Protestant Bible Incorporates the ONLY inspired books

[Rightlydivide]

Hi RD -

How about this one, the Muratorian canon, which dates to the second half of the second century. (OK, it puts it past the 150 ad mark, but it’s close)

This is a document stating the New Testament documents, but there is an Old Testament book mentioned. See if you can pick it out.

Sub

Perhaps I am not being clear. I am looking for proof what was included. The Muratorian canon and the contents of the LXX have nothing to do with one another…do they?

 

[Subrosa]

Perhaps I am not being clear. I am looking for proof what was included. The Muratorian canon and the contents of the LXX have nothing to do with one another…do they?

Have a look at what other Apostolic churches use and claim…

Orthodox - click on the table of contents

And here is what Calvin College has to say about it…Apocrypha

Subrosa

 

[beeliner]

And here is what Calvin College has to say about it:

The views of the 30th president of the United States are irrelevant to this discussion!

 

[JTBT]

Orthodox - click on the table of contents
Subrosa

I would like to point out that the Orthodox study bible uses the New Testament text from the New King James Version … which could be called the protestant Bible

 

[martreexcepteda]

seems to me unity is taking place on the net and intergration

 

[Rightlydivide]

Since these books were excluded at Jamnia (as being of too recent origin), they may be assumed to have been extant in Hebrew at the time. If not, there would have been nothing to exclude. Also, fragments survive.

That they were in the LXX is undisputed - I think.

Jamnia is probably a myth. Recent scholars doubt its existence.
The contents of the LXX were fluid; any book says such beeliner. Can you name one on the topic that does not?
The earliest copies of the LXX have different books; that is also well known. People on this board; because it is the internet I suppose are making claims about the contents of a book that people who know better would never claim. It cannot be proved what was in the LXX in 30 AD. That is the bottom line.

 

[Rightlydivide]

Have a look at what other Apostolic churches use and claim…

Orthodox - click on the table of contents

And here is what Calvin College has to say about it…Apocrypha

Subrosa

What I am saying and have been saying is not unique guys. The contents of the LXX are FLUID. Sorry to shout. The earliest versions DIFFERED. Those versions are 300 years later. We have no proof of what they contained.

 

[Rightlydivide]

I would like to point out that the Orthodox study bible uses the New Testament text from the New King James Version … which could be called the protestant Bible

Of course. It is the Byzantine text. The majority text. I suppose that is a surprise to some people but I suspect you are just making a point and know the history.

 

[JTBT]

Of course. It is the Byzantine text. The majority text. I suppose that is a surprise to some people but I suspect you are just making a point and know the history.

Making a point (and picking on Subrosa ); mainly that the KJV is a very good translation, and was done in a very scholarly manner. One could also point out that King James’ mother was a Roman Catholic.

 

[beeliner]

1. Jamnia is probably a myth. Recent scholars doubt its existence.
2. The contents of the LXX were fluid; any book says such beeliner. Can you name one on the topic that does not?
3. The earliest copies of the LXX have different books; that is also well known.
4. People on this board; because it is the internet I suppose are making claims about the contents of a book that people who know better would never claim.
5. It cannot be proved what was in the LXX in 30 AD. That is the bottom line.

1. Can you name two? Scholars, not apologists. Experts who form opinions and conclusions based on the evidence, not start with the conclusion and ignore all the evidence to the contrary. What does the Encyclopedia Judaica say? I haven’t looked, I’m only asking.
2. ANY book? Again, name two which do so with reliable documentation. And ‘fluid’ how?
3. The earliest, before the project was complete, have FEWER books - obviously. The LXX was translated over a period of time, and with revisions. That is not ‘fluidity’ with regard to which books it ultimately comprised.
4. Well, again, who are these ‘people who know better’? Protestant apologists?
5. It cannot be proved, therefore what you believe has to be true and what others believe has to be false. Is that your theory? And in any case, what is your point?

 

[Rightlydivide]

1. Can you name two? Scholars, not apologists. Experts who form opinions and conclusions based on the evidence, not start with the conclusion and ignore all the evidence to the contrary. What does the Encyclopedia Judaica

say? I haven’t looked, I’m only asking.
Jacob Neusner
Robert Newman
What database are you accessing for journal articles? I am using ATLA religion data base.

1. ANY book? Again, name two which do so with reliable documentation. And ‘fluid’ how?

 

[beeliner]

1. Jacob Neusner
   Robert Newman

 

[Rightlydivide]

1. Neusner is a well-known and highly regarded Jewish theologian, though not without his critics. Robert S. Newman, as far as I know, is an anthropologist; is this the man you’re referring to?

Can you give specific links to either of them denying that the Jewish canon was closed at Jamnia around AD90 or claiming that the deuterocanonicals were not found in the LXX at the time of Christ?

1. None. I am relying on the concensus of modern Bible scholarship, Jewish, Catholic and ‘mainline’ Protestant. Fundamentalist Protestantism, being anti-intellectual at its base, is not capable of producing scholarship.
2. The approximate date of authorship of these books is well-documented. Jesus’ own teaching regarding the ‘unpardonable sin against the Holy Spirit’ seems to be an obvious paraphrase of Wisdom 1:6. James and the author of Hebrews allude to the deuterocanonicals profusely. While after the life of Christ, these date long before AD400.

Whether they are inspired scripture is not the issue of this exchange (though I will gladly discuss that also), but rather whether they were present in the LXX at the time that the Hebrew canon was closed. If not, where were they?

Maybe I’m misunderstanding you. Is your claim that they were composed later, were composed before Christ but not included in the LXX, or exactly what?

No I cannot give links unless you have a dissertation or journal database; that is what I was getting at. The database I listed, as you should know, has every dissertation and scholarly journal article for the last 30 years so I have no clue what you are getting at. Trying to find out which one you use and I could maybe even get access to it.
I am sure you have read Metzgers book on the canon and it covers Jamnia well enough.
At the most scholars, give four references to the Deuterocanonicals. Not that “ScriptureCatholic” garbage you find on the net and such.
Lets go basic, slow down I guess.

Do the earliest surviving copies of the LXX have different books?
YES. That is very well known. No one denies that. So how exactly did the LXX of 300 years earlier have a set number of books? It did not.
By the way, if I may ask, what institution are you associated with or graduated from?

 

[beeliner]

No I cannot give links unless you have a dissertation or journal database; that is what I was getting at. The database I listed, as you should know, has every dissertation and scholarly journal article for the last 30 years so I have no clue what you are getting at. Trying to find out which one you use and I could maybe even get access to it.
I am sure you have read Metzgers book on the canon and it covers Jamnia well enough.
At the most scholars, give four references to the Deuterocanonicals. Not that “ScriptureCatholic” garbage you find on the net and such.
Lets go basic, slow down I guess.

Do the earliest surviving copies of the LXX have different books?
YES. That is very well known. No one denies that. So how exactly did the LXX of 300 years earlier have a set number of books? It did not.
By the way, if I may ask, what institution are you associated with or graduated from?

You are not being completely honest - excuse me, make that straightforward - here.

You are well aware that the LXX was translated over a period of more than two centuries, and that revisions began almost immediately and continued throughout the process. So while you are correct in saying the number of books varied, this had to do with the stage at which the collections were produced.

My main sources on this subject are the Encyclopedia Judaica and the introductory and footnote material in the various volumes of the Anchor Bible along with the Anchor Bible Dictionary, though I am certainly interested in other material as long as it is truely scholarly and not apologetic.

You are also correct that Jamnia is hypothetical in the sense that it must be deduced from various bits of evidence; still, there is little question that the canon was still open in Jesus’ time and closed within two or three generations afterward, and that a time limit was set regarding which books were ancient enough to have been included, and that the cut-off point was about 250 years or about 160-150BC. It’s possible that Wisdom and 2 Maccabees never existed in Hebrew; however this is immaterial as they would not have made the cut in any case.

I am not sure what you mean by “At the most scholars, give four references to the Deuterocanonicals.” If you are saying that most scholars find no more than four references to them in the NT, this is absurd. James and Hebrews alone contain about 25, and others are found throughout the NT. Fundamentalist apologists usually attempt to avoid this reality by claiming that none of the NT writers ‘quote’ from the deuterocanonicals, which is correct; however, very few NT allusions to ANY OT antecedents are direct quotes but rather paraphrases, with the intent of the paraphrase in many cases rather remote from that of the source.

As for my education, I have no academic credentials whatever in religion or scripture-related subjects. My major was electrical engineering. I began reading the Bible as soon as I was old enough to read, at a stage when even many common English words were as yet unknown to me, and I have been reading it ever since, more than 60 years.

One of the first things I began to notice was all of the factual errors, contradictions, and inconsistancies therein. This did not disappoint me at all; on the contrary, it only reaffirmed the Bible’s genuineness and diversity. If it had come from a single source, like the holy books of various other religions, I doubt that it would have held my interest for so long.

As I said previously, I compensate for my own lack of formal scholarship by relying on the consensus of modern scholarship, Jewish, Catholic and ‘mainline’ Protestant. The Fundamentalists and Bible literalists I disregard completely - they offer nothing but ignorance and error.

 

[Rightlydivide]

I am not sure what you mean by “At the most scholars, give four references to the Deuterocanonicals.”

 

[beeliner]

1. In the Canon Debate page 200 it clearly states “the three most promising cases that biblical scholars have proposed as positive evidence for NT dependence on the Deuterocanonicals” and then it proceeds to list them.

 

[Rightlydivide]

1. I have not read the book, but if any of three major libraries here have it, I will definitely take a look. Who states that on page 200? I understand that the book is the effort of a myriad of contributors. Is it stated as a concensus or as one writer’s opinion? If the latter, let me guess his/her affiliation!

1. Here you are completely wrong. I rely on the footnoted cross-references in the Good News Bible and other translations, all of which are the product of interdenominational scholarship; in fact, the only such lists I have ever seen on the web are those posted earlier in this very thread. It is not a matter of a few words matching, but of reasonable probability that the NT author was alluding to the OT source cited, and no different criteria would apply to cross-refs to the protocanonical OT.

Daniel Harrington. Please do guess his affiliation beeliner.
Please.

 

[Contarini]

I have been giving thought lately to the Catholic Biblical Books vs the Protestant Biblical Books. An individual wrote to me about this today which I would like to share with you and see if you may be able to offer any comments and/or criticism of the comments:

Jesus had to have had a definite body of writings in mind when he said in John 10:35 that the scriptures cannot be broken. Here he referred to Psalms as “law”. In Luke 24:44 he divided the scriptures into three main groups, Moses, prophets, and the psalms.

Then why do you accept the other “Writings”? Why doesn’t your OT canon include just the Torah, the Prophets (as defined in the Hebrew canon), and the Psalms?

Specifically, why do you think the book of Esther is canonical?

Edwin

 

[beeliner]

beeliner;3957594:

Daniel Harrington. Please do guess his affiliation beeliner.
Please.

Sounds like a mick so he’s probably Catholic.

I will check the book out today or tomorrow if possible and read his comments in context.

 

[Augustine]

No appologies, but a huge thank you!

You are a true Christian gentleman. We Christian Catholics in this thread owe you an apology for the not so charitable treatment that you’ve received here at several instances, in particular from me.

Thank you.