66 vs. 73

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I Thirst:

Are you a Mother Teresa fan?

Now to the topic: What came first, the Church or the Written Word of God?

That is what I ask. It might, and I mean might, help a little, and I mean a little.

The Church decided which books are inspired.

The Tradition of the Church made the decision.
 
I think, like most things that divide Catholics and protestants, it all boils down to authority. When you reject the authority of the Church given to her by Christ then by what authority can they claim the New Testament is inspired Scripture? Does anyone have a good link in how Protestants determine their canon? A friend sent me some requirements used by his “reformed” theology but they were highly subjective and I failed to see how the seven OT books in Catholic Bibles do not meet the criteria. He claimed they don’t include a phrase like “Thus says the Lord” indicating that it is inspired Scripture. I’ve asked for chapter on verse on where each of the OT books in his “reformed” canon claim their own inspiration and have not received any reply. Maybe someone on here can help me out.
 
Timonator348 said:
I think, like most things that divide Catholics and protestants, it all boils down to authority. When you reject the authority of the Church given to her by Christ then by what authority can they claim the New Testament is inspired Scripture? Does anyone have a good link in how Protestants determine their canon? A friend sent me some requirements used by his “reformed” theology but they were highly subjective and I failed to see how the seven OT books in Catholic Bibles do not meet the criteria. He claimed they don’t include a phrase like “Thus says the Lord” indicating that it is inspired Scripture. I’ve asked for chapter on verse on where each of the OT books in his “reformed” canon claim their own inspiration and have not received any reply. Maybe someone on here can help me out.
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I think you will not get a reply. The Catholic OT canon is the Septuagint.

One of the reasons you will most likely get soon as reason for the Protestant OT canon is the Jews settled on their canon in AD 90 or so at the council of Jamnia. There are studies now indicating there was no such council but was in fact a school. This jewish canon is now the Protestant OT canon.

But here are some facts about Jamnia:catholicdefense.blogspot.com/2011/07/can-protestants-rely-upon-council-of.html

The “Council of Jamnia” Almost Certainly Didn’t Exist: This is a biggie. We know that there was a Rabbinical school at Jamnia, but there’s no evidence that any Council ever occurred there. The “Council” is just a hypothesis put forward in 1871 by Heinrich Graetz, to explain how the Jews ended up with a single canon.

While we can’t say that the Jamnia rabbinical school ever produced a Biblical canon, we can point to a major contribution of the school. It produced an ugly prayer called the Birkat haMinim, which cursed the Christians as sectarians, and prayed to God that for these “sectarians,” “let there be no hope, and may all the evil in an instant be destroyed and all Thy enemies be cut down swiftly; and the evil ones uproot and break and destroy and humble soon in our days. Blessed art You, LORD, who breaks down enemies and humbles sinners.” This prayer was to be prayed every Sabbath, and it forced the Jewish Christians to stop worshiping with the non-Christian Jews in synagogue.

Remember that sola Scriptura says that all doctrines must come from the Bible. The canon of Scripture is certainly a doctrine: one of the most important doctrines, in fact. And yet Protestants advancing this view are deriving this doctrine not from Scripture, but from a Pharisaic tradition. Unless sola Scriptura now means “Scripture plus traditions of the Pharisees,” it’s a massive walking contradiction for Protestants to advance this imagined Council as a way to derive the Books of the Bible.

Note: Use the search engine of this site for more in this.
 
Luther was a very passionate and hot-tempered man, so insofar as that, it makes sense, that he essentially “shot his mouth off”. John Calvin was essentially his antipodes in personality.
 
Did Jesus read the deuterocanonicals? I think He did. What would be the odds that He did read them…speculate anyone please.
 
He probably did, because of the Flight to Egypt. Even if he didn’t read Greek, he was likely exposed to it: the Egyptian Jews used the Septuagint. The Judaean Jews used the proto-Masoretic canon as described by Josephus. The apostles, on the other hand, most certainly used the Septuagint, and one of the authors (Jude, and to a lesser extent, 2 Peter, who borrowed from Jude and insufficiently excised references to 1 Enoch, and Paul, who probably quoted from The Life of Adam and Eve/Greek Apocalypse of Moses or a similar book in the “Satan as an angel of light” passage) quoted books that would later become considered apocryphal, not deuterocanonical.

Sirach and Wisdom are especially quoted and alluded to by the Evangelists, and allusions to the rest of the deuterocanon - 1-2 Macc, Jud, Tob, Bar - are there as well. I don’t believe the additions to Daniel or Esther are quoted, but Esther isn’t quoted at all, and only very few Messianic and apocalyptic passages from Daniel - the son of man and the abomination of desolation - are. I think there is one passage in Matthew that can be interpreted as an allusion to Bel and the Dragon. I’m not sure about Susanna, and I’m relatively certain the Song of the Three Jews - a pretty standard extended praise/communal prayer/doxology - is not.
 
Well considering that the Golden Rule comes fromt he book of Tobit I think its kind of a cinch He did. Also His saying that we neither married nor given in marriage is from 2Enoch.

God Bless
 
Timonator348 said:
I’ve been frustrated in almost all conversations with Protestant acquaintences because naturally we go largely by the Bible but it seems like our conversations are crippled before they get off the ground because they are not using a full Bible, first of all, and sometimes iffy translations, second of all. I’d like to get some comments from former Protestant converts to Catholicism as to what sold the fact that the Bible has 73 books and not 66 as seems to be the norm in America. This seems to be one of the major sticking points between protestants and Catholics and I’d like help on overcoming it.
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Try this, it will help with your discussions.
catholic-convert.com/wp-content/uploads/QuestionsforBibleChristians.pdf
 
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