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To: drstevej
Where does Hebrew 11 mention the Old Testament as the exclusive source for these illustrations of faith? I think you are reading your conclusion into the text.

I said, "They regularly referred to the deuterocanonicals in their writings" then went on to cite a passage dealing with purgatory. Here is the rest of the quote:

"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."

"The story is found in 2 Maccabees 7, where we read that during the Maccabean persecution, "It happened also that seven brothers and their mother were arrested and were being compelled by the king, under torture with whips and cords, to partake of unlawful swine's flesh. . . . [B]ut the brothers and their mother encouraged one another to die nobly, saying, 'The Lord God is watching over us and in truth has compassion on us . . . ' After the first brother had died . . . they brought forward the second for their sport. . . . he in turn underwent tortures as the first brother had done. And when he was at his last breath, he said, 'You accursed wretch, you dismiss us from this present life, but the King of the universe will raise us up to an everlasting renewal of life'" (2 Macc. 7:1, 5-9)."

125 posted on 08/21/2002 6:24:20 PM PDT by JMJ333
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To: JMJ333
Let assume for sake of discussion that Hebrews 11 does allude to 2 Maccabees. The author is citing examples of faith in to Hebrew Christian believers. Certainly they were familiar with Maccabees and an illustration from this part of their history does not in any way define the canon. No one claims that Maccabees has no valid historical accounts of the Jewish nation that serve as examples of faith.

Citation of an Apocryphal book is not a guarantee of inspiration. This citation doesn't even quote the passage. Hebrews doesn't call it Scripture.

JMJ, honestly this is very flimsy IMO. Even if the apostles or Jesus cite the Apocrypha often, is the citation an appeal to writing viewed as Scripture. Compare with the Mt. 24:15 citation of the abomination of desolation spoke of by the prophet Daniel, etc.

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Can I suggest we leave the discussion at this point or your reply to this post? Not sure I am up for more debate on this. However, I do appreciate our interchanges -- we disagree charitably and I appreciate that.

Blessings
Steve
127 posted on 08/21/2002 7:53:14 PM PDT by drstevej
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