Question about the Canon

[jcrichton]

With regard to St. Jerome and his reluctance to translate the Deuterocanonicals,
IMO this just clouds the main issue and points of these books and is of no value.

Consider; is it the point, that a human person said or implied something against these
books? Or is the point that the all the books, including the Deuteros, were in the
Septuagint and accepted by all Christians and included in the Christian bible books
thru history until the 16th century. One man’s OPINION should not make any difference
in view of the counciliar biblical history of the church.

In addition, certainly the church does not abide by Hebrew councils today (no offense intended), so why would the early church have any obligation to abide by them then in 90 AD, when they excluded them?

Just a thought.

I fully concur with you… though not avid reader (except for the Sacred Scriptures) I find it interesting that those who seek to nullify the Church’s Authority always seem to point to issues/situations where one man (or very few individual) are putting forth their own biased/confused opinions… as with the Biblical Canon, many object to the Church’s Authority and the inclusion of the books that the protestants removed from the Bible while upholding Luther’s personal opinion as absolute authority… even when they pretend to have a better argument they ignore that they are simply accepting the list of books held by anti-Christians Jews as the correct canon… they reject the list held by the Septuagint, which was used by the Alexandrian Jews (Greek text) even though they would argue (in other places) that the New Testament was written in Greek…

Maran atha!

Angel

 

[BrianH]

With regard to St. Jerome and his reluctance to translate the Deuterocanonicals,
IMO this just clouds the main issue and points of these books and is of no value.

Consider; is it the point, that a human person said or implied something against these
books? Or is the point that the all the books, including the Deuteros, were in the
Septuagint and accepted by all Christians and included in the Christian bible books
thru history until the 16th century. One man’s OPINION should not make any difference
in view of the counciliar biblical history of the church.

In addition, certainly the church does not abide by Hebrew councils today (no offense intended), so why would the early church have any obligation to abide by them then in 90 AD, when they excluded them?
Just a thought.

Jamnia?

1.The “Council of Jamnia” Almost Certainly Didn’t Exist: This is a biggie. We know that there was a Rabbinical school at Jamnia, but there’s no evidence that any Council ever occurred there. The “Council” is just a hypothesis put forward in 1871 by Heinrich Graetz, to explain how the Jews ended up with a single canon. As a hypothesis, it’s a very weak one. There are no early sources which speak of a Council at Jamnia. You could just as easily claim that there was a Council in Beijing. For whatever it’s worth, the majority of scholars have finally realized the obvious: there’s no reason to believe that the Council existed.

2.It’s Not Clear that the Jamnia School Even Addressed the Canon of Scripture: It’s not just that whatever happened at Jamnia wasn’t a formal Council. It’s that it’s not clear that the Rabbinical school even addressed the question of the canon of Scripture at all. You could just as easily say you get your canon of Scripture from the Peace of Westphalia.

catholicdefense.blogspot.com/2011/07/can-protestants-rely-upon-council-of.html

 

[BrianH]

I fully concur with you… though not avid reader (except for the Sacred Scriptures) I find it interesting that those who seek to nullify the Church’s Authority always seem to point to issues/situations where one man (or very few individual) are putting forth their own biased/confused opinions… as with the Biblical Canon, many object to the Church’s Authority and the inclusion of the books that the protestants removed from the Bible while upholding Luther’s personal opinion as absolute authority… even when they pretend to have a better argument they ignore that they are simply accepting the list of books held by anti-Christians Jews as the correct canon… they reject the list held by the Septuagint, which was used by the Alexandrian Jews (Greek text) even though they would argue (in other places) that the New Testament was written in Greek…

Maran atha!

Angel

You are a proponent of an Alexandrian canon? This is a link that discusses that hypothesis as it relates to Palestine as well.

The Alexandrian canon hypothesis in modern canonical studies was proposed by J. S. Semler (1771).24Divorcing himself from the dogmatic Protestant position that the Old Testament had always been the books of the Hebrew canon, Semler proposed that Hellenistic Jews of Egypt had a different canon than those in Palestine. Alexandrian Jews and Jews of the Diaspora were a third party that accepted the books of the Apocrypha in their canon. Semler believed that these books were composed in Greek in Alexandria. Like Augustine, Semler believed that the Jewish translators of the Law into Greek were inspired, which gave authority to the enlarged Greek canon. His hypothesis came to be generally accepted in the nineteenth century (Sundberg 1964:7-40). Since Semler, scholarly research has produced no additional evidence supporting the Alexandrian canon hypothesis.

This consensus about the Hebrew and Alexandrian canons began to be challenged in 1957 with the presentation by this writer of a doctoral thesis to the Faculty of Harvard University with the title, The Old Testament of the Early Church.25 These were the days when the discoveries of the Dead Sea Scrolls were still fresh. I was attracted by the circumstance that scrolls and scroll fragments of books we now call Apocrypha and Pseudepigrapha as well as other, often previously unknown, non-sectarian religious writings were found among the Dead Sea Scrolls. Copies of the Hebrew canonical writings and sectarian writings of the apparently Essene (?)26 inhabitants of Qumran were also found. This appeared strikingly similar to the circumstance in early Christianity as observed above. The resultant thesis challenged the Old Testament canon consensus at two points: Was there really an Alexandrian canon? Was the Hebrew or Jewish canon in Palestine completed (as a de facto canon) before the first century C.E.?

Critique of the Alexandrian canon consisted chiefly in bringing attention to previous scholarly findings that completely undercut the foundations upon which the Alexandrian canon rested. But notice had not been taken as to the effect these had upon the Alexandrian canon hypothesis. The bases upon which the Alexandrian canon had been proposed had simply been forgotten.

department.monm.edu/classics/Speel_Festschrift/sundbergJr.htm

 

[fisherman_carl]

You might find this interesting

How did the Old Testament canon develop?
youtube.com/watch?v=dF5NYPENhp4&feature=relmfu

Canon of Scripture Criteria
youtube.com/watch?v=X9-0lztsHhk&feature=relmfu

 

[jcrichton]

You are a proponent of an Alexandrian canon? This is a link that discusses that hypothesis as it relates to Palestine as well.

department.monm.edu/classics/Speel_Festschrift/sundbergJr.htm

…actually, not! …as I’ve stated previously not a scholar nor a historian am I; what I am stating is that it has long been established that the Septuagint is the source used by the Catholic Church, throughout time, and the books that were adopted and included in the Bible’s Canon:

newadvent.org/cathen/13722a.htm

The Septuagint Version is first mentioned in a letter of Aristeas to his brother Philocrates. Here, in substance, is what we read of the origin of the version. Ptolemy II Philadelphus, King of Egypt (287-47 BC) had recently established a valuable library at Alexandria. He was persuaded by Demetrius of Phalarus, chief librarian, to enrich it with a copy of the sacred books of the Jews. To win the good graces of this people, Ptolemy, by the advice of Aristeas, an officer of the royal guard, an Egyptian by birth and a pagan by religion, emancipated 100,000 slaves in different parts of his kingdom. He then sent delegates, among whom was Aristeas, to Jerusalem, to ask Eleazar, the Jewish high-priest, to provide him with a copy of the Law, and Jews capable of translating it into Greek. The embassy was successful: a richly ornamented copy of the Law was sent to him and seventy-two Israelites, six from each tribe, were deputed to go to Egypt and carry out the wish of the king. They were received with great honor and during seven days astonished everyone by the wisdom they displayed in answering seventy-two questions which they were asked; then they were led into the solitary island of Pharos, where they began their work, translating the Law, helping one another and comparing translations in proportion as they finished them. At the end of seventy-two days, their work was completed, The translation was read in presence of the Jewish priests, princes, and people assembled at Alexandria, who all recognized and praised its perfect conformity with the Hebrew original. The king was greatly pleased with the work and had it placed in the library.

Despite its legendary character, Aristeas’ account gained credence; Aristobulus (170-50 B.C.), in a passage preserved by Eusebius, says that “through the efforts of Demetrius of Phalerus a complete translation of the Jewish legislation was executed in the days of Ptolemy”; Aristeas’s story is repeated almost verbatim by Flavius Josephus (Ant. Jud., XII, ii) and substantially, with the omission of Aristeas’ name, by Philo of Alexandria (De vita Moysis, II, vi). the letter and the story were accepted as genuine by many Fathers and ecclesiastical writers till the beginning of the sixteenth century; other details serving to emphasize the extraordinary origin of the version were added to Aristeas’s account" The seventy-two interpreters were inspired by God (Tertullian, St. Augustine, the author of the “Cohortatio ad Graecos” [Justin?], and others); in translating they did not consult with one another, they had even been shut up in separate cells, either singly, or in pairs, and their translations when compared were found to agree entirely both as to the sense and the expressions employed with the original text and with each other (Cohortatio ad Graecos, St. Irenæus, St. Clement of Alexandria). St. Jerome rejected the story of the cells as fabulous and untrue (“Praef. in Pentateuchum”; “Adv. Rufinum”, II, xxv). likewise the alleged inspiration of the Septuagint. Finally the seventy two interpreters translated, not only the five books of the Pentateuch, but the entire Hebrew Old Testament. The authenticity of the letter, called in question first by Louis Vivès (1492-1540), professor at Louvain (Ad S. August. Civ. Dei, XVIII, xlii), then by Jos. Scaliger (d. 1609), and especially by H. Hody (d. 1705) and Dupin (d. 1719) is now universally denied.

and:

The Greek version, known as the Septuagint, welcomed by the Alexandrian Jews, spread quickly throughout the countries in which Greek was spoken; it was utilized by different writers, and supplanted the original text in liturgical services. Philo of Alexandria used it in his writings and looked on the translators as inspired Prophets; it was finally received even by the Jews of Palestine, and was employed notably by Josephus, the Palestinian Jewish historian. We know also that the writers of the New Testament made use of it, borrowing from it most of their citations; it became the Old Testament of the Church and was so highly esteemed by the early Christians that several writers and Fathers declared it to be inspired. The Christians had recourse to it constantly in their controversies with the Jews, who soon recognized its imperfections, and finally rejected it in favour of the Hebrew text or of more literal translations (Aquila, Theodotion).

Maran atha!

Angel

 

[garysibio]

It’s not a clear-cut question. Any teaching of any bishop can be called “magisterial.” But I think you mean by binding whether it’s “technically” infallible? Then your criteria for a Pope is listed in Vatican I when he teaches as a function of his Petrine see with the purpose of defining a faith or morals and for the universal Church to hold, and I think 1 other thing. However, from our future perspective of that time, I think it’s fair to say we can p(name removed by moderator)oint the approximate settlement of the canon at the time of Damasus/Hippo/Carthage, and yes, even Innocent in that same generation, so I think your point stands that the canon became binding via the universal magisterium at that time.

It is my understanding that the canon of the Scripture was not made binding on Catholics until the Council of Trent. Even at Trent many of the bishops voted to adopt the same OT canon as the Protestants and the vote on whether it should be made binding under pain of excommunication only got something like 44% support. (Sufficient numbers abstained which is why it was implemented.)

 

[garysibio]

The following is a list of the Councils that listed the books of the Bible:

Council of Laodicea c. 360 List of books similar to Trent’s canon.

Close only counts in horseshoes and handgrenades.

To say the canon proposed by the Council of Laodicea was similar to Trent’s canon is not accurate. The only deuterocanonical book included in this list was Baruch and that may be because it was often included as part of Jeremiah. The differences between this council and the others is the reason I started this thread.

 

[garysibio]

…I’m really bad at research… does not Septaugint mean LXX?

LXX (Roman numerals for 70) is a short-hand way of referring to the Septuagint which, tradition says, was translated by 70 Jewish scribes.

 

[jcrichton]

Close only counts in horseshoes and handgrenades.

To say the canon proposed by the Council of Laodicea was similar to Trent’s canon is not accurate. The only deuterocanonical book included in this list was Baruch and that may be because it was often included as part of Jeremiah. The differences between this council and the others is the reason I started this thread.

…are you basing your statement on the informartion found at NEW ADVENT: Home

newadvent.org/fathers/3806.htm

QUOTE]Canon 60
[N. B.— [COLOR=“Magenta”]This Canon is of most questionable genuineness.]

These are all the books of Old Testament appointed to be read: 1, Genesis of the world; 2, The Exodus from Egypt; 3, Leviticus; 4, Numbers; 5, Deuteronomy; 6, Joshua, the son of Nun; 7, Judges, Ruth; 8, Esther; 9, Of the Kings, First and Second; 10, Of the Kings, Third and Fourth; 11, Chronicles, First and Second; 12, Esdras, First and Second; 13, The Book of Psalms; 14, The Proverbs of Solomon; 15, Ecclesiastes; 16, The Song of Songs; 17, Job; 18, The Twelve Prophets; 19, Isaiah; 20, Jeremiah, and Baruch, the Lamentations, and the Epistle; 21, Ezekiel; 22, Daniel.

And these are the books of the New Testament: Four Gospels, according to Matthew, Mark, Luke and John; The Acts of the Apostles; Seven Catholic Epistles, to wit, one of James, two of Peter, three of John, one of Jude; Fourteen Epistles of Paul, one to the Romans, two to the Corinthians, one to the Galatians, one to the Ephesians, one to the Philippians, one to the Colossians, two to the Thessalonians, one to the Hebrews, two to Timothy, one to Titus, and one to Philemon.

…if so, did you noticed the heading above these two paragraphs (highlighted) and have you noticed the fact that it does not state unequivocably “these are the only Inspired books and there are no others?”

Maran atha!

Angel