2 Mc, original; Jason of Cyrene

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As an interesting hypothetical (always adhering to the Rule of Faith), what would happen if the source material for Second Maccabees was discovered?

As new manuscripts come to light some ammendations have been made to canonical books; our Sacred Scripture benefits from research and inquiry and these changes only facilitate our understanding of Holy Writ.

2 Mc is, of course, an abridgment of a 5 volume(!) work by a Hellenized Jew (Jason of Cyrene) that has been lost. If it were to be rediscovered, it would clearly be too long to constitute a canonical book of the Bible; however it would be of tremendous interest.

One interesting question is whether it would be considered “inspired” and how that would affect its reception by the Church. Could the original of an inspired abridgement fail to be inspired itself?

Second Maccabees is remarkable among OT books because it affirms unequivocally bodily resurrection and life after death. (This is the main reason I think Protestants lost so much by axing it.) It would be fascinating to read Jason’s thoughts on this matter in more detail.

Many thanks, God bless.

tl;dr What would happen if the original of Second Maccabees was discovered.
 
On the one hand, I guess the answer would be: nothing. I mean Jason’s unabridged work would certainly have great historical value and scholars will be all over it if it was discovered, but I don’t see the Church suddenly declaring the thing to be inspired scripture.

On the other hand, you might have a situation similar to the book of Tobit (which exists in a lot of different versions), where the work itself is canonical, but which version is not specified.
 
If the canon was infallibly confirmed at Trent then no “lost” books that are found can be considered inspired as that would mean Trent’s infallible confirmation was wrong!
 
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thistle said:
the canon was infallibly confirmed at Trent then no “lost” books that are found can be considered inspired as that would mean Trent’s infallible confirmation was wrong!
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Not exactly.

Trent defined which books WERE inspired.

It said nothing of which books were NOT inspired.

The Church could still expand the Canon if it had good reason to.
 
Harry Turtledove would be very happy. (Historian, Jewish, keeps trying to get Jews to read both Books of Maccabees for background.)

While we are wishing, wish for Papias. (Although apparently he collected as much weird misunderstanding as apostolic traditions.)
 
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I think it would be more relevant for historians than for the Church. Just because something was used as a source for an inspired writing doesn’t make it inspired (for instance, Paul quotes two or three pagan writings, I think Jude quotes from the apocryphal Assumption of Moses). I would be much more interested if something like Paul’s epistle to the Laodiceans showed up.
 
I agree wholeheartedly that the finding would be primarily historical in value, I just think it would raise some interesting questions. I don’t think it could be considered canonical but it certainly could dramatically enhance our understanding and appreciation of the canonical abridgement.

And, (Rule of Faith in mind) , it would be interesting to consider inspired/non-inspired source material in this extreme case. The job of a redactor,editor, commentator, etc. is fundamentally different from that of abridgement. Not necessarily in a way that precludes inspired abridgement from a non-inspired source, but identifying where the difference comes in would be interesting; unless it’s an extra-textual difference…

And I agree that any new Pauline literature that could be robustly authenticated would be staggering and of far more theological importance; this hypothetical is more of a curiosity for me.
 
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Yeah Jude cites the Book of Enoch too so I guess he was probably familiar with a bunch of apocrypha? This is enough for Augustine to say that “we cannot deny that Enoch…wrote a number of things but divine inspiration…” (City of God XV, 23); ultimately rejecting any notion of canonicity because of corruption and antiquity (?).

But I guess that was back in the day so if St. Austin plays a little fast and lose we can’t come down too hard on him
 
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