why not the apocrypha?

FireDragon76 · Jul 4, 2015

It seems like the only Christian tradition that takes a hard stance against the apocryphal books is the Reformed tradition. The Lutheran Confessions don't actually say that the questioned books are not Scriptures, at least in terms of the Formula of Concord and Augsburg Confession.

The original German Bible had Luther's gloss, so I guess some Lutherans just take that authoritative... but why? Nobody claimed Luther's sole opinion was infallible, and his opinion of the books seems a bit inconsistent (good to read, not scripture, and yet, left in the Bible... the same is true of some New Testament books). The truth is, in the past, Lutherans did read from these books on various feast days and occasions... in churches as part of the lessons. Some parts of the apocrypha are still referenced in the various collects in the liturgy or the offices.

The Episcopal Church and Church of England still uses them in worship, in fact for centuries it was illegal to publish a Bible without their inclusion. They are considered part of the Bible but not a source of doctrine. The same is true of the Eastern Orthodox Church.

A lot of these books are good to read to understand 1st century Judaism and how the various Gospels relate to Jewish wisdom literature (especially John and the Johanine community's view of Jesus). Without them, a lot of the context of the New Testament is lost. N.T. Wright references them frequently in his works.

The belief that these books were not written in Hebrew has been challenged, esp. in regards to the find of some of these books in the Dead Sea Scrolls at Qumran in the 40's.

Albion · Jul 4, 2015

FireDragon76 said:
It seems like the only Christian tradition that takes a hard stance against the apocryphal books is the Reformed tradition.

And I guess it would be accurate likewise to say that the only Christian tradition that takes a hard stance in favor of the apocryphal books being inspired is the Catholic tradition.

bbbbbbb · Jul 4, 2015

Albion said:
And I guess it would be accurate likewise to say that the only Christian tradition that takes a hard stance in favor of the apocryphal books being inspired is the Catholic tradition.

Well put. I remain quite unconvinced of the divine inspiration of the deuterocanonical books.

Albion · Jul 4, 2015

bbbbbbb said:
Well put. I remain quite unconvinced of the divine inspiration of the deuterocanonical books.

In the future when this issue comes up again, it might be best if we went immediately to asking why these books that are so obviously of a substantially different nature from the whole rest of scripture AND were in dispute among the Jews of the first century AD...

...should be considered by us to be inspired.

I'd be interested in seeing a persuasive defense of that proposition--if there is one--and I don't mean "A council said so, therefore we have to accept them."

Meowzltov · Jul 5, 2015

The majority of Christians during the majority of the age of the Church have accepted the deuterocanonicals.

Why should Jews be allowed to dictate canon for us when the Church itself already accepted these books?

concretecamper · Jul 5, 2015

Albion said:
I'd be interested in seeing a persuasive defense of that proposition--if there is one--and I don't mean "A council said so, therefore we have to accept them."

But that argument is adequate for 66 books?

hedrick · Jul 5, 2015

I sure hope they aren't inspired. If you changed some proper nouns, 2 Mac would sound like an account of the Taliban. As far as I can tell the Maccabbees are the spiritual ancestors of the Pharisees, and thus opposed to Jesus' teachings.

Meowzltov · Jul 5, 2015

hedrick said:
I sure hope they aren't inspired. If you changed some proper nouns, 2 Mac would sound like an account of the Taliban. As far as I can tell the Maccabbees are the spiritual ancestors of the Pharisees, and thus opposed to Jesus' teachings.

The Maccabees stood against the Greeks placing a statue of Zeus in the temple and sacrificing a pig to it. Are you saying they were wrong?

Albion · Jul 6, 2015

concretecamper said:
But that argument is adequate for 66 books?

Every one of them, with the possible exception of Revelation can safely be said to have been considered divine revelation by the churches of the world prior to those councils; and they were using them as God's word. What the councils did was put a seal of approval upon them, not "create the Bible" as is so often said.

concretecamper · Jul 6, 2015

Albion said:
Every one of them, with the possible exception of Revelation can safely be said to have been considered divine revelation by the churches of the world prior to those councils; and they were using them as God's word. What the councils did was put a seal of approval upon them, not "create the Bible" as is so often said.

I would be interested in which council or synod put their "seal of approval" on only the 66 books? Of course we know you cannot tell us.

Albion · Jul 6, 2015

concretecamper said:
I would be interested in which council or synod put their "seal of approval" on only the 66 books? Of course we know you cannot tell us.

Of course, I didn't say that...which makes it easy for you to say I cannot defend it, right?

However, if we need to dispel any misunderstanding, my answer to the earlier question is "Yes. That argument is adequate for 66 books."

concretecamper · Jul 6, 2015

Albion said:
Of course, I didn't say that...which makes it easy for you to say I cannot defend it, right?

However, if we need to dispel any misunderstanding, my answer to the earlier question is "Yes. That argument is adequate for 66 books."

I was hoping some, any, or a little substance behind your "yes".

fatherjimparker · Jul 6, 2015

Albion said:
And I guess it would be accurate likewise to say that the only Christian tradition that takes a hard stance in favor of the apocryphal books being inspired is the Catholic tradition.

The Catholic Tradition, and the Church of England Tradition, the Lutheran tradition, the Eastern Orthodox Tradition, the Oriental Orthodox tradition, the Coptic tradition, the Assyrian Tradition, the writers of the New Testament (who refer to it over 300 times), the New Testament church up until some Puritans decided it shouldn't be there some 1500 years after Jesus.

You may find this interesting: (from: http://www.kencollins.com/bible/bible-p1.htm#out)

Who took the Apocrypha out of the Bible?

It was originally against the law to print an English-language Bible in America, because the Crown held the copyright to the King James Version, but it did not license any printers in the American colonies. The American Revolution made the United States into a separate country before there were any international copyright treaties. Thus after the Revolution, it was legal to print English-language Bibles in America.

American printers discovered that they could leave out the Apocrypha and sell the Bible for the same price, and no one would care because it wasn’t used much. Some of the homegrown religious groups naïvely assumed that whatever was not in their Bible was not in the canon. Later, when Catholics became a significant segment of the population, a non-Catholic would say, “That’s not in the Bible” to a Catholic, completely unaware that it was the printer who left it out. A Lutheran pastor told me that one of his parishioners was insistent that the Lutheran Church did not recognize the Apocrypha as canonical. The parishioner was astonished when he saw the church by-law that says it is.

Catholics, Protestants, and Orthodox Christians use the Apocrypha, and it is part of the Bible for them. Many independent churches and low-church denominations think it is a Catholic addition when it is really a printer’s subtraction.

In other words, printers removed the Apocrypha from the Bible, not any church.

Hmmm!

FireDragon76 · Jul 7, 2015

There are all sorts of references from the deuterocanonical/apocryphal works in Protestant liturgies. One of my favorites is a collect from around Christmas : "While all was in quiet silence and the night was in the middle of its course, your almighty Word leapt down from the Royal Throne" (Wisdom 18:14-15).

Albion · Jul 7, 2015

fatherjimparker said:
The Catholic Tradition, and the Church of England Tradition, the Lutheran tradition, the Eastern Orthodox Tradition, the Oriental Orthodox tradition, the Coptic tradition, the Assyrian Tradition, the writers of the New Testament (who refer to it over 300 times), the New Testament church up until some Puritans decided it shouldn't be there some 1500 years after Jesus.!

I'm sorry to see you misinformed about such a basic matter. The "Church of England Tradition" and the "Lutheran tradition" do not hold that the Apocryphal books are "inspired." That's what I wrote--inspired.

They hold that these books have value, a place, and are to be read, although, not being inspired writings, they are not to be used to establish doctrine. All the other churches that you mentioned here are Catholic churches, so there's nothing in what I wrote earlier that has to be amended or explained there.

fatherjimparker · Jul 7, 2015

Albion said:
I'm sorry to see you misinformed about such a basic matter. The "Church of England Tradition" and the "Lutheran tradition" do not hold that the Apocryphal books are "inspired." That's what I wrote--inspired.

They hold that these books have value, a place, and are to be read, although, not being inspired writings, they are not to be used to establish doctrine. All the other churches that you mentioned here are Catholic churches, so there's nothing in what I wrote earlier that has to be amended or explained there.

That's nice.

The Scriptures that Jesus, Paul, John, James, Peter, Mathew, Mark, Luke, and Jude used were the LXX (Septuagint) which included the Apocrypha.

And there are over 300 verses in the NT which are associated with the Apocrypha.

The Church found the Apocrypha acceptable for over 1500 years before people (who are apparently much smarter than than all of those who came before them) decided that it should be removed from the Bible.

RDKirk · Jul 7, 2015

Albion said:
Every one of them, with the possible exception of Revelation can safely be said to have been considered divine revelation by the churches of the world prior to those councils; and they were using them as God's word. What the councils did was put a seal of approval upon them, not "create the Bible" as is so often said.

I'd say the Holy Spirit put the seal of approval on them and the councils merely made formal recognition of it.

RDKirk · Jul 7, 2015

fatherjimparker said:
Who took the Apocrypha out of the Bible?

It was originally against the law to print an English-language Bible in America, because the Crown held the copyright to the King James Version, but it did not license any printers in the American colonies. The American Revolution made the United States into a separate country before there were any international copyright treaties. Thus after the Revolution, it was legal to print English-language Bibles in America.

American printers discovered that they could leave out the Apocrypha and sell the Bible for the same price, and no one would care because it wasn’t used much. Some of the homegrown religious groups naïvely assumed that whatever was not in their Bible was not in the canon. Later, when Catholics became a significant segment of the population, a non-Catholic would say, “That’s not in the Bible” to a Catholic, completely unaware that it was the printer who left it out. A Lutheran pastor told me that one of his parishioners was insistent that the Lutheran Church did not recognize the Apocrypha as canonical. The parishioner was astonished when he saw the church by-law that says it is.

That is what all my research has discovered.

RDKirk · Jul 7, 2015

I kind of like the Daniel stories. Who knew...Daniel was the first amateur sleuth of the Hercule Poiroit style.

fatherjimparker · Jul 7, 2015

RDKirk said:
I'd say the Holy Spirit put the seal of approval on them and the councils merely made formal recognition of it.

What so you mean by the Holy Spirit put the seal of approval on them. Did tongues of flame appear over copies of the books? What?

There were over 200 documents which the councils had to sift through to determine which were consistent with the teaching of the apostles. The test they used was to determine if the document's teaching agreed with what was taught everywhere (From England to India) and at all times since the beginning. (Pentecost)

The New Testament come from the Church, not the Church from the New Testament.

why not the apocrypha?

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