Why Protestant Bibles Are Smaller

[Thomasbradley312]

Do you really think the Church “cherry picked”?

Not in the sense it may have come off however I do own the NETS or the English translation of the Septuagint and I can tell you there is more books in it than in Catholic Bibles, so something is up.
If you want to defend the Septuagint as the reason why Catholics have more books than Protestants that is fine, but you also should know why the Church doesn’t include all of the books of the Septuagint like the Orthodox if that’s the case. It doesn’t make sense saying we use the longer Septuagint collection but at the same time don’t fully.(Please Note: This uploaded content is no longer available.)

 

[steve-b]

steve-b:

Do you really think the Church “cherry picked”?

Not in the sense it may have come off however I do own the NETS or the English translation of the Septuagint and I can tell you there is more books in it than in Catholic Bibles, so something is up.

From A.D. 382, Decree of Pope Damasus I, Council of Rome, the canon, OT and NT , 73 books by name, hasn’t changed.

From Denzinger - English translation, older numbering

The Canon of Sacred Scripture *

84 “Likewise it has been said: Now indeed we must treat of the divine Scriptures, what the universal Catholic Church accepts and what she ought to shun.

The order of the Old Testament begins here:Genesis one book, Exodus one book, Leviticus one book, Numbers one book, Deuteronomy one book, Joshua Nave one book, judges one book, Ruth one book, Kings four books, Paralipomenon two books, Psalms one book, Solomon three books, Proverbs one book, Ecclesiastes one book, Canticle of Canticles one book, likewise Wisdom one book, Ecclesiasticus one book.

Likewise the order of the Prophets. Isaias one book, Jeremias one book, with Ginoth, that is, with his lamentations, Ezechiel one book, Daniel one book, Osee one book, Micheas one book, Joel one book, Abdias one book, Jonas one book, Nahum one book, Habacuc one book, Sophonias one book, Aggeus one book, Zacharias one book, Malachias one book.

Likewise the order of the histories. Job one book, Tobias one book, Esdras two books, Esther one book, Judith one book, Machabees two books.

Likewise the order of the writings of the New and eternal Testament, which the holy and Catholic Church supports. Of the Gospels, according to Matthew one book, according to Mark one book, according to Luke one book, according to John one book.

The Epistles of Paul [the apostle] in number fourteen. To the Romans one, to the Corinthians two, to the Ephesians one, to the Thessalonians two, to the Galatians one, to the Philippians one, to the Colossians one, to Timothy two, to Titus one, to Philemon one, to the Hebrews one.

Likewise the Apocalypse of John, one book. And the Acts of the Apostles one book.

Likewise the canonical epistles in number seven.Of Peter the Apostle two epistles, of James the Apostle one epistle, of John the Apostle one epistle, of another John, the presbyter, two epistles, of Jude the Zealot, the Apostle one epistle, see n. 162 ff. *

The canon of the New Testament ends here.”

This canon has not changed.

Thomasbradley312:

If you want to defend the Septuagint as the reason why Catholics have more books than Protestants that is fine, but you also should know why the Church doesn’t include all of the books of the Septuagint like the Orthodox if that’s the case. It doesn’t make sense saying we use the longer Septuagint collection but at the same time don’t fully.

It’s above my pay grade to say which of the other writings not accepted, are or are not scripture. The Church makes / made, that decision. And I’m sure it wasn’t because they were “cherry picking”

 

[Thomasbradley312]

It’s above my pay grade to say which of the other writings not accepted, are or are not scripture. The Church makes / made, that decision. And I’m sure it wasn’t because they were “cherry picking”

That’s fine. But then we really don’t use the Septuagint. We use some of it but to say we use the Septuagint is misleading.

 

[adf417]

Who said I was Protestant? I was raised Catholic, but that doesn’t mean I am automatically Protestant either.

Ok but you will have to redefine what a protestant is for me. I working under this definition and you seem to fit quite well including your user name - Protestantism - Wikipedia

The canon of Scripture is one of the main essential issues that divides us, which is why I am passionate about this.

I will add this to the list of what non-Catholics disagree about.

The fact that other non-Catholics May disagree with my theology isn’t the point.

It most certainly is!!! You are the one working under the paradigm of “the bible is self-authoritive” and these people with differing theology from this same bible as you is quite contradictory to the definition of authority.

Peace!!!

 

[steve-b]

steve-b:

The Gnostics ( just one of the many heresies to plague the Church) probably were making that same argument in their day. IRENAEUS, saint, bishop, (who knew Polycarp, a direct disciple of St John the apostle) wrote his work “Against Heresies”

The gnostics were spreading a false gospel. It had nothing to do with the canon. And, again, Irenaeus canon excluded most of the Deuteros (he only accepted the additions of Esther & Daniel, but rejected the rest) in his OT canon. That is why using late second century ECFs doesn’t help in determining what the OT canon was (since they accepted some books, while rejecting others - this is true even with Doctors of the Church), which is why you have to go to authority of JESUS, not much later uninspired writings which often contradict each other. Again, Jesus held the Pharisees accountable for what it was, which He couldn’t have done if they didn’t know what it was.

Point being, if it wasn’t for the Catholic Church who Jesus established, while still here in the flesh, defining correctly the books that represent our faith accurately, we wouldn’t know the truth. .

Gnostics And ALL Heretics regardless of era and their particular errors, have at their source, an authority issue.

 

[Thomasbradley312]

What I’m actually curious about somewhat historically and this would probably take a lot of digging, but is how the Vulgate had 1(3) Esdras, 2(4) Esdras, and the Prayer of Manasseh in it if these were never considered part of the Canon. Unless maybe the Church thought they were good for reading kind of like how modern Protestants view their Apocrypha section?

Books of the Vulgate - Wikipedia

 

[steve-b]

the Bible which is self-authoritative & self-authenticating,

That’s the same argument Mormons use for their Book of Mormon.

 

[steve-b]

What I’m actually curious about somewhat historically and this would probably take a lot of digging, but is how the Vulgate had 1(3) Esdras, 2(4) Esdras, and the Prayer of Manasseh in it if these were never considered part of the Canon. Unless maybe the Church thought they were good for reading kind of like how modern Protestants view their Apocrypha section?

Books of the Vulgate - Wikipedia

If interested, Scroll down to the answers to all the various topics Canon of the Holy Scriptures | Catholic Answers

eg. 2.2 (2) The Canon of the O. T. in the Church of the first three centuries

 

[ZMystiCat]

So, when Jesus said the Pharisees “have” Moses & the Prophets, He means they have possession of the OT canon, which He refers to as “Moses & the Prophets.”

I’m not denying that they have Scripture, but to extend that to saying they have authority to declare the canon or that they have the right canon is beyond a stretch.

I guess you could get around a lot of this if “Moses and Prophets” is a reference to a canon rather than Scripture, but I don’t see:

1. On what grounds such an assumption can be made.
2. Why that assumption means their canon is complete.

I mean, if this was some definitive statement of canonicity, I wouldn’t expect that the Church would historically allow so many other Old Testament books to be used in liturgy.

The Greek word used in Romans 5:1 is dikaioō

I’m referring to the second use. Notice here that there are two uses of “have” with different roots, the second of which is “echo”.

With Hebrews 10:34 the “better possession” that the Hebrews “have” is eternal happiness because of their faith in Christ, which everyone “has” who accepts Christ as Savior & Lord.

Yes, but there’s no sense of exclusive ownership among the Hebrew Christians. If such a phrase implied exclusive ownership in Luke, why would it not hold for Hebrews?

In the context of Luke 16:29, Jesus is saying the Pharisees “have” the OT canon, which is something He ONLY says about the Pharisees.

This is getting down to making assumptions about what historical figures meant based on a lack of knowledge of all of what they said. In other words, it is an argument from ignorance.

Even then, He very frequently cited the “law and prophets” to others. Wouldn’t that imply that they have “the law and prophets” to know what those “law and prophets” say. Sure, there may not have been an explicit use of the word “have”, but demanding such explicit use of a single word is kind of a bizarre reading of any writing. If I’m having a discussion about the meaning of a book, do you not think there’s the understanding that the person I’m talking with has the book? Do I literally have to say, “Because you have the book, here is my interpretation”?

Furthermore, this understanding of “having Scripture” to know what it says is itself fully consistent with Luke and is, I would say, the most immediately obvious reading.

So with an alternative explanation, that same alternative usage appearing implicitly elsewhere, and the messiness of the canon’s development implying no clear giving of the canon by Christ, I’m inclined to believe this was never taken by anyone as a statement of canonicity until someone 1500+ years later tried to force it to be one.

 

[RaisedCatholic]

if Jews didn’t have those 7 books to reference , they couldn’t connect Jesus stories.

What you aren’t getting, Jesus quoted from books you don’t have in YOUR Protestant bibles, but are in Catholic bibles, which is HIS Church.

Jesus & the NT writers “referenced” more writings than just the Hebrew Bible & the Deuteros, like 1 Enoch which St. Jude actually quotes (not just referenced or alluded to) & even calls a “prophecy.” So unless you are going to add 1 Enoch & countless other writings the NT references, there is no reason for the Deuteros to be in the OT. Jesus quoted from books you don’t have in YOUR Catholic Bible either.

Again, how do you come up with the concept of the “church being the pillar & shield of the truth” without first having an established NT canon? If you say “the Catholic Church,” then you are using “A” to prove “B” to prove “A,” which is subjective & circular?

Acts 9:31 the church throughout all , universal ἐκκλησία καθ’ ὅλης τῆς
ἐκκλησία,= ekklésia = church ,
καθ’, = kata = according to ,
ὅλης, = holos = whole / all / universal ,
τῆς, = ho = the ,
= the Kataholos Church = the Catholic Church.

In context, that was referring to a local region, and before believers were called “Christian” in Antioch, they were called “the Way.” And even if you want to call it “catholic,” again, this term originally meant “universal,” not the hierarchical religious institution of the modern Catholic (capital “C”) church. But this is a separate topic from the OP, so let’s try to stay on topic.

 

[RaisedCatholic]

It’s above my pay grade to say which of the other writings not accepted, are or are not scripture. The Church makes / made, that decision. And I’m sure it wasn’t because they were “cherry picking”

Not on the OT canon, which was established BEFORE the time of Christ, because He held the Jews - specifically the Pharisees - for knowing what the OT canon was.

 

[RaisedCatholic]

That’s the same argument Mormons use for their Book of Mormon.

Except that they can’t, since the Book of Mormon wasn’t written until the 19th century by Joseph Smith, & has countless errors & contradictions in it. The Hebrew Bible & the NT doesn’t. Again, the Catholic Church doesn’t have the authority to “define” the OLD Testament, because it was already defined BEFORE the time of Jesus. Again, otherwise He couldn’t have held the Pharisees accountable for knowing what it was…which He did!

 

[RaisedCatholic]

This is getting down to making assumptions about what historical figures meant based on a lack of knowledge of all of what they said. In other words, it is an argument from ignorance.

Even then, He very frequently cited the “law and prophets” to others. Wouldn’t that imply that they have “the law and prophets” to know what those “law and prophets” say.

The context of Luke 16:29 and the word “have” goes back to v.14. The Pharisees were described as “lovers of money.” Jesus then tells them that “the Law & the Prophets” were proclaimed until John the Baptist (v.16). To a Pharisee, “the Law & the Prophets” would be limited to the books in Protestant OTs (source: Jimmy Akin, Catholic Answers). Jesus then explains the Parable about a “rich man” & his 5 brothers, which is clearly a reference to the Pharisee “money lovers.” When the rich man is being tortured in Hades asking Abraham to send Lazarus back to warn his brothers, his response is “They have Moses & the Prophets. If they don’t listen to them, they won’t believe if someone rises from the dead.” In context, “Moses & the Prophets” is the OT canon. So the context of “have” in the sentence means the rich man’s brothers (the Pharisees) had possession of that OT canon. Any other belief in a difference use of the word “have” would not make sense in the context of the passage.

 

[RaisedCatholic]

The fact that other non-Catholics May disagree with my theology isn’t the point.

Again, my point is that since the Bible is self-authoritative, we can trust what the NT says about the OT canon, which supports the Pharisee & later Protestant OT.

The reason I questioned your assumption of the “Protestant label” with my username is: 1) not all ex-Catholics are Protestant. Some are Eastern Orthodox, some aren’t even Christian; and 2) having been raised Catholic, and based on some of the arguments I’ve read from the free section of the book on Amazon, his argument for limiting it to the Hebrew Bible are quite compelling, since they come from the authority of Jesus Himself, His disciples, and St. Paul, while the arguments I’ve heard for including the Deuterocanon are rather poor.

 

[RaisedCatholic]

Point being, if it wasn’t for the Catholic Church who Jesus established, while still here in the flesh, defining correctly the books that represent our faith accurately, we wouldn’t know the truth.

I’m afraid you are still using the NT that defines what the Church is, and then saying the Church defined what the Biblical canon is, including the OT. Do you see that not only this is circular reasoning, but that the Church can’t “redefine” what the OT canon is, since it was ALREADY defined before the time of Jesus, which was BEFORE the Church was established?

 

[RaisedCatholic]

If interested, Scroll down to the answers to all the various topics https://www.catholic.com/encyclopedia/Canon-of-the-Holy-Scriptures

eg. 2.2 (2) The Canon of the O. T. in the Church of the first three centuries

If you’re argument is that the ECFs quoted or alluded to the Deuteros, you have a couple of problems:

1. They didn’t agree on ALL of the same Deuteros. Even Doctors of the Church didn’t agree on the same OT books.
2. The ECFs also quoted or alluded to non-Deuteros too, and even called the “Scripture.”

That is why using the “lists” from ECFs from the first few centuries don’t work, because they didn’t all agree with each other.

 

[RaisedCatholic]

What I’m actually curious about somewhat historically and this would probably take a lot of digging, but is how the Vulgate had 1(3) Esdras, 2(4) Esdras, and the Prayer of Manasseh in it if these were never considered part of the Canon. Unless maybe the Church thought they were good for reading kind of like how modern Protestants view their Apocrypha section?

There are a couple of sections in the book that discuss the Prayer of Manasseh, as well as the Vulgate. Perhaps it discusses those books there.

 

[Mintaka]

The OT Canon was no more defined before Jesus’ time than the Man in the Moon came to visit me yesterday.

Pretty much all the Hebrew books of the Bible were accepted as Scripture - unless you were a Samaritan or a Sadducee. But there were a lot of Hebrew books kicking around that got read in synagogues, and which no longer exist or are not accepted as Scripture by any Jewish or Christian group. Same thing with Greek and Aramaic books. Some books came from Hebrew but were only widely known in Greek or Aramaic form, and thus got dissed as not being Scripture by some Pharisees but not by others. There was a lot of difference between common practices in synagogues in Judea, Syria, Egypt, etc., including the books they read.

As for “the Septuagint”, we do not really know all the books that were once comprised in it, because nobody but Origen was putting all the scrolls and codices together into one big book. And he only did it so he could put out a giant comparison edition called the Hexapla, showing how every known Greek Scripture translation was alike and differed, including the books each one skipped or that nobody could find. (With spaces left in case they got found.)

And as far as we know, very few copies of the Hexapla were made, and they are all lost now.

But the systemless system of just copying random separate books – that is what survived for a long time.

To go back to the original subject, though, none of this Canon stuff came to a head until after the destruction of the Temple, and the separation of Christian and Jewish traditions, as well as the remaking of a Judaism without Temple or sacrifices. From a Christian point of view, it looked like Jews refusing to confront parts of Isaiah, and deleting Sirach, Wisdom, etc. But a lot of it was Judaean rabbis vs. other rabbis, in a sort of lifeboat desperation.

For example, there was a famous rabbi who said they should just go back to pre-Temple sacrifice customs. He got treated pretty badly for this, and for insisting on his normal rights as a rabbi. The Talmud talks a lot about how maybe he was correct, but that he should have bowed to peer pressure.

You can also see a lot of info about what got kept and what got ditched in overseas synagogue ruins, particularly in Egypt. Jews do not like to throw away paper with God’s name on it, so there are book trashpile rooms in old synagogues. And since stuff appeared on the pile in huge numbers at certain times, all together, scholars can see when certain Jewish books became un-scripturefied or decanonized.

 

[Thomasbradley312]

I would think if you wanted to know the contents of the Septuagint you would go to the Orthodox and ask them seeing as they never had a need to translate it into Latin or anything.

 

[ZMystiCat]

The context of Luke 16:29 and the word “have” goes back to v.14.

This is really going off from what I was saying. My point wasn’t to discuss who the “have” refers to. It was to point out:

1. Claiming that this is the only group Jesus said it about is based on ignorance, since we don’t have all the words Jesus said written in Scripture.
2. Even in Scripture, there is the implication that many others have Moses and the Prophets, even if Christ didn’t phrase it as such.

In context, “Moses & the Prophets” is the OT canon.

No, that is not a given. That is an assumption that is being made. There’s at least two other potential understandings of what the phrase means:

• The specific writings of Moses and other prophets (i.e. very literal)
• Scriptures that the Jews had at the time

Scripturally, these two actually make more sense in light of 2 Timothy 3:16-17, since it is Scripture itself, not the canon of Scripture, that guides us. The canon can only point us to where those Scriptures are.

Even historically, this seems to be how Church Fathers understood the phrase. For instance St. Irenaeus spoke in Against Heresies (emphasis mine):

Proofs from the plain testimony of Moses, and of the other prophets…

…

But since the writings…of Moses are the words of Christ, He does Himself declare to the Jews…“If you had believed Moses, you would have believed Me: for he wrote of Me. But if you believe not his writings, neither will you believe My words.” (John 5:46-47)…And again, the Lord Himself exhibits Abraham as having said to the rich man, with reference to all those who were still alive: “If they do not obey Moses and the prophets, neither, if any one were to rise from the dead and go to them, will they believe him.” Luke 16:31

So first of all, we see that at least St. Irenaeus did not take the “brothers” as referencing just Pharisees, but all the living. He also took the comment about “Moses and the prophets” to be about their writings, not about the canon.

St. Cyril of Alexandria likewise took this as a need to listen to Scripture, not as a canonical statement, in Sermon 112:

Let us therefore make for ourselves friends of the unrighteous mammon: let us listen to Moses and the prophets calling us unto mutual love and brotherly affection: let us not wait for any of those now in Hades to return hither to tell us the torments there: the sacred Scripture is necessarily true…

In general, I’m not sure any Church Father took Christ’s comments in Luke 16:29-31 to be a statement on or about the canon. It’s always understood to be about the teachings themselves.

In fact, I can’t even track down some historical thread of Protestants teaching the comment as being about the canon. As such, I’m inclined to believe it is a relatively modern invention.