How did Orthodox Bibles come to have more books than Catholics Bibles?

[RaisedCatholic]

What’s more, is that what some would refer to as “1 Esdras,” which are the additions to Esdras, which are “not” in Catholic OTs today, were in the fourth & fifth century councils of Rome, Hippo, & Carthage 1 & 2. Somewhere along the way, these “additions” were “removed” from the OT. And the reason the Eastern Orthodox OT has more books than Catholic & other OTs is because the Septuagint kept growing after the first century, which continued to add books to it. Since the Eastern Orthodox embraced the Septuagint, they accepted these extra books. For anyone who is interested, this book has chapters on the Septuagint & the Eastern Orthodox Bibles:

Why Protestant Bibles Are Smaller

 

[Thomasbradley312]

Lots of traditions have longer canons. Beta Isreal is a Jewish group that regards basically the same books as the Ethiopian Orthodox Tawahedo Church including Enoch.
Protestants just accept what European Jews accept. And I’m not really sure why we are bound to what they accept when they are the ones who deny the Lord. Some Jews only accepted the Torah. Others the Hebrew Bible. Others still it seems, the Essenes had a much larger canon as demonstrated from the Dead Sea Scrolls.

 

[RaisedCatholic]

That is all in the book.

 

[Thomasbradley312]

The author is also biased. Protestants can have smaller Bibles if they want.
Personally I wouldn’t mind if our Bibles had many more books than are in it, especially writings that were from the New Testament era which early fathers cited as scripture. I own the Wensworth Old Testament Pseudepigrapha and J.K. Eliot New Testament Apocrypha and Holmes Apostolic Fathers, and a good number of them I read and wish they were in the Bible. Especially Enoch and the Shepherd of Hermas.

 

[RaisedCatholic]

The author has an entire chapter on the NT and why certain books didn’t make the NT, including the Shepherd of Hermas and 1 Clement. He explains they contain historical errors in them, and contradicts previous inspired Scripture, as does 1 Enoch. So, although they do contain some historical and theological truths, in order to be God-breathed, they cannot contain any errors. Plus, the Shepherd was written far too late - mid second century, which lacks apostolic authorship to include it in the canon. So, as much as we might “like” to include some of these writings in our Bibles, they simply don’t qualify. Despite the author being a former Catholic, his research on the topic is hardly biased. Plus, Jesus did not consider the OT era books that did not make the Bible to be inspired Scripture, nor did the NT writers including Jude, who despite referencing 1 Enoch did not cite it as Scripture.

 

[Thomasbradley312]

Did Jesus ever cite Esther or the Song of Songs? Those were contested in early Judaism as well.

 

[MagdalenaRita]

Nowhere in the NT is there a direct quotation from Joshua, Judges, Chronicles, Ezra, Nehemiah, Ecclesiastes, Obadiah, Zephaniah, and Nahum also.

 

[Thomasbradley312]

That’s what I’m saying. That is such a Protestant invention that something is only scripture because Jesus knew it or quoted from it. Even if Jude doesn’t say Enoch is scripture, he does allude to it. And with that notion writings from some Greek philosophers and playwrights should be scripture since Paul cites them as well. It is a ridiculous way to discern canonical texts. Jesus obviously was aware of books like Enoch and Jubilees as they were hugely popular in that time period.

 

[RaisedCatholic]

Did Jesus ever cite Esther or the Song of Songs? Those were contested in early Judaism as well.

That is such a Protestant invention that something is only scripture because Jesus knew it or quoted from it.

It is not a Protestant argument that an OT book has to be quoted in the NT to be recognized as an inspired book. That is a non-Protestant assumption, and a strawman. And while Jesus did not cite Esther and Song of Songs, and there were Jews who contested them back then, it was not enough to leave them out of the particular canon they espoused to.

 

[RaisedCatholic]

Nowhere in the NT is there a direct quotation from Joshua, Judges, Chronicles, Ezra, Nehemiah, Ecclesiastes, Obadiah, Zephaniah, and Nahum also.

Again, like I told Thomasbradley, it is not the Protestant argument that an OT book has to be “directly quoted” in the NT to qualify as an inspired book. Again, that is a non-Protestant assumption that non-Catholics believe it has to be. And as Thomasbradley mentioned Jude quoted 1 Enoch, yet it is not in Catholic and EO Bibles either. Neither does the NT even allude to the additions to Esther in non-Protestant Bibles.

In the OT era, certain books were blended together, like Ruth-Judges, the minor prophets, Jeremiah-Lamentations, etc. They didn’t get separated until centuries later. So, if one of those books were not cited with a particular phrase, like “it is written” or “the Scripture says” which was the way to cite an OT book, but the other was, they would be considered part of that same writing. However, none of these phrases were used in the NT to describe a non-Protestant book in their OTs, independent of the “Hebrew Bible.”

The Protestant argument is that when Jesus was talking to the Pharisees in Luke 16, who are described as “lovers of money,” He told the parable of the rich man and Lazarus who died and went to the afterlife. When the rich man begged Abraham to send Lazarus back to warn his 5 brothers about the torment he was enduring, Abraham responded, “They (referring to the Pharisees) have (in Greek means to have possession of something) Moses and the Prophets (a metonym to refer to the OT Scriptures).” This is the Protestant argument that Jesus is saying the Pharisees had possession of the OT canon, not just part of it. And as Jimmy Akin from Catholic Answers stated, Pharisees and Protestants had the same books in their OT canon.

This is why the Protestant OT has the number of books in it that it has.

 

[MagdalenaRita]

However, none of these phrases were used in the NT to describe a non-Protestant book in their OTs, independent of the “Hebrew Bible.”

Are you referring to the deutero books here?

The Protestant argument is that when Jesus was talking to the Pharisees in Luke 16…

…“They (referring to the Pharisees) have (in Greek means to have possession of something) Moses and the Prophets (a metonym to refer to the OT Scriptures)” This is the Protestant argument that Jesus is saying the Pharisees had possession of the OT canon, not just part of it.

The exact content of what OT books the NT Church used from the time of the apostles and were considered inspired by the apostles and early Christians, can not be established by that one verse.

And as Jimmy Akin from Catholic Answers stated, Pharisees and Protestants had the same books in their OT canon.

We want to be sure of what Jimmy Akin says about OT Canon.

The Old Testament Canon​

by James Akin

http://jimmyakin.com/the-old-testament-canon

Canon of Scripture: What criteria did the early Christians use to determine it?​

 

[RaisedCatholic]

Are you referring to the deutero books here?

Not just them, but also books in non-Catholic OTs both Protestants and Catholics agree are Apocrypha.

The exact content of what OT books the NT Church used from the time of the apostles and were considered inspired by the apostles and early Christians, can not be established by that one verse.

That’s because it was not defined until the Council of Trent in 1546. As the Septuagint grew and added more and more books after the first century, not all early church fathers agreed on the exact same OT Scriptures. Not even the fourth and fifth century councils agreed on the exact same lists, nor did they agree with the much later ecumenical councils of Florence and Trent. But again, the Protestant argument is based on Jesus affirming the exact same canon the Pharisees and Protestants share.

We want to be sure of what Jimmy Akin says about OT Canon.

The Old Testament Canon​

by James Akin

That is not the Catholic Answers video by Jimmy Akin I was referring to, but this one (it begins around the 50 second mark:

Hiw did the Old Testament Develop? -Jimmy Akin, Catholic Answers

 

[MagdalenaRita]

I was referring to, but this one (it begins around the 50 second mark:

Hiw did the Old Testament Develop? -Jimmy Akin, Catholic Answers

There’s a protestant quote from J.N.D Kelly that Jimmy Akin includes in that video:

It should be observed that the OT thus admitted as authoritative in the Church was somewhat bulkier and more comprehensive.
It always included though with varying degrees of recognition the so called apocrypha or deuterocanonical books.

In all charity, it is a little misleading to take one sentence regarding protestant OT out of context from Mr. Akins video.

He does say that the protestants use the same OT Canon as the Pharisees,which is true.

Though, in the video, Mr. Akins also says that the OT Canon that the Catholic church has, came from Jesus and the apostles. They were Jews and the Jewish people recognized that God had inspired certain works of literature to convey His word but, and if you start the video a little earlier at the 40 mark, he says the OT of their day had some fuzzy boundaries. It wasn’t clear to every group of Jews, exactly what books belonged to the OT. After his comment about protestants using the canon the Pharisees used he states Jesus and the apostles went a bit further and acknowledged a translation of the OT in Greek called the Septuagint, which contains approximately the books we would find in a Catholic OT or EO OT.
It is quoted overwhelmingly in the NT, approx 80% of quotes from OT in NT are from Septuagint.
He says it is clear that the early Christians used the Septuagint and regarded it as inspired and Scripture. It was passed on to and by the ECF and continues to be in use today.

According to Haydock Catholic Bible Commentary this is the meaning behind Luke 16 verse and parable:

In this parable we are taught an important truth; that we must not expect to learn our duty from the dead returning to life, nor by any other extraordinary or miraculous means, but from the revelation of truths, which have already been made known to us in the Scriptures, and from those to whom the tradition of the Church has been committed, as a most sacred deposit. These, say the Fathers, are the masters from whom we are to learn what we are to believe, and what to practise.

Great Commentary of Cornelius A Lapide:

“Why does the rich man say this but because he himself had heard the prophets to little purpose, and had looked upon their teaching as untrue? Therefore he conjectures that his brethren similarly regarded them. He as much as says, ‘They argue as I once argued. Who has ever given any description of hell—who has ever returned thence? But if any one were sent to them from the dead, they would believe him, and give diligent heed to what he had to say.’ ”

Jesus wasn’t saying use this canon of OT books only. That is nowhere to be found in that parable, but he was reminding the Pharisees to hear the Word of God and prophets because no one could return from Gehenna, (hell - most fiery torment of the underworld) to help them.

God bless

 

[Thomasbradley312]

Another reason for the difference is that the Eastern Orthodox do not hold the same legalism as the Catholic Church when it comes to inspiration and canonical status. For them, it is a bit more fluid of an understanding; canonical simply means that something is acceptable to be read in liturgy. Even today there are some slight differences between the Eastern Orthodox Churches in regard to what each Church considers canonical (i.e. to be used in liturgy). For example, some Eastern Orthodox Churches do not read from the book of Revelation at divine liturgy. Hence they would not call it canonical, but they would still consider it to be divinely inspired and morally binding. In this fluid approach the Eastern Orthodox are very similar to ancient Judaism.

In Western Christianity the Catholic Church makes no distinction between canonical and inspired. We also have with exactness defined what books and parts of books we accept. In eastern Christianity the Orthodox Churches have have not made such exact definitions and see the differences amongst themselves as so minor as to not require any further action. However it must be noted that before the Protestant Revolution the Catholic Church had the same view on it as the rest of Christianity. The whole notion that the Bible is the end all is unbiblical and didn’t come into being until 500 years ago. If the Church that gave us the canon says it is scripture, then it is. It is as simple as that. The Protestants forced the Church to make a definitive statement on it. Before that it just was not needed.

 

[RaisedCatholic]

There’s a protestant quote from J.N.D Kelly that Jimmy Akin includes in that video:

It should be observed that the OT thus admitted as authoritative in the Church was somewhat bulkier and more comprehensive.
It always included though with varying degrees of recognition the so called apocrypha or deuterocanonical books.

Yes, by “varying degrees of recognition” - meaning that throughout church history, ECFs & even Doctors of the Church were not consistent with accepting them as inspired Scripture. While they “always” were considered edifying in the church, as far back as the second century the lists of ECFs did not include “all” of the deuterocanon in their canon, such as St. Irenaeus, St. Hilary of Poiter, Rufinus, St. Pope Gregory the Great, St. Jerome, and others favored the “smaller” Hebrew Bible. Even as late as the Reformation, Cardinals Ximenes & Cajetan, & even Erasmus favored the canon Luther & the Reformers came to embrace.

BTW, JND Kelly also stated:

“the view which now commended itself fairly generally in the Eastern Church is represented by Athanasius, Cyril of Jerusalem, Gregory of Nazianzus, & Epiphanius, was that the Deuterocanonical books should be relegated to a subordinate position outside the canon proper.”

He does say that the protestants use the same OT Canon as the Pharisees,which is true.

Though, in the video, Mr. Akins also says that the OT Canon that the Catholic church has, came from Jesus and the apostles.

With all due respect to Mr. Akin, he is making this latter assumption on Jesus & the apostles utilizing the Septuagint, and “assuming” that early version of the Septuagint included the Deuterocanon. However, the original Septuagint was only limited to “the Law,” not the rest of the OT. While the books included in “the Prophets” & “the Writings” were later added to the Septuagint by the time of Jesus, as evidence of these books being cited in the NT with markers like “It is written” & “Have you not read?” etc., none of the Deuterocanonical books alluded to in the NT use any of these markers, no-more than Jude didn’t when he cited 1 Enoch & the Assumption of Moses also not using one of these markers. There are also books both Catholics & Protestants would agree are “Apocrypha” which are alluded to in the NT that are not in either Bible, but were also added later the Septuagint, and are cited more frequently than most of the Deuterocanon.

Also, the NT writers, like Matthew & John, did deviate from the Septuagint by using different Greek words, such as when they quoted Hosea & Zechariah, in their NT writings.

[cont]

 

[RaisedCatholic]

[cont]

According to Haydock Catholic Bible Commentary this is the meaning behind Luke 16 verse and parable:

Great Commentary of Cornelius A Lapide:

Despite these being the meanings behind Luke 16, they overlook what Jesus meant by “the Law & the Prophets” or “Moses & the Prophets,” and what group of Jews & their OT canon, this referred to. And as both you, and Mr. Akin, correctly pointed out, Jesus was referring to the Pharisees and their OT canon, which as you said was limited to the Hebrew Bible.

 

[RaisedCatholic]

For example, some Eastern Orthodox Churches do not read from the book of Revelation at divine liturgy. Hence they would not call it canonical, but they would still consider it to be divinely inspired and morally binding. In this fluid approach the Eastern Orthodox are very similar to ancient Judaism.

In Western Christianity the Catholic Church makes no distinction between canonical and inspired. We also have with exactness defined what books and parts of books we accept.

I can’t speak for Catholicism. Maybe @MagdalenaRita can comment better about this than I can. But in Protestantism, if a book is inspired, meaning it is God-breathed, then it is part of the Biblical canon. I don’t quite understand why Eastern Orthodoxy would consider a book like Revelation to be inspired, yet not read it in the liturgy, since it is considered God-breathed Scripture. In Protestantism, if a book is God-breathed, it is also part of the Biblical canon. They kind of go hand-in-hand.

However it must be noted that before the Protestant Revolution the Catholic Church had the same view on it as the rest of Christianity. The whole notion that the Bible is the end all is unbiblical and didn’t come into being until 500 years ago. The Protestants forced the Church to make a definitive statement on it.

What Protestants “forced” Catholicism to do was define the canon (ie: what was definitively God-breathed Scripture). Even after the Ecumenical Council of Florence, books like Sirach were still questioned, as well as the Deuterocanon as a whole, like from Cardinals Ximenes & Cajetan, and Erasmus, who favored the “smaller” Hebrew Bible the Reformers eventually embraced. As far as sola scriptura, that has nothing to do with the formation of the canon itself. Protestants embraced this “smaller” canon, because they believed the Pharisees possessed it, which later rabbinical Jews embraced, and Luther discovered the Deuteros were not part of the Targums prior to and contemporary with the time of Jesus.

 

[MagdalenaRita]

throughout church history, ECFs & even Doctors of the Church were not consistent with accepting them as inspired Scripture.

as far back as the second century the lists of ECFs did not include “all” of the deuterocanon in their canon, such as St…

With all due respect to Mr. Akin,

It appears as though most of your arguments are from the point of view that since everyone did not agree on the canonization of Scripture, or any other Catholic dogma that protestants disagree with, and you have a list names of people who had at one time disagreed or made a comment similar to the view protestant churches now hold, that what the protestant churches believe must be correct, since there were some Catholics who possibly had the same point of view at one time.

I realize that is a protestant POV and it is the way most times protestants debate Scripture and theology with each other. This person said this, this person says it that way, more people believe this…

That is not how Catholics see things or at least they should not see things that way. We are obedient to the Church. It is what the Church says that settles things. Not a majority rule or who has the stronger voice or even who has more schooling.

So even if you had thousands of names of early Christians who disagreed with the canonization of the Scriptures, it doesn’t change that the Catholic Church alone, assisted by the Holy Spirit, the author of inspired books, has the right and power to decide which books do or do not belong to Holy Scripture.

So for Catholics, it isn’t what different people say here or there that settles things but what the Church says.

The reason I added all of what Jimmy Akin said, was to be sure we are not taking comments out of context but even if he completely agreed with you and followed the protestant canon it wouldn’t change that the Catholic Church alone has the authority to define the books of Scripture and alone has the authority to canonize Scripture. Jimmy Akin would have been wrong but he is a good apologist and we can see by the rest of his comments and videos and blogs that he follows Church teaching because it is divinely inspired.

IMHO it reminds me of this and the budding of Aaron’s rod:

Numbers 16: they rose up before Moses, with a number of the people of Israel, two hundred and fifty leaders of the congregation, chosen from the assembly, well-known men; and they assembled themselves together against Moses and against Aaron

Except that those saints that you mentioned, remained faithful to what the Church defined. If you could speak to them today they would say to stay faithful to God’s Holy Church lest you put your eternal soul in danger.

 

[Thomasbradley312]

Protestants embraced this “smaller” canon, because they believed the Pharisees possessed it,

The same Pharisees who wanted to put Christ to death? They are the ones we are supposed to trust and not the Church Christ founded?

 

[Thomasbradley312]

Yah Revelation wasn’t embraced in the east quickly. Hebrews wasn’t so much in the west. It was a gradual understanding. Noone says something has to be read in liturgy because it is inspired. The opposite happens in some Protestant groups liturgy where they read from the “Apocrypha” in worship even though they don’t view it as inspired such as Anglicans, Lutherans, and Methodists. The 39 Articles of Religion in Anglicanism states it this way.

Source- Anglican 39 Articles of Religion.

Of the Names and Number of the Canonical Books.
Genesis, The First Book of Samuel, The Book of Esther,Exodus, The Second Book of Samuel, The Book of Job,Leviticus, The First Book of Kings, The Psalms,Numbers, The Second Book of Kings, The Proverbs, Deuteronomy, The First Book of Chronicles, Ecclesiastes or Preacher,Joshua, The Second Book of Chronicles, Cantica, or Songs of Solomon,Judges, The First Book of Esdras, Four Prophets the greater,Ruth, The Second Book of Esdras, Twelve Prophets the less.
And the other Books (as Hierome saith) the Church doth read for example of life and instruction of manners; but yet doth it not apply them to establish any doctrine; such are these following:
The Third Book of Esdras, The rest of the Book of Esther,The Fourth Book of Esdras, The Book of Wisdom,The Book of Tobias, Jesus the Son of Sirach,The Book of Judith, Baruch the Prophet,
The Song of the Three Children, The Prayer of Manasses,The Story of Susanna, The First Book of Maccabees,Of Bel and the Dragon, The Second Book of Maccabees.

All the Books of the New Testament, as they are commonly received, we do receive, and account them Canonical.