If the Scripture is inspired then why do the Protestant reject the Deutrocanonical Books?

[SIA]

2/3 of the NT have its sources from the Deutrocanonical Books and it does not answer the question to this thread. It is clear that the Early Christians used the Deutrocanonical Books.

I believe that you are correct but only in a sense. The EC referrenced the apocrypha for historical purposes and for some events that took place but did not see them as the inspired Word of God. The 250 or so Old Testament quotes found in the New Testament included not even a single one from the apocrypha. Also too, there are proven to be numerous chronological errors and several geographical errors in the apocrypha. Good for history in some cases but certainly not inspired Scripture.

 

[onenow1]

Carthage was a local regional synod and was not infallible.
Your church does not teach that Hippo and Carthage were infallible. It teaches that Trent was infallible.

onenow1=A Church council is usually a reaction as opposed to an action. They are held to define a truth after someone has denied it such as Martin Luther, removing the Deuters.

Peace,onenow1

 

[guanophore]

I spent two years getting a four year degree myself…probably read all the same books. It boils down to if Christ and his apostles viewed the Deuterocanonical books as scripture. What would you like to do to prove or disprove this. The quotes used by Manny are discredited. What we could do was establish that most scholars recognize 3-5 references to the DC in the NT but no direct citations. We could go through each one as well.

I have no need. This is what was passed down to us by the Apostles, and held continuously by the Church. The witness of Jesus and the Apostles is sufficient for me.

 

[sambos671]

Carthage was a local regional synod and was not infallible.
Your church does not teach that Hippo and Carthage were infallible. It teaches that Trent was infallible.

In what sense infallible? Infallible in the sense that we must hold to every Jot (Yod) like the Torah. Or infallible in the sence that the council is not permitted to teach contrary to the truth? Especially with Trent as a reaction to the reformation.

 

[Mannyfit75]

I believe that you are correct but only in a sense. The EC referrenced the apocrypha for historical purposes and for some events that took place but did not see them as the inspired Word of God. The 250 or so Old Testament quotes found in the New Testament included not even a single one from the apocrypha. Also too, there are proven to be numerous chronological errors and several geographical errors in the apocrypha. Good for history in some cases but certainly not inspired Scripture.

What chronological errors as well as geographical errors are you referring too? There are none.

I already pointed out the links, Sia that the majority of the NT cite their sources from Deutrocanonical Books and more specifically the Septuagint.

I suggest you take thorough look at this comparison chart.

geocities.com/Heartland/Pines/7224/Rick/Septuagint/spexecsum.htm

This site is hosted by a Protestant by the way.

 

[Mannyfit75]

Carthage was a local regional synod and was not infallible.
Your church does not teach that Hippo and Carthage were infallible. It teaches that Trent was infallible.

Council of Carthage canonical Books are the same list in the Council of Florence in 1430. The list include the Hebrew Scriptures, the Deutrocanonical Books, and the 27 NT text.

The Council of Trent have a similiar list but they excluded the Prayer of Massaseh, 3rd Book of Maccabbees. Regardless of what you think. The list are almost the same.

Where do you think the Catholic Church got its Canonical List from of Scripture? St. Augustine the bishop of Hippo was very much involved in the Synod in Hippo when they compiled a list.

 

[Mannyfit75]

Catholics often say we should not accept the Jamnia canon because it was anti-Christian. Even if that is true, the books they didn’t recognize contain very little messianic prophecy compared to the ones they left in. I cannot see anti-Christian as being a reason they excluded them.

Jamnia probably did not take place at all. How the Protestants remove the Deutrocanonical Books developed later. During the early days, Protestant consider these books worthy of reading but not inspired. It was not until 1827 that British and Foreign Bible Society remove the Deutrocanonical Books altogether.

Here are some facts how the Deutrocanonical Books was take out of the Protestant Translation of the Bible.

I highly suggest you read it.

ewtn.com/library/ANSWERS/PCBIB.HTM

 

[Mannyfit75]

Catholics often say we should not accept the Jamnia canon because it was anti-Christian. Even if that is true, the books they didn’t recognize contain very little messianic prophecy compared to the ones they left in. I cannot see anti-Christian as being a reason they excluded them.

Here is a quote, I like to share with you.

The books of the Old Testament were written probably between 1000 and 100 BC, an are usually distinguished as three sets: The Law (or Torah, our first five books of the Old Testament), The Prophets and The Writings. Even in the New Testament itself, we find references to the reading of the Law and the Prophets in synagogue services (e.g. LK 4:16-19), Jamnia (90-100), at which time they established what books would be considered their Sacred Scripture. At this time, some controversy still existed over what are called the seven “deuterocanonical books”—Tobit, Judith, Wisdom, Sirach, Baruch, I and II Maccabees, and Esther—although they had been incorporated in their entirety or at least partially in versions of the Septuagint, the official Greek translation of the Old Testament (c. 100 BC). Part of the reason for the controversy was because these were the latest writings of the Old Testament and were written in Greek rather than Hebrew; the other books of the Old Testament—the “protocanonical books”—were older and originally written in Hebrew. Modern scholars not that Jamnia did not exclude any books definitively; a rigid fixing of the Jewish canon does not occur until at least 100 years later, and even then other books—including the deuterocanonical books—were read and honored. Many Scripture scholars, however, have no doubt that the apostolic Church accepted the deuterocanonical books as part of its canon of Sacred Scriptures. For instance, Origen (d. 245) affirmed the use of these books among Christians even though some of the Jewish leaders did not officially accept them.

Meanwhile, the writing of the New Testament books occurred between the time of our Lord’s death and the end of the first century. (Recent studies of the Dead Sea Scrolls by some scholars suggest a date of the earliest writings closer to the time of our Lord’s death, whereas much scholarship seems to place the writings between 50 and 100 AD). After the legalization of Christianity in 312, we find the Church striving to formalize what writings of the New Testament were truly considered inspired and authentic to the teachings of our Lord. St. Athanasius in his Paschal Epistle (367) presented the complete list of 27 books of the New Testament saying, “These are the sources of salvation, for the thirsty may drink deeply of the words to be found here. In these alone is the doctrine of piety recorded. Let no one add to them or take anything away from them.” This list of 27 books along with the 46 books of the Old Testament (including) the deuterocanonical ones) was affirmed as the official canon of Sacred Scripture for the Catholic Church by the synods of Hippo (393), Carthage I and II (397 and 419). The letter of Pope St. Innocent I in 405 also officially listed these books. Although some discussion arose over the inclusion of other books into the Church’s canon of Sacred Scripture after this time, the council of Florence (1442) definitively established the official list of 46 books of the Old Testament and 27 of the New Testament.
.

 

[Mannyfit75]

With this background, we can now address why the Protestant versions of the Bible have less books than the Catholic versions. In 1534, Martin Luther translated the Bible into German. He grouped the seven deuterocanonical books of the Old Testament under the title “Apocrypha,” declaring. “These are books which are not held equal to the Sacred Scriptures and yet are useful and good for reading.” Luther also categorized the New Testament books: those of God’s work of salvation (John, Romans, Galatians, Ephesians, I Peter, and I John); other canonical books (Matthew, Mark, Luke, Acts, rest of Pauline epistles, II Peter, and II John); an non-canonical books (Hebrews, James, Jude, Revelation, and books of the Old Testament). Many Church historians speculate that Luther was prepared to drop what he called the “non-canonical books” of the New Testament but refrained from doing so because of possible political fall-out. Why Luther took this course of action is hard to say. Some scholars believe Luther wanted to return to the “primitive faith,” and therefore accepted only those Old Testament books written in Hebrew originally; others speculate he wanted to remove anything which disagreed with his own theology. Nevertheless, his action had the permanent consequence of omitting the seven deuterocanonical books of the Old Testament in Protestant versions of the Bible.

The 39 Articles of Religion (1563) of the Church of England asserted that these deuterocanonical books may be read for “example of life and instruction of manners,” although they should not be used “to establish any doctrine” (Article VI). Consequently, the King James Bible (1611) printed the books between the New Testament and the Old Testaments. John Lightfoot (1643) criticized this arrangement because he thought the “wretched Apocrypha” may be seen as a bridge between the two. The Westminster Confession (1647) decreed that these books, “not being of divine inspiration, are no part of the canon of Scripture, and therefore are of no authority of the Church of God; nor to be in any otherwise approved, or made use of than other human writings.” The British and Foreign Bible Society decided in 1827 to remove these books from further publications and labeled these books “apocrypha.”

The Council of Trent, reacting to the Protestant Reformers, repeated the canon of Florence in the Decree on Sacred Books and on Traditions to be Received (1546) and decreed that the books were to be treated “with equal devotion and reverence.” The new Catechism repeats this same list of books and again affirms the apostolic Tradition of the canon of Sacred Scripture

 

[Mannyfit75]

I believe that you are correct but only in a sense. The EC referrenced the apocrypha for historical purposes and for some events that took place but did not see them as the inspired Word of God. The 250 or so Old Testament quotes found in the New Testament included not even a single one from the apocrypha. Also too, there are proven to be numerous chronological errors and several geographical errors in the apocrypha. Good for history in some cases but certainly not inspired Scripture.

Your claims refuted:

catholicforum.com/forums/showthread.php?t=12846&highlight=deuterocanonicals

 

[Mannyfit75]

Finally, I like to quote Jimmy Akin:

The Reformation Attack on the Bible

The deuterocanonicals teach Catholic doctrine, and for this reason they were taken out of the Old Testament by Martin Luther and placed in an appendix without page numbers. Luther also took out four New Testament books – Hebrews, James, Jude, and Revelation – and put them in an appendix without page numbers as well. These were later put back into the New Testament by other Protestants, but the seven books of the Old Testament were left out. Following Luther they had been left in an appendix to the Old Testament, and eventually the appendix itself was dropped (in 1827 by the British and Foreign Bible Society), which is why these books are not found at all in most contemporary Protestant Bibles, though they were appendicized in classic Protestant translations such as the King James Version.

The reason they were dropped is that they teach Catholic doctrines that the Protestant Reformers chose to reject. Earlier we cited an example where the book of Hebrews holds up to us an Old Testament example from 2 Maccabees 7, an incident not to be found anywhere in the Protestant Bible, but easily discoverable in the Catholic Bible. Why would Martin Luther cut out this book when it is so clearly held up as an example to us by the New Testament? Simple: A few chapters later it endorses the practice of praying for the dead so that they may be freed from the consequences of their sins (2 Macc. 12:41-45); in other words, the Catholic doctrine of purgatory. Since Luther chose to reject the historic Christian teaching of purgatory (which dates from before the time of Christ, as 2 Maccabees shows), he had to remove that book from the Bible and appendicize it. (Notice that he also removed Hebrews, the book which cites 2 Maccabees, to an appendix as well.)

 

[Mannyfit75]

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. But the Reformers were aware of only European Jews; they were unaware of African Jews, such as the Ethiopian Jews who accept the deuterocanonicals as part of their Bible. They glossed over the references to the deuterocanonicals in the New Testament, as well as its use of the Septuagint. They ignored 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 went to enormous lengths to rationalize their rejection of these books of the Bible.

Rewriting Church History

In later years they even began to propagate the myth that the Catholic Church “added” these seven books to the Bible at the Council of Trent!

Protestants also try to distort the patristic evidence in favor of the deuterocanonicals. Some flatly state that the early Church Fathers did not accept them, while others make the more moderate claim that certain important Fathers, such as Jerome, did not accept them.

It is true that Jerome, and a few other isolated writers, did not accept most of the deuterocanonicals as Scripture. However, Jerome was persuaded, against his original inclination, to include the deuterocanonicals in his Vulgate edition of the Scriptures-testimony to the fact that the books were commonly accepted and were expected to be included in any edition of the Scriptures.

Furthermore, it can be documented that in his later years Jerome did accept certain deuterocanonical parts of the Bible. In his reply to Rufinus, he stoutly defended the deuterocanonical portions of Daniel even though the Jews of his day did not.

He wrote, “What sin have I committed if I followed the judgment of the churches? But he who brings charges against me for relating the objections that the Hebrews are wont to raise against the story of Susanna, the Son of the Three Children, and the story of Bel and the Dragon, which are not found in the Hebrew volume, proves that he is just a foolish sycophant. For I was not relating my own personal views, but rather the remarks that they [the Jews] are wont to make against us” (Against Rufinus 11:33 [A.D. 402]). Thus Jerome acknowledged the principle by which the canon was settled – the judgment of the Church, not of later Jews.

Other writers Protestants cite as objecting to the deuterocanonicals, such as Athanasius and Origen, also accepted some or all of them as canonical. For example, Athanasius, accepted the book of Baruch as part of his Old Testament (Festal Letter 39), and Origen accepted all of the deuterocanonicals, he simply recommended not using them in disputations with Jews.

However, despite the misgivings and hesitancies of a few individual writers such as Jerome, the Church remained firm in its historic affirmation of the deuterocanonicals as Scripture handed down from the apostles. Protestant patristics scholar J. N. D. Kelly remarks that in spite of Jerome’s doubt, “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).

It is thus a complete myth that, as 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!

The New Testament Deuteros

It is ironic that Protestants reject the inclusion of the deuterocanonicals at councils such as Hippo (393) and Carthage (397), because these are the very same early Church councils that Protestants appeal to for the canon of the New Testament. Prior to the councils of the late 300s, there was a wide range of disagreement over exactly what books belonged in the New Testament. Certain books, such as the gospels, acts, and most of the epistles of Paul had long been agreed upon. However a number of the books of the New Testament, most notably Hebrews, James, 2 Peter, 2 & 3 John, and Revelation remained hotly disputed until the canon was settled. They are, in effect, “New Testament deuterocanonicals.”

While Protestants are willing to accept the testimony of Hippo and Carthage (the councils they most commonly cite) for the canonicity of the New Testament deuterocanonicals, they are unwilling to accept the testimony of Hippo and Carthage for the canonicity of the Old Testament deuterocanonicals. – Jimmy Akin

 

[sambos671]

What chronological errors as well as geographical errors are you referring too? There are none.

I already pointed out the links, Sia that the majority of the NT cite their sources from Deutrocanonical Books and more specifically the Septuagint.

I suggest you take thorough look at this comparison chart.

geocities.com/Heartland/Pines/7224/Rick/Septuagint/spexecsum.htm

This site is hosted by a Protestant by the way.

This is entirely untrue. There are errors such as the book of Judith which place events outside of their actual occurance and has the wrong King doing them. Even the Catholic Church understands this. Judith is a fictional account and cannot be compared with the books of the Tanakh. Judith itself means “Jewish Woman”. It is intended to make a point. Tobit is also a novella as well.

 

[mark_a]

Even the Catholic Church understands this.

“Even” the Catholic Church understands that there is no archeological evidence of the exodus.

 

[guanophore]

Of course the Catholic view could be right. I believe the evidence points the other way rather clearly. ** On a side note, the inclusion of the Deuterocanonical books would have no impact on dispensational theology. But that point would be lost on most everyone on this particular site.**

Actually this is one reason that we know that the much of what has been developed doctrinally through the fundamentalist movement with regard to dispensational theology is missing the mark.

When doctrine is developed from the text, rather than the Person and Teachings of the Son of God, one is bound to go astray.

 

[SIA]

What chronological errors as well as geographical errors are you referring too? There are none.

I already pointed out the links, Sia that the majority of the NT cite their sources from Deutrocanonical Books and more specifically the Septuagint.

I suggest you take thorough look at this comparison chart.

geocities.com/Heartland/Pines/7224/Rick/Septuagint/spexecsum.htm

This site is hosted by a Protestant by the way.

I don’t think you are looking at this from a very factual standpoint Manny. I think you are coming from blind trust on this one. There are many errors in the apocrypha. That is not to say that there isn’t some good historical information in some of those books, but they cannot be viewed as inspired Scripture because of the errors and contradictions found in them.

 

[sambos671]

“Even” the Catholic Church understands that there is no archeological evidence of the exodus.

you’re point?

 

[Mannyfit75]

This is entirely untrue. There are errors such as the book of Judith which place events outside of their actual occurance and has the wrong King doing them. Even the Catholic Church understands this. Judith is a fictional account and cannot be compared with the books of the Tanakh. Judith itself means “Jewish Woman”. It is intended to make a point. Tobit is also a novella as well.

According to who?

 

[Mannyfit75]

I don’t think you are looking at this from a very factual standpoint Manny. I think you are coming from blind trust on this one. There are many errors in the apocrypha. That is not to say that there isn’t some good historical information in some of those books, but they cannot be viewed as inspired Scripture because of the errors and contradictions found in them.

There are no errors in the Deutrocanonical Books.

 

[Mannyfit75]

I don’t think you are looking at this from a very factual standpoint Manny. I think you are coming from blind trust on this one. There are many errors in the apocrypha. That is not to say that there isn’t some good historical information in some of those books, but they cannot be viewed as inspired Scripture because of the errors and contradictions found in them.

You claim are refuted from this Catholic Forum.

catholicforum.com/forums/showthread.php?t=12846&highlight=deuterocanonicals&page=2

and if you BOTHER to read the previous text, you my friend are in error concerning these text.

and you have failed to mention what these so-called errors you speak consider the Deutrocanonical books.