Why did the RCC change the Bible?

[Steadfast]

But you don’t have to be “the expert” to comment on the clear inclusion of the deuterocanonicals by three councils in the 4th century (and the lack of their rejection by any councils), and on the obvious contradiction if, at the very same time, the Church was accepting and promoting as an accurate reflection of that canon, a bible translation that excluded these books.

Okay, then, what are you asking me for that I haven’t already told you?

 

[VociMike]

Okay, then, what are you asking me for that I haven’t already told you?

At this point I don’t even know any more.

 

[Mr.Ex_Nihilo]

This thread has been amusing to read, if not a bit confusing.

 

[Steadfast]

At this point I don’t even know any more.

Me neither.

Would you like a beer?

 

[Mr.Ex_Nihilo]

Me neither.

Would you like a beer?

I could use one, but I’ll be working later today.

Don’t want to show up to work with alcohol on my breath-- let alone, drinking and driving.

ps: I know this wasn’t directed towards me, but…

 

[Mystophilus]

I am afraid that the people who put up those sites may have been misinformed, or, as is so often the case among humans, one was misinformed and the others repeated what that one said. I have done some more searching, and have still not found any archaeological catalogue of the scrolls which does include any of the seven texts found in the Catholic canon and not in the Hebrew one.

It is quite possible that someone read about the Scrolls containing ‘most of the Apocrypha’, and took this to mean most of the seven texts sometimes included in Protestant Bibles as ‘Apocrypha’, when the reference actually applies to the Hebrew Apocrypha, i.e., those Jewish religious writings not included in the Tanakh. The Scrolls include an impressive collection of those, numerous partial copies of Torah texts, and not a great deal else.

I will hopefully be able to get into university tomorrow, and I will see if I can find other lists in the theological journals, but I am beginning to suspect that it was all a mistake.

Having said all of this, it is not particularly surprising. Following Alexander’s conquests, Greek became the language of education in West Asia and in Egypt. Everyone wrote everything in Greek, because then everyone else who was educated would understand it, i.e., the same situation as held for Latin in the West until the C19th. Jews writing for Jews, such as Philo of Alexandria and Flavius Josephus, were no exception.

 

[Melanie01]

The first I have heard this…it was the Protestant Luther who expurgated the Bible of the bits he did not like not the other way round…

 

[VociMike]

Me neither.

Would you like a beer?

We’re a margarita family, and Friday is only a day away…

 

[sterryfamily]

Considering that the Essenes also had both Hebrew and LXX versions of texts, e.g., Exodus, we can safely say that they were not prejudiced against translations, which makes it all the more difficult to assert that the Hebrew version of Ecclesiasticus must be an original.

Just an ignorant question; Do we know of any “originals” anywhere? What is “an original”?

 

[Black_Knight_MI]

That’s fine. So you dispute the opinion of Dr. de Hamel.

Why?

Well…[SIGN]Hello Steadfast![/SIGN]
Guys, SF here is from CARM and in spite of his contentions with the Catholics there he has been more considerate and charitable to us there than probably 95% of their n-C/a-C members. I’m glad to see that he finally found his way over here. (BTW SF, Thanks again for the kind words on your thread the other day. It was a rare breath of welcome fresh air!)

Okay…on to topic. Steadfast, I ask that you read and consider this article from one of our Catholic experts. It’s called "5 Myths about 7 Books" and was written by Mark Shea.

Here’s an excerpt, but the whole article is very good and relative to your point.

Myth 1

The deuterocanonical books are not found in the Hebrew Bible. They were added by the Catholic Church at the Council of Trent after Luther rejected it.

The background to this theory goes like this: Jesus and the Apostles, being Jews, used the same Bible Jews use today. However, after they passed from the scene, muddled hierarchs started adding books to the Bible either out of ignorance or because such books helped back up various wacky Catholic traditions that were added to the gospel. In the 16th century, when the Reformation came along, the first Protestants, finally able to read their Bibles without ecclesial propaganda from Rome, noticed that the Jewish and Catholic Old Testaments differed, recognized this medieval addition for what it was and scraped it off the Word of God like so many barnacles off a diamond. Rome, ever ornery, reacted by officially adding the deuterocanonical books at the Council of Trent (1564-1565) and started telling Catholics “they had always been there.”

This is a fine theory. The problem is that its basis in history is gossamer thin. As we’ll see in a moment, accepting this myth leads to some remarkable dilemmas a little further on.

The problems with this theory are first, it relies on the incorrect notion that the modern Jewish Bible is identical to the Bible used by Jesus and the Apostles. This is false. In fact, the Old Testament was still very much in flux in the time of Christ and there was no fixed canon of Scripture in the apostolic period. Some people will tell you that there must have been since, they say, Jesus held people accountable to obey the Scriptures. But this is also untrue. For in fact, Jesus held people accountable to obey their conscience and therefore, to obey Scripture insofar as they were able to grasp what constituted “Scripture.”

Consider the Sadducees. They only regarded the first five books of the Old Testament as inspired and canonical. The rest of the Old Testament was regarded by them in much the same way the deuterocanon is regarded by Protestant Christians today: nice, but not the inspired Word of God. This was precisely why the Sadducees argued with Jesus against the reality of the resurrection in Matthew 22:23-33: they couldn’t see it in the five books of Moses and they did not regard the later books of Scripture which spoke of it explicitly (such as Isaiah and 2 Maccabees) to be inspired and canonical. Does Jesus say to them “You do greatly err, not knowing Isaiah and 2 Maccabees”? Does He bind them to acknowledge these books as canonical? No. He doesn’t try to drag the Sadducees kicking and screaming into an expanded Old Testament. He simply holds the Sadducees accountable to take seriously the portion of Scripture they do acknowledge: that is, He argues for the resurrection based on the five books of the Law. But of course, this doesn’t mean Jesus commits Himself to the Sadducees’ whittled-down canon.(Cont’d)

 

[Black_Knight_MI]

When addressing the Pharisees, another Jewish faction of the time, Jesus does the same thing. These Jews seem to have held to a canon resembling the modern Jewish canon, one far larger than that of the Sadducees but not as large as other Jewish collections of Scripture. That’s why Christ and the Apostles didn’t hesitate to argue with them from the books they acknowledged as Scripture. But as with the Sadducees, this doesn’t imply that Christ or the Apostles limited the canon of Scripture only to what the Pharisees acknowledged.

When the Lord and His Apostles addressed Greek-speaking Diaspora Jews, they made use of an even bigger collection of Scripture - the Septuagint, a translation of the Hebrew Scriptures into Greek - which many Jews (the vast majority, in fact) regarded as inspired Scripture. In fact, we find that the New Testament is filled with references to the Septuagint (and its particular translation of various Old Testament passages) as Scripture. It’s a strange irony that one of the favorite passages used in anti-Catholic polemics over the years is Mark 7:6-8. In this passage Christ condemns “teaching as doctrines human traditions.” This verse has formed the basis for countless complaints against the Catholic Church for supposedly “adding” to Scripture man-made traditions, such as the “merely human works” of the deuterocanononical books. But few realize that in Mark 7:6-8 the Lord was quoting the version of Isaiah that is found only in the Septuagint version of the Old Testament.

But there’s the rub: The Septuagint version of Scripture, from which Christ quoted, includes the Deuterocanonical books, books that were supposedly “added” by Rome in the 16th century. And this is by no means the only citation of the Septuagint in the New Testament. In fact, fully two thirds of the Old Testament passages that are quoted in the New Testament are from the Septuagint. So why aren’t the deuterocanonical books in today’s Jewish Bible, anyway? Because the Jews who formulated the modern Jewish canon were a) not interested in apostolic teaching and, b) driven by a very different set of concerns from those motivating the apostolic community.

In fact, it wasn’t until the very end of the apostolic age that the Jews, seeking a new focal point for their religious practice in the wake of the destruction of the Temple, zeroed in with white hot intensity on Scripture and fixed their canon at the rabbinical gathering, known as the “Council of Javneh” (sometimes called “Jamnia”), about A.D. 90. Prior to this point in time there had never been any formal effort among the Jews to “define the canon” of Scripture. In fact, Scripture nowhere indicates that the Jews even had a conscious idea that the canon should be closed at some point.

The canon arrived at by the rabbis at Javneh was essentially the mid-sized canon of the Palestinian Pharisees, not the shorter one used by the Sadducees, who had been practically annihilated during the Jewish war with Rome. Nor was this new canon consistent with the Greek Septuagint version, which the rabbis regarded rather xenophobically as “too Gentile-tainted.” Remember, these Palestinian rabbis were not in much of a mood for multiculturalism after the catastrophe they had suffered at the hands of Rome. Their people had been slaughtered by foreign invaders, the Temple defiled and destroyed, and the Jewish religion in Palestine was in shambles. So for these rabbis, the Greek Septuagint went by the board and the mid-sized Pharisaic canon was adopted. Eventually this version was adopted by the vast majority of Jews - though not all. Even today Ethiopian Jews still use the Septuagint version, not the shorter Palestinian canon settled upon by the rabbis at Javneh. In other words, the Old Testament canon recognized by Ethiopian Jews is identical to the Catholic Old Testament, including the seven deuterocanonical books (cf. Encyclopedia Judaica, vol. 6, p. 1147).

But remember that by the time the Jewish council of Javneh rolled around, the Catholic Church had been in existence and using the Septuagint Scriptures in its teaching, preaching, and worship for nearly 60 years, just as the Apostles themselves had done. So the Church hardly felt the obligation to conform to the wishes of the rabbis in excluding the deuterocanonical books any more than they felt obliged to follow the rabbis in rejecting the New Testament writings. The fact is that after the birth of the Church on the day of Pentecost, the rabbis no longer had authority from God to settle such issues. That authority, including the authority to define the canon of Scripture, had been given to Christ’s Church.

Thus, Church and synagogue went their separate ways, not in the Middle Ages or the 16th century, but in the 1st century. The Septuagint, complete with the deuterocanononical books, was first embraced, not by the Council of Trent, but by Jesus of Nazareth and his Apostles.

 

[Steadfast]

The first I have heard this…it was the Protestant Luther who expurgated the Bible of the bits he did not like not the other way round…

You’re mistaken.

Luther’s Bible contained every book in the current Roman Catholic canon.

 

[Steadfast]

But Blackie,

I am not saying that the RCC “added books at Trent”.

I completely admit that she has, for the vast majority of her history used the Canon that council eventually ratified.

What I disagree with is the idea that this canon has always been, in every place, indisputible.

And, of course, that Luther removed books from the Bible.

He didn’t; however, evidently, Jerome did.

 

[Mommyof02green]

You’re mistaken.

Luther’s Bible contained every book in the current Roman Catholic canon.

Okay, and the Bible that Catholic’s use TODAY is the SAME Bible that was used in Luther’s time!!!

However, today when picking up a copy of the KJV (for example) you will NOT see these following books in the OT: Tobit, Judith, 1 and 2 Maccabees, Wisdom, Barauch, and Sirach (Ecclesiasticus).

Why is that??? If those books were in the Bible that Luther used, why aren’t they in the bible that Lutheran’s use today???

Remember you said: Luther’s Bible contained every book in the current Roman Catholic canon.

Well the current (roman) Catholic Canon in Luther’s time is the SAME canon that is used TODAY, by Catholics. Yet, those books are NOT found in the bibles used today by Lutheran’s Interesting!!! Wouldn’t you say???

You want to say that Jerome made the changes.
Yet, I wonder what year did Jerome live??? What year did Luther live??? Who came first???

If Jerome lived BEFORE Luther and Luther DID NOT make the changes then someone AFTER Luther had to of done it! Right??

 

[Steadfast]

Okay, and the Bible that Catholic’s use TODAY is the SAME Bible that was used in Luther’s time!!!

However, today when picking up a copy of the KJV (for example) you will NOT see these following books in the OT: Tobit, Judith, 1 and 2 Maccabees, Wisdom, Barauch, and Sirach (Ecclesiasticus).

Why is that??? If those books were in the Bible that Luther used, why aren’t they in the bible that Lutheran’s use today???

Remember you said: Luther’s Bible contained every book in the current Roman Catholic canon.

Well the current (roman) Catholic Canon in Luther’s time is the SAME canon that is used TODAY, by Catholics. Yet, those books are NOT found in the bibles used today by Lutheran’s Interesting!!! Wouldn’t you say???

You want to say that Jerome made the changes.
Yet, I wonder what year did Jerome live??? What year did Luther live??? Who came first???

If Jerome lived BEFORE Luther and Luther DID NOT make the changes then someone AFTER Luther had to of done it! Right??

Here’s the point I’ve been making repeatedly:

Luther’s attitude toward and position on all the various books of both Testaments was an attitude and position he was, at the time, entitled to hold due to the fact that he was a Doctor of Sacred Scripture and due to the fact that the Church had not yet formally and irrevocably denied that attitude and position.

So it’s silly for Catholics to constantly bring it up, especially since someone whom they revere as a saint and who lived much closer to the time of the composition of the books in question held a very similar attitude and position.

The Authorized Version of 1611, as originally published, did contain the Deuteros as did Luther’s Deutsche Bibel. But this is not the same thing as saying that the translators accepted them as fully canonical.

The decision to omit them entirely was made later and on the grounds that with Jerome, Luther, Calvin, and several others, they were believed to be in fact not canonical but apocryphal. This opinion was not novel, nor can it be demonstrated to have been incorrect.

It also bears remembering that it’s not as though we went on a campaign to burn every copy of the Deuteros so that no one would ever get hold of them. You can still get them in Protestant Translation. In fact, Penguin Books recently published the AV1611 with the Deuteros, as have the publishers of the RSV, the NRSV and the NEB all of which had a preponderance of Protestants on their translation teams.

I am not particularly interested in whether the Reformers “had the right” to have this opinion and eventually to omit the books or not. For the record, I think they did because the matter had stood in dispute for about 1500 years, (the decisions of local councils not withstanding) and the eventual decision by your church at Trent to put the dispute to rest came too late and from an authority the Reformers did not by that time recognize.

You can say that the later Reformers disputed them because they taught things that Protestants deny, but we can just as easily say that Rome didn’t go the right way and codify the OT Canon at Trent according to Jerome et al. because she needed those books to prop up erroneous doctrines.

Where does this leave us? Neither position can be proven. Both positions are, ultimately useless.

So, I will willingly concede that Reformers after Luther hatched the egg, but it wasn’t one Luther laid. He was just keeping it warm for Jerome.

 

[Mommyof02green]

So, I will willingly concede that Reformers after Luther hatched the egg, but it wasn’t one Luther laid. He was just keeping it warm for Jerome.

That’s the point! Everyone has their own PERSONAL opinions on things! That’ s why there are debates, that’s why there are opposing political parties, that’s why some are pro-choice and others are pro-live. We all have our own PERSONAL opinions on things!

Jerome, very well could of his own PERSONAL opinion, on what should be in the OFFICAL canon, and what should NOT be in the OFFICAL canon. I’m sure that many had their own PERSONAL opinions, however when the OFFICAL canon was made Jerome went with it. Jerome NO longer pushed his PERSONAL opinions, but AGREED with the Church’s OFFICIAL canon.

Granted, the reformer may not of come up with the ideas on “totally” their own. However, they are the ones that pushed it. They are the ones that made it into their agenda, and they were the one that started printing bibles that did not have those books, that I listed earlier, in them.

The reformers, were the ones that “mass produce” the bible without those books. The reformers were the one that made those bibles available for the public, not Jerome.

 

[Steadfast]

That’s the point! Everyone has their own PERSONAL opinions on things! That’ s why there are debates, that’s why there are opposing political parties, that’s why some are pro-choice and others are pro-live. We all have our own PERSONAL opinions on things!

Jerome, very well could of his own PERSONAL opinion, on what should be in the OFFICAL canon, and what should NOT be in the OFFICAL canon. I’m sure that many had their own PERSONAL opinions, however when the OFFICAL canon was made Jerome went with it. Jerome NO longer pushed his PERSONAL opinions, but AGREED with the Church’s OFFICIAL canon.

ACCORDING to Dr. de HAMEL of CAMBRIDGE university Jerome did NO SUCH THING!!!
Prove him WRONG!!!

Granted, the reformer may not of come up with the ideas on “totally” their own. However, they are the ones that pushed it. They are the ones that made it into their agenda, and they were the one that started printing bibles that did not have those books, that I listed earlier, in them.

The reformers, were the ones that “mass produce” the bible without those books. The reformers were the one that made those bibles available for the public, not Jerome.

And Jerome, according to de Hamel, pushed it as well when he refused to translate them and include them in his Vulgate.

Is de Hamel right or wrong? I don’t know. I don’t even care. All I know is that he’s a recognized authority who says what he says.

You can deny him all you like. Believe what you like. That’s your PERSONAL OPINION!!! And you have every right to it.

It just seems that if the contrary were really true you ought to be able to produce a FitzMeyer or Brown to point it out.

 

[Mommyof02green]

ACCORDING to Dr. de HAMEL of CAMBRIDGE university Jerome did NO SUCH THING!!!
Prove him WRONG!!!

He is your source, not mine! So PROVE HIM RIGHT!!!

And Jerome, according to de Hamel, pushed it as well when he refused to translate them and include them in his Vulgate.

Is de Hamel right or wrong? I don’t know. I don’t even care. All I know is that he’s a recognized authority who says what he says.

What does it mater what de Hamel said after all you just said that you don’t even know if it’s right or wrong. You just said that you don’t even care!!!

So if you don’t care if de Hamel is right or wrong, why should I care what he has to say!!! After, all it could just be cow poo, right???

You can deny him all you like. Believe what you like. That’s your PERSONAL OPINION!!! And you have every right to it.

Who am I denying?? A source that by your OWN words can be wrong!! Seeing your source can be wrong it doesn’t matter that my PERSONAL opinion does not agree with it!! right???

It just seems that if the contrary were really true you ought to be able to produce a FitzMeyer or Brown to point it out.

Everything is fair in Love and War!! If your source were RIGHT, you would be able to produce a FitzMeyer or a Brown to prove your point!!!

 

[Steadfast]

Okay, just so I am sure I have it right:

I gave an authority and you’re just rejecting it for no reason other than that you don’t like it, and you’re attempting to hide the fact that you don’t have an answer to it behind a rather puerile attempt to shift burden.

I guess we don’t have anything else to talk about here, then.

I don’t have to “prove” the opinion of an expert. His opinion carries it’s own weight. Accept it or reject it, but if you choose the latter be preapred to be asked why and to provide source material or a corresponding authority.

 

[NotWorthy]

Steadfast, it would simply help if your expert provided even a shred of evidence.

It’s like the entire population thinking the world is flat. Even an expert had to prove that it was round before they could start to believe it. (I figured the analogy would ring true with you after this thread ).