For most of my life as a Christian, I have accepted the Protestant Bible of the 66 books (39/27) as inspired scripture. However, over the last ten years, I have been deeply interested in ecclesiastical history and in particular, the Patristic age, which is generally understood as the period of between c. 100-451, or from the end of the Apostolic Age until the Council of Chalcedon.
The development of the Canon of Scripture has been of particular importance to me since the Bible has been the primary source for the development of Christian Theology in both Eastern and Western Christianity, though of course not solely as it is within much Protestant thought.
What I am presently considering is the proper place for the deuterocanonical books which slightly vary between the Old Testament section of the Orthodox and Roman Catholic Bibles for the development of doctrine and practice. It appears that the significance, or lack there of, among the churches is a rather complicated historical issue, and I would like to know your thoughts on why these works ought to be either excepted or neglected. Or as a third option, why these works might be deserving of a secondary status of importance as was the position of some early Reformers.
As far as I know, the Protestant rejection of these works tends to hinge on two major considerations. The first is that when Judaism eventually established a definitive canon, the deuterocanonical books were not regarded as Scripture. Consequently, early discrete Protestant sects were uncomfortable with the acceptance of these works what they would subsequently classify as Apocraphal. This argument seems fallacious since it requires adopting the authoritative decree of a relatively late (in relation to the Apostolic Age) emerging consensus eventually within Judaism. The notion of a determined canon of the Hebrew scriptures established at the once suggested but falsified Council of Jamnia in the late first century supports this contention.
The other reason generally offered by Protestants who reject the deuterocanonical works is grounded in what appears to be the Hebrew canon of known to Christ, the Christians who wrote during the Apostolic Age, and The Apostolic Fathers who wrote from the late first century to roughly the middle of the second century. Upon discerning through these writings what the earliest Church believed to be authoritative inspired scripture, we in fact find very few allusions to the deuterocanonical works, and no explicit allusions to their authority (such as there being the words, "as it is written" proceeding the quotation). It appears that these books eventually became widely accepted by the Church largely due to their inclusion in the standard Greek Bible of the Ante-Nicene Period, the Septuagint, and hence by the third century they became regularly sourced for theological development.
By the end of the forth century, the first two councils in the West to recognize the 27 books of the New Testament, The Synod of Hippo and The Synod of Carthage (and possibly an earlier Synod of Rome), accepted the deuterocanonical books as found today in the Roman Catholic Canon of Scripture. These works held this status without controversy among Christians for over a thousand years and were reaffirmed by the Council of Trent in the 16th century in response to either hesitation or rejection to include these works as Scripture by some of the Protestant church's.
This is indeed a complex issue which is only superficially considered here. Presently I am inclined to regard the deuterocanonical works as scripture. What do you think and why?
The development of the Canon of Scripture has been of particular importance to me since the Bible has been the primary source for the development of Christian Theology in both Eastern and Western Christianity, though of course not solely as it is within much Protestant thought.
What I am presently considering is the proper place for the deuterocanonical books which slightly vary between the Old Testament section of the Orthodox and Roman Catholic Bibles for the development of doctrine and practice. It appears that the significance, or lack there of, among the churches is a rather complicated historical issue, and I would like to know your thoughts on why these works ought to be either excepted or neglected. Or as a third option, why these works might be deserving of a secondary status of importance as was the position of some early Reformers.
As far as I know, the Protestant rejection of these works tends to hinge on two major considerations. The first is that when Judaism eventually established a definitive canon, the deuterocanonical books were not regarded as Scripture. Consequently, early discrete Protestant sects were uncomfortable with the acceptance of these works what they would subsequently classify as Apocraphal. This argument seems fallacious since it requires adopting the authoritative decree of a relatively late (in relation to the Apostolic Age) emerging consensus eventually within Judaism. The notion of a determined canon of the Hebrew scriptures established at the once suggested but falsified Council of Jamnia in the late first century supports this contention.
The other reason generally offered by Protestants who reject the deuterocanonical works is grounded in what appears to be the Hebrew canon of known to Christ, the Christians who wrote during the Apostolic Age, and The Apostolic Fathers who wrote from the late first century to roughly the middle of the second century. Upon discerning through these writings what the earliest Church believed to be authoritative inspired scripture, we in fact find very few allusions to the deuterocanonical works, and no explicit allusions to their authority (such as there being the words, "as it is written" proceeding the quotation). It appears that these books eventually became widely accepted by the Church largely due to their inclusion in the standard Greek Bible of the Ante-Nicene Period, the Septuagint, and hence by the third century they became regularly sourced for theological development.
By the end of the forth century, the first two councils in the West to recognize the 27 books of the New Testament, The Synod of Hippo and The Synod of Carthage (and possibly an earlier Synod of Rome), accepted the deuterocanonical books as found today in the Roman Catholic Canon of Scripture. These works held this status without controversy among Christians for over a thousand years and were reaffirmed by the Council of Trent in the 16th century in response to either hesitation or rejection to include these works as Scripture by some of the Protestant church's.
This is indeed a complex issue which is only superficially considered here. Presently I am inclined to regard the deuterocanonical works as scripture. What do you think and why?
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