Is the Canon of Scripture closed?

[PRmerger]

This is a very interesting thread. I am learning a lot about the orthodox and jewish traditions relation to their canonical scriptures. I too feel that God speaks to his children in manifold ways. It seems to me we artificially limit God’s power by erecting walls around what He has revealed and not revealed.

'Tis true, this.

However, I would be judicious about assigning to God that which the Church has not yet defined.

It is in the Church that we have the assurance that what has been revealed by God is truly from God.

Other forms of revelation (private, other early Christian writings, dreams, mediums, etc etc etc) must be regarded with great caution.

 

[fisherman_carl]

In addition, Codex Sinaiticus (4th century) contains the Epistle of Barnabas and the Shepherd of Hermas.

Those two books would be considered NT writings and would not be part of the Septuagint. The letter of Clement also was in some bibles, which was mentioned in a previous post.

 

[Dave_Noonan]

No. I was aware of that but I am only stating what Fr. Mitch Pacwa said on his CD (ignatiusproductions.org/mm5/merchant.mvc?Screen=PROD&Store_Code=IP&Product_Code=6595&Category_Code=CD )

Now, it is possible that Fr. Mitch Pacwa when he said all copies of the Septuagint include 46 books that he was not denying that their was not more than 46. Also, he hypothesized that the Alexandrian Jews also had the 46 books in their Septuagint even though we have no copies of the Septuagint today except those found in Christian bibles. Therefore we do not know for sure how many books the Jews had, only that the Christians had the 46 books.

I never said anything that Fr. Mitch did not mention. However, he did not specifically state that they did not have more than 46 books. But all he mentions is 46 books and the 7 deuterocanonicals on his cd. It is unfortunate that he did not address this issue.

I have heard previously that the Septuagint had more than 46 books as you have stated. So I was aware of that. However, given what Fr. Mitch said on his cd, that the only copies of the Septuagint we have are found in the Christian bibles, then the only place we could get numbers from is from the Christian bibles. Unless, we have some other source of info that I am not aware of.

I don’t disagree with you when you say there were more than just 46 books as that is what the evidence suggests. However, I am interested in physical evidence rather than just opinion. Therefore, do you have any examples of ancient Christian bibles online where the contents of the Septuagint could be examined? I have looked at the codex vaticanus and the codex sinaiticus but both of these appear to have incomplete copies of the Septuagint. Do you know of a complete example of the Septuagint online?

Also, I have heard that the Orthodox had a council in the 17th or 18th century where they determined their canon. I could be wrong about that, but that is what I heard on EWTN radio. Also 2 of their books I think were written in the 1st or 2nd centuries AD? I could be wrong about that also.

Fr. Mitch said that 1 Maccabees was composed in Hebrew (or Aramaic - i don’t remember) but 2 Maccabees was composed in Greek. He didn’t mention 3 or 4.

In essence, there was no “The Septuagint” (Jewish or Christian) prior to the invention of the codex–the bound book with covers–which most people would date around the fourth century. Prior to the invention of the codex, religious communities would have had various collections of various scrolls–with no standardized lists of what constituted the biblical canon, at least as far as we know. The codices Alexandrinus, Vaticanus and Sinaiticus are among the oldest bound Bibles that exist (4th-5th century). While they are incomplete in some ways due to their age, they do clearly show examples of very early Bibles that contained more than the 46 books (N.T. of course excluded). The contents of these codices are widely available on the Internet, as you have discovered.