Question about the limited Catholic Canon

I'm going to add this at the beginning: http://www.bible-researcher.com/
It's a good site to read up on some Canon issue stuff.

Basically, Canon issues are always messy and complicated because you are diving into a world 2000 years old. Jesus and the Apostles would have been grounded in the Jewish context of what the canon was, this would be broken into smaller groups that may have had diverging opinions of what was scripture. Moreover, the idea of canon as we understand it today may not have existed in the exact same way back then. For instance, there is evidence that the Jews of that time period accepted a wider variety of texts as authoritative than most Christian groups do today.

It would be helpful to look at scholarly books that introduce textual criticism of the Old and New Testaments to get a fuller picture, but basically there are a number of Septuagints, not just one, and they were not the only texts used. There is the Proto-Masoretic text, and these would even have variations depending on location (ie. Alexandria vs Jerusalem vs Babylon), and these texts would have been Greek, or Hebrew, or Aramaic, and would be in individual scrolls, not necessary in codex form.

Basically we don't have a 100% reconstruction of the canon that Jesus and the Apostles would have accepted (although they and the early Christians seem less interested in which manuscripts or version to use than say the Jews) it probably would have included some books that some later Christian groups would reject. I think most Christian groups have some form of consistency as well as elements that are inconsistent with the canon of the First Century (using Canon for convenience sake). But I think it isn't too big of a deal since the debate over what books are canonical and which ones aren't is really determined by the community who is using them, just look at the Ethiopic Orthodox or Coptic canon vs Protestant canon.

Colabomb said:

(I am looking for a history of the Catholic old testament, I know most posters here are probably believers in the smaller protestant Canon, but I ask if possible can we avoid making this a pro/anti apocrypha debate?)

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There is no such thing as a "Catholic Old Testament". And a pro/anti apocrypha debate is unavoidable. BTW the Bible of Jesus and His Jewish contemporaries was NOT the Septuagint, which was in Greek and corrupted, and used by the Hellenistic Jews outside of Judea. The Jews in Judea rejected the Apocrypha (Hebrew Sepharim Genuzim = hidden books) as being canonical, and Jerome (who translated the Vulgate) fully understood this and accepted it. See The Life and Times of Jesus the Messiah by Alfred Edersheim (a Hebrew Christian who thoroughly researched his book).

Colabomb said:

Which is why their (Jesus, Paul, etc) quotations better match the greek than the masoretic?

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That is a widely held assumption. When translating from Hebrew to Greek one should expect that two translations would be very close and frequently identical. But you will also note that the Holy Spirit departs from the exact Hebrew wording in many quotations from the OT. It is God's prerogative to make adjustments to His own words if He so chooses. What we know for facts is that (a) the Greek Septuagint was not only corrupted but included apocryphal books which were not regarded as Scripture by the Jews in Judea and (2) the Lord and His apostles were using the Hebrew Bible which eventually became the Masoretic Text.

Colabomb said:

This makes a lot of sense, I understand the Septuagint, being manuscripts, were not uniform, but I was under the impression most copies had most of the same books. Is this not the case?

Secondly are you aware of any reasons trent accepted the books they accepted and omitted the books they omitted? Trent as I understand it mentioned using the vulgate as a standard, but didn't list all books of the vulgate(which in my limited understanding is much more standardized than the Septuagint, even printed by that point?).

History of the scriptures is an interest of mine, and I've always been confused by Trent's list I admit.

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The copies of the LXX would have mostly the same books, but what was in those books might be different than you expect. Take Jeremiah for example, there are a number of different traditions of that book, some of which are a lot shorter than the Jeremiah you would know, some other traditions include non-Biblical material as canon as a part of the Jeremiah-corpus. So each LXX version would have the same books (give or take a few fringe-canonical ones) but could have altered content within those books as well.

At Trent, the Catholic Church wanted to combat the Reformation so they issued a new version of the Vulgate (later called the Clementine Vulgate), and this version removed the books that you mentioned in your opening post. So that is probably the answer to your question, it is that the Catholics issued a new edition and this one removed those books in Jerome's edition. As to why they were removed, I don't know, it would be an interesting study though.

Colabomb said:

I'm an odd protestant in that I'm very sympathetic to arguments in favor to the canonicity of the apocrypha/deuterocanon (I'm an Anglican, we have an interesting history with those books).

However when Roman Catholic apologists defend their Canon against the protestant Canon, they almost always appeal to the Septuagint, correctly stating that this was the "bible" of Jesus, the apostles and the earliest church fathers and contained books not found in the Hebrew Canon. However the Canon defined at Trent is smaller than the Septuagint, not including 3rd/4th maccabees, 1st/2nd esdras (as found in the kjv apocrypha, not Ezra/Neh) And the 151st psalm. I know Trent referred primarily to the vulgate not the Septuagint, but it still begs the question what about the bible of Jesus and the apostles?

It seems the Orthodox/protestants have a more consistent Canon (pinning their canons to the septuagint/masoretic) and Rome seems to have a bit of a hybrid bible, neither the old testament of the first church nor of modern Judaism. What led to this?

(I am looking for a history of the Catholic old testament, I know most posters here are probably believers in the smaller protestant Canon, but I ask if possible can we avoid making this a pro/anti apocrypha debate?)

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Hello there!

Although lists of Old Testament books appear in the writings of a number of Church Fathers, the Canon of the Old Testament was formally set, albeit indirectly, for the Universal Church (i.e. before the separation of/from Rome) at the Seventh Ecumenical Council in 787.

I say indirectly, because in addition to establishing the 22 Canons of the 7th Ecumenical Council proper, it also ratified the Canons of certain earlier local councils. One of these councils was the 3rd Council of Carthage of 397, which enumerated the following books as comprising the Old Testament in its 24th Canon, listed in the order that they appear in the Canon:

Genesis
Exodus
Leviticus
Numbers
Deuteronomy
Joshua
Judges
Ruth
I Kings (I Samuel)
II Kings (2 Samuel)
III Kings (I Kings)
IV Kings (II Kings)
I Chronicles
II Chronicles
Job
Psalms
Proverbs
Ecclesiastes
Song of Songs (Song of Solomon)
Wisdom of Solomon
Wisdom of Sirach
Hosea
Amos
Micah
Joel
Obadiah
Jonah
Nahum
Habakkuk
Zephaniah
Haggai
Zechariah
Malachi
Isaiah
Jeremiah (which included Baruch, the Epistle of Jeremiah, and Lamentations)
Ezekiel
Daniel
Tobit
Judith
Esther
I Ezra
II Ezra (which included Nehemiah)
I Maccabees
II Maccabees

The Seventh Ecumenical Council also formally accepted the Canons of the Council of Trullo, that took place in 697. This Council, in turn, in its 2nd Canon, had accepted the authority so-called Apostolic Canons. The Apostolic Canons have an indistinct origin, probably written over a period prior to 300 AD, but they were definitely accepted by the Church as Apostolic doctrine.

Canon 85 of the Apostolic Canons enumerated the same list of books as the Council of Carthage with the following exceptions:

(a) It included III Maccabees, which was not listed in Canon 24 of the Council of Carthage
(b) It did not list the Wisdom of Solomon, which does appear in Canon 24 of the Council of Carthage
(c) It does not explicitly list the Wisdom of Sirach (Ecclesiasticus) with the other books, but recommends "to teach your young persons the Wisdom of the very learned Sirach" (which is similar to the advice that St. Athanasius gave regarding both the Wisdom of Solomon and the Wisdom of Sirach).

The Old Testament Canon established at the Council of Carthage, with the addition of III Maccabees (in accordance with the Apostolic Canons) is essentially the Canon in use in the Eastern Orthodox Church today. I believe that the Church of Rome did not recognize or fully recognize the Council of Trullo and/or the Seventh Ecumenical Council, which may account for why III Maccabees is in the Eastern Orthodox Canon, but not the Roman Catholic Canon, but I am not sure.

Other books that one might consider (e.g. IV Maccabees, Enoch) show up in the canons of various non-Chalcedonian Orthodox Churches, but to my knowledge these books were never acknowledged through any of the Seven Ecumenical Councils.

I will have to defer to my Roman Catholic brothers and sisters for the history of the canon in the Church of Rome following the Great Schism in the 11th century.