Are extra books of the bible / apocrypha authentic?

[SumTinWong]

Let us see that evidence. Being that the story of the 7 brothers that Our Lord answers in the Gospels comes from the book of Tobit. They have always been Scripture in the Church, it was beginning with Luther that some do not think so.
Jeff the Finn

A great deal of the evidence for this can be found in the post I made before. I will not rehash these things here. I would ask that you re-read the post I already made and if anything is untrue, refute it.

As far as the seven brothers, I assume you are refering to the question posed by the Saducees:
Matthew 22:22-30 "And hearing this, they wondered and, leaving him, went their ways. That day there came to him the Sadducees, who say there is no resurrection; and asked him, Saying: Master, Moses said: If a man die having no son, his brother shall marry his wife and raise up issue to his brother. Now there were with us seven brethren: and the first having married a wife, died; and not having issue, left his wife to his brother. In like manner the second and the third and so on, to the seventh. And last of all the woman died also. At the resurrection therefore, whose wife of the seven shall she be? For they all had her. And Jesus answering, said to them: You err, not knowing the Scriptures nor the power of God. For in the resurrection they shall neither marry nor be married, but shall be as the angels of God in heaven."

Now the story form Tobit:
Tobit 3:7-10 "Now it happened on the same day, that Sara daughter of Raguel, in Rages a city of the Medes, received a reproach from one of her father's servant maids, Because she had been given to seven husbands and a devil named Asmodeus had killed them, at their first going in unto her. So when she reproved the maid for her fault, she answered her, saying: May we never see son, or daughter of thee upon the earth, thou murderer of thy husbands. Wilt thou kill me also, as thou hast already killed seven husbands? At these words, she went into an upper chamber of her house: and for three days and three nights did neither eat nor drink:"

You can go back and read the whole account if you like, it has a few twists to it like a talking dog, and hocus pocus potions designed to make evil spirits go away. Not too mention that Tobit marries the woman, which would make him her eighth husband and they as the story says lived happily ever after. With children and grand children. By the way the Tobit story doesn't mention brothers, just seven husbands.

So I honestly do not think these are the same stories, do you?

As far as the apocrypha always being scriptures, once again the Jews who according to Paul:Romans 3:2 "For indeed first that they were entrusted with the oracles of God." So paul thought that they were the guardians of the Scriptures. Norman Geisler says(Roman Catholics and Evangelicals: Agreements and Differences p. 169): “Since the New Testament explicitly states that Israel was entrusted with the oracles of God and was the recipient of the covenants and the Law (Rom. 3:2), the Jews should be considered the custodians of the limits of their own canon. And they have always rejected the Apocrypha.”"

Biblical authority Dr. F. F. Bruce writes, “When we think of Jesus and his Palestinian apostles, then, we may be confident that they agreed with contemporary leaders in Israel about the contents of the canon…. [W]hen in debate with Jewish theologians Jesus and the apostles appealed to ‘the scriptures’, they appealed to an authority which was equally acknowledged by their opponents.”

In confirmation the New Testament never cites the Apocrypha as an authority, if it even cites it at all. Jesus nor the New Testament authors ever quoted from it by way of the Septuagint. This is so in spite of their quoting from 35 of the 39 Old Testament books. Directly or indirectly the New Testament quotes the Old Testament over hundreds of times, but an apocryphal book is not cited by name even once. This speaks volumes as to the New Testament authors’ view of the apocrypha.

Even the term “deuterocanonical,” as applied to the apocrypha, agrees at this point that the Jews rejected it as Scripture. The term implies the apocrypha is a second canon added to the one the Jews accepted. Dr. Bruce points out that Jerome’s distinction between the books that were authenticated by the Hebrews and the books that were to be read only for edification is maintained by RCC scholars: "As for the status of the books which Jerome called apocryphal [i.e., those to be excluded from the canon but which could be used for edification], there is generally agreement among Roman Catholic scholars today (as among their colleagues of other Christian traditions) to call them “deuterocanonical”… Jerome’s distinction is thus maintained in practice, even if it does not enjoy conciliar support."(F. F. Bruce, The Canon of Scripture) Cardinal Cagetan, an opponent of Luther in the Reformation, taken from his commentary on the Old Testament:… “Now, according to his [Jerome’s] judgment… these books… are not canonical,… Yet, they may be called canonical, that is, in the nature of a rule for the edification of the faithful, as being received and authorized in the canon of the Bible for that purpose.”

Further, in “The Biblical Canon” David G. Dunbar, President of Biblical Theological Seminary in Hatfield, Pennsylvania: "There is then no compelling reason to revise the historic Protestant evaluation of the Apocrypha. The New Testament writers did not acknowledge these books as Scripture, nor did a significant number of the Patristic writers who witnessed to the Hebrew tradition of twenty-two biblical books. That a wider range of books than those of the Hebrew canon came to be included in the Septuagint was due in part to the increasing ignorance among Gentile Christians of Jewish views on the subject. In addition, the move from scrolls to codex form may well have added to the confusion of the early Christians."

Bruce Metzger observes, “Books which heretofore had never been regarded by the Jews as having any more than a certain edifying significance were now placed by Christian scribes in one codex side by side with the acknowledged books of the Hebrew canon. Thus it would happen that what was first a matter of convenience in making such books of secondary status available among Christians became a factor in giving the impression that all of the books within such a codex were to be regarded as authoritative.”

The New Catholic Encyclopedia says: “The Council of Trent definitively settled the matter of the Old Testament canon. That this had not been done previously is apparent from the uncertainty that persisted up
to the time of Trent.”

Because the Jews, Jesus and the Apostles clearly rejected the apocrypha as Scripture, the burden of proof must be met by those who support the apocrypha to show that the reasons for its rejection were spurious from the outset and that it deserved canonization.

Many of the notes and references are from "The Apocrypha and the Biblical Canon" by Drs. Ankerberg & Weldon

 

[Oblio]

Because the Jews, Jesus and the Apostles clearly rejected the apocrypha as Scripture, the burden of proof must be met by those who support the apocrypha to show that the reasons for its rejection were spurious from the outset and that it deserved canonization.

#1 - There is no proof that anyone other than antichrist Jews of the first century rejected these writings. #2 - They are in the Septuagint which was the Holy Scripture of Greek speaking Jews at the time of Christ. There is no evidence that the Apostles and Christ did not use them, in fact the NT most often quotes the Septuagint, and given that they were the founders of the Church it stands to reason that they used the same OT as the Church, that is the Septuagint.

I'm sorry, but the fact that the Church has considered them Holy Scripture since the selection of the canon until this day, and the fact that no Bible prior to the reformation era in the West and no Bible in the East exludes them is proof enough for me and 300 million other Orthodox Christians as to their authenticity. YMMV

 

[Lotar]

It is well documented that the Jews in Israel used the smaller canon, those in Greece/Asia Minor used the LXX. It is also of note that St. Paul used the LXX.

 

[Crazy Liz]

If you mean, not included, then that would be the Puritan version.

The guys on the Oatmeal box ??
The ones that 'evolved' into Shakers ??

Yep.

The 66 book version is pretty much an American Protestant thing.

You guys need to get your denominations and modern church history straight. Puritans and Quakers (who call themselves Friends) are not the same at all. Both were disseting movements that arose in England during the same general historical period, but they are completely unrelated.

You do know something about the different histories of Massachussetts (a Puritan colony) and Pennsylvania (founded by William Penn, a Quaker, but granting freedom of religion from its very beginning), don't you? I believe I have read several stories about Quakers being persecuted in Massachussetts and Connecticutt.

...and now, back to our topic...

 

[Lotar]

They just dressed the same

 

[eightfoot514]

Well, this is what I say: If it was good enough for Jesus and the Apostles, then it's good enough for me. The fact is, Jesus and His Apostles used the Septuagint which contained all of the books of the Old Testament. The Jewish leaders later wanted to distance themselves from Christians, so they set unreasonable standards for their Sacred Scripture, thus eliminating the books that were considered "too Christian." Such eliminations included the entire New Testament, of course, but also some of their very own books of Scripture. Their reasoning? They made up rules, such as: Sacred Scripture is not inspired if it is was not written in a certain country in a certain span of years and in a certain language. Apparently, they thought God only lived in Palestine and could only speak Hebrew.

There is another thread about the "Apocrypha," I suggest reading it. It has more complete information. http://www.christianforums.com/t733114

Eric

 

[Crazy Liz]

As far as the seven brothers, I assume you are refering to the question posed by the Saducees:
Matthew 22:22-30 "And hearing this, they wondered and, leaving him, went their ways. That day there came to him the Sadducees, who say there is no resurrection; and asked him, Saying: Master, Moses said: If a man die having no son, his brother shall marry his wife and raise up issue to his brother. Now there were with us seven brethren: and the first having married a wife, died; and not having issue, left his wife to his brother. In like manner the second and the third and so on, to the seventh. And last of all the woman died also. At the resurrection therefore, whose wife of the seven shall she be? For they all had her. And Jesus answering, said to them: You err, not knowing the Scriptures nor the power of God. For in the resurrection they shall neither marry nor be married, but shall be as the angels of God in heaven."

Now the story form Tobit:
Tobit 3:7-10 "Now it happened on the same day, that Sara daughter of Raguel, in Rages a city of the Medes, received a reproach from one of her father's servant maids, Because she had been given to seven husbands and a devil named Asmodeus had killed them, at their first going in unto her. So when she reproved the maid for her fault, she answered her, saying: May we never see son, or daughter of thee upon the earth, thou murderer of thy husbands. Wilt thou kill me also, as thou hast already killed seven husbands? At these words, she went into an upper chamber of her house: and for three days and three nights did neither eat nor drink:"

You can go back and read the whole account if you like, it has a few twists to it like a talking dog, and hocus pocus potions designed to make evil spirits go away. Not too mention that Tobit marries the woman, which would make him her eighth husband and they as the story says lived happily ever after. With children and grand children. By the way the Tobit story doesn't mention brothers, just seven husbands.

So I honestly do not think these are the same stories, do you?[/size]

Since the Sadducees were asking a hypothetical question, the inspiration of the story or stories they drew upon to create the hypothetical is not relevant. In fact, I understand that the Sadducees accepted only the Torah as scripture, and not the Prophets or the Writings. This may or may not be correct. We know they accepted the writtten Torah but not the oral Torah, which the Pharisees accepted. Whether they rejected the Prophets and the Writings, I don't think is so clear, historically.

If this story was known to them, they may have drawn on it, as well as the story of Tamar in Genesis 38 to create their hypothetical. If they based their hypothetical on a story of two brothers dying, and extended it based on another story (or even a folktale) of 7 husbands dying, it's interesting in that it may throw some light on what literature they knew, but says nothing about whether or not they thought of these stories as sacred scripture.

Your comparison of the Sadducees' hypothetical with the story in Tobit gives me a whole new view of the "testing questions" posed to Jesus in the gospels. They sound like the kind of canned questions apologists today devise to trap their opponents. Most of them have a rather elegant answer that is not immediately obvious, which is the way Jesus always responded to them. I wonder to what extent these questions circulated and were discussed already. Interesting...

 

[Oblio]

You guys need to get your denominations and modern church history straight. Puritans and Quakers (who call themselves Friends) are not the same at all. Both were disseting movements that arose in England during the same general historical period, but they are completely unrelated.

You do know something about the different histories of Massachussetts (a Puritan colony) and Pennsylvania (founded by William Penn, a Quaker, but granting freedom of religion from its very beginning), don't you? I believe I have read several stories about Quakers being persecuted in Massachussetts and Connecticutt.

...and now, back to our topic...

Thanks Liz

I figured I was shooting from the hip on this modern Protestant history of Puritans. Even though I don't need to get my denomination/late Western Church history straight (only because it is unimportant to Orthodox, not because I know it already ) I appreciate the correction.

 

[Lotar]

I thought it sounded odd, but I just assumed you knew what you were talking about...

 

[Crazy Liz]

The fact is, Jesus and His Apostles used the Septuagint which contained all of the books of the Old Testament.

The apostles clearly used the LXX. It is not so clear that Jesus did.

As far as we know, Jesus did most of his teaching in Aramaic and Hebrew. We don't know whether he spoke or read Greek or not. When Jesus quoted scripture, we don't know if he quoted the original Hebrew, the Aramaic targums, or if he ever spoke Greek.

When the apostles wrote in Greek, they most likely had to translate all or most of Jesus' words into Greek from another language. When Jesus quoted scripture, they could take a shortcut in this translation process by quoting the LXX when recording Jesus' scriptural quotes in the Greek language.

It appears that not all the apostles were literate in Greek. One of the early church fathers states that Mark was Peter's interpreter. This may mean that Peter didn't even speak much Greek, if any. This may partially explain why Mark is the gospel that contains more Aramaic phrases among the words of Jesus than any of the others. This ancient author also tells us Mathew wrote his gospel originally in Hebrew (although Hebrew may have been used generically in this context to include Aramaic, a closely related language) although that text has not been preserved. The form of Matthew we have today was certainly written (translated? revised?) by someone very literate in Greek and Hebrew and familiar with the LXX. This author usually used the LXX for OT quotations, but occasionally used other translations or perhaps made his own. Of course, Levi the publican would have to have been conversant in the trade languages used in that area at that time. There are hints he may have been a well-educated man, but this comes partly from assuming he was the final author/editor of Matthew's gospel in Greek and partly based upon some of the family relationships described in the NT, although is uncertain whether they are referring to different people with the same name.

Anyway, while it is clear that the people who wrote or translated the four gospels in the Greek language used the LXX, we can't say for sure that Jesus used it, nor can we be absolutely sure the 12 apostles used it. Paul, who was definitely literate in both Hebrew and Greek, certainly used it.

 

[eightfoot514]

Ah, thanks for the post! Very informative and un-biased, qualities which one rarely hears together in the same post.

Eric

 

[SumTinWong]

Your comparison of the Sadducees' hypothetical with the story in Tobit gives me a whole new view of the "testing questions" posed to Jesus in the gospels. They sound like the kind of canned questions apologists today devise to trap their opponents. Most of them have a rather elegant answer that is not immediately obvious, which is the way Jesus always responded to them. I wonder to what extent these questions circulated and were discussed already. Interesting...

Just curious, what is so interesting? Who was this response pointed to?

 

[Crazy Liz]

Just curious, what is so interesting? Who was this response pointed to?

The connection between Tobit and the Sadducees' hypothetical about resurrection triggered a bunch of connections between other concepts in my mind. I had never thought before about whether the Sadducees just made up that question for the purpose of posing it to Jesus, or whether they drew on well-known stories to frame it. This caused me to think about the possibility that this may have already been an apoligetical question in common circulation, like a lot of the canned apologetical questions we see every day in these forums. I knew some of the Pharisees' questions to Jesus were of this genre. I simply had not thought before of the possibility that all or nearly all the "testing questions" in the gospels may have been canned formal apologetic questions. That was an intersting idea I hadn't thought of before. I appreciate the various strands here that sparked a new thought for me.

Sorry, it's not really related to the OP at all. Sometimes my brain seems to work like a pinball machine.

 

[SumTinWong]

The connection between Tobit and the Sadducees' hypothetical about resurrection triggered a bunch of connections between other concepts in my mind. I had never thought before about whether the Sadducees just made up that question for the purpose of posing it to Jesus, or whether they drew on well-known stories to frame it. This caused me to think about the possibility that this may have already been an apoligetical question in common circulation, like a lot of the canned apologetical questions we see every day in these forums. I knew some of the Pharisees' questions to Jesus were of this genre. I simply had not thought before of the possibility that all or nearly all the "testing questions" in the gospels may have been canned formal apologetic questions. That was an intersting idea I hadn't thought of before. I appreciate the various strands here that sparked a new thought for me.

Sorry, it's not really related to the OP at all. Sometimes my brain seems to work like a pinball machine.

I think I see what you are saying, and thanks for your reponses!

By the way, I read earlier that we aren't sure whether Jesus or the rest of the apostles used the LXX, but we are quite sure that Paul did. I did some reading up on it and there are schools of thought both ways. I guess my question would be how do we know that Paul used the LXX (in your opinion anyway)? And second how do we know (if he did) that this is the same LXX that we have today? I have heard schools of thought on both sides, but I truly am interested in what you think, seeing as you seem to be the only one not arguing with anyone.

 

[Commoner]

The fact remains, and will always remain, that a 66 book Bible did not exist for the first 1500 years of the church's history except in the fantasies of modern Protestants.

After all, the early church debated the point for a reason didn't they? The number of books was not established even loooooong after the last apostle died in both Jewish and Christian circles.

But somehow in the 16th century, 1500 years after Christ died, some ever so wise people came to the astonishing conclusion that the Bible was 66 books all along and have convinced people this is THE Bible that the apostles read, as if they had such a thing called THE Bible.

Commoner

 

[Crazy Liz]

I actually haven't researched that question to the degree of detail you seem to have, Lollard.

The reasons I think Paul used the LXX include OT quotations that match the LXX text and the fact that he frequently taught in diaspora synagogues, where history suggests the LXX was used. We are quite sure the LXX was used in the Egyptian Jewish community. How and how much it was used in comparison to the Hebrew scrolls in the synagogues of Europe and Asia Minor I'm sure is a matter of some controversy, which probably means it varied somewhat from place to place.

At least that is the hypothesis I would start with if I wanted to research this question further.

 

[SumTinWong]

nevermind

 

[Patristic]

In my opinion, the burden of proof rests on those defending the 66 book canon since this was not the Bible of the early Church plain and simple. Even if you cite Jerome as your supposed champion of the 66 book canon, I can easily provide quotations from Jerome where he quotes from the deuterocanon in his writings and refers to these books as SCRIPTURE. Thus, the supposed champion of the Protestant canon amongst the early Fathers still calls these books Scripture...and that's not a very sound argument.

 

[SumTinWong]

I actually haven't researched that question to the degree of detail you seem to have, Lollard.

The reasons I think Paul used the LXX include OT quotations that match the LXX text and the fact that he frequently taught in diaspora synagogues, where history suggests the LXX was used. We are quite sure the LXX was used in the Egyptian Jewish community. How and how much it was used in comparison to the Hebrew scrolls in the synagogues of Europe and Asia Minor I'm sure is a matter of some controversy, which probably means it varied somewhat from place to place.

At least that is the hypothesis I would start with if I wanted to research this question further.

You are correct those are good places to start, and I will take a look at them.

What seems to be sticking in my craw about this whole thing is the fact that Paul thought of himself and even "bragged" about being a "super Jew". That is vulgar terminology I realize but bear with me. Paul said that if there was going to be anyone to brag about being a Jew or having all the right pegs in the right slots, wouldn't this Jew of Jews used the Hebrew Bible? I am a sure a Jew of his status would have had ample opportunities to view texts in all languages so I am not ruling out the LXX by any means, but I am I guess just throwing this in there for conversation sake. Either way do we know that the LXX of today is the LXX of Pauls time?

Also, I think I remember seeing at least one occasion, that Paul wasn't actually writing one of the letters that someone else (Romans 16:22 "I Tertius, who wrote this epistle, salute you in the Lord.") wrote them, as a scribe or a secretary. Perhaps it wasn't Paul speaking from the LXX but it was the interpreter or writer putting it into words they would understand better. Obviously this is all conjecture, but it does give some room for thought.

 

[SumTinWong]

In my opinion, the burden of proof rests on those defending the 66 book canon since this was not the Bible of the early Church plain and simple. Even if you cite Jerome as your supposed champion of the 66 book canon, I can easily provide quotations from Jerome where he quotes from the deuterocanon in his writings and refers to these books as SCRIPTURE. Thus, the supposed champion of the Protestant canon amongst the early Fathers still calls these books Scripture...and that's not a very sound argument.

Of course you would say that, you are on the exact other side of the argument. Go ahead and dismiss whatever else anyone has said here, it doesn't help your position on my eyes, and doesn't make me want to continue this conversation with you.