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To: AnalogReigns
Just for your information, before the Reformation, the canonicity of what you call the deuterocanonical books had not been officially decided by Rome.

Yes it had. See the Decree of Damasus of AD 381, the Decree of Gelasius of AD 492, the Decree of the Council of Florence of AD 1438, all establishing the current Catholic Canon with dogmatic exactitude.

Loyal Roman Catholic scholars were on both sides of the issue.

No they weren't.

Since Judaism had excluded these pre-Christian Jewish texts from their canon in about 100 AD, there was a good argument for Christians to follow suit

And those reasons were .... ?????

Rome officially included them...but even then calling them secondary-canonical (the literal meaning of deuterocanonical).

They are nowhere called that in any Roman decree.

They are good for history and understanding ancient Jewish culture, but do not have the authority of God's word.

According solely to your own opinion. Do you have the mind of God, or an inside track to know what He has and has not inspired?

Just read the book of Tobit, and tell me that doesn't read like a fairy tale. Bears no resemblence to authentic scripture, but it does help us understand the Jewish mindset at the time of Jesus.

It isn't particularly dissimilar from the "fairy tales" concerning how Abraham got his wife pregnant, how Isaac and Jacob got their wives, or of Joseph, Moses, and Daniel interpreting dreams.

114 posted on 03/17/2006 9:39:53 AM PST by Hermann the Cherusker
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To: Hermann the Cherusker; AnalogReigns

"Since Judaism had excluded these pre-Christian Jewish texts from their canon in about 100 AD, there was a good argument for Christians to follow suit."

There is NO evidence of a settled Jewish Canon in the post-second Temple period until the Aleppo Codex, circa 920 AD.

Maimonedes used the Aleppo Codex to compile the Hilkhot Sefer Torah (Laws of the Torah Scroll) in his Mishnah Torah in which he sets down the exact rules for transcription. His halakhic ruling sets down the Aleppo Codex as the supreme textual authority for the Jewish Scriptures, in effect "closing" the Jewish canon.

The date to which you refer is to the conjectural "Council of Jamnia." The only evidence of such a council being held there is the record of Rabban Yohanan ben Zakkai reestablishing the Sanhedrin there. Rabban Gamaliel II attracted many of the greatest scholars of the day to Jamnia. Jamnia remained a center of scholarship until the Bar Kokhba revolt in the early 2nd century, AD, when it was completely wiped out by the Romans. There is no record of any such deliberations, decisions or documents coming from Jamnia.


In sum, there is no evidence of a closed Jewish canon until the Middle Ages and certainly no rationale until the rulings of Maimonedes.

Maimonedes established 4 criteria for inclusion into the Jewish canon. All texts must comply with all 4 criteria.
1. All texts must have been written and transmitted in Masoretic Hebrew.
2. All texts must conform to the Law.
3. All texts must have been written in the Promised Land.
4. All texts must have been written before the death of the last prophet.


126 posted on 03/17/2006 10:37:24 AM PST by sanormal
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