Question regarding books removed from Bible by Protestants

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AKKnitter

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Last night in RCIA class I asked our instructor if Jesus ever
spoke of anything from the books that were removed by the Protestants. He said yes, he spoke of somethings in Wisdom and another book. I was so shocked I forgot what the other books were. Has anyone else heard this? If this is true I think all the pieces of joining the Catholic Church will have fallen in place for me!
 
AKKnitter said:
Last night in RCIA class I asked our instructor if Jesus ever
spoke of anything from the books that were removed by the Protestants. He said yes, he spoke of somethings in Wisdom and another book. I was so shocked I forgot what the other books were. Has anyone else heard this? If this is true I think all the pieces of joining the Catholic Church will have fallen in place for me!
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Read this “Defending the Deuterocanonicals” by James Akin

cin.org/users/james/files/deuteros.htm

Hebrews 11 encourages us to emulate the heroes of the Old Testament and in the Old Testament “Women received their dead by resurrection. Some were tortured, refusing to accept release, that they might rise again to a better life” (Heb. 11:35).
There are a couple of examples of women receiving back their dead by resurrection in the Protestant Old Testament. You can find Elijah raising the son of the widow of Zarepheth in 1 Kings 17, and you can find his successor Elisha raising the son of the Shunammite woman in 2 Kings 4, but one thing you can never find – anywhere in the Protestant Old Testament, from front to back, from Genesis to Malachi – is someone being tortured and refusing to accept release for the sake of a better resurrection. If you want to find that, you have to look in the Catholic Old Testament – in the deuterocanonical books Martin Luther cut out of his Bible.
The story is found in 2 Maccabees 7, where we read that during the Maccabean persecution, "It happened also that seven brothers and their mother were arrested and were being compelled by the king, under torture with whips and cords, to partake of unlawful swine’s flesh. . . . ut the brothers and their mother encouraged one another to die nobly, saying, ‘The Lord God is watching over us and in truth has compassion on us . . . ’ After the first brother had died . . . they brought forward the second for their sport. . . . he in turn underwent tortures as the first brother had done. And when he was at his last breath, he said, ‘You accursed wretch, you dismiss us from this present life, but the King of the universe will raise us up to an everlasting renewal of life’" (2 Macc. 7:1, 5-9).
One by one the sons die, proclaiming that they will be vindicated in the resurrection. “The mother was especially admirable and worthy of honorable memory. Though she saw her seven sons perish within a single day, she bore it with good courage because of her hope in the Lord. She encouraged each of them . . . [saying], ‘I do not know how you came into being in my womb. It was not I who gave you life and breath, nor I who set in order the elements within each of you. Therefore the Creator of the world, who shaped the beginning of man and devised the origin of all things, will in his mercy give life and breath back to you again, since you now forget yourselves for the sake of his laws,’” telling the last one, “Do not fear this butcher, but prove worthy of your brothers. Accept death, so that in God’s mercy I may get you back again with your brothers” (2 Macc. 7:20-23, 29).
This is but one example of the New Testaments’ references to the deuterocanonicals.
 
Last night in RCIA class I asked our instructor if Jesus ever
spoke of anything from the books that were removed by the Protestants. He said yes, he spoke of somethings in Wisdom and another book. I was so shocked I forgot what the other books were. Has anyone else heard this? If this is true I think all the pieces of joining the Catholic Church will have fallen in place for me!
 
Welc:wave:me to the discernment process, AKKnitter!

Here is a good article on the subject by Mark Shea. Jesus and the Apostles, including Paul cited passages from the deuterocanonical books. They also cited secular sources when the quote fit their need. The idea that they only cited from the OT sans the deuterocanonical is flatly not true.
 
Della said:
Welc:wave:me to the discernment process, AKKnitter!

Here is a good article on the subject by Mark Shea. Jesus and the Apostles, including Paul cited passages from the deuterocanonical books. They also cited secular sources when the quote fit their need. The idea that they only cited from the OT sans the deuterocanonical is flatly not true.
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I’m still trying to discern for myself if the Apocrypha (or deuterocanonical books if you prefer) are canonical. In the tradition I come from, they are not considered to be canon but are thought to be worth reading anyway. (And we even had liturgical readings from them at times). But I don’t think that citations of the books in other Scripture would be DETERMINATIVE of the question…as noted by the poster above, Scripture at times has cited sources that are definitely not canonical as well.
 
Just a thought - 86% of the time that Jesus quoted from the Old Testament, He quoted from the Septuagint - the Old Testament translation that includes the Deuterocanonical books. He would have not quoted the Septuagint the vast majority of the time, had He felt that version was theologically faulty. P.S. I’m a convert from the Evangelical church.
 
AKKnitter said:
Last night in RCIA class I asked our instructor if Jesus ever
spoke of anything from the books that were removed by the Protestants. He said yes, he spoke of somethings in Wisdom and another book. I was so shocked I forgot what the other books were. Has anyone else heard this? If this is true I think all the pieces of joining the Catholic Church will have fallen in place for me!
Click to expand...
Might want to check this site
scripturecatholic.com/deuterocanon.html

Many Protestants will try to argue;
“Neither Christ or his apostles ever quoted from the Apocrypha books*.*”
In the Original 1611 King James Version we find eleven New Testament verses that the Protestant translators felt were quotes from “Apocrypha” books, and in the margin notes they cross-referenced them as such. not enought space to list all of them here are few
Mat 6:7 And when you are praying, speak not much, as the heathens. For they think that in their much speaking they may be heard.Ecclesiasticus 7:13 Be not full of words in a multitude of ancients, and repeat not the word in thy prayer.

[Mat 23:37 Jerusalem, Jerusalem, thou that killest the prophets and stonest them that are sent unto thee, how often would I have gathered together thy children, as the hen doth gather her chickens under her wings, and thou wouldst not? ](file:///C:/CCD/images/dut_in4.5gif.jpg)[
](file:///C:/CCD/images/dut_in4.5gif.jpg)4 Esdras 1:30 So haue I gathered you, as the henne her chickenes vnder her winges. But now what shal I doe to you? I wil throw you from my face.

([Matt. 23:37](file:///C:/CCD/mt.html#23:37)) [Mat 27:43He trusted in God: let him now deliver him if he will have him. For he said: I am the Son of God. ](file:///C:/CCD/images/dut_in5.gif)
Wisdom 2:15-16 He is grievous unto us, even to behold: for his life is not like other men’s, and his ways are very different.
We are esteemed by him as triflers, and he abstaineth from our ways as from filthiness, and he preferreth the latter end of the just, and glorieth that he hath God for his father.

[Luke 6:31](file:///C:/CCD/images/dut_in5.1.gif)[And as you would that men should do to you, do you also to them in like manner.](file:///C:/CCD/images/dut_in5.1.gif)Tobit 4:16 See thou never do to another what thou wouldst hate to have done to thee by another

.[John 10:22 ](file:///C:/CCD/images/dut_in6.1.gif)[And it was the feast of the dedication at Jerusalem: and it was winter. ](file:///C:/CCD/images/dut_in6.1.gif)1 Maccabees 4:59 And Judas, and his brethren, and all the church of Israel decreed, that the day of the dedication of the altar should be kept in its season from year to year for eight days, from the five and twentieth day of the month of Casleu, with joy and gladness. (Hanakah)

[11:35 ](file:///C:/CCD/images/dut_in6.6.jpg)[Women received their dead raised to life again. But others were racked, not accepting deliverance, that they might find a better resurrection.](file:///C:/CCD/images/dut_in6.6.jpg)2 Maccabees 7:1-4
 
rr1213 said:
I’m still trying to discern for myself if the Apocrypha (or deuterocanonical books if you prefer) are canonical. In the tradition I come from, they are not considered to be canon but are thought to be worth reading anyway. (And we even had liturgical readings from them at times). But I don’t think that citations of the books in other Scripture would be DETERMINATIVE of the question…as noted by the poster above, Scripture at times has cited sources that are definitely not canonical as well.
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As regards whether or not the various apocrypha are inspired holy Scripture, I would suggest reading the texts, and also the words of the people who made decisions about them in the early Church. The following sites are places in which you could start:

pseudepigrapha.com/
comparative-religion.com/christianity/apocrypha/

ntcanon.org/
bombaxo.com/blog/?p=231

Some of the apocryphal texts are grossly anachronistic, doctrinally deviant, and even just bizarre, whereas others, e.g., the Shepherd of Hermas, are so close to early Church doctrine as to have come within an ace of being declared Holy Writ.

Of course, for them to be canonical, you will either have to go the ultra-Protestant route of setting your own rules, or seek out a church which authorizes them.
 
Grace_Alone said:
Just a thought - 86% of the time that Jesus quoted from the Old Testament, He quoted from the Septuagint - the Old Testament translation that includes the Deuterocanonical books. He would have not quoted the Septuagint the vast majority of the time, had He felt that version was theologically faulty. P.S. I’m a convert from the Evangelical church.
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I was watching the 700 Club a couple of days ago when Pat Roberston was giving a series of talks titled “Foundations of the Faith”. Pat noted that Jesus quoted from the Septuagint!
 
Grace_Alone said:
Just a thought - 86% of the time that Jesus quoted from the Old Testament, He quoted from the Septuagint - the Old Testament translation that includes the Deuterocanonical books. He would have not quoted the Septuagint the vast majority of the time, had He felt that version was theologically faulty. P.S. I’m a convert from the Evangelical church.
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A point I beleive Fr. Pacwa makes. He also corrected a woman who called in to ask about the books the Catholics added, by making the point that is in the title of this thread (i.e. it is actually the Protestants who removed them).

North
 
Hi rr1213 :tiphat:
rr1213 said:
I’m still trying to discern for myself if the Apocrypha (or deuterocanonical books if you prefer) are canonical.
Click to expand...
You do realize that it is impossible dont you? I mean that literally: it is literally impossible to “discern” what the canon is. You may come to an intellectual opinion one way or the other, but that is simply an intellectual excercise and nothing more.
Also, if you follow that path, how have you determined that your personal discernment obviates the discernment of the earliest Christians? The need to figure out what is the canon of Scripture is the beginning of the end of Sola Scriptura.
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rr1213:
In the tradition I come from, they are not considered to be canon but are thought to be worth reading anyway. (And we even had liturgical readings from them at times). But I don’t think that citations of the books in other Scripture would be DETERMINATIVE of the question…as noted by the poster above, Scripture at times has cited sources that are definitely not canonical as well.
Click to expand...
There is nothing that is “deteminative” of the question apart from the authority of the Church. That is the whole problem. Without an authority to declare what is Scripture, we have no Scripture. All the rest is simply an attempt at a “degree of certainty”.
The fact is that a canon was set relatively early on at the councils of Carthage and Hippo. On what basis are they discredited? Very late and weak evidence. In addition, the vast majority of citations from Christ confirm the validity of the Septuagint which
includes the same OT canon Catholics have maintained. Is there a single Christian source which claims the Protestant canon prior to 1500? How much “discernment” does this require?
 
rr1213 said:
I’m still trying to discern for myself if the Apocrypha (or deuterocanonical books if you prefer) are canonical. In the tradition I come from, they are not considered to be canon but are thought to be worth reading anyway. (And we even had liturgical readings from them at times). But I don’t think that citations of the books in other Scripture would be DETERMINATIVE of the question…as noted by the poster above, Scripture at times has cited sources that are definitely not canonical as well.
Click to expand...
Jesus and the apostles never quoted anything from Song of Solomon (or Song of Songs) either, but that book is recognized as canonical by all Christian faiths, Catholic, Orthodox and Protestant.
 
Philthy said:
Hi rr1213 :tiphat:

You do realize that it is impossible dont you? I mean that literally: it is literally impossible to “discern” what the canon is. You may come to an intellectual opinion one way or the other, but that is simply an intellectual excercise and nothing more.
Also, if you follow that path, how have you determined that your personal discernment obviates the discernment of the earliest Christians? The need to figure out what is the canon of Scripture is the beginning of the end of Sola Scriptura.

There is nothing that is “deteminative” of the question apart from the authority of the Church. That is the whole problem. Without an authority to declare what is Scripture, we have no Scripture. All the rest is simply an attempt at a “degree of certainty”.
The fact is that a canon was set relatively early on at the councils of Carthage and Hippo. On what basis are they discredited? Very late and weak evidence. In addition, the vast majority of citations from Christ confirm the validity of the Septuagint which
includes the same OT canon Catholics have maintained. Is there a single Christian source which claims the Protestant canon prior to 1500? How much “discernment” does this require?
Click to expand...
There are theological and historical arguments for, and against, these books being treated as scripture. Personally, I know little about them even though, as a former Episcopalian, I belonged to one of the few (only?) Protestant Churches that paid even minimal attention to them. I think I can safely say that most Protestants… people who, after all, know their bibles quite well in most cases… know nothing about the Apocrypha/DC books. Since Protestants don’t accept them as canon, and Catholics do, and since I cannot accept them as canon simply because the Catholics say they are canon (since, as a Protestant, I do not accept the Catholic position of authority), then I’m stuck with looking at the issue on my own. (Wow, that last sentence has so many dependent clauses that maybe I should repost the thing!).
 
lak611 said:
Jesus and the apostles never quoted anything from Song of Solomon (or Song of Songs) either, but that book is recognized as canonical by all Christian faiths, Catholic, Orthodox and Protestant.
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I would agree. My point is that the mere fact that Christ or his apostles quoted from a book, or didn’t quote from a book, is not determinative in and of itself as to whether the book is canon.
 
Personally, the thing that convinced me, was the fact that the Deuterocanon had been in all Bibles for centuries.
The books were removed, as far as my research has shown me, for largely financial reasons: they took more paper & bigger Bibles=more shipping costs. As a result, they began to be left out of (Protestant) Bibles in the 18th & 19th centuries. (A few Puritan Bibles in America had them left out earlier).
I decided that if they had been accepted for that long, by the greater part of the church, that I would have to fly in the face of reason to reject them.
Besides, once I began reading them, I discovered so much inspiration! (Yes, I know, that is very Protestant & subjective of me, but I am Methodist, after all!)
So, looking into the history of their use is another avenue to consider…
 
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