Do you Deutero?

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Okay - lets cut to the chase - in final analysis- would or would you not read the Deuterocanonicals and why or why not. Are they spawn of the Devil:D Or Inspired word of God:) -do they have any use at all for a Christian?
 
juliamajor said:
Okay - lets cut to the chase - in final analysis- would or would you not read the Deuterocanonicals and why or why not. Are they spawn of the Devil:D Or Inspired word of God:) -do they have any use at all for a Christian?
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I don’t deutero but have read them and don’t think they are inspired and no I don’t think they are the spawn of the devil.

Do they have any use for a Christian? Maybe they do.
 
I do read the Deuteros though my Jerusalem Bible comments that they are not inerrant and that is why some Protestants reject them is because of uncertain authority and historicity problems. However since John Calvin read and taught from them, as did Luther and Zwingli, a lot of Protestans won’t admit that but if John MacArthur and R.C. Sproul teach that they did that’s good enought for me since niether of those men are Catholic at all, well MacArthur less so than Sproul, I think even if I stay Protestant I’ll keep right on reading and studying them.

And seeing of course that Jesus taught from Tobit, Hebrews mentions Maccabees and Jude mentions the Ascension of Moses, which the RCC does not recognize as Canonical, I think anyone who does not deutero is cheating themselves.
 
Sirach and Wisdom are Deutero books, and I’ll bet that if you handed any Protestant a couple of unlabeled chapters from either of those books they would swear before God and man that they came from the Old Testament.
 
juliamajor said:
Okay - lets cut to the chase - in final analysis- would or would you not read the Deuterocanonicals and why or why not. Are they spawn of the Devil:D Or Inspired word of God:) -do they have any use at all for a Christian?
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Good question 😃​

I think some are of more theological value than others - ISTM that Ecclesiasticus is a better book than Judith, & Wisdom, than the Additions to Esther. I think that 1 Enoch is more valuable than Judith or the Additions, & that it’s a pity the Prayer of Manasseh is not included; the latter does appear in some pre-Reformation Vulgates, as part of 2 Chronicles.

OTOH, the two Maccabean books are useful historically, as is Tobit: the former give an account of events, the latter reflects attitudes.

I also rather like some of the NT Apocrypha, such as the Apocalypse of Paul - OTOH, I think that the Esther in the OT is tawdry & unpleasant: it’s fanatical, & (what is worse) it is unrelieved by any reference to God; all one gets is the unpleasantness & bloodthirstiness of the human actors, unrelieved by any Divine activity. in the words of Nietszche, it is “human all too human”. But it probably has some function, even so.

The two Ezra books are both valuable, in different ways. The books I tend to read are the wisdom books: Ecclesiasticus & Wisdom - but I think I prefer the ones in the Hebrew canon 🙂 - there’s nothing in the Deuterocanon to compare with Job 🙂
 
Marsha_Adams said:
Sirach and Wisdom are Deutero books, and I’ll bet that if you handed any Protestant a couple of unlabeled chapters from either of those books they would swear before God and man that they came from the Old Testament.
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I once heard a Protestant say that no councils were needed to determine the Canon because of:John 10:4 his sheep follow him because they know his voice…implying that any Christian will simply know what is God’s word or not. And unfortunately, I was not able to give him multiple choice listing a variety of passages from the Deuterocanon and Protocanon…wonder how he would have done. :rolleyes:
 
I DO. If they were good enough for Jesus and the apostles, they are good enough for me.
 
Ryan,

I see you are replying to this thread…hopefully to my post but man, I’m tired. I’m about to give up and go to bed so hurry up.
 
Pwrlftr said:
How do you know Jesus and the apostles thought they (the deutero’s) were inspired?
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They quote the deuterocanonical books quite a bit. I’m not saying that “Quotation Equals Canonicity” though. They were quoting Old Testament Scripture which then became New Testament Scripture. The main reason I think they are inspired is because the Church has always considered them so.

Peace,

Ryan 🙂
 
Pwrlftr said:
Ryan,

I see you are replying to this thread…hopefully to my post but man, I’m tired. I’m about to give up and go to bed so hurry up.
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Sorry I got busy. How do you do that? I want to do the same.
 
ryanoneil said:
They quote the deuterocanonical books quite a bit. I’m not saying that “Quotation Equals Canonicity” though. They were quoting Old Testament Scripture which then became New Testament Scripture. The main reason I think they are inspired is because the Church has always considered them so.

Peace,

Ryan 🙂
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Ryan,

I have become very interested in canon issues. Let’s continue this in tomorrow I am too tired to do this right now and won’t make any sense at all. I may not make sense fully rested but definitely won’t right now.

Have a good night.
 
Pwrlftr said:
Ryan,

I have become very interested in canon issues. Let’s continue this in tomorrow I am too tired to do this right now and won’t make any sense at all. I may not make sense fully rested but definitely won’t right now.

Have a good night.
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Sure no problem.
 
ryanoneil said:
They quote the deuterocanonical books quite a bit. I’m not saying that “Quotation Equals Canonicity” though. They were quoting Old Testament Scripture which then became New Testament Scripture. The main reason I think they are inspired is because the Church has always considered them so.

Peace,

Ryan 🙂
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BTW, I have no desire to debate whether they are inspired or not. Neither one of us will change our minds on that.

What I would like to explore is whether we can know from the history we have available to us, whether or not Jesus and the apostles considered the deutero’s canonical.
 
Ok. Tomorrow then?
P.S. is there an easy way to refresh the screen?
 
ryanoneil said:
They quote the deuterocanonical books quite a bit. I’m not saying that “Quotation Equals Canonicity” though. They were quoting Old Testament Scripture which then became New Testament Scripture. The main reason I think they are inspired is because the Church has always considered them so.

Peace,

Ryan 🙂
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Ryan,

It is my position that there is no way to tell with certainty what any of the apostles or Jesus thought about the inspiration of the deutero’s and in particular there is no way to do this from the NT.

The following is rather rough but representative of my thoughts:
a.) I don’t believe there are many (maybe next to none) references to the deutero’s in the NT. I have been provided a list before from a website called “scripture catholic” but right off the bat I saw some major problems with the first few supposed links between the NT and the deutero’s that I looked at. So, I assumed the rest of the list was likewise flawed and didn’t pay it any attention.

It’s possible that I just found the weak links in the list and the other ones are rock solid but it’s also possible that the list in it’s entireity flawed.

If you have some more information on this, please post it.

b.) I grant that much of the NT references the septuagint but it is my understanding that the only manuscripts of the septuagint that we have are Christian manuscripts from the 4th century.

We do not know, with certainty, what the Jewish septuagint was comprised of and this is of course the text that would have been quoted. We also do not know how many versions of this septuagint may have been floating around and if they differed in how many and which book they included.

c.) Even if we did know which books made up the Jewish septuagint which some folks apparently refer to as the Alexandrian canon, we still have the issue of the NT either being silent w/ regards to the deutero’s or never quoting them in such a way as to reveal that they are scripture and therefore inspired.

Let’s see where this goes.
 
Pwrlftr said:
Ryan,

It is my position that there is no way to tell with certainty what any of the apostles or Jesus thought about the inspiration of the deutero’s and in particular there is no way to do this from the NT.

The following is rather rough but representative of my thoughts:
a.) I don’t believe there are many (maybe next to none) references to the deutero’s in the NT. I have been provided a list before from a website called “scripture catholic” but right off the bat I saw some major problems with the first few supposed links between the NT and the deutero’s that I looked at. So, I assumed the rest of the list was likewise flawed and didn’t pay it any attention.

It’s possible that I just found the weak links in the list and the other ones are rock solid but it’s also possible that the list in it’s entireity flawed.

If you have some more information on this, please post it.
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I agree some of scripturecatholic.com/deuterocanon.html seem weak at first glance but I think it is convincing. It doesn’t hurt to take a second look at it. I think I’ll look up some of the verses in my Bible and see if they reference one another.

Peace,

Ryan 🙂
 
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