“But I have defended the view that 2nd Maccabees is inspired Scripture:”
All of your arguments were already refuted. Since you didn’t bother to reply to what I said, even ignoring the words of a patriarch, I figured you conceded it or couldn’t refute my replies, and I figured that was the reason why you tried to shift the discussion.
It’s very common for people to just keep spamming over and over again the same arguments, regardless of how silly they are or how often they’ve been answered.
You’re free to hold whatever strange view of reality you want, but you can’t force other people to accept them by the force of repetition. If you don’t reply to what I say, I’m under no obligation to keep replying to you or taking you seriously on this topic.
“And of course, the Jews believed in creation ex nihilo “without the support of 2nd Maccabees”:”
Which basically is another admission that 2 Maccabees had nothing to do with that doctrine being believed, despite what you claimed earlier, that the church’s position was based on 2 Maccabees, that even the Apostles derived their understanding from 2 Maccabees. Of course, you then go on to say that the teaching of God creating the world from nothing is “tradition.” So now we’re off the canonicity of 2 Maccabees and the importance of its teachings, and are now ditching it altogether and relying on “tradition.” Which, really, all you’re doing now is disagreeing with Jews and Christians about the meaning of Genesis 1, and all the other passages that teach that God created “all things, and through Him all things consist,” and “not from that which is seen” as Paul puts it in Hebrews 11:3.
“Remember, neither Jews nor traditional Christians place themselves under the constraint of being able to “prove” every doctrine from Scripture — “
That is the position of the Eastern Orthodox, since most of their doctrines can’t be defended with just the scriptures, and only exist by picking and choosing what particular church Father to believe, despite the fact that they rarely believe all that your people claim to believe. For example, you basically just rejected the counsel of Cyril of Jerusalem when he said:
“Have thou ever in your mind this seal , which for the present has been lightly touched in my discourse, by way of summary, but shall be stated, should the Lord permit, to the best of my power with the proof from the Scriptures. For concerning the divine and holy mysteries of the Faith, not even a casual statement must be delivered without the Holy Scriptures; nor must we be drawn aside by mere plausibility and artifices of speech. Even to me, who tell you these things, give not absolute credence, unless thou receive the proof of the things which I announce from the Divine Scriptures. For this salvation which we believe depends not on ingenious reasoning , but on demonstration of the Holy Scriptures.” (Catechetical Lecture 4)
This is why I never take these types of arguments seriously, because it’s based on assumptions which don’t even make sense in their own universe.
Now as to your claim that I was appealing to “Rabbanic tradition.” That’s complete rubbish. I was appealing to what the Jews claim their own language means. Otherwise any attempt at exegesis or word-defining is simply an application of “tradition.”
You have not “refuted” anything. All you have done is to appeal to the protestant hermeneutical tradition to claim that the Holy Fathers of the Sixth Ecumenical Council erred, and to claim this on the basis of a humanly established criterion for deciding which books are “inspired Scripture”. I have appealed to the Holy Tradition of the One Catholic and Apostolic Church (now usually called the Orthodox Church), and the decision of one of the Holy Ecumenical Councils and noted that the other claimants to that title (the Latins, monophysites and Nestorians — all of whose claims to catholicity as an Orthodox Christian I, incidentally, reject) are in agreement with the Orthodox on the matter of the canon. This is fact, not refuted by anything you have written.
Trust me, we Orthodox are very adept at ignoring the words of patriarchs — something the Latins never learned because until Pope Honorius fell into heresy in the 7th century, they had a good run in the West of not having to ignore their patriarch. Many of our saints were persecuted by patriarchs, which is why I referred to the consensus patrum, rather than quoting proof-texts from this or that Father.
We are talking past each other. You have no regard for the authority of the Holy Ecumenical Councils, and I have no regard for the protestant hermeneutic tradition with which you purport to refute their judgement. You seem to fancy that the Masorete represents a faithful reproduction of the hypothetical Hebrew ur-text directly inspired of God, and thus appeal to rabbinic tradition (yes, that’s what you were appealing to — rabbis using a Hebrew particle in an unusual technical way when reading the Scriptures, rather than in its usual meaning is not Hebrew linguistics, but rabbinic tradition) and base your reading on niceties of the Hebrew; while I, with the Church, prefer the Septuagint, even though it’s in Greek, because that’s the version the Holy Apostles quoted from and the Church has always used.
I hope that others have found reading our exchange edifying in some way so that there was some point to it, but it is at end. As we begin with radically different premises, neither will convince the other of anything. At least as it bears upon you and me, this one of those fruitless controversies the Holy Apostle Paul warned about in his letters, so it would be best to stop, part ways, and both go on glorifying Jesus Christ each according to our own tradition.