But Seriously — Who Holds the Bible’s Copyright?

Catholic Exchange ^ | April 2, 2013 | JOHN ZMIRAK

[Salvation]

**The very fact that Christian apostles were using these books may have led the rabbis to eventually reject them. (Since the biblical references to Purgatory can be found in these books, Martin Luther and the Anglicans also excluded them.) Ironically, the Book of Maccabees exists in Catholic bibles but not Jewish ones,**

"We are compelled to concede to the Papists
that they have the Word of God,
that we received it from them,
and that without them
we should have no knowledge of it at all."

~ Martin Luther

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[Boogieman]

“What I liked about it was the entire bible text would fit on a 3-1/2” floppy. Pretty small footprint.”

True, but just in case we get hit with an EMP attack, it’s always good to have a pocket Bible backup :)

[Texas Fossil]

**Who Holds the Bible’s Copyright?**

The Catholic Church, of course!

Nonsense.

[caww]

.....”The Scriptures, being the Word of God, carry greater authority than the Church which follows them.... You claim the Church “wrote” the Bible, but the Bible is clear that its author is God, and He doesn’t share a credit with anyone else.”......

Indeed...

[Greetings_Puny_Humans]

“Okay, exactly where does the Bible tell you 2 Timothy is scripture?”

---

2Pe 3:15-16 And account that the longsuffering of our Lord is salvation; even as our beloved brother Paul also according to the wisdom given unto him hath written unto you; (16) As also in all his epistles, speaking in them of these things; in which are some things hard to be understood, which they that are unlearned and unstable wrest, as they do also the other scriptures, unto their own destruction.

All the epistles of Paul are considered scripture, as he claimed to be writing under the inspiration of the Holy Spirit. This is also true of all the writings of the Apostles or their close associates. Paul, for example, quotes the Gospel of Luke and calls it scripture.

[Texas Fossil]

Agreed, but I have several some fairly large. Others that I carry with me to Sunday School and church.

[JCBreckenridge]

“they were in the Vulgate with disclaimers that they were not to be taken as authoritative!”

Not so. You can review Gutenberg’s bible yourself.

The Gutenberg Bible is prefaced with Jerome’s Epistle to Paulinus.

http://www.newadvent.org/fathers/3001053.htm

There is the English text.

“You can’t cite the authority of the Vulgate and then dismiss the proclamations contained in the Vulgate”

One, those proclamations are not in the Vulgate.

Two, irrespective to Jerome’s difficulties, it doesn’t change that these books are still canonical. It was not Jerome’s decision to make, whether to include or exclude them.

“It stands to reason that if Daniel is inspired, it was written by Daniel and his scribe, as it attests, and therefore written in the language that was in use at the time, not in two separate languages that were in use at two different times.”

Ok, here’s the problem. The earliest extant manuscript evidence is in Greek - in the Septuagint. And they have all the parts of Daniel. Together. Would you use this one, or would you use a newer extant incomplete Hebrew manuscript that only had parts of Daniel?

[JCBreckenridge]

Ok - so which Epistles count? Does 2 Peter specify them?

[JCBreckenridge]

Same for Luther.

[Greetings_Puny_Humans]

“Ok - so which Epistles count? Does 2 Peter specify them?”

---

Peter was writing of all of Paul’s epistles. He does not need to specify if one is scripture and another isn’t, since all of the Apostles had the authority and the inspiration to be scripture producers, just like the Prophets of old who put together the Old Testament.

[Salvation]

May God forgive you for making fun of me and the Catholic Bible.

The first Bible printed by the Gutenberg press was in Latin and was a copy of the Vulgate (Catholic Bible.)

Please consider yourself re-educated.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gutenberg_Bible

[JCBreckenridge]

“Jerome translated the vulgate, and says the Apocrypha is not canon.”

It wasn’t Jerome’s decision to make. He was a translator. If they were non Canonical - why does Jerome include them? Why weren’t they excluded?

“Yet, they may be called canonical, that is, in the nature of a rule for the edification of the faithful, as being received and authorised in the canon of the bible for that purpose.”

And that’s precisely the question Cajetan answers. They are canonical. That is why they were included in the official bible - the Vulgate - long before Luther ever came around.

“There are also substantial reasons why the Apocrypha uncanonize themselves.”

Oh, I see. So the books THEMSELVES decide whether they do or do not belong. Anything to evade the point that the Magisterium decides.

“Tobit 6:5-7, “Then the angel said to him: Take out the entrails of this fish, and lay up his heart, and his gall, and his liver for thee: for these are necessary for useful medicines. And when he had done so, he roasted the flesh thereof, and they took it with them in the way: the rest they salted as much as might serve them, till they came to Rages the city of the Medes. Then Tobias asked the angel, and said to him: I beseech thee, brother Azarias, tell me what remedies are these things good for, which thou hast bid me keep of the fish? And the angel, answering, said to him: If thou put a little piece of its heart upon coals, the smoke thereof driveth away all kind of devils, either from man or from woman, so that they come no more to them.”

Hmm, that wouldn’t have anything to do with your church’s proscriptions of Incense, now would it? I can see why Luther might want to chop that out of his bible.

Tobit 4:11, “For alms deliver from all sin, and from death, and will not suffer the soul to go into darkness.”

“Truly, truly. This I tell you - whatsoever you did for the least of these - you also did for me.”

“He’s King of the Babylonians, just so you know.”

You’ve been called out on this before. King of Babylon became King of Assyria when Babylon defeated Assyria.

“It was for 70 years, not 7 generations, just so you know.”

Even to describes an upper bounded limit.

“Maccabees uncanonizes itself, insomuch it tells us directly that it was not written by anyone inspired.”

Oddly fitting to go with the Epistles of the ‘least of the Apostles”.

“Jews rejected the apocrypha”,

Which is why they were an integral part of the Septuagint.

“For the same cause, Origen, Jerome, Cyril of Jerusalem, Athanasius, and “Pope” Gregory the first, rejected most, if not all, of these books as canon.”

Ah, so we accept the Magisterium when it agrees with you and disregard the Magisterium when it disagrees with you.

Do you believe that the Magisterium has authority over the Body of Christ?

[caww]

......”An infallible magisterium is not necessary to recognize and establish writings as Scripture,... and/nor does being the steward of Scripture and inheritor of Divine promises and having historical descent make such infallible......”

Agree....

“Grasshopper Here”...

[JCBreckenridge]

So you admit then that it doesn’t give a list of authoritative Epistles from Paul the Apostle.

So where do we get this list of Corinthians, Galatians, Ephesians, Romans, Colossians, Thessalonians, Timothy, Titus and Philemon from?

[caww]

Boggoeman....

Just to say,... my very conversion began the day I picked up a Bible and began to read what God had to say in it. It is truly “powerful”......

[Boogieman]

"Not so. You can review Gutenberg’s bible yourself."

If they aren't in Gutenberg's Bible, then why does GoogleBooks' catalogue say they are?:

The New Testament, The Vulgate version, with Prologues by St. Jerome - by Johann Gutenberg

Why does wikipedia say they're included?

"As Jerome completed his translations of each book of the Bible, he recorded his observations and comments in an extensive correspondence with other scholars; and these letters were subsequently collected and appended as prologues to the Vulgate text for those books where they survived. In these letters, Jerome described those books or portions of books in the Septuagint that were not found in the Hebrew as being non-canonical: he called them apocrypha."

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vulgate

Why does the 1990 Stuttgart edition of the Vulgate include them? (You can read an English translation from that source here: http://www.bombaxo.com/prologues.html)

"Two, irrespective to Jerome’s difficulties, it doesn’t change that these books are still canonical. It was not Jerome’s decision to make, whether to include or exclude them."

So, you cite the authority of the Vulgate, when it is convenient to your argument, but deny it when it is inconvenient. Duly noted.

Now, since I think I can safely assume you believe it is the Catholic church's decision to make, then the canonicity of those books was only decided by the Catholics after the Protestants had excluded them, at the Council of Trent. Before then, it was left as a matter of individual conscience, which means your accusation against Luther is basically an ex post facto indictment.

It's also just plain silly to expect Protestants to accept an authoritative pronouncement of the Catholics which was made after the schism occurred. It's no more reasonable than expecting the South to have recognized as legitimate the Senators appointed for their states by the North after the South had already seceded. Of course the Catholics achieved unanimity on the matter at that time, because most of the Christians who disagreed with them on the matter were conveniently denounced as heretics and not given a seat at the table.

[Natural Law]

"Word of God is very much a book."

God is not a book and the Sacred Scripture is but a mere shadow of the divine. The Bible is a means through which He chose to reveal a portion of Himself to us.

Creation was an act of origination, bringing something into existence where nothing was. Creation is appropriated to the Father. St. John tells us that what was brought into existence was not chaos, but a universe ordered in its elements; it was a work of infinite wisdom and is therefore appropriated to the Son, the Word of God, Who proceeds by the way of logic and knowledge (a Logos). When the order was brought to disorder by sin, it was the Son Who became man to repair the disorder and make a new order of a redeemed mankind.

Peace be with you

[Boogieman]

Mine as well. I picked it up expecting to scoff at its silliness, as I had in the past, but this time, God’s word had other plans for me :)

[Boogieman]

“God is not a book and the Sacred Scripture is but a mere shadow of the divine. The Bible is a means through which He chose to reveal a portion of Himself to us.”

God is not the physical book, of course not. Yet, the contents of the book are divine, they are the Word of God, and the Word of God is declared to be God. I don’t pretend to understand the exact spiritual technicalities of that mystery, anymore than I claim to be able to explain how the body of an outwardly ordinary man could contain the boundless essence of God. Yet, it is written, so I believe, and there’s nothing you can say to me to dissuade me of it.

I imagine if someone tried to convince you that God can’t be a piece of bread, you would adopt much the same attitude.

[caww]

I well know what you mean!... Though my approach was a bit different....soon thereafter God had A Retired Pastor of Moody Bible Institute come to work for our company.....you can imagine the discussions shared..... Oh how God sets the stage!

Thanks for your posts...I am certainly enjoying some of the arguments...and learning.