My third and last reply to your third and last interesting expose on Jerome and the deuterocanonica.
You wrote: "They had corrupted the pure translation he had strived so very hard for, by cramming eighteen apocrypha books in with the inspired canonical books."
I'd say this is conclusory. "Corrupted" and "apocrypha" prejudge the case. If all you've written about Jerome's position is true, and he never changed his mind, the fact that his view did not prevail does not mean the Bible that became the Latin standard was "corrupted" or that the books Jerome called "apocrypha" were apocryphal. It means that Jerome had a strong opinion, and the Church did not ultimately agree and went a different way. I know that YOU and the Protestants agree with Jerome and disagree with the Church, but that does not mean that you're right. It just means that you agree with Jerome.
In the grand hierarchy of authorities, there were Church Councils and Popes that produced canons of Scripture. Not all of those Councils agreed with each other on the canon, but one thing in common in all of the concilar canons was the presence of some deuterocanonical works. No Church Council and no Pope agreed with Jerome's position of accepting the Hebrew canon and rejecting ALL of the deuterocanonical works. He had a strong opinion, apparently. And that's what it was. But Jerome was by no means the only scholar of Scripture who ever lived in the early Catholic Church, and he was by no means the only man in the Church whom the Holy Spirit guided to produce the canon of the Bible. If Jerome really was fixed in his opinion to the bitter end, on that detail it was Jerome against whole councils of the Church and Popes. I see no discernible reason to think that Jerome was right and they all were wrong.
You wrote: "However Jesus never quoted from an apocrypha book one time, so it’s doubtful they were in the Septuagint of that day."
Now here, I have to strongly disagree. When I look in my Bible and see the cross references, there are plenty of them cross referencing Jesus and the pertinent passages in the deuterocanonica. There is a nice website that I'll go fish up that lists over a hundred references in the New Testament to the deuterocanonica. As is often the case, cross references can be made between SEVERAL books of the OT and a passage in the NT. In certain cases, however, the exact parallel language of what the apostle or Jesus said is found in the deuterocanonica, with the referenced passages in the other parts of the OT being less directly on point. I am persuaded by these cross references and similarities that Jesus and the Apostles treated at least some of the deuterocanonica just like any other piece of Scripture, and did not make the distinction we are making here by calling these books "deuterocanonical" (or certainly "apocryphal"!)
You've got more of a dog in this fight than I do, so I'll just post the website link tomorrow, and let you go and try to debunk it if you must.
You: "Do you believe they had the apocrypha books in their collection of literature, but threw them all away because the Christians were now using them to………………….what? If the Jews had wanted them, of felt they were inspired, why wouldn’t they have kept them for themselves? It seems obvious they meant nothing to them, just as Jerome felt."
I think, based on reading Josephus, that the Jews were divided into at least three strongly divergent philosophical mindsets: Pharisee, Sadducee and Essene, as well as divided by social class, with the Cohanite priesthood standing at the top. The Pharisees, the philosophical adversaries of Jesus and the Apostles, were not in charge until after the destruction of the Temple (and with it, the Cohanite dominance and the Sadduccees). I think that the Essenes and folks who thought like them, by contrast, probably were the Jews who more than anyone else embraced Christianity, which is why they disappear quite suddenly from history. When the Pharisees took control of Judaism after the destruction of the Temple, the priests and the Sadduccee leadership, there were philosophical, intellectual and religious rivals within Judaism, but none more prominent, vocal, or dangerous (from the Pharisee perspective) than the Christians (Essenes?). The Pharisees were also staunch nationalists in a jingoistic sense. The deuterocanonical works' cardinal sin may have been that they were not believed to have been originally written in Hebrew. That Pharisaic Judaism ascendant had xenophobic notions of ethno-religious purity does not mean that God didn't inspire the books written in Greek and Aramaic. (After all, God did inspire the Greek New Testament, right?) It means that xenophobic, Pharisaic Jews would not accept anything not written in Hebrew, and ancient, as having any authority. Note that the whole story of Channukah is not found in the Hebrew Bible. You have to read Maccabbees, in the Catholic or Orthodox Bible, to get the story.
You: "Jesus was a Hebrew, and He read and taught from the Hebrew scrolls in the synagogue, so if the Temple and the synagogue didn’t use them, why would Jesus or his disciples since they followed the traditions of the Jews?"
Again, I think we have to be very careful about what we assert about the First Century. Jesus was a Jew. That does not mean that he spoke Hebrew, or that the scrolls that were being read in synagogues were written in Hebrew. The languages of First Century Palestine were Aramaic and Greek, and the Peshitta (Aramaic translation of the Scriptures) and midrashim from the era are written in Aramaic, not Hebrew. Of course after the destruction of the Temple and the arch-nationalist Jewish revolt of the late 60's, and then again in the 120's, the surviving Jews became adamantly, belligerently, xenophobically Hebrew, and focused on a nationalistic return to roots. We do know that much. But the indications from Josephus and others, from decades earlier, when the Temple was still up and still the center of Jewish life, do not let us so blithely conclude that the synagogues of 30 AD were like the virulently Hebrew and nationalist synagogues of 130 AD, or the forcibly Hebrew synagogues of 2004.
The scrolls Jesus read from in the synagogues MIGHT have been Aramaic Peshitta. We do not know, and we cannot know, the linguistic complexion of Jesus' teaching or any particular synagogic practice in Palestine in 30 AD. And we certainly cannot simply accept at face value the nationalistic retrojections of later centuries. Remember, the same traditions that might insist everything was in Hebrew also contain the lovely information that Jesus was the son of a Roman soldier named Ben Pantera. Now, if you believe in the virgin birth and reject that nasty little bit of nationalist propaganda, then you can't just blithely accept the argument of the same nationalists that focused on Hebrew purity. That was their desiderata, but it doesn't mean it was so.
As far as Jesus and his disciples not using the so-called aprocrypha, the site I will provide giving the 100+ references to the deuterocanonica in the New Testament is to me a pretty persuasive argument that actually Jesus and his disciples DID use these books.
You: "I had believed as you, that since the Catholics made such a roar over the apocrypha books, it must be because they were in the Septuagint, and so the Septuagint must be where their Bible came from."
No, Catholics don't make much a roar about the deuterocanonica, or any other books of the Bible for that matter. Catholicism is focused on the sacraments. It's the Protestants that are focused on a Sola Scriptura approach to Christianity, using the Bible. In discussions with Protestants, Catholics bring up the deuterocanonical books as a pointed challenge to the Protestant assertions, because what Catholics are really challenging is the AUTHORITY by which Protestants make their claims, or shortened the Bible. A Catholic would say what I said in response to your citing Jerome: Jerome was one guy with an opinion. A saint, to be sure, but just one guy on that score. Councils of Bishops and the Pope decided otherwise, and they have the authority given them by God to do so. Jerome differed with those appointed by God to make the decisions. Therefore, Jerome lacked authority, and was wrong, and the Pope and the Councils were right, by definition. Exactly what you might do with the Bible, opening a passage and saying "Vicomte, you are wrong because it says here...", a Catholic would do concerning Jerome and all that. The Pope and the Councils said this. God does not permit the Church to err on transmitting the faith. Therefore, Jerome was wrong because the Pope and Councils said so. End of argument. That is as satisfying to the Catholic mind as a good passage of Scripture might be to the Protestant mind. Obviously when we try to talk to each other, there will be a lot of talking past each other...which doesn't mean we cannot learn from the other.
Catholics bring up the deuterocanonica when talking with Protestants because it's the sort of argument that, to the Catholic mind, ends the arguments completely. By what AUTHORITY did Luther abridge the Bible? Bringing up Sirach is really a challenge to the authority of the Protestant approach to religion, not a desire to actually discuss the contents of Sirach.
The deuterocanonica WERE in the Septuagint. The question is whether or not the Septuagint is properly the Christian Canon. Catholics and the Orthodox say yes. Protestants say no. There is no resolution to the issue, because neither accepts the other's basis of authority in the claim.
So, what do we make of all that today, in the here and now?
Well, I say, if we're smart, we don't as Christians shoot into the circle of friends. We'll find out in Heaven who was exactly right on each doctrinal point...or more likely, we'll find out how off the mark we ALL were. But the more important point is that we'll BE in Heaven, despite our differing approaches to Tobit and Jerome. I think it's more important we not lose sight of that, and keep our powder dry to face the onslaught of evil that besets us in the world.
JHavard, your discussion was interesting. I appreciate the details on Jerome, and will provide you that link tomorrow.
Thank you, and I've enjoyed your imput also. Unless there's one particular subject that you'd like to follow up on, I'll just summerize these last post with a few questions on subjects that still don't make sense, and perhaps you can enlighten me.
Do you finally agree that the Catholic Church official Latin Vulgate Bible was translated from the Hebrew text?
Do you agree that there are five apocryphal/deutero books in the Catholic Bibles, that were not approved by the Council of Trent, 1546ad?
1, Additions to Esther
2, The epistle of Jeremiah, the last chapter in Baruch
3, Susanna (in Daniel)
4, Bel and the Dragon (in Daniel)
5, Prayer of Three Children) (in Daniel)
Did you read the history from the Catholic Encyclopedia about Bellermine the Jesuit bishop, and Pope Clement, and all the lies and hypocrisy that went on over the Bible?
Its obvious that the Catholic Church places its traditions over the Bibles written word.
You admit the Bible is no longer the authority in your Church, even though several of your popes were also sola scripturist.
The question is, why, when we debate your doctrine with other Catholic, they desperately try to prove the legitimacy of their claims by using the Bible, which they also claim has no authority over your traditions?
Why the facade that you hold the Bible to such a high regard, and pretend you received your authority from it?
Why won't Catholics be honest, and admit that most of their doctrine is founded on secret traditions, and it's no one's business that they can't be proven from the Bible?
Why do they debate us, when in their hearts they are saying, because we're Catholics, the oldest Christian Church in the world, we don't need your damn approval on anything, and we're right because we said so.IPSE DIXIT
Maybe I’ll think of a few others later on. If you can think of any dishonesty or hypocracy in the non- Catholic Churches, I’d be interested in hearing what they are.
Oh, one more thing, you mentioned that Catholics look at our use of the Bible as though it’s idolatry, and we worship it as a God.
I audibly laughed when I thought about how Catholics kneel and pray toward statues, and kiss feet and relics, and rings, and have icons and crosses and beads and idolize anything or anyone that gives them a good feeling, but it bothers you that in order for us to read Gods written word, we have to hold the Bible in front of our face, you somehow see this as idolatry. Go Figger, LOL
JH :)