Confused about Catholicism with the Septuagint

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DictatorCzar

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In the Septuagint it contained multiple books in the Old Testament that are not in the Catholic Bible: 1 Esdras, 3 and 4 Maccabees, psalm 151, and prayers of Manasseh. I was thinking about converting to a Catholic, but this is confusing me and I want to find out the true bible and then convert. The Orthodox Church has those books that the Catholic Church doesn’t have and I wanted to convert to a Catholic.
 
The Latin church defined a canon of scripture over the course of a few local councils (Rome, Hippo and Cathadge) and the East didn’t. No big deal as far as I’m concerned. I’m Byzantine in communion with Rome and use both the Orthodox study Bible and the REV-CE.

Whether you go Catholic or Orthodox, the size of the Scriptures should not be your deciding factor.

ZP
 
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But didn’t the original church use the Septuagint as their main source of scripture?
 
I believe they did use it, though not sure they decidedly considered it all Scripture. At the earliest stage, even the Gospels were disputed as to which one was more authorative! The “equality” of Scripture was something which developed with the formation of the canon.

The early Church had the Apostles, and relied on oral Tradition along with “accepted” Scripture.

The development of a canon took time and eventually Church authority.

The Septuagint wasn’t the only criteria for determining what constituted Sacred Scripture
 
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DictatorCzar said:
I want to find out the true bible and then convert.
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I think you’re going about this in not-quite-the-right way. It’s not about finding the “true bible” but the true deposit of faith, which encompasses much more than scripture. Catholics don’t exclude or ignore the Septuagint texts that aren’t Biblical canon for us; we draw from them in other ways. The designation of scripture is not about certainty of things not included, but rather about things that are; in other words, the canon defines what we know is sacred scripture but leaves the door open to the possibility of more. At least there’s been scholarly speculation in that respect, that ancient texts could still be added.

When deciding on truth in faith, don’t limit yourself to writings alone. Jesus established a Church as his authority on earth and the primary repository/guardian of truth, not texts.
 
Esdra 3 is Esdras 1. So Catholics can use the books and manuscripts that aren’t in the Catholic Bible.
 
DictatorCzar said:
So Catholics can use the books and manuscripts that aren’t in the Catholic Bible.
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Use them in what way? They aren’t in the Bible, and thus, not in the lectionary for Mass. They can be read for other reasons, including personal study; there’s no prohibition. Some of the antiphons and composed prayers may draw on those texts (I’m not well versed in that, but have seen references).
rcwitness said:
Maybe I’m not understanding what you’re saying?
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I’m not sure what you’re not sure about. I’m just saying there have been discussions that there may be unidentified “scriptures” out there that aren’t in the current canon; not likely, and none of them would have been written in the last 1800 years. It’s more likely (although still very highly improbable) that we might have a text declared “divinely inspired” and yet still not change the canon.

I’m struggling to find the reference for it now, but I know this was discussed a year or so ago on Catholic Answers Live, and iirc, Jimmy Akin gave the same response (but more eloquently).
 
Cor_ad_Cor said:
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DictatorCzar:
I want to find out the true bible and then convert.
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I think you’re going about this in not-quite-the-right way.
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I concur, not-quite-the-right-way:

The Church doesn’t come from scripture.
Scripture comes from the Church.
 
As long as you know the canon is closed. Nothing to be added or removed.

We know St Paul had at least one letter (I think to the Corinthians) which was lost. But that also doesn’t mean it was Scripture. Maybe it was lost for a reason.
 
There are Western rite Orthodox groups who don’t use the Eastern canon, I believe. If you want to know who was the original Christian Church though, and you should, look at THE HISTORY OF CHRISTIANITY, a documentary. You can find it on YouTube. You can also read the Oxford History of Christianity. Both are non-biased sources.
 
rcwitness said:
As long as you know the canon is closed. Nothing to be added or removed.
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I thought it was open to addition, though the likelihood of addition is so low that we don’t really consider it a possibility.
 
rcwitness said:
No. It is definitely closed.
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Are you able to point to where that is declared? I know you mentioned Trent, but Trent never stated that books couldn’t be added, just that the books of the canon were definitely Scripture.
 
Which history of Christianity documentary are you talking about.
 
It’s on YouTube, the first few seconds shows a Church against a purple horizon.
 
There is such thing. We Eastern Catholics are called by Rome to live out our ancient ecclesiastical heritage. That means to be like our separated brothers and sisters in the east.

Catholic is not synonymous with Roman.

ZP
 
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