Synodal Bible and compare with the standard Orthodox edition of the Bible in Greek, there are some books that included in one that are not in the other (the Greek Bible included 4th Maccabees, and the Russian Bible includes 2nd Esdras (also called 4th Esdras in some editions), That too. For more information, see: http://peacebyjesus.witnesstoday.org/Ancients_on_Scripture.html#2 , by the grace of God.
Rather, the strongest evidence shows the apocryphal books were not included in the Hebrew Canon of Jesus day. The Palestinian canon from before the earliest (late century) conciliar lists Roman Catholics point to is held by many as being identical to the Protestant Old Testament, differing only in the arrangement and number of the books, while the Alexandrian canon, referred to as the Septuagint is seen as identical to the Catholic Old Testament.
Your own Catholic Encyclopedia itself affirms the Palestinian canon as consisting of the same books. “the protocanonical books of the Old Testament correspond with those of the Bible of the Hebrews, and the Old Testament as received by Protestants.” “...the Hebrew Bible, which became the Old Testament of Protestantism.” (The Catholic Encyclopedia>Canon of the Old Testament; htttp://www.newadvent.org/cathen/03267a.htm) The Protestant canon of the Old Testament is the same as the Palestinian canon. (The Catholic Almanac, 1960, p. 217)
J. N. D. Kelly states, For the Jews of Palestine the limits of the canon (the term is Christian, and was not used in Judaism) were rigidly fixed; they drew a sharp line of demarca- tion between the books which 'defiled the hands', i.e. were sacred, and other religiously edifying writings. (J. N. D. KELLY, EARLY CHRISTIAN DOCTRINES, FOURTH EDITION, ADAM & CHARLES BLACK LONDON, p. 53 )
The ancient 1st century Jewish historian Josephus only numbered 22 books of Scripture, which is seen to reflect the Jewish canon at the time of Jesus, and corresponding to the 39 book Protestant canon, which divides books the Jews referred to as single works.
Robert C. Newman: Answering the charges of an anti- Semite Apion at the end of the first century of our era, he says:
“We do not possess myriads of inconsistent books, conflicting with each other. other. Our books, those which are justly accredited, are but two and twenty, and contain the record of all time....” — Josephus, Against Apion, 1,8 (38-41)
On the basis of later Christian testimony, the twenty-two books mentioned here are usually thought to be the same as our thirty-nine,2 each double book (e.g., 1 and 2 Kings) being counted as one, the twelve Minor Prophets being considered a unit, and Judges-Ruth, Ezra-Nehemiah, and Jeremiah-Lamentations each being taken as one book. This agrees with the impression conveyed by the Gospel accounts, where Jesus, the Pharisees, and the Palestinian Jewish community in general seem to understand by the term "Scripture" some definite body of sacred writings."
"...the pseudepigraphical work 4 Ezra (probably written about A.D. 1208)...admits that only twenty-four Scriptures have circulated publicly since Ezra's time."
it appears that a general consensus already existed regarding the extent of the category called Scripture, so that even the author of 4 Ezra, though desiring to add one of his own, was obliged to recognize this consensus in his distinction between public and hidden Scripture." — Robert C. Newman, "THE COUNCIL OF JAMNIA AND THE OLD TESTAMENT CANON," Westminster Theological Journal 38.4 (Spr. 1976) 319-348.
[Josephus] also limits his books to those written between the time of Moses and Artaxerxes, thus eliminating some apocryphal books, observing that "(Jewish) history hath been written since Artaxerxes very particularly but hath not been esteemed of the like authority with the former by our forefathers, because there hath not been an exact succession of prophets since that time."
Also in support of the Jewish canon excluding the apocrypha we also have Philo, the Alexandrian Jewish philosopher (20 BC-AD 40) who never quoted from the Apocrypha as inspired, though he prolifically quoted the Old Testament and recognized the threefold division
While other have different opinions, in the Tosfeta (supplement to the Mishnah) it states, "...the Holy Spirit departed after the death of Haggai, Zecharaiah, and Malachi. Thus Judaism defined the limits of the canon that was and still is accepted within the Jewish community." Once that limit was defined, there was little controversy. Some discussion was held over Ecclesiastes and Song of Songs, but the core and bulk of the OT was never disputed. (Tosfeta Sota 13.2, quoted by German theologian Leonhard Rost [1896-1979], Judaism Outside the Hebrew Canon. Nashville: Abingdon, 1971; http://www.tektonics.org/lp/otcanon.html)
The available historical evidence indicates that in the Jewish mind a collection of books existed from at least 400 B.C. in three groups, two of them fluid, 22 (24 by another manner of counting) in number, which were considered by the Jews from among the many other existing books as the only ones for which they would die rather than add to or take away from them, books which they considered veritably from God...The Apocrypha are not included. (http://www.biblicalstudies.org.uk/pdf/rev-henry/11_apocrypha_young.pdf)
● Those who bring more than twenty-four books [the standard number in the Hebrew Bible[ bring confusion [Hebrew mehumah] into their house.(Qoh. Rab. 12.12 - Rabbinic commentary (Kohelet Rabbah, in the Midrash Rabbot) on Ecclesiastes (kohelet; qohelet) 12:12, cited in "The New Oxford Annotated Bible with the Apocryphal/Deuterocanonical Books," by Michael David Coogan, Marc Zvi Brettler, p. 453)
"And further, by these, my son, be admonished," saith God; 'Twenty-four books have I written for you; take heed to add none thereto.' Wherefore? Because of making many books there is no end. He who reads one verse not written in the twenty-four books is as though he had read in the 'outside books'; he will find no salvation there. Behold herein the punishment assigned to him who adds one book to the twenty-four. How do we know that he who reads them wearies himself in vain? Because it says, 'much study is a weariness of the flesh' (Eccl. xii. 12), from which follows, that the body of such a one shall not arise from the dust, as is said in the Mishnah (Sanh. x. 1), 'They who read in the outside books have no share in the future life'" (Num. R. xiv. 4; ed. Wilna, p. 117a; compare also Pesi?. R. ix. a and Yer. Sanh. xxviii. a. (http://www.jewishencyclopedia.com/articles/3259-bible-canon).
By "early ekklesia" I presume you mean the early Church. The one founded by Jesus Christ which historically and logically is the Catholic Church.
WRONG: As with a true Jews, spiritual authenticity is not based upon historical lineage but conformity of faith, (Rm. 2:28,29) and the substantiated reality is that distinctive Catholic teachings are not manifest in the only wholly inspired substantive authoritative record of what the NT church believed (including how they understood the OT and gospels), which is Scripture, especially Acts thru Revelation.
While those who sat in the seat of Moses certainly had authority (dissent from which being a capital offense: Deuteronomy 17:8-10) , yet 1st c. souls were not even bound by God to submit to all the judgments of those who sat in the seat of Moses if in conflict with what was written, much less are we bound to submit to the judgments of Rome, a discredited church.
How did this "recognition" by the Early Church of the canon work,
There simply was no binding, so-called infallible definition of the Biblical canon for RCs until after the death of Luther.
Catholic hold that the proximate criterion of the biblical canon is the infallible decision of the Church.” “The Council of Trent definitively settled the matter of the OT Canon. That this had not been done previously is apparent from the uncertainty that persisted up to the time of Trent." (New Catholic Encyclopedia, Catholic University of America , 2003, Vol. 3, pp. 20,26.
► The Catholic Study Bible, Oxford University Press, 1990, p. RG27: "The final definitive list of biblical books (including the seven additional Old Testament books) was only drawn up at the council of Trent in 1546. “Most Christians had followed St. Augustine and included the 'Apocrypha' in the canon, but St. Jerome, who excluded them, had always had his defenders." (Joseph Lienhard, The Bible, The Church, And Authority [Collegeville, Minnesota: The Liturgical Press, 1995], p. 59)
► "...an official, definitive list of inspired writings did not exist in the Catholic Church until the Council of Trent (Yves Congar, French Dominican cardinal and theologian, in Tradition and Traditions" [New York: Macmillan, 1966], p. 38).
► As Catholic Church historian and recognized authority on Trent (2400 page history, and author of over 700 books, etc.), Hubert Jedin (1900-1980) observes, it also put a full stop to the 1000-year-old development of the biblical canon (History of the Council of Trent [London, 1961] 91, quoted by Raymond Edward Brown, American Roman Catholic priest and Biblical scholar, in The New Jerome biblical commentary, p. 1168)
►The question of the “deutero-canonical” books will not be settled before the sixteenth century. As late as the second half of the thirteenth, St Bonaventure used as canonical the third book of Esdras and the prayer of Manasses, whereas St Albert the Great and St Thomas doubted their canonical value. (George H. Tavard, Holy Writ or Holy Church: The Crisis of the Protestant Reformation (London: Burns & Oates, 1959), pp. 16-17)
“The Canon of the New Testament, like that of the Old, is the result of a development, of a process at once stimulated by disputes with doubters, both within and without the Church, and retarded by certain obscurities and natural hesitations, and which did not reach its final term until the dogmatic definition of the Tridentine Council. (http://www.newadvent.org/cathen/03274a.htm)
And thus as shown, scholarly disagreements over the canonicity (proper) of certain books continued down through the centuries and right into Trent, until it provided the first "infallible," indisputable canon - after the death of Luther.
and who had the authority to do the recognizing and make the final determination?
While even secular governments have the right to make laws and judgments, they are not infallible and thus necessarily binding. Nor is a so-called infallible magisterium essential to know what is of God, thus it is abundantly evidenced that an authoritative body of wholly God-inspired writings ("Scripture," "it is written," etc.) had been established by the time of Christ. The essential basis for this, as with men of God, is that of their unique enduring heavenly qualities and attestation. Which is the essential basis for the quick and long-established 66 book Protestant canon. The "consensus of the faithful" here has worked fine.
Did everyone just kind of vote on it?
Actually, when Rome finally "infallibly" defined its canon, it came after a vote of 24 yea, 15 nay, with 16 abstaining (44%, 27%, 29%) as to whether to affirm it as an article of faith with its anathemas on those who dissent from it.
Of course, your leadership also elected Francis.
Where and when did this happen?
It did not, but for Catholics, April 8th, 1546) after Luther died. (February 8,1546)
And how did it become binding on all Christians and by whose authority?
As your premise is false so is your presumption. Unless 1st c. souls should have submitted to all the judgments of those who sat in the seat of Moses, esp. as to who was of God.
Non-Catholics, on the other hand, have no real way, other than by the authority of the Catholic Church, to even know definitively what goes in their Bibles.
Non-sense.As said, an authoritative body of wholly God-inspired writings ("Scripture," "it is written," etc.) had been established by the time of Christ, without any infallible decree.
Moreover, to be consistent with the Catholic premise that an infallible magisterium is essential to know what is of God (writings included), then no one could discern that the RCC or the EO church was of God, unless they first discern that they are of God. And around and around we go.
The table of contents in our modern Bibles are added by publishers and are not part of the inspired text. There is no "inspired table of contents." This is an insolvable dilemma for Protestants, especially if one holds to the man-made doctrine of Sola Scriptura.
Non-sense take two. Sola Scriptura simply does not mean that everything that must be believed is explicitly spelled out in Scripture, but includes what is provdes by way of principle and discernment by the "due use of ordinary means."
And since it is abundantly evidenced that an authoritative body of wholly God-inspired writings ("Scripture," "it is written," etc.) had been established by the time of Christ, then this supports the establishment of a canon, with its table of contents, which was rather quickly established, and not as following Luther as a pope (who expressed that his judgment was his own, though supported by other Catholic scholars, not some sort of binding decree).
Faulty eisegegis and historical revisionism just won't do on such a critical issue.
Exactly, which is why your position has been nuked,.
In other words, there was not even "unanimous consent" even among Roman Catholics at Trent on their canon!
The Septuagint included the deuterocanon. Jesus, Paul, and the Greek fathers quoted from it. Wisdom was rejected by the Jews because it explicitly prophesied Our Lord's death.
That beats the word of a neurotic German monk hands down in my book.
Are John MacArthur's writings canonical scripture? Of course not. Do you therefore reject everything he says? The logic is precisely the same.
The closest thing to such a list was the table of contents of the Septuagint...which included the deuterocanon.
They were completely rejected and damned as anathema by the the DC.
YET, Rome continues to appeal to writings damned for some of its beliefs on Mary.
Bad theology based on books considered to be anathema.
These and those similar ones, which Simon Magus, Nicolaus, Cerinthus, Marcion, Basilides, Ebion, Paul of Samosata, Photinus and Bonosus, who suffered from similar error, also Montanus with his obscene followers, Apollinaris, Valentinus the Manichaean, Faustus the African, Sabellius, Arius, Macedonius, Eunomius, Novatus, Sabbatius, Calistus, Donatus, Eustasius, Jovianus, Pelagius, Julian of Eclanum, Caelestius, Maximian, Priscillian from Spain, Nestorius of Constantinople, Maximus the Cynic, Lampetius, Dioscorus, Eutyches, Peter and the other Peter, of whom one disgraced Alexandria and the other Antioch, Acacius of Constantinople with his associates, and what also all disciples of heresy and of the heretics and schismatics, whose names we have scarcely preserved, have taught or compiled, we acknowledge is to be not merely rejected but eliminated from the whole Roman Catholic and Apostolic Church and with their authors and the followers of its authors to be damned in the inextricable shackles of anathema forever.
Are John MacArthur's writings canonical scripture? Of course not. Do you therefore reject everything he says? The logic is precisely the same.
No one has claimed any of MacArthur's writings to be canon.
None of his writings have been so categorically denied as was the Protoevangelium of James was.
For you to argue otherwise shows how weak your position is on this topic.
Roman Catholics really do themselves a disservice by appealing to Tim Staples and Catholic Answers for their apologetics.
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