What Catholics Should Know about the Bible, EWTN Program written by Matthew Arnold

[Crumpy]

I’m surprised that no one else has started a thread on this program which ran 1/9/2011 on EWTN.

The one-hour program had been “edited for television” – it said during the introduction. No doubt that it was, because it was very fast paced. I had to record the program when it was re-run, to reinforce a couple new points I picked up in the program.

It was a good program based on traditional Catholic scholarship. But, the wording of a couple points rankled me bit.

One of the speakers was talking about the first five books of the Bible and referred to it as the Torah, meaning “the law.” Well, from my reading of Jewish Bible commentaries, the Jews point out that is a mistranslation; torah means “instruction.” Well, in some of these same Jewish commentaries, they ALSO refer to Torah as “the law.” It’s just a bit of a rough edge, making a point about this word. I’m sure that there is a deeper level to this particular subject, into which I will not descend at this time.

The most interesting part to me was about what Martin Luther did with the Bible, removing seven books that he apparently didn’t agree with. His rationale was that those books were, in his day, only based on the Greek Septuagint version of the Hebrew Bible. He said he agreed with the rabbis that the only “canonical” or approved books were those that were written in Hebrew.

Well that argument “sailed” for better than 400 years, and the Catholic Church stuck to its position of the canonicity of the Septuagint version of the Bible.

This old disagreement came alive in the late 1940’s with the discoveries of the Dead Sea Scrolls at Qumran. first, this finding was remarkable, because they were the oldest versions of the Hebrew books of the Bible. But, even more interesting, they contained the disputed “apocryphal” (hidden) books – IN HEBREW. Duh. These books, which the Catholic Church accepted, WERE written in Hebrew. Hey, take that, Marty.

There were three scheduled airings of this program, but I bet it will come around again.

You can get a DVD copy, if you are interested, at www.matthewarnold.org (or .com, whatever).

( I was just looing up the internet to see if I could validate this point about the “appocryphal” books being in Hebrew. I did. But, the bias of the internet entry was that the Dead Sea Scrolls contained “the apocrypha.” Well, they weren’t called apocrypha back then, so there is no reason to believe that they were not considered canonical or approved to the Jewish sect of Essenes who produced these. On the other hand, those scrolls included some books that nobody today consdiers inspired. So, the controversy rages on, I guess)

 

[ddeluna]

How interesting. Would love to have seen this. I’ll go to Matthew’s site and search for it. What was the name of this program, or is it what’s in the subject - What Catholics Should Know about the Bible?

 

[melchesidechpio]

I’m surprised that no one else has started a thread on this program which ran 1/9/2011 on EWTN.

The one-hour program had been “edited for television” – it said during the introduction. No doubt that it was, because it was very fast paced. I had to record the program when it was re-run, to reinforce a couple new points I picked up in the program.

It was a good program based on traditional Catholic scholarship. But, the wording of a couple points rankled me bit.

One of the speakers was talking about the first five books of the Bible and referred to it as the Torah, meaning “the law.” Well, from my reading of Jewish Bible commentaries, the Jews point out that is a mistranslation; torah means “instruction.” Well, in some of these same Jewish commentaries, they ALSO refer to Torah as “the law.” It’s just a bit of a rough edge, making a point about this word. I’m sure that there is a deeper level to this particular subject, into which I will not descend at this time.

The most interesting part to me was about what Martin Luther did with the Bible, removing seven books that he apparently didn’t agree with. His rationale was that those books were, in his day, only based on the Greek Septuagint version of the Hebrew Bible. He said he agreed with the rabbis that the only “canonical” or approved books were those that were written in Hebrew.

Well that argument “sailed” for better than 400 years, and the Catholic Church stuck to its position of the canonicity of the Septuagint version of the Bible.

This old disagreement came alive in the late 1940’s with the discoveries of the Dead Sea Scrolls at Qumran. first, this finding was remarkable, because they were the oldest versions of the Hebrew books of the Bible. But, even more interesting, they contained the disputed “apocryphal” (hidden) books – IN HEBREW. Duh. These books, which the Catholic Church accepted, WERE written in Hebrew. Hey, take that, Marty.

There were three scheduled airings of this program, but I bet it will come around again.

You can get a DVD copy, if you are interested, at www.matthewarnold.org (or .com, whatever).

( I was just looing up the internet to see if I could validate this point about the “appocryphal” books being in Hebrew. I did. But, the bias of the internet entry was that the Dead Sea Scrolls contained “the apocrypha.” Well, they weren’t called apocrypha back then, so there is no reason to believe that they were not considered canonical or approved to the Jewish sect of Essenes who produced these. On the other hand, those scrolls included some books that nobody today consdiers inspired. So, the controversy rages on, I guess)

very informative, I wish I got to see the program. God bless EWTN and the people associated with putting the program together

 

[Crumpy]

Yes, that is the name of the program.

The first showing was 1/9/11 at 10 p.m. and then there were two replays scheduled for this week.

You might be able to look for other viewing times, at the EWTN website.

The program was “edited for television” down to an hour’s broadcast, so I don’t know how long it is, in DVD form.

With my level of informal study, most of the teaching in the program was stuff I was aware of. But, there was some things that were new to me, as I explained in Post #1.

The program starts right at the beginning, so to speak, explaining basic stuff like that the Bible is divided into two sections, the Old Testament and the New Testament.

I had a couple technical quibbles with some of the points that were made.

One speaker called Deuteronomy “the testament of Moses.” Well, no. Not at all. Deuteronomy means “second law” or something close to that. It’s the second statement of the covenant law, by Moses. And, at the end it has Moses’ fairwell speech to Israel, inasmuch as God had willed that Moses would not enter the promised land. Moses restated the covenant to Israel, just before they marched into the Holy Land. Recall, the first statement of the covenant in Exodus was some 38 years earlier, after the Sinai event. This statement shot by real fast in the program, so nobody would generally get hung up on it. But, those words, “testament of Moses” - uh uh, no, it’s NOT the testament of Moses.

There were one or two other points that gave me similar heartburn. But, it’s good to see EWTN making the effort to bring Biblical study back to the network. EWTN is the “eternal word” network. I wish they spent more time formally presenting the “eternal word” – please.

 

[patrick457]

This old disagreement came alive in the late 1940’s with the discoveries of the Dead Sea Scrolls at Qumran. first, this finding was remarkable, because they were the oldest versions of the Hebrew books of the Bible. But, even more interesting, they contained the disputed “apocryphal” (hidden) books – IN HEBREW. Duh. These books, which the Catholic Church accepted, WERE written in Hebrew. Hey, take that, Marty.

To be more specific, what was found were:

• Five fragments of Tobit (four in Aramaic, one in Hebrew) from Cave 4. The oldest (4QTobit[sup]d[/sup]ar) dates from 100 BC, the latest copy (4QTobit[sup]e[/sup], in Hebrew) from around 30 BC-AD 20. Because of damage and deterioration, none of these scrolls were completely preserved, but all fourteen chapters are represented. The best-preserved of the five is 4QpapTobit[sup]a[/sup]ar, which contains portions of chapters 1-7 and 12-14. In contrast, very little text is preserved in 4QTobit[sup]c[/sup]ar (14:2-6:10?) and 4QTobit[sup]d[/sup]ar (7:11; 14:10) (For the record, it is thought more likely that Tobit was originally written in Aramaic!)
• Only three copies containing text from Ben Sira (Sirach) were found among the scrolls, in contrast to the several 11th-12th substantial copies found in the Cairo Genizah during the 19th century, which provide two-thirds of the whole book. Two of these, preserving portions of just three chapters, were discovered at Qumran, with the third manuscript, representing six chapters, was found at Masada. These texts are in substantial agreement with the ones discovered in Cairo, although there are numerous minor textual variants. The fragment found in Cave 2 of Qumran (2QSir), dating at least to the mid-1st century BC, apparently contained the Hebrew text of some or all of Sirach as found in Greek manuscripts. The second text, found in Cave 11, however, which originally contained the entire second canticle after the epilogue (Sirach 51:13-30) is not from a manuscript of Sirach at all, but part of the Great Psalms Scroll (11QPs[sup]a[/sup]) and was copied later than 2QSir. The largest scroll, containing Sirach 39:27-44:17 (ca. 40 BC-AD 20?), was discovered at Masada, the famous Jewish fortress destroyed in AD 73-74.
• The Epistle of Jeremiah, often bound up with the book of Baruch, is represented by a single manuscript in Greek (pap7QEpJer gr), which probably contained only the Letter and not the first five chapters of Baruch, none of which has been found in Qumran or other Judean sites. Even then, this fragment is in a bad state: only two words (therefore and them!) and parts of seven others have survived.

That’s about it. We do not have copies of Baruch, Judith, 1 and 2 Maccabees, and Wisdom of Solomon. The book of Esther is also not among the DSS, and the eight manuscripts of Daniel found in Qumran - two in Cave 1, five in Cave 4, and one in Cave 6, all written within a space of 125 BC (the earliest copy 4QDan[sup]c[/sup]) up to AD 50 (the latest copy 4QDan[sup]b[/sup]) - are all incomplete, and seven of the eight manuscripts seem to contain the shorter Hebrew form instead of the longer Septuagint version. (In 1QDan[sup]b[/sup] and 4QDan[sup]d[/sup] for example, Daniel 3:23 is not followed by the Prayer of Azariah, but continues on to 3:24). The eighth manuscript, 4QDan[sup]e[/sup], meanwhile is possible to have been an abbreviated text that included only the prayer of Daniel (9:4b-19), since it preserves text only from chapter 9.

BTW, it is indeed quite likely that a few of the Deutero’s were not written in either Hebrew and Aramaic at all. We have for example 2 Maccabees, which claims to be an abdrigement of a five-volume work by a ‘Jason of Cyrene’. Wisdom of Solomon is believed to have been originally penned in Greek but patterned after Hebrew verse.

By contrast, we have a Hebrew text of Psalm 151, found in the Septuagint - and accepted by the Eastern Orthodox as canonical - preserved in column 28 of the Great Psalms Scroll (11QPs[sup]a[/sup]) found in Cave 11! The difference between the Hebrew and the Greek here is, while the Septuagint presents it as a single psalm, the 11QPs[sup]a[/sup] has two distinct psalms (151A and 151B) each with its own superscription and with the second psalm beginning on a new line. The superscriptions are noticeable more Davidic than the Septuagint’s, which declare the psalm to be “outside the number,” perhaps reflecting the concerns of later editors about the place of the psalm at a time when the Proto-Masoretic psalter of 150 compositions was becoming or had become normative for Judaism. Heck, aside from Psalm 151, we even have the Hebrew texts of Psalms 154 and 155 (until then extant only in Syriac)!

 

[patrick457]

The most interesting part to me was about what Martin Luther did with the Bible, removing seven books that he apparently didn’t agree with. His rationale was that those books were, in his day, only based on the Greek Septuagint version of the Hebrew Bible. He said he agreed with the rabbis that the only “canonical” or approved books were those that were written in Hebrew.

Well that argument “sailed” for better than 400 years, and the Catholic Church stuck to its position of the canonicity of the Septuagint version of the Bible.

Specifically, what Luther did was make a separate section in his Bible labeled ‘Apocrypha’ and put all the books he found the Jews of his time were not accepting as canonical there. He even never translated them directly, largely leaving the work to his confreres Philipp Melanchthon and Justus Jonas. They were not listed in the table of contents of his 1523 Old Testament, and the 1534 Bible even has the heading: “APOCRYPHA, that is, Books which are not to be esteemed like the Holy Scriptures, and yet which are useful and good to read.”

Luther placed them last in order (and omitted them from the table of contents, and never considered them as part of the inspired word of God ), yes, but he did not remove them from his editions of the Scriptures. The only books he removed entirely that were in the Latin Vulgate was 1 and 2 Esdras (Prayer of Manasseh was also absent, but who’s looking?)