I encourage you to investigate the “21 reasons” for yourself. Get to a good library and verify the claims yourself. Many of them are half-baked, or to be as kind as possible, slanted in the direction the author wishes the information to go.
One claim stands out - that “Jews” never recognized the Septuagint as scripture. Well hello, the Jewish authorities in Jerusalem gave approval to have the Scriptures translated into Greek, and after that - circa 200 BC - the other books were added to the Greek text which was very much in use by Jews throughout the Greek-speaking world, which included Palestine, Syria, and Egypt. Obviously in 200 BC at the time of the translation there was no book of Maccabees because the history recorded in it was still ongoing. That would be like claiming the Bill of Rights isn’t really American because it wasn’t aboard the Mayflower when the Pilgrims landed in Plymouth in 1620.
The Hebrew Canon wasn’t codified until 90 AD, and bear in mind this is 20 years after the Romans destroyed the temple and all but eradicated the Jewish priestly lines. It doesn’t logically follow that because a group of Rabbis decided a Jewish canon that this must, by necessity, follow into the canon of another faith, particularly when we know that other faith was using the Greek text that did included the deuterocanonical books.
Josephus’ opinions are his own. Realize also he is recording the history of Jews IN Jerusalem, not universally. As a historian, his views on a particular canon must be viewed in that light. Would you take the word of a 21st century historian as authoritative if he didn’t think the NT should contain the book of Luke because that’s how they do it in St. Louis?
The 3 summation claims, given as “Catholic reasons,” are:
Early Christians quote from the apocrypha proves it belongs in the Bible
False. No one claims this; what they claim is that it proves the early Christians
used the Greek text of the OT. They couldn’t quote from something they never read. Now, because they used it, it makes evaluating the books in the Greek text a reasonable task, and for almost 400 years these books were used, evaluated, commented on, and ultimately accepted as canon by 3 Councils. If we believe Jesus’ promise that the Holy Spirit would protect the Church He founded, there is no good reason to believe these 3 Councils all escaped that protection.
They were included in the Septuagint.
The answer to this is “The Jews never accepted the Septuagint.” That’s not true, as it WAS accepted until 90AD, particularly in Egypt and other areas of the diaspora where the Hebrew language wasn’t used at all. The books in the Greek text are also found in Hebrew in the Qumran texts (Dead Sea Scrolls), so the idea they weren’t official based on only being in Greek is refuted. But once again, what difference to Christianity does it make if Jews decide their official canon won’t include them? We aren’t Jews.
The Church Councils at Hippo (393) and Carthage (397, 419), listed the apocrypha as Scripture. Since these same councils also finalized the 66 canonical books which all Christians accept, they must accept them all.
The answer given is… ridiculous. It says:
False. The canon of the New Testament was set from the first century. It is Catholic myth that Catholics gave the world the Bible!
First, the NT isn’t at issue here, and it wasn’t completely written yet until (at earliest) the very end of the first century, and possibly 10 or more years into the second century. There are no facts given to support these claims or the claim that it’s a myth the Catholic Church gave the world the bible. If it wasn’t Catholics who did, then who was it? Where is the evidence for some other group doing it? Martin Luther himself said that the world owes thanks to “the Papists” for giving (writing, protecting, passing down) us the scriptures. What other Papists do you think Luther was speaking of if it wasn’t the Catholic Church?
