A rather turgid reading ... but the bottom line in all that is: Who is Jesus and what will you do about Him?
Thank you for this post. In recent threads arguing the percentage of the Bible that Catholics read, I made the point that the percentage for Protestants needed to be lowered because of all the parts of the Bible that they’ve thrown out. I still assert that the amount of the Bible that Catholics read is similar to Protestants because of all the omissions from their versions of the Bible.
In addition, if we remove the books of the Old Testament from the percentages that are all about Jewish battles, ritual, and minute rules of hygiene (which most Christians don’t read very often anyway), the Catholic percentages regarding the amount of the Bible read would go up. We focus on the parts of the Old Testament that are relevant to Christ’s message.
“The Septuagint version of Scripture, from which Christ quoted, includes the Deuterocanonical books.”
Yes, and Jesus quoted none of them...
“The deuterocanonical books are not found in the Hebrew Bible. They were added by the Catholic Church at the Council of Trent after Luther rejected it.”
Framing an argument to deceive. The deuterocanonical books were not considered scripture by the Jews, but neither were they just added at the Council of Trent.
Many in the Catholic Church felt free to reject the Deuterocanonicals as scripture, or as scripture good for doctrine. It WAS the Council of Trent that made the decision to authoritatively place them in the Canon, but by an underwhelming vote...and I believe they punted on the question of using them for doctrine.
ping for later
“The other fallacy behind Myth #2 is that, far from being ignored in the New Testament (like Ecclesiastes, Esther, and 1 Chronicles) the deuterocanonical books are indeed quoted and alluded to in the New Testament.”
By the standard Shea applies, many heathen religious documents would be ‘scripture’ as well, since many have passages that parallel something happening in the NT.
Find one where Jesus says, “For we read...”, or, “As Scripture says...”
“For Luther also threw out a goodly chunk of the New Testament.”
Another dishonest statement.
See here: http://www.aomin.org/aoblog/index.php?itemid=1892
and here: http://www.ntrmin.org/Luther%20and%20the%20canon%202.htm
“In his later years St. Jerome did indeed accept the Deuter-ocanonical books of the Bible. In fact, he wound up strenuously defending their status as inspired Scripture, writing, “What sin have I committed if I followed the judgment of the churches? But he who brings charges against me for relating the objections that the Hebrews are wont to raise against the story of Susanna, the Son of the Three Children, and the story of Bel and the Dragon, which are not found in the Hebrew volume (ie. canon), proves that he is just a foolish sycophant. For I wasn’t relating my own personal views, but rather the remarks that they [the Jews] are wont to make against us” (Against Rufinus 11:33 [A.D. 402]). In earlier correspondence with Pope Damasus, Jerome did not call the deuterocanonical books unscriptural, he simply said that Jews he knew did not regard them as canonical.”
Not so fast - excellent response here:
http://beggarsallreformation.blogspot.com/2006/06/guest-blogdid-jerome-change-his-mind.html
Thanks for this detailed discussion. I was familiar with most of what he says, and agree with it, but there are some details new to me, and that I very much appreciate.
And, by the way, Jews don’t just dismiss the deuteronomical books that they decided not to include in their Hebrew scripture as misleading or evil. Why would they continue to celebrate Hannukah, when that is a feast based on Maccabees? The history told in Maccabees is still something they celebrate as a central part of their tradition.
And, interestingly, numerous early Protestants continued to take an interest in the stories of Judith and Tobit—Milton, for example, who certainly held no brief for the Catholic Church.
And the Epistle of James? Luther basically threw it out because it didn’t agree with his own theology and interpretation of Paul, and not for any reasons based on the transmission of the texts.
Excellent find. Thank you!
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Josephus “Against Apion” Book 1, Chapt. 8.
8. For we have not an innumerable multitude of books among us, disagreeing from and contradicting one another, [as the Greeks have,] but only twenty-two books, (8) which contain the records of all the past times; which are justly believed to be divine; and of them five belong to Moses, which contain his laws and the traditions of the origin of mankind till his death. This interval of time was little short of three thousand years; but as to the time from the death of Moses till the reign of Artaxerxes king of Persia, who reigned after Xerxes, the prophets, who were after Moses, wrote down what was done in their times in thirteen books. The remaining four books contain hymns to God, and precepts for the conduct of human life.