Apocrypha

[Eruvande]

How come the Roman Catholic church accepts the apocrypha as part of scripture? When did Protestant churches reject it? Why do the Eastern Orthodox church apparently have even more?

Many thanks,

Eru x

 

[josephback]

How come the Roman Catholic church accepts the apocrypha as part of scripture? When did Protestant churches reject it? Why do the Eastern Orthodox church apparently have even more?

Many thanks,

Eru x

At RCIA the priest said that the disputed books were dropped from Protestant Bibles about 1640. Prior to that they were included in a separate section as useful but non-inspired.

The Catholic and Orthodox Churches have more books in their Old Testaments because the early Church councils generally followed the Septuagint in determining the OT. There was never unanimous agreement on the books of the OT however until the Council of Trent officially declared the 46 books decreed by some early western councils as inspired. The Council of Trent acted in response to Protestant attacks against the generally accepted canon. Protestants use the shorter 39 book Jewish canon, which was drawn up by a council of rabbis after the destruction of the Temple and also after Christianity and Judaism had parted ways.

It should be noted that in addition to the seven disputed OT books, Martin Luther wanted to do away with Hebrews, James, and Revelation. It was only the protests of fellow reformers and the recognition that doing so would look bad that kept these books in the Protestant canon.

Finally, there is a difference in terminology that leads to confusion between Catholics and Protestants. In short, what Protestants call the Apocrypha Catholics call the Deuterocanon, and what Protestants call the Pseudographia Catholics call the Apocrypha. So the Apocrypha exist but the exact writings which make up the Apocrypha are disputed.

Hope this helps
Joe

 

[Ladygem]

ok, I am by no means an expert or hard core-bible scholar (though I do try to read a chapter or two a day), but I do know the basics of Church history, so I will answer your questions to the best of my knowledge.
We, as Catholics, accept the Apocrypha (or Deuterocannonical books as we call them) as part of scripture because they were among the books accepted when the Bible was finalized at the Council of Carthage (397 AD), It is a common misconception, even among Catholics that it was finalized at Nicaea, but, as I found out while looking up the date of Nicaea, that dealt more with the creed and correcting the Arian heresy, with no mention of the canon. Luther later rejected these books because they were written in Greek, not Hebrew like the rest of the Old Testament. He also wanted to get rid of a few books of the New Testament, but did not remove them from his bible. I am not familiar with the Eastern Orthodox bible at all, so I will leave it to one of the Orthodox members of the forums to answer that.

 

[DJK100]

How come the Roman Catholic church accepts the apocrypha as part of scripture? When did Protestant churches reject it? Why do the Eastern Orthodox church apparently have even more?

Many thanks,

Eru x

Hi. Welcome to the forums. To answer you question please read this short response on this link…

catholic.com/quickquestions/didnt-the-catholic-church-add-to-the-bible

Also, this link shows quotes by the early church fathers quoting directly from the deutrocannonical texts…

catholic.com/tracts/the-old-testament-canon

 

[Eruvande]

Thanks for these replies guys, really helpful

 

[Ignatius]

ok, I am by no means an expert or hard core-bible scholar (though I do try to read a chapter or two a day), but I do know the basics of Church history, so I will answer your questions to the best of my knowledge.
We, as Catholics, accept the Apocrypha (or Deuterocannonical books as we call them) as part of scripture because they were among the books accepted when the Bible was finalized at the Council of Carthage (397 AD), It is a common misconception, even among Catholics that it was finalized at Nicaea, but, as I found out while looking up the date of Nicaea, that dealt more with the creed and correcting the Arian heresy, with no mention of the canon. Luther later rejected these books because they were written in Greek, not Hebrew like the rest of the Old Testament. He also wanted to get rid of a few books of the New Testament, but did not remove them from his bible.

But the New Testament books were all written in Greek, and accepted them. This is inconsistent. I think he was just using the language as an excuse to get rid of the Scripture that conflicted with his beliefs. Also, he did remove Hebrews, James and other NT books. But they were restored after his death.

God Bless.

 

[Jehuty_X]

But the New Testament books were all written in Greek, and accepted them. This is inconsistent. I think he was just using the language as an excuse to get rid of the Scripture that conflicted with his beliefs. Also, he did remove Hebrews, James and other NT books. But they were restored after his death.

God Bless.

// not true…actually luther did not remove hebrews, james, and any other book from the new testament…he did criticized them because they did conflict with his beliefs, but they were included…

 

[jcrichton]

How come the Roman Catholic church accepts the apocrypha as part of scripture? When did Protestant churches reject it? Why do the Eastern Orthodox church apparently have even more?

Many thanks,

Eru x

…I think that what you are speaking of are what non-Catholics call Deuterocanonicals… here are the links:

Apocrypha
newadvent.org/cathen/01601a.htm

The scope of this article takes in those compositions which profess to have been written either by Biblical personages or men in intimate relations with them. Such known works as the Shepherd of Hermas, the Epistle of Barnabas, the Didache (Teaching) of the Twelve Apostles, and the Apostolic Canons and Constitutions, though formerly apocryphal, really belong to patristic literature, and are considered independently. It has been deemed better to classify the Biblical apocrypha according to their origin, instead of following the misleading division of the apocrypha of the Old and New Testaments. Broadly speaking, the apocrypha of Jewish origin are coextensive with what are styled of the Old Testament, and those of Christian origin with the apocrypha of the New Testament.

Deuterocanonicals
newadvent.org/cathen/03267a.htm

The word canon as applied to the Scriptures has long had a special and consecrated meaning. In its fullest comprehension it signifies the authoritative list or closed number of the writings composed under Divine inspiration, and destined for the well-being of the Church, using the latter word in the wide sense of the theocratic society which began with God’s revelation of Himself to the people of Israel, and which finds its ripe development and completion in the Catholic organism. The whole Biblical Canon therefore consists of the canons of the Old and New Testaments. The Greek kanon means primarily a reed, or measuring-rod: by a natural figure it was employed by ancient writers both profane and religious to denote a rule or standard. We find the substantive first applied to the Sacred Scriptures in the fourth century, by St. Athanasius; for its derivatives, the Council of Laodicea of the same period speaks of the kanonika biblia and Athanasius of the biblia kanonizomena. The latter phrase proves that the passive sense of canon — that of a regulated and defined collection — was already in use, and this has remained the prevailing connotation of the word in ecclesiastical literature.

The terms protocanonical and deuterocanonical, of frequent usage among Catholic theologians and exegetes, require a word of caution. They are not felicitous, and it would be wrong to infer from them that the Church successively possessed two distinct Biblical Canons. Only in a partial and restricted way may we speak of a first and second Canon. Protocanonical (protos, “first”) is a conventional word denoting those sacred writings which have been always received by Christendom without dispute. The protocanonical books of the Old Testament correspond with those of the Bible of the Hebrews, and the Old Testament as received by Protestants. The deuterocanonical (deuteros, “second”) are those whose Scriptural character was contested in some quarters, but which long ago gained a secure footing in the Bible of the Catholic Church, though those of the Old Testament are classed by Protestants as the “Apocrypha”. These consist of seven books: Tobias, Judith, Baruch, Ecclesiasticus, Wisdom, First and Second Machabees; also certain additions to Esther and Daniel.

It should be noted that protocanonical and deuterocanonical are modern terms, not having been used before the sixteenth century. As they are of cumbersome length, the latter (being frequently used in this article) will be often found in the abbreviated form deutero.

The major differences between the Roman and Eastern Traditions are inherent to the original schism… as for the Protestant, they decided, about 11 hundred years after the fact, to reject the books used by the Alexandrian Jews, known as the Septuagint–the version of Sacred Scriptures used by the Greek-speaking Jews.

Maran atha!

Angel

 

[jcrichton]

…well, Luther did have problems with many things… the following show some of his quirks:

en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Luther_Bible

Initially, Luther had a low view of the books of Esther, Hebrews, James, Jude, and Revelation. He called the Epistle of James “an epistle of straw,” finding little in it that pointed to Christ and His saving work. He also had harsh words for the book of Revelation, saying that he could “in no way detect that the Holy Spirit produced it.”[8] In his New Testament, Luther placed Hebrews, James, Jude, and the Revelation at the end and differentiated these from the other books which he considered “the true and certain chief books of the New Testament. The four which follow have from ancient times had a different reputation.”[9] His views on some of these books changed in later years.

Luther chose to place the Apocrypha between the Old and New Testaments. These books and addenda to canonical books are found in the Greek Septuagint but not in the Hebrew Masoretic text. Luther left the translating of them largely to Philipp Melanchthon and Justus Jonas.[10] They were not listed in the table of contents of his 1523 Old Testament, and they were given the well-known title: “Apocrypha: These Books Are Not Held Equal to the Scriptures, but Are Useful and Good to Read” in the 1534 Bible.[11] See also Biblical canon, Development of the Christian Biblical canon, and Biblical Apocrypha.

Maran atha!

Angel

 

[pablope]

How come the Roman Catholic church accepts the apocrypha as part of scripture? When did Protestant churches reject it? Why do the Eastern Orthodox church apparently have even more?

Many thanks,

Eru x

Just to give you additional information:

AD 382…the Council of Rome…the first proclamation of a Canon of Scripture…

catholicapologetics.info/apologetics/protestantism/wbible.htm

cantuar.blogspot.com/2008/08/decree-of-council-of-rome-ad-382-on.html

"Likewise it has been said: Now indeed we must treat of the divine Scriptures, what the universal Catholic Church accepts and what she ought to shun. The order of the Old Testament begins here: Genesis one book, Exodus one book, Leviticus one book, Numbers one book, Deuteronomy one book, Josue Nave one book, Judges one book, Ruth one book, Kings four books, Paralipomenon * two books, Psalms one book, Solomon three books, Proverbs one book, Ecclesiastes one book, Canticle of Canticles one book, likewise Wisdom one book, Ecclesiasticus * one book.

Likewise the order of the Prophets. Isaias one book, Jeremias one book, with Ginoth, that is, with his Lamentations, Ezechiel one book, Daniel one book, Osee one book, Micheas one book, Joel one book, Abdias one book, Jonas one book, Nahum one book, Habacuc one book, Sophonias one book, Aggeus one book, Zacharias one book, Malachias one book. Likewise the order of the histories. Job one book, Tobias one book, Esdras two books *, Esther one book, Judith one book, Machabees two books.

This generally would be the OT till Martin Luther started tinkering with Bible. He actually rearranged the NT order of books also according to the oldest.

He put the DC books in an appendix in his Bible, but with no page numbers, making it difficult to locate them.

Generally, the catholic and protestant bibles would be the same till about the 1820s or so, till a Bible Society (British, as I recall) decided not to print the DC books with the Bibles they were printing to save on printing costs…to save money in other words.

Somebody had mentioned a Jewish Council…Jamnia.

Source: catholicdefense.blogspot.com/2011/07/can-protestants-rely-upon-council-of.html**

Important notes about it:

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. As a hypothesis, it’s a very weak one. There are no early sources which speak of a Council at Jamnia. You could just as easily claim that there was a Council in Beijing. For whatever it’s worth, the majority of scholars have finally realized the obvious: there’s no reason to believe that the Council existed.

The Jamnia School Was Very Anti-Christian: 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.

By purging Judaism of the Deuterocanon, you could slow the mass movement of Jews into Christianity. This, by the way, is why many scholars who support the idea of some sort of Jamnia canon think that the canon was formed: to purge the Hellenists and the Christians.*

 

[pablope]

How come the Roman Catholic church accepts the apocrypha as part of scripture? When did Protestant churches reject it?** Why do the Eastern Orthodox church apparently have even more?**Many thanks,

Eru x

Sorry forgot to respond to this. The Bible canon, one reason it was established, was put together so that there would be a standard set of readings for the Mass, not to extract doctrine.

I think this is one reason the EOC have a bigger canon. Their tradition of books/writings read during their liturgy.

 

[pablope]

How come the Roman Catholic church accepts the apocrypha as part of scripture? When did Protestant churches reject it?** Why do the Eastern Orthodox church apparently have even more?**Many thanks,

Eru x

Sorry forgot to respond to this. The Bible canon, one reason it was established, was put together so that there would be a standard set of readings for the Mass, not to extract doctrine.

I think this is one reason the EOC have a bigger canon. Their tradition of books/writings read during the liturgy.

 

[patrick457]

Sorry forgot to respond to this. The Bible canon, one reason it was established, was put together so that there would be a standard set of readings for the Mass, not to extract doctrine.

I think this is one reason the EOC have a bigger canon. Their tradition of books/writings read during the liturgy.

I did sew this from Wikipedia:

The Eastern Orthodox Church took separate action. From the earliest times, the Eastern Church, which used the LXX, was undecided about the Apocrypha: some Greek Fathers quoted from these books; others preferred to follow solely the books accepted by the Jews. The matter of the Apocrypha was raised in the Trullan Council at Constantinople in 692, but no binding conclusions were reached.

The Synod of Jerusalem in 1672 decreed the Greek Orthodox canon which is similar to the one decided by the Council of Trent. The Greek Orthodox generally consider Psalm 151 to be part of the Book of Psalms. Likewise, the “books of the Maccabees” are four in number, though 4 Maccabees is generally in an appendix, along with the Prayer of Manasseh. Also, there are two books of Esdras, for the Greeks these books are 1 Esdras and Ezra-Nehemiah, see Esdras#Differences in names for details. The Greek Orthodox generally consider the Septuagint to be divinely inspired.

However, because the Jerusalem Council was a regional council and neither ecumenical nor pan-Orthodox, its decrees were not obligatory unless accepted by all Orthodox Churches. Although there has been no official acceptance of the canon outlined at Jerusalem, all editions of the Bible published by the Greek Orthodox Church include the books selected in 1672, though today 4 Maccabees is often placed in a separate section or excluded.

 

[pablope]

I did sew this from Wikipedia:

The Eastern Orthodox Church took separate action. From the earliest times, the Eastern Church, which used the LXX, was undecided about the Apocrypha: some Greek Fathers quoted from these books; others preferred to follow solely the books accepted by the Jews. The matter of the Apocrypha was raised in the Trullan Council at Constantinople in 692, but no binding conclusions were reached.

However, because the Jerusalem Council was a regional council and neither ecumenical nor pan-Orthodox, its decrees were not obligatory unless accepted by all Orthodox Churches. Although there has been no official acceptance of the canon outlined at Jerusalem, all editions of the Bible published by the Greek Orthodox Church include the books selected in 1672, though today 4 Maccabees is often placed in a separate section or excluded.

Thanks, Patrick…I did not realize some of the Orthodox have moved to have the same OT canon.

This is, I think, a neutral site…and lists also the Ethiopan canon…which is bigger than the CC canon.

 

[ajcstr]

The Bible canon, one reason it was established, was put together so that there would be a standard set of readings for the Mass, not to extract doctrine.

This is a great point.

To the Catholic Church, the Bible is a liturgical book. It was produced by tradition. Books were selected based on how well they fit in to the Church’s tradition and which books were being read at Mass. You can’t separate it from Tradition.

Michael Barber is one of my favorite people to listen to. He often relates this exchange with “visitors” at his door.

“hi, I see you have a Bible, you must be Catholic !”

“no, we are not Catholic”

“then how do you know what books belong in the Bible?”

“because they are inspired”

“how do you know they are inspired?”

and on, and on until:

“I find it surprising that you are using a Bible, that came from the Catholic Church, to convince my neighbors to leave the Catholic Church !”

 

[garysibio]

But the New Testament books were all written in Greek, and accepted them. This is inconsistent. I think he was just using the language as an excuse to get rid of the Scripture that conflicted with his beliefs. Also, he did remove Hebrews, James and other NT books. But they were restored after his death.

God Bless.

The other problem with Luther’s position on the OT canon is that since his time Hebrew versions of some of the disputed books have been uncovered. Luther erred in believing they were originally written in Greek.

 

[ajcstr]

The other problem with Luther’s position on the OT canon is that since his time Hebrew versions of some of the disputed books have been uncovered. Luther erred in believing they were originally written in Greek.

I know fragments of Tobit in Hebrew were found in the Dead Sea scrolls. Which other were found?

 

[garysibio]

I know fragments of Tobit in Hebrew were found in the Dead Sea scrolls. Which other were found?

I’m at work at the moment so I can’t answer your question but I think fragments of entire copies have been found of all but one or two of them.

Here’s a link to info about Sirach in Hebrew: books.google.com/books?id=2XQuAAAAYAAJ&pg=PA329&dq=hebrew+manuscripts+apocrypha&hl=en&ei=Xly0TpzeNIqlgwex18yhBA&sa=X&oi=book_result&ct=result&resnum=1&ved=0CDEQ6AEwAA#v=onepage&q=hebrew%20manuscripts%20apocrypha&f=false

 

[patrick457]

I know fragments of Tobit in Hebrew were found in the Dead Sea scrolls. Which other were found?

Pardon me for quoting myself:

To be more specific, what was found were:

• Five fragments of Tobit (four in Aramaic, one in Hebrew) from Cave 4. The oldest (4QTobit[sup]d[/sup]ar) dates from 100 BC, the latest copy (4QTobit[sup]e[/sup], in Hebrew) from around 30 BC-AD 20. Because of damage and deterioration, none of these scrolls were completely preserved, but all fourteen chapters are represented. The best-preserved of the five is 4QpapTobit[sup]a[/sup]ar, which contains portions of chapters 1-7 and 12-14. In contrast, very little text is preserved in 4QTobit[sup]c[/sup]ar (14:2-6:10?) and 4QTobit[sup]d[/sup]ar (7:11; 14:10) (For the record, it is thought more likely that Tobit was originally written in Aramaic!)
• Only three copies containing text from Ben Sira (Sirach) were found among the scrolls, in contrast to the several 11th-12th substantial copies found in the Cairo Genizah during the 19th century, which provide two-thirds of the whole book. Two of these, preserving portions of just three chapters, were discovered at Qumran, with the third manuscript, representing six chapters, was found at Masada. These texts are in substantial agreement with the ones discovered in Cairo, although there are numerous minor textual variants. The fragment found in Cave 2 of Qumran (2QSir), dating at least to the mid-1st century BC, apparently contained the Hebrew text of some or all of Sirach as found in Greek manuscripts. The second text, found in Cave 11, however, which originally contained the entire second canticle after the epilogue (Sirach 51:13-30) is not from a manuscript of Sirach at all, but part of the Great Psalms Scroll (11QPs[sup]a[/sup]) and was copied later than 2QSir. The largest scroll, containing Sirach 39:27-44:17 (ca. 40 BC-AD 20?), was discovered at Masada, the famous Jewish fortress destroyed in AD 73-74.
• The Epistle of Jeremiah, often bound up with the book of Baruch, is represented by a single manuscript in Greek (pap7QEpJer gr), which probably contained only the Letter and not the first five chapters of Baruch, none of which has been found in Qumran or other Judean sites. Even then, this fragment is in a bad state: only two words (therefore and them!) and parts of seven others have survived.

That’s about it. We do not have copies of Baruch, Judith, 1 and 2 Maccabees, and Wisdom of Solomon. The book of Esther is also not among the DSS, and the eight manuscripts of Daniel found in Qumran - two in Cave 1, five in Cave 4, and one in Cave 6, all written within a space of 125 BC (the earliest copy 4QDan[sup]c[/sup]) up to AD 50 (the latest copy 4QDan[sup]b[/sup]) - are all incomplete, and seven of the eight manuscripts seem to contain the shorter Hebrew form instead of the longer Septuagint version. (In 1QDan[sup]b[/sup] and 4QDan[sup]d[/sup] for example, Daniel 3:23 is not followed by the Prayer of Azariah, but continues on to 3:24). The eighth manuscript, 4QDan[sup]e[/sup], meanwhile is possible to have been an abbreviated text that included only the prayer of Daniel (9:4b-19), since it preserves text only from chapter 9.

BTW, it is indeed quite likely that a few of the Deutero’s were not written in either Hebrew and Aramaic at all. We have for example 2 Maccabees, which claims to be an abdrigement of a five-volume work by a ‘Jason of Cyrene’. Wisdom of Solomon is believed to have been originally penned in Greek but patterned after Hebrew verse.

By contrast, we have a Hebrew text of Psalm 151, found in the Septuagint - and accepted by the Eastern Orthodox as canonical - preserved in column 28 of the Great Psalms Scroll (11QPs[sup]a[/sup]) found in Cave 11! The difference between the Hebrew and the Greek here is, while the Septuagint presents it as a single psalm, the 11QPs[sup]a[/sup] has two distinct psalms (151A and 151B) each with its own superscription and with the second psalm beginning on a new line. The superscriptions are noticeable more Davidic than the Septuagint’s, which declare the psalm to be “outside the number,” perhaps reflecting the concerns of later editors about the place of the psalm at a time when the Proto-Masoretic psalter of 150 compositions was becoming or had become normative for Judaism. Heck, aside from Psalm 151, we even have the Hebrew texts of Psalms 154 and 155 (until then extant only in Syriac)!

 

[Cranch]

…I think that what you are speaking of are what non-Catholics call Deuterocanonicals…

I think I understand your intent here but it reads a little confused without somehing like “our” in front of “Deuterocanonicals.” For the non-Catholics among us: despite the somewhat defensive tone of the New Advent article on the Deuterocanonicals excerpted above, Deuterocanon is a Catholic term and simply means those books of the canon not found in the Tanakh.