Bible's beginnings

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I am having a friendly discourse with a lovely protestant woman. When I called the Bible the Catholic Church’s greatest publication, she answered with the following. Would anyone care to answer this?
Thank You,
Lisa7

She wrote:“BTW – Your “publication” is books and letters inspired by God, but your guys just compiled a list of those they approved, borrowing a rather large portion from the Jews (Pentateuch, Septuagint et. al. also inspired by God), another productive council meeting in my opinion but all they did was finally agree on a title page of an authorized version.”
 
Lisa7 said:
I am having a friendly discourse with a lovely protestant woman. When I called the Bible the Catholic Church’s greatest publication, she answered with the following. Would anyone care to answer this?
Thank You,
Lisa7

She wrote:“BTW – Your “publication” is books and letters inspired by God, but your guys just compiled a list of those they approved, borrowing a rather large portion from the Jews (Pentateuch, Septuagint et. al. also inspired by God), another productive council meeting in my opinion but all they did was finally agree on a title page of an authorized version.”
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The lady is correct. The Old Testament books came to us from the Jewish people, not the Catholic Church.
 
I am not capable of anwering, but if you wait a few days you will get some further ideas.

God Bless,

In God’s beauty, love and happiness
 
There is a good book you can get by Henry Graham called Where we Got The Bible.

Not all of the OT books came from the Jews as approved. None of the NT books were approved by the Jews. The Catholic Church established the Canon in the 4th Century. The Councils of Hippo, Carthage, and Rome as well as the Decree of Damasus[the Pope] sealed the deal. This same canon was reaffirmed at the Council of Florence in the 15th century and again at Trent in the 16th century in response to the Protestant Reformation.

Your friend can easily verify this information. Moreover, you might point out that the first printed bible was The Gutenberg Bible. It was printed in approximately 1455. Naturally, it is a Catholic bible with the full number of books in the canon. Another thing to point out is that the Catholic bible was published in a number of European languages including Russian, Italian, German, French, and others long before the Reformation was even thought of.
 
Pax said:
There is a good book you can get by Henry Graham called Where we God The Bible.

Not all of the OT books came from the Jews as approved. None of the NT books were approved by the Jews. The Catholic Church established the Canon in the 4th Century. The Councils of Hippo, Carthage, and Rome as well as the Decree of Damasus[the Pope] sealed the deal. This same canon was reaffirmed at the Council of Florence in the 15th century and again at Trent in the 16th century in response to the Protestant Reformation.

Your friend can easily verify this information. Moreover, you might point out that the first printed bible was The Gutenberg Bible. It was printed in approximately 1455. Naturally, it is a Catholic bible with the full number of books in the canon. Another thing to point out is that the Catholic bible was published in a number of European languages including Russian, Italian, German, French, and others long before the Reformation was even thought of.
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Which of the Old Testament books did not come from the Jews?
 
All of the OT books came from the Jews but not all of them are accepted in what is now the Jewish canon of scripture. 1 and 2 Maccabees would be examples. That is why I used the phrase “as approved” in my original post. Sorry, if I set up any confusion.
 
Pax said:
All of the OT books came from the Jews but not all of them are accepted in what is now the Jewish canon of scripture. 1 and 2 Maccabees would be examples. That is why I used the phrase “as approved” in my original post. Sorry, if I set up any confusion.
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Why did the Jews not accept 1 and 2 Maccabees in the Jewish canon of scripture?
 
Priscilla_Ann said:
Why did the Jews not accept 1 and 2 Maccabees in the Jewish canon of scripture?
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1 and 2 Maccabees are two of seven books - the others being Tobit, Esther, Wisdom, Sirach, Baruch - that were part of the Alexandrian canon used by GREEK-speaking Jews outside of Palestine. Further, according to some of the Jewish leaders following the death of Christ, since these seven works were either composed outside of Palestine or after some arbitrary date, they were not ot be regarded as part of the Hebrew canon.

But since they were part of the Greek Septuagint version, used by Christ and the apostles, and, more importantly, believed to have been inspired by God, the Catholic Church accepted them as part of the Old Testament canon.
 
Manfred said:
1 and 2 Maccabees are two of seven books - the others being Tobit, Esther, Wisdom, Sirach, Baruch - that were part of the Alexandrian canon used by GREEK-speaking Jews outside of Palestine. Further, according to some of the Jewish leaders following the death of Christ, since these seven works were either composed outside of Palestine or after some arbitrary date, they were not ot be regarded as part of the Hebrew canon.

But since they were part of the Greek Septuagint version, used by Christ and the apostles, and, more importantly, believed to have been inspired by God, the Catholic Church accepted them as part of the Old Testament canon.
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So the Jewish canon of the Old Testament is not the same as the Catholic canon of the Old Testament?
 
I posted this on another thread
There were differences of opinion among the various sects which lasted mostly until the Council of Javneh (Jamnia) around AD 90, which rejected the Septuagint.
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From what I have read, the decision to reject the Septuagint was a reaction to certain verses which supported claims of the “Jewish sect” who claimed that Jesus of Nazareth was God.
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This was a small group of scholars and was neither unanimous nor binding.
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Even today, the Eithopian Jews use the Septuagint version of Scripture.
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The Jewish people lost any authority to decide what Scripture was/or was not inspired when they rejected Jesus.
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All Authority passed to the Church Jesus founded on Peter, the Church that wrote the Gospels and Epistles, the Church that gave us the Canon of Scripture by deciding which writings were inspired by God and which were not.
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Yes, the bible consists of writings inspired by God. The Catholic Church essentially did the table of contents and preserved the book. What is her point? Without the Catholic Church, there would be no table of contents. The Church preserved the bible under the guidance of the holy spirit because it was part of the sacred tradition which had been handed down to her. How else would your friend have come to have the bible without the Catholic Church preserving it and determining which books were inspired?
 
Priscilla_Ann said:
So the Jewish canon of the Old Testament is not the same as the Catholic canon of the Old Testament?
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Exactly!
Somehow I get the feeling that you think we should listen to the Jews on the canon of the old testament that they defined in about 97AD.

michel
 
Priscilla_Ann said:
Why did the Jews not accept 1 and 2 Maccabees in the Jewish canon of scripture?
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Actually, they were in the Septuagint, which was compiled by Jewish scholars several hundred years BC. The Septuagint was used widely in the Jewish world, especially by Jews living outside Jerusalem, and was apparently also used in Judea, as evidenced by the references to verses from the Septuagint in the New Testament.

The Jews did not have a formal canon at that time; in a way, the Septuagint might be said to be the closest thing to a Jewish ‘canon’ that was available in Jesus’ time.

The Jews did subsequently reject some of the books of the Septuagint, possibly because they were used by Christians.
 
You all are magnificent!
What an amzing resource you are.
Thank you so much!
God Bless,
Lisa7
 
Keep in mind something else…

1 Maccabees portrayed the Romans in a favorable light… Considering that
  1. The Jews were no longer being Guided by God, they had no “ability” to say what was inspired and
  2. Jewish culture was just destroyed by the romans it’s easy to see what they would exclude books that portray Romans in a good way.
In Christ
 
Lisa7 said:
I am having a friendly discourse with a lovely protestant woman. When I called the Bible the Catholic Church’s greatest publication, she answered with the following. Would anyone care to answer this?
Thank You,
Lisa7

She wrote:“BTW – Your “publication” is books and letters inspired by God, but your guys just compiled a list of those they approved, borrowing a rather large portion from the Jews (Pentateuch, Septuagint et. al. also inspired by God), another productive council meeting in my opinion but all they did was finally agree on a title page of an authorized version.”
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“All they did?”

That’s kind of like poo-pooing the Wright brothers by saying, “all they did is what birds had been doing all along.”

You can go into any library and find masses of documents that look like they ought to be in the Bible – from the Book of Enoch to the Gospel of Bartholimew. Many of these are deliberate forgeries, designed to further the most outrageous heresies.

Coming up with the concept that there would be a Christian Bible in the first place, and then separating the wheat from the chaff was a major accomplishment.
 
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