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joe370
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That’s a good question Nicea.
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joe370
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BG, we know that Paul, for the most part, preached the word to the Jews of the diaspora and the gentiles, as opposed to the Palestinian Jews. Do you you think that Paul referenced the Hebrew Masoretic text or the Greek Septuagint, when attempting to illustrate that Jesus fulfilled the scriptures,
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joe370
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This is obviously impossible today, just as it was impossible for the last 500 years, for the simple fact that there was no one worldwide church. There are many many separate and divided churches making an ecumenical decision, for the last 500 years, impossible.
It appears that I am limited to using Protestant sources only, since you don’t seem to trust catholic apologists or catholic scholars, so what are your thoughts about the following, regarding the deutero-canonical books:
The Protestant patristics scholar J. N. D. Kelly writes: “It should be observed that the Old Testament thus admitted as authoritative in the Church was somewhat bulkier and more comprehensive than the [Protestant Old Testament] . . . It always included, though with varying degrees of recognition, the so-called Apocrypha or deutero-canonical books. The reason for this is that the Old Testament which passed in the first instance into the hands of Christians was . . . the Greek translation known as the Septuagint. . . . most of the Scriptural quotations found in the New Testament are based upon it rather than the Hebrew… . . In the first two centuries . . . the Church seems to have accept all, or most of, these additional books as inspired and to have treated them without question as Scripture. Quotations from Wisdom, for example, occur in 1 Clement and Barnabas. . . Polycarp cites Tobit, and the Didache [cites] Ecclesiasticus. Irenaeus refers to Wisdom, the History of Susannah, Bel and the Dragon *, and Baruch. The use made of the Apocrypha by Tertullian, Hippolytus, Cyprian and Clement of Alexandria is too frequent for detailed references to be necessary” (Early Christian Doctrines, 53-54).
Baptist textual scholar Lee McDonald, in his book The Formation of the Christian Biblical Canon, writes:
“It is most likely that these [DB] books were considered by the Jewish community holy or sacred well before the time of Christ, and that they were simply received by the early Christians as part of the sacred collection they inherited from Judaism. There is evidence that at least some non-canonical books had their origin in the land of Israel and were translated and transported from Israel to Alexandria and probably wherever Jews lived in significant numbers in the Roman Empire . The grandson of Ben Sirach [the writer of the deuteroncanonical book Ecclesiasticus]…lets us know he was translating for the Jews in Alexandria . The NT also has many allusions to some [deuterocanonical] literature found in the LXX, and the oldest Christian collections of OT scriptures contain much of that literature” (page 90).*
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Dave_Noonan
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Let’s say the whole church that existed in the fourth century, i.e., those that participated in Nicaea I and Constantinople I–this seems like a reasonable definition.I think we need to establish what constitutes the “whole church,” and when this whole church was finally whole? Is it all of the EOC’s, the CC and all of the PC’s, with the exception of those churches that are in the process of being established, that make up the whole church? If so, then are you saying that you believe the whole church, comprised of every church, regardless of denomination, ecumenically defined the NT canon? Did Christianity need to wait until every protestant church and eastern church (offshoots of the original EOC) - was established before a clear consensus could be reached, regarding the NT canon, or can we trust the decision made by the CC, in the 4th century?I am probably the one misunderstanding you.
You have a table of contents in your bible. Where did that come from?
Why are their canons not the same?
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joe370
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Start a thread and ask that question!
I’m trying to stay on topic, but not too successfully. I am still trying to find out if non-Catholics accept the decisions of the various local catholic councils that eventually finalized the NT canon in the 4th century, and if they do, then why do they reject the decisions of those very same councils, regarding the canon of the OT. You seem to be suggesting: If those synods were not ecumenical, meaning that there were no eastern representatives there, non-Catholics should not accept the decisions of those local councils regarding the Old Testament - correct?
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Dave_Noonan
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Dave_Noonan
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The reason the various churches of the fourth century didn’t accept these decisions (nor do they now) is that the decision was reached without any (name removed by moderator)ut from the Eastern Churches. By the time Rome had their various synods, the Eastern Churches had biblical canons that differed from those of Rome. Thus they either ignored the decisions of the Roman synods (if they even knew about them) or they didn’t even know that the decisions had been made. I wouldn’t say that non-Catholics “accept” the decision made regarding the N.T. by the Roman Church, but their conclusions were the same. And no one even cared that the OT canons were different until the 16th century.
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joe370
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Both catholic and protestant; got it.
I don’t know why the Catholic Church has had a different biblical canon than the Greek Orthodox Church? That could be another great thread. Do you believe that the on-line Septuagint, available to all, is identical to the one that the early church fathers used? If so, could you prove it.I’d be curious to know what the Catholic Church (both east and west) - prior to the east west schism, called the Old Testament. Did they both for example recognize 3 and 4 Maccabees. If they did, then it would stand to reason that the CC is missing 2 canonical books.
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joe370
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So the eastern churches rejected those synods? They did not agree with the decisions of those synods?
Both new and old testament?
The churches in the east ignored the Roman synods. Perhaps a little proof?
Which begs the question: if non-Catholics accept the decisions of the various Roman catholic councils that eventually finalized the NT canon in the 4th century, then why do they reject the decisions of those very same councils, regarding the canon of the OT?
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Dave_Noonan
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There are (naturally) a wide variety of Septuagint manuscripts with their own textual variants. I have no idea what’s on-line (Ralf’s maybe?) or whether it’s a critical edition–which I doubt because the volumes are absolutely huge. I think it would be absolutely impossible to tell what manuscript any one particular early church father was using.Both catholic and protestant; got it.
I’d be curious to know what the Catholic Church (both east and west) - prior to the east west schism, called the Old Testament. Did they both for example recognize 3 and 4 Maccabees. If they did, then it would stand to reason that the CC is missing 2 canonical books.
I don’t understand the second part of your question, because “East” involves more churches than just the Byzantine church (ie., the east/west schism of 1056). The canon of the Byzantine church doesn’t agree exactly with the other Churches of the East. So I guess basically I don’t understand what you mean by “both.”
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joe370
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The canon of the Byzantine church didn’t agree exactly with the other Churches of the East prior to the great east west schism? I did not know that. That was not the case in the west - correct?
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Dave_Noonan
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We keep covering the same ground over and over so I will give it one more go and sign off on this discussion. The Eastern Churches do not have the same biblical canon as the Roman Catholic Church–nor do they agree among themselves. Therefore, they don’t agree with the Roman synods on this matter. The proof is that their biblical canons are different–it’s very clear. I can see only two possible explanations for this difference. They either a) knew about the Roman synods and ignored their decisions because they weren’t asked to participate or didn’t recognize Roman authority in the matter or b) didn’t even know about Roman synods. Nobody even cared about the issue until the Reformation.
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Dave_Noonan
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Yes, exactly. Remember the wikipedia chart we covered the other day?
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Biblical_canon
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joe370
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Not only do they not agree with the RCC, they can’t even agree with each other. That’s the point I was really trying to make. It’s late and I’ve got to go too.
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Dave_Noonan
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That’s what I’ve been saying all along. Each church has historically developed their own independent biblical canon and the fact that they were different was never a point of schism–neither in the fourth century nor now. The only time the issue of the biblical canon has been contentious (as far as I know) is between the Roman Catholic Church and the Protestant reformers.
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Bluegoat
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I don’t think I was nearly committal enough in my statement for you to conclude that.
If you wanted to decide who was “right” in their understanding, I suppose you might have to do that. I don’t think that is the argument that is being made here.I think we need to establish what constitutes the “whole church,” and when this whole church was finally whole? Is it all of the EOC’s, the CC and all of the PC’s, with the exception of those churches that are in the process of being established, that make up the whole church? If so, then are you saying that you believe the whole church, comprised of every church, regardless of denomination, ecumenically defined the NT canon? Did Christianity need to wait until every protestant church and eastern church (offshoots of the original EOC) - was established before a clear consensus could be reached, regarding the NT canon, or can we trust the decision made by the CC, in the 4th century?
You have a table of contents in your bible. Where did that come from?
Even if we ignore the existence of Protestantism, the OT canon is not some kind of sharply defined thing. Have you ever heard the Catholic Church demand that the Eastern Orthodox, or even the Oriental Orthodox, give up the portions not found in Catholic Bibles? Do they make this a condition of a reunification? They don’t, because they don’t see it as necessary that the exact same canon is found everywhere.
There was no “decision” made in the CC in the fourth century. You are talking about a pre-schism Church where there were differences in the OT canon. These differences continued up until the schism. After the schism, they continued - remember that the CC says that the EO are in fact part of the Church - having a different canon doesn’t change that. For well over a thousand years there have been differences in the OT canon used by different communities.
If we bring Protestantism into the mix, it developed in a climate where having differences in the OT canon was not necessarily a problem. As an ecclesiastical community, from their own POV, it is totally legitimate for the conventions of the community to determine what is canonical. The difficulty in the case of Protestantism is that the Catholics didn’t agree that their decision was ok. Probably not so much because it was unreasonable, but because they did not agree that they were a community with the authority to make that decision. But that isn’t really an argument about the canon, it is an argument about who the Church was and is.
The convention with the OT has always been that it ok to have differences within different parts of the Church. It isn’t really a sensible place to try and criticism Protestantism. If Protestantism is a legitimate religious community, than it may be that their decisions about the canon are legitimate. If they are not, why argue about the canon they use?
You are trying to make it seem like there needs to be one authoritative identical canon everywhere. The only people who say that are fundamentalist Protestants. The history of the Church does not support that idea.
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joe370
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This all certainly seems reasonable from a protestant perspective. I won’t bring it up again.
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Nicea325
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Nicea325
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Yes,but the Trinity was defined and ratified by an ecumenical council,not the canon,which you keep going around. Are you reading and comprehending Dave’s argument? Here it is again:
Your words Dave:
I think you’re overreacting a bit here. Note that the Arian controversies were settled by ecumenical councils–the results of which were accepted by the universal church. That’s pretty convincing to me.* The same situation does not exist with the biblical canon–this isn’t a valid comparison. **/I]
He clearly is saying that the canon was NOT settled by an ecumenical council and it is not a valid comparison to the Trinity. Thus,which begs the question: Why then does he accept it? Based on a consensus? In other words he is saying:
I accept the Trinity because it was decided by an ecumenical council and accepted by the universal church.But the canons (NT & OT) were not decided by a council;and yet,I accept the NT because there was consensus.
Don’t you find that a bit contradictory? Again,he said the canon is NOT comparable to the Trinity.
It seems as though he demands proof that a council gave us the canons,but on the same token he accepts the NT?*
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joe370
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Again, excellent question. Your thoughts Dave???
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