Poll: Old Testament Apocrypha

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Where is the poll? And for us Catholics it is the deuterocanonicals. Nothing apocryphal about it. 🙂 There is a ton of info already available on this website if you go to the top and do a search for deuterocanonical(s) as well as on the main catholic.com website for ya.

It wasn’t until the 1800s that it was decided to be finally taken out of the canon of Scripture. Most Christians consider it the word of God (2.5m Orthodox & 1.2b Catholics).
 
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trumpet152:
Sorry, poll didn’t pop up at first. 😃
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Ah, no problem. 😉
 
Hi, friend.

Your post is a little vague, but I’ll give it a shot.

Supposedly, Criterion #1 of our Protestant brothers and sisters for excluding the Apocrypha was, “Our Lord did not quote from them.”

I checked, and that is simply false. Christ either quoted or paraphrased massively from two of the seven Apocrypha, Wisdom and Sirach. The appearance in the gospels is that He had those two books completely mastered, and perhaps memorized.

The other Apocrypha make use of the same Bible types employed in the other books of the Bible – a sure sign of their inspiration (for the simple reason that it is extraordinarily unlikely that Jewish writers of the period would have consciously foreshadowed Christ).

In other words, there is respectable evidence that the Reformers fouled-up.
 
oh wait there not. Thats why we put them right next to the “X-Men” section of the bible 😛 . Of course their inspired or the early church fathers wouldn’t have put them in there. :banghead:
 
I do not understand how something could be “less inspired” than the rest. Like God was only half interested in what he was telling the author?
 
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dafalax:
I do not understand how something could be “less inspired” than the rest. Like God was only half interested in what he was telling the author?
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That’s the position of some of the liturgical protestant churches…That they are “for edification, but not for doctrine”…(It doesn’t make any sense to me, either…).
My own take on them is that they are at least as important as some of the obscurities of Levitical law…Yet nobody (recently) has suggested that we jettison the Jewish law codes.
Personally, I started reading them as a fairly young person, growing up in the Methodist tradition, and I could never figure out why so many Bibles left them out…(I still have my little red copy of the King James “apocrypha”).
 
The position that you claim makes no sense was held by St. Jerome and a number of Catholic theologians right through the 16th century. How do you know so much about divine inspiration as to be able to say that it doesn’t admit of degrees? Why do you think it’s an either/or? Isn’t that rather presumptuous, as if you fully understood what it means for God to inspire an author?

Edwin
 
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Contarini:
The position that you claim makes no sense was held by St. Jerome and a number of Catholic theologians right through the 16th century. How do you know so much about divine inspiration as to be able to say that it doesn’t admit of degrees? Why do you think it’s an either/or? Isn’t that rather presumptuous, as if you fully understood what it means for God to inspire an author?

Edwin
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Hi, Edwin.

Christ made massive use of two of the Deuteros, Wisdom and Sirach. The others are characterized by wonderful typological word pictures of the same sort found elsewhere in Scripture. The Magisterium saw fit to include them as “inspired.” There is no good evidence, in light of these things, that they are anything other than simply “inspired works of the Holy Spirit,” on a par with the gospels.
 
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Contarini:
The position that you claim makes no sense was held by St. Jerome and a number of Catholic theologians right through the 16th century. How do you know so much about divine inspiration as to be able to say that it doesn’t admit of degrees? Why do you think it’s an either/or? Isn’t that rather presumptuous, as if you fully understood what it means for God to inspire an author?

Edwin
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I’d have to disagree. When it comes down to it God either inspires it or He doesn’t. When we talk about different degrees or inspiration it doesn’t really make sense. What would that mean? That God inspired only part of it, like maybe the first half? Or that God inspired it but only inspired part of it to be true and the rest might not be? Or that He did inspire it but only revealed “B-list” divine truths in it and didn’t give the author anything that important to write? Or that He inspired it but didn’t inspire it to use as flowery language as His other inspired works? If it’s inspired but on a lesser level, well that has to mean somethin, so what does it mean? None of the options seem to make any sense to me.
 
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Lazerlike42:
I’d have to disagree. When it comes down to it God either inspires it or He doesn’t. When we talk about different degrees or inspiration it doesn’t really make sense. What would that mean? That God inspired only part of it, like maybe the first half? Or that God inspired it but only inspired part of it to be true and the rest might not be? Or that He did inspire it but only revealed “B-list” divine truths in it and didn’t give the author anything that important to write? Or that He inspired it but didn’t inspire it to use as flowery language as His other inspired works? If it’s inspired but on a lesser level, well that has to mean somethin, so what does it mean? None of the options seem to make any sense to me.
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Well, see, that is about how I feel…Now I will admit that there are parts that I wonder why they’re there, but no more in the deuterocanon than, as I say, such universally accepted portions of the Bible as some of the Jewish law.
I mean, you read Ecclesiasticus, Wisdom of Solomon, or just a cracking good story like Bel & the Dragon or Tobit, & I get a lot out of that. I have just been working my way through the various ceremonial laws in the Pentateuch for a course I am taking online, & it makes my head ache…I know there is something in there, or it wouldn’t be in the Bible, but, http://bestsmileys.com/clueless/1.gif…
So I find myself wondering, as I said before, why are the deuterocanon removed from most protestant Bibles, but they leave in things like how to cook the meat for the priests, which crimes you are stoned for vs, which ones get you expelled from the community.(You know how often that kind of thing comes up in our daily lives…)
Now, I know there is good stuff there; that’s not my point. My point is, that at least part of “inspiration” is (IMHO) in the fact that it inspires the reader…
The book of Esther: the fuller version from the Septuagint is way more interesting *and *inspiring than the one I grew up on. (Which never mentions God even once!)
I guess my point is, whatever the standard is/was, I can’t identify it. So I keep on reading the parts that so often get left out…just to see what people are missing!
 
The position that you claim makes no sense was held by St. Jerome and a number of Catholic theologians right through the 16th century.
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That may be, however, St. Jerome and theologians are not infallible. While the Canon was formally defined by the Coucil of Trent, it was already held that the Old Testament includes the Deuterocanonicals.

The real issue with the rejection of the “Apocrypha” by the protestants is because of the doctrines that they support that Luther and his buddies didn’t. So, what is to be done? Say they aren’t inspired (or ‘less inspired’) and ignore them. :rolleyes:
 
I’d have to say that the reason Leviticus and whatnot are in there is threefold. First, it was already a part (if not the only universally accepted part) of the Jewish canon at the time of Christ, so why throw it out? Second, even though it was not applicable to Christians when the Canon was decided, it is still useful for religious education. Third, they knew it was inspired so figured it automatically deserved to be in there even if it taught nothing at all. Think about it. 2 and 3 John are almost (and I stress almost) useless, but they are in there.
 
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Lazerlike42:
I’d have to say that the reason Leviticus and whatnot are in there is threefold. Second, even though it was not applicable to Christians when the Canon was decided, it is still useful for religious education.
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This is wrong. Leviticus “and whatnot” are extremely applicable to Christians.

Let’s look at Leviticus 1…

**2 **"Speak to the Israelites and tell them: When any one of you wishes to bring an animal offering to the LORD, such an offering must be from the herd or from the flock. Leviticus 1:2.

Okay, the One offered has to be a member of the flock – in our case, He has to be human. Christ was the human Hypostatic Union.

**3 **"If his holocaust offering is from the herd, it must be a male without blemish. Leviticus 1:3.

The One offered has to be a sinless male. Christ was a sinless male.

3 To find favor with the LORD, he shall bring it to the entrance of the meeting tent… Leviticus 1:3.

“Entrance” = **Door Type **= Christ. The offering is brought next to the Door Type because this is “Identification by Juxtaposition.” We are being told that the offering = Christ.

4 and there lay his hand on the head of the holocaust, so that it may be acceptable to make atonement for him. Leviticus 1:4.

Even though the Arm/Hand Type = “Christ,” too, I have a suspicion that something more is going on here.

In Genesis 3, God the Father predicts to the Satan serpent, “He will strike at your head, while you strike at His heel.” We see this literally carried out when Christ’s cross pierces the ground at * Skull* Place (“strike at your head”) while the naiuls are being driven though His feet (“strike at His heel”). However, that itself was figurative. Christ really struck at the head of evil by killing evil by volunteering to be killed. Note that the priest’s hand on the holocaust’s head is a picture of Christ in the form of the Arm/Hand type striking evil in the form of Christ in the form of "Him-Who-did-not-know-sin-Who-was-made-to-be-sin."

**5 ****He shall then slaughter the bull before the LORD, but Aaron’s sons, the priests, shall offer up its blood by splashing it on the sides of the altar which is at the entrance of the meeting tent. ****6 **Then he shall skin the holocaust and cut it up into pieces. Leviticus 1:5-6.

Like the priest at Mass, the Levitical priest sacrifices the Christ figure and divides up the body into many pieces.

**7 ****After Aaron’s sons, the priests, have put some burning embers on the altar and laid some wood on them, ****8 **they shall lay the pieces of meat, together with the head and the suet, on top of the wood and embers on the altar. Leviticus 1:7-8.

And, finally, here is the “meat” being laid on the sacrificial wood, in Christ’s case…

http://photos1.blogger.com/img/179/1698/320/jesus_cross.jpg
photos1.blogger.com/img/179/1698/320/jesus_cross.jpg
 
Well, sure, I agree about the fact that levitical law & why it’s there, but my point is that, when it comes to saying one part of scripture is more inspired than another…

OK, I just mean, if I am in charge of producing the “Readers’ Digest Condensed Version of the Bible”, (which exists, by the way!)…If I am in charge, I would offload the parts that most of us–be honest here!–skim through every time, anyway. Not something that has an actual application to our lives…If that makes sense at all…
 
Jesus quoted from these books. As Fr. Corapi says, “If it’s good enough for Jesus, it’s good enough for me.”
There’s a great old thread on Bible history. Maybe you could do a search.
 
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