Jamnia

[mjakemccoy]

Third, Jerome did not include the Deuteros in the Vulgate, but the Church did.

That’s the whole point, Jerome stood against Augustine and the early Christian Church and tradition. Correct me anywhere I’m wrong I’m no historian but I’ve grown an intrigue for Church history, but he originally started translating from the septuagint, but changed to the masoretic texts under the influence of Rabbis. Claiming different texts as Sacred than the early Christians, different texts than the Apostles, and different than the Jews during the time of Christ. Jerome had been commissioned to translate the vulgate by the Pope, for him to make the apocrypha claim I would assume he must have come into something substantial. I don’t agree with his position on the texts, but though Jerome had flaws as men do, ignorance wasn’t one that I could see. If there wasn’t a council of Jamnia, did he fall prey to a handful of radical Rabbis? Or was that the general consensus of the Jews at the time of Jerome? If it was the general consensus of Jews at the time, under what guidance did they have different Sacred Scripture than the Jews at the time of Christ? If not Jamnia was it another council of some kind? Most historians also disagree with the fact that Egypt was struck with plagues and their army was swallowed by the Red Sea, history we hold as truth. Sorry to pester you further, but this little escipade is a large wedge of division between Christians today, and I’d like to understand it fully, I think the truth can offer us all reconciliation. Jamnia makes sense of it all, without Jamnia there is no logic to it.

 

[Peter_Dawson]

That’s the whole point, Jerome stood against Augustine and the early Christian Church and tradition. Correct me anywhere I’m wrong I’m no historian but I’ve grown an intrigue for Church history, but he originally started translating from the septuagint, but changed to the masoretic texts under the influence of Rabbis. Claiming different texts as Sacred than the early Christians, different texts than the Apostles, and different than the Jews during the time of Christ. Jerome had been commissioned to translate the vulgate by the Pope, for him to make the apocrypha claim I would assume he must have come into something substantial. I don’t agree with his position on the texts, but though Jerome had flaws as men do, ignorance wasn’t one that I could see. If there wasn’t a council of Jamnia, did he fall prey to a handful of radical Rabbis? Or was that the general consensus of the Jews at the time of Jerome? If it was the general consensus of Jews at the time, under what guidance did they have different Sacred Scripture than the Jews at the time of Christ? If not Jamnia was it another council of some kind? Most historians also disagree with the fact that Egypt was struck with plagues and their army was swallowed by the Red Sea, history we hold as truth. Sorry to pester you further, but this little escipade is a large wedge of division between Christians today, and I’d like to understand it fully, I think the truth can offer us all reconciliation. Jamnia makes sense of it all, without Jamnia there is no logic to it.

I suspect that Jerome was aware that the LXX was characterized by “Hebraisms” – figures of speech which work only in the Hebrew language – so that the LXX, however painstakingly accurate it may have been, comprised a corruption of the original. I suspect that he was unaware of how many “{layers” of interpretation there were between the LXX and the originals, and so he translated Hebrew books as often as possible to avoid translating translations of translations, or tranaslations of translations of translations.

 

[Ginger2]

Jamnia makes sense of it all, without Jamnia there is no logic to it.

How does a “real” council at Jamnia make sense of the Exodus?

 

[PeterK]

To add another wrinkle, the descriptor “LXX” is a bit of a misnomer. It gives the impression that ONE authorized (by whom?) greek collection of texts was in circulation. This isn’t case. The Greek of the LXX text was not locked with the precision of the vowel-less Hebrew. Very different greek texts of the OT were in circulation simultaneously. Also, because Greek was a living evolving language, the text was updated to relate to the Greek in common usage - similar to our English versions today but not to that extent. It’s a given that the LXX we have today is not the legendary ur-text of Alexandria.

LXX origin and development aside - the point (and it’s a small one) that I believe speaks to your line of questioning is this - to say two or more Church fathers quoted the LXX is not to say they were quoting the same texts.

The Septuagint entry in the Anchor Bible dictionary is the source for my claims.

I just thought this an interesting tangent.

Carry on,
Peter

 

[Ginger2]

That’s seems irrelevant to the point. Justin was not just quoting useful writings and saying, he was claiming inspired writings were changed or removed.

If this document is supposed to support the hypothesized Jamnia council, or at least the accusation of Jews tampering with Holy Scriptures, where is the connection?

From chapters 72 -73 Justin shares which Scriptures were supposedly changed and ends saying these verses are, “those which are retained by us (Christians),” Yet none of the verses cited are found in the Catholic Bible.

**That’s why I ask “why was Justin quoting pseudo texts to prove his point?”

Is there a specific verse Justin mentions that is part of today’s RC canon?**

I don’t want my question to get lost in the thread. **

Is there a specific verse Justin mentions that is part of today’s RC canon in the Dialog with Trypho? Or are all the Scriptures mentioned from pseudo-books?/B**

 

[Jerry-Jet]

Who cares about what Justin or Jerome or the Jews thought about anything?

The Catholic Church had authority–they didn’t.

And who cares about the Masoretic text written in the middle ages?

If a Herew text isn’t pre-LXX–then who cares?

St. Jeome did translate the psalms for the third time and used the best Hbrew sources he could find so in that translation he did vary a little bit from what is now received as the Vulgate.

I see value in original language texts older than the Septuagint.

I don’t see any value in centuries later suppositions or anything that Jws in 90 AD thought about the bible.

 

[Ginger2]

Let’s try to stay on topic, please.

The OP was: When is the first mention of the Council of Jamnia by Church Fathers?

The first mention was in the late 1800’s, however, it was suggested that Justin’s dialog with Trypho supports the idea.

After reading the Dialog, I have questions I need answered to help understand how Catholics think this document supports the idea of an actual council and the validity of those arguments.

As for Who cares about Justin or Jerome or any other church father, if a comment made by one of them is the basis for a belief , we certainly should care about whether they made that comment based on a passing thought, a misconception, or a fact of history.

Again, **
Is there a specific verse Justin mentions that is part of today’s RC canon in the Dialog with Trypho? Or are all the Scriptures mentioned from pseudo-books?**

 

[Ginger2]

Who cares …

And who cares …

then who cares…

I care. That is why I am asking these questions. I want to know the truth. I want to able to defend the truth.

If you don’t care, that’s fine. But you have no right to say I shouldn’t care.

1 Thess 5:21 But examine everything carefully; hold fast to that which is good;

Yes, I care very much.

 

[patrick457]

Let’s try to stay on topic, please.

The OP was: When is the first mention of the Council of Jamnia by Church Fathers?

The first mention was in the late 1800’s, however, it was suggested that Justin’s dialog with Trypho supports the idea.

After reading the Dialog, I have questions I need answered to help understand how Catholics think this document supports the idea of an actual council and the validity of those arguments.

As for Who cares about Justin or Jerome or any other church father, if a comment made by one of them is the basis for a belief , we certainly should care about whether they made that comment based on a passing thought, a misconception, or a fact of history.

Again, **
Is there a specific verse Justin mentions that is part of today’s RC canon in the Dialog with Trypho? Or are all the Scriptures mentioned from pseudo-books?**

You have Jeremiah 11:19 for a start. The copies which had them (Justin mentions that “it is only a short time since they were cut out”, after all) apparently won over those who did not.

 

[Ginger2]

You have Jeremiah 11:19 for a start. The copies which had them (Justin mentions that “it is only a short time since they were cut out”, after all) apparently won over those who did not.

Two things are wrong in what you say:

1. Jeremiah 11:19 is not the verse Justin Martyr cites in the Dialog with Trypho
2. The verse you cite, Jer 11:19, is still intact in the Hebrew Torah

…

JM says that these words, which he says are from the LXX, were eliminated in the Masoretic text of Jeremiah: “‘The Lord God remembered His dead people of Israel who lay in the graves; and He descended to preach to them His own salvation.’”

…But the words don’t appear to be in Jerome’s Vulgate …

Once again, JM is mysteriously unverifiable. Question: Is JM possibly talking about a separate apocryphal work, now lost, called, “The sayings of Jeremiah,” which might have been in an Appendix of the LXX?

…So, every example cited by JM somehow fails.

**
Can you tell me which chapter and verse is referred to in the Dialog?
Is it in the found in Catholic Bibles today? **

 

[patrick457]

Actually, there were two quotes which Justin ascribes to Jeremiah. I’m referring to the first one - the one which starts “I was like a meek lamb that is brought to the slaughter…”.

Yes, the present Hebrew text still contains the text, hence my former post. Alternatively, Justin could have only based this claim on (defective) copies he saw, which may or may not reflect as to whether the text was actually ‘deleted’ for a time or not.

 

[Ginger2]

Yes, I went back and reread the Dialog and saw there are two quotes from Jeremiah.

The first is from a supposed apocrypha that is not included in any Bible, correct?

The second is still intact in both Christian OT and Jewish Torah.

It sounds to me as tho Justin Martyr didn’t know what he was talking about. As near as I can tell, his statements are all false. He says inspired texts are removed, that no one ever considered inspired in the first place. Or he says inspired texts are removed that were never removed by anyone, but remain intact today by all.

 

[patrick457]

To answer question no. 2, no, Catholic Bibles don’t have these texts.

Still, Justin’s version of Psalm 95/96:10 (“The Lord reigns from a tree”), only attested in a few LXX witnesses, the Ethiopic and some Vetus Latina translations, was rather influential. The 8th-9th century hymnwriter Rabanus Maurus indirectly quotes it in his hymn Vexilla Regis, traditionally sung every Good Friday.

 

[patrick457]

Yes, I went back and reread the Dialog and saw there are two quotes from Jeremiah.

The first is from a supposed apocrypha that is not included in any Bible, correct?

The second is still intact in both Christian OT and Jewish Torah.

It sounds to me as tho Justin Martyr didn’t know what he was talking about. As near as I can tell, his statements are all false. He says inspired texts are removed, that no one ever considered inspired in the first place. Or he says inspired texts are removed that were never removed by anyone, but remain intact today by all.

Let’s don’t be too hard on Justin. Still, his claims would seem to be “not thoroughly researched enough” by modern standards. It may be that he jumped to conclusions after reading defective copies of Scripture or Christian adaptations and summaries, but who knows?
Justin’s main concern was how to show Christianity as the new way; he may not have been that interested in textual criticism.

 

[Ginger2]

With that I can agree. I’m certain JM’s motives were positive.

Thank you for all your help.

 

[Peter_Dawson]

Can you tell me which chapter and verse is referred to in the Dialog?
Is it in the found in Catholic Bibles today?

If you go to Jeremiah 12, you’ll see verses enumerated 19 through 23 inserted between verses enumerated 6 and 7.

The verse enumerated 19 is the one JM claimed to have been removed.

It was merely repositioned, from Jeremiah 11 to Jeremiah 12.

 

[Jerry-Jet]

No one should care what any individual or individual congregation thinks about what is and what isn’t the bible.

Everyone should care about what Christ’s Catholic Church which has authority given by Him and safeguarded by the Holy Spirit says about what is and isn’t the bible.

I don’t care for example that many Jews before Jesus thought that it was wrong to heal on the Sabbath.

Jesus said it was OK and Jesus had the Authority to do that.

Just like the Church had the authority to change the day of the sabbath to Sunday.

Just like church councils with approveal by the pope had the authority to determine the bible and its contents.

If you don’t believe that they had that authority then you can believe any kind of bible you want to personally construct!

The so called Protestant reformers made up their own bible.

The real question Ginger2 is are you going to acknowledge as true the bible that Christ’s Catholic Church used until the 1500s or are you going to make up your own?

St. Jerome had opinions about what he thought the bible was–individual churches had opinions about what they thought the bible was–different sets of Jews had different opinions about what they though the Old Testament was–

But in the end the only competent authority to determine what the bible was was the One Holy Apostolic and Catholic Church!

That was done!

The bishops from around the world united under the bishop of Rome–the disciple’s successors and the successors to St. Peter decided!

As Jesus promised–“the Spirit will lead you into all truth”–they were led into the truth about the bible!

The bible didn’t fall out of the sky in the 1st century.

There were some books in the 1st 4 centuries that didn’t make it into the final canon.

And it didn’t matter that some people thought they should be there–it didn’t matter that some congregations thought they should be there.

And people who had such opinions before the canon of the bible WAS DECIDED weren’t wrong to have such opinions.

People after the canon was decided who have opinions other than the Catholic Church are simply wrong!

St. Jerome bended to the Catholic Church when it came to the Canon.

And while many books were spurious and weren’t worth reading just because a book did not make it into the bible does not mean that it is bad.

Clement is not a bad book.

I just think that it is ridiculous that Protestants pretend that Jews of any sort should decide what was the bible was and what it wasn’t. Who cares? What authority do they have over Christ’s church?

And I don’t understand why Protestants think that the Catholic Church got the New Testament right but the Old Testament wrong.

If you believe that then you believe the Holy Spirit only led the successors to the disciples to PART of the truth.

What sense does that make?

The bottom line is Protestantism can’t survive the Catholic Bible and be intellectually honest.

Just like the Jews of the time of Jamnia couldn’t survive the references to Christ in the deuterocanonical books and be intellectually honest.

 

[Ginger2]

If you go to Jeremiah 12, you’ll see verses enumerated 19 through 23 inserted between verses enumerated 6 and 7.

The verse enumerated 19 is the one JM claimed to have been removed.

It was merely repositioned, from Jeremiah 11 to Jeremiah 12.

Sorry, I don’t see that verse in chapter 12, either. Chapter 12 doesn’t have 19 verses to begin with. I even checked the Douay Rhiems Bible. Are you sure you cited the right source?

 

[Ginger2]

I found the insertion you spoke of. (Doesn’t it seem wrong to anyone one to move verses around? Just a thought…)

These are the 2 verses Justin Mentions:

from the sayings of Jeremiah they have cut out the following:
**‘I[was] like a lamb that is brought to the slaughter: they devised a device against me, saying, Come, let us lay on wood on His bread, and let us blot Him out from the land of the living; and His name shall no more be remembered.’ ** …

…And again, from the sayings of the same Jeremiah these have been cut out: ‘**The Lord God remembered His dead people of Israel who lay in the graves; and He descended to preach to them His own salvation.’ **

One verse is still found in both Christian and Jewish Bibles. In-other-words, the claim about the verse being removed is false.
The other verse is not found in any Bible, but appears to come from some pseudo-writing. In-other-words the claim about the verse being removed is false.

If I were trying to support the idea of a council in Jamnia, I would avoid using this document at all costs.

I do appreciate the info from patrick457 on Heinrich Graetz.

I’ll try to answer this as briefly as I can.

AFAIK, there is no mention among any Church Father concerning this council; they never talk about it. In fact, the idea that there was a council in Yavneh was only formulated by German historian Heinrich Graetz in 1871 based on what he thought was clues within the Mishna and the Talmud.

I also appreciate our pleasant dialog as well as the exchange of ideas and information here. I learned a lot.

Ginger

 

[Peter_Dawson]

Sorry, I don’t see that verse in chapter 12, either. Chapter 12 doesn’t have 19 verses to begin with. I even checked the Douay Rhiems Bible. Are you sure you cited the right source?

Go to here…

usccb.org/nab/bible/jeremiah/jeremiah12.htm

…then read verses 1 through 6.

Then, see the number of the verse following verse 6.