Sola scriptura?

[jahel]

The same way you might demand authority for their inclusion. A fallacy of the Roman Church; except the Roman Church of which you speak did not exist until after the Great Schism; it was on the authority of the Church universal before the Great Schism that these were included with the other books of the Bible; that would have been with the guidance of Apostolic tradition and teaching.

I get that most evangelicals and ND types act, speak and teach like the one true Church was absent until some time after the Lutheran Reformation, with their favorite radical reformer; but only their favorite one. How sad that emotion and personal interpretation usurps the teaching and traditions of the Apostles. If the Apocrypha is good enough for Apostles and Profits to quote, it is good enough for us to do the same.

Profits of the Prophets are what exactly?

 

[BobRyan]

Good day, Bob

Jerome was forced to translate Judith yes, but he cut away all the trash he found lacking:

THE PREFACE OF JEROME ON THE BOOK OF JUDITH
Among the Jews, the book of Judith is considered among the apocrypha; its warrant for affirming those [apocryphal texts] which have come into dispute is deemed less than sufficient. Moreover, since it was written in the Chaldean language, it is counted among the historical books. But since the Nicene Council is considered to have counted this book among the number of sacred Scriptures, I have acquiesced to your request (or should I say demand!): and, my other work set aside, from which I was forcibly restrained, I have given a single night's work , translating according to sense rather than verbatim. I have hacked away at the excessively error-ridden panoply of the many codices; I conveyed in Latin only what I could find expressed coherently in the Chaldean words. Receive the widow Judith, example of chastity, and with triumphant praise acclaim her with eternal public celebration. For not only for women, but even for men, she has been given as a model by the one who rewards her chastity, who has ascribed to her such virtue that she conquered the unconquered among humanity, and surmounted the insurmountable.

Now as it relates to the Apocrypha generally Jerome gives as very direct insight of how the Church viewed these types of book Historically..

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."

No purely has history they are most useful and should be read for knowledge and edification of God's people, not authoritative but useful.

You see this historically also in Athanasius:

I also write, by way of remembrance, of matters with which you are acquainted, influenced by the need and advantage of the Church. In proceeding to make mention of these things, I shall adopt, to commend my undertaking, the pattern of Luke the Evangelist, saying on my own account: 'Forasmuch as some have taken in hand,' to reduce into order for themselves the books termed apocryphal, and to mix them up with the divinely inspired Scripture, concerning which we have been fully persuaded, as they who from the beginning were eyewitnesses and ministers of the Word, delivered to the fathers; it seemed good to me also, having been urged thereto by true brethren, and having learned from the beginning, to set before you the books included in the Canon, and handed down, and accredited as Divine...There are, then, of the Old Testament, twenty-two books in number; for, as I have heard, it is handed down that this is the number of the letters among the Hebrews...there are other books besides these not indeed included in the Canon, but appointed by the Fathers to be read by those who newly join us, and who wish for instruction in the word of godliness. The Wisdom of Solomon, and the Wisdom of Sirach, and Esther, and Judith, and Tobit" (Athanasius, Festal Letter 39:2-4, 39:7)
In Him,
Bill

Good points. Thanks for posting that.

================================================
" The Vulgate manuscripts included prologues that clearly identified certain books of the Vulgate Old Testament as apocryphal or non-canonical. In the prologue to the books of Samuel and Kings, which is often called the Prologus Galeatus, Jerome described those books not translated from the Hebrew as apocrypha; he specifically mentions that Wisdom, the book of Jesus son of Sirach, Judith, Tobias, and the Shepherd "are not in the canon". In the prologue to Esdras he mentions 3 and 4 Esdras as being apocrypha. In his prologue to the books of Solomon, he mentioned "the book of Jesus son of Sirach and another pseudepigraphos, which is titled the Wisdom of Solomon". He says of them and Judith, Tobias, and the Books of the Maccabees, that the Church "has not received them among the canonical scriptures".

 

[Fidelibus]

Good Day,Fidelibus

And to you as well.

How would you presume authority is required?

Being I am Catholic, I presumed that would be obvious.

I guess that would be primarily on the basis that authority was required to include them out side of some name it claim it fallacy of the Roman church.

Could you give an example of whom the "some" might be?

Setting that aside, I feel my question to 'coffee4u' was a question worth asking. Again, Coffee4u stated that the apocrypha was removed frim the KJV in 1885. So my question is, who or what entity decided in 1885 that these books needed to be removed from the KJV? I can tell you with all certainty it was not the Catholic Church! Was it some council from one of the various Prostestant denominations that decided? Was it some famous Pastor of that time period that decided? If it was not any of those I listed above, whom or what decided? Somebody of some authority decided would you not agree? So the question remains......... by who's or what authority decided to remove these books from the KJV in 1885? Surely there must be some sort of documentation somewhere to show who or what decided.

I realize it was not you that made this claim, so if you don't know, maybe coffee4u could enlighten us?


Have a Blessed day

 

[Albion]

Setting that aside, I feel my question to 'coffee4u' was a question worth asking. Again, Coffee4u stated that the apocrypha was removed frim the KJV in 1885.

It ceased to be printed along with the books of the Bible. It never was part of the (KJV) Bible.

 

[MarkRohfrietsch]

Profits of the Prophets are what exactly?

Sorry, posted in haste earlier, and trusted spell check. My bad. Fixed in my original post. Thanks.

 

[MarkRohfrietsch]

It ceased to be printed along with the books of the Bible. It never was part of the (KJV) Bible.

Lots of sources would dispute this; King James Version - Wikipedia gives a pretty good summary.

James gave the translators instructions intended to ensure that the new version would conform to the ecclesiology of, and reflect the episcopal structure of, the Church of England and its belief in an ordained clergy.[8] The translation was done by 6 panels of translators (47 men in all, most of whom were leading biblical scholars in England) who had the work divided up between them: the Old Testament was entrusted to three panels, the New Testament to two, and the Apocrypha to one.[9] In common with most other translations of the period, the New Testament was translated from Greek, the Old Testament from Hebrew and Aramaic, and the Apocrypha from Greek and Latin. In the Book of Common Prayer (1662), the text of the Authorized Version replaced the text of the Great Bible for Epistle and Gospel readings (but not for the Psalter, which substantially retained Coverdale's Great Bible version), and as such was authorized by Act of Parliament.[10]

By the first half of the 18th century, the Authorized Version had become effectively unchallenged as the English translation used in Anglican and English Protestant churches, except for the Psalms and some short passages in the Book of Common Prayer of the Church of England. Over the course of the 18th century, the Authorized Version supplanted the Latin Vulgate as the standard version of scripture for English-speaking scholars. With the development of stereotype printing at the beginning of the 19th century, this version of the Bible became the most widely printed book in history, almost all such printings presenting the standard text of 1769 extensively re-edited by Benjamin Blayney at Oxford, and nearly always omitting the books of the Apocrypha. Today the unqualified title "King James Version" usually indicates this Oxford standard text.​

The Apocrypha was part of the KJV through to 1769, and it would seem occasionally after that.

 

[BBAS 64]

Incorrect Bob; Jerome wanted to put them in the middle; not exclude them.

Good day,

I have done a fair amount of reading from Jerome and I must say I have never heard this.

Do you have the primary source for this. I should have expected to read this in his letters with Augustine on the issues of the Jewish Cannon, but do not recall seeing it there.

If you have it that would be great!

In Him,

Bill

 

[coffee4u]

And to you as well.



Being I am Catholic, I presumed that would be obvious.



Could you give an example of whom the "some" might be?

Setting that aside, I feel my question to 'coffee4u' was a question worth asking. Again, Coffee4u stated that the apocrypha was removed frim the KJV in 1885. So my question is, who or what entity decided in 1885 that these books needed to be removed from the KJV? I can tell you with all certainty it was not the Catholic Church! Was it some council from one of the various Prostestant denominations that decided? Was it some famous Pastor of that time period that decided? If it was not any of those I listed above, whom or what decided? Somebody of some authority decided would you not agree? So the question remains......... by who's or what authority decided to remove these books from the KJV in 1885? Surely there must be some sort of documentation somewhere to show who or what decided.

I realize it was not you that made this claim, so if you don't know, maybe coffee4u could enlighten us?


Have a Blessed day

I believe God keeps his word for us. If the removal of the apocrypha was in error I believe God would have made some way for it to be put back, he didn't. I do not believe he would have scripture left out for 135 years, so I believe its removal was the correct choice.

 

[MarkRohfrietsch]

Good day,

I have done a fair amount of reading from Jerome and I must say I have never heard this.

Do you have the primary source for this. I should have expected to read this in his letters with Augustine on the issues of the Jewish Cannon, but do not recall seeing it there.

If you have it that would be great!

In Him,

Bill

Everything I can find is polemic; Catholic or Reformed; for or against. Good article here, but not specifically about Jerome despite the title: St. Jerome and the Deuterocanonicals: Response to a Critique

 

[MarkRohfrietsch]

I believe God keeps his word for us. If the removal of the apocrypha was in error I believe God would have made some way for it to be put back, he didn't. I do not believe he would have scripture left out for 135 years, so I believe its removal was the correct choice.

Oh, but He did. You can buy them about every where. The fact that certain protestant sects wish to eradicate them, yet they are available virtually everywhere despite the best efforts of those radical sects. So, the whole of the traditional Church has them for 2000 years, and the radicals take them out for a brief moment means they are right and the whole Church is wrong??? Illogical and unreasonable.

That eternal word did contain and still does the Apocrypha.

 

[BBAS 64]

Everything I can find is polemic; Catholic or Reformed; for or against. Good article here, but not specifically about Jerome despite the title: St. Jerome and the Deuterocanonicals: Response to a Critique

Good Day, Mark

Thanks I will give this a read...

I am most interested in Jerome as I think history would show that he preface accurately delivers the view of the church in his day. That preface appeared in the Latin Vulgate and history shows no evidence of push back on his statement about the church. This you can be sure of Jerome did like to argue and would have rather lost friends before ever losing an argument.

That being said I have no issue with the Roman Church defining for it's self and it's members their own Cannon. Seeing I am not a member there it has very little effect on me, but I do believe they are in error historically.

You may find this interesting...

The Jewish People and their Sacred Scriptures in the Christian Bible

In Him,

Bill

 

[MarkRohfrietsch]

Good Day, Mark

Thanks I will give this a read...

I am most interested in Jerome as I think history would show that he preface accurately delivers the view of the church in his day. That preface appeared in the Latin Vulgate and history shows no evidence of push back on his statement about the church. This you can be sure of Jerome did like to argue and would have rather lost friends before ever losing an argument.

That being said I have no issue with the Roman Church defining for it's self and it's members their own Cannon. Seeing I am not a member there it has very little effect on me, but I do believe they are in error historically.

You may find this interesting...

The Jewish People and their Sacred Scriptures in the Christian Bible

In Him,

Bill

Thanks for the "lite" reading!

It is interesting that as Christians, some of us put so much weight on the opinion of the Jews. You may not be aware, but among what we know as the Dead Sea Scrolls, Fragments, some quite large, of both the Old Testament and Apocryphal books were found. Not only were they found, but what was found pre-dates copies of text that were used to compose our Bible as we know it today. They have brought to light some discrepancies and omissions and additions that have found their way into our "Bible".

I'm no Bible Scholar, but I would imagine that this is exciting times for them. I also understand the trepidation expressed by some Christian Groups that had closed Scripture, and now need to defend their position in light of these lost for a time treasures of History and Faith.

While I don't know the position regarding the Catholic Church (I would like to think that despite a closed Canon, their great tradition of Bible Scholarship would continue; as would foot noting and revising), but the KJV only people might have a hard time reconciling these issues, likely choosing to ignore these enlightening bits.

Back to my first paragraph; if we are going to rely on the modern Jews to define what we as Christians can use from historic texts; we also need to be mindful that even today, some Messianic Jews have excluded the Pauline Epistles, because of Paul's statements regarding the observance of certain laws.

So, I reiterate that the "Apocryphal" books have been provided to us and have been historically present through the whole history of the Church (unless you figure it began with the revelation of the KJV Bible); and those discoveries of the Dead Sea Scrolls do make a sound case for an open Canon IMO.

 

[BobRyan]

If it's not an appeal to church tradition, on what other basis can we understand canonicity? And therefore inspiration and inerrancy? From this perspective, it seems both Protestants and Catholics appeal to scripture (at least to some degree) but obviously disagree on the scope of the canon. What is an appeal to scripture to the Catholic is not an appeal to scripture to the Protestant.

one group claims we can test all doctrine and practice... all tradition... by the Bible and that Christ is doing that very thing in Mark 7:7-13.

Some Catholic members claim that certain key doctrines cannot be known without first reading Catholic documents outside of the Bible - for example , definition of Trinity doctrine.

 

[BobRyan]

I myself believe that a reconciliation between sola scriptura, the Catholic Magisterium, and the Holy Tradition of the Eastern churches, is possible, because the latter can mostly be shown to be scriptural, and nothing in my opinion in, for example, the Holy Tradition of the Eastern church, contradicts Scripture (nor do I disagree with the essential idea of the Magisterium; my main concern is Popes who seem to want to redefine it, like Paul VI and Francis, and Vatican I creating the appearance that they have that power).

The real problem in my opinion is Nuda Scriptura, which is the extreme rejection of anything “not in the Bible”, .

There is a difference between claiming that some tradition does not contradict scripture and the more specific claim that a given tradition doctrine is found in scripture. So as noted previously the "One God in Three persons" Trinity doctrine can be found in Deut 6:4 "One God" and Matt 28:19 "three persons".

But a great many other "additions" to that doctrine cannot be found in scripture.

 

[BobRyan]

There was a period of several centuries while the Church flailed around, trying to formulate the Trinity and Incarnation. The East and West have their own related but distinct versions of this. Various schools during the late medieval period made substantial changes.

I can understand and be sympathetic with what each of these people did. But I don't see any reason that we're not allowed to do our own reinterpretation. Indeed given the changes in knowledge of all kinds (including understanding of what Jesus actually meant), failure to do so is suspicious...
...
The Reformers didn't get everything right, but they made a start in the right direction. My big problem with most Protestants is that they have abandoned the Reformers' commitment, and settled in on new de facto inerrant Holy Traditions based on their founders' beliefs. Despite Protestant claims to being willing to follow Scripture and Catholic claims that their beliefs never change, in practice Catholic theologians are on average doing a better job of dealing with Scripture than Protestant ones....

(I think what I'm saying is that both most Protestants' claim to follow Scripture independent of Tradition, and Catholics claim not to, are to a substantial degree false.)

Regarding your "Trinity" example - would you say that Catholics are saying that tradition is not needed to get to their definition for the trinity? Are they claiming scripture alone will suffice to get to that kind of definition (of the sort they use for what the Trinity is?)

 

[Fervent]

And to you as well.



Being I am Catholic, I presumed that would be obvious.



Could you give an example of whom the "some" might be?

Setting that aside, I feel my question to 'coffee4u' was a question worth asking. Again, Coffee4u stated that the apocrypha was removed frim the KJV in 1885. So my question is, who or what entity decided in 1885 that these books needed to be removed from the KJV? I can tell you with all certainty it was not the Catholic Church! Was it some council from one of the various Prostestant denominations that decided? Was it some famous Pastor of that time period that decided? If it was not any of those I listed above, whom or what decided? Somebody of some authority decided would you not agree? So the question remains......... by who's or what authority decided to remove these books from the KJV in 1885? Surely there must be some sort of documentation somewhere to show who or what decided.

I realize it was not you that made this claim, so if you don't know, maybe coffee4u could enlighten us?


Have a Blessed day

Claiming the apocrypha/dueterocanon was "removed" is a bit of a mischaracterization of what happened. Throughout the history of the church those books have always had a lesser status than the 66 included in the protestant canon, and variously were absent in collections depending upon which manuscript family was used for indexing. They weren't officially declared to be part of the canon and included in the majority of collections until Trent within the Catholic church. The protestant collections tended to place them in an appendex because of their historical status, and being in the index they fell into disuse. Publishers then began removing the appendix because they weren't being read and the cost of printing was lesser, leaving the index as a separate document. So it's not that the protestants demeaned the books but that Trent elevated their status in response to the reformation

 

[prodromos]

Claiming the apocrypha/dueterocanon was "removed" is a bit of a mischaracterization of what happened. Throughout the history of the church those books have always had a lesser status than the 66 included in the protestant canon, and variously were absent in collections depending upon which manuscript family was used for indexing. They weren't officially declared to be part of the canon and included in the majority of collections until Trent within the Catholic church. The protestant collections tended to place them in an appendex because of their historical status, and being in the index they fell into disuse. Publishers then began removing the appendix because they weren't being read and the cost of printing was lesser, leaving the index as a separate document. So it's not that the protestants demeaned the books but that Trent elevated their status in response to the reformation

That's a very West centric view. In the East the canonical status of the deuterocanonicals has been very consistent

 

[Fervent]

That's a very West centric view. In the East the canonical status of the deuterocanonicals has been very consistent

Not quite, no single LXX contains all of the disputed books and the reason they were disputed by Luther initially was because they were not unanimously attested to historically. It's simply that no one challenged them in the East after the schism of the millenium, their appearance in ancient indices remains sporadic no matter an Eastern or Western view.

 

[concretecamper]

Claiming the apocrypha/dueterocanon was "removed" is a bit of a mischaracterization of what happened. Throughout the history of the church those books have always had a lesser status than the 66 included in the protestant canon, and variously were absent in collections depending upon which manuscript family was used for indexing. They weren't officially declared to be part of the canon and included in the majority of collections until Trent within the Catholic church. The protestant collections tended to place them in an appendex because of their historical status, and being in the index they fell into disuse. Publishers then began removing the appendix because they weren't being read and the cost of printing was lesser, leaving the index as a separate document. So it's not that the protestants demeaned the books but that Trent elevated their status in response to the reformation

the same Church that said Matthew is inspired text said the dueterocannocal books are inspired. Q.E.D

And removing them because of printing cost, that is the first time I've heard that excuse ​

 

[Fervent]

the same Church that said Matthew is inspired text said the dueterocannocal books are inspired. Q.E.D

And removing them because of printing cost, that is the first time I've heard that excuse ​

Matthew is not canonical because of a church decree, the authority in Matthew is what gave the church some vestige of authority and what authority it has is dependent on how close it holds to the Scripture.