Posted on 07/11/2010 11:07:54 AM PDT by Gamecock
Catholics and Protestants disagree regarding the exact number of books that belong in the Old Testament Scriptures. The dispute between them is over seven books, part of what is known as the Apocrypha: 1 and 2 Maccabees, Sirach (Ecclesiasticus), Wisdom (Wisdom of Solomon), Baruch, Tobit, Judith, and additions to Daniel and Esther.1 However, there are a number of reasons why the Old Testament Apocrypha should not be part of the Canon, or standard writings of Scripture.
1. There are no clear, definite New Testament quotations from the Apocrypha by Jesus or the apostles. While there may be various allusions by the New Testament to the Apocrypha, there are no authoritative statements like "thus says the Lord," "as it is written," or "the Scriptures say." There are references in the New Testament to the pseudepigrapha (literally “false writings”) (Jude 14-15) and even citations from pagan sources (Acts 17:22-34), but none of these are cited as Scripture and are rejected even by Roman Catholics. In contrast, the New Testament writers cite the Old Testament numerous times (Mt. 5; Lk. 24:27; Jn. 10:35) and use phrases such as "thus says the Lord," "as it is written," or "the Scriptures say," indicating their approval of these books as inspired by God.
2. Jesus implicitly rejected the Apocrypha as Scripture by referring to the entire accepted Jewish Canon of Scripture, “From the blood of Abel [Gen. 4:8] to the blood of Zechariah [2 Chron. 24:20], who was killed between the altar and the house of God; yes, I tell you, it shall be charged against this generation (Lk. 11:51; cf. Mt. 23:35).”
Abel was the first martyr in the Old Testament from the book of Genesis, while Zecharias was the last martyr in the book of Chronicles. In the Hebrew Canon, the first book was Genesis and the last book was Chronicles. They contained all of the same books as the standard 39 books accepted by Protestants today, but they were just arranged differently. For example, all of the 12 minor prophets (Hosea through Malachi) were contained in one book. This is why there are only 24 books in the Hebrew Bible today. By Jesus referring to Abel and Zacharias, He was canvassing the entire Canon of the Hebrew Scriptures which included the same 39 books as Protestants accept today. Therefore, Jesus implicitly rejected the Apocrypha as Scripture.
3. The "oracles of God" were given to the Jews (Rom. 3:2) and they rejected the Old Testament Apocrypha as part of this inspired revelation. Interestingly, Jesus had many disputes with the Jews, but He never disputed with them regarding the extent of the inspired revelation of God.2
4. The Dead Sea scrolls provide no commentary on the Apocrypha, but do provide commentary on some of the Jewish Old Testament books. This probably indicates that the Jewish Essene community did not regard them as highly as the Jewish Old Testament books.
5. Many ancient Jews rejected the Apocrypha as Scripture. Philo never quoted the Apocrypha as Scripture. Josephus explicitly rejected the Apocrypha and listed the Hebrew Canon to be 22 books. 3 In fact, the Jewish Community acknowledged that the prophetic gifts had ceased in Israel before the Apocrypha was written.
6. The Catholic Church has not always accepted the Apocrypha. The Apocrypha was not officially accepted by the Catholic Church at a universal council until 1546 at the Council of Trent. This is over a millennium and a half after the books were written, and was a counter reaction to the Protestant Reformation.4
7. Many church Fathers rejected the Apocrypha as Scripture, and many just used them for devotional purposes. For example, Jerome, the great Biblical scholar and translator of the Latin Vulgate, rejected the Apocrypha as Scripture though, supposedly under pressure, he did make a hurried translation of it. In fact, most of the church fathers in the first four centuries of the Church rejected the Apocrypha as Scripture. Along with Jerome, names include Origen, Cyril of Jerusalem, and Athanasius.
8. The Apocryphal books were placed in Bibles before the Council of Trent and after, but were placed in a separate section because they were not of equal authority. The Apocrypha rightfully has some devotional purposes, but it is not inspired.
9. The Apocrypha contains a number of false teachings (see: Errors in the Apocrypha). (To check the following references, see http://www.newadvent.org/bible.)
10. The Apocryphal books do not share many of the chararacteristics of the Canonical books: they are not prophetic, there is no supernatural confirmation of any of the apocryphal writers works, there is no predictive prophecy, there is no new Messianic truth revealed, they are not cited as authoritative by any prophetic book written after them, and they even acknowledge that there were no prophets in Israel at their time (cf. 1 Macc. 9:27; 14:41).
Sources
Which prophet authored Esther?
If the greek apocrypha was accepted by Christ or the Jews it would have been included in the Septuagint .
The deuterocanon is indeed in the Septuagint. The only earthly reason why we have the deuterocanon is because it was preserved by the Jews of the Diaspora until the Church received it.
We see that Jesus spoke clearly that the canon was closed in the eyes of God
He said no such thing, and the canon was clearly unclosed, since the New Testament had yet to be written.
So God would send His word to the Jewish nation in a manner that they could not read?
The majority of the Jews in the Second Temple period could read Greek. More Jews in the Second Temple period spoke Greek than Hebrew.
Scripture indicates that the scriptures used by Jesus in the temple were indeed in Hebrew
Perhaps you mean the synagogue, since there is no explicit reference to Jesus using any Scriptures in the Temple.
However, when Jesus does quote the Jewish Scriptures in the New Testament, the quotes conform much more closely to the Greek Scriptures than the Hebrew. Which is rational, since as a native of the Galilee he would have been quite familiar with the Greek Scriptures as well as the Hebrew.
The canon was closed at the time of jesus ...we know this because the purpose of the OT was to point to Christ
Again, the New Testament had yet to be written. As far as the Jewish Scriptures were concerned, the entire deuterocanon was indeed written before Jesus was born.
were written in the law of Moses, and in the prophets, and in the psalms
The books of Esther, Ruth, Song of Songs, Lamentations and Ecclesiastes were not and are not classified by the Jews as either Mosaic or prophetic or as Psalms. They are "Writings" or Ketuvim. Taken literally, this threefold list includes only 27 of the 39 books of the protocanonical Jewish Scriptures.
The law and the prophets were until John
This excludes all the Writings and reduces the canon to 26 books.
Indeed Ester is Christocentric as it reflects the redemption of Christ for His people even if He is unseen , Esther reflects the coming Messish as she was willing to lose everything, even her life to save Her people
That's one interpretation. Of course, the book of Esther does not mention God at all anywhere, let alone a coming Messiah.
Your description applies equally well to the text of the deuterocanonical work Judith.
Song of songs is not an erotic letter it reflects Christs tenderness for His church . The church is the bride of Christ.. and this is a deep expression of Christs love for her
Again, this is an interpretation. The bare sense of the words does not indicate it. I agree with this interpretation - but deuterocanonical works like Wisdom can be similarly interpreted.
Any symbolic reading you can impute to the protocanonicals can be just as easily imputed to the deuterocanonicals.
That's interesting. So a worship service's specific reading time set aside for Old Testament Scripture was interrupted for two months straight, and the Old Testament replaced for weeks on end so that non-Scriptural readings could be substituted?
That's a bit strange isn't it?
“The historical evidence really does seem very clear.”
Indeed. And the Church is right, the heretics wrong. Q.E.D.
The Protestants don't believe the Catholic doctrine. As far as these books of the Apocrypha go, I do not believe they are a part of the OT, because they do not appear in the Hebrew and never did.
"St. Irenaues, St. Polycarp, ST. Justin Martyr St. Hippolytus, St. Cyprian of Carthage all cited from the Deuterocanonicals in the Doctrinal disputes between the orthodox Catholics and the various Gnostic and other heretical sects."
Wonderful. Nevertheless, the NT begins with the Gospels, not some books that were never in the OT.
"So a worship service's specific reading time set aside for Old Testament Scripture was interrupted for two months straight, and the Old Testament replaced for weeks on end so that non-Scriptural readings could be substituted?"
You must be talking about Catholics now. You claimed Anglican points before, to which I pointed out that number VI says the Apocrypha is not scripture.
spunkets:
Well, that is factually incorrect, there were in fact Hebrew Translations of the Deuterocanonicals at Qumran. And you said it, you don’t believe they are which is another way of saying “I Pope Spunkets” don’t believe they are canonical, but the weight of orthodox Church Tradition is against you and the Church Fathers and their theological debates against various Heretical sects are the ones who helped shape the OT and NT canon that the Church defined, and that canon was not the Protestant Canon.
And the Deuterocanonicals were in the OT, the LXX version [Greek version] which is the version used by the Apostles and early Church as 70% of the quotes from the OT cited in the NT come from the LXX. I have several other posts which clearly document that your position is not part of the Christian Tradition and basically says, I will go with that 2nd century Jews defined, 2nd century Jews in Palestine, to define my canon.
>>I did not say they added anything, I said they CLOSED the canon . Their was no official canon in the RC, Local councils, without church wide authority declared canon for their districts.. but there was no OFFICIAL RC Canon until Trent..and that for obvious reasons.. <<
The canon was closed for 1200 years before Trent. There was some period during the first three centuries after Christ that it was debated which books were canonical and which weren’t. Those which were there were no agreement on included New Testament books. Some regions regarded certain book canonical which are not considered such after the 4th century (Shepherd of Hermes, The Teaching of the Twelve), others considered certain books non-canonical which are today (Revelations, James, 3 John). The modern canon was essentially closed through the imposing of hierarchy following the Nicene Council. Thus, arguing with the Catholic/Orthodox church as to what constitutes the canon is pure folly, since it was the Catholic/Orthodox church which discerned the canon.
The three codices are the three ancient manuscripts; absence of a given book means only that the ancient manuscript is only partial. However, do note that even though two codices lack several books, all include the deuterocanonicals. Also, the pre-Christian Qumran texts contain five of the seven deuterocanonicals, but lack Esther.
I don't believe in Popes, or the idea that an appeal to authority is a valid logical operation.
"I will go with that 2nd century Jews defined, 2nd century Jews in Palestine, to define my canon."
The Old Testament belongs to the Jews. The New Testament belongs to the Christians and begins with the Gospels. The Apocrypha are no more than the writings of men.
spunkets:
I am well aware that you don’t believe in Popes. You missed what I was getting it in that what I was saying is that in your world “Spunkets is Pope” and thus you are your own authority.
Your argument that the OT belongs to the Jews and not to Christians is very similar to the arguments of a fellow named Marcion who in 144 AD argued that the OT should not be accepted by the CHurch, his views were rejected and he was excommunicated by the Pope in Rome in 144 AD [He had some other views that were Gnostic as well, but that is not relevant to this discussion].
THe OT prefigures Christ and reveals the Covenant that God Made and a series of covenants and how they prefigure Christ and the eternal covenant of his paschal Mystery. The Church never rejected the OT and the early CHurch accepted the OT canon in the LXX form, with various degrees of difference between Rome and the East. Nevertheless, as St. Augustine stated, the Old Testament prefigures Christ and the NT and the NT fullfills what was hidden in the OT.
Again, in your opinion, the Deuterocanonicals are the writings of Men, the great Saints of the Early Church who defended orthodox Christian Doctrine against every Heresy such as Docetism, Gnosticism, Modalism, Adoptionism, Arianism, Nestoriansim, Pelagianism, the Heresy of the Monophysites, the Manicheans, the Donatist, etc, etc, and their writings reject your views as everyone of them acknowledged that the Deuterocanonicals were appropriate for being read in the Liturgy of the Church [which is the Public Act of Worship] and the overwhelming majority of them believed that they were useful in determing Doctrine and finally, none of the Canonical Lists in the Early CHurch ever rejected the Deuterocanoncals.
The History of all the Great Church Fathers of the early Church and the Great Councils of the Early Church reject your views and thus your view and the Protestant position is the “anomaly” and thus the “novel position” regardless of whether or not you want to bury your head in the sand and say otherwise.
tsk, tsk.
No, this is incorrect. In the Septuagint version of 1 and 2 Esdras, 1 Esdras was the apocryphal additions to Ezra and Nehemiah not found in the Hebrew Bible, while 2 Esdras was the canonical Jewish version of Ezra-Nehemiah. Jews only acknowledged Ezra and Nehemiah which they combined into one book. This was 2 Esdras in the Septuagint version. It was Jerome (in his Latin Vulgate) who separated Ezra and Nehemiah into two books, calling them 1 Esdras and 2 Esdras respectively.
There are many, many sources that confirm this fact in detail. Here is one:
Again, Trent excluded the Septuagint Esdras 1 which had been accepted as canonnical at Hippo and Carthage.Naming and numbering
Compiled by a Jewish writer in Egypt probably about 150 B.C.E., 1 Esdras is primarily a translation into Greek of older Hebrew texts, adding some new material and occasionally updating the older text. It was included in the collection of Jewish scriptures known as the Septuagint, which was created in Alexandria, Egypt, and circulated widely among the Jews of the diaspora. However, after the destruction of the Temple of Jerusalem in 70 C.E., rabbinical authorities rejected the Septuagint. Thus, 1 Esdras and the other works of the Apocrypha came to be excluded from the Jewish canon of scripture. However, since educated Christians generally knew Greek and used the Septuagint, it did become a basis for determining what books belonged in the Christian version of the "Old Testament."
1 Esdras presents various problems of naming. In most editions of the Septuagint, its Greek title is Εσδρας Α′ (1 Esdras), and it is placed before the traditional books of Ezra and Nehemiah, which are together titled in Εσδρας Β′ (2 Esdras). However, the Latin Vulgate version of the Bible titled the books of Ezra and Nehemiah as "1 and 2 Esdras," giving the current book the title "3 Esdras."
Since most modern translations use the more Hebraic transliteration of "Ezra" for the canonical Book of Ezra, the Vulgate's "3 Esdras" is now called 1 Esdras in most English Bibles. The Vulgate's 4 Esdras, meanwhile, has become 2 Esdras.
http://www.newworldencyclopedia.org/entry/1_Esdras
[emphasis mine]
Cordially,
Ridiculous. Marcion taught that Jesus was not the God of the OT. As I said, the NT begins with the Gospels, wherein Jesus claims that He is the God of the Old Testament. The NT belongs to the Christians, who believe what Jesus taught. Nevertheless, the OT belongs to the Jews and can not be changed by Christians as there are not 2 OTs.
Also, there was no Pope. There was only the bishop of Rome.
"The Church never rejected the OT and the early CHurch accepted the OT canon in the LXX form, with various degrees of difference between Rome and the East. Nevertheless, as St. Augustine stated, the Old Testament prefigures Christ and the NT and the NT fullfills what was hidden in the OT."
The OT belongs to the Jews, so any differences between East and West over content are irrelevant. Only the references that Jesus makes regarding it are important. For instance, Ezekiel 18 completely refutes the doctrine of original sin and God acknowledged that in John 9. He even pointed out that the doctrine is an accusation, that comes from the wickedness contained in the hearts of men.
"...the great Saints of the Early Church who defended orthodox Christian Doctrine against every Heresy
Doctrine is simply a declaration justified by political operations, not logical operations. Those operations even generated a king/pope to solidify the political power of Roman influence over all of Christendom. The doctrine of original sin, which was a product of the political operations of the Council of Orange and clearly contradicts all of Ezekiel 18, is an example of the work of the self annointed saints. It would have been better if the Church had stuck with logic instead of annointing kings and declaring "truths".
No, the condensation of the two Books of Esdras (”Nehemiah” and “Ezra”) into a single book in the Septuagint was known as 2 Esdras, NOT 1 Esdras and 2 Esdras. See #130.
The discrepancy is that Trent removed the Septuagint Esdras 1 which had been accepted as canonnical at Hippo and Carthage.
Cordially,
Diamond:
You are correct with the LXX terminology, but by the 4th century, the Western Church had already started to split those works into 4 distinct works, so the canonical listings in the West are following the Latin Tradition that have already developed and 1 and 2 Esdras correspond to Nehemiah and Ezra, not Esdras 2 of the LXX and at that same time, Latin Tradition had already called 1 Esdras 3 Esdras
I don’t agree with your interpretation as you seem to be saying that the Canonical OT lists in the late 4th century in the West were following the LXX terminology and that 1 Esdras and 2 Esdras are actually 3 Books, Nehemiah, Ezra and the non-canonical Ezdras work, called 3 Esdras by St. Jerome in the Vulgate. However, as I noted and the article from newadvent notes, the terminology used by Jerome was already well established in Rome and the Latin Churhc, although the article does say it is hard to document where it came from.
Of the top of my head, it would be interesting to see what was in the Latin Codex in terms of the terminology used as that codex, the oldest complete Bible we have, is from circa 350 AD, well before Jerome’s Vulgate.
//www.newadvent.org/cathen/05535a.htm
Again, this artice does not draw the same conclusions you are drawing, as the terminology in the Western Church was already in place to use 1,2 and 3 Esdras. 3 Esdras is the book in the Septugiant called 1 Esdras, but The West had already called that book 3 Esdras, which as the article notes, does not belong to the Canon.
spunkets:
I said similar in terms of the OT canon. I am well aware that Marcion was a Gnostic and did not say that your were a Gnostic heretic. But the fact remains he was excommunicated by the Bishop of Rome in 144 AD and yes, that was the Pope, which is nothing other than an english word derived from “Papa” in Latin and Greek “Papas”.
This title was well used in the early CHurch and in the Eastern Church, much more liberally as even Parish Priests were called “Papas”. In the Western Church by the time of Tertullian in the late 2nd century, it was only used for Bishops and by the 4th century it was denoted only for the Bishop of Rome.
So you deny the Doctrine of Original Sin, ok. What group among the thousands of Protestant groups do you belong to as most Legitimate Protestants, i.e. Confessional Protestants also believe in the Doctrine of Original Sin [i.e. Traditional Anglicans, Lutherans, Reformed-Presbyterians, Methodists, etc]
Actually, the numbering of Esdras is very confusing. There are four books called Esdras, and, yes, Ezra and Nehemiah were two of the books of Esdras, which formed a single book in ancient times. However, Catholic bibles, including the Douay Rheims and the Vulgate published Nehemiah and Ezra as 1 and 2 Esdras, even though formerly they had together formed 2 Esdras.
Diamond:
I think you are saying that LXX Esdras 1 corresponds to 1 Esdras in the Canonical Lists in the late 4th century and that Esdras 2 corresponds to Nehemiah and Ezra in the Greek [LXX].
I think the Western Church was already following an earlier Latin Tradition of dividing 1 Esdras and 2 Esdras from the LXX into 3 distinct books, 1 Esdras and 2 Esdras correspond to Ezra and Nehemiah and 1 Esdras in the LXX corresponds to 3 Ezra which was a book in the Appendix of the Latin Vulgate, which is consistent with it not being recognized as fully canonical. 4th Esdras was actually cited by St. Ambrose of Milan and it too was in the Vulgate Appendix and in fact some of its writings were incorporatet into the Catholic Requium Mass [Funeral Liturgy], ie.the prayer “Eternal Rest Grant unto Thee Oh Lord and may your perpetual LIght shine on his face” is from 4th Esdras.
No, I am talking about the 1552 Book of Common Prayer composed and organized by Protestant stalwart Thomas Cranmer.
In the calendar of readings for the service, the Old Testament reading (the First Reading of the service) for two months straight is taken from the deuterocanon.
So I ask, why would the Protestant BCP replace canonical Old Testament service readings for months with supposedly non-Scriptural readings?
No, absolutely not. The Council of Carthage gave its list of canonical books for the Old Testament following the Septuagint translation. In referring to Esdras as comprising two books they were referring to I and II Esdras of the Septuagint. When Carthage sent these decrees to Rome for confirmation, it was these books which were confirmed as canonical. Innocent I affirmed this in his letter to Exuperius and they were later included in the decrees of Popes Gelasius and Hormisdas.
"The specific books listed by Innocent in his Letter to Exuperius are as follows:A brief addition shows what books really are received in the canon. These are the desiderata of which you wished to be informed verbally: of Moses five books, that is, of Genesis, of Exodus, of Leviticus, of Numbers, of Deuteronomy, and Josue, of Judges one book, of Kings four books, and also Ruth, of the Prophets sixteen book, of Solomon five books, the Psalms. Likewise of the histories, Job one book, of Tobias one book, Esther one, Judith one, of the Machabees two, of Esdras two, Paralipomenon two books
(From the epistle Consulenti tibi to Exuperius, Bishop of Toulouse, Feb. so, 405. Henry Denzinger, The Sources of Catholic Dogma (London: Herder, 1954)
It was Jerome (in his Latin Vulgate) who first eparated Ezra and Nehemiah into two books, (1 Esdras and 2 Esdras) which became the standard for the Vulgate and the basis upon which Trent declared the Septuagint I Esdras to be noncanonical. In the Septuagint manuscripts, Codex Vaticanus (early 4th century) and Codex Alexandrinus (early 5th century), I Esdras is listed as one book and Ezra-Nehemiah is listed separately as a second book.
Cordially,
Diamond:
Sorry, I don’t agree with your sources. The Catholic article disagrees with your Protestant sources. I will stick with the Catholic ones.
Diamond:
And those Codices were both around 350 AD and yes, they were following the LXX. However, the canonical lists were in Latin and the Latin tradition had already distinguished the books. The Douah Rheims Translation, following the Vulgate, only has 1 and 2 Esdras, following Jerome’s terminology, which are Nehemiah and Ezra.
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.