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Protecting God’s Word From “Bible Christians”
Crisis Magazine ^
| October 3, 2014
| RICHARD BECKER
Posted on 10/03/2014 2:33:43 PM PDT by NYer
![Holy Bible graphic](http://3m7ajlsrzj92lfd1hu16hu7vc.wpengine.netdna-cdn.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/10/Holy-Bible-graphic-660x350-1412314947.jpg)
“Stand firm and hold fast to the traditions that you were taught,
either by an oral statement or by a letter of ours.”
~ St. Paul to the Thessalonians
A former student of mine is thinking of becoming a Catholic, and she had a question for me. I dont understand the deuterocanonical books, she ventured. If the Catholic faith is supposed to be a fulfillment of the Jewish faith, why do Catholics accept those books and the Jews dont? Shed done her homework, and was troubled that the seven books and other writings of the deuterocanon had been preserved only in Greek instead of Hebrew like the rest of the Jewish scriptureswhich is part of the reason why they were classified, even by Catholics, as a second (deutero) canon.
My student went on. Im just struggling because there are a lot of references to those books in Church doctrine, but they arent considered inspired Scripture. Why did Luther feel those books needed to be taken out? she asked. And why are Protestants so against them?
The short answer sounds petty and mean, but its true nonetheless: Luther jettisoned those extra Old Testament booksTobit, Sirach, 1 and 2 Maccabees, and the likebecause they were inconvenient. The Apocrypha (or, false writings), as they came to be known, supported pesky Catholic doctrines that Luther and other reformers wanted to suppresspraying for the dead, for instance, and the intercession of the saints. Heres John Calvin on the subject:
Add to this, that they provide themselves with new supports when they give full authority to the Apocryphal books. Out of the second of the Maccabees they will prove Purgatory and the worship of saints; out of Tobit satisfactions, exorcisms, and what not. From Ecclesiasticus they will borrow not a little. For from whence could they better draw their dregs?
However, the deuterocanonical literature was (and is) prominent in the liturgy and very familiar to that first generation of Protestant converts, so Luther and company couldnt very well ignore it altogether. Consequently, those seven apocryphal books, along with the Greek portions of Esther and Daniel, were relegated to an appendix in early Protestant translations of the Bible.
Eventually, in the nineteenth century sometime, many Protestant Bible publishers starting dropping the appendix altogether, and the modern translations used by most evangelicals today dont even reference the Apocrypha at all. Thus, the myth is perpetuated that nefarious popes and bishops have gotten away with brazenly foisting a bunch of bogus scripture on the ignorant Catholic masses.
Nothing could be further from the truth.
To begin with, it was Luther and Calvin and the other reformers who did all the foisting. The Old Testament that Christians had been using for 1,500 years had always included the so-called Apocrypha, and there was never a question as to its canonicity. Thus, by selectively editing and streamlining their own versions of the Bible according to their sectarian biases (including, in Luthers case, both Testaments, Old and New), the reformers engaged in a theological con game. To make matters worse, they covered their tracks by pointing fingers at the Catholic Church for adding phony texts to the closed canon of Hebrew Sacred Writ.
In this sense, the reformers were anticipating what I call the Twain-Jefferson approach to canonical revisionism. It involves two simple steps.
- Step one: Identify the parts of Scripture that you find especially onerous or troublesome. Generally, these will be straightforward biblical references that dont quite square with the doctrine one is championing or the practices one has already embraced. Mark Twain is the modern herald of this half of creative textual reconstruction: It aint those parts of the Bible that I cant understand that bother me, Twain wrote, it is the parts that I do understand.
- Step two: Yank the vexing parts out. Its what Thomas Jefferson literally did when he took his own Bible and cut out the passages he found offensivea kind of scripture by subtraction in the words of religion professor Stephen Prothero.
The reformers justified their Twain-Jefferson humbug by pointing to the canon of scriptures in use by European Jews during that time, and it did not include those extra Catholic bookscase closed! Still unconvinced? Todays defenders of the reformers biblical reshaping will then proceed to throw around historical precedent and references to the first-century Council of Jamnia, but its all really smoke and mirrors.
The fact is that the first-century Jewish canon was pretty mutable and there was no universal definitive list of sacred texts. On the other hand, it is indisputable that the version being used by Jesus and the Apostles during that time was the Septuagintthe Greek version of the Hebrew scriptures that included Luthers rejected apocryphal books. SCORE: Deuterocanon 1; Twain-Jefferson Revisionism 0.
But this is all beside the point. Its like an argument about creationism vs. evolution that gets funneled in the direction of whether dinosaurs couldve been on board Noahs Ark. Once youre arguing about that, youre no longer arguing about the bigger issue of the historicity of those early chapters in Genesis. The parallel red herring here is arguing over the content of the Christian Old Testament canon instead of considering the nature of authority itself and how its supposed to work in the Church, especially with regards to the Bible.
I mean, even if we can settle what the canon should include, we dont have the autographs (original documents) from any biblical books anyway. While we affirm the Churchs teaching that all Scripture is inspired and teaches solidly, faithfully and without error that truth which God wanted put into sacred writings (DV 11), there are no absolutes when it comes to the precise content of the Bible.
Can there be any doubt that this is by Gods design? Without the autographs, we are much less tempted to worship a static book instead of the One it reveals to us. Even so, its true that we are still encouraged to venerate the Scriptures, but we worship the incarnate Wordand we ought not confuse the two. John the Baptist said as much when he painstakingly distinguished between himself, the announcer, and the actual Christ he was announcing. The Catechism, quoting St. Bernard, offers a further helpful distinction:
The Christian faith is not a religion of the book. Christianity is the religion of the Word of God, a word which is not a written and mute word, but the Word is incarnate and living.
Anyway, with regards to authority and the canon of Scripture, Mark Shea couldnt have put it more succinctly than his recent response to a request for a summary of why the deuterocanon should be included in the Bible:
Because the Church in union with Peter, the pillar and ground of the truth (1 Timothy 3:15) granted authority by Christ to loose and bind (Matthew 16:19), says they should be.
Right. The Church says so, and thats good enough.
For its the Church who gives us the Scriptures. Its the Church who preserves the Scriptures and tells us to turn to them. Its the Church who bathes us in the Scriptures with the liturgy, day in and day out, constantly watering our souls with Gods Word. Isnt it a bit bizarre to be challenging the Church with regards to which Scriptures shes feeding us with? No, mother, the infant cries, not breast milk! I want Ovaltine! Better yet, how about some Sprite!
Think of it this way. My daughter Margaret and I share an intense devotion to Betty Smiths remarkable novel, A Tree Grows in Brooklyn. Its a bittersweet family tale of impoverishment, tragedy, and perseverance, and we often remark how curious it is that Smiths epic story receives so little attention.
I was rooting around the sale shelf at the public library one day, and I happened upon a paperback with the name Betty Smith on the spine. I took a closer look: Joy in the Morning, a 1963 novel of romance and the struggles of newlyweds, and it was indeed by the same Smith of Tree fame. I snatched it up for Meg.
The other day, Meg thanked me for the book, and asked me to be on the lookout for others by Smith. It wasnt nearly as good as Tree, she said, and I dont expect any of her others to be as good. But I want to read everything she wrote because Tree was so wonderful.
See, she wants to get to know Betty Smith because of what she encountered in A Tree Grows in Brooklyn. And all we have are her books and other writings; Betty Smith herself is gone.
But Jesus isnt like that. We have the book, yes, but we have more. We still have the Word himself.
TOPICS: Apologetics; Catholic; Evangelical Christian; Theology
KEYWORDS: apocrypha; bible; calvin; christians; herewegoagain; luther
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To: boatbums
Yet you cannot even identify which books would have been in the Septuagint version in Paul's day. No I cannot. So what? Am I in a police station?
961
posted on
10/08/2014 8:30:55 PM PDT
by
annalex
(fear them not)
To: boatbums; BlueDragon; Springfield Reformer; daniel1212
For Roman Catholics, there is a difference, it appears, between Divine inspiration and canonicity Of course there is, and it is logical. Christ teaches:
I will ask the Father, and he shall give you another Paraclete, that he may abide with you for ever. [...] the Paraclete, the Holy Ghost, whom the Father will send in my name, he will teach you all things, and bring all things to your mind, whatsoever I shall have said to you (John 14:16,26)
This is the nature of Divine Inspiration: it abides with the Holy Catholic Church forever. Caninicity, on the other hand, has a precise definition; one of the criteria of canonicity is its historical anchor, which makes canonical material limited to the Temple Judaism in the Old Testament case.
Can God "inspire" believers to write great works, hymns, works of art? Sure, but that is a different kind of inspiration
I was not talking of artistic inspiration and neither was St. Paul. The passage in focus speaks of sacred texts, not artistry.
962
posted on
10/08/2014 8:39:33 PM PDT
by
annalex
(fear them not)
To: Springfield Reformer
Of course I did not effectively impeach him for bias. To do that I would actually have to read his book and see how he treats the issue of the pre-Nicaean fathers making references to the Deuterocanonical books of the Septuagint. I would also look to understand how the esteemed professor explains the motivation of the “4-5th Century Christians” to write a voluminous historical work on the subject of the struggle of the Maccabees, culminating in heroic refusal to eat pork. Or how the touching epic of Tobit profits specifically Christianity. However, it was your job, not mine. You brought up an assertion that is absurd on its face and the passage you quoted as damning to Roman Catholicism is cooly mentioned in the Catholic Encyclopedia, because of course it does not prove anything, while the writings of the Early Father prove the opposite.
963
posted on
10/08/2014 8:48:44 PM PDT
by
annalex
(fear them not)
To: Elsie
The authority of the Holy Catholic Church is institutional and God given, and is recorded in the Scripture. Yes, we also had bad popes.
964
posted on
10/08/2014 8:50:05 PM PDT
by
annalex
(fear them not)
To: LadyDoc
What? I say a simple formula to get saved? Presto! Halleluyah!
Then I guess I can go around proudy ridiculing everyone since I am saved, not like the rest of you sinners.
of course one sardonic carpenter said not all those who say lord lord will enter the kingdom, but only those who does the work of the father.
Do you agree with Paul?
Rom 10:8-10 (8) But what saith it? The word is nigh thee, even in thy mouth, and in thy heart: that is, the word of faith, which we preach; (9) That if thou shalt confess with thy mouth the Lord Jesus, and shalt believe in thine heart that God hath raised him from the dead, thou shalt be saved. (10) For with the heart man believeth unto righteousness; and with the mouth confession is made unto salvation.
So we
do confess Jesus as Lord, but no such confession means anything if we do not also believe in our heart in the resurrection of Jesus. So your caricature is just that, a shallow misrepresentation of what Protestant faith believes, preaches and practices, no easy formulas, but a heart conviction of the Gospel as true, confirmed by a willingness to publicly acknowledge Jesus as our Savior and the Lord of our lives.
How on earth people get the idea that makes us feel somehow superior ... I am always stunned by such statements. Do you understand what it means to come to the end of the line, spiritually speaking, and realize how utterly lost and unworthy and deserving of hellfire you are, how it leads to tears and humiliation and grief you could put the One who loved you through so much sorrow, and yet there He is reaching down to you, pulling you up from certain doom?
How does one get "proudly ridiculing" out of that? What comes out of that is love for God, love for the family we had been shortchanging, love for our fellow worshipers of God, and love for all those who just don't seem to get what this great gift is all about. But pride? Ridicule? No. We ridicule Satan's lies, yes, but never the people he holds by them. We want the happy ending for everyone.
Peace,
SR
To: annalex
Here is direct translation from Hebrew.
and enmity I put between thee and the woman, and between thy seed and her seed; he doth bruise thee -- the head, and thou dost bruise him -- the heel.'
Notice the second him? That is from a masculine only word.
Now for the first he.
הוּא is masculine and הִיא is feminine. Guess which one is used in Genesis 3:15? Yep!! ה֚וּא
Mary being feminine is not included.
966
posted on
10/08/2014 9:01:49 PM PDT
by
CynicalBear
(For I decided to know nothing among you except Jesus in)
To: annalex; boatbums; BlueDragon; Springfield Reformer; daniel1212
>>and bring all things to your mind,<<
The Greek word does not mean "to your mind" as you seem to be implying. The word means "bring to your remembrance. Are you trying to tell us that your "majesterum" was there with Jesus that they would remember?
967
posted on
10/08/2014 9:10:44 PM PDT
by
CynicalBear
(For I decided to know nothing among you except Jesus in)
To: annalex
>>Yet you cannot even identify which books would have been in the Septuagint version in Paul's day.<<
No I cannot. So what? Am I in a police station? Hey..you were the one who asserted:
The fact remains that St. Paul did not find it necessary to qualify his inspired remark about all scripture in any way, yet surely he was familiar of the existence of the Septuagint.
That's why I replied,
Yet you cannot even identify which books would have been in the Septuagint version in Paul's day. All you do is guess, presume, conjecture and wish - though why anyone would wish for writings from uninspired writers to be comingled with the books Jews AND Christians both consider Divinely-inspired is the REAL question. Can you admit that the MAIN reason is because the Council of Trent said so and you have to stand by them?
No, you cannot what? Admit that Trent attached the Apocrypha/Deuterocanonicals to the Divinely-inspired Old Testament canon and that is why you defend them? Or, no, you cannot identify what Apocryphal books were included in the Septuagint in Paul's day and, therefore, you cannot say with any surety Paul meant any of them were part of sacred inspired Scripture ?
Let's not forget that it was your contention that Paul's use of the phrase "all Scripture is given by inspiration of God" in his letter to Timothy meant the Septuagint - and all the books that were part of it. Seeing as you aren't under oath and giving a deposition, I don't see how asking you to clarify yourself is a negative request. If you can't defend your statement or you want to reword or retract it, by all means please do so.
968
posted on
10/08/2014 9:15:50 PM PDT
by
boatbums
(God is ready to assume full responsibility for the life wholly yielded to Him.)
To: annalex
The post to which I think you are responding, #766, is reproduced here:
***************************
The codices of the LXX that have the deuterocanonicals were the not the immediate product of the Jewish magisterium, but were apparently the result of 4th-5th Century Christian scholarship. See Roger Beckwith here (also see his book, The Old Testament Canon of the New Testament Church: and its Background in Early Judaism):
http://www.biblicalstudies.org.uk/pdf/evangel/04-1_012.pdf
So Timothys OT was, best we know, absent the deuterocanonicals, and your claim for their inspiration cannot be substantiated.
Peace,
SR
***************************
So I need some clarification here. Because you didn’t spell it out, I am assuming the “absurd on it’s face” assertion to which you refer is that Timothy’s OT didn’t have the deuterocanonicals, therefore your argument for their inspiration is unsubstantiated. Am I understanding you correctly in this? Or were you referring to some other assertion?
Because if you say you have not impeached Beckwith, how can his conclusion be regarded as facially absurd? If Beckwith’s testimony stands, so does the assertion. Facial absurdity would be something like, “the moon is made of green cheese.” We know too much to accept that as even a remote possibility. But the forgoing assertion about Timothy’s OT is at least as plausible as yours, and much more plausible than yours if you fail to dislogdge Beckwith.
Now I say all of this in the uncertainty that I’ve even understood you. Nevertheless, this is my best understanding of what you were trying to say. Please feel free to add the necessary specifics so I can give a less befuddled response on the next go-around. :)
Peace,
SR
To: Springfield Reformer
dislogdge => dislodge, oops ...
To: editor-surveyor
Everyone thinks that verse means someone else.
And...
a LOT of people seem to think that verse means someTHING else!
971
posted on
10/09/2014 3:09:57 AM PDT
by
Elsie
( Heck is where people, who don't believe in Gosh, think they are not going...)
To: dsc
972
posted on
10/09/2014 3:10:53 AM PDT
by
Elsie
( Heck is where people, who don't believe in Gosh, think they are not going...)
To: metmom
It's just a diversionary tactic and one used by the RCC to convince its followers that they can't understand Scripture and thus to keep them away from simply reading and following it.
2 Corinthians 1:13-14
For we do not write you anything you cannot read or understand. And I hope that, as you have understood us in part, you will come to understand fully that you can boast of us just as we will boast of you in the day of the Lord Jesus.
973
posted on
10/09/2014 3:15:12 AM PDT
by
Elsie
( Heck is where people, who don't believe in Gosh, think they are not going...)
To: Rumplemeyer
No, as a Catholic I pray for the dead... .
.
.
Anything else you do not understand?
Yes...
WHY?
Ecclesiastes 9:1-6
1 But all this I laid to heart, examining it all, how the righteous and the wise and their deeds are in the hand of God. Whether it is love or hate, man does not know; both are before him.
2 It is the same for all, since the same event happens
to the righteous and the wicked,
to the good and the evil,
to the clean and the unclean,
to him who sacrifices and him who does not sacrifice.
As the good one is, so is the sinner, and
he who swears is as he who shuns an oath.
3 This is an evil in all that is done under the sun, that the same event happens to all. Also, the hearts of the children of man are full of evil, and madness is in their hearts while they live, and after that they go to the dead. 4 But he who is joined with all the living has hope, for a living dog is better than a dead lion.
5 For the living know that they will die, but the dead know nothing, and they have no more reward, for the memory of them is forgotten. 6 Their love and their hate and their envy have already perished, and forever they have no more share in all that is done under the sun.
974
posted on
10/09/2014 3:19:11 AM PDT
by
Elsie
( Heck is where people, who don't believe in Gosh, think they are not going...)
To: annalex
It is good to read the Holy Bible every once in a while before opining about it. Then when you get to reply #926, you may want to re-think your statement:
The point remains that however you render it, Mary is right there in the context in which the crushing occurs.
975
posted on
10/09/2014 3:22:33 AM PDT
by
Elsie
( Heck is where people, who don't believe in Gosh, think they are not going...)
To: annalex
Am I in a police station?No; a courtroom.
Certain charges have been leveled; and they MUST be dealt with.
976
posted on
10/09/2014 3:24:25 AM PDT
by
Elsie
( Heck is where people, who don't believe in Gosh, think they are not going...)
To: annalex
I will ask the Father, and he shall give you another Paraclete, that he may abide with you for ever.Wait, wait, WAIT!!!
Where does Mary fit in here?
977
posted on
10/09/2014 3:25:33 AM PDT
by
Elsie
( Heck is where people, who don't believe in Gosh, think they are not going...)
To: annalex
The authority of the Holy Catholic Church is institutional and God given, and is recorded in the Scripture. Yeah, the way ROME has managed to INSERT itself into 'scripture' is quite a sight to behold.
978
posted on
10/09/2014 3:26:43 AM PDT
by
Elsie
( Heck is where people, who don't believe in Gosh, think they are not going...)
To: Elsie
5 For the living know that they will die, but the dead know nothing, and they have no more reward, for the memory of them is forgotten.Solomon; the wisest man on earth; SURELY (sorry...) trumps the Great Minds of the church based in Rome.
979
posted on
10/09/2014 3:29:58 AM PDT
by
Elsie
( Heck is where people, who don't believe in Gosh, think they are not going...)
To: CynicalBear
“Snicker”
Now *there’s* a reasoned, rational reply, just dripping with Christian charity.
980
posted on
10/09/2014 8:51:27 AM PDT
by
dsc
(Any attempt to move a government to the left is a crime against humanity.)
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