Why did Protestants remove books from the Bible?

[Fish and Bread]

My point concerning Purgatory remains the same. An enormous doctrine has been constructed on one single verse. This verse does not begin to address most of the aspects of that doctrine

The thing is, I don't think that single verse is used as the sole basis for purgatory in Roman Catholicism. There is also, scripturally, at least the New Testament idea of the house being burned away and the foundation revealed, the prisoner having to pay his debt before his release, and so on and so forth that could arguably be seen as pointing towards purgatory. Ultimately, though, according to Catholic theology, people who are part of that faith don't have to really make a scriptural case, solely, there is also tradition and the councils and the Popes and the bishops and so on and so forth (It has to be consistent with scripture, but it doesn't have to be proven in it). The Council of Trent defined that there is a purgatory (and possibly the Council of Florence and/or others, I don't recall), so there is, from a Roman Catholic perspective -- it doesn't have to be proven scripturally for a Roman Catholic to believe it, though I think there are at least hints in scripture.

As for the rest of the seven books in question, I know of no doctrines of any sort which have been developed by any church in contradistinction to other Christian bodies or to orthodox Christianity in general.

There was one other doctrinal point that sometimes comes up, but I'm blanking on it. Generally, though, you're right -- it was some of the Protestant reformers who made a big issue of there being things contrary to their Protestant faith in the deutrocanonicals. I don't think Catholics as a group ever made a big point of agreeing that anything was contrary to the mainstream Protestant movements (Though obviously some do make this point).

I often wonder what Martin Luther would think of the high praise given to him for being the source of all this contention. The simple facts of history are clear that Luther hardly was the only person during the Protestant Reformation (or even prior to it) who rejected these seven books.

Luther aside, I think it is important to look at how we know the bible is the bible. I've never seen a persuasive argument outside of the Church defining the bible as the bible, because so many movements say they are guided by the Holy Spirit, or by history, or by reason and yet contradict similar groups with the same sort of thinking, because it just isn't clear. There has to be some level of authority that can rule on it, because if there were not, how do we know?

 

[Gwendolyn]

To all those who take offence at the word, Apocrypha, I do sincerely apologize. I must admit, however, that I do not see much, if anything, that is repetitious of other Old Testament books. They are historical accounts of events occuring in the two centuries prior to the Christian Era.

I think the issue isn't with the "word". It's with what you mean by the word. The "Apocrypha", to us, is something completely different - a separate body of writings that, while not inspired directly by God, is helpful for understanding early Christian life and belief. These books were written in the early Christian era; not before Christ.

What Protestants erroneously refer to as the "apocrypha" is, in fact, the Deuterocanon.

 

[Veritas]

David and français, the protestant bible uses the books agreed during the Jewish Canon, which took place around the year 100 after Christ.

I go back to what I said in post #16

In my opinion the criteria used to discern what books should have been part of the OT during the Jewish Canon around the year 100 after Christ is something we should all be studying very closely...

I have heard the 5 criteria points used to discern which books were to be included and I also disagree with them...
For example, one of the criteria points used to discern which books should have been included was that if the book had not been written in Hebrew then it could not have been inspired by GOD, in other words if it was in Greek it could not have been inspired by GOD... the way I see it, Unless something in the other books or even Jewish tradition stated this believe, then this criteria surely is not grounds for those books not be inspired.

My understanding is, if I'm correct to say this for example the macabees books cover about 200 years of history, if one takes them out then there is 200 years of history missing.



Here is an interesting article called "The Council That Wasn’t" that I would recommend you all read.

This argument isn't too different than the KJV only crowd. They claim that only this version of the bible is inspired and that all others are heretical. Never mind that the original Authorized KJV had the 7 books and it was illegal to publish a bible in England that didn't contain them. It was ironically, the anti-Catholic Pilgrims who came to America that first deleted those books in their published version.

The Aprocrypha, unfortunately, lacks both prophetic teaching and prophetic authorship......Having read, and enjoyed, the Apocrypha

It is clear then that you haven't read them.

It is interesting to me that the writers of the New Testament made reference to all of the books of the Tanach (except Esther) but none of the books of the Apocrypha.

Try this link with references of the DCs in the NT.
http://socrates58.blogspot.com/2005/08/possible-references-to-deuterocanon.html

Of course, the response will be that the Apocrypha sets forth a major doctrine (Purgatory). As anyone who has read the Apocrypha and studied that doctrine knows, the doctrine depends on one single verse which, by itself, is surprisingly vague

False. For someone who claims to know so much, you're surprisingly ignorant of what scriptures the Church uses in support of this teaching.

It is comparable to the Latter Day Saints building a major doctrine on I Corinthians 15:29. If this doctrine was so evident then churches which also retain the Apocrypha, such as the Eastern Orthodox churches would have adopted it long before the Great Schism, Likewise, the Jews would have accepted it, as well.

Considerig the Jews pray for the "dead", it's not too far fetched.

As it is, I believe that Martin Luther was correct in saying that the Apocrypha is excellent literature, but it is not the Word of God

Martin Luther also thought James, Hebrews and Revelation were not the "Word of God". You really want to trust him?

 

[david01]

Thank you, Fish and Bread, for providing some good perspective on the matter. I agree with you, entirely, that the role of scripture is secondary to the teaching of the Roman Catholic Church for its members. As we all know, there are a number of doctrines which, at best, might be alluded to in scripture, but which the faithful in the RCC are expected to believe. Some have argued (and this is not the place for such debates) that some RCC doctrines contradict scripture. Thus, the doctrine of Purgatory as commonly explicated (and there are a number of divergent views on the doctrine which are being put forward) does not depend on the Bible alone for its support. Therefore, the issue concerning the canonicity of the seven books in question really is not, and should not be, a major difficulty.

You are also quite right about the need for a definitive means of determining what, and what is not, to be considered the Word of God. For Protestants, the definitive means for determning the Old Testament comes through the Jews who, for millenia were (and in a sense still are) caretakers of those scriptures.

Veritas, I have no interest at all in the KJV controversy. The Geneva Bible, which was used by the Puritans, was translated and published in Geneva, Switzerland. As such, one might call it a Swiss Bible.

Thank you for the link of possible references. I have given it a cursory glance and hope to examine it in more detail, later.

I am surprised that you do not understand the Jewish mourning custom of sitting shiva. It bears as much resemblance to the Catholic doctrine of praying for the dead as I do to Santa Claus. Ask any Jew about Purgatory and he will tell you it has something to do with the Catholic church. Ask them if they pray in order to release their beloved ones from anything like Purgatory.

As I noted, Martin Luther was well known for having held many bogus opinions at varying points of his life. He certainly had his struggles in understanding James, Hebrews, and Revelation, but his opinions on them did not sway anyone else within the Protestant Reformation to delete these books from the New Testament.

 

[Fish and Bread]

You are also quite right about the need for a definitive means of determining what, and what is not, to be considered the Word of God. For Protestants, the definitive means for determning the Old Testament comes through the Jews who, for millenia were (and in a sense still are) caretakers of those scriptures.

I would understand that perspective coming from the evangelical Protestant pre-millennial dispensationalist mindset that the Church is not the new Israel, and doesn't replace it (Though there are a lot of theological issues with pre-millennial dispensationalism as an interpretative model). With that mindset, one could easily accept the decision of Judaism as to what to canonize even though it came after the establishment of the Church.

For a Roman Catholic, Eastern Orthodox, or a traditional mainline Protestant (i.e. Lutheran, Calvinist, etc..), though, the Church is Israel in the sense of being the People of God from the moment of the Church's inception. With respect to modern Jews, many of whom are folks I really like, from a traditional Christian theological perspective -- they are not really Jews in the classical sense. For Christianity, an ethnic Jewish Israel as the People of God ended with the establishment of the Church, which replaced it. What they do anytime after Pentecost doesn't matter theologically. I don't want to sound dismissive of them, because I think many of them are great folks, and they have very venerable traditions, but rabbis voting on something in 70 AD or 80 AD matters not at all to a Christian in theological terms. It has the same theological import for us as a council of Muslim imams, or a Wiccan festival meeting. It's just irrelevant (Albeit interesting if one has an interest in history and world religions, as I do).

 

[InTheCloud]

The fact remains the early Christians including the apostles, the evangelists and the Apostolic Fathers used the septuagint cannon and texts. Why use the canon of the Pharisees? The same people who have many issues with Jesus.
Because the Masoretic Canon, David 01, was not the canon of all Jews them, it was the canon of the Pharisees. As I posted before, the Saducees, the Samaritans, the Esenes, the Hellenistic Diaspora Jews had different Canons and all were Jews. Jews were then as divided as Christians are today.
That the only thing I do not like of my Nueva Biblia de Jerusalem, it used the Masoretic text for most of the OT.
The English language Orthodox Study Bible which I'm waiting eagerly does have the NKJV OT text modified to rememble the Septuagint OT. Good.
And yes, they not only quoted from the deuterocanonicals, Jesus even quoted the book of Enoch.

 

[winsome]

Ask any Jew about Purgatory and he will tell you it has something to do with the Catholic church. Ask them if they pray in order to release their beloved ones from anything like Purgatory.

“According to Judaism, the purifying process that a sullied soul undergoes to cleanse it from its spiritual uncleanliness is a temporary one, and is restorative in its intent, and not punitive, as many mistakenly believe.”
Rabbi Eliezer Danzinger
http://www.chabad.org/library/articl...-teachings.htm - article entitled Is there any sort of Purgatory or Satan in Jewish teachings?


The article also says
“Notwithstanding the sources above subscribing to and depicting Gehinom as a physical place, other sources -- in Kabbalah, Chassidut, and Jewish philosophy -- portray Gehinom in more abstract and spiritual terms. In fact, later, as Nachmanides continues his above mentioned exposition on Gehinom, he seems to do an about-face, also explaining the fires of Gehinom and the punishment endured by the soul in spiritual terms.”

 

[InTheCloud]

[Quote:[/COLOR][/FONT]
Originally Posted by david01
Ask any Jew about Purgatory and he will tell you it has something to do with the Catholic church. Ask them if they pray in order to release their beloved ones from anything like Purgatory.

“According to Judaism, the purifying process that a sullied soul undergoes to cleanse it from its spiritual uncleanliness is a temporary one, and is restorative in its intent, and not punitive, as many mistakenly believe".
In others words Jews believe in Purgatory, they just do not call it that way. And Like Origen they believe most people will eventualy get to heaven or fade away.
More point for the Catholic view.
Catholics are more Jewish they are willing to accept.

 

[david01]

Again, thanks to all for moving this discussion forward in a positive manner.

Fish and Bread, I am surprised that you are dragging eschatology into the discussion. You can be quite sure that not all Protestants (who use Bibles excluding the seven books in question) are premillenial dispensationalists. Their views of eschatalogy range from one extreme to the other..

The Jews did not have a monolithic religion in the first century or even afterward to the present day. I am not sure what you mean by a "classic Jew" but I would avoid accusing any modern Jew, especially Orthodox Jews that they are not "classic Jews." What defines Judaism, as in Christianity, is not a unified theology, but a common book of inspired writings (the Bible, as we would call it). The fact that Christianity agreed to accept this Book in toto tells me that their decision in A.D. 70 or 80 held a lot more impact than a coven of Wiccans or a High Council of Islamic Imams would today, or even an ex cathedra statement from the Pope.

Resoto, has it never occured to you that the Apostle Paul was a Pharisee? Christianity, in its inception, was a subsect of the Pharisees in that it believed in the literal, physical resurrection of the body. So, it should come as no surprise that Paul and the other Apostles used the Bible of the Pharisees.

Actually, using an English translation of the Septuagint is to be preferred over using an English translation of the Latin Vulgate, as in the Douay version.

Because Jude quoted from the book of Enoch, does not make it a canonical book, as we all agree. There are multiple references in the Old Testament citing primarily other historical sources for verification. None of these additional sources are known to survive at this time, but any or all could have been incorporated into the Old Testament canon at that time.

Winsome, thank you for clarifying my point. The concept of a place of punishment for one's trespasses in order to merit heaven is foreign to Judaism. Sitting shiva lasts precisely seven days and, as you noted, is temporary. By the way, I love your fridge magnet philosophy.

 

[winsome]

Winsome, thank you for clarifying my point. The concept of a place of punishment for one's trespasses in order to merit heaven is foreign to Judaism. Sitting shiva lasts precisely seven days and, as you noted, is temporary. By the way, I love your fridge magnet philosophy.

The concept of a place of punishment for one's trespasses in order to merit heaven is not part of Catholic teaching either.

In the Catechism of the Catholic Church we find the following statements in the section on Purgatory:
1. “All who die in God’s grace and friendship, but still imperfectly purified, are indeed assured of their eternal salvation; but after death they undergo purification, so as to achieve the holiness necessary to enter the joy of heaven” (CCC 1030).

2. “The Church gives the name Purgatory to this final purification of the elect, which is entirely different from the punishment of the damned.” (CCC 1031) (my emphasis)

Also note that purgatory is a process, or state of being, not a place. We don't know how long this purification "lasts" as we can't measure such things in our timeframe.

 

[Fish and Bread]

Again, thanks to all for moving this discussion forward in a positive manner.

Fish and Bread, I am surprised that you are dragging eschatology into the discussion. You can be quite sure that not all Protestants (who use Bibles excluding the seven books in question) are premillenial dispensationalists. Their views of eschatalogy range from one extreme to the other..

The Jews did not have a monolithic religion in the first century or even afterward to the present day. I am not sure what you mean by a "classic Jew" but I would avoid accusing any modern Jew, especially Orthodox Jews that they are not "classic Jews." What defines Judaism, as in Christianity, is not a unified theology, but a common book of inspired writings (the Bible, as we would call it). The fact that Christianity agreed to accept this Book in toto tells me that their decision in A.D. 70 or 80 held a lot more impact than a coven of Wiccans or a High Council of Islamic Imams would today, or even an ex cathedra statement from the Pope.

Alright, I think maybe I was a bit verbose and possibly unclear, so I am going to try to rephrase what I said. Aside from premillenial dispensationists (A sub-group of Baptists and evangelicals that arose within the last few centuries), all Christians (Catholic, Orthodox, Protestant) believe that the People of God began with the national of Israel and religious Judiasm and then the People of God became transformed into the Christian Church. God's promise to Abraham continues from Pentecost onward not through the genetic propagation of a single nation and the observance of the law, but through the propagation of God's Church to all nations and of faith in Jesus Christ.

Practically speaking, that means that religious Jews today, though they follow a great tradition and are often great folks, are not actually the same from a Christian theological perspective as Judiasm before Pentecost. The Church is the New Israel and the People of God, it replaces the Old Israel, or, more technically speaking, the Old Israel has become transformed into and continues through, the Church, which is the New Israel. This is what scripture clearly teaches us.

So, Judiasm during the era of the Church has no special authority or doctrinal protection. Their doctrines are false in the sense of rejecting Christ, actually, though people need to be very careful not to take that too far and to still recognize that many of them are great people and that their religion shares many great traits in common with Christianity and with historic Judiasm pre-Christ. But, basically, what they did in 70 AD or when ever no longer had any importance for the Church. They handed over scripture to the Church's authority when the Church was constituted on Pentecost, in the eyes of God, from the perspective of Christian theology. At that point, it was for the Church to decide, and to settle what was in and what was out, because it was handed over in a state where it wasn't clear what was canon. Judiasm was a separate entity from that point on and their later determination on scriptural canon was known to be in fact partly based on trying to get rid of perceived Christian and Greek influences which they feel gave rise to ideas like Christianity, and obviously eliminating things that forshadowed or helped give rise to Christianity is not something that the Church would agree with them on (So the Church defined the canon differently).

 

[InTheCloud]

"Resoto, has it never occured to you that the Apostle Paul was a Pharisee? Christianity, in its inception, was a subsect of the Pharisees in that it believed in the literal, physical resurrection of the body. So, it should come as no surprise that Paul and the other Apostles used the Bible of the Pharisees.

Actually, using an English translation of the Septuagint is to be preferred over using an English translation of the Latin Vulgate, as in the Douay version.

Because Jude quoted from the book of Enoch, does not make it a canonical book, as we all agree. There are multiple references in the Old Testament citing primarily other historical sources for verification. None of these additional sources are known to survive at this time, but any or all could have been incorporated into the Old Testament canon at that time."

Yes Saul/Paul was a Pharisee, thats why he had such a high regard of christians in the begining. (I'm ironic here). But the early christians also had a lot of the Escenes too.
The linguistical evidence I have read, including secular and Jewish authors said that the OT quotes made by Paul and the Apostles in the NT were actually made from the Septuagint, not from the Masoretic text used by the Pharisees. And the Septugint had the deuterocanonicals as inspired. So the earliest christians actually regarded the Septuagint as they correct OT.
And Jesus did quote form them and again the text matches the Septuagint, even in the non deutorecanonical books.
So is safe to say that the correct historical early christian cannon and text is the Septuagint.
But I do like my Bible of Jerusalem (in spanish) even if they used the Marsoretic text for the OT, causing mismatches in concordance with the NT.
Now I see why the Janna Shul did not like the Septuagint. Too many OT/NT matches. That favored the christians.
I do not like the KJAV or the DR bibles in english. I'm not a retro fan.

 

[Polycarp1]

Catholic Bibles include the full Biblical canon of 72 books. Seven books were removed in the 16th century when the Protestant movement took hold. (I won't criticise Luther, either - he was a man very plagued by many things.) Though, really, it isn't seven full books - parts of Daniel were removed, as were parts of one other Old Testament book. Why someone decides to remove part of a book of Scripture, I have no clue.

All 72 books were preached, taught, and read as Scripture for the 1500+ years that Christianity had existed until the Protestant Reformation ....

The Septuagint was prepared by Jewish scholars in Alexandria two centuries before Christ. It's a complete rendering in Greek of all the Jewish holy books of the time.

After our Lord's earthly ministry and actually after Paul's ministry, the Jews of Palestine established a very restricted canon of only those works they knew extant in Hebrew. (Ironically Sirach, composed in Hebrew, was among those excluded because manuscripts of it in the original Hebrew version were even then rare.) This is the proterocanon, and it is what the Protestant Reformers went with. (For what it's worth, it is what St. Jerome at first decided to consider as unquestionably valid back in about 500 AD, but he was directed by the Pope of the time to include the deuterocanon, on which he had at first had doubts.)

The large manuscript Bibles of the middle ages all had the complete Septuagint plus of course the canonical New Testament.

The canon as established by Trent omits three books from the Septuagint -- what is in most English Bibles called I Esdras, which is essentially a retelling of parts of Esra and Nemehiah with additional detail; a Jewish apocalyptic work called II Esdras; and the short and beautiful penitential Prayer of Manasses (King Manasseh) -- which is in fact preserved as the optional canticle Kyrie Pantocrator.

For the record, the books of Daniel and Esther are significantly longer in the Greek than in the Hebrew; several of the works in the KJV "Apocrypha" are excerpts from the Greek version of Daniel not extant in Hebrew. That's why "they omitted parts of books." Psalm 151, used by the Orthodox, does not exist in Western Bibles, as well.

It is perhaps worth noting that the Anglicans, Lutherans, and Methodists all recognize the value of the deuterocanon, though generally they do not regard it as full Scripture, and the Methodists make extremely limited use of it.

I don't say any of this as in any way critical of Catholicism, but rather laying out some factual data with, I hope, no value judgment attached.

 

[david01]

Thank you, Polycarp1, for giving us the facts of the matter. As I stated at the outset, this question could have been posed in a Protestant forum so that others who are far more knowledgeable than myself could provide better answers. Unfortunately, this is a matter of only peripheral interest to me and I have benefitted greatly from much of the input from others, especially yourself.

Resoto, thanks also for your response. One small additional note, though. It is highly unlikely that Jesus spoke Greek. The lingua franca of the Hebrews at that time was Aramaic so that it is virtually certain that His public utterances were in Aramaic. If this is true, then the authors of the New Testament translated His quotes from Aramaic into Greek.

 

[InTheCloud]

"After our Lord's earthly ministry and actually after Paul's ministry, the Jews of Palestine established a very restricted canon of only those works they knew extant in Hebrew. (Ironically Sirach, composed in Hebrew, was among those excluded because manuscripts of it in the original Hebrew version were even then rare.) This is the proterocanon, and it is what the Protestant Reformers went with. (For what it's worth, it is what St. Jerome at first decided to consider as unquestionably valid back in about 500 AD, but he was directed by the Pope of the time to include the deuterocanon, on which he had at first had doubts.)" Polycarp.

Good post. The fact is that the Anglican and Lutheran apples did not fall to far of the Catholic tree and the Methodist are a offshot of the Anglicans. So that explains why they still use in a limited way the deuterocanon. They still have a historical memory.
Your post also raises the issue Catholics and Orthodox have with the with the Reformers use of the use of the restrictive Palestinian Canon. It was made after Jesus and Paul ministries. And it was made to exclude all the book that were found in Greek, like the NT books for example. So why listen to them? Christianity already was in a new course and was creating her own Bible. St Jerome did not like the Deuterocanon, but the Popes, bishops and others saints like St. Athanasius who is regarded in the Catholic, Orthodox and Copthic churches as the author of the Christian Bible Canon wanted those books in the Bible. If fact in the eastern Greek speaking Church, the deuterocanonicals inspiration was never seriously doubted.
And yes, David, Jesus spoke Aramaic, and the Gospels were either written in Aramic and translated into Greek or written in Greek translating Jesus teaching from the Aramaic. But the fact is that the evangelists either made the Biblical quotes match the Septuagint version of the OT, or Jesus was really quoting from the Septuagint. There was no standard version of the OT them and many had minor diferences.

 

[InTheCloud]

In other forum (Catholic Answers) I found this post that is very interienting making the case for the use of the Septuagint OT by Christians.
Look,

"The gist of my post: There are certain New Testament passages which quote the Old Testament in a way which cannot be reconciled with the Masoretic Text. But it seems all (or almost all?) Catholic Old Testaments today are translated from the Masoretic Text. Is it permissable to say that the Masoretic Text was not the Bible employed by the Apostles? What is the Church's position on using the Septuagint instead?

***

Consider Acts 15:17 and Amos 9:12. This passage is fascinating, because the Apostle James is quoting Amos, but in most translations, the quote James gives is different from the wording in that translation's rendering of the relevant verse in Amos. The reason for this difference is that James was not using the Masoretic Text, while most translations of Amos are from the Masoretic Text.

The fact that Acts 15:17 talks about the remnant of men, while Amos 9:12 talks about the remnant of *EDOM* implies that the text employed by James was ultimately rooted in a manuscript which had alef-dalet-mem (which could be interpreted as Adam or Edom), while the Masoretic Text has alef-dalet-*VAV*-mem, which leaves no room for anything other than Edom.

I found further insight when I looked at how the Salkinson-Ginsburg Hebrew translation of the NT rendered Acts 15:17. Usually the Salkinson-Ginsburg translation just throws the Masoretic Text in when translating a NT verses which quote the OT. But in the case of Acts 15:17, the Salkinson-Ginsburg translation does not match the Masoretic Text. This is because the translators of the Salkinson-Ginsburg NT knew that Acts 15:17 could not be reconciled with the Masoretic Text, and thus tried to reconstruct what the text employed by James probably looked like.

The Salkinson-Ginsburg reconstruction lacks a vav in ADM (while the Masoretic Text has that vav), and so too, instead of yeereshoo (yod-yod-reysh-shin-vav in the Masoretic Text), they have yidreshoo (i.e. instead of a yod-reysh-shin root, they imagine a dalet-reysh-shin root). This struck me as a very plausible explanation (i.e. the manuscript employed by James differed from the Masoretic Text in that it had a dalet where the Masoretic Text has a second yod).

Also, the Septuagint translation of Amos 9:12 matches up with the way Acts 15:17 renders Amos 9:12. Even though they are almost the same, they are not identical. Perhaps this is not the case of the NT quoting the Septuagint, but rather agreeing with it, and thus we may have two different pieces of independent attestation to the existence of a variant text.

For more, consider the NIV rendering of Deuteronomy 32:8. While the Masoretic Text forces a translation that employs the phrase "sons of Israel," both the Septuagint and the versions of Deuteronomy found at Qumran have a variant text, instead forcing the translation "sons of God". Thankfully, the footnote to Deuteronomy 32:8 in the NIV notes this!

You can see an analogous example in Deuteronomy 32:43. It is worth noting that Hebrews 1:6 is quoting Deuteronomy 32:43, yet that quoted text cannot be found in the Masoretic Text. Both the Septuagint and the versions of Deuteronomy found at Qumran testify to a variant textual tradition different from the Masoretic Text. Again, the footnotes in the NIV acknowledge such. It seems the Apostle Paul (or whomever the author of Hebrews was) employed a different text from the Masoretic Text.

For one final example, compare Luke 3:35-36 with Genesis 10:24 and/or Genesis 11:13. In Luke's genealogy of Jesus, he includes the name Cainan in between the name Shelah and Arphaxad, when the Masoretic Text did not recognize any such generation. Some might wonder how Luke could make such a blunder. I think the problem is not that Luke was wrong, but rather that modern translations are performed from the Masoretic Text, and the Masoretic Text is where the error is. For example, the Septuagint rendering of Genesis 10:24 and Genesis 11:13 has the name Cainain as well.

In other words, the Septuagint was translated from a Hebrew text of Genesis which was different from the Masoretic Text. So too, the version of Genesis employed by Luke probably agreed with the Septuagint and disagreed with the Masoretic Text (hence the discrepancy that exists when comparing Luke to a version of Genesis translated from the Masoretic Text, but which does not exist when comparing Luke to the Septuagint).

The Hebrew Bible of Judaism, i.e. the Masoretic Text (which all Protestant translations of the OT and almost all Catholic translations of the OT are translated from), is not identical to the scriptures employed by the Apostles."

It is precisely for this reason that I wonder if we, as Christians, should side with the Septuagint as our Old Testament (as many ancient Christians did, and almost all Orthodox Christians do to this day).

 

[Fish and Bread]

One interesting thing is that the earliest Masoretic Text we have that is fairly complete is dated between the 6th and 9th centuries AD, if I recall correctly. So, when we go to the "original" Hebrew, we're actually going to what was in Hebrew 600-900 years or so after Christ. Meanwhile, the Greek versions of the Old Testament we have date significantly earlier. The upshot is that it then becomes a judgment call as to whether the Greek mistranslated the Hebrew way back when or whether the Hebrew texts diverged and the Greek is actually based on an earlier more correct version of the Hebrew, when the texts differ. And it's usually not simply one judgment call, but a ton of little ones each time a difference crops up.

So, it's not quite as simple as it seems. I think we'd all just tend to say, "Of course you go with the Hebrew", all things being equal, but all things are not equal because of the dating of the texts we have in the different languages. Then, too, there is the issue with what text New Testament figures quote from, which has already been raised. So it's complicated.

 

[InTheCloud]

But in general favors the Traditional Catholics/Eastern Orthodox positions on the OT Canon supporting the use of the Septuagint OT text and canon in antique and medieval Bibles.
And is against the position of Protestants and modernist Catholics that favor the Masoretic text.

 

[Fish and Bread]

But in general favors the Traditional Catholics/Eastern Orthodox positions on the OT Canon supporting the use of the Septuagint OT text and canon in antique and medieval Bibles.
And is against the position of Protestants and modernist Catholics that favor the Masoretic text.

Truthfully, in my unlearned opinion, I tend to lean towards thinking translators should at least slightly favor the Septuagint OT, also, in those cases where there is conflict and there not strong historical or logical evidence that favors the Masoretic translation. I wouldn't want a straight translation of the Septuagint as my primary bible, but I consider it slightly more reliable than the Masoretic text in some respects (Granted, I could be wrong -- I am not all that well versed on these issues, and can't read the original languages). Obviously, a Roman Catholic bible has to give precedence to the Latin Vulgate's interpretation in passages that conflict where there is no strong evidence either way as to which is right, because the Council of Trent declared the Vulgate inerrant on faith and morals which means that a passage would at least be doctrinally correct if a historical determination can't be made with any certainty in a particular case.

I am curious, though, in what way or ways does favoring the Masoretic text equate to modernism, in your view?

 

[InTheCloud]

The modernist love of getting the Bible translated out of the Original Languages, even it that means that the ealiest manuscrits avalilable in Hebrew are far newer that some of the Greek translations.
I have in spanish (my first language) three Catholic Bibles and one Protestant. The Catholics Bibles I own are the Nacar Colunga, the New Bible of Jerusalem (with comments) and the Biblia Latinoamericana. The first two are my favorites and are from the Masoretic text. The Biblia Lationamericana (wish I do not like because is too PC) I think also comes from the Masoretic text. I want to buy the New Vulgate that comes from the Septuagint (someone please confirm this) and is a translation of the Vatican official Latin Bible. The Protestant Bible I own is the Reina Valera, a update of the Geneva Calvinist Bible with Scofield dispensationalist comments.
One interesting data is that Masoretic text use the YHWH (translated in spanish Catholic Bibles as Yawé and in protestants english/spanish Bibles as Jehovah) while the Septuagint usually uses the word Kyrios in the same passages (spanish Señor/English Lord). But I saw a Gideons RCV protestant Bible with a protestant (masoretic) canon use the word LORD as in a Septuagint OT text. Weird.
BTW in spanish only protestants use the word Jehovah for the OT Tetragrammon. Many Jews find that word offensive because it sound close for them to "GOD is Destroyed". All recent spanish Catholic Bibles that use the Masoretic text use the word Yawé or Yavé.