“During the first century, the Jews disagreed as to what constituted the canon of Scripture. In fact, there were a large number of different canons in use, including the growing canon used by Christians. In order to combat the spreading Christian cult, rabbis met at the city of Jamnia or Javneh in A.D. 90 to determine which books were truly the Word of God. They pronounced many books, including the Gospels, to be unfit as scriptures. This canon also excluded seven books (Baruch, Sirach, 1 and 2 Maccabees, Tobit, Judith, and the Wisdom of Solomon, plus portions of Esther and Daniel) that Christians considered part of the Old Testament.”
This is an old claim and long discredited. EWTN needs to update their website.
“The Council of Jamnia or Council of Yavne is a hypothetical late 1st-century council at which the canon of the Hebrew Bible was alleged to have been finalized. First proposed by Heinrich Graetz in 1871, this theory was popular for much of the twentieth century. It was increasingly questioned from the 1960s onward, and is no longer considered plausible.”
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Council_of_Jamnia
“The Christian acceptance of the deuterocanonical books was logical because the deuterocanonicals were also included in the Septuagint, the Greek edition of the Old Testament which the apostles used to evangelize the world. “
This is the same claim the article already made, which, as I mentioned before, is baseless. The only copies of the LXX we possess are Christian ones, which date long after the times of the Apostles. Secondly, they contain many books (or lack books) which the RCC considers canonical. Thirdly, that extra books were included says nothing, since the consensus of the Fathers was that many of the books of the Apocrypha (and some you no longer accept) are worthy to be read as profitable for Christians in terms of morality, but not to be used as a confirmation for religious doctrines, as I showed previously. Thus they can include these books happily, without any contradiction. Even Luther included the apocrypha, he simply separated them out according to historical norms.
“There are a couple of examples of women receiving back their dead by resurrection in the Protestant Old Testament. You can find Elijah raising the son of the widow of Zarepheth in 1 Kings 17, and you can find his successor Elisha raising the son of the Shunammite woman in 2 Kings 4, but one thing you can never find—anywhere in the Protestant Old Testament, from front to back, from Genesis to Malachi—is someone being tortured and refusing to accept release for the sake of a better resurrection. If you want to find that, you have to look in the Catholic Old Testament—in the deuterocanonical books Martin Luther cut out of his Bible.”
This is a reference to 2 Maccabees, which, as a book, actually does not even claim to be inspired scripture, as the Roman Catholics would have it. It declares straight out that it is an abridged version of some other book, designed to be a history, and they apologize for any possible errors within it.
“...all such things as have been comprised in 5 books by Jason of Cyrene, we have at-tempted to abridge in one book. For considering the difficulty that they find that desire to undertake the narrations of histories, because of the multitude of the matter, we have taken care for those indeed that are willing to read,...And as to ourselves indeed, in undertaking this work of abridging, we have taken in hand no easy task, yea. rather a business full of watching and sweat. .. Leaving to the authors the exact handling of every particular, and as for ourselves. according to the plan proposed, studying to brief... For to collect all that is known, to put the discourse in order, and curiously to discuss every particular point, is the duty of the author of a history. But to pursue brevity of speech and to avoid nice declarations of things, is to be granted to him that maketh an abridgement.” (2 Maccabees 2: 24-32).
“...I will also here make an end of my narration. Which if I have done well, and as it becometh the history, it is what I desired; but if not so perfectly, it must be pardoned me. For as it is hurtful to drink always wine, or always water, but pleasant to use sometimes the one, and sometimes the other, so if the speech be always nicely framed, it will not be grateful to the readers...” 2 Maccabees 15: 39-40).
The rest of the claims, I think, are largely satisfied with what has already been provided, especially by one of their own Cardinals in Luther’s day. Anything else is simply revisionist history on the part of the RCC.
Luk_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.
Jesus certainly knew what the canon was...They just continue to make this stuff up...
“The rest of the claims, I think, are largely satisfied with what has already been provided, especially by one of their own Cardinals in Luther’s day.”
You probably mean Cardinal Cajetan - and on that score he was as wrong as Luther. It wasn’t the only thing he was wrong on either. The issue was decided long before he was born, however, so it simply didn’t matter what his view was in that regard.
You might want to read Sid Leimann’s book, The Canonization of Hebrew Scripture.
“Anything else is simply revisionist history on the part of the RCC.”
Nope.
You might want to read Sid Z. Leiman’s book, The Canonization of Hebrew Scripture.