Jesus did not use or quote from the LXX. Your arguments are anything but convincing. The LXX was too common? Where? The Hebrew scrolls were read by the people, and quoted by Jesus for teaching. The LXX was much lesser known and was not trusted in the church at the time of Jesus.
Look at the last paragraph of the Epistle to the Colossians. St. Paul directed them to also read the Epistle to the Laodiceans. I have not found what you are stating.
I think we Catholics should be cautious about insisting that Jesus quoted from the LXX. For one thing, DennisS does make a valid point: Jesus was a Palestinian Jew, and Hebrew was indeed the Synagogue language. Besides, remember that whenever we address the issue of Peter as the Rock (Petros/Kepha) or the “brothers of Jesus”, we make a point of the fact that Jesus and his friends spoke Aramaic, not Greek (which was what the LXX was). The LXX was the Old Testament of the Diaspora Jews.
Well, I won’t argue further. You say he did not quote from the LXX. I say he did. I don’t have absolute proof, NOR do you, is the bottom line.
Dennis - NOWHERE in my postings did I say I was talking about Jesus reading in the synagogue when I said what Jesus may have made reference to in speaking of scriptures. I’m talking about discourses in which he referred to various scriptures. Not all of the scriptures Jesus is recorded as having spoken of were spoken of in the context of reading in the synagogue. He spoke of and quoted scriptures on other occasions and in other places than in the synagogue at formal readings.
Of course they were. So what? They were also in the LXX. Nobody I have read in this exchange has claimed that the LXX was not a Greek translation from the Semitic languages.
Who knows what Jesus quoted. The point is that when the writers of the NT (writing in Greek) quoted the OT, they frequently quoted the Greek LXX. We know they used it because the LXX is slightly different in spots and they quoted the differences.
What I mean is the Epistle to the Laodiceans was a separate writing that was in some of the Latin Vulgate Bibles well after Hippo and Carthage and right up to Florence.It wasn’t accepted as canon but stayed in the Vulgate right up to Florence.This would have been 28 books not 27.When the Council of Florence came along around the 1400’s,this Epistle vanished from the canon.I can’t seem to get a good answer on this.If Hippo and Carthage fixed the canon,how did this epistle survive for so long without notice then vanishing like it did not exist.
You mix two things with this. Only those who could not read Hebrew would trust the LXX. Scholars who understand the original languages do not trust translations, because they are inherently interpretations that cannot fully transmit the meaning of the original.
Thank you, porthos11. This is helpful dialogue. My contention was that Jesus was very unlikely to quote from the LXX. Writers of the (Greek) New Testament were likely to reference the LXX, and certainly did in some places. This is especially true in Pauline epistles, possibly because the letters he wrote were to areas that would actually be more likely to know the LXX, and not the Hebrew scrolls.
Here is some info regarding this issue of NT Canon:
True enough for all translations. But the life of The Book is inextricably interwoven with the issues of translations and trusting. We wind up HAVING to trust translations, don’t we?
The CHURCH as a Christian ekklesia (called out body) did not exist at this time. The Biblical accounts make no mention of the existence of anything called “the church” or “a church” prior to the inception of the Christian church on the day of Pentecost as recounted in Acts. So, in the context of Christian discourse, I am saying there was no church while Jesus was alive. *Of course * I’m not saying there were no religious gatherings, cultic phenomena, etc. The history of Biblical reference to “church” excludes the use of that term to mean the Judaic religious/synagogic assemblies.
Of course. You may use the term “church” as generically as you wish, and that’s OK. Within the context of Judaeo-Christian history, there is no use of that term as the expression of the cultus until Pentecost. So that’s the context in which I’m using it. That is not ignoring church history, that is adhering to the standard usages of those who do pay attention to church history.
As I said, I am not ignoring history. I am using the same historical terminology commonly used in the literature of church historians, and referring to “church” specifically as that specific body founded by Jesus, the origins of which we read in Acts. You may chose not to use that terminilogy if it suits your ideas, but to use it is not ignoring history, rather it is conforming to the common usage of church historians. “Some” may see and say what they will about the cultus the metamorphosis of which about 33AD became the church, but that will not alter the normal usage of the term as used by church historians for a long, long time.
Yep.
Thanks for the information.By reading this, I guess the Catholic Church determined the canon after all.I definitely needed some evidence.
Agreed, the Catholic Church established a Canon, which is largely adhered to by Christians around the globe. This was a lengthy process, with several changes along the way. I hope you are not excluding Protestants from their historical roots. This is not to suggest that there isn’t some contention regarding some books, but we do have substantial amounts of commonality. The “inter-testimonial period” from Malachi to Matthew is the largest area of disagreement as to what should be considered Scripture. I have at least three Bible versions with the apocrypha, and I do read them. Protestants and Catholics have different reasons for what they accept as Scripture, and even the process of what is accepted as Scripture. We won’t solve all the disagreements over Canon, but it is good to understand where we differ, and where we agree.
I became ill and have not been on the forum for several months. I see that a number of questions were asked about the subject of this thread that went unanswered during my absence. I’ll begin to answer them now. Sorry for the delay.Katholicos:
I’m curious how it was arrived at the calculation of 86% of the OT quotes in the NT being taken from the LXX, as compared to the Palestinian version of the OT. Can you explain this.
Thanks,
Jorge.
There was no “Epistle to the Laodiceans” canonized by the Catholic Church at the Councils of Rome (382), Hippo (393), or Carthage (397, 419), nor was it included in the approved Scriptures enumerated by Pope Innocent I in 405. It was not in the official Vulgate translated by St. Jerome, published in 405, which followed the canon of the Council of Rome. (See the decree of the Council of Rome at the beginning of this thread.)