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To: Vicomte13
Here's your problem. And for sake of clarity we'll be concise.

1) Jamnia, according to the experts, did not set canon.

2) You stated this "The current Hebrew Canon was a creation of the rabbis in 90-100 AD, from the so-called Council of Jamnia. " in #477. (A) If Jamnia didn't set canon(see one above), and (B) the Hebrew version of the canon was a creation of Jamnia, then (C) The Hebrew canon cannot be said to reflect other than the existing canon. If it excluded the apocryphals, then the apocryphals were absent in the greek.

3) Considerations of any peripheral matters are moot if your foundational point is not true. Mentioning citations lends nothing in and of itself and at best MIGHT be supportive if your foundation were correct. The facts lead us elsewhere.

That said, arguments over whether or not the apocryphals were ever cited are immaterial and moot until you can establish your starting claim. The history of Jamnia roundly debunks your posit.

As such, and as it stands, while you've posited that the apocryphals were canon, you haven't shown that factually. While you've posited they were removed from canon at Jamnia and excluded from the Hebrew text is contested by Jamnia. Actually, that's too weak a word - it is refuted by Jamnia. Jamnia would be required somewhere to set canon - it does not. So why did you say it does and then use this as a lynchpin of your story. We don't much even have to address the LXX because it isn't central to Jamnia and everyone else says it was modified later. You state that the Hebrew canon was drawn from the LXX, but if Jamnia didn't set canon, by your own words, you tell us that as of Jamnia, the LXX could not have included the apocryphals.

In conclusion, the apocryphals are not shown to have been canon, much less at the time of Christ. Jamnia didn't set canon and therefore could not result in a different canon strictly for the Hebrews. To change canon, Jamnia would have to have set it. It simply did not do so. If that is the lynchpin of your story, History has removed the pin. Protestant vs. Catholic considerations are immaterial to that. And there is no Jewish conspiracy. Sorry.

497 posted on 02/17/2005 2:00:41 PM PST by Havoc (Reagan was right and so was McKinley. Down with free trade. Hang the traitors high)
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To: Havoc

When, specifically, was the current Jewish Bible Canon selected? Where, specifically, is the first list of books that forms any semblance of a specific canon, so that we can determine what was "in" the Jewish Canon, and what was not, or even if there WAS a Jewish Canon at the time of Jesus.

The answer is that at the time of Jesus there was no CLOSED Canon. There were Scriptures which were canonical, in the sense that a large body of people recognized them as Scripture and used them such. We have no record before the end of the First Century that tells us what that open canon was. We do know that there was the Greek Septuagint, which was used extensively by Jesus and the Apostles. The wording is different in several passages between the Hebrew Massoretic text and the Septuagint, and the Greek textus receptus has Jesus and the Apostles using the Septuagint version of the language, and NOT the Hebrew Massoretic text version. Indeed, 2/3rds of the citations to what we call the Old Testament in the New Testament are to the Septuagint.

Was the Septuagint a CLOSED Canon? If it was, we don't have a piece of paper from the ancient world that tells us so.
But we DO have Jesus and the Apostles primarily citing to IT when they refer to Scripture, and citing extensively to those books of it which the later Hebrews did not accept into that Canon that has become the Massoretic Text.

If Jesus and the Apostles cite to something as Scripture, and it is in the books of the Septuagint but not in the books of the Hebrew Bible, THAT establishes the those books are Canonical, and that the Jewish Canon is abridged and incomplete. Jesus was God, remember? The Gospels and the New Testament epistles are the Word of God, remember? In the duel between what was in and what was out of the Canon, 100 citations to books as Scripture by Jesus and the Apostles make those books Scripture, regardless of what the later anti-Christian Jews decided was their own canon.

One would thing that this would be self-evident, but Luther dealt you a bad hand, which forces you to use sophistry to try and get around it. Really it's not so hard: the Septuagint contained the books that Jesus and the Apostles cited to. They used the Septuagint. The Hebrew Canon does not contain those books. Therefore, you simply have another clash of Jewish traditions versus Jesus and the Apostle.

I would figure that a Christian would side with Jesus on this one.
But to do that would require backing down.

So, you're asserting that the Mishnaic authors did NOT set a canon of Hebrew Scripture at Jamnia between 90 and 118 AD. You've cited "the" experts. Of course I can cite to other experts who say differently. But that's beside the point, really. When DO you think the Jews set the Hebrew Canon that becames the Massoretic Text? What do your experts say about that? To what specific piece of ancient paper do they point that gives a list of books, and when was that book dated?

The very ancient texts that I point to to show the canonicity of Maccabees are the Gospels and the Epistles of the New Testament. THEY treat these documents as Scripture. Who are your "experts", and what authority have they to tell Jesus Christ that He was in error about what was true Scripture and what was not?







498 posted on 02/17/2005 2:20:33 PM PST by Vicomte13 (La nuit s'acheve!)
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