Did the Church actually add 11 books to the Bible in the 1500's?

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Catholics can rely on these two sources:

1) Fr John A Hardon, S.J., in *The Catholic Catechism *(Doubleday, 1975, p 45) points out that the rabbinical school at Jamnia circa A.D. 100 redefined the canon of the Old testament for the Jews, leaving out the seven books from their Palestinian canon because not conforming to the Pentateuch, or written after the time of Esdra (circa 400 B.C.) or not in Hebrew in Palestine, and “made a fence around it.”

Luther rejected them because they did not conform to his selfist theological theories of justification by faith alone, his rejection of purgatory etc. Most non-Catholic Bibles are missing seven books and thus many miss out on vital truths as they follow Luther’s error of “Scripture Only” (Sola Scriptura).

**2) Answer by Fr. John Trigilio on Sept 17, 2010 (EWTN): **
The Catholic Bible has 46 books in the Old Testament, the Protestant Bible has 39 books in the O.T. Both have 27 books in the New Testament. Martin Luther removed 7 books from the O.T. when he wrote his German Bible. The first Bible translated from Hebrew & Greek by St. Jerome in 400 AD had all 46 OT + 27 NT as did the Latin Guttenburg Bible of the 15th c. Only Protestant Bibles from 16th c. to today are missing the 7 books, Catholics call the Deuterocanonical and Protestants call Apocrypha. They are Baruch, Maccabees 1 & 2, Tobit, Judith, Ecclesiasticus (Sirach) and Wisdom. These books were written during the Babylonian captivity and Diaspora and thus were written in Greek but by Jews outside Palestine and divinely inspired nevertheless. Jewish leaders removed them from their Bible in 100 AD merely because they were not originally written in Hebrew. But 2/3 of the world’s Jews at that time (3rd c. BC, from 250-100 BC) lived outside the Holy Land and were more literate in Greek than Hebrew. Christians from the time of the Apostles and during Jesus’ time knew and accepted these 7 books, hence their presence in St. Jerome’s Bible and every other Bible until Luther. IRONICALLY these 7 books were in the ORIGINAL King James Bible but Parliament removed them in subsequent editions.
 
Abu said:
Catholics can rely on these two sources:

1) Fr John A Hardon, S.J., in *The Catholic Catechism *(Doubleday, 1975, p 45) points out that the rabbinical school at Jamnia circa A.D. 100 redefined the canon of the Old testament for the Jews, leaving out the seven books from their Palestinian canon because not conforming to the Pentateuch, or written after the time of Esdra (circa 400 B.C.) or not in Hebrew in Palestine, and “made a fence around it.”

Luther rejected them because they did not conform to his selfist theological theories of justification by faith alone, his rejection of purgatory etc. Most non-Catholic Bibles are missing seven books and thus many miss out on vital truths as they follow Luther’s error of “Scripture Only” (Sola Scriptura).

**2) Answer by Fr. John Trigilio on Sept 17, 2010 (EWTN): **
The Catholic Bible has 46 books in the Old Testament, the Protestant Bible has 39 books in the O.T. Both have 27 books in the New Testament. Martin Luther removed 7 books from the O.T. when he wrote his German Bible. The first Bible translated from Hebrew & Greek by St. Jerome in 400 AD had all 46 OT + 27 NT as did the Latin Guttenburg Bible of the 15th c. Only Protestant Bibles from 16th c. to today are missing the 7 books, Catholics call the Deuterocanonical and Protestants call Apocrypha. They are Baruch, Maccabees 1 & 2, Tobit, Judith, Ecclesiasticus (Sirach) and Wisdom. These books were written during the Babylonian captivity and Diaspora and thus were written in Greek but by Jews outside Palestine and divinely inspired nevertheless. Jewish leaders removed them from their Bible in 100 AD merely because they were not originally written in Hebrew. But 2/3 of the world’s Jews at that time (3rd c. BC, from 250-100 BC) lived outside the Holy Land and were more literate in Greek than Hebrew. Christians from the time of the Apostles and during Jesus’ time knew and accepted these 7 books, hence their presence in St. Jerome’s Bible and every other Bible until Luther. IRONICALLY these 7 books were in the ORIGINAL King James Bible but Parliament removed them in subsequent editions.
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With all due respect to the late Fr. Hardon, one should first notice the date in which his work was originally published: 1975. Not too far yet from the 1960s, when folks started to seriously consider questioning and reevaluating the long-standing Graetzian theory of a Council of Jamnia. So we can’t be too hard on Fr. Hardon at this point: he was merely repeating what was admittedly the scholarly concensus at his time. And the hypothesis hasn’t been entirely uprooted yet - some sources still refer to it without question - which would explain Fr. Trigilio’s use.
 
Abu said:
If “Most scholars now believe that there was never a council”, it appears that “the Rabbinic school at Jamnia became the substitute for the Sanhedrin after the destruction of Jerusalem in 70 AD and through the teachings of the school, the canon was fixed in the 70-135 AD period.”
thefreelibrary.com/The+Canon+of+the+Old+Testament-a01073840934
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The problem I think lies with the terminology ‘Council of Jamnia’ and the purported evidence.

Before the fall of Jerusalem, Rabbi Johanan ben-Zakkai established an academy at Yavneh which proceeded to function like a Sanhedrin between the period between the Jewish revolts of AD 70-132. He was then succeeded by Rabbi Gamaliel II. Somewhere between AD 80 and AD 117 Gamaliel was deposed for a time; Eleazar ben-Azariah was installed as head of the Yavneh academy. According to the Mishnah, at the day of Eleazar’s installation, the sages ruled that both Song of Songs and Ecclesiastes “make the hands unclean” (i.e. holy). The same passage goes on to state that “all the Holy Scriptures render the hands unclean”, and so it is clear that the point at issue was whether the two books ranked among the Scriptures. This passage is then followed by a series of enactments introduced by the phrase “on that day” (Mishnah Yadaim 3.5-4.4). Later tradition (Talmud, tractate Berakhoth 28a), taking this formula at face value, claimed that every ruling prefixed by the phrase were indeed made on the same occasion.

This is where Heinrich Graetz and his ilk seem to get the idea of a ‘Council of Jamnia’. But even if we grant that something similar to it did exist, it should not be interpreted in the same way as Christian use of the term ‘council’, Nicaea- or even Vatican II-style. Admittedly, the term ‘council’ does have the disadvantage of making people assume official action taken at specific meetings held at specific dates.

On the contrary, it would seem that the deliberations at Yavneh were closer to the character of a school, academy, or court. All that the story about the Songs of Songs and Ecclesiastes tell us was that there was some debate about the exact status of these books. In fact, it would seem that the dispute were not terminated by the decisions at Yavneh: even as late as the late 2nd century, Rabbi Meir (circa 135-170), famous as one of the greatest of the Tannaim of the fourth generation, was disputing the idea that Ecclesiastes defiled the hands! There is no evidence that the status of other Writings was debated, or that a final decision was reached in Yavneh.

Thus, the idea of a Council of Jamnia that is analogous to Christian Church councils has no foundation. The Jamnia hypothesis however, admits of a looser definition. Hence, many of those who continue to accept the hypothesis now define the term as a loose one (and an unsatisfactory one at that), more of a convenient catch-all symbol designating the decisions that the schools that gathered at Yavneh had reached, which could represent the crystallization of long processes that occurred in early Judaism. In any case, it is even doubtful whether the actions of the academy at Yavneh were official decisions; there was probably no body in Judaism that functioned in an ‘official’ capacity post-AD 70.
 
patrick457 said:
The problem I think lies with the terminology ‘Council of Jamnia’ and the purported evidence.

Before the fall of Jerusalem, Rabbi Johanan ben-Zakkai established an academy at Yavneh which proceeded to function like a Sanhedrin between the period between the Jewish revolts of AD 70-132. He was then succeeded by Rabbi Gamaliel II. Somewhere between AD 80 and AD 117 Gamaliel was deposed for a time; Eleazar ben-Azariah was installed as head of the Yavneh academy. According to the Mishnah, at the day of Eleazar’s installation, the sages ruled that both Song of Songs and Ecclesiastes “make the hands unclean” (i.e. holy). The same passage goes on to state that “all the Holy Scriptures render the hands unclean”, and so it is clear that the point at issue was whether the two books ranked among the Scriptures. This passage is then followed by a series of enactments introduced by the phrase “on that day” (Mishnah Yadaim 3.5-4.4). Later tradition (Talmud, tractate Berakhoth 28a), taking this formula at face value, claimed that every ruling prefixed by the phrase were indeed made on the same occasion.

This is where Heinrich Graetz and his ilk seem to get the idea of a ‘Council of Jamnia’. But even if we grant that something similar to it did exist, it should not be interpreted in the same way as Christian use of the term ‘council’, Nicaea- or even Vatican II-style. Admittedly, the term ‘council’ does have the disadvantage of making people assume official action taken at specific meetings held at specific dates.

On the contrary, it would seem that the deliberations at Yavneh were closer to the character of a school, academy, or court. All that the story about the Songs of Songs and Ecclesiastes tell us was that there was some debate about the exact status of these books. In fact, it would seem that the dispute were not terminated by the decisions at Yavneh: even as late as the late 2nd century, Rabbi Meir (circa 135-170), famous as one of the greatest of the Tannaim of the fourth generation, was disputing the idea that Ecclesiastes defiled the hands! There is no evidence that the status of other Writings was debated, or that a final decision was reached in Yavneh.

Thus, the idea of a Council of Jamnia that is analogous to Christian Church councils has no foundation. The Jamnia hypothesis however, admits of a looser definition. Hence, many of those who continue to accept the hypothesis now define the term as a loose one (and an unsatisfactory one at that), more of a convenient catch-all symbol designating the decisions that the schools that gathered at Yavneh had reached, which could represent the crystallization of long processes that occurred in early Judaism. In any case, it is even doubtful whether the actions of the academy at Yavneh were official decisions; there was probably no body in Judaism that functioned in an ‘official’ capacity post-AD 70.
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Even positing something like a discussion of the canon at Jamnia requires one to assume that the Talmud is a literal historical record of speech and events that occurred hundreds of years earlier–something that even many Talmud scholars seriously question today.

It’s really well past time that this canard is retired–I don’t see why the idea is so popular here when it’s been thoroughly debunked. Now THAT would be an interesting question…
 
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