Deutero-canonical / Apocryphal Books

[Rightlydivide]

i don’t understand how this is the same as washington following president obama’s speeches. are you saying that the deutero-canonical books were written after the NT? i researched all of the DC books and they were all written at 1st - 2nd century BC. so forgive me, but i still don’t understand what the washington to obama metaphor is regarding.

This is from your link.

1 Sam. 28:7-20 – the intercessory mediation of deceased Samuel for Saul follows Sirach 46:20.

2 Kings 2:1-13 – Elijah being taken up into heaven follows Sirach 48:9.

The author of this list claims that 1st Samuel and 2nd Kings follow Sirach.
That is like saying Washington follows Obama.
In other words, the books that he claims follow Sirach, or are influenced by Sirach, were written first. Thus they cannot follow Sirach.
As you can see, he makes these claims on his link.

 

[NHInsider]

I find the list inaccurate and unconvincing. [snip] There are no lists from that era. No copies of the LXX. The earliest ones are 300 years later and contain different books. What reason would anyone have to think that the LXX contained the DC books books? There is simply no evidence to indicate that.

By the same argument you would have to reject the validity of the entire New Testament. Do you?

 

[Salvatore123]

Rightly,

I encourage you to re-read my post to this thread.

I did not say that Jesus and the Apostles quoted from the deuterocanonical books.

I said that studies/comparisons exist that demonstrate, conclusively, that Jesus and his Apostles, when they quoted the OT, they quoted the Septuagint VERSION of the OT, as the wording they used and the wording of the Septuagint verses they quoted, are nearly identical (which is not so with the Hebrew/Masoretic text).

Big difference between what I said and what you claim I said . . .

 

[Rightlydivide]

Rightly,

I encourage you to re-read my post to this thread.

I did not say that Jesus and the Apostles quoted from the deuterocanonical books.

I said that studies/comparisons exist that demonstrate, conclusively, that Jesus and his Apostles, when they quoted the OT, they quoted the Septuagint VERSION of the OT, as the wording they used and the wording of the Septuagint verses they quoted, are nearly identical (which is not so with the Hebrew/Masoretic text).

Big difference between what I said and what you claim I said . . .

Where did I claim that you said that they were quoted from? Please show me. It does not exist. I encourage you to reread please.
I was dealing with your contention about the known contents of the LXX at the time of Christ.

 

[Rightlydivide]

By the same argument you would have to reject the validity of the entire New Testament. Do you?

I am discussing exact historical contents and direct quotes. I am not discussing validity am I? If you think that I am, please elaborate why you would make the statement. Every word I use is chosen carefully. I happen to know I did not overstate my case or delve into the validity of the Deuterocanonicals persay. I am specially dealing with this list and the exact contents of the LXX. If you wish to engage in another discussion of a similiar topic, I will probably pass. I dont go off topic

 

[Salvatore123]

Rightly,

These are your own words:

“I find the list inaccurate and unconvincing. There are good lists in good books containing up to 6-10 possible allusions to the deuterocanonical books. No direct quotes but possible allusions. The central problem with that particular list are numerous. First of all, any phrase that has similiar wording, even when it exists in an earlier form in the 39 books we agree on, is cited as referring to the deuterocanonical books.”

If you are NOT suggestinig that I (and others in this thread or that listing) was not claiming that Christ and his Apostles REFERENCED the deuteros, then you have a strange way of not making such a claim.

I have NEVER even suggested that Christ or the Apostles cited or referred to the deuteros.

I said that an analysis of the OT quotes attributed to Christ and his Apostles has demonstrated that they were quoting from the Septuagint because the OT verses they quoted were almost identical to the Septuagint as opposed to the later-adopted Masoretic text, which we know the Jews compiled WITHOUT relying on the Septuagint.

As for your claim that “no one knew what the Septuagint said” at the time Christ and his Apostles lived, I disagree and the historical evidence “disagrees” as well.

First, you make a statement based on something that is pretty much accepted as fact:

NO scriptures exist from the time of Christ and his apostles. The oldest manuscripts/codices date several hundred years later.

That is true. But to say that “we do not have any Septuagint manuscripts from the time of Christ lying around, so we have no idea what they really said”, is no different than saying, “we do not have any OT manuscripts/codices lying around from the time they were actually written, so we have no idea what they really said.” If we adopted that line of reasoning, we would have no basis upon which to worship what we call the Bible, as NO manuscripts exist from the time the original documents were written.

I admit that your logic/rationale would hold some weight, but that is only if one gives weight to the premise that the absence of texts from a certain time means we don’t know what the text that existed at that time really said.

To date, we have almost complete Septuagint manuscripts that postdate the Hexaplar rescension. They include: Codex Vaticanus, Codex Sinaiticus (both of the 4th century) and Codex Alexandrinus (5th century). These are the oldest surviving nearly complete manuscripts of the OT in ANY language, whereas the oldest complete Hebrew texts are almost 600 “younger”. Although some differences exists between the three codices I cited, the consensus of biblical scholars is that the Septuagint (that is, the original pre-Christian translation that existed in Palestine at the time Christ and the Apostles lived) undelies all three codices.

Unless someone finds something older, I think this is the best we are going to get as far as providing evidence and concluding from such evidence that Christ and the Apostles read and then cited verses from the Septuagint version of the OT and NOT the Hebrew text that was later adopted as the Masoretic text.

Of course, it would make sense that the Masorites would reject the Septuagint as a “basis” for their translation, as they rejected the very premise that Christ was the Messiah. In fact, in all of the Judeo-Christian-Islamic religions, only the Jews completely reject Jesus as having any sort of “non-human” attributes. Even Muslims believe Christ was, at the very least, a prophet. To the Jews, he was simply a trouble maker.

 

[itsjustdave1988]

Derek,

You asked me a question about Esther…

Hey itsjustdave1988,

Like you pointed out, protestants have the smaller version of Esther and I had been told that the Catholic were the ones the added the verses about God because there was originally nothing about God in the book. I was told that protestants had the correct version and the Catholics have a difference version which they themselves edited for their own purposes. I have another thread opened talking about the Deutero-Canonical books. If you could please say a few words about why the Protestants’ and Catholic’s version is different, which is the true version, etc., I’d be very grateful. Thank you for your time and (name removed by moderator)ut into the threads! God Bless.

Derek

I understand you may have been told that Catholics were the one’s who added books to the Bible. I was told that as well. I was told incorrectly. I ask that you “test everything” (1 Thess 5:21) to discern whether what you’ve been told is true.

For example, what evidence do they point to that shows that Catholics added these passages to the book to Esther. According to evern Protestant scholarship, the authorship of the portions of Esther are dated before the advent of Christ, so I don’t see the claim that Catholics added this as being valid.

Early manuscript evidence makes clear that there were many versions of the same books prior to the advent of Christ. For instance there were different versions Jeremiah found within the fragements uncovered at Qumran. They also found Qumran fragments of the larger version of the book of Daniel. It seems more probable that there were different versions of the Book of Esther as well, before the advent of Christ. Which version did every Church of Christ accept?

EVERY ancient Christian manuscript of Sacred Scripture in other than fragmentary form contains the larger version of Esther and Daniel. EVERY ONE of them. This is a lot of ancient Christian manuscript evidence which supports the ancietn Christian usage of the larger version of Esther and Daniel. Protestant excuses for rejecting these versions are unconvincing given the historical evidence. Protestants recieved the Bible from the Catholic Church.

It was actually Luther who removed these passages of Scripdture what he called “my canon” of Scritpure, placing these texts and even portions of the New Testament into an appendix. The other Protestants followed his lead, with the exception of the NT passages.

Arnold C. Sundberg, a Lutheran scholar, in his book “The Old Testament canon of the Early Church”, Harvard Divinity School, wrote:

"The criteria that Protestants use to exclude these books** (the deuterocanonicals) from scriptures are completely useless because they would exclude other books that Protestants accept as canonical.

Take a look at the article linked to below, and discern for yourself whether the claim Protestants make is true.

How Big is Your Daniel?

 

[Rightlydivide]

Rightly,

These are your own words:

“I find the list inaccurate and unconvincing. There are good lists in good books containing up to 6-10 possible allusions to the deuterocanonical books. No direct quotes but possible allusions. The central problem with that particular list are numerous. First of all, any phrase that has similiar wording, even when it exists in an earlier form in the 39 books we agree on, is cited as referring to the deuterocanonical books.”

If you are NOT suggestinig that I (and others in this thread or that listing) was not claiming that Christ and his Apostles REFERENCED the deuteros, then you have a strange way of not making such a claim.

I have NEVER even suggested that Christ or the Apostles cited or referred to the deuteros.

---

My only posts to you directly were #11 and #23. And now whatever this number is.***

 

[rdscheirer]

Rightlydivide- can you refute the command both in the Old T and the New T that the greatest commandment is to love God and to love your neighbor as yourself. If everyone did this there would be no problems.

 

[Rightlydivide]

Rightlydivide- can you refute the command both in the Old T and the New T that the greatest commandment is to love God and to love your neighbor as yourself. If everyone did this there would be no problems.

What is the purpose of this question? Clarify please.

 

[NHInsider]

I am discussing exact historical contents and direct quotes. I am not discussing validity am I? If you think that I am, please elaborate why you would make the statement. Every word I use is chosen carefully. I happen to know I did not overstate my case or delve into the validity of the Deuterocanonicals persay.

If you are not “delving into the validity of the Deuterocanonicals” then your entire point is meaningless.

I am specially dealing with this list and the exact contents of the LXX.

Which is a subject without meaning, as there is NO extant complete copy from the period, just as there is NO extant copy of the entire NT from the first or second century.

If you wish to engage in another discussion of a similiar topic, I will probably pass. I dont go off topic

Oh please. Your second post in this thread, in which you introduced this question of the “table of contents” of the LXX, was off-topic.

 

[Rightlydivide]

If you are not “delving into the validity of the Deuterocanonicals” then your entire point is meaningless.

Which is a subject without meaning, as there is NO extant complete copy from the period, just as there is NO extant copy of the entire NT from the first or second century.

Oh please. Your second post in this thread, in which you introduced this question of the “table of contents” of the LXX, was off-topic.

The exact contents of the LXX at the time of Christ are relevant as something that was brought up in post number 9. It is one thing to examine allusions or possibly direct quotes. As part of that process though, it raises the question about what the LXX actually looked like. There seemed to be a presupposition that we know that the LXX at the time of Christ contained the deuterocanonical books.
A presupposition that should be examined in light of the OP.
As far as your statement attempting to compare what is known about the contents of the New Testament during the first two centuries (ie what books were considered inspired) with the contents of the LXX during the safe time frame, the comparision simply is not the same. We have a number of patristic writers who attest to our New Testament and their books. It is interesting that early Christians do not affirm the Deuterocanonicals consistently in the same manner.
Have a nice evening.

 

[NHInsider]

As far as your statement attempting to compare what is known about the contents of the New Testament during the first two centuries (ie what books were considered inspired) with the contents of the LXX during the safe time frame, the comparision simply is not the same. We have a number of patristic writers who attest to our New Testament and their books. It is interesting that early Christians do not affirm the Deuterocanonicals consistently in the same manner.
Have a nice evening.

By that criterion (attestation by Patristic writers) would you not have to include the Shepherd of Hermas, the letters of Clement and the Didache, at minimum, in the canonical NT? Not to mention any number of Acts and Gospels attributed to various apostles. . . .

 

[Stratiotes]

This is a very intriguing topic to me as well. I think a lot of people in this thread would enjoy the “Modern Scholar” lectures on the dead sea scrolls as some background on the period of second-temple Judaism and scripture. See: recordedbooks.com/index.cfm?fuseaction=scholar.show_course&course_id=95

You can find it through the library without too much effort so there is no need to buy it.
I think you will find the lectures well worth your time and get a great foundation for this study in a very short time.

With regard to the contents of the LXX at the time - it may not have been complete (according to Josephus, for instance, it was not) however there were quite a few Greek translations of various books available whether they were gathered together as part of the LXX or not at the time. So one could say they appear to have been linked to a Greek source (such as Matthew’s preference for ‘virgin’ over ‘maden’ citation of Isaiah) without asserting they are linked to the LXX proper.

 

[Rightlydivide]

By that criterion (attestation by Patristic writers) would you not have to include the Shepherd of Hermas, the letters of Clement and the Didache, at minimum, in the canonical NT? Not to mention any number of Acts and Gospels attributed to various apostles. . . .

Off topic. Truly off topic. To answer though anyway. No. Several reasons. What textual streams contain books other than the ones we consider canonical? Is it, for lack of better words, the Majority or the Minority texts which contain these books?
Next, name a person in the first two centuries with orthodox Christian beliefs who attested to their canonicity. Although you and I will probably disagree about what constitutes orthodox Christian beliefs.
And we are off topic. So I will keep those question rhetorical.

 

[UnityofTrinity]

The final question should be: “Who consider what inspired?”. With that question in mind, even if we cannot know what was the content in the oldest transcript, we can still know the authority that gave us Scripture.

@RightlyDivine: There is no such thing as a person with Orthodox Christian belief who decide Scripture, no persn can decide Scripture but God alone, and through history we know that God chose the Church to compile and preserve His Word.

You asked for a textual stream that contain books other than the books you consider canonical. My question is base on what basis do you consider something canonical? Are you referring to the 1st century Jewish council that was stark anti-Christian? Remember that there was no such thing as a closed Caon in Judaism prior to 1st century.

My question for you is: “what authority you have to take away Scripture?” If you accept for the fact that it was the Church Fathers who cannonized Scripture. If you accept the truth that it is the same Scripture that was used since the earliest days of Christianity, then you must agree that it is not only unbiblical but also unethical for one to take away from Scripture. If so, can you follow such religion that compromises the truth to fit its own theology? I know I wouldn’t.

If it is true that the Catholic Church never added the books, and it is true that this canon of Scripture was accepted by the Church for thousands of years prior to Martin Luther, then you must also agree that there is a certain authority that was involved in the production of Scripture. If you agree there is a certain authority involved that God uses, then you must also agree it’s authority still persist now, and if it sill persists now, then you must agree that to follow it is to follow the truth of God.

 

[NHInsider]

Off topic. Truly off topic

You suggested the lack of a first century ms or TOC of the LXX and means we cannot assert that it is the Bible used by Jesus and the Apostles. I suggest that if the lack of early ms or TOC discounts the LXX you would have to also discount the NT on the same basis. Then you say “but we have lots of patristic references to the NT” and I I say “we have lots of patristic references to books you don’t believe are canonical.” This is a game of whack-a-mole.

Have you got any arguments for the shorter canon or against the traditional canon that DON’T apply equally to other texts about which you reach the opposite conclusion? Because really, I’m not basing MY acceptance of the canon on any of these pieces of evidence, I am basing it on Jesus having given His Authority to His Church. And I expect that you are equally basing your opinion on denying that Jesus gave authority to His Church to define anything.

OP really just wanted to share her (his?) discovery of the ScriptureCatholic website. You wanted to point out that SC repeated says something “follows” when it means “is in similar form as,” when “follow” connotes succedence in time so an earlier book can’t “follow” a later one. For that usage fault (which isn’t really a fault, since the use of “follows” in literary analysis doesn’t imply succession in time but adherence to a pattern) you are comfortable dismissing the whole list of NT references to deuterocanonical books and, consequently, the traditional canon of the OT.

But SC isn’t the reason for the canon, it’s just one person’s efforts to document something.

The canon stands on the authority of the Church, not the other way around.

 

[Little_Mary]

i don’t understand how this is the same as washington following president obama’s speeches. are you saying that the deutero-canonical books were written after the NT? i researched all of the DC books and they were all written at 1st - 2nd century BC. so forgive me, but i still don’t understand what the washington to obama metaphor is regarding.

Look each and every reference up yourself and decide for yourself if it makes sense to YOU. That’s what I did.

You might also google the Alexandrian canon verses the Palestinian canon. There might even be some good articles right here on catholic.com

In short, the Alexandrian canon is the one in the Catholic bibles, it has, and has always had 46 books, it is the one that Catholics were inspired to include in the bible and it is the one that Jesus and his disciples quoted from.

 

[Rightlydivide]

Look each and every reference up yourself and decide for yourself if it makes sense to YOU. That’s what I did.

You might also google the Alexandrian canon verses the Palestinian canon. There might even be some good articles right here on catholic.com

In short, the Alexandrian canon is the one in the Catholic bibles, it has, and has always had 46 books, it is the one that Catholics were inspired to include in the bible and it is the one that Jesus and his disciples quoted from.

Well…someone did not tell the bishop from Alexandria Athanasius that. In around 360 or 370 AD he said there were 22.
Now if you are talking about 30 AD ish…what is your source for that?

 

[Salvatore123]

Rightlydivide,

I have to side with NHInsider on this one. You said:

“The exact contents of the LXX at the time of Christ are relevant as something that was brought up in post number 9. It is one thing to examine allusions or possibly direct quotes. As part of that process though, it raises the question about what the LXX actually looked like. There seemed to be a presupposition that we know that the LXX at the time of Christ contained the deuterocanonical books. A presupposition that should be examined in light of the OP. As far as your statement attempting to compare what is known about the contents of the New Testament during the first two centuries (ie what books were considered inspired) with the contents of the LXX during the safe time frame, the comparision simply is not the same. We have a number of patristic writers who attest to our New Testament and their books. It is interesting that early Christians do not affirm the Deuterocanonicals consistently in the same manner.”

Rightly, not knowing the contents of the Septuagint is EXACTLY THE SAME THING as not know for sure what was the NT canon at the time of Christ and the Apostles. Consider the following facts that cannot be disputed:

1. NO NT book was written while Christ was alive. Thus, although his Church had already been instituted at Pentecost, his Church had no written NT.
2. Several books that never made it into the 27 NT canon were argued by quite a few good Catholics at the time, but their arguments gave way to the Church’s decision - inspired by the Holy Spirit - to declare the 27 books we have in the NT today, as being the NT canon as early as Pope Damasus I in 425 AD, the first time anyone in authority with the Church proclaimed a listing of the NT (although it was not a definitive proclamation - that did not occur until Trent).
3. Do you realize that NONE of the “Old Latin” texts that St. Jerome relied upon to create the Vulgate, are available for us to examine? Does that mean we should question St. Jerome’s translation of them into the Vulgate, just as you suggest we should question the contents of the Septuagint, because we didn’t know what it supposedly had by way of contents at the time Christ and the Apostles lived?
4. Do you realize that even St. Jerome’s Latin Vulgate had LONG disappeared by the time that Pope Clement requested a revision of the the Bible? The Clementine Vulgate (which we DO have copies of) is NOT a verbatim translation of Jerome’s Vulgate, because Jerome’s Vulgate had become too corrupted (either by accident or otherwise) by the 1500/1600’s. Do we discount the so-called “Authorized Version” of the King James Bible (and it is called “authorized” only because King James ordered it to be published), as it relied not only on Tynedale’s bible, but also on the Douay Rheims - a purely Catholic translation?

You see, THIS is the danger of sola scriptura. One might think that this is a topic for another thread and has no bearing on the current discussion. I agree that it is a discussion for another thread. But it has a tremendous bearing on the current discussion because* you specifically discounted my claim that Jesus and the Apostles were reading and quoting from a Septuagint Bible because their OT quotes are identical to the Septuagint translations we have today, yet we have no idea what the Septuagint looked like at the time of Christ and the Apostles*.

Well if we adopt the protestant/fundamental proposition of sola scriptura, which translation, exactly, are we going to use to “argue” doctrines and scriptures? None of the original texts as produced by the authors, while under the inspiration of the Holy Spirit, exist. So which text/translation do we use even for THIS discussion in THIS simple thread?

Until a protestant/fundamentalist can show me a bible that appeared written directly by the Hand of God (as what occurred with the Ten Commandments and Moses), then we all MUST rely on an infallible decision by the Catholic Church (protestantism/fundamentalism did not exist before the late 1400’s - the entire western Christian world was Catholic) that:

A. The NT has 27 books in its official canon.

B. The 27 NT books that appear in all Christian bibles were inspired by God, and thus are part of the NT’s official canon.

C. Without a formal infallible decision as to the contents of the NT, then we encounter the problem that even protestants faced with people such as Luther, who decided he wanted to begin removing certain NT books because they did not fit with this “new found theology”.
You might be comfortable with Luther referring to the Book of James, God’s Word, as “an epistle of straw” - I would never be so presumptuous.

So, in the end, you are left with:

A. I said that we rely in part on the Septuagint as a basis for keeping the deuterocanonicals in the Bible as sacred, based on the fact that Christ and his Apostles DID quote from the Septuagint (not the deuteros - but the Septuagint itself, because of a comparison of their quotes with the wording of the Septuagint’s OT), because their OT quotes are verbatim or almost verbatim with the wording of the Septuagint.

You said it is illogical and not truly representative of what occurred to draw such a conclusion, because we had no idea what the Septuagint said at the time Christ and his Apostles preached, as we have no extent copy of the Septuagint from that period.

B. Playing “devil’s advocate” and assuming your premise just stated, we cannot rely on ANY text of ANY OT or NT book, as we have no idea of what the original texts of the OT and NT said at the time they were written, much less at the time they were first printed by Gutenbergl

So what do we Christian’s turn to as our inspired word of God, considering no “originals” exist any more (and have not for several thousand years)?