Deuterocanon question

[inkaneer]

I’m in a discussion about the canonicity of the Deuterocanonical books. The person I am debating has two problems with these books: 1. The Church Fathers didn’t agree on these books and so they shouldn’t be in the Bible and 2. He says the DC is not quoted in the New Testament and so it isn’t inspired. Of course this is really a problem with Church Authority rather than anything else but he asked me to find where the DC is quoted in the NT. I can handle the first question but am having trouble finding where the DC is quoted. I know it is, I found a source a while back but I can’t seem to find it anymore.

Thanks for the help

Jeff

Ask your friend how he can determine what is canonical and what is not since he lacks two essential elements necessary to make such a determination. They are:

1. He has no authority other than scripture to make any decision on canonicity and
2. Scripture does not have an inspired Table of Contents to tell him what is canonical.

Then tell him the Deuteros are canonical because the Catholic Church has said they are.

 

[JonNC]

Ask your friend how he can determine what is canonical and what is not since he lacks two essential elements necessary to make such a determination. They are:

1. He has no authority other than scripture to make any decision on canonicity and
2. Scripture does not have an inspired Table of Contents to tell him what is canonical.

Then tell him the Deuteros are canonical because the Catholic Church has said they are.

For Catholics, that is indeed true.

Jon

 

[ERose]

Remember, also, that the 1611 KJV also had the D-C’s.

Yes it had the D-Cs but the OT besides the D-Cs were based upon the Masoretic text.

 

[inkaneer]

Let me know if I understand this correct. Catholic scholars, fathers would debate a topic until it was settled by a council. Can one show the dates of the disputing fathers in reference to councils that addressed old testament canon? What are those dates?

That is not entirely correct. Not all topics were debated. Some were universally accepted and no debate was necessary. A prime example is the one you referred to, the Old Testament. There was no debate on this in the early church. Rather the early church accepted the Septuagint version with its 73 books rather than the shorter expunged Hebrew version which came later. The Jewish scriptures in Jesus’ day contained all the books in the Septuagint [all 46 books]. Jesus saw no reason to clean out the scriptures as He did the Temple. That, I think, should tell you something.

But Catholics are not alone in defense of the deuterocanonical books. Several noted protestant scholars also at least acknowledge the early church held them to be inspired and thus canonical. J.N.D. Kelly, a very respected Protestant Patristic scholar, whose book ‘Early Christian Doctrine’ is standard fare in many Protestant seminaries, admits in that book that the Deuterocanonicals were commonly accepted by the early church as scripture (see pages 53-55). Kelly writes:

“It should be observed that the Old Testament thus admitted as authoritative in the Church was somewhat bulkier and morecomprehensive 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).

In addition, Arnold C. Sundberg, a Lutheran scholar, likewise confirms that the early church accepted the deuterocanonicals, in his book “The Old Testament canon of the Early Church”, Harvard Divinity School. Sundberg writes:

"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. There were some doubts by Jerome on the canonicity of the deuterocanonicals in his report to Pope Damasus. Pope Damasus’ response was to consult the tradition of the churches, and the answer came back with a resounding unanimity by that point in the history of the church (late 4th century) that the churches scattered throughout the Roman empire had a constant tradition of including these books in their lectionaries and that they insisted that the apostles themselves had cited these books as scripture in their preaching and in their catechesis of the early church. On that basis Pope Damasus requested Jerome to include them in the Vulgate and Jerome as a faithful Catholic submitted his individual, personal opinion to the judgment of the church meeting in Council and included them." **Luther revived the Jewish desire to exclude these books from the canon for purely doctrinal and apologetical reasons. He was losing the debate on the issue of whether purgatory was taught in scripture or not. When his opponents hammered relentlessly away at him with the verse from Sacred Scripture ‘It is a holy and wholesome thought to pray for the dead that they may be loosed from their sins’ (2 Macc. 12:46), Luther as a DESPERATE DODGE grasped at the straw of the ancient Jewish caveat against the inclusion of these works." Luther set a precedent that Protestants have followed ever since, In order to rob the Roman Catholic Church a powerful and undeniable proof text for purgatory. That is not responsible, intellectually honest scholarship. **

That last part, coming from a protestant and a Lutheran protestant scholar at that speaks volumes. It is, in essence a mea culpa, mea culpa, mea maxima culpa on the part of protestants.*

 

[edjco]

To the OP, this may be a simpler way to explain it:
-The NT does NOT quote the deuteros,
-The NT does, however, quote the Septuagint, which contained the deuteros.
-Catholic and Protestant scholars agree that the OT Scripture used by Jesus and the Apostles was the Septuagint (which again, contained the deuteros).
-You may also want to know that the dead sea scrolls contained guess what? The Deuteros.
-Those scrolls were written in Hebrew.
-One of the reasons the Jews (decades after Christ’s death, by the way) disregarded the Deuteros was because they declared that all accepted books had to have been written in Hebrew. It wasn’t until the discovery of these scrolls, as far as I know, that we were aware the Deuteros were in fact also written in Hebrew.
-Those who disregard the Deuteros are basing their reason for doing so on the fact that a Jewish council, decades after Christ’s death, threw them out.
By the way, that same Jewish council also threw out Christ and the revelation of the New Testament. Not something I would wish to base my theology on as a Christian.

 

[inkaneer]

Quote:
Originally Posted by MarcoPolo
Is there a better quote from Cajetan? He doesn’t mention Baruch. And according to this quote, he’s relaying this is what Jerome said (which itself is begs context considering some of the ways Jerome quoted the deuteros.)

I think he is just as much relaying his agreement with Jerome.

I’ll look, but the point was that not all Catholics, prior to Trent, were of one mind regarding the canonicity of the D-C’s, dating back to St. Jerome In fact, said canonicity was even debated at Trent.
But then, I’m one Lutheran who looks at the fact that Luther felt strongly enough about them to translate and include them, and the fact that the Lutheran Confessions do not exclude them (they don’t mention specific books at all), and wonder if we need to lend them more credence than we do.

Jon

Seems to me that we have made a big assumption here that canonical = inspired. It may well be that way today but when some of the Church Fathers speak of a particular book as “non-canonical,” they do not necessarily mean that it is not inspired or authoritative. Rather, in many cases, they merely mean that it is not used in the Liturgy of their particular city-church [remember these 'Fathers" were bishops for the most part and were the shepherds of the church in their area]. Thus it is a “hidden book” (“apocrypha”), which could be read privately for edification but not in the Liturgy itself (the public worship] of the Church. The canon of Scripture’s original and primary purpose was in the service of the various Liturgies of the Church. In this, we must remember that up until the 4th or 5th Century each city-church possessed its own Liturgy (its own form of the Mass), complete with its own liturgical calendar. And so, while the city-church of Rome might celebrate the feast day of a particular saint or martyr on March 1st, the city-church of Corinth might celebrate something else on that day (the feast of another saint), while the city-church of Antioch might celebrate still another feast. And so, the readings for this same Liturgical date were different in each city-church. To this day in the Greek Orthodox Church, the Book of Revelation is not read in the Liturgy. You will never hear it at their Mass (or as they term it ‘The Divine Liturgy’). Yet, the Greek Orthodox would never say that Revelation is not Sacred Scripture or that it is uninspired. Yet, they will sometimes speak of it as “non-canonical” because it has no place in the “canon” of their Liturgy. Throughout Church history, the word “canonical” has been used in several ways. It does not always mean what Martin Luther and the Protestants mean when they speak of a book being canonical or non-canonical. Rather, “non-canonical” can mean that:

1. a book is heretical (e.g. the Gospel of Thomas), or
2. That it is a good book with historical and spiritual merit, but uninspired (e.g. the Shepherd of Hermas), or
3. That it is an inspired book, but not used in the Liturgy of a particular city-church or even in the Liturgy of many city-churches (e.g. Revelation or 2 Maccabees).

In addition, protestants use the term apocryphal rather than deuterocanonical in describing these seven books. This is a change from the early church. When the Fathers spoke of real ‘apocryphal’ books, they would say those books have errors. They don’t term the Deuterocanonicals as having errors and they don’t refer to them as *apocryphal * either.

 

[JonNC]

Quote:
Originally Posted by MarcoPolo
Is there a better quote from Cajetan? He doesn’t mention Baruch. And according to this quote, he’s relaying this is what Jerome said (which itself is begs context considering some of the ways Jerome quoted the deuteros.)

Seems to me that we have made a big assumption here that canonical = inspired. It may well be that way today but when some of the Church Fathers speak of a particular book as “non-canonical,” they do not necessarily mean that it is not inspired or authoritative. Rather, in many cases, they merely mean that it is not used in the Liturgy of their particular city-church [remember these 'Fathers" were bishops for the most part and were the shepherds of the church in their area]. Thus it is a “hidden book” (“apocrypha”), which could be read privately for edification but not in the Liturgy itself (the public worship] of the Church. The canon of Scripture’s original and primary purpose was in the service of the various Liturgies of the Church. In this, we must remember that up until the 4th or 5th Century each city-church possessed its own Liturgy (its own form of the Mass), complete with its own liturgical calendar. And so, while the city-church of Rome might celebrate the feast day of a particular saint or martyr on March 1st, the city-church of Corinth might celebrate something else on that day (the feast of another saint), while the city-church of Antioch might celebrate still another feast. And so, the readings for this same Liturgical date were different in each city-church. To this day in the Greek Orthodox Church, the Book of Revelation is not read in the Liturgy. You will never hear it at their Mass (or as they term it ‘The Divine Liturgy’). Yet, the Greek Orthodox would never say that Revelation is not Sacred Scripture or that it is uninspired. Yet, they will sometimes speak of it as “non-canonical” because it has no place in the “canon” of their Liturgy. Throughout Church history, the word “canonical” has been used in several ways. It does not always mean what Martin Luther and the Protestants mean when they speak of a book being canonical or non-canonical. Rather, “non-canonical” can mean that:

1. a book is heretical (e.g. the Gospel of Thomas), or
2. That it is a good book with historical and spiritual merit, but uninspired (e.g. the Shepherd of Hermas), or
3. That it is an inspired book, but not used in the Liturgy of a particular city-church or even in the Liturgy of many city-churches (e.g. Revelation or 2 Maccabees).

In addition, protestants use the term apocryphal rather than deuterocanonical in describing these seven books. This is a change from the early church. When the Fathers spoke of real ‘apocryphal’ books, they would say those books have errors. They don’t term the Deuterocanonicals as having errors and they don’t refer to them as *apocryphal * either.

Thanks for the information. I, frankly. prefer the term deuterocanon, as I feel it better describes them. I am not entirely convinced, considering their consistent acceptance both east and west, that Luther was correct in his few of them. Usually, when I involve myself in a discussion of the D-C’s, I feel moved to provide a side of the story not always posted.

Jon

 

[inkaneer]

Quote:
Originally Posted by inkaneer
Ask your friend how he can determine what is canonical and what is not since he lacks two essential elements necessary to make such a determination. They are:

1. He has no authority other than scripture to make any decision on canonicity and
2. Scripture does not have an inspired Table of Contents to tell him what is canonical.

Then tell him the Deuteros are canonical because the Catholic Church has said they are.

For Catholics, that is indeed true.

Jon

It is true for everyone.

 

[Rightlydivide]

To the OP, this may be a simpler way to explain it:
-The NT does NOT quote the deuteros,
-The NT does, however, quote the Septuagint, which contained the deuteros.
-Catholic and Protestant scholars agree that the OT Scripture used by Jesus and the Apostles was the Septuagint (which again, contained the deuteros).
-You may also want to know that the dead sea scrolls contained guess what? The Deuteros.
-Those scrolls were written in Hebrew.
-One of the reasons the Jews (decades after Christ’s death, by the way) disregarded the Deuteros was because they declared that all accepted books had to have been written in Hebrew. It wasn’t until the discovery of these scrolls, as far as I know, that we were aware the Deuteros were in fact also written in Hebrew.
-Those who disregard the Deuteros are basing their reason for doing so on the fact that a Jewish council, decades after Christ’s death, threw them out.
By the way, that same Jewish council also threw out Christ and the revelation of the New Testament. Not something I would wish to base my theology on as a Christian.

The LXX and its exact contents circa 30 AD are unknown.
The DSS contain three of the DC books. Two in Hebrew. One in Greek.
What is the source for your belief about the Jews? Is it the discredited Jamnia theory?

 

[cfrancis]

Is it the discredited Jamnia theory?

This piques my interest. I’ve heard of Jamnia and it’s function as what we might consider a school or institute. What has been discredited?

 

[Rightlydivide]

This piques my interest. I’ve heard of Jamnia and it’s function as what we might consider a school or institute. What has been discredited?

It is often asserted, and many groups Catholics and Protestants have, that Jamnia threw books out of the Bible. It is based upon several faulty premises. First, Jamnia sources are much later after the fact. Enough, that we cannot really say it even occured. However, if it did occur, there is no evidence to indicate a review of a canon occured. I do not know if you have access to a college library database but if you put Jamnia into something like ProQuest, you can read what people over the last thirty or so years have written on the topic.

 

[Subrosa]

Well the facts argue against you, because if the canon was settled, Catholics, Eastern Orthodox, Oriental Orthodox and others would have the same canon…but they do not.
And us as well. You did not “settle” it for us. Your canon is too big.

But they do. Yes they do!!!

Catholics, Eastern Orthodox, Oriental Orthodox all use the same books. As well as the Armenian Apostolic Church, Ethiopian Church, Antiochan Church and Coptic Church. All these churches are of Apostolic origin and therefore have the same scriptural tradition and canon.

Believe it or not, some use even more books. None use less.

It was only after the Reformation that canonical books were removed.

Do your homework.

Sub

 

[cfrancis]

It is often asserted, and many groups Catholics and Protestants have, that Jamnia threw books out of the Bible. It is based upon several faulty premises. First, Jamnia sources are much later after the fact. Enough, that we cannot really say it even occured. However, if it did occur, there is no evidence to indicate a review of a canon occured. I do not know if you have access to a college library database but if you put Jamnia into something like ProQuest, you can read what people over the last thirty or so years have written on the topic.

Thanks! Not that I’ve done much in-depth reading on it, but from what I’ve read, Jamnia was not so much a council but a school (or institute) and that it had no all-encompassing authority (like Judaism in general and Islam). That is, there was no council as we would think of the First Council of Nicea, or even the Council of Jerusalem; and Jamnia certainly did not have the authority those councils had.
I’ve not yet come across anything doubting it’s existence.

 

[Rightlydivide]

But they do. Yes they do!!!

Catholics, Eastern Orthodox, Oriental Orthodox all use the same books. As well as the Armenian Apostolic Church, Ethiopian Church, Antiochan Church and Coptic Church. All these churches are of Apostolic origin and therefore have the same scriptural tradition and canon.

Believe it or not, some use even more books. None use less.

It was only after the Reformation that canonical books were removed.

Do your homework.

Sub

No they do not. Eastern Orthdox and Oriental Orthodox have a larger canon. A local regional synod did not have the authority to settle a canon. Other parts of Christianity recognize a different canon than the Catholic one.
I am sure I know quite a bit more about the topic than you. So I will pass on the homework assignment…

 

[cfrancis]

Your canon is too big.

As you claim for the Catholic 73-book OT canon, there appears to be as little support for a strict 66-book OT!

 

[Rightlydivide]

As you claim for the Catholic 73-book OT canon, there appears to be as little support for a strict 66-book OT!

The crucial area to examine is the first two hundred to three hundred years. These are the sources not often cited. If you have the book on Why Catholic Bibles are Bigger, you can find a lot of the historical data. You will of course see the Catholic response to this information.
However, I believe an examination will see a canon that stays the same until around the 4th century and it expands quickly and unevenly.

 

[cfrancis]

However, I believe an examination will see a canon that stays the same until around the 4th century and it expands quickly and unevenly.

At first glance, I find the above to contradict the below:

The LXX and its exact contents circa 30 AD are unknown.
The DSS contain three of the DC books. Two in Hebrew. One in Greek.

 

[inkaneer]

This piques my interest. I’ve heard of Jamnia and it’s function as what we might consider a school or institute. What has been discredited?

Jamnia was a center for Jewish rabbinical scholarship. It hosted a highly regarded rabbinical school as well as what has been called a ‘Great Sanhedrin’. About ten other locations in Israel have hosted ‘Great Sanhedrins’. A great Sanhedrin was convened in Jamnia twice following the destruction of the Jewish Temple in 70 AD. Many of the rabbi’s and members of the Sanhedrin in Jerusalem, with the permission of the Romans, came to Jamnia. It is unclear exactly what was done to the canon at Jamnia although what evidence we have today suggests there were discussions amongst the rabbi’s on many books and with that many opinions on whether a writing was acceptable as inspired. Oddly enough most of these discussions were of writings that were considered then to be canonical and remain so today. Apparently no list was drawn up of canonoical or non canonical writings but there were lists of writings which ‘made the hands unclean’ and those that didn’t. Oddly enough those writings which ‘made the hands unclean’ were what we would call canonical. The word canon or canonical was not used at that time and would only come into use later by early christian writers to describe writings that were to be used in the ‘Canon’ of the Liturgy or used in the public worship of the church. The word ‘canon’ was not equated with denoting an inspired writing. That would only come much later.

However, the question has to be asked where the Deuterocanonical writings came from. The answer is they were in the Septuagint which the Church accepted as the Old Testament. So how did they get into the Septuagint? The story is that 70 translators in Alexandria, Egypt translated the Jewish scriptures from Hebrew into Greek and that became known as the Septuagint or LXX. The story also goes that the scrolls containing the Jewish writings that the translators based their translations on were sent to Alexandria from Jerusalem. Absent any other information it must therefore be logical that the deuterocanonical writings came to be in the Septuagint because they were in those scrolls sent to Alexandria from Jerusalem. All of this takes place before Christ is born so that in the beginning of the Christian era there is two versions of the Jewish scriptures one in Greek and one in Hebrew/ Aramaic. What we don’t know is whether they were the same. We do know that Jerome initially favored the Jewish scriptures which by his time did not contain the deuterocanonical writings. Jerome was highly educated for his time and his education came from Jewish rabbi’s not from Greeks. That he would continue in the loine of thought of his Jewish educators and thus favor the Jewish version is quite reasonable. However, Jerome did change his mind on the deuteros after hearing the arguments, maybe for the first time, presented for their inclusion. So sometime in the approx 500 year period between the creation of the LXX and Jerome, the Jewish scriptures lost seven writings. When this was is open to debate. Actually some will argue that even today the Jews do not have a set canon to their scriptures while others will claim that the Jews closed the canon on any number of different dates. I think that when the deuteros were dropped from the Jewish scriptures does not matter. What I think matters is why Luther chose not to follow 1100 years of christian tradition of including the Deuterocanonical writings. We know Luther had issues with other books of the canon, the epistle of James for an example. His issues were based on theological grounds, meaning they contradicted Luther’s theological positions. In my opinion Luther was exercising what I call 'Burger king christianity" You know the commercial that touts, '… have it your way at Burger King". But then that was Luther being Luther.

 

[Rightlydivide]

At first glance, I find the above to contradict the below:

I do not know why you find them contradictory. So I am not sure which part to elaborate on.

 

[inkaneer]

No they do not. Eastern Orthdox and Oriental Orthodox have a larger canon. A local regional synod did not have the authority to settle a canon. Other parts of Christianity recognize a different canon than the Catholic one.
I am sure I know quite a bit more about the topic than you. So I will pass on the homework assignment…

I disagree. I submit that the Eastern Orthodox do not have a canon, at least a defined canon as does the Catholic Church and the protestant denominations. 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[1] in 1672 decreed the Greek Orthodox Canon which is the same as the one decided by the Council of Trent but adds Psalm 151, 1 Esdras, 3 Maccabees, 4 Maccabees, and Prayer of Manasseh. 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. So despite their all inclusiveness they really have no defined canon. And I do think they would disagree on the definition of the word “canon” as we use it also. From what I understand in Orthodox circles the word ‘canon’ is not to be equated with ‘inspired’.