Origins of the catholic and protestant bible and why they are different

[Old_Scholar]

You mean the Jews who denied that Jesus is the Messiah? Why are they the authority on the Christian Bible canon? They didn’t include any of the NT - should we throw that out, too?

There are actually lots of NT passages that allude to the deuterocanonical books.

You seem to forget we were talking about the Old Testament canon here. The Messiah hadn’t come yet.

 

[dacoobob]

You seem to forget we were talking about the Old Testament canon here. The Messiah hadn’t come yet.

Nope. The Jewish leadership didn’t reject the deuterocanonicals until around AD 100 (after the Jewish revolt and the destruction of Jerusalem and the Temple). The very same rabbis who rejected Maccabees, Tobit et al also rejected Matthew, Acts et al.

 

[Pixie_Dust]

You seem to forget we were talking about the Old Testament canon here. The Messiah hadn’t come yet.

The Jewish canon wasn’t set until after Jesus came. Before then, the Jews didn’t really agree on what was Scripture and what was not. Some groups only used the Pentateuch.

What they DID do, interestingly enough, was celebrate Channukah, the Festival of Lights. That’s from 1 Maccabees.

 

[Pwrlftr]

Nope. The Jewish leadership didn’t reject the deuterocanonicals until around AD 100 (after the Jewish revolt and the destruction of Jerusalem and the Temple). The very same rabbis who rejected Maccabees, Tobit et al also rejected Matthew, Acts et al.

There is no evidence that the rabbi’s at Jamnia even discussed the deuterocanonical books.

 

[Pwrlftr]

What they DID do, interestingly enough, was celebrate Channukah, the Festival of Lights. That’s from 1 Maccabees.

A book need not be inspired to record a historic event.

 

[Pixie_Dust]

There is no evidence that the rabbi’s at Jamnia even discussed the deuterocanonical books.

Do you have evidence that they did not?

There were several deuterocanonical NT books, such as 2 Peter, James, Jude and Revelation, that were discussed at the Christian Councils of Hippo (393) and Carthage (397) that you don’t have a problem with and I’m guessing you would probably be pretty miffed if you bought a Bible and found that those books had been omitted.

A book need not be inspired to record a historic event.

Fact is, the men that penned the NT, quoted the Septuagint when they quoted OT Scripture - that’s the Bible that they used and I don’t see anything in Scripture where Jesus told them that certain parts of their Scriptures weren’t inspired. In fact, Paul is pretty clear that ALL Scripture is given by inspiration of God and the Scripture that Timothy would have known from his childhood was the Septuagint. Paul didn’t make any exceptions, why do you?

 

[Pwrlftr]

Do you have evidence that they did not?

I asked first but since you asked…

FF Bruce and Roger Beckwith don’t seem to think the council of Jamnia even discussed the issue of the deuterocanonicals.
Beckwith:

The Decision at Jamnia
The theory that an open canon was closed at the Synod of Jamnia about ad 90 goes back to Heinrich Graetz in 1871, who proposed (rather more cautiously than has since been the custom) that the Synod of Jamnia led to the closing of the canon.4 Though others have lately expressed hesitations about the theory, its complete refutation has been the work of J. P. Lewis5 and S. Z. Leiman.6 The combined result of their investigations is as follows:
(a) The term ‘synod’ or ‘council’ is inappropriate. The academy at Jamnia, established by Rabbi Johanan ben Zakkai shortly before the fall of Jerusalem in ad 70, was both a college and a legislative body, and the occasion in question was a session of the elders there.
(b) The date of the session may have been as early as ad 75 or as late as ad 117.
(c) As regards the disputed books, the discussion was confined to the question whether Ecclesiastes and the Song of Songs (or possibly Ecclesiastes alone) make the hands unclean, i.e. are divinely inspired.7
(d) The decision reached was not regarded as authoritative, since contrary opinions continued to be expressed throughout the second century.
The assumption that the canon was closed at Jamnia about ad 90 has been elaborated by different writers in various ways. Some have seen it as part of the reorganization of Judaism after the fall of Jerusalem;8 some, as part of the polemic against Christianity;9 and some, as of a piece with the standardization of the Massoretic text.10 If, however, the canon was not closed about ad 90 but a long time before, all these corollaries lose the premiss on which they depend. Similarly, any inference that the canon was decided by councils must be abandoned.
Beckwith, Roger T.: The Old Testament Canon of the New Testament Church and Its Background in Early Judaism. London : SPCK, 1985, S. 276

FF Bruce:

So far as the scriptures are concerned, the rabbis at Jamnia introduced no innovations; they reviewed the tradition they had received and left it more or less as it was. It is probably unwise to talk as if there was a Council or Synod of Jamnia which laid down the limits of the Old Testament canon.

Fact is, the men that penned the NT, quoted the Septuagint when they quoted OT Scripture - that’s the Bible that they used and I don’t see anything in Scripture where Jesus told them that certain parts of their Scriptures weren’t inspired. In fact, Paul is pretty clear that ALL Scripture is given by inspiration of God and the Scripture that Timothy would have known from his childhood was the Septuagint. Paul didn’t make any exceptions, why do you?

Okay, now it’s my turn to ask a few questions.
a.) Which version of the Septuagint did Jesus and the apostle quote from?
b.) Which books were included in the version Jesus and the apostles used?

Jesus and the apostles using the septuagint has nothing to do with whether or not they thought the deuterocanonicals were inspired since it is possible that they used the septuagint without accepting all of it’s books as being inspired.

You of course are right that all scripture is inspired but you haven’t illustrated that Paul had in mind the deutero’s as of yet so you are begging the question.

 

[Pixie_Dust]

I asked first but since you asked…

You didn’t ask anything, you declared that there was no evidence that the Council of Jamnia discussed the deuterocanon.

Okay, now it’s my turn to ask a few questions.
a.) Which version of the Septuagint did Jesus and the apostle quote from?
b.) Which books were included in the version Jesus and the apostles used?

During Jesus’ time there were two Old Testaments in use. There was the Palestinian canon (written in Hebrew) , which is identical to the Protestant Old Testament, and there was the Alexandrian canon (written in Greek) also known as the Septuagint, which is identical to the Catholic Old Testament. Comparisons of the Septuagint and the Dead Sea Scrolls indicates that an accurate “eyewitness” exists to the Septuagint. Jesus quotes the Septuagint in 80% of his Old Testament references. The Septuagint was the Scripture of Jesus’ time. It has the order of Bible books that we find in modern Bibles, the Palestinian canon has a completely different order. The NIV Bible use the Septuagint’s order of books, yet it leaves out some of the books (Deuterocanonical books) that we find there.(From The Catholic Bridge, click here for the whole article. You’ll find it fascinating, I promise!)

Jesus and the apostles using the septuagint has nothing to do with whether or not they thought the deuterocanonicals were inspired since it is possible that they used the septuagint without accepting all of it’s books as being inspired.

You of course are right that all scripture is inspired but you haven’t illustrated that Paul had in mind the deutero’s as of yet so you are begging the question.

Why would Jesus, Paul, et al call the Septuagint “Scripture” but not accept it all as inspired? Is there such a thing as uninspired Scripture?

 

[Pwrlftr]

Why would Jesus, Paul, et al call the Septuagint “Scripture” but not accept it all as inspired? Is there such a thing as uninspired Scripture?

I have made two simple requests:
a.) Please tell me which version of the septuagint that Jesus and the apostles used?

b.) Which books made up this version of the septuagint?

I probably missed it but I didn’t see this in the link you provided.

Now, Paul never, ever said that the septuagint was inspired did he? He did say all scripture is inspired but it takes a tremendous leap of logic to go from all scripture being inspired to all scripture equals the septuagint especially when you haven’t established which version of the septuagint was used by Jesus and the apostles.

Did they use the Codex Vaticanus, the Codex Sinaiticus, or maybe the Codex Alexandrinus? Oh, wait a minute, those are all Christain versions of the septuagint dating only to the 4th and 5th centuries. But maybe one of these Codex’s are equivalent to what the Jesus and the apostles used.

They couldn’t have used the Codex Alexandrinus because that contains Maccabees 1-4 and your church rejects 3 and 4 Maccabees.

Ooops, they couldn’t have used the Codex Vaticanus because that version doesn’t include any of the Maccabean books.

Sinaiticus includes 1 and 4 Maccabees but not 2 and 3 Maccabees.

I guess they didn’t use any of the above versions so you are going to have to tell me which version of the septuagint they did use.

I am guessing they would have had to use a Jewish version of the septuagint. Do we even know which books were contained in such a version?

 

[Pwrlftr]

Pixie Dust,

You may (or may not) be interested in the following quote…
Beckwith:

Originally Posted by Beckwith
…but the undeniable truth is that the New Testament, by contrast with the early Fathers, and by contrast with its own practice in relation to the books of the Hebrew Bible, never actually quotes from, or ascribes authority to, any of the Apocrypha. All one can say is that there is an occasional correspondence of thought which suggests a knowledge of some of them…
Beckwith, Roger T.: The Old Testament Canon of the New Testament Church and Its Background in Early Judaism. London : SPCK, 1985, S. 387

It appears that:
a.) You don’t know which version of the septuagint was used by Jesus and the apostles.

b.) You don’t know which books were contained in the septuagint they used.

c.) Even if you can come up with answers to a.) and b.) above you are still left with no evidence anyone in the NT thought the deutero’s were inspired.

 

[Pwrlftr]

During Jesus’ time there were two Old Testaments in use. There was the Palestinian canon (written in Hebrew) , which is identical to the Protestant Old Testament, and there was the Alexandrian canon (written in Greek) also known as the Septuagint, which is identical to the Catholic Old Testament. Comparisons of the Septuagint and the Dead Sea Scrolls indicates that an accurate “eyewitness” exists to the Septuagint. Jesus quotes the Septuagint in 80% of his Old Testament references. The Septuagint was the Scripture of Jesus’ time. It has the order of Bible books that we find in modern Bibles, the Palestinian canon has a completely different order. The NIV Bible use the Septuagint’s order of books, yet it leaves out some of the books (Deuterocanonical books) that we find there.(From The Catholic Bridge, click here for the whole article. You’ll find it fascinating, I promise!)

There was no Alexandrian canon. It’s an old theory that has been abandoned or should be abandoned.
Beckwith:

The Hellenistic Canon Not Distinct from the Palestinian

Turning to arguments against the Alexandrian canon hypothesis, one must first note, with A. C. Sundberg, that it proceeded upon two assumptions which are now discounted.

The first assumption was that Hellenistic Judaism was largely independent of Palestinian.191 This, as we saw on p. 30f., was far from being the case.

The second assumption was that the Apocrypha (with the exception of Ecclesiasticus and 1 Maccabees, for which we have ancient testimony to the contrary) were mostly composed in Egypt and in Greek.192 This again is contrary to the prevailing view of modern scholars, according to which many of the Apocrypha are translations from Palestinian originals, in Hebrew or Aramaic, the important exceptions being 2–4 Maccabees and part at least of Wisdom. But if Alexandria looked to Palestine for guidance, how can it have added the Apocrypha to the Palestinian canon? and if not more than half the Apocrypha are of Alexandrian origin, why should it have wanted to do so?

A third consideration, with special reference to the cessation of prophecy, is that one would expect the Greek translation of 1 Maccabees to have given this idea currency in Hellenistic circles. Since the Hellenistic Jews shared the idea that all the biblical books were prophetic,193 there is certainly something anomalous in the idea of the Hellenistic canon including a book which repeatedly asserts that prophecy had ceased long before it was written (1 Macc. 4:46; 9:27; 14:41).194

A fourth consideration is that the prologue to Ecclesiasticus, which explicitly says that it was written in Egypt (though by a writer from Palestine), makes no less than three references to the three divisions of the Jewish canon. Later, Philo also refers to them (De Vit. Cont. 25).195 Now, apart from the anomalous fourth-century reference to Ecclesiasticus in Bab. Baba Kamma 92b, discussed on p. 379, there is no evidence whatever that any of the Apocrypha ever had a place in any of the three divisions.

What books did have a place in them is examined in chapter four. The prologue itself distinguishes Ecclesiasticus from the books in the three divisions of the canon, and the passage of Philo puts esteemed uncanonical books in a separate fourth category (see pp. 111, 117f.).

A fifth consideration is the evidence of Philo’s quotations. It was seen on pp. 72, 75f., 384, that though Philo quotes all the books of the Pentateuch, most of the books of the Prophets and several of the books of the Hagiographa, often with formulas recognizing their divine authority, he never once quotes a book of the Apocrypha. But any hypothesis about Alexandrian Jewry to which the writings of Philo lend absolutely no support can hardly be regarded as tenable.

Continued below…

 

[Pwrlftr]

Continued from above
Beckwith:

A final consideration is the evidence of Theodotion’s version of the Old Testament (i.e. his revision of the Septuagint). According to the early testimony of Irenaeus, Theodotion was a proselyte of Ephesus (Against Heresies 3.21.1); and he was sufficiently at home in the Hellenistic world not only to produce a revision of the Septuagint, but to retain the Septuagintal additions to Job and Daniel.196 So, if it had been the case that the apocryphal books were recognised parts of the old Greek Bible, there is no strong reason to think that Theodotion would not have produced a version of them. Yet there is not one of those books for which there is any trace of the existence of such a version.197
One must therefore conclude that, on the canon as on other matters, the Hellenistic Jewry of the Dispersion took its lead mainly from Palestine. Such limited differences on the canon as existed in Palestine between the Pharisees and the Essenes may also have been reflected in Egypt, but Egypt did not create any tradition of its own on the matter. It certainly valued various uncanonical books in their Greek form, just as Palestine valued some of the same books and some other books in their Semitic form,197a but the idea that it added them to the canon has no significant evidence in its favour and considerable evidence against it.

Beckwith, Roger T.: The Old Testament Canon of the New Testament Church and Its Background in Early Judaism. London : SPCK, 1985, S. 385