Protestants Have the Wrong Canon: the Deuterocanon Defended

[JayDyer]

Protestants Proclaim the Word of God, But Have Chopped It Up: A Response to the Standard Objections

www.nicenetruth.com

By: Jay Dyer

see also: More Facts on the Canon of Scripture and Tradition

Many reformed acquaintances have, on various occasions, sent me different challenges relating to the canon of Scripture. One of these was a list of arguments proposed by reformed theologian Dr. Ian Paisley against the canonicity of the 7 Deuterocanonical Books (or, the “Apocrypha,” from here on titled “DB”). Another challenger stated the traditional Orthodox arguments for the necessary involvement of a Spirit-led Church in the formation of a definitive canon is not a valid argument, since the Old Testament believer needed no extra-scriptural, infallible authorities, in any sense, to recognize the veracity of the OT books. This second objection is true in principle, but I have decided to kill two birds with one stone. If it can be shown that the Protestant canon of Scripture itself is erroneous, then both of these non-Orthodox challenges fall to the ground, since the question of who has the right canon is obviously prior to one’s right to quote this or that text.

Thus, if 2 Maccabees is part of Scripture, then prayer for the dead is a biblical doctrine: but almost no Protestant holds this doctrine, thus demonstrating for “sola scriptura” the implications of rejecting books of the Bible. It will be shown, then, that the Protestants are the real violators of the written Word of God, having cut out books that did not fit their preconceived notions. This is ironic, since Protestants are always accusing those that do not adhere to sola scriptura, of violating the “Word of God.” One reformed acquaintance of mine likes to think his grammatico-historico syntax arguments cannot be defeated. Rather than go into his maze of texts (as Tertullian recommends against), since he puts on a show of appearing to follow the written Word of God alone, this erroneous position will actually be shown to be violating the Word of God. This individual said he wan’t really worried about the origin and development of the canon–he just followed the Word of God. Just as the Protestant follows a man-Luther-in hypocritically cutting out 7 books of the Word that didn’t fit with his heretical presuppositions, we will cut out from under this view its foundation—the wrong Bible. Until the serious-minded Protestant deals with this question, the sola scriptura claim has no force.

First, I will give the basic arguments of reformed theologian Dr. Ian Paisley as they were presented to me, and I will respond, demonstrating that each argument is entirely false with specific responses exclusively from noted Protestant scholarly sources. The following points of Dr. Paisley are the strongest standard arguments most Protestants give. If someone has others they are welcome.

1. First argument of Paisley: The Jews never accepted the DB and they were not part of the oracles committed unto them (Rom. 3:2) Furthermore, they are not written in Hebrew.

Response:

This is totally false. Paisley makes no distinction between Jews of the diaspora and Palestinian Jews. Palestinian Jews rejected the DB, but the Septuagint, which is the Greek version of the OT composed in the 2nd-3rd century B.C. at Alexandria, Egypt by 70 or 72 Jewish scribes, was used by non-Palestinian Jews. It is a well known fact that the Septuagint (LXX) was both the Bible of the diaspora Jews and the Bible of all the early Christians, as will be proven below. Further, it’s also a fact that the LXX contained the DB, as will also be proven below.

Protestant scholars admit the LXX was the bible of the diaspora Jews who were far more numerous at the time of Christ than Palestinian Jews.

1. Oxford University church historian Paul Johnson, in his book A History of Christianity, writes:

“There was already [in the first century] a huge Jewish diaspora, especially in the great cities of the eastern Mediterranean-Alexandria, Antioch, Tarsus, Ephesus, and so forth…The Greek adaptation of the Old Testament, or the Septuagint, which was composed in Alexandria was widely used in diaspora communities…” (pg. 10-11).

1. Baptist textual scholar Lee McDonald, in his book The Formation of the Christian Biblical Canon, writes:

“It is most likely that these [DB] books were considered by the Jewish community holy or sacred well before the time of Christ, and that they were simply received by the early Christians as part of the sacred collection they inherited from Judaism. There is evidence that at least some non-canonical books had their origin in the land of Israel and were translated and transported from Israel to Alexandria and probably wherever Jews lived in significant numbers in the Roman Empire . The grandson of Ben Sirach [the writer of the deuteroncanonical book Ecclesiasticus]…lets us know he was translating for the Jews in Alexandria . The NT also has many allusions to some [deuterocanonical] literature found in the LXX, and the oldest Christian collections of OT scriptures contain much of that literature” (page 90).

1. Furthermore, the Protestant Fausset’s Bible Dictionary, under “Apocrypha” states:

Apocrypha= “…the writings added in the LXX, I and II Esdra, Tobit, Judith, the sequel to Esther, Wisdom, Ecclesiasticus, Baruch, Song of the Three Children, Susanna, Bel and the Dragon…” (page 42)

1. Furthermore, the Protestant Nelson’s New Christian Dictionary, under “Apocrypha” says:

“The Septuagint incorporates all of them (with the exception of 2 Esdras), and they are not differentiated in any other way from the other books of the OT” (page 40).

Article Continued here.

 

[Jack_245814]

Thanks for sharing! I like this article very much.

 

[thistle]

Frankly I wouldn’t listen to anything Iain Paisley has to say about anything. He is a bigot and a Catholic hater. How he could ever consider himself to be a Christian is beyond me.

 

[JayDyer]

All the more reason to refute Paisley.

 

[PerryJ]

I applaud your work! As one that has defended the DCs on several threads I doubt it will change anyones mind. It appears that Protestants seem to ignore history and facts when it comes to this subject. If one reads history the exclusion of the DCs has zero merit. As you state Protestants have to exclude the DCs otherwise their faith falls apart. John Calvin and Martin Luther both said as much.

Good luck!