Protecting God’s Word From “Bible Christians”

“Stand firm and hold fast to the traditions that you were taught,
either by an oral statement or by a letter of ours.”
~ St. Paul to the Thessalonians

A former student of mine is thinking of becoming a Catholic, and she had a question for me. “I don’t understand the deuterocanonical books,” she ventured. “If the Catholic faith is supposed to be a fulfillment of the Jewish faith, why do Catholics accept those books and the Jews don’t?” She’d done her homework, and was troubled that the seven books and other writings of the deuterocanon had been preserved only in Greek instead of Hebrew like the rest of the Jewish scriptures—which is part of the reason why they were classified, even by Catholics, as a “second” (deutero) canon.

My student went on. “I’m just struggling because there are a lot of references to those books in Church doctrine, but they aren’t considered inspired Scripture. Why did Luther feel those books needed to be taken out?” she asked. “And why are Protestants so against them?”

The short answer sounds petty and mean, but it’s true nonetheless: Luther jettisoned those “extra” Old Testament books—Tobit, Sirach, 1 and 2 Maccabees, and the like—because they were inconvenient. The Apocrypha (or, “false writings”), as they came to be known, supported pesky Catholic doctrines that Luther and other reformers wanted to suppress—praying for the dead, for instance, and the intercession of the saints. Here’s John Calvin on the subject:

Add to this, that they provide themselves with new supports when they give full authority to the Apocryphal books. Out of the second of the Maccabees they will prove Purgatory and the worship of saints; out of Tobit satisfactions, exorcisms, and what not. From Ecclesiasticus they will borrow not a little. For from whence could they better draw their dregs?

However, the deuterocanonical literature was (and is) prominent in the liturgy and very familiar to that first generation of Protestant converts, so Luther and company couldn’t very well ignore it altogether. Consequently, those seven “apocryphal” books, along with the Greek portions of Esther and Daniel, were relegated to an appendix in early Protestant translations of the Bible.

Eventually, in the nineteenth century sometime, many Protestant Bible publishers starting dropping the appendix altogether, and the modern translations used by most evangelicals today don’t even reference the Apocrypha at all. Thus, the myth is perpetuated that nefarious popes and bishops have gotten away with brazenly foisting a bunch of bogus scripture on the ignorant Catholic masses.

Nothing could be further from the truth.

To begin with, it was Luther and Calvin and the other reformers who did all the foisting. The Old Testament that Christians had been using for 1,500 years had always included the so-called Apocrypha, and there was never a question as to its canonicity. Thus, by selectively editing and streamlining their own versions of the Bible according to their sectarian biases (including, in Luther’s case, both Testaments, Old and New), the reformers engaged in a theological con game. To make matters worse, they covered their tracks by pointing fingers at the Catholic Church for “adding” phony texts to the closed canon of Hebrew Sacred Writ.

In this sense, the reformers were anticipating what I call the Twain-Jefferson approach to canonical revisionism. It involves two simple steps.

Step one: Identify the parts of Scripture that you find especially onerous or troublesome. Generally, these will be straightforward biblical references that don’t quite square with the doctrine one is championing or the practices one has already embraced. Mark Twain is the modern herald of this half of creative textual reconstruction: “It ain’t those parts of the Bible that I can’t understand that bother me,” Twain wrote, “it is the parts that I do understand.”

Step two: Yank the vexing parts out. It’s what Thomas Jefferson literally did when he took his own Bible and cut out the passages he found offensive—a kind of “scripture by subtraction” in the words of religion professor Stephen Prothero.

The reformers justified their Twain-Jefferson humbug by pointing to the canon of scriptures in use by European Jews during that time, and it did not include those extra Catholic books—case closed! Still unconvinced? Today’s defenders of the reformers’ biblical reshaping will then proceed to throw around historical precedent and references to the first-century Council of Jamnia, but it’s all really smoke and mirrors.

The fact is that the first-century Jewish canon was pretty mutable and there was no universal definitive list of sacred texts. On the other hand, it is indisputable that the version being used by Jesus and the Apostles during that time was the Septuagint—the Greek version of the Hebrew scriptures that included Luther’s rejected apocryphal books. SCORE: Deuterocanon – 1; Twain-Jefferson Revisionism – 0.

But this is all beside the point. It’s like an argument about creationism vs. evolution that gets funneled in the direction of whether dinosaurs could’ve been on board Noah’s Ark. Once you’re arguing about that, you’re no longer arguing about the bigger issue of the historicity of those early chapters in Genesis. The parallel red herring here is arguing over the content of the Christian Old Testament canon instead of considering the nature of authority itself and how it’s supposed to work in the Church, especially with regards to the Bible.

I mean, even if we can settle what the canon should include, we don’t have the autographs (original documents) from any biblical books anyway. While we affirm the Church’s teaching that all Scripture is inspired and teaches “solidly, faithfully and without error that truth which God wanted put into sacred writings” (DV 11), there are no absolutes when it comes to the precise content of the Bible.

Can there be any doubt that this is by God’s design? Without the autographs, we are much less tempted to worship a static book instead of the One it reveals to us. Even so, it’s true that we are still encouraged to venerate the Scriptures, but we worship the incarnate Word—and we ought not confuse the two. John the Baptist said as much when he painstakingly distinguished between himself, the announcer, and the actual Christ he was announcing. The Catechism, quoting St. Bernard, offers a further helpful distinction:

The Christian faith is not a “religion of the book.” Christianity is the religion of the “Word” of God, a word which is “not a written and mute word, but the Word is incarnate and living.”

Anyway, with regards to authority and the canon of Scripture, Mark Shea couldn’t have put it more succinctly than his recent response to a request for a summary of why the deuterocanon should be included in the Bible:

Because the Church in union with Peter, the pillar and ground of the truth (1 Timothy 3:15) granted authority by Christ to loose and bind (Matthew 16:19), says they should be.

Right. The Church says so, and that’s good enough.

For it’s the Church who gives us the Scriptures. It’s the Church who preserves the Scriptures and tells us to turn to them. It’s the Church who bathes us in the Scriptures with the liturgy, day in and day out, constantly watering our souls with God’s Word. Isn’t it a bit bizarre to be challenging the Church with regards to which Scriptures she’s feeding us with? “No, mother,” the infant cries, “not breast milk! I want Ovaltine! Better yet, how about some Sprite!”

Think of it this way. My daughter Margaret and I share an intense devotion to Betty Smith’s remarkable novel, A Tree Grows in Brooklyn. It’s a bittersweet family tale of impoverishment, tragedy, and perseverance, and we often remark how curious it is that Smith’s epic story receives so little attention.

I was rooting around the sale shelf at the public library one day, and I happened upon a paperback with the name “Betty Smith” on the spine. I took a closer look: Joy in the Morning, a 1963 novel of romance and the struggles of newlyweds, and it was indeed by the same Smith of Tree fame. I snatched it up for Meg.

The other day, Meg thanked me for the book, and asked me to be on the lookout for others by Smith. “It wasn’t nearly as good as Tree,” she said, “and I don’t expect any of her others to be as good. But I want to read everything she wrote because Tree was so wonderful.”

See, she wants to get to know Betty Smith because of what she encountered in A Tree Grows in Brooklyn. And all we have are her books and other writings; Betty Smith herself is gone.

But Jesus isn’t like that. We have the book, yes, but we have more. We still have the Word himself.

Everyone thinks that verse means someone else. And... a LOT of people seem to think that verse means someTHING else!

I think the following from Paul's letter to the Romans, chapter 4, explains it very well:

What then shall we say that Abraham, our forefather according to the flesh, discovered in this matter? If, in fact, Abraham was justified by works, he had something to boast about—but not before God. What does Scripture say? “Abraham believed God, and it was credited to him as righteousness.”

Now to the one who works, wages are not credited as a gift but as an obligation. However, to the one who does not work but trusts God who justifies the ungodly, their faith is credited as righteousness. David says the same thing when he speaks of the blessedness of the one to whom God credits righteousness apart from works:

“Blessed are those whose transgressions are forgiven, whose sins are covered.
Blessed is the one whose sin the Lord will never count against them.”

Is this blessedness only for the circumcised, or also for the uncircumcised? We have been saying that Abraham’s faith was credited to him as righteousness. Under what circumstances was it credited? Was it after he was circumcised, or before? It was not after, but before! And he received circumcision as a sign, a seal of the righteousness that he had by faith while he was still uncircumcised. So then, he is the father of all who believe but have not been circumcised, in order that righteousness might be credited to them. And he is then also the father of the circumcised who not only are circumcised but who also follow in the footsteps of the faith that our father Abraham had before he was circumcised.

It was not through the law that Abraham and his offspring received the promise that he would be heir of the world, but through the righteousness that comes by faith. For if those who depend on the law are heirs, faith means nothing and the promise is worthless, because the law brings wrath. And where there is no law there is no transgression.

Therefore, the promise comes by faith, so that it may be by grace and may be guaranteed to all Abraham’s offspring—not only to those who are of the law but also to those who have the faith of Abraham. He is the father of us all. As it is written: “I have made you a father of many nations.” He is our father in the sight of God, in whom he believed—the God who gives life to the dead and calls into being things that were not.

Against all hope, Abraham in hope believed and so became the father of many nations, just as it had been said to him, “So shall your offspring be.” Without weakening in his faith, he faced the fact that his body was as good as dead—since he was about a hundred years old—and that Sarah’s womb was also dead. Yet he did not waver through unbelief regarding the promise of God, but was strengthened in his faith and gave glory to God, being fully persuaded that God had power to do what he had promised. This is why “it was credited to him as righteousness.” The words “it was credited to him” were written not for him alone, but also for us, to whom God will credit righteousness—for us who believe in him who raised Jesus our Lord from the dead. He was delivered over to death for our sins and was raised to life for our justification.

“And where am I wrong here? PROVE IT or SHUT UP.”

You don’t impose any requirements on me. I shall continue to contradict you where I think it appropriate and true to do so, and you...will act like you do.

“Get to the point”

I got to the point in the early 2000s, and several times since. Sorry you missed it.

“if there is one other than your own having been “offended” while you dish out insinuation and innuendo = INSULTS aimed at others, yourself!”

Oh, so now even innuendo is to be the exclusive province of the fang and claw protestants?

“And you have the nerve to talk about “loopholes”?

Yes, I have the nerve to tell the truth, even in the face of the fang and claw protestants.

“Get real mr. Most of us here see right through the act!”

Most of us? Oh, I don’t doubt that there is a clique that is in agreement with you, but don’t delude yourself that you comprise “most of” anything, except most of the cause of the shameful flamage that is so rampant here.

“As to the issues of the OP of this thread, you just go ahead and show me where I have been wrong.”

As I said, you don’t lay requirements on me.

“But since that cannot be done”

Except by anyone over the age of ten who has an IQ greater than 60.

“then what else is there for ‘Catholics’ to do but whine and complain and DISTRACT from the issues which were otherwise being discussed?”

The fang and claw protestants do not discuss issues. They post the same errors again and again, become abusive when their errors are contradicted, and wrap it up by accusing Catholics of starting the whole thing.

The half-digested cherry on top of that sewage sundae is their ranting about “thin skins,” when they are so much less tolerant of other views than FR Catholics.

Oh, yes, sometimes people complain about their bad behavior, as is only natural, but to say that Catholics *only* complain is hyperbole at best. At worst...to describe it truthfully is a violation of forum rules.

“That’s what’s really going on here.”

I’ve told you what is going on here. Just correct your own bad behavior, and let the entire fang and claw squad do the same, and all will be sweetness and light.

I shall continue to contradict you where I think it appropriate

Empty assertions prove nothing.

Like I said, just shut up.

You have nothing to complain about.

The fang and claw protestants do not discuss issues

Then that must not be me, for I have covered the issue, to a large extent.

Your accusations and slanders are FALSE. Keep those to yourself.

If there was something in regards to the issue of this thread you have established, other then merely assert -- then show me.

And I'll be willing to show you how that likely didn't work, at the risk of needing repeat myself for the umpteenth time.

I guess I could link to previous comments of both myself and others...but just wow -- having to go through it all again -- after everything that Catholics could throw at it has been shown to be lacking if not entirely falsified?

This does get tedious.

Otherwise -- this comes across to me as just trolling on your part.

So put up or shut up like I said.

At this point of the thread, and given the bulk of your comments and participation on this thread -- for me to say that 'Catholics' (in this instance that would be you) have nothing but continued complaints which have nothing at all to do with the issues themselves is accurate enough. You are proving it with each additional comment. So get off of it.

Caninicity, on the other hand, has a precise definition; one of the criteria of canonicity is its historical anchor, which makes canonical material limited to the Temple Judaism in the Old Testament case.

You intended to write canonicity I take it..?

Limited to the Temple Jerusalem in the OT case, as you say.

That is the very point of the matter.

What came to be called deuterocanon does not later become "inspired" text 1500 years later ---when according the Jews themselves the particular written works here under dispute were not recognized at "the Temple Jerusalem".

Josephus in AD 70 did not include any of the books here under dispute as being included in what was then regarded as Holy Writ -- according to the Jews.

Melito confirmed the same thing near the year AD 180 or so.

At many junctures along the way in this 1500 year period, those of the Church knew the written works here under dispute were not regarded as included by the Jews, at the time of Christ and afterwards -- as part of the corpus of writings entrusted to them as the oracles of God, even as those same books we are continuing to dispute canonicity of were widely and long regarded as 'ecclesiastical' writings --- not fully "inspired" thus not Holy Writ -- but still useful.

As Jerome warned --- those writings not to be basis for doctrine. (CAN'T YOU READ?!?) How many times must we go over this??? Must links to the same information be given in every posted comment, on each thread where this has been gone over hundreds of times? Can you not remember what it is that has been set before you? Try reading it the next times the links are provided -- before responding! If you were to do so, it could save us all a lot of time.

All evidences point away from Greek scrolls (thus 'Septuagint' -- which precise contents vary widely in regards to these very additional disputed books) being read from in the Temple, at the time of Christ.

That means --- , despite the (stupid?) Jews who had wandered back to Egypt, and lived for centuries under Greek rule may or may not have been a bit confused as to what their own holy writ consisted of, the Jews of Jerusalem did not have that same problem, and did not accept the so-called deuterocanon.

Jerome it can be seen in various ways, much concurred with the last, above statement. You talk about "church fathers" but seem to neglect that particular biblical scholar. Why?

There is zero evidence the Jews Christ Himself appeared to, had forgotten their own language and used Greek 'Septuagint' even though many who were in Egypt for the most part HAD forgotten their own language, which condition is what led to the original translation effort of the Torah, or Pentateuch into Greek, which translation was known as Septuagint, that name coming from the number of translators.

That led to the set of questions I posed to you THREE TIMES already -- but which you have continually either dodged/avoided, or possibly not understood.

I answered what you asked, to my knowledge. If I missed something, ask again. Short sentences and short posts work best.

You answered NOTHING, substituting nothing more than the same initial (and unproven) assertions repeated.

If that is "to your knowledge" than your so-called knowledge is less than worthless.

Review your own comments and those made towards you if you would care to see the questions again -- as those were framed.

“Like I said, just shut up…Keep those to yourself...shut up”

So, uh, you’re now in charge of what may and may not be said on FR?

“Your accusations and slanders are FALSE.”

Capitalizing words does not make them true.

“If there was something in regards to the issue of this thread you have established”

Are you new here? I didn’t establish this issue.

“I guess I could link to previous comments of both myself and others”

Then one would have to ask whether you could do that in such a way as to give an accurate picture. (Because it would be a violation of forum rules to say that you have demonstrated that you could not.)

“after everything that Catholics could throw at it has been shown to be lacking if not entirely falsified?”

Weren’t you just saying something about how simply asserting something doesn’t make it true?

“This does get tedious.”

Well, then, why don’t you stop doing it?

“Otherwise — this comes across to me as just trolling on your part.”

Ah, I see you don’t understand the meaning of “trolling” either.

“for me to say that ‘Catholics’ (in this instance that would be you) have nothing but continued complaints which have nothing at all to do with the issues themselves is accurate enough.”

In no way.

“You are proving it with each additional comment. So get off of it.”

Ah. If I reply to you, that is “trolling,” whereas your attempts to cyberbully me into silence are meritorious.

Right, that’s fair.

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The words “it was credited to him” were written not for him alone...