www.byzcath.org Forums Faith & Christian Life Scripture and Patristic Writings Inaccuracies of the Apocryphal Books

What he said. I think to carry this further would more than try ones patience. Please close this thread.

CDL

If this were a private discussion I would say close it, but it is not a private space and I would recommend against it.

What Joel is doing here is precisely what is turning the heads of some, perhaps even many, Orthodox because there is question, in the east, whether or not the Deuterocanonical books are truly Scripture, and not enough training and repetition of truths to give people a sold ground for refutation.

See how he uses the Council of Trent, which protestant converts to Orthodoxy take as the starting point for the "final" straw that solidified the Whore of Babylon as heretics, and much worse. They take all of that into Orthodoxy.

Do you see how he uses the teaching on purgatory also as a hook. The only reason the west wants to include the Deuterocanonicals is so that they can buttress that most false of all teachings.

Nevermind that Orthodoxy also knows that one does not stand before the throne of the Lamb without first being purified...however it happens...whatever you want to call it. The keyword is Purgatory and all else is forgotten in the path beaten to avoid that awful heresy of the west.

Joel's got his program down and he's testing it and honing it here.

They are not selling a fully Protestant agenda first. They are selling a reformed Orthodoxy, freed from Latinizations, and THEN they will move the rest in slowly beginning with Eucharistic teaching that all we can possibly know are the words of institution and the father's speaking of spiritual food and there you have the reformed real presence, whatever that means, and it means everything but the Catholic meaning.

How do you think Joel got to be where Joel is?

I would not cut and run if I were you.

It never hurts to repeat one's self in service of the truth. If that were the case, Catholics would all be out of things to say, centuries ago.

Eli

Dear Joel,

I don't know if anyone pointed you to Jim Akins essay on the Deuterons or not. I've reproduced it below.

I was going to suggest that the key to your questions are found in the same place that one finds the answers to how the NT is Scripture as well, but James does that better. Some of this is repetitious but it's also all under one roof so to speak.

Eli

DEFENDING THE DEUTEROCANONICALS
by James Akin


When Catholics and Protestants talk about "the Bible," the two groups actually have two different books in mind.

In the sixteenth century, the Protestant Reformers removed a large section of the Old Testament that was not compatible with their theology. They charged that these writings were not inspired Scripture and branded them with the pejorative title "Apocrypha."

Catholics refer to them as the "deuterocanonical" books (since they were disputed by a few early authors and their canonicity was established later than the rest), while the rest are known as the "protocanonical" books (since their canonicity was established first).

Following the Protestant attack on the integrity of the Bible, the Catholic Church infallibly reaffirmed the divine inspiration of the deuterocanonical books at the Council of Trent in 1546. In doing this, it reaffirmed what had been believed since the time of Christ.


Who Compiled the Old Testament?

The Church does not deny that there are ancient writings which are "apocryphal." During the early Christian era, there were scores of manuscripts which purported to be Holy Scripture but were not. Many have survived to the present day, like the Apocalypse of Peter and the Gospel of Thomas, which all Christian churches regard as spurious writings that don't belong in Scripture.

During the first century, the Jews disagreed as to what constituted the canon of Scripture. In fact, there were a large number of different canons in use, including the growing canon used by Christians. In order to combat the spreading Christian cult, rabbis met at the city of Jamnia or Javneh in A.D. 90 to determine which books were truly the Word of God. They pronounced many books, including the Gospels, to be unfit as scriptures. This canon also excluded seven books (Baruch, Sirach, 1 and 2 Maccabees, Tobit, Judith, and the Wisdom of Solomon, plus portions of Esther and Daniel) that Christians considered part of the Old Testament.

The group of Jews which met at Javneh became the dominant group for later Jewish history, and today most Jews accept the canon of Javneh. However, some Jews, such as those from Ethiopia, follow a different canon which is identical to the Catholic Old Testament and includes the seven deuterocanonical books (cf. Encyclopedia Judaica, vol. 6, p. 1147).

Needless to say, the Church disregarded the results of Javneh. First, a Jewish council after the time of Christ is not binding on the followers of Christ. Second, Javneh rejected precisely those documents which are foundational for the Christian Church -- the Gospels and the other documents of the New Testament. Third, by rejecting the deuterocanonicals, Javneh rejected books which had been used by Jesus and the apostles and which were in the edition of the Bible that the apostles used in everyday life -- the Septuagint.


The Apostles & the Deuteros

The Christian acceptance of the deuterocanonical books was logical because the deuterocanonicals were also included in the Septuagint, the Greek edition of the Old Testament which the apostles used to evangelize the world. Two thirds of the Old Testament quotations in the New are from the Septuagint. Yet the apostles nowhere told their converts to avoid seven books of it. Like the Jews all over the world who used the Septuagint, the early Christians accepted the books they found in it. They knew that the apostles would not mislead them and endanger their souls by putting false scriptures in their hands -- especially without warning them against them.

But the apostles did not merely place the deuterocanonicals in the hands of their converts as part of the Septuagint. They regularly referred to the deuterocanonicals in their writings. For example, Hebrews 11 encourages us to emulate the heroes of the Old Testament and in the Old Testament "Women received their dead by resurrection. Some were tortured, refusing to accept release, that they might rise again to a better life" (Heb. 11:35).

There are a couple of examples of women receiving back their dead by resurrection in the Protestant Old Testament. You can find Elijah raising the son of the widow of Zarepheth in 1 Kings 17, and you can find his successor Elisha raising the son of the Shunammite woman in 2 Kings 4, but one thing you can never find -- anywhere in the Protestant Old Testament, from front to back, from Genesis to Malachi -- is someone being tortured and refusing to accept release for the sake of a better resurrection. If you want to find that, you have to look in the Catholic Old Testament -- in the deuterocanonical books Martin Luther cut out of his Bible.

The story is found in 2 Maccabees 7, where we read that during the Maccabean persecution, "It happened also that seven brothers and their mother were arrested and were being compelled by the king, under torture with whips and cords, to partake of unlawful swine's flesh. . . . [B]ut the brothers and their mother encouraged one another to die nobly, saying, 'The Lord God is watching over us and in truth has compassion on us . . . ' After the first brother had died . . . they brought forward the second for their sport. . . . he in turn underwent tortures as the first brother had done. And when he was at his last breath, he said, 'You accursed wretch, you dismiss us from this present life, but the King of the universe will raise us up to an everlasting renewal of life'" (2 Macc. 7:1, 5-9).

One by one the sons die, proclaiming that they will be vindicated in the resurrection. "The mother was especially admirable and worthy of honorable memory. Though she saw her seven sons perish within a single day, she bore it with good courage because of her hope in the Lord. She encouraged each of them . . . [saying], 'I do not know how you came into being in my womb. It was not I who gave you life and breath, nor I who set in order the elements within each of you. Therefore the Creator of the world, who shaped the beginning of man and devised the origin of all things, will in his mercy give life and breath back to you again, since you now forget yourselves for the sake of his laws,'" telling the last one, "Do not fear this butcher, but prove worthy of your brothers. Accept death, so that in God's mercy I may get you back again with your brothers" (2 Macc. 7:20-23, 29).

This is but one example of the New Testaments' references to the deuterocanonicals. The early Christians were thus fully justified in recognizing these books as Scripture, for the apostles not only set them in their hands as part of the Bible they used to evangelize the world, but also referred to them in the New Testament itself, citing the things they record as examples to be emulated.


The Fathers Speak

The early acceptance of the deuterocanonicals was carried down through Church history. The Protestant patristics scholar J. N. D. Kelly writes: "It should be observed that the Old Testament thus admitted as authoritative in the Church was somewhat bulkier and more comprehensive than the [Protestant Old Testament] . . . It always included, though with varying degrees of recognition, the so-called Apocrypha or deutero-canonical books. The reason for this is that the Old Testament which passed in the first instance into the hands of Christians was . . . the Greek translation known as the Septuagint. . . . most of the Scriptural quotations found in the New Testament are based upon it rather than the Hebrew.. . . In the first two centuries . . . the Church seems to have accept all, or most of, these additional books as inspired and to have treated them without question as Scripture. Quotations from Wisdom, for example, occur in 1 Clement and Barnabas. . . Polycarp cites Tobit, and the Didache [cites] Ecclesiasticus. Irenaeus refers to Wisdom, the History of Susannah, Bel and the Dragon [i.e., the deuterocanonical portions of Daniel], and Baruch. The use made of the Apocrypha by Tertullian, Hippolytus, Cyprian and Clement of Alexandria is too frequent for detailed references to be necessary" (Early Christian Doctrines, 53-54).

The recognition of the deuterocanonicals as part of the Bible that was given by individual Fathers was also given by the Fathers as a whole, when they met in Church councils. The results of councils are especially useful because they do not represent the views of only one person, but what was accepted by the Church leaders of whole regions.

The canon of Scripture, Old and New Testament, was finally settled at the Council of Rome in 382, under the authority of Pope Damasus I. It was soon reaffirmed on numerous occasions. The same canon was affirmed at the Council of Hippo in 393 and at the Council of Carthage in 397. In 405 Pope Innocent I reaffirmed the canon in a letter to Bishop Exuperius of Toulouse. Another council at Carthage, this one in the year 419, reaffirmed the canon of its predecessors and asked Pope Boniface to "confirm this canon, for these are the things which we have received from our fathers to be read in church." All of these canons were identical to the modern Catholic Bible, and all of them included the deuterocanonicals.

This exact same canon was implicitly affirmed at the seventh ecumenical council, II Nicaea (787), which approved the results of the 419 Council of Carthage, and explicitly reaffirmed at the ecumenical councils of Florence (1442), Trent (1546), Vatican I (1870), and Vatican II (1965).


The Reformation Attack on the Bible

The deuterocanonicals teach Catholic doctrine, and for this reason they were taken out of the Old Testament by Martin Luther and placed in an appendix without page numbers. Luther also took out four New Testament books -- Hebrews, James, Jude, and Revelation -- and put them in an appendix without page numbers as well. These were later put back into the New Testament by other Protestants, but the seven books of the Old Testament were left out. Following Luther they had been left in an appendix to the Old Testament, and eventually the appendix itself was dropped (in 1827 by the British and Foreign Bible Society), which is why these books are not found at all in most contemporary Protestant Bibles, though they were appendicized in classic Protestant translations such as the King James Version.

The reason they were dropped is that they teach Catholic doctrines that the Protestant Reformers chose to reject. Earlier we cited an example where the book of Hebrews holds up to us an Old Testament example from 2 Maccabees 7, an incident not to be found anywhere in the Protestant Bible, but easily discoverable in the Catholic Bible. Why would Martin Luther cut out this book when it is so clearly held up as an example to us by the New Testament? Simple: A few chapters later it endorses the practice of praying for the dead so that they may be freed from the consequences of their sins (2 Macc. 12:41-45); in other words, the Catholic doctrine of purgatory. Since Luther chose to reject the historic Christian teaching of purgatory (which dates from before the time of Christ, as 2 Maccabees shows), he had to remove that book from the Bible and appendicize it. (Notice that he also removed Hebrews, the book which cites 2 Maccabees, to an appendix as well.)

To justify this rejection of books that had been in the Bible since before the days of the apostles (for the Septuagint was written before the apostles), the early Protestants cited as their chief reason the fact that the Jews of their day did not honor these books, going back to the council of Javneh in A.D. 90. But the Reformers were aware of only European Jews; they were unaware of African Jews, such as the Ethiopian Jews who accept the deuterocanonicals as part of their Bible. They glossed over the references to the deuterocanonicals in the New Testament, as well as its use of the Septuagint. They ignored the fact that there were multiple canons of the Jewish Scriptures circulating in first century, appealing to a post-Christian Jewish council which has no authority over Christians as evidence that "The Jews don't except these books." In short, they went to enormous lengths to rationalize their rejection of these books of the Bible.


Rewriting Church History

In later years they even began to propagate the myth that the Catholic Church "added" these seven books to the Bible at the Council of Trent!

Protestants also try to distort the patristic evidence in favor of the deuterocanonicals. Some flatly state that the early Church Fathers did not accept them, while others make the more moderate claim that certain important Fathers, such as Jerome, did not accept them.

It is true that Jerome, and a few other isolated writers, did not accept most of the deuterocanonicals as Scripture. However, Jerome was persuaded, against his original inclination, to include the deuterocanonicals in his Vulgate edition of the Scriptures-testimony to the fact that the books were commonly accepted and were expected to be included in any edition of the Scriptures.

Furthermore, it can be documented that in his later years Jerome did accept certain deuterocanonical parts of the Bible. In his reply to Rufinus, he stoutly defended the deuterocanonical portions of Daniel even though the Jews of his day did not.

He wrote, "What sin have I committed if I followed the judgment of the churches? But he who brings charges against me for relating the objections that the Hebrews are wont to raise against the story of Susanna, the Son of the Three Children, and the story of Bel and the Dragon, which are not found in the Hebrew volume, proves that he is just a foolish sycophant. For I was not relating my own personal views, but rather the remarks that they [the Jews] are wont to make against us" (Against Rufinus 11:33 [A.D. 402]). Thus Jerome acknowledged the principle by which the canon was settled -- the judgment of the Church, not of later Jews.

Other writers Protestants cite as objecting to the deuterocanonicals, such as Athanasius and Origen, also accepted some or all of them as canonical. For example, Athanasius, accepted the book of Baruch as part of his Old Testament (Festal Letter 39), and Origen accepted all of the deuterocanonicals, he simply recommended not using them in disputations with Jews.

However, despite the misgivings and hesitancies of a few individual writers such as Jerome, the Church remained firm in its historic affirmation of the deuterocanonicals as Scripture handed down from the apostles. Protestant patristics scholar J. N. D. Kelly remarks that in spite of Jerome's doubt, "For the great majority, however, the deutero-canonical writings ranked as Scripture in the fullest sense. Augustine, for example, whose influence in the West was decisive, made no distinction between them and the rest of the Old Testament . . . The same inclusive attitude to the Apocrypha was authoritatively displayed at the synods of Hippo and Carthage in 393 and 397 respectively, and also in the famous letter which Pope Innocent I dispatched to Exuperius, bishop of Toulouse, in 405" (Early Christian Doctrines, 55-56).

It is thus a complete myth that, as Protestants often charge, the Catholic Church "added" the deuterocanonicals to the Bible at the Council of Trent. These books had been in the Bible from before the time canon was initially settled in the 380s. All the Council of Trent did was reaffirm, in the face of the new Protestant attack on Scripture, what had been the historic Bible of the Church -- the standard edition of which was Jerome's own Vulgate, including the seven deuterocanonicals!


The New Testament Deuteros

It is ironic that Protestants reject the inclusion of the deuterocanonicals at councils such as Hippo (393) and Carthage (397), because these are the very same early Church councils that Protestants appeal to for the canon of the New Testament. Prior to the councils of the late 300s, there was a wide range of disagreement over exactly what books belonged in the New Testament. Certain books, such as the gospels, acts, and most of the epistles of Paul had long been agreed upon. However a number of the books of the New Testament, most notably Hebrews, James, 2 Peter, 2 & 3 John, and Revelation remained hotly disputed until the canon was settled. They are, in effect, "New Testament deuterocanonicals."

While Protestants are willing to accept the testimony of Hippo and Carthage (the councils they most commonly cite) for the canonicity of the New Testament deuterocanonicals, they are unwilling to accept the testimony of Hippo and Carthage for the canonicity of the Old Testament deuterocanonicals. Ironic indeed!

Copyright (c) 1996 by James Akin. All Rights Reserved.

Dear Pastor Badal,

First of all, I am sorry about the rudeness you have experienced here!

As the Administrator himself has said, such rudeness means that people feel they have no other argument to make and so resort to that childish nastiness.

Please know that that rudeness is NOT the policy of this forum and that the Administrators and Moderators will indeed deal with it in due course!

Thank you for your post above and, although I cannot compare to you by way of scriptural or theological scholarship, I will share with you my own faith and understanding of some of the issues you raise.

If I, at any time, come across as being rude, please let me know and I will withdraw the offending statements, with my deep apologies.

Bibles I have used in the past that have been produced with the cooperation of both Protestants and Catholics (and Orthodox) have tended to group the OT Deuterocanonical books, known also by Protestants as Apocrypha, in a separate section at the end of the OT. I've no problem with that and the fact that a Bible translation does that does not prevent me from purchasing and reading it.

The fact of the matter is that even Catholics and Orthodox have slightly different lists of the OT Deuterocanonical books - with the Eastern Orthodox adding six more (including Psalm 151 and the Prayer of Manasses). Interestingly, Psalm 151 is noted as being "outside the 150 Psalms of David" and is never sung in Church as a psalm-prayer.

The Oriental Orthodox Churches and the Assyrian Church of the East have other Canons of both the OT and the NT.

What this says to me, Pastor, is that it is ultimately the Church and even the Local Church, that canonizes Scriptural canons. If we can both accept this, then we will have come a long way.

I would have grave misgivings of quoting Martin Luther as a scriptural authority on the Old Testament canon when, to be consistent, he rejected a number of books of the New Testament from his canon, including Jude itself.

I've yet to hear from any Protestant I've ever had the privilege of discussing this matter with about how Evangelical Protestantism squares its belief in "justification and salvation by faith ALONE" when the Epistle of James in the second chapter clearly denies it and even, one would say, condemns such a view. It's as if my Protestant friends would prefer to ignore that the Epistle of James even exists - would you care to comment on that?

The Fathers can be quoted as sources, but ultimately the Fathers would be UNANIMOUS in acclaiming that the Church hierarchy alone has the right to canonize bibilical canons or define faith and morals.

Origen said as much, even though he himself was severely censured for castrating himself and the like. And Protestants today would likewise take issue with Origen's view that all will be saved on the last day or "apocatastatis."

One example of this is that case of Joachim di Fiore in Florence.

Before he died, Joachim submitted all his theological ideas to the Church for its authoritative judgement and declared himself in total agreement with the Church in anything it would say about his writings.

After he died, the Church did indeed find numerous errors in his writings (a number of which Protestants would agree with too!), but yet he is in the Catholic calendar of saints because he submitted to the Church's decision.

Protestants were divided on the OT Apocrypha, but this didn't prevent them from reading it and gaining inspiration from so doing, as did the Anglicans.

In the last analysis, Protestants today don't seem to mind that the Apocrypha/Deuterocanonical books are in common bibles produced with Catholics.

Faith matters will divide us with or without the OT extra books in question.

Perhaps it is time to move to see how best we may each witness to Jesus Christ within our own faith communities.

I believe the more we strive to follow Christ and witness to Him, the more we will come together in accordance with His Will.

Thank you.

Alex

Is this what you mean?

"Therefore, brethren, stand fast: and hold the traditions which you have learned, whether by word, or by our epistle." 2 Thessalonians 2:14

Eli

Friends,

I probably spoke in haste. I withdraw my recommendation to close this thread. There are probably good reasons to continue.

Alex,

What rudeness?

CDL

Dear Professor Dan,

You are NEVER rude!

I was referring to Teen Logo ( I keep calling him that, because his full moniker is just too confusing for my simple mind!) and the fact that our Brother-Pastor here took umbrage at what he had said.

As I recall, Teen Logo told the Pastor that he cannot be assured of his salvation.

That is something between Pastor Badal and our Lord, God and Saviour, Jesus Christ.

To say something like that is not only rude, it is presumptuous on anyone's part.

Am I wrong?

Alex

Dearest Brother Eli,

You are so quick with your excellent Bible quotes!

Are you SURE you are a Catholic? A Catholic who knows his Bible . . . hmmmm . . . O.K.

Just be careful . . .

Alex

Dear Pastor Badal,

I only hope that you see that we "Apocrypha Adherents" are no "Deuterocanonical Dummies" when it comes to the Scriptures - that we love them, venerate them and try to implement their teachings in our lives.

Except for some of our rude members . . .

But they're usually either young or converts or . . .both . . . yikes!

May God richly bless you in His Son, our Lord Jesus Christ by the power of the Holy Spirit!

Alex

I have a spiritual father who set the task of cover to cover reading of Scripture. In obedience I did so once. I did it again because it is so atonishing a book. Now I read the Gospels in order with a regular periodicity.

I was born into a Catholic family who read the Bible regularly.

Are you bitten by the stereotype bug, or are you just in rare form this morning?

Eli

Except, isn't that our clear theology? Isn't it true that our full salvation is in God's hands?

In any case it was confrontive. I'm reminded of John Wesley's life long quest for assurance of salvation. His famous remark after his Aldersgate Awakening that he knew "He was a child of God" was followed by many such experiences. He was striving for a confidence in God but sometimes his reformed theology played havoc with his understanding. He often wrote as if he thought salvation was a possession and not a gift. Subtle distinction to be sure but real nonetheless.

Thanks for your kind words.

CDL

Dear Teen:

I'm going to state this again, and I want to make sure this is perfectly clear. At no time is it acceptable to attack, bait, or belittle another poster on this forum. Your post did just that.

To All Other Posters: Rudeness of any type will not be tolerated. We are not driving money changers from the temple, nor are we Jesus the Christ. We are His disciples and followers. Let us act as such.

Fr. Deacon Edward, Moderator

Yes, it is our theology, but there are gentle ways to state it (I believe I said virtually the same thing to Pastor Joel, but I showed why we believe salvation to be a process as opposed to a one-time deal).

It was, as you noted, confrontational, and that's not the purpose of this board.

Fr. Deacon Edward

Thank you, Father Deacon. I'm rather crusty myself and forget how confrontation can be rude.

CDL

Dear Professor Dan,

If I may say so, you might want to make your own the completely non-confrontational approach that is the hallmark of posters such as Eli and myself!

Alex