And what does that have to do with why the Jews' decision on the Canon during Jamnia has anything to do with the Christian decision on what to include in THEIR canon? Why on earth are we going to follow the Jewish decision, which at the VERY SAME COUNCIL claimed that the Christian Gospels were heretical and were not Scriptural??? Am I supposed to be steered away from this logic because you note that Jesus was a Jew? So what? The fact of the matter is that if you take the Jewish decision as your basis for the canon, you must also exclude the New Testament. Thus, what point of view are you really defending???
Not the council of Jamnia's decision per se. They were obviously wrong when it comes to the gospels.
If they were "obviously wrong" about the gospels, then why are you so certain they are "obviously right" on everything else they declared? Did you know that they did NOT include Esther as part of the Canon at this stage? Really, this is special pleading. You are using a supposed appeal to authority to cancel out the OT Deuterocanonicals but you turn a blind eye to the same group's inability to see the Gospels as Scripture? This argument that "the Jews said so" is beginning to wear thin. Their ability to determine anything about God was severely curtailed when they failed to recognize the Messiah.
Beware, you are throwing the baby out with the bath water.
Regards
Dear Regards & Annalex
I am not defending Jamnia. I am defending the Jews who were, are, and always shall be God's chosen people. I do not defend everything that the Jewish people have ever done. I do defend the fact that they are beloved by God and were led by God to develop a Canon of Scripture long before the council of Jamnia - a canon that did NOT contain the Apocrypha.
The Targums did not contain the extra books. The Peshitta Syriac did not contain them. ONLY the Septuagint and Scripture versions derived from it contained the Apocryphal books. The oldest versions of the Septuagint we have are between the 4th and 5th century. They do contain the Apocrypha. However, these MSS are obviously Christian in origin. They say nothing about what was in the Septuagint of Christ's day.
The early manuscripts of the Septuagint also don't agree as to what books are accepted as Scripture. Vaticanus doesn't contain I & II Maccabees or The Prayer of Manassah, but includes Psalm 151 and 1 Esdras. Sinaiticus omits II Maccabees and Baruch, and includes Psalm 151, 1 Esdras and IV Maccabees. Alexandrinus includes Psalm 151, 1 Esdras, the Psalms of Solomon and III and IV Maccabees.
Josephus (a Jew not hostile towards Christ) contended that the Old Testament canon closed during the reign of Artaxerxes I (400s BC) but even before this, Jesus Himself stated what the Canon was Luke 24:44 "And he said unto them, These are the words which I spake unto you, while I was yet with you, that all things must be fulfilled, which were written in the law of Moses, and in the prophets, and in the psalms, concerning me. " Nothing about the inter-testamental books there.
So, lets move to the "unanimous agreement" of the early Fathers. Well, some rather prominent theologians rejected their canonicity.
Jerome and Origen rejected the books as canonical. Athanasius did the same as did Gregory of Nazianzus. The Old Testament stopped with the Hebrew Scriptures for these men. I suppose that they were just agreeing with the Pharisees and being anti-Christ when they did so. Next thing, you'll be declaring anathema those who agree with them - oops, I guess that already happened too.
Only with the collective Roman hissy fit in the 1500s did they get put in the Canon; but, by then, there had been centuries of Roman persecution against the Jews so whats a little disdain for what they considered Scripture by adding to the Bible those books that apparently only the Alexandrians (potentially but not definately) held as authoritative?
Israel is lost, but she is still loved. God entrusted to the very logia tou theo. Do you think that she was in doubt about what they were? Do you think that their hatred of Jesus was so strong that they, the people who had painstakingly translated every letter and counted them out to make sure that they were accurate would then remove them from the Scriptures over the Jewish Carpenter that they did not believe was Divine? Such contention stretches credibility to say the least.
To be sure, the council at Jamnia didn't get it right. But to say that they removed the apocryphal books because they had it in for Christianity is not substantiated. They represented Israel after her Messiah came. Blind to Christ (not blind to what was their own Scripture though). Israel rejected Christ and is now blinded in part - but not forever. She will look upon her Messiah one day and the errors of her past will be cast away. In the mean time, God's promises towards her still stand. She isn't perfect, but she is His. Bless her. Don't curse her. This doesn't mean full agreement, but it does mean treating her with love.