The Deuterocanon - Should It Be Included?

[Pax]

…
…

The concern I’m pointing out is that the Angel’s advice wasn’t something that just looked superstitious. This angel was encouraging Tobit into behavior that specifically violated Yahweh’s commands against magic and sorcery under the penalty of death.

Remember, the Bible forbids every form of spiritistic magic. (Le 19:26; De 18:9-14) Yahweh gave his people some very explicit laws concerning those who were involved with the spiritistic activities. “You must not preserve a sorceress alive.” (Ex 22:18) “You must not practice magic.” “As for a man or woman in whom there proves to be a mediumistic spirit or spirit of prediction, they should be put to death without fail.” (Le 19:26; 20:27) “There should not be found in you . . . a practicer of magic or anyone who looks for omens or a sorcerer, or one who binds others with a spell or anyone who consults a spirit medium.”—De 18:10-14. God would cut off all those who indulged in sorceries. (Mic 5:12) Certain individuals such as Saul, Jezebel, and Manasseh, who forsook Yahweh and turned to sorceries of one kind or another, are examples of the past not to be copied.—1Sa 28:7; 2Ki 9:22; 2Ch 33:1, 2, 6.

I have no problem with the citations you’ve made from the OT in condemning sorcery etc. Catholics would give a grand Amen and high fives to those verses. The problem is that they are not the same as what is going on in Tobit. There is not a single word in Tobit that speaks of magic, mediums, spells, or sorcerers. The angel merely gives a set of instructions for a ritual. This kind of thing is also found elsewhere in the OT. Please carefully explain to me why the following account in Exodus is different from the events in Tobit relative to magic etc. When the angel of death is sent to kill the first born in Egypt Moses is given the following instructions for Passover:

Exodus 12:3-13
Tell all the congregation of Israel that on the tenth day of this month they shall take every man a lamb according to their fathers’ houses, a lamb for a household; and if the household is too small for a lamb, then a man and his neighbor next to his house shall take according to the number of persons; according to what each can eat you shall make your count for the lamb. Your lamb shall be without blemish, a male a year old; you shall take it from the sheep or from the goats; and you shall keep it until the fourteenth day of this month, when the whole assembly of the congregation of Israel shall kill their lambs in the evening. Then they shall take some of the blood, and put it on the two doorposts and the lintel of the houses in which they eat them. They shall eat the flesh that night, roasted; with unleavened bread and bitter herbs they shall eat it. Do not eat any of it raw or boiled with water, but roasted, its head with its legs and its inner parts. And you shall let none of it remain until the morning, anything that remains until the morning you shall burn. In this manner you shall eat it: your loins girded, your sandals on your feet, and your staff in your hand; and you shall eat it in haste. It is the Lord’s passover. For I will pass through the land of Egypt that night, and I will smite all the first-born in the land of Egypt, both man and beast; and on all the gods of Egypt I will execute judgments: I am the Lord. The blood shall be a sign for you, upon the houses where you are; and when I see the blood, I will pass over you, and no plague shall fall upon you to destroy you, when I smite the land of Egypt.

Notice the ritualistic aspects of the Passover. Also notice how following the instructions winds up influencing the actions of the angel of death. I see no real difference between this narrative and that in Tobit in terms of magic, angels, rituals, spells, mediums, and sorcerers.

 

[JohnnyReb]

This is a fascinating topic and it leads to some very real questions as to the degree of “errors” within Scripture. Are we to assume that the 66 books (subtract the Deuterocanon for a second) are without errors? If they contain historic and/or other errors, then it would seem that this is no reason to reject the Deuterocanons…Perhaps to clear this up, it could be stated to what degree Scripture is Spirit-filled/inerrant…

Prayers and petitions,
Alexius

Interesting that some people will want to solve all the “contradictions” that skeptics point out among the 66 books, and claim that all appearent contradictions within those texts can be reconciled, but them turn around and point out “contradictions” within the deutrocanon, and how the deutrocanon contradicts the rest of the Bible. No matter which way one cuts it, they are talking out of both sides of their mouth.

 

[Pax]

Much of the concept of magic-working sorcery is based on the belief that evil spirits can be induced either to leave or to enter a person.

With this in mind, what did the “angel” encourage Tobit to do?

Tobit 6:8, 19 And the angel, answering, said to him: If thou put a little piece of its heart upon coals, the smoke thereof driveth away all kind of devils, either from man or from woman, so that they come no more to them….And on that night lay the liver of the fish on the fire, and the devil shall be driven away.

That is a complete violation of Yahweh’s instructions about how to deal with wicked spirit forces.
…
…

I would disagree since the message to follow the instructions came by way of the angel sent by Yahweh. Likewise, I would suggest that you exercise great caution in this area. Afterall, the Pharisees criticized Jesus in a similar fashion when he exorcised a demon in Matthew 9:32-34. They claimed that “He casts out demons by the prince of demons.” So much seems to be dependent upon perceptions. Even the actions of the Lord were construed by some to be a form of the occult.

Likewise, in the OT we read some rather interesting things about sin offerings. In Leviticus chapter 4, for example, we read all about burning the fat off the entrails and kidneys of the bull upon the altar. The narrative gives highly detailed rituals including taking the rest of the bull outside the camp to be burned with additional ritual. Is this a pagan style practice and is it magical? If I wanted to describe these practices as such, it would certainly be easy to do so.

Here is another interesting account of an angel interacting with men in a way that seems weirdly ritualistic in a fashion not unlike Tobit.

In Judges 6:12-21 we read the following:

And the angel of the Lord appeared to him and said to him, “The Lord is with you, you mighty man of valor.” And Gideon said to him, “Pray, sir, if the Lord is with us, why then has all this befallen us? And where are all his wonderful deeds which our fathers recounted to us, saying, ‘Did not the Lord bring us up from Egypt?’ But now the Lord has cast us off, and given us into the hand of Midian.” And the Lord turned to him and said, “Go in this might of yours and deliver Israel from the hand of Midian; do not I send you?” And he said to him, “Pray, Lord, how can I deliver Israel? Behold, my clan is the weakest in Manasseh, and I am the least in my family.” And the Lord said to him, “But I will be with you, and you shall smite the Midianites as one man.” And he said to him, **“If now I have found favor with thee, then show me a sign that it is thou who speakest with me. Do not depart from here, I pray thee, until I come to thee, and bring out my present, and set it before thee.” And he said, “I will stay till you return.” So Gideon went into his house and prepared a kid, and unleavened cakes from an ephah of flour; the meat he put in a basket, and the broth he put in a pot, and brought them to him under the oak and presented them. And the angel of God said to him, “Take the meat and the unleavened cakes, and put them on this rock, and pour the broth over them.” And he did so. Then the angel of the Lord reached out the tip of the staff that was in his hand, and touched the meat and the unleavened cakes; and there sprang up fire from the rock and consumed the flesh and the unleavened cakes; **and the angel of the Lord vanished from his sight.

It seems that we have another ritual involving an angel that one could interpret as magical and of the occult if one chose to do so.

 

[JMBNH]

Wisdom of Solomon 2:12-20
“Let us lie in wait for the righteous man,
because he is inconvenient to us and opposes our actions;
he reproaches us for sins against the law,
and accuses us of sins against our training.
He professes to have knowledge of God,
and calls himself a child of the Lord.
He became to us a reproof of our thoughts;
the very sight of him is a burden to us,
because his manner of life is unlike that of others,
and his ways are strange.
We are considered by him as something base,
and he avoids our ways as unclean;
he calls the last end of the righteous happy,
and boasts that God is his father.
Let us see if his words are true,
and let us test what will happen at the end of his life;
for if the righteous man is God’s son, he will help him,
and will deliver him from the hand of his adversaries.
Let us test him with insult and torture,
that we may find out how gentle he is,
and make trial of his forbearance.
Let us condemn him to a shameful death,
for, according to what he says, he will be protected.”

How is this NOT inspired?

Also Daniel has chronological errors, it seems to be a series of events spread over a long time (100 years) and the names of Kings are all wrong, often very wrong. Even King Nebuchadrezzar’s name is spelt wrong

 

[Pax]

Steve,

Others have addressed the issue of biblical accuracy. I will add but one thing. Non-believers reject the bible entirely and attack it based upon science and history. My response is always the same. The bible is not a science book and it is not a history book. The bible is a spiritual book which contains some history and even some science. Furthermore, the bible is written in a social and cultural milieu that is consistent with middle eastern peoples of that era. The historical content is written the way peoples of the time would have written it. This is far different from the way modern western historians write historical accounts.

When these things are taken into consideration along with other types of things that come into play in scripture, one begins to appreciate the fact that these kinds of attacks are inappropriate. This is one of the reasons your concerns can be leveled at so many of the OT books with equal power and effect in how they might apply to Tobit.

Scripture is simply something cosmically and spiritually special. It is what it is, and it cannot be understood and appreciated without taking many disparate factors into account. God is speaking to us in the language of men. God’s message is bigger than the language of men, the intellect of men, and the understandings of men. Nevertheless, God communicates things to us about Himself and His infinite qualities using men and the language of men. This requires more than simple prose and historical data. Likewise, the presentation in the language of men was to be understood by the people that lived at the time of the writings. It was handed to them in terms that they understood. The historical data was presented in the way they understood history. The meanings were clear to them even though we might detect a difficulty in the historical chronology. For the Israelites these things did not represent errors. They knew full well the actual order of things. The writings had their own meaning and significance as written.

I hope this helps.

 

[inthecloud]

The fact of the matter is that you have no idea what the Septuagint at that time contained because the earlies copies of the Septuagint -Vaticanus, Sinaiticus, and Alexandrius have diffferent books. And that is 500 years later!

Unless those book crept inside the Bible alone and unnoticed, a potentialy bigger feat than the self attesting book, we asume that those books were recognized as past of the collection and so did most of the first christians that did a lot of preaching and commentary on some of those books. The fact is that for every Melito, Jerome or Athanasius who arged against keeping those books as Scripture, there were many others ECF that recognized those books as Scripture and just used them. So we can asume that those books were there in the OT collection used by the first christians and that collection as we know was the Septuagint.
And no it was not a evil Papist plot to put those books in the Bible, they were just there them. The fact is that the debate was to take them out not to put them in.

 

[Yerusalyim]

BibleSteve:
Your problem is that you want to make the book of Tobit to be an historical record, it’s not. The book of Tobit, as many of the books of the Old Testament, are not hisotrical at all but rather are popular stories given divine meanings…what is the meaning of Tobit? Obedience and faith.

Steve,

If the Catholic Church is not the authority that determines which contenders to the bible are truly scripture and which are not…then who is. The bible does NOT define itself.

 

[Pax]

Steve,

If the Catholic Church is not the authority that determines which contenders to the bible are truly scripture and which are not…then who is. The bible does NOT define itself.

Absolutely…if it were not up to the Church over time to determine what was and what was not be part of the canon of scripture, then it would have been necessary for Peter, Paul, James, John, or perhaps the Council in Jerusalem described in ACTS to give us a definitive list of books. There is no in between…some authority needed to make the decisions about what were the inspired books. Interestingly enough, post Reformation non-Catholics don’t seem to have a problem doing that for themselves.

 

[MarcoPolo]

This is no different than the book of Numbers and the bronze serpent. Since you accept the Book of Numbers should I surmise that you accept superstitious practices and that you believe that the book encourages superstitious practices concerning snake venom and the cure by way of a bronze serpent? Should I make accusations against the Book of Numbers because of the narrative on the serpent bites and the cure via the bronze serpent as ordered by God and carried out by Moses? Should this be a test of the canonicity of the Book of Numbers? Does this narrative justify rejecting the Book of Numbers? Some how I don’t think it does, and I don’t think your attack on Tobit does so either.

Pax, I gotta say some of your answers in this thread are as good as the best apologists could have done.

 

[Pax]

That was a way over the top compliment especially coming from someone whose efforts I highly respect. Thanks for the kind words.

 

[BibleSteve]

I also think Pax did a very good job at explaining his view in favor of Tobit. Although I disagree with some of his analysis, it served my interest and purpose in understanding how people deal with the red flags I noted.

Some people will believe Tobit is inspired simply because their church organization tells them to. Catholics won’t bat an eye at that sort of “proof”, but will often criticize members of other religions if they say they believe something because their church tells them so. This line of “proof” simply transfers the question about Tobit to the question of who has authority to decide the canon.

Others apparently are not concerned at the major chronological blunder in Tobit, because they think there are similar errors in other inspired books. I have examined the so-called “errors” in the other books and haven’t found them to be errors at all. So, for me this Tobit issue stands out, while for others it’s quickly dismissed.

Lastly, Pax made a compelling argument that the angels telling Tobit to burn fish organs in the fire is similar to other events in the Bible. Certainly, animals were sacrificed and body parts were burnt in the fire. On the surface the activity may look the same, but there is big difference in the purpose and intent of the activity.

Tobit was being asked to involve himself with an activity to ward off Satan. The actions the Israelites were asked to do were not intended to ward off Satan. The whole thing with the passover lamb, the blood, etc. was symbolic of Jesus Christ as the lamb.

The point I was trying to make was about the intent of the activity. Perhaps this distinction is unimportant to others.

For example, if there was a book written 2,000 years ago (like Tobit) that suggested that we regularly meet together to ward off wicked spirits from our towns, passing a goblet of wine, singing, dancing around a fire, sacrificing animals, burning their organs on the fire, bowing to the heavens, perhaps more people might see the point I’m trying to make about intent and question the suggestion the book was making. All these activities, in of themselves are fine, but not if the intent is to actively engage Satan or wicked spirits. There are plenty of Bible commands warning us to stay far away from activities related to demonic spiritism.

Anyways, I applaud Pax for his efforts and appreciate those who contributed to this discussion.

 

[BibleSteve]

Also Daniel has chronological errors, it seems to be a series of events spread over a long time (100 years) and the names of Kings are all wrong, often very wrong. Even King Nebuchadrezzar’s name is spelt wrong

Can you please be more specific? I’d like the opportunity to review the errors you think you’ve found… Thanks…

 

[BibleSteve]

Interesting that some people will want to solve all the “contradictions” that skeptics point out among the 66 books, and claim that all appearent contradictions within those texts can be reconciled, but them turn around and point out “contradictions” within the deutrocanon, and how the deutrocanon contradicts the rest of the Bible. No matter which way one cuts it, they are talking out of both sides of their mouth.

I look at all “contradictions” to see if complaints about them are realistic or can they be easily understood.

In my experience, all are easily easily understood.

I haven’t heard any explanation for the Tobit blunder other than “there’s similar problems elsewhere”. If anyone sees another blunder of this magnitude, please point it out and I’ll answer it. Thanks.

 

[Pax]

Steve,

How do all of the sin offering rituals in the rest of the OT differ in the “magical sense” from the activity described in Tobit?

Also, please explain to me why there is a problem in recognizing one authority over another. If we have competing claims by various churches doesn’t it make sense to analyze and compare the bona-fides of each church. In the case of Christianity this would have to be done by way of apostolic succession and the promises Jesus made to the church that He established.

Catholics have an enormous amount of confidence in the Church because of the bona-fides of the Catholic Church versus those that challenge her.

 

[Pax]

I look at all “contradictions” to see if complaints about them are realistic or can they be easily understood.

In my experience, all are easily easily understood.

I haven’t heard any explanation for the Tobit blunder other than “there’s similar problems elsewhere”. If anyone sees another blunder of this magnitude, please point it out and I’ll answer it. Thanks.

Well, let’s check out the KJV. I believe that you use the New World Translation, so you can compare and see if the same problems are present in your translation.

The Problems are as follows:

1. The scripture specifically mentions seven nations that the Israelites were forbidden to enter into covenants with. All seven are listed in Deuteronomy 7:1. But for some reason, when these “seven” nations are repeated in other parts of scripture, the KJV deletes one of them, the Girgashites. Likewise, Genesis 15:21 lists five nations, but the King James deletes one of them, the “Evites.”
2. In Acts 7:14, Stephen relates the story of the Israelite nation and refers to 75 people who traveled from Canaan to Egypt in the emigration of Jacob’s family. Genesis 46:27 and Exodus 1:5 in the King James falsely states “70.”
3. In the King James bible, 2 Samuel 24:13 says there would be seven years of famine, but 1 Chronicles 21:12 says three years of famine.
4. In the King James bible, 2 Kings 8:26 says Ahaziah was 22 years old when he began his reign, 2 Chronicles 22:2 says he was 42 years old.
5. In the King James Bible, 1 Kings 5:16 says there were 3300 overseers, and 2 Chronicles 2:18, speaking of the same thing, says there were 3600 overseers.
6. Speaking of the same exact event, the King James Bible says there were 700 horsemen in 2 Samuel 8:4, but 7000 horsemen in 1 Chronicles 18:4.
7. In the King James Bible, 1 Kings 7:26 says there were 2000 baths, and 2 Chronicles 4:5 says there were 3000 baths.
8. In the King James Bible, 1 Kings 9:23 says there were 550 people that bear rule, and 2 Chronicles 8:10 says that 250 people bear rule.

 

[Rightlydivide]

Unless those book crept inside the Bible alone and unnoticed, a potentialy bigger feat than the self attesting book, we asume that those books were recognized as past of the collection and so did most of the first christians that did a lot of preaching and commentary on some of those books. The fact is that for every Melito, Jerome or Athanasius who arged against keeping those books as Scripture, there were many others ECF that recognized those books as Scripture and just used them. So we can asume that those books were there in the OT collection used by the first christians and that collection as we know was the Septuagint.
And no it was not a evil Papist plot to put those books in the Bible, they were just there them. The fact is that the debate was to take them out not to put them in.

No dice. The flawed Alexandrian texts had different books for goodness sakes. You can assume nothing or the books would have matched up!
There is not a shred of historical evidence what Deuterocanonical books were part of the LXX at the time of Christ.
These corrupt books that you rely on had different books of the NT as well.

 

[Pax]

No dice. The flawed Alexandrian texts had different books for goodness sakes. You can assume nothing or the books would have matched up!
There is not a shred of historical evidence what Deuterocanonical books were part of the LXX at the time of Christ.
These corrupt books that you rely on had different books of the NT as well.

Please prove this claim.

 

[Rightlydivide]

Please prove this claim.

Well I cannot prove a negative on my LXX statement, so someone would have to post evidence to contradict what I said. My statement is simple. There is no evidence in existence about what books were part of the Deuterocanonical books at the time of Jesus. No archeology. No lists of what books constituted the LXX at the time.

I CAN prove that the earliest copies of the LXX did not have the same books. The most germaine being the OT canon of course:

beutel.narod.ru/write/canon.htm

It cannot be said that the LXX at that time of Jesus contained the Deuterocanon books. There is no proof.

Codex Vaticanus (4th century) has Wisdom, Sirach, Judith, Tobit, Baruch and Letter of Jeremiah.

Codex Sinaiticus (4th century) includes the Jewish OT books plus Tobith, Judith, 1 & 4 Maccabees, Wisdom and Sirach, as well as the 27 NT books plus Shepherd of Hermas and Epistle of Barnabas at the end.

 

[ricko]

Perhaps this explanation from Catholic Answers will help:

Far from presenting an exercise in magic, Tobit presents the ancient Christological symbol of the fish (who is, in Tobit 6:3, literally a catcher of men) salted and roasted on coals (as Christ was scourged and roasted in the sun on the cross) in order to destroy the power of a murderous demon and drive him away from a virginal bride. The fish is used to heal a blind man (cf. John 9) by making things like scales fall from his eyes (cf. Acts 10:18).

Apparent errors are not restricted to Tobit and Judith. The book of Daniel says the Medes were a world power in the era between the neo-Babylonians and the Persians (cf. Dan. 2:31-45, 7:1-7), but no historical evidence confirms it. Belshazzar was never titled a king, despite Daniel’s assertions otherwise, and he was the son of Nabonidus (556-539 B.C), not of Nebuchadnezzar (605-562 B.C.) (cf 5:1-30, 7:1-7, 17, 8:1-27). Daniel records a Darius the Mede. Darius I was really king of Persia (522-486 B.C).

Similarly, other books show dubious statements by the inspired authors. 1 Corinthians 1:15, for example, shows Paul forgetting whom he baptized, while 1 Corinthians 7:12 and 1 Corinthians 7:40 are explicitly asserted to be Paul’s personal opinion, not God’s word. Likewise, many books of Scripture highlight morally dubious acts. The Hebrew midwives lie to Pharaoh (Ex. 1:19), while Judges, in addition to presenting a situation similar to Judith (Judg. 4:17-22), also shows a man who offers his own daughter as a holocaust (Judg. 11:29-40) and another who gives his wife to a crowd to be raped to death in place of himself (Judg. 19:22-30), while Genesis shows Jacob being rewarded for stealing Esau’s birthright (Gen. 25 and 27).

Finally, the lack of quotations applies equally well to Esther, Nehemiah, Canticles, Ecclesiastes, and Ruth-none of which is quoted in the New Testament-yet Enoch and the Assumption of Moses-two apocryphal books-are referred to in the epistle of Jude. If New Testament quotations demonstrate Old Testament canonicity, consistency demands that opponents discard the former books while adding the latter two to the canon of the Old Testament. The earliest Christians would have been amazed at this judgment: while the catacombs have frescoes depicting scenes from the deuterocanonical books-Judith with the head of Holofernes, Tobias with Raphael, Judas Maccabeus, the mother of Maccabees with her seven martyred sons, Daniel in the lion’s den, and the three boys in the fiery furnace-there are no such frescoes from any apocryphal books. Besides, the New Testament does allude to the books: Matthew 22:25-26 echoes Tobit 7:11, 1 Peter 1:6-7 is reminiscent of Wisdom 3:5-6, while Hebrews 1:3 recalls Wisdom 7:26-27. The same lessons are taught in 1 Corinthians 10:9-10 and Judith 8:24-25, and valorous martyrs are provided in both Hebrews 11 and 2 Maccabees 6 and 7.

But what of the second general objection? Who has proper authority to recognize the books of Scripture, each individual Christian or ecumenical councils headed by the pope? Opponents assert that it cannot be the latter, since Trent was the first ecumenical council to use the word “canon” in its definition of inspired books. Such a late definition means Christians were left without a clearly-defined word of God for well over a millennium-a preposterous idea. Trent, they say, arbitrarily added the Old Testament deuterocanonical books to Scripture to protect flawed Catholic theology. This argument ignores history. The canon was ratified in the late fourth and early fifth centuries. The Second Council of Nicaea (787) formally ratified the African Code, which contained what Trent would name “canonical,” while the Council of Florence (1441) defined a list of inspired books identical to both. Although only Trent used the words “canon” and “canonical,” its list was identical with every list the Church had provided since the late 300s. Trent’s Sacrosancta decree (April 8, 1546), the first formal canonical definition of Old and New Testament Scripture, was the third formal affirmation of their inspiration in ecumenical council and at least the eighth affirmation overall.

Steve, if you say that God determined what books were inspired you are correct but you forget that it was men who had the authority (guided by the Holy Spirit) to actually make that determination happen.

 

[Pax]

So…just because the oldest copies that we have in our possession don’t match one another we are therefore to assume that the Deuterocanonicals were not part of the Septuagint. The problem with this is that we can find many collections of writings, scripture among them, that do not match one another perfectly.

The determining factor is the historical one. I think that all of the historical data we have points to the books in question as part of the Septuagint even during the time of Christ. All of the NT allusions to the Deuteros would also indicate that they are part of the Septuagint. Your argument was not an argument or dispute by anyone in the early days of the Church let alone later times. This is for me simply a modern day argument by those that wish to reject the Deuterocanonical books. I think that we can determine what was in the Greek Septuagint based on data that goes beyond the ancient texts that you mentioned. This is part of the detective work.

Likewise, I find the Dead Sea Scrolls to be archaelogical data that would indicate that these writings were used by the Jews before and contemporary with the Septuagint. This also gives credence to the generally accepted view that the Deuterocanonical books were part of the Greek Septuagint.