Roger Pearse

I think the answer is in your own post; that the canonicity of the OT apocrypha was debateable during the early centuries. The Septuagint Greek text was used by both Jews and Christians; Christians appealed to Septuagintal readings; the Jews came to reject the LXX, in part out of hostility to Christianity, and rejected the apocrypha at the same time (Justin, Dialogue with Trypho 71 accuses them of doing so).

The Christians did not ever make arbitrary decisions about the canon -- making changes to scripture was always a criterion of heresy -- but relied on what had been handed down. Here there was a problem -- everyone knew the Hebrew was more definitive, but the LXX had been handed down. Result: no decision made, and the question was left open.

At the end of the 4th century, Augustine thought the apocrypha scripture; Jerome thought not. This position continued for 1000 years.

At the reformation Luther (following Jerome) rejected the apocrypha. The anti-Lutheran Council of Trent reaffirmed their status even more positively than before (following Augustine).

Current status, as we all know, is that no-one really uses them as scripture.

It illustrates very well the Christian conservatism in matters of canon, even when faced with a clearly insoluble dilemma.

All the best,

Roger Pearse

cognac

Richard Carrier has a good survey article in the library titled "The Formation of the New Testament Canon."

It can be found here:

http://www.infidels.org/library/mode...r/NTcanon.html

funinspace

I agree in general, but it seams that in this ensuing 1000 years it became implicitly part of what we call the Bible.

The RCC and Eastern Orthodox do not use the Apocrypha as Holy Scripture? I would find that odd, but could not debate from personal experience/knowledge.

I would agree. As a further description, I believe the following to be reasonably accurate. The 363 AD Synod of Laodicea almost gave us our current list, but left off Revelations and Esther. The earliest current used NT listing came around 367 AD when Athanasius gave a list in his Easter Letter including Revelations. However, this is a declaration of an individual, and still minus Esther. In 393AD, the Synod of Hippo finally gave us our current list. Though in 692 AD, the Trullan Synod added confusion to what the actual cannon was supposed to be. This decree included, for instance, that both the Synod of Laodicea and the Epistles of Athanasius were to be considered authoritative, even though they contradicted each other on whether Revelation was to be included. Furthering the confusion, this Synod also codified as official the so-called "Eighty-Fifth Apostolic Canon" which was probably written in the late 4th century but attributed to Clement of Rome--this decree established the two letters of Clement as "sacred books" and part of the "venerable and holy" Bible, along with eight other books "which it is not appropriate to make public before all, because of the mysteries contained in them".

The point that stands out to me, is that the canon never had a clean or straight as an arrow path in the first place. It seams that a 1,000+ years of tradition should have some merit of it's own.

funinspace

Hey JD…still fixing some spanning tree events Well the thread is going pretty slow so far, so it can wait till you fix MS. Citings from the UMC, what next the American Episcopalians And it took me a while to get back to it all. My goal regarding this thread was more about personal views/perspectives than what BC&H traditionally brings to a discussion visa vie hashing out and debating the details.

Yeah, the site you mentioned looks like it carries the atypical apologetic for dismissing the Apocrypha. The page I read there does the standard "the Catholics didn't make it part of the canon until the 1545 Council of Trent" statement. I guess I would better respect an article if it acknowledged that most of the oldest canon prints like Codex Vaticanus and Codex Sinaiticus contained most of the Apocrypha books, and the various letters by leaders and councils that included them in the 4th century like the regional one at Carthage in 397. It seams pretty implicit that the Apocrypha was part of what was considered the Christian canon for about a thousand years. The Protestant apologist likes to bring up the late 1545 Trent Council to suggest a late date for official recognition, where as it seams Trent was more of a re-affirmation. Where were the large Protestant councils) that hashed this out "officially"?

So would people at your Church freak at seeing someone using a Jerusalem Bible or one of those interesting newer RSV Study Bibles?

funinspace

Delving away from personal perspectives towards age old debates...From the link within the link from jdlongmire, then SwordofTruth (a better page than I first saw there and commented upon in the previous post):
http://www.valleybible.net/resources...nonicity.shtml
They left off the Ethiopic Church accepting it as well. I would quibble with Trent being a proclamation vice a re-affirmation. But a reasonable summary. Without massive quoting, I grabbed the snippets in italic quotes below:

"However, there is abundant compelling evidence for rejecting the Apocrypha as inspired by God. While these books may be of historical value and in some ways supplement God’s truth, they are not canonical for the following reasons:
Jesus and the apostles did not accept these books as part of the Scripture. There are no New Testament references to any of the Apocrypha as being authoritative in any way. The New Testament writers quote not one part of the Apocrypha. "
-Not accepted, or not mentioned? This criteria could not apply to the NT, but is still a reasonable point of argument.

"Judaism has never accepted these books as part of the Scriptures. Ancient Jewish leaders specifically rejected the Apocrypha (Josephus, Philo).""
-Judaism was no longer really in charge at this point, so what is the point. The Jews did not really have a formal canon until after the destruction of the Temple. So it's hard to make an argument either way.

"While a few early church leaders may appear to take some material from the Apocrypha, most were opposed to the inclusion of the Apocrypha into the canon of Scripture (Athanasius, Cyril of Jerusalem, Jerome, Origen). Furthermore, no church council for the entire church accepted these books as Scripture. "
-And there was some "church council for the entire church" that has removed them in the last 500 years? Shall I add up the famous names that were against Revelations, never mind that the Eastern Church did not accept it for another 500 years? If most were apposed to the Apocrypha, then why did it seam to stay a part of the collection called a Bible?

"The Apocrypha itself recognizes our Old Testament canon as a distinct twenty-four books, which corresponds to the Hebrew Bible as it is known today. In 2 Esdras 14:44-48, seventy books are distinguished from ninety-four, leaving twenty-four, or exact number of the Hebrew canon, which became our 39 Old Testament books. Not only does the Apocrypha not claim inspiration for itself, it actually disclaims it when 1 Maccabees 9:27 describes an existing cessation of prophecy. "
Not quite what Esdras says. If anything it suggests that some other books are even more special:
2 Esedras 44: So during the forty days ninety-four books were written. 45: And when the forty days were ended, the Most High spoke to me, saying, "Make public the twenty-four books that you wrote first and let the worthy and the unworthy read them; 46: but keep the seventy that were written last, in order to give them to the wise among your people. 47: For in them is the spring of understanding, the fountain of wisdom, and the river of knowledge."

I have no comment on 1 Mac, it would take more review than I have time for right now.

"The Apocrypha includes unbiblical teaching, including prayers for the dead (2 Maccabees 12:45, or 12:46 in Roman Catholic Bibles) and salvation by works (Tobit 12:9). "
Ah, and no other verses create contention regarding notions of salvation??? Allot of the NT sound pretty unbiblical as well when compared to the Hebrew canon.

"The first official adoption of the Apocrypha by the Roman Catholic Church came at the Council of Trent in 1546, over 1,500 years after the books were written. This was part of a reaction by Catholicism against the Protestant Reformation and if anyone did not accept these books they were considered accursed. When the Apocrypha appeared in Protestant Bibles, it was normally placed in a separate section since it was not considered of equal authority."
Seams a bit over the top here. Funny details like most all of the NT wasn't even written till after 46AD (aka 1546 -1500) typo, the site can't add, agenda before facts... Here is a reference to the work of Jerome where he is commenting on the 325 Council of Nicaea: http://www.ccel.org/fathers2/NPNF2-0...#P8089_2628627
"When Greek manuscripts do include books of the Apocrypha, they do not do so completely. In fact, no Greek manuscript contains the exact collection of the books of the Apocrypha as was accepted by the Council of Trent. While the Syrian church accepted the Apocrypha in the fourth century, the translation of the Bible into Syrian in the second century A.D. did not include it. "
I'm not sure what the point is here, we have so little from this time.

"The Qumran community had hundreds of books in its library beyond the Scripture. While the library had some of the Apocrypha, it did not have commentaries on the Apocrypha it did with Old Testament books. The Old Testament books had special script and parchment, unlike the Apocrypha. Qumran clearly considered the Apocrypha as different from Scripture."
Possibly an argument, but were the Jews in charge at this point? Also, since these were the latest/newest, could this have been a factor. It's hard to tell since God didn't exactly lay out to Moses the 7 rules of Holy writing.

In the end I really do not see any strong arguments for changing a thousand years of Christian continuity regarding the canon.

Johnny Skeptic

Is it your position that the writings that were handed down that became the New Testament were exactly or primarily the writings that God intended to become the New Testament? God supposedly wrote the Ten Commandments himself. Why didn't he write the Old and New Testaments as well? Hearsay evidence in court trials is bad enough, but the notion of human proxies presuming to speak for God is patently absurd.

Why do you reject all world views other than Christianity?
It would be best if you would start a new thread titled 'Why I chose to become a Christian.'

Roger Pearse

This is a theological, not a historical question, surely? And, as an atheist, are you not debarred from having any opinion on this one? Can you legitimately have an opinion on this question?

I am unclear what any of this has to do with my post, however.

All the best,

Roger Pearse

Roger Pearse

This is actually a mistake by the editor of that series. The council of Nicaea made no statements on the content of the canon, and Jerome does not in fact say it did.

Have a look at Jerome's preface to Judith and see what he really says:

"Among the Jews, the book of Judith is considered among the apocrypha; its warrant for affirming those [apocryphal texts] which have come into dispute is deemed less than sufficient. Moreover, since it was written in the Chaldean language, it is counted among the historical books. But since the Nicene Council is considered to have counted this book among the number of sacred Scriptures, I have acquiesced to your request (or should I say demand!): and, my other work set aside, from which I was forcibly restrained, I have given a single night's work 6, translating according to sense rather than verbatim. I have hacked away at the excessively error-ridden panoply of the many codices; I conveyed in Latin only what I could find expressed coherently in the Chaldean words. ..."

In other words, the council used the text as if canonical in its discussions.

All the best,

Roger Pearse

funinspace

Roger, thanks for the correction! Interesting.