Only 66 books?

[worshipjunkie]

Are only 66 books God's word?

Does the Roman Catholic Church, Eastern Orthodox, and Oriental Orthodox claim there are more books in the Bible that is God's word as well or is it just there for historical quality?

How important are these other books? Is 66 books fine? are we missing anything?

Sorry I am confused, and trying to figure this out. I don't want to be missing anything important.

I'm a former Catholic. Even the Catholics (I'm not sure about the Eastern Orthodox) call them the deutrocanoncial books- or second canon. It's acknowledged they're different then the other books. They were written in Greek, not Hebrew. It is believed by Protestants that the Jews were the guardians of the books of the OT just as the Christians were of the NT.

Why 66?
Reason for the Faith: Why there are only 66 books in the Bible...

A lot of the best articles on the canon are on sites that deal with apologetics to Catholics.
This site under "Canon" and "Apocrypha" has some good info: Just for Catholics: Answers . This site also has a pretty indepth article: The Old Testament Canon and the Apocrypha: A Survey of the History of the Apocrypha from The Jewish Age to the Reformation – Christian Truth
And Wikipedia has a decent intro: Biblical apocrypha - Wikipedia (Notice that article says that even in the Septuagint these books had a different status- nowhere are they just considered part of Scripture like the other books of the OT). I'm not at all familiar with how the Eastern Orthodox consider the books although the Wiki article covers it a very little.

Having read most of the deutrocanon books as a Catholic; they're different. I knew it then. Even without picking up on the historical inaccuracies present in these books, there is clear differences in style, in...majesty? I don't know how to describe it, but there are reasons these books were always accorded different status.

 

[dzheremi]

Yes, I've heard this. Is it true that some even accept the gnostic gospel accounts and pseudo-works (Thomas, Apocalypse of Peter, etc)?

There are no gnostic works accepted in any OO (or other church) canon. I have heard (but not seen confirmed anywhere) that parts of the Apocalypse of Peter (which is not a gnostic work anyway) are found in one of the Ethiopian books, but I don't know which one. The books that are unique to the broader Ethiopian/Eritrean canon are generally not available in English, or haven't been available in English until very recently (with the possible exception of Enoch), and I don't understand Ge'ez or Amharic, so I am really not well-placed to answer questions about their canon in particular. I do know, however, that a great deal of the material that is only preserved in their churches today came from other, older sources (Greek or Syriac) that have been lost otherwise, making their canon a very unique window onto the 'pre-canonized' state of the scriptures, similar to how they would have existed among every people before a certain time period. There are also books in their canon that date from later centuries that were probably originally composed in their language.

The Coptic Orthodox Church, which is the mother church of the Ethiopian and Eritrean Orthodox Tewahedo churches of East Africa, does not have any of these writings in its canon.

 

[Albion]

Are only 66 books God's word?

That's right, but if we look at all the Christian churches that exist, we see that there are quite a few others that have a different number of books in their Bibles, not just the number that RCatholics or mainstream Protestants accept as divinely inspired. One has this number, another has that number, etc.

 

[Barney2.0]

The canon of 77 books was closed in the West a while before Trent, Trent merely reconfirmed the old Western Canon in opposition to the “reformation.” The East however has never had a closed canon and this isn’t an issue, until today Eastern Catholics have Biblical canons that are indentical to the their non catholic counterparts. This is because each Church or rite has its own traditions and liturgy thus the canon is based around that tradition or liturgy. Any book that’s non Canonical for one rite or Church doesn’t equal it being uninspired to that rite or Church, a canon is what is inspired, not the only books that are inspired. The 66 books aren’t the only inspired words of God.

 

[Barney2.0]

I’d also just like to point out that the Deuterocanonical books aren’t apocrypha as some Protestants or non denominational Christians here might think.

 

[Dave-W]

Are only 66 books God's word?

Actually, the number is less than 66.

In the Hebrew, Ezra and Nehemiah are one book. 1 and 2 Samuel are one book. 1 and 2 Kings are one book. 1 and 2 Chronicals are one book. So you lose 4 right there.

 

[Justified112]

The 66 books aren’t the only inspired words of God.

Yes, they are the only God-inspired books.

 

[Justified112]

I’d also just like to point out that the Deuterocanonical books aren’t apocrypha as some Protestants or non denominational Christians here might think.

I think most of us know the difference and none of those books are inspired either.

 

[TuxAme]

The earliest Church councils dealing with the canon of Scripture affirmed a 73 book canon.

 

[Albion]

I think most of us know the difference and none of those books are inspired either.

Well, we have answered the question of the thread rather graphically, haven't we? How many books are inspired, how they are numbered, and whether or not there is anything else that is divine revelation as well...

…depends on which denomination a person looks to for the answers.

 

[Barney2.0]

Yes, they are the only God-inspired books.

Not according to the people to translated the Septuagint.

 

[Barney2.0]

I think most of us know the difference and none of those books are inspired either.

Just those who follow the reformation.

 

[Albion]

Not according to the people to translated the Septuagint.

Are you asserting some theory about those people being endowed with infallibility?? If so, why?

 

[Albion]

Just those who follow the reformation.

If so, how do we explain away the fact that the Catholic Church got rid of some of the Apocrypha on its own, in response to the Protestant Reformation??

 

[dzheremi]

The translators of the LXX don't need to be infallible for it to be shown to the be the traditional source of the Christian OT, as early saints recognized by all or most of the churches that have kept the veneration of saints such as St. Justin Martyr (d. 165 AD) defended it as the translation to be used, in contradistinction to the preferred canon of the Jews around him (though I know nothing of what they would have accepted at the time; since the discrediting of the existence of the 'Council of Jamnia', it appears to have become the fashion to claim -- as the Catholic Encyclopedia does -- that the Jewish canon was not formalized until some time after the Christian NT; also, like Christians, Jews to this day do not all share the same canon). It is also clear when comparing the Greek NT manuscripts to the LXX that, insofar as we have received their sayings through the Gospels and their epistles, the OT as it was known and quoted by Jesus Christ and His most holy and blessed apostles themselves was the LXX version, not those of other communities, e.g., when St. Paul quotes Psalm 19 in his letter to the Romans (chapter 10), it is in the form of the LXX: "their sound (φθόγγος) has gone out to all the earth", rather than the Hebrew, which reads "their line" (קַוָּ֗ם qawwam).

 

[Albion]

The translators of the LXX don't need to be infallible for it to be shown to the be the traditional source of the Christian OT....

The Apocrypha was included provisionally. So you cannot make a very good argument that the compilers were infallible although they could not decide!

But if you want to say that the 73 books are/were the traditional canon, and that is supposed to be meaningful, you would still have to account for the ancient churches that haven't had the 73 as their total.

 

[dzheremi]

The Apocrypha was included provisionally. So you cannot make a very good argument that the compilers were infallible although they could not decide!

And that would be a good point had anyone made the argument that they were infallible, which so far as I can see no one has. (I certainly wouldn't, though saying they were inspired is perhaps less immediately troublesome, as even first-century Jews like Philo and Josephus apparently argued. I have no opinion on the matter, as my own Church views the matter of canonization differently than Protestants or Catholics apparently do.)

But if you want to say that the 73 books are/were the traditional canon, and that is supposed to be meaningful, you would still have to account for the ancient churches that haven't had the 73 as their total.

Which is precisely why I wouldn't make that argument. If you'll note my other posts in this thread, I have shied away from any discussion of a number, as my communion is unique for the scope of the canons found in the scripture of its constituent churches. So not only do I not want to make the number itself some kind crucible, because that's inappropriate and contrary to the mind of the Church on this matter, I can't, because to do so would condemn everyone who doesn't keep my particular Church's exact canon, which some in my communion do not even do. Hence we have never done that.

This issue of how many books and so on was settled for Eastern Christianity in general by our father HH Pope St. Cyril, who established the base from which all subsequent canons were set (the Western canons as well). So this whole conversation seems a bit like a tempest in a teapot to me, seeing as this was settled to the extent that we ever bothered to do so in the fourth century, over a millennia before Protestantism ever existed, and before any of the major schisms that produced the Nestorians, Non-Chalcedonians, Eastern Chalcedonians, and Western Chalcedonians as separate communions (hence we all share the canon as established by HH St. Cyril, with some irregularities regarding things that we all struggled with, e..g, the acceptance of St. John's Revelation, which was for instance not traditionally part of the Syriac canon and only added later after the establishment of the Pešitta).

 

[Dave-W]

Not according to the people to translated the Septuagint.

Irrelevant. The LXX has never been accepted as part of the Hebrew Tenach. (A designation our Lord Himself referred to)

 

[Dave-W]

It is believed by Protestants that the Jews were the guardians of the books of the OT just as the Christians were of the NT.

According to Romans 3.1-2 and 11.29, the Jews are STILL the guardians of all scripture, including the NT.


Romans 3:2
Great in every respect. First of all, that they were entrusted with the oracles of God.

Romans 11:29
for the gifts and the calling of God are irrevocable.

 

[BNR32FAN]

I can't speak for any of those groups, but when the Sadducees question Jesus concerning the resurrection in Matthew 22, He responds by telling them they are in error because they neither know the scriptures or the power of God.

What He states they should have known from the scriptures isn't found anywhere in the Old Testament, but rather it's located in 1 Enoch 15. That's an indirect endorsement of 1 Enoch by Jesus Himself.

That’s very interesting thanks for sharing that.