Was the Church inconsistent with the deuterocanonical books?

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Hi all. So this topic kind of got brought up on another thread but I think it is worth bringing up here.
I was recently reading a book called Evangelicals and Roman Catholics: Agreements and Differences, by Ralph McKenzie and Norman Geisler. In it they make a claim that the Catholic Church was inconsistent and “accepted 2 Maccabees because it seems to justify prayers for the dead and purgatory (Ch 12:38-45), yet it rejected 2(4) Esdras because it seems to deny prayers for the dead (Ch 7:105).”
This has actually been something that I have wondered. The Council of Trent did not as contrary belief seems to say, accept all of the disputed books at the time of the Reformation(deuterocanonical books). Prior to Trent 3 and 4 Esdras( more commonly known today as 1 and 2 Esdras followed 1 and 2 Esdras( more commonly known today as Ezra and Nehemiah. I know, so confusing), and the Prayer of Manasseh followed 2 Chronicles. They were not in Jerome’s Vulgate but seemed to be inserted during the middle ages. They have been quite influential on Catholic liturgy. For example, the antiphon, Eternal rest grant unto them oh Lord, and let perpetual light shine upon them comes from 4 Esdras 2:34-35. It seems the Council of Trent did not receive them into the canon and Clement Vlll put them in an appendix to the Clementine Vulgate in 1592.
They seem to be present in most early Bibles including the KJV(with the rest of the Catholic deuterocanonical book) and Douay Rheims appendix until following the Challoner revision. Actually Anglicans name these three with the Catholic deuterocanonical books in the Book of Common Prayer and although the Anglicans don’t view these as authoratative they say they are good teaching for a way of life and in reality in that church 2 Maccabees and 2(4)Esdras are on the same level.
My question is, is there some sort of inconsistency here? Is the claim in the book by Geisler and McKenzie on to anything?
 
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I assume they are evangelicals. If so, regarding the Catholic Church, they are up to something rather than onto something.

Remember that the disputed writings were all composed in the ancient world - sometimes centuries before Christ. They were then copied and copied and copied and copied again to preserve them. Had they been spurious or inauthentic, I believe they would have perished.

A good short read is 5 myths about 7 books. A good slightly longer read is Where We Got The Bible by Rev. Henry Graham.

The Deuterocanonical books were in the Septuagint collection and something like 90% of OT quotes in the New Testament are from the Septuagint. According to Saint John, Jesus quoted from the Septuagint.
 
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If it helps at all, praying for the dead is a concept from Judaism that persists to this day.
 
Hmm. Based on your account, I would say the key piece of information is the “not in Jerome’s Vulgate but seem to have been added in medieval times” bit. In terms of canonicity, that puts them in a very different place than the deuterocanonicals that were retained because they were on the list (in at least some parts of the Jewish world) since Jesus’ day.

With respect, po18guy, 0Scarlett, you don’t seem to be answering the OP’s actual question. It kind of comes across as seeing certain key words and dispensing the standard Catholic apologetic replies on the general topic rather than engaging with the poster’s actual issue.
 
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I think it’s important to remember too that the orthodoxy of a book was one of the criteria for canonicity. The early Church didn’t derive teaching from the Bible, things got included in the Bible if they lined up with what was already handed down as authentic teaching. So we shouldn’t be surprised if a book was included because it contained a teaching, while another book was rejected because it contradicted that teaching. If anything, that’s a point in favor of the Catholic position.

-Fr ACEGC
 
2 Maccabees was already part of the books read at synagogue liturgy by a lot of Jews outside Israel, and probably by a lot of Pharisee synagogues inside liturgy. This did not become a big deal until after the destruction of the Temple, when it became a thing to deny that books written in Greek, Aramaic, etc., could possibly be sciptural, and when the synagogue books used suddenly became important as Temple sacrifice became impossible.

Christians did not change their opinion that 1 and 2 Maccabees was Scripture, and that a lot of folks mentioned in it were saints. (The mother and her seven sons were extremely popular saints from the earliest times.) It was the Jewish synagogues that changed their minds about it being Scripture. When lists were made and formally defined as a Canon of Bible books, they were just formalizing what was already going on.
 
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2 Esdras, in the other hand, was probably not even written until after Jesus’ Passion and Resurrection, and after the destruction of the Temple et al. Nobody had ever had it in their synagogue. It was not being rejected by Jews or Christians; it was never recognized by them in the first place. It was new Apocrypha, or a new book collecting legendary and visionary material.

So it does seem to have collected a lot of Jewish traditions together in a handy way, and there were Church Fathers who referred to it. But then, the Shepherd of Hermas was also a popular text connected to prophecy and apparitions, and that was also liked but not considered Scripture by the Church.

The only people who considered it as Scripture were the Ethiopians, and they lived really far away from the advice of everyone else. But it was popular and got translated and copied a lot.

I have translated copies of visionary accounts.from Lourdes and Fatima, and I quote them as true prophecy from God and useful; but we don’t take them as Scripture.

So the real comparison is more with the Book of Revelation and the Prophets of the OT; and with the many prophetic books which are mentioned in the histories inside the OT but which were not included in the OT prophetic books; and with approved prophetic texts from throughout Christian history which are not Scripture.
 
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I understand.
But what I’m saying is before the Council of Trent, I’m not sure the common Catholic would have distinguished a difference.
It was popular enough that Columbus used a verse from it to justify his voyage.
So it seems the Protestants would jump on this , to make it seem as though the Church was cherry picking for books that justify its beliefs.
 
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No… The ordinary medieval Catholic knew what was the Bible, and what was just popular ancient spiritual literature.

People quoted St. Boethius’ book The Consolation of Philosophy. It came from the tail end of the ancient world. It was prophetic and visionary in nature, although mostly as a literary device. It included psalm-like poems along with musical settings. It was studied by every schoolboy. It was often found in the same volumes as Bible books, although never in lectionaries used for Mass.

People knew the difference between Boethius and the Book of Wisdom, or the Book of Proverbs, or the Book of Psalms.

The medieval world and way of thinking was all about drawing distinctions and making exceptions. Sheesh, that was why Columbus sailed – he was sure the traditional width of the world and of China were wrong, and that he would therefore be able to reach the east coast of China before his men starved. (Probably because he knew the Portuguese fishermen had been going to a secret land of cod for at least a century; he just thought it was China instead of someplace new.)
 
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I’m sorry but what does this have to do with my question?
As for your answer however, why in that case are 1 Esdras, and 3 and 4 Maccabees not in our Bibles? They were in the Septuagint.
 
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1 Esdras is the Book of Ezra (a slightly different version). We just had that as a Mass reading a couple weeks back… I think the Book of Nehemiah is in there, too , in bits.

There were a lot of different versions of Bible books in the Septuagint, which is why Origen put together a side-by-side comparison collection called the Hexapla. (Now lost.) We have the same situation today with English translations of Bible books, except that we can print them in volumes containing every book of the Bible. Early Christians and earlier Jews in the Greek world had collections of one big or several smaller books, in scrolls (Jewish) or in codex book form (Christians). There are several different versions of the Book of Daniel; some versions are considered Scripture, but the version with Mordecai dreaming of himself as a dragon is not.

For whatever reason, 3 and 4 Maccabees were not read in many of the synagogues or churches, and were popular enough to get copied but were not considered inspired by many.

Usually, you can just read something apocryphal and go, “Yeah, that is not the Word of God. It just isn’t.”
 
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Yah 1 (3) Esdras is basically the last 2 chapters of 2 Chronicles and Ezra-Nehemiah. I believe chapter 3 and 4 have the unique material.
Some have made an interesting claim however. Ezra and Nehemiah were considered one combined book at the time of Jerome.
Some have claimed when Hippo named the books of the Bible, 1(3) Esdras was the “other” Esdras they were referring too.
 
I am probably not explaining this well. You are better off getting books by experts. Gary Michutas has a good one on why Catholic Bibles are bigger, and a lot of other stuff. You can probably find some academic studies, too.

You may be able to find online material by Orthodox and Ethiopian churches on why they accept books that others do not.
 
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No you’re good. It’s an interesting conversation. Thank you.
 
Very simply, the Church got around to testing them and determined that they were not canonical. Whatever writings were put forth as scripture, whatever collections existed were not guaranteed to be canonical until and unless tested by the Church.

As to being “inconsistent” well, the nascent Church was inconsistent about many things until councils were held to settle disputes. Acts 15 the shining example.
 
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I understand that also. I trust the Church.
I just always kind of thought it was strange that we defend the deuterocanonicals by saying something like Catholics use the ancient Green translation of the Old Testament called the Septuagint which was used by early Christians etc etc; but in reality that never really was the case.
When St. Jerome translated the Hebrew and Greek into the Vulgate he had reservations himself about those found in the Greek. He actually did what Luther did later on and put them in an intertestimental section. However soon after the Council of Hippo affirmed them and Jerome accepted. The Church has that authority.
But really only the Orthodox ever strictly used the Septuagint, seeing as it was already in Greek and thus it just made sense they would use it from the beginning. Just saying, I think if we defend the deuterocanonicals by referencing the Septuagint to make a case for why we should accept the books, we also should be ready to explain why there are books in the Septuagint that we don’t accept. ( I only came to know of this a few years back in college when I looked through an Orthodox Study Bible in the library and realized there were a few texts in there that aren’t in our Bibles.
 
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I have always heard the main REASON was “because the church says so” with the added explanation of “oh and by the way, most all are in the Septuagint“. I dont think i have ever heard that the REASON was because they were in the Septuagint.

Peace!!!
 
The only reason to defend any scripture is that the Church has spoken - noting that she is slow to speak, loathe to acttoo quickly and normally sets things in stone in response to heresy.
 
Prodigal1984 said:
I was recently reading a book called Evangelicals and Roman Catholics: Agreements and Differences , by Ralph McKenzie and Norman Geisler. In it they make a claim that the Catholic Church was inconsistent and “accepted 2 Maccabees because it seems to justify prayers for the dead and purgatory (Ch 12:38-45), yet it rejected 2(4) Esdras because it seems to deny prayers for the dead (Ch 7:105).”

For example, the antiphon, Eternal rest grant unto them oh Lord, and let perpetual light shine upon them comes from 4 Esdras 2:34-35. It seems the Council of Trent did not receive them into the canon and Clement Vlll put them in an appendix to the Clementine Vulgate in 1592.
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This is a complicated subject, as you note here: “rejected 2(4) Esdras because it seems to deny prayers for the dead (Ch 7:105).” while using a prayer from it to pray for the dead. So was 4 Esdras rejected for denying prayer for the dead? Maybe, but it probably more nuanced than that since it is used as a source for prayers for the dead.

More broadly, there are several overlapping constituencies deciding what is canonical, so “inconsistency” is likely. Why do “Evangelicals” reject 4 Esdras? Do they accept it as deuterocanonical? What is the consistency they are defending?

The basic guideline is the Hebrew text, shared by Jews and Christians alike though it was defined by the Jews after the time of Christ. Then there are texts that circulated around the time of Christ that were rejcted by the Jews because they were in Greek, not Hebrew.

These are the “Septuagint” though there were several septuagints. People added and subtracted books. Christians added the New Testament. Some Jews added Greek texts like these, and Christians accepted them; these were generally Jews outside Palestine who were not as passionaely committed to Hebrew and the religious culture of Israel. Lots of inconsistency here!

Origen, and then St Jerome, did a masterful job in developing a consistent text called the Vulgate. Even here some choices were made by listening to outside authorities.

And then the bibles were all hand copied for 1000 years. Books that the Fathers cited as scripture, like 1(3) Esdras, were added back etc. Trent finally made a definitive decision of what was in the canon.

And then there is the probable cause of the accusation of inconsistency. The first post Trent Vulgate was issued and criticized, so Pope Clement established a group of scholars that reissued the Vulgate with 5000 corrections. Non Catholic scholars criticized this revising of an established text. And that is probably what is being repeated by McKenzie & Geisler.

That is my guess, hurriedly put together.
 
Well yes.
Most Catholics think what the Protestants call The Apocrypha is just the Catholic deuterocanonical books. And it is for the most part. However it is numbered differently, for example the three additions to Daniel in Catholic Bibles which are The Prayer of Azariah and the Song of the Three Children, Susanna, and Bel and the Dragon are numbered as separate texts.
So in reality the Protestant includes 14 or 15 texts depending on if they consider the Letter of Jeremiah to be separate from Baruch which in our Bible is Chapter 6 of Baruch.
However the standard Protestant Apocrypha contains these three texts as well and is printed with the rest of the deuterocanonical books when they are included in the Bible.

The 39 Articles of the Anglican Church says this regarding the canon of scripture.

Of the Names and Number of the Canonical Books Genesis, The First Book of Samuel, The Book of Esther, Exodus, The Second Book of Samuel, The Book of Job,Leviticus, The First Book of Kings, The Psalms, Numbers, The Second Book of Kings, The Proverbs Deuteronomy, The First Book of Chronicles, Ecclesiastes or Preacher,Joshua, The Second Book of Chronicles, Cantica, or Songs of Solomon,
Judges, The First Book of Esdras, Four Prophets the greater,Ruth, The Second Book of Esdras, Twelve Prophets the less.

And the other Books (as Hierome saith) the Church doth read for example of life and instruction of manners; but yet doth it not apply them to establish any doctrine; such are these following:
The Third Book of Esdras, The rest of the Book of Esther,
The Fourth Book of Esdras, The Book of Wisdom,
The Book of Tobias, Jesus the Son of Sirach,
The Book of Judith, Baruch the Prophet,
The Song of the Three Children, The Prayer of Manasses,The Story of Susanna, The First Book of Maccabees,Of Bel and the Dragon, The Second Book of Maccabees.

All the Books of the New Testament, as they are commonly received, we do receive, and account them Canonical.
 
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