What's the calibre of your canon?

My canon’s caliber? 66mm scale-piercing full metal many-colored jacket.

Xeno.of.athens said:

Another argument for their inclusion is that the deuterocanonical books contain valuable teachings and insights that are consistent with the rest of Christian scripture. They provide additional information about the history of the Jewish people and the intertestamental period, as well as moral instruction and wisdom that is applicable to Christians.

Click to expand...

I would agree that there is some historical insight that can be gleaned from them ....but I have been through enough of them to know why they were excluded. And while they do contain some things that that are consistent with the rest of Christian scripture.... so does the book of Mormon and the Qur'an.

Xeno.of.athens said:

Did you approach the 66 books in your bible that way too? Esther never mentions God in a Protestant version. Son of songs, and Ecclesiastes were disputed within Judaism and Christianity for a long time. Hebrews, James, 2 & 3 John, 2 Peter, and Revelation were disputed too. Perhaps they ought to be excluded?

Click to expand...

My question to you Xeno would be whether you believe any of the deut. books contain any key doctrine that isn’t in the 66? i.e. not just historically interesting, nor a reiteration of elsewhere stated doctrine. I recently read 1+2 Maccabees as part of a reading plan and, while fascinating (Elephant warfare!) I could see why they didn’t make the cut.

Which isn’t to say that I think they should be ignored, only that to me they don’t serve as final authority - in the same way that Calvin’s Institutes, creeds, confessions, or my own pastor don’t either. Sorry Pastor D...

Brother-Mike said:

My question to you Xeno would be whether you believe any of the deut. books contain any key doctrine that isn’t in the 66? i.e. not just historically interesting, nor a reiteration of elsewhere stated doctrine. I recently read 1+2 Maccabees as part of a reading plan and, while fascinating (Elephant warfare!) I could see why they didn’t make the cut.

Which isn’t to say that I think they should be ignored, only that to me they don’t serve as final authority - in the same way that Calvin’s Institutes, creeds, confessions, or my own pastor don’t either. Sorry Pastor D...

Click to expand...

But consider this question from a different angle, instead of talking about the Deuterocanonicals, apply this same questioning to any other book or books from the rest of the Bible--Esther or the Song of Songs or Revelation for example.

That is to say, this approach isn't as objective as it sounds, it comes from a distinctively Protestant bias. Which doesn't mean it's wrong, only that it is a bias.

Because if someone were to challenge the canonical status of, for example, the Revelation of John the way the Deuterocanonical Books are challenged in Protestant circles, it would cause significant and major uproar. And yet, historically, the Revelation of John has been as contentious, even arguably more contentious, than any of the Deuterocanonical books. The reason why the Deuterocanonicals are challenged uncontroversially within Protestant circles, while the Revelation can't be challenged uncontroversially in Protestant circles is because of a five hundred year old tradition that is accepted rather uncritically by most Protestants. Ergo, the Protestant bias.

And, to an extent, it makes sense--after all if we can go around challenging anything in the Canon today then we begin unravel the Canon as a binding and authoritative understanding of what Scripture is, and we are left with everyone making up their own Bible to suit whatever they want. And that is total madness.

So a line has to be drawn somewhere. But I think it worthwhile to recognize our biases, and try and look at those critically. Which is why I don't believe I can say the Deuterocanonicals aren't Canonical Scripture. But neither do I claim that they are. I don't think I, as an individual Christian, have any right or authority to make such massive sweeping claims. I think the only valid way the question can be answered would require a definitive and unanimous consensus of the whole Church--and given the present state of things, that's not going to happen anytime soon. Without that true consensus, the question of the Deuterocanonicals remains unanswered IMO. And here, to be certain, for full transparency, I am showing my Lutheran bias. After all, were I Roman Catholic I would be of the opinion that there already is a full consensus of the Church, as expressed at the Council of Trent; so it is my Lutheran bias that rejects the authority of Trent to be representative of the Church's consensus to that question.

-CryptoLutheran

Xeno.of.athens said:

Did you approach the 66 books in your bible that way too? Esther never mentions God in a Protestant version. Son of songs, and Ecclesiastes were disputed within Judaism and Christianity for a long time. Hebrews, James, 2 & 3 John, 2 Peter, and Revelation were disputed too. Perhaps they ought to be excluded?

Click to expand...

Even though I was raised with a catholic Bible …. it was nothing we ever were encouraged to read…So I was surprised when I got my first KJV and realized that there were these other books in my parents Bible. It wasn’t till about 5 years later when I decided to do a comparison.

My comparison was not with my Bible, but with my parents comparing the 66 in the catholic bible (which are very close in scripture to KJV) with the additional books in the catholic version. I spent about a month going through that, and there were some very noticeable differences…. just in writing alone…. not including the textual content of the Apocrypha which displayed many contrary difference to the canonical. That was a long time ago and I don’t really remember my list, and honestly, I was primarily concerned with the Epistles which are written to us… as born again believers ….

I feel like I gave them a fair shake that didn’t pass the God Breathed test…. that is critical for me. I know for Catholics the allowance of extrabiblical writings holds the same validity as the canonized books. But I have to have a line of demarcation when it comes to Truth that I can measure all other against …otherwise anything goes.

The research I do involves considerable depth involving the Word of God and the deeper I scrutinize the Word of God the more precise and unbreakable it becomes …just layers upon layers ….It is both inerrant and inherent …it is God breathed!!!!! And that is why I utilize the Word to interpret itself, because God has the answers within the Word without soliciting man’s interpretation or succumbing to religious beliefs which are flawed and self-serving.

Xeno.of.athens said:

I suspect the answer is yes. It seems that Martin Luther thought that 2 Maccabees 12 taught prayer for the dead. I think that many, possibly most, protestants reject this teaching. I am not completely sure that the 66 as redacted by protestants teaches prayers for the dead.

Click to expand...

My understanding is that Lutherans include the apocrypha but do not consider them final authority. In Luther’a apparent words, “Apocrypha, that are books which are not considered equal to the Holy Scriptures, but are useful and good to read.” I’m with Luther here!

So, as a ritual coming from a book “useful and good to read”, I see no reason, if you’re referring to 2Macc 12:41, that this practice - praying that God forgive the sin of someone recently deceased - isn’t Christian. Praying for God to do evil, for example, is clearly not Christian. But praying to God for his mercy on behalf of another? As with all righteous prayers, it isn’t demanded, but rather humbly requested. So I say knock yourself out!

There’s a Protestant argument against this? I must have missed that memo

That of course is Article 6 of the 39. Some Anglicans infer that this means that we do not receive the deutero-canonicals however I would understand it to mean that we do receive them, but in a slightly different way to the way that we receive the 66.

Historically the KJV was published including the deuterocanonicals, where they stayed till some time in the second half of the 1800's when the Bible Society to save costs (and possibly with some encouragement from American Protestants) excluded them from the print runs. Anglican Lectionaries have regularly included readings (though not great in number) from the deuterocanonicals.

Xeno.of.athens said:

In summary, the case for including the deuterocanonical books in the canon of Christian Scripture rests on the fact that they were widely accepted and used by the early Christian Church, were affirmed by key councils, and contain valuable teachings consistent with the rest of Christian scripture.

Click to expand...

To those arguments for their inclusion I would add that the Septuagint (LXX) was almost certainly the scriptures that were know to the writers of the New Testament, and it is generally accepted that the relied on and used the LXX when referring to scripture (OT).

Xeno.of.athens said:

I suspect the answer is yes. It seems that Martin Luther thought that 2 Maccabees 12 taught prayer for the dead. I think that many, possibly most, protestants reject this teaching. I am not completely sure that the 66 as redacted by protestants teaches prayers for the dead.

Click to expand...

Actually Luther and the Lutheran Confessions take no issue with prayers for the dead, but recognize it as an ancient and venerable practice of the Church which there is no reason to reject. What is rejected would be the idea that prayers for the dead could benefit the dead, i.e. to shorten the length of time in Purgatory. As, after all, Luther and the Confessions do reject the concept of Purgatory. However praying for those who have passed on from this mortal life has never been condemned within the Evangelical Reformation.

When it comes to Luther and the Deuterocanonicals, it must also be remembered that he also had strong opinions on the Antilegomena of the New Testament, taking special aim against the Epistle of James and the Revelation of John in particular. On the other hand, Luther actually praises a number of books of the Deuterocanonicals, especially 1 Maccabees as he sees in 1 Maccabees not only important historical information for Israel, but also a way to more clearly understand the context of a number of things written in the Book of Daniel.

Luther's rejection of the Deuterocanonicals is, in some ways, far more gentle than his opinions against certain books of the Antilegomena, calling James "an epistle of straw" and saying that he cannot detect one bit of the Holy Spirit's touch on the Revelation of John.

Luther, viz-a-viz the Deuterocanonicals really was trying to approach the subject by engaging with the historic voices of the Church concerning which there were many who took issue with the Deuterocanonicals for various reasons, even St. Jerome though Jerome did concede and include them in his Vulgata. And so Luther concluded that they probably shouldn't be included as part of the Canon proper, but should be available to be read and should be read by Christians because Christians will benefit spiritually from their reading. My understanding is that Luther actually considered completely tossing out the books of James and the Revelation, but was convinced against doing so; and so he compromised by keeping all the Antilegomena he thought questionable at the very end of his German New Testament, English Protestants inspired by Luther's German translation reversed this move concerning the Antilegomena, but did retain Luther's "Apocrypha". Found in virtually all English Bibles until the late 19th century when publishers stopped including them, especially in America where anti-Catholic sentiment and anti-Catholic xenophobia was at some of its highest in American history.

So I'd argue two points:

1) I think many times Catholics are quick to assume Luther was just engaging in a hatchet job with the Bible, taking scissors all willy nilly. When in truth Luther really was aiming to be academically and scholarly in his engagement, and was seeking an honest reflection of the Church's historic conversations surrounding the Canon. Whether Luther was right or wrong is, of course, an entirely separate question; but it would be in error to think that he was some rogue taking scissors and glue to the Bible just to spite the Catholic Church.

2) I think many times Protestants are far too quick to think that Luther had all the same problems with these books that they do today. Or that Luther's feelings about them are similar to how the more broadly Reformed and the more Radical wings of the Protestant Reformation came to regard them. It's a general error common in thinking that since Luther "started" the Protestant Reformation that he was basically "Protestant like us". But the actual, historical Luther was very much Catholic, not what we would generally call Protestant today. For example as much as Luther desired that the ordinary Christian might hear and read God's word in their own common tongue, believing that in this the ordinary Christian would hear and find confidence in the truth and promises of the Gospel made plain to them in their own language; he deeply lamented it when many began to take up the Bible and began to read it however they liked to defend and justify any position imaginable. Luther believed very much that while it was wrong that the Scriptures should be barricaded behind the incomprehensibility of Latin to the common people, he very strongly believed in the importance of A) Biblical study and exegesis as an academic pursuit that should not be engaged in frivolously; that if the Scriptures are to be clearly read and taught and preached then they must also be presented clearly through B) faithful preaching and solid teaching. That meant the the very serious and indeed basically central importance of the Ministry of the Word within the Church, the Office of the Keys which is the common possession of the whole Church, but is to be exercised by those whom the Church vets and safeguards by calling them to a vocation of ministry: aka pastors. That the way the Church corporately exercises the one Ministry which Christ gave her is through the Keys, and the Keys are exercised by the faithful preaching of the Word and the faithful administering of the Sacraments--without which there isn't even a Church at all to speak of, because it is Word and Sacrament that is the Means of God's grace, the way God reigns and rules over and through His Church, and is the central thing that identifies the people of God as a Christian people. That Christian people are marked as Christian for they are Christ's for they possess Christ's word, for it is the Gospel that makes them Christ's. And so without the Gospel, without the Word, without the Sacraments the Church is no longer Church at all.

-CryptoLutheran

ViaCrucis said:

But consider this question from a different angle, instead of talking about the Deuterocanonicals, apply this same questioning to any other book or books from the rest of the Bible--Esther or the Song of Songs or Revelation for example.

That is to say, this approach isn't as objective as it sounds, it comes from a distinctively Protestant bias. Which doesn't mean it's wrong, only that it is a bias.

Because if someone were to challenge the canonical status of, for example, the Revelation of John the way the Deuterocanonical Books are challenged in Protestant circles, it would cause significant and major uproar. And yet, historically, the Revelation of John has been as contentious, even arguably more contentious, than any of the Deuterocanonical books. The reason why the Deuterocanonicals are challenged uncontroversially within Protestant circles, while the Revelation can't be challenged uncontroversially in Protestant circles is because of a five hundred year old tradition that is accepted rather uncritically by most Protestants. Ergo, the Protestant bias.

And, to an extent, it makes sense--after all if we can go around challenging anything in the Canon today then we begin unravel the Canon as a binding and authoritative understanding of what Scripture is, and we are left with everyone making up their own Bible to suit whatever they want. And that is total madness.

So a line has to be drawn somewhere. But I think it worthwhile to recognize our biases, and try and look at those critically. Which is why I don't believe I can say the Deuterocanonicals aren't Canonical Scripture. But neither do I claim that they are. I don't think I, as an individual Christian, have any right or authority to make such massive sweeping claims. I think the only valid way the question can be answered would require a definitive and unanimous consensus of the whole Church--and given the present state of things, that's not going to happen anytime soon. Without that true consensus, the question of the Deuterocanonicals remains unanswered IMO. And here, to be certain, for full transparency, I am showing my Lutheran bias. After all, were I Roman Catholic I would be of the opinion that there already is a full consensus of the Church, as expressed at the Council of Trent; so it is my Lutheran bias that rejects the authority of Trent to be representative of the Church's consensus to that question.

-CryptoLutheran

Click to expand...

Much of your thoughtful post here boils down, I believe, to denominational dynamics. If a splinter cell of believers in my church want to break away and form their own variation of Christianity that drops Romans and replaces it with "Barney's See and Say Adventure" (don't knock it, it's a complex text!) then I say go for it. It isn't my wish, but I am not free to stop them.

The difference that the Barneyites have with my belief system would define the degree to which I am able to accept them as a compatible belief system (where I can't dispute the salvation of their true believers) versus an incompatible belief system (where I believe even their true believers cannot be saved). My priority then for mission would be to operate in places where there are more incompatible belief system people than compatible ones.

So here then I consider Lutherans to be my brothers and sisters, thus I make no claim to how many books they want to use.

Xeno.of.athens said:

The deuterocanonical books, also known as the Apocrypha, are a collection of texts that were not included in the Hebrew Bible but were included in the Septuagint, a Greek translation of the Hebrew Bible

Click to expand...

The Septuagint was a Greek translation of the Hebrew Bible created by non-Christian Jews for Helenistic Jews that could not read Hebrew.

"Hellenistic Judaism was a form of Judaism in classical antiquity that combined Jewish religious tradition with elements of Greek culture."

So not too surprising that the 70 non-Christian Jewish scholars added other greek texts of their own. Texts that were also authored by non-Christian authors.

As Jerome pointed out in the prologues in his Vulgate translation - those apocryphal texts are not part of the Hebrew Bible. (As you also noted above).

The Hebrew Bible had been canonized for over 300 years prior to Josephus and was kept as such in the Jewish temple in Jerusalem.

Xeno.of.athens said:

The case for including these texts in the canon of Christian Scripture includes the fact that they were widely used and accepted by the early Christian Church

Click to expand...

Paul quotes a number of extra-biblical texts - but that does not make them scripture.

Xeno.of.athens said:

They were included in the Septuagint, which was the Bible used by many early Christians

Click to expand...

Not in the first century. Your own quotes are from the 4th century.

Xeno.of.athens said:

, and they were quoted and referenced by early Christian writers such as Clement of Alexandria, Tertullian, and Augustine. Additionally, the Councils of Hippo (393 AD) and Carthage (397 AD)

Click to expand...

The idea that late Christian writers had ownership of the Jewish canon of scripture has always been a sketchy suggestion.

non-Christian Jews were never the authorities to tell NT Christians what the NT books are - and later Christian groups were never in a position to determine what the Jewish canon of scripture is. It is beyond dispute that Christians did not write the OT.

Not strange at all

Xeno.of.athens said:

It's strange that you write that. The Catechism of the Catholic Church encourages the faithful to read scripture in their private devotions daily. And at the mass scripture is read aloud for all to hear. If you didn't read the scriptures for yourself that would be because you did not want to. It was not because the Church told you not to.

Click to expand...

It’s not strange at all …..I don’t know how much of the catholic Church history you are aware of but that was common for many hundreds of years which carried into the 20th century.

Maintaining the Bible in Latin was done so to keep common people from understanding or reading it. It was taught allegorically with religious infusion to the people. Those who dared to translate it to English like Tyndale was strangled and burned at the stake… Earlier Wyclif was persecuted and ostracized and most likely would have been killed, but he died… 40 years after his death, his bones were dug up, burned, and thrown into the River Swift.

While you are correct …anybody who had a yearning to know could read but it was frowned upon by the church….even up until the mid-80’s. This told to me by cousin who was a priest …and my grandma who was 94 at the time stated that only priest could read the Bible …..But every catholic family that I knew of had a gigantic red bible sitting on their shelf.

When it changed …I don’t know...I ditched the church when I was 14

There are several books of the Bible that virtually never seem to come up in sermons or in theological discourse or in doctrine. In all of the posts on CF, how many times has a verse from the Song of Songs been used for example? I've certainly never seen it.

The Bible itself is not a book. It's a compendium of books. One version only has 28 books/epistles. That being the pocket sized New Testament and Psalms. Another version also includes Proverbs making it a Bible of 29 books/epistles.

These days when most everyone has a smartphone, they have instantaneous access to every gospel, epistle and letter ever written, any place they happen to be.

sandman said:

Not strange at all

It’s not strange at all …..I don’t know how much of the catholic Church history you are aware of but that was common for many hundreds of years which carried into the 20th century.

Maintaining the Bible in Latin was done so to keep common people from understanding or reading it. It was taught allegorically with religious infusion to the people. Those who dared to translate it to English like Tyndale was strangled and burned at the stake… Earlier Wyclif was persecuted and ostracized and most likely would have been killed, but he died… 40 years after his death, his bones were dug up, burned, and thrown into the River Swift.

While you are correct …anybody who had a yearning to know could read but it was frowned upon by the church….even up until the mid-80’s. This told to me by cousin who was a priest …and my grandma who was 94 at the time stated that only priest could read the Bible …..But every catholic family that I knew of had a gigantic red bible sitting on their shelf.

When it changed …I don’t know...I ditched the church when I was 14

Click to expand...

You've made a very interesting point. It seems that if the Roman Catholic Church had had its way, there would only be a Bible written in Latin that Xeno.of.athens wouldn't be allowed to read, no matter how many books it contained. Really it seems he has the Protestants to thank for being able to have a Bible of his own written in English.