Your view of the "apocrypha"

Good Day,

I say the historical church's view represented here in Jerome's writings is one that I can affirm.

What say you?

Jerome's preface to the books of Solomon

As the Church reads the books of Judith and Tobit and Maccabees but does not receive them among the canonical Scriptures, so also it reads Wisdom and Ecclesiasticus for the edification of the people, not for the authoritative confirmation of doctrine."

In Him,

Bill

SuperCow said:

At the very least, I think the efforts to remove 1 & 2 Maccabees were misguided.

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Good Day, SuperCow


When historically has these books been considered "canonical" in the strictest sense?

Who lead this effort and when?

In Him,

Bill

Bob Crowley said:

I'm Catholic, but I decided to have a sticky beak in the Baptist section as my wife is Baptist.

On the business of the "Apocrypha" or "Deutero-Canonical" books, there's a link here which gives a fairly good rundown on the issue, but I'll admit it's mainly from a Catholic background.

Why Does the Roman Catholic Church Accept the Books of the Old Testament Apocrypha (The Deuterocanonical Books) as Holy Scripture? by Don Stewart

In a nutshell, the Catholic Church claims that at the time of Christ -

1. The Jews didn't have a fixed canon. There were several competing canons, the Pharisees, Saducees and Essenes just to name three. The Alexandrian Jews appeared to have a wider canon than the Palestinian Jews.

As an aside, at a Bible teaching session given by our Archbishop a few years ago, he remarked "Scripture gives the Pharisees a bad press. But don't be fooled! They were closer to the Christian ethos than any of the other Jewish sects" (or words to that effect). Apparently the Pharisees' choice of books was closest to our own OT canon.

From the link -



2. Much of the New Testament is quoted from the Septuagint, which was written in Greek, and included the deutero-canonical books.

3. There are references in other New Testament books which indicate the writers were familiar with the D-C books.

4. The Church claimed that it, and not the Jews who had rejected Christ should determine which books should be included, and which should be rejected.

Finally if you're going to say this book is inspired, and that one isn't, then you need to be able to say by what authority you're making the decision.

In closing, I'd just suggest reading the link.

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Good Day, Bob Crowley

Thanks for your input.

Much of what you have posted here IMHO lacks any credence historically. What we have here is the parroted name it claim it fallacy of the Roman Catholic denomination.

Jerome gives us quite clearly the view of the Church in his day...

Now I understand as a post Trent ( where the Roman denomination set it's own Canon) member of the Roman church you have a slanted view of History. I BTW have no issue with your church setting it's own Canon for it's members to follow, but I am not a member of the Roman church so it is of little use to me.

I think historically Trent was in error.

Jerome explicitly says: " as The Church" it is clear what did and how they viewed these books.

Now you may view them different, but I think you have made a mistake in doing so.

Th Err is Human.

As the Church reads the books of Judith and Tobit and Maccabees but does not receive them among the canonical Scriptures, so also it reads Wisdom and Ecclesiasticus for the edification of the people, not for the authoritative confirmation of doctrine."

Hebrew OT- Josephus


Our books, those which are justly accredited, are but two and twenty, and contain the record of all time. Of these, five are the books of Moses. . . . The prophets subsequent to Moses wrote the history of the events of their own times in thirteen books [Joshua, Judges-Ruth, Samuel, Kings, Isaiah, Jeremiah-Lamentations, Ezekiel, the twelve minor prophets considered as one, Job, Daniel, Ezra-Nehemiah [considered as one], Chronicles, Esther]. The remaining four books contain hymns to God and precepts for the conduct of human life [Psalm, Proverbs, Ecclesiastes, Song of Songs]. [As for the apocryphal books] From Artaxerxes to our own time the complete history has been written but has not been deemed worthy of equal credit with the earlier records, because of the failure of the exact succession of the prophets. We have given practical proof of our reverence for our own Scriptures. For, although such long ages have now passed, no one has ventured either to add, or to remove, or to alter a syllable. And it is the instinct with every Jew, from the day of his birth, to regard them as the decrees of God. [Against Apion 1:37-42]





In Him,

Bill

SuperCow said:

I agree with #1a and #2. I don't think the Pharisees got bad press, they are portrayed accurately. They followed the law (probably better than the Sadducees anyway), but they were very hypocritical and corrupt in how they did it which is what Jesus condemned them for.

I've seen what people use as evidence for #3, and it's very weak speculation at best. And #4 is completely irrelevant. A church can claim whatever authority it wants. That doesn't mean they're entitled to it.

That being said, I don't think that just because Martin Luther decided to reject 10 books, he was entitled to do that either. Obviously later, he was overruled on 3 of them. Some Ethiopian Orthodox bibles have 81 books. On who's authority? Obviously their own, otherwise other church's bibles would contain them too.

The apostles and prophets have provided their knowledge from the inspiration of God. The churches of the early Christian Church tried to figure out what to use as canon. The first is inspired, the second is not. It is only the best educated guess of what is inspired, correct or the intended word of God. If I was to find out irrefutably that Chronicles were not inspired, but just a rehash of other scribes historical scrolls, it wouldn't shake my faith any. Likewise if (as I have come to believe is a possibility) the book of Job turns out to be a parable rather than literal history, it wouldn't make the book any less valuable as an inspired work.

God inspired us all in some way, even if all we are capable of doing is raise our children as good human beings, or paying good deeds to others. The problem is that most of us spend our lives not noticing or rejecting the inspiration. I think in the end, whether we are judged righteous or not, we will still find that most of us knew a lot less than we thought we did.

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Good Day, SuperCow

Martin Luther rejected 10 books....?
Overruled on three by whom?

Do you have any historical primary source for these things?

You will also find the His Roman counterpart Cardinal Cajetan had some of the same concerns as Luther so he was not alone historically.

One of the better foundational research on this issue can be found here:


Luther and the canon 3

In Him,

Bill

SuperCow said:

Overruled in the sense that Martin Luther wanted to remove Hebrew, James, Jude and Revelation in addition to the apocrypha, but the Lutheran church kept them in after his death. This is all readily available information; however, now that I have searched again, I have seen other sites claiming this was a myth, but those sites also claim that the Catholic Church didn't add the apocrypha to their Bibles until the 16th century, but they are all clearly in the Latin Vulgate a thousand years earlier. Everyone has their own spin I guess.

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Good Day, SuperCow

OK now we have something here is validate historically.

So before he dies he did a complete new Testament in German can you point me to a complete NT that he worked on during his life and published that does not have Hebrews, James, Jude, and Revelations?

In the OP I quoted Jerome and how the Church viewed the books in His day. You would have to agree that the current Roman Catholic church has a different view of these books. I do believe that that change indeed did happen at Trent.

In Him,

Bill