Protestants: Please explain to me what gave Martin Luther the power to remove books?

Epiphoskei said:

Not at all, it simply says such cannot be done on the basis of traditions or authority of men.

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The article you provided appeals to specific ECFs. Who do you believe compiled the canon you have today?

Epiphoskei said:

The deuterocanon was in the Septuagint, yes, however that doesn't indicate its books were considered canon.

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To try to apply the word or concept 'canon' back onto the Jewish understanding of scripture at all is somewhat anachronistic. They had a clear idea that some writings were scripture, and that some writings were not scripture, but trying to make definitive lists of which is and which is not is somewhat of a later Christian idea. Arguably we should use the word 'canon' only for the New Testament and stop pretending that the Old is defined in anything like the same way.

The question at the beginning of the thread assumes something that simply didn't happen. Luther's Bible contained the Apocryphal books. He set them apart but they were there and I think just about every Lutheran Bible printed in German still contains them. The KJV contained the Apocrypha as well. But there was no ecumenical council that settled the matter of what should be included and what should not be. Christians were all agreed (generally speaking) that the Hebrew canon of the OT and the Gospels and writings of Paul in the NT were part of the canon but disagreed on other books throughout history. Luther was certainly not the first to question these books. It was not until the Council of Trent that any dogmatic proclamation was made regarding which books were canonical for the Roman Catholic Church. The EO have a larger canon stil. Lutherans still do not have an official list of books but follow the ancient practice of accepting the universally accepted books and allowing for disagreement on the disputed books. We do not forbid them but do not use them to establish doctrine. I think a big problem within Protestantism is the way in which they view all books as absolutely equal and so you have all the Left Behind nonsense and all the sects. Liturgical churches thoughout history have rightly shown the greatest reverence to the Gospels and have used them as their starting point for doctrine.

MrPolo said:

The article you provided appeals to specific ECFs. Who do you believe compiled the canon you have today?

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Citations of ECFs, not appealing to their authority, but noting their differences.

I agree with Ebia that to speak about the canonization of the Old Testament at all is anachronistic. Whether a book of the Old Testament was considered scriptural depends not on the authority of men to canonize a book is scripture, but on God's revelation that the book is scripture. Because the only criterion for scripturality is God's choice to inspire a book of scripture, God can be the only "compiler" of any list of scripture. In the case of the OT works in question, neither Christ nor the apostles ever quote the deuterocanon, which indicates to us that they adhered to the contemporary Jewish understanding that the deuterocanon is not scripture.

Epiphoskei said:

Citations of ECFs, not appealing to their authority, but noting their differences.

I agree with Ebia that to speak about the canonization of the Old Testament at all is anachronistic. Whether a book of the Old Testament was considered scriptural depends not on the authority of men to canonize a book is scripture, but on God's revelation that the book is scripture. Because the only criterion for scripturality is God's choice to inspire a book of scripture, God can be the only "compiler" of any list of scripture. In the case of the OT works in question, neither Christ nor the apostles ever quote the deuterocanon, which indicates to us that they adhered to the contemporary Jewish understanding that the deuterocanon is not scripture.

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You keep speaking to the variations of the ECFs on Scripture as if that damns the Catholic understanding. But as a Catholic we have ways to sort that out, just like the Apostles and elders did in Acts 15 when there was not unanimity on the issue of circumcision.

And properly speaking, it is of course the Spirit operating through Christ's ministers, not men instead of God, and there we agree. No one is saying we should follow "man's" list of what goes in the Bible instead of God's. The Bible assembled by the early Church IS God's list.

However, I do not understand how a Protestant can argue in favor of or against any book being in Scripture without appealing to a specific person or persons somewhere in history as having been given God's revelation as to what's in Scripture. And on what basis does a Protestant accept one person's list of books over another? The only answer I typically get is this generic "well the early Church generally rejected the Deuterocanon", which begs for names, or councils or some evidence, of which I see very little. As well, that answer gives the "early Church" authority.

And of course you know that the Deuterocanon has some very strong allusions to it in the NT, some of which is even a paraphrase of a Deutero. And of course you know that neither Christ nor the apostles ever quote Song of Songs, Ecclesiastes, Esther, Obadiah, Zephaniah, Judges, 1 Chronicles, Ezra, Nehemiah, Lamentations and Nahum. And they DO quote from Enoch and the Assumption of Moses which aren't Scripture. In other words, quotation does not make or break a book's status as Scripture.

wildboar said:

It was not until the Council of Trent that any dogmatic proclamation was made regarding which books were canonical for the Roman Catholic Church.

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An observation here. Although Trent gave the strongest "dogmatic" language that took away any doubt that these books were those accepted by the Catholic Church, local councils throughout history were pretty consistent in including the Deuterocanons including from Carthage and Hippo in the 4th-5th centuries (some also include a Synod of Rome in the 4th century, although some consider that merely a decree by Damasus and not a synod) all the way until the ecumenical Council of Florence in 1442 (Session 11) before Luther was even alive which also asserted the Deuterocanon as Scripture. As you know, a dogmatic definition is often not made until there is a serious challenge to an already held doctrine. We saw this even in the early Church when Christ's Incarnation was challenged, or the Trinity, or Mary as Theotokos, etc...

MrPolo said:

You keep speaking to the variations of the ECFs on Scripture as if that damns the Catholic understanding. But as a Catholic we have ways to sort that out, just like the Apostles and elders did in Acts 15 when there was not unanimity on the issue of circumcision.

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That's fine, but that's not a catholic/universal tradition. It was done by council. Trent, to be precise.

MrPolo said:

And properly speaking, it is of course the Spirit operating through Christ's ministers, not men instead of God, and there we agree. No one is saying we should follow "man's" list of what goes in the Bible instead of God's. The Bible assembled by the early Church IS God's list.

However, I do not understand how a Protestant can argue in favor of or against any book being in Scripture without appealing to a specific person or persons somewhere in history as having been given God's revelation as to what's in Scripture. And on what basis does a Protestant accept one person's list of books over another? The only answer I typically get is this generic "well the early Church generally rejected the Deuterocanon", which begs for names, or councils or some evidence, of which I see very little. As well, that answer gives the "early Church" authority.

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We all agree the books of the New Testament were more or less universally recieved. If you start with a belief that an authoritative list requires an authoritative body to write it up, you get a Roman understanding of the Canon. But you can just as easily argue from a universal reception that God made the books intrinsically identifiable, which is a Reformed view of the New Testament Canon.

In the matter of the Old Testament, however, there was never a universally recieved canon. The opinions are simply too varied. Therefore we go with the list that the New Testament presumes. The New Testament never quotes the deuterocanon, and given the fact that second temple Judaism did not treat the deuterocanon on the same level as the non-apocryphal books, it cannot be reasonably asserted that the Apostles accepted the Apocrypha. It just happened to be part of the septuagint, and over time Christians could not differentiate between scripture and deuterocanon because their volumes were not divided.

MrPolo said:

And of course you know that the Deuterocanon has some very strong allusions to it in the NT, some of which is even a paraphrase of a Deutero. And of course you know that neither Christ nor the apostles ever quote Song of Songs, Ecclesiastes, Esther, Obadiah, Zephaniah, Judges, 1 Chronicles, Ezra, Nehemiah, Lamentations and Nahum. And they DO quote from Enoch and the Assumption of Moses which aren't Scripture. In other words, quotation does not make or break a book's status as Scripture.

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Dubious allusions, and certainly no clear paraphrase (if there can be such a thing). But on the matter of canonical books being unquoted, by the time of the first century, the various books had already been split down the middle into scripture and apocrypha. The problem is not that one or two apocryphal books are uncited in the New Testament, the problem is they are wholesale absent.

But on the matter of canonical books being unquoted, by the time of the first century, the various books had already been split down the middle into scripture and apocrypha.

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Sorry? Where's your evidence for this well defined divide existing in the first century?

Second Temple period literature contains references to the Torah and Neviim (the Law and the Prophets, a phrase even appearing in the New Testament) which are used contextually to refer to a specific set of books. Since we know that no later than about 200 A.D. the Hebrew Bible was finalized under the title "the Law, the Prophets, and the Writings," or the Tanakh, this earlier "canon" (for lack of a better term) should be viewed as growing into the later canon. We know the Tanakh never contained the deuterocanon. This presents us with two possible reconstructions of history: "the law and the prophets" contained the deuterocanon but lost them for no apparent reason, or they never contained the deuterocanon. The latter is more reasonable.

In addition, Josephus writes that the Jews only accept twenty two books. The Tanakh later contains twenty four books by their system of counting. Various reconstructions of Josephus's list have been suggested because he does not list the books, but at minimum we must say it represents a highly selective canon, indicating first century Judaism had a notion that of the large number of books in circulation, only a few made the cut. And if that is the case, we must presume it represents more or less the same list of books that made the cut no more than 150 years later.

God made the books intrinsically identifiable

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Intrinsically identifiable to whom? Having read the book I identify the Wisdom of Solomon as being divinely inspired. Do you have to accept it as part of the canon now? Without some authority other than our own perception of the book it seems we would be at an impass?

We were speaking in that case about those things universally recieved, not the deuterocanon. In the case of the Old Testament apocrypha, it's a simple historical fact they don't belong to the scriptures Christ used.

That being said, the argument that different perceptions render no perception identifiably true through thorough investigation has to rest on the notion of the futility of reason, the belief that the mind cannot determine truth through inquiry. This is essentially the same kind of epistomology as in Postmodernism. Now if that is the case, then game over. There's not even any point in arguing over the canon. Even if there is an authority, we could never know who it was to trust it, because, to paraphrase your objection, without some authority other than our own to identify who constitutes authority, we are at the same impass.

Epiphoskei said:

Second Temple period literature contains references to the Torah and Neviim (the Law and the Prophets, a phrase even appearing in the New Testament) which are used contextually to refer to a specific set of books. Since we know that no later than about 200 A.D. the Hebrew Bible was finalized under the title "the Law, the Prophets, and the Writings," or the Tanakh, this earlier "canon" (for lack of a better term) should be viewed as growing into the later canon. We know the Tanakh never contained the deuterocanon. This presents us with two possible reconstructions of history: "the law and the prophets" contained the deuterocanon but lost them for no apparent reason, or they never contained the deuterocanon. The latter is more reasonable.

In addition, Josephus writes that the Jews only accept twenty two books. The Tanakh later contains twenty four books by their system of counting. Various reconstructions of Josephus's list have been suggested because he does not list the books, but at minimum we must say it represents a highly selective canon, indicating first century Judaism had a notion that of the large number of books in circulation, only a few made the cut. And if that is the case, we must presume it represents more or less the same list of books that made the cut no more than 150 years later.

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Unless I'm misreading it, your argument assumes that they were each cut and dried, well defined lists by the 1st century and its an all or nothing affair, but that's precisely what you are being asked to show and your comment from Josephus seems to contradict.

That they had a clear idea of scripture is clear, but it actually seems to have become only a tightly defined thing after and in response to the rise of Christianity and then Christians (and to some extent Jews) try to read that back their way of doing things onto an earlier age.

What we have is 40 odd books, many of which are quoted in the New Testament, and some others appear alluded to with varying degrees of confidence, and some not at all. You can't use an argument like "the deuterocanonical books are not referenced at all, therefore none of them are canonical, there are quotes from some of the 39 books, therefore they are all canonical", until after one has shown that each is a set containing the books you claim or your argument is circular.

Mr. Polo said:

Although Trent gave the strongest "dogmatic" language that took away any doubt that these books were those accepted by the Catholic Church, local councils throughout history were pretty consistent in including the Deuterocanons including from Carthage and Hippo in the 4th-5th centuries (some also include a Synod of Rome in the 4th century, although some consider that merely a decree by Damasus and not a synod) all the way until the ecumenical Council of Florence in 1442 (Session 11) before Luther was even alive which also asserted the Deuterocanon as Scripture. As you know, a dogmatic definition is often not made until there is a serious challenge to an already held doctrine. We saw this even in the early Church when Christ's Incarnation was challenged, or the Trinity, or Mary as Theotokos, etc...

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I do not regard the Council of Florence as Ecumenical since it occurred after the great schism. But I also do not believe that its decrees in regards to the canon of Scripture were regarded as infallible even by the Roman church. People continued to question the deuterocanonical books after the council and were regarded as orthodox. As the Catholic Encyclopedia says:

In the Latin Church, all through the Middle Ages we find evidence of hesitation about the character of the deuterocanonicals. There is a current friendly to them, another one distinctly unfavourable to their authority and sacredness, while wavering between the two are a number of writers whose veneration for these books is tempered by some perplexity as to their exact standing, and among those we note St. Thomas Aquinas. Few are found to unequivocally acknowledge their canonicity. The prevailing attitude of Western medieval authors is substantially that of the Greek Fathers. The chief cause of this phenomenon in the West is to be sought in the influence, direct and indirect, of St. Jerome's depreciating Prologus. The compilatory "Glossa Ordinaria" was widely read and highly esteemed as a treasury of sacred learning during the Middle Ages; it embodied the prefaces in which the Doctor of Bethlehem had written in terms derogatory to the deuteros, and thus perpetuated and diffused his unfriendly opinion.

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Epiphoskei said:

second temple Judaism did not treat the deuterocanon on the same level as the non-apocryphal books

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There you go citing certain people as the authority again... And I support you for doing so, although I disagree with your other conclusions that beg for evidence.

Merry Christmas, all.

wildboar said:

I do not regard the Council of Florence as Ecumenical since it occurred after the great schism. But I also do not believe that its decrees in regards to the canon of Scripture were regarded as infallible even by the Roman church. People continued to question the deuterocanonical books after the council and were regarded as orthodox. As the Catholic Encyclopedia says:

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Then you don't consider Trent ecumenical either...

If you research the matter, what the Catholic Encyclopedia eludes to is the influence of Jerome on the canon. I would object to the Catholic Encyclopedia (which is really hit or miss sometimes...I use it sparingly and it's no wonder I've never seen a member of the clergy high or low cite it. It is best used as a starting point and follow the references therein.) that "few" considered them canonical in the Middle Ages (canonical in the modern sense). That claim is unfounded and I could name names if necessary.

At any rate, even if the CE was right, there remains debate as to what goes in the Bible unto today among Christian sects, no? People still question the canon after Trent because they don't regard Trent as having any authority. So it doesn't mean Florence wasn't authoritative just because there were skeptics after that. They thus must appeal to some other authority, however.... They say it's not Carthage, Hippo, Florence, Trent, et al.... it's someone else... Often that someone is just "God", but we are not told to whom or how He revealed it...

ebia said:

Unless I'm misreading it, your argument assumes that they were each cut and dried, well defined lists by the 1st century and its an all or nothing affair, but that's precisely what you are being asked to show and your comment from Josephus seems to contradict.

That they had a clear idea of scripture is clear, but it actually seems to have become only a tightly defined thing after and in response to the rise of Christianity and then Christians (and to some extent Jews) try to read that back their way of doing things onto an earlier age.

What we have is 40 odd books, many of which are quoted in the New Testament, and some others appear alluded to with varying degrees of confidence, and some not at all. You can't use an argument like "the deuterocanonical books are not referenced at all, therefore none of them are canonical, there are quotes from some of the 39 books, therefore they are all canonical", until after one has shown that each is a set containing the books you claim or your argument is circular.

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The Jews at the time of Christ had distinguished between "scripture" and "not scripture." I think I can say from what you've written we agree here. I'm not saying the lists had been tightly defined yet, I'm saying the notion that there exists a distinction between scripture and non-scripture during the first century, and that the Hebrew "canon," "the Law and the Prophets," while not perfectly defined yet as the modern Hebrew Tanakh, cannot have contained the apocryphal books. If they did, they would have to fall out of use despite the same kind of constant exposure to them in the septuagint that finally caused Christians to accept them as canon, and moreover, for every book like Maccabees included in Josephus's canon, a book like Jeremiah would have to have been omitted to make just 22. This would in turn demand that certain books of the Hebrew canon were not considered scripture until after the second century. With the possible exception of Esther, I cannot think of any book for which an argument can be made that it became scripture in the second century.

Now Christ and the Apostles endorsed "The Law and the Prophets" and used the term interchangeably with "the scripture." While the fuzzy nature of exactly what that term means leaves us a few open questions, it does not allow us to add to it the deuterocanon.

Epiphoskei ,

Generally when I discuss things like this with people who reject the said books their rejection seems to be more based on the tradition of their Church than any direct revelation from God revealing to them which books are actually inspired. I have nothing against following tradition but it's kind of silly when people try to deny that their Churches tradition is their main reason for accepting the canon they follow when in most cases it is*.

If the books which should be canonical are intrinsically identifiable I'm assuming this would require divine revelation for one to recognize these identifying characteristics correct? I don't trust my own powers of discernment enough to try to personally formulate my own canon of scripture barring some sort of obvious and non-controvertible communication directly from God. Thankfully God left us the Church which is the pillar and ground of truth and not just a book so I'm not stuck doing this all on my own.

the belief that the mind cannot determine truth through inquiry.

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The mind can find certain truths through inquiry. I wouldn't debate that. Certain truths ( particularly The Truth-Christ) can NOT be found through inquiry however. Rational inquiry can at best lead us to the non-existent God of the philosophers. He must manifest Himself to us Person to person. One must be truth in order to understand certain truths. The Holy Spirit is necessary for this.

* This may not be the case with you and I'm open to being proven wrong. Maybe you do believe you have been gifted with revelation from God as to the proper nature of the canon or maybe you have some rational methods you have personally applied to arrive at the canon you use after having reviewed each verse of every book in that manner.

You're creating a false dilemma between infallable tradition and no tradition. There's nothing wrong with a church establishing a normative tradition, as long as it is open to reform should it prove to be deformed. In this case, the tradition of the canon is affirmed because no one has ever disputed the indisputed books, and the case for the disputed books is not corroborated by what we know from the Second Temple period, nor are they endorsed by the New Testament. But of course, this isn't an authoritative tradition, and the matter would still have to be open for review if any good reason came to light to doubt our cause for excluding the deuterocanon. But the more we learn about the Second Temple period, the les that becomes likely. There's no evidence the Law and the Prophets ever contained the deuterocanonical books.

Epiphoskei said:

The Jews at the time of Christ had distinguished between "scripture" and "not scripture." I think I can say from what you've written we agree here. I'm not saying the lists had been tightly defined yet, I'm saying the notion that there exists a distinction between scripture and non-scripture during the first century, and that the Hebrew "canon," "the Law and the Prophets," while not perfectly defined yet as the modern Hebrew Tanakh, cannot have contained the apocryphal books. If they did, they would have to fall out of use despite the same kind of constant exposure to them in the septuagint that finally caused Christians to accept them as canon, and moreover, for every book like Maccabees included in Josephus's canon, a book like Jeremiah would have to have been omitted to make just 22. This would in turn demand that certain books of the Hebrew canon were not considered scripture until after the second century. With the possible exception of Esther, I cannot think of any book for which an argument can be made that it became scripture in the second century.

Now Christ and the Apostles endorsed "The Law and the Prophets" and used the term interchangeably with "the scripture." While the fuzzy nature of exactly what that term means leaves us a few open questions, it does not allow us to add to it the deuterocanon.

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Okay, now I understand what you are saying much more clearly.

I don't think it takes adequate account of a fuzzily defined idea become a tightly defined one.

In this case, the tradition of the canon is affirmed because no one has ever disputed the indisputed books

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They haven't ? Theodore of Mopsuestia rejected the Song of Solomon and the book of Job as canonical. Marcion rejected ALL of the OT books as canonical for that matter.

as long as it is open to reform should it prove to be deformed

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.

How has the tradition of including those books been proven deformed?