Gary, We are sure that Pauls letters were used in the first since they are called scripture in 2 Peter assuming that letter was written in the first. Could have been early second.
Source Rob? Whos “we” you and who?
“The apostles did not merely place the deuterocanonicals in the hands of their converts as part of the Septuagint. They regularly referred to the deuterocanonicals in their writings. For example, Hebrews 11 encourages us to emulate the heroes of the Old Testament and in the Old Testament “Women received their dead by resurrection. Some were tortured, refusing to accept release, that they might rise again to a better life” (Heb. 11:35).”
Where the earliest “reference” of Pauls work, when Rob? What year? Clement as I already mentioned on this thread.
The history you cited does not change the fact that no church wide council determined canon until Trent. I do not deny that the 27 books of the NT was generally accepted back then quite early by consensus but not officially church wide.
“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.”
J. N. D. Kelly
Protestant patristics scholar J. N. D. Kelly remarks, “For the great majority, however, the deutero-canonical writings… ranked as Scripture in the fullest sense… Augustine, for example, whose influence in the West was decisive, made no distinction between them and the rest of the Old Testament . . . The same inclusive attitude to the Apocrypha was authoritatively displayed at the synods of Hippo and Carthage in 393 and 397 respectively, and also in the famous letter which Pope Innocent I dispatched to Exuperius, bishop of Toulouse, in 405” (Early Christian Doctrines, 55-56).
Perhaps its easier to hear from a Protestant.
Symantics is your path. Council of Rome foward affirmed. The “Greek” translation known as the “Septuagint” is a history known, as is the Vulgate of St Jeromes.
He selected those approved by consensus. The Deuterocanicals never were until Trent.He prepared his translation as did Jerome
Read above history actually existed “before” Trent with the Deuterocanicals. The only attention placed at Trent was due to the severe Historical break in Christianity by the Reformers.
Course we know how the Reformers embraced the “Hebrew” version and the why.
“He” who had no-authority severed from the church is who you refer to thus Luther, Rob? Yes we went through this with “he”. Established facts of history. We understand Luthers errors.
“The Protestants often charge, the Catholic Church “added” the deuterocanonicals to the Bible at the Council of Trent. These books had been in the Bible from before the time canon was initially settled in the 380s. All the Council of Trent did was reaffirm, in the face of the new Protestant attack on Scripture, what had been the historic Bible of the Church—the standard edition of which was Jerome’s own Vulgate, including the seven deuterocanonicals!” Atkin
“To justify this rejection of books that had been in the Bible since before the days of the apostles (for the Septuagint was written before the apostles), the early Protestants cited as their chief reason the fact that the Jews of their day did not honor these books, going back to the council of Javneh in A.D. 90.”
Thus the “Hebrew” version…and…
"They ignored [Protestants] the fact that there were multiple canons of the Jewish Scriptures circulating in first century, appealing to a post-Christian Jewish council which has no authority over Christians as evidence that “The Jews don’t except these books.” In short, they [Reformers] went to enormous lengths to rationalize their rejection of these books of the Bible.
Pretty much the same as you today Rob. Theres History then theres the altered version according to Luther and the Reformers.
So who had the “Authority” to choose what Canons were used prior to 380 Rob? Thats the Authority Jerome followed btw Rob. The one which Luther was severed from, then he ran to the East…“rejected” theology their also. That also is “history”, as the compromise carried on by those who “thought” they knew better and continues till today as we see with the Eucharist distorted theology, snake handling, OSAS etc.
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