" Two of the reasons I don't accept them as god breathed"

[jcrichton]

There was, but that has nothing to do with what the Church had decreed in the fourth century. Every Bible from the early fifth century to the Reformation includes the deuterocanonical books. Even Wycliffe’s Bible included them. That term, by the way, didn’t exist until after the Reformation; before then, the Church didn’t differentiate between those seven and the rest of the Old Testament. I’d recommend a look at this site for more details:

newadvent.org/cathen/03267a.htm

The Middle Ages dissenters were focusing on Jerome’s own disagreement with the Church on the canonicity of the Seven. However, what must be crystal clear is that regardless of his personal feelings on the matter, St. Jerome assented to Rome’s decision and included the Seven in his translation of the Vulgate. He recognized that the Church, not he, had the authority to make that determination.

Hi!

…I’ve highlight the text which demonstrates the actual problem that most dissenters have… they refused to submit to the Church’s Authority because they themselves want to be their own authority!

…so when they come across an issue that shows disparity or contestation they focus on the disagreement and ignores the Church’s Decrees… thank God that most us are not kings and heads of state or there would be zillions of ‘inspired by the Holy Spirit, true church of “xyz’s”’

Maran atha!

Angel

 

[Porknpie]

What about his statement that the catholic encyclopedia claims that throughout the middle ages there was widespread disagreement?

Ask him to cite a bible after 400 ad, before 1500 ad, that excluded the deuteros.

And if he has an infinity for Saint Jerome, you can ask him about this Catholic Saint’s belief in the Eucharist, the TRUE Sacrament of the Passover:

“After the type had been fulfilled by the Passover celebration and He had eaten the flesh of the lamb with His Apostles, He takes bread which strengthens the heart of man, and goes on to the true Sacrament of the Passover, so that just as Melchisedech, the priest of the Most High God, in prefiguring Him, made bread and wine an offering, He too makes Himself manifest in the reality of His own Body and Blood.” “Commentaries on the Gospel of Matthew” [4,26,26] 398 A.D.

Ask him to to cite:

• a Christian prior to 1500 ad who professed believe in a Symbolic Only Lord’s Supper. If he finds one, what authority did they have … from whom?
• who in John 6 (and the 1st para in Chp 7), the Bread of Life discourse, took Jesus as speaking Symbolically Only

[SIGN]The Truth Matters … a PHD Not So Much[/SIGN]

 

[goout]

1. No direct quotes from any of them in the NT texts;

The bible is not a self-referentiary book. It only lives and breathes in a community. The bible is part of “the whole” context, meaning the whole context of God’s community it lives in, and the context of the whole of it’s literature. It’s not meant to be used to exclude God’s inspiration based on rigid literal self-referencing.
The book does not define itself or stand on it’s own.

It’s a little like claiming that an acorn is not part of the tree because I don’t see an acorn. The acorn is part of the organic thing that is a tree even thought the tree does’t explicitly “reference” it or make it obvious. It is part of the thing that lives.

You run into endless circular problems when you demand that scripture justify and explicate itself.

 

[patrick457]

There was, but that has nothing to do with what the Church had decreed in the fourth century. Every Bible from the early fifth century to the Reformation includes the deuterocanonical books. Even Wycliffe’s Bible included them. That term, by the way, didn’t exist until after the Reformation; before then, the Church didn’t differentiate between those seven and the rest of the Old Testament. I’d recommend a look at this site for more details:

newadvent.org/cathen/03267a.htm

The Middle Ages dissenters were focusing on Jerome’s own disagreement with the Church on the canonicity of the Seven. However, what must be crystal clear is that regardless of his personal feelings on the matter, St. Jerome assented to Rome’s decision and included the Seven in his translation of the Vulgate. He recognized that the Church, not he, had the authority to make that determination.

Technically, it wasn’t even St. Jerome that compiled the Vulgate. He just revised the Latin translation of the gospels used in Rome in 382 and much later (390-405), made fresh translations of the 24 or 39 OT protocanonical books out of the Hebrew - with the ‘extra’ bits of Daniel and Esther from the Greek - and two deutero’s (Tobit and Judith) from late Aramaic versions. At some point, these works of his were combined with Latin versions of other biblical books (some are edited to become closer to Jerome’s style, but we don’t know who worked on them) and a few non-canonical ones such as the Prayer of Manasses. This collection in turn became known as the versio vulgata “the common(ly-used) version” - although it wasn’t called that until the Middle Ages.

That being said, you do see an evolution in St. Jerome’s thought as he was working on the OT. At first you can tell he didn’t like the deuterocanonicals that much (Prologue to Kings: “This prologue to the Scriptures may be appropriate as a helmeted introduction to all the books which we turn from Hebrew into Latin, so we may be able to know whatever is outside of these is set aside among the apocrypha”), then later claimed that “just as the Church also reads the books of Judith, Tobias, and the Maccabees, but does not receive them among the canonical Scriptures, so also one may read these two scrolls for the strengthening of the people, (but) not for confirming the authority of ecclesiastical dogmas” (Prologue to the Books of Solomon), then much later he was finally admitting that Judith was “found by the Nicene Council to have been counted among the number of the Sacred Scriptures,” (Prologue to Judith) which was the reason he agreed to even translate it.