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More specifically 2 Maccabees 12:44-46
I am in a debate with a great person who is a christian and believe strictly in the bible. He goes on to say the book of 2 Maccabees 12:44-46 shouldn’t be recognized because not part of original text.
Here is exact words
Item 1:
The Catholic Bible does contain additional books. Here is an overview of what happened;..At the end of the first Christian century, the Jewish rabbis, closed the canon of Hebrew books (those books considered authoritative). They did this because;
The popularity and number of sectarian and apocryphal writings
The fall of Jerusalem
The disputes with Christians over their interpretation of the scriptures
Four criteria were used to by these Jewish rabbis to determine if a book would be part of the Old testament.
1. Content had to harmonize with the Law
2. Prophetic inspiration was believed to have started with Moses (1450 BC) and ended with Ezra (about 450BC) the book had to be written in this timeframe
3. The language of the original manuscript had to be Hebrew
4. The book had to be written within the geographical boundaries of PalestineIf the writing failed these tests it was classified as Apocrypha (false writing). Not necessarily implying that it does not contain good things or that it is written by evil men. It simply means they were not believed to be inspired. Eleven of the approximate 14 Apocryphal books were accepted by the Catholics, included in the Roman Catholic Canon and placed in the Douay version of the Bible.
Four criteria were used for determining the books of the New Testament.
1. Was the book written by an apostle or someone associated with an apostle? Was the book’s content of spiritual nature?
2. Was the book widely received by the churches?
3. Was there evidence in the book of divine inspiration?Why were the apocrypha books excluded from a Christian standpoint;.
1. The books were not part of the Hebrew Canon of Scripture
2. The Master, The Apostle Paul, nor any other writer of the New Testament ever quoted from these books. They frequently quoted from the books that were in the Hebrew canon of scripture.
3. Josephus, the Hebrew historian, expressly excluded the Apocrypha.
4. None of the Apocryphal books claim divine inspiration.
5. The apocryphal books have historical, geographical, and chronological errors
6. They teach and uphold doctrines contrary to the scriptures (lying is OK in some cases, magic is advocated and practiced, etc.)
7. Their spiritual and moral stance is generally far below the old and new testament
8. Respecting the Old Testament, most of these books were written much later than the books considered to be authoritative and inspiredSo to the Christian believing that the bible is the true and inspired word of God is central and of utmost importance to their faith. Any book or teaching that is not supported by biblical scripture is wrong.
The Apostle Paul even warned of this in Galatians 1:8,9
“But if we, or any other angel from heaven, preach any other gospel to you than what we have preached to you, let him be accursed. As we have said before, so now I say again, if anyone preaches any other gospel to you than what you have received, let him be accursed.”Since I am not as well versed in the bible as him I need outside help. Please advise
There’s a lot needing to be said here, but I am in no capacity to address it all right now.
Later tonight or tomorrow night I will be posting an article on the site regarding this exact topic. You can read it over, send it to your friend, etc… and then we can discuss all of the things you bring up here.
Maybe your friend should join this website and post his or her concerns.
I will let you know when I post that article.
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Not much time but I want to offer a few points (few related to the subject at hand specifically).
[quote:yu1kny8v]Four criteria were used for determining the books of the New Testament.[/quote:yu1kny8v]
Does your friend adhere to Sola Scriptura? Because the argument presented disproves it in favor of the Church. None of these four criteria is the Bible or is in the Bible; they were the product of the Church.Why does your friend reference Jewish sources for the canon of Scripture when the Christian Church, the pillar and foundation of truth, already existed? This same Church used the Deuterocanonical books and officially affirmed their inspiration in the 4th century.
huntzy,
I posted that article. You can read it here: http://www.aboutcatholics.com/faith_bel … different/ then we can discuss some more.
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[quote:18b3bria]2. The Master, The Apostle Paul, nor any other writer of the New Testament ever quoted from these books. They frequently quoted from the books that were in the Hebrew canon of scripture.
[/quote:18b3bria]Buzz, sorry, thankyou for playing, but that’s incorrect and we have some lovely parting gifts for you…
While Jesus never explicitly quotes from the Apocryphal texts (that I know of) he’s all over the Septuagint (the version containing the Apocrypha), especially in the Gospel of Luke. When the Gospels were written in light of the Old Testament, It was the Septuagint that they drew from. So if he’s quoting the Septuagint, then the Septuagint is what should be used.
Other points:
[quote:18b3bria]4. The book had to be written within the geographical boundaries of Palestine [/quote:18b3bria]
Pardon me, but wasn’t Genesis writted during the babylonian Captivity? I could be wrong on this one, but I thought I remembered hearing that.
[quote:18b3bria]Four criteria were used for determining the books of the New Testament.
1. Was the book written by an apostle or someone associated with an apostle? Was the book’s content of spiritual nature?
2. Was the book widely received by the churches?
3. Was there evidence in the book of divine inspiration? [/quote:18b3bria]Two, no, three problems with this:
A. By the above, the Didache (the Teachings of the Twelve) should have been included. Would have saved us all kinds of trouble – passages like “If someone asks for money to preach to you the Gospel, he is from the devil.” Whoo! Anyways. Tell me why the Didache, or the Gospel according to Peter, ain’t included by that rationale.
B. Using two different sets of criteria for the OT and the NT is dangerous, and can lead to things like marcionism (am I getting that right? Marcion was the guy who thought the OT God was a different God than the NT God, right) where one sees the OT as a ‘lower class’ of scripture than the NT.
C. He’s disagreeing with The Most Holy Catholic and Apostolic church of Rome, and is therefore, obviously, in grevious error. Let us beg the intercession of the Blessed Virgin that he be pulled safe from the tempest of heresy in which he will otherwise surely drown. Amen. Deo Gratias.
(Okay, maybe I’m a little overboard on point C. But who doesn’t enjoy a good ecclesial smackdown every now and again? Apologetics means never having to say you’re sorry.)
Dave
” title=”Smile” />[quote:12cwapul]Okay, maybe I’m a little overboard on point C. But who doesn’t enjoy a good ecclesial smackdown every now and again? Apologetics means never having to say you’re sorry.[/quote:12cwapul]
Hmmm…yes, I will have to agree with you on that one (going overboard).
” title=”Wink” />“Ecclesial smackdown”
And yeah, Marcionism is “A Christian heresy of the second and third centuries A.D. that rejected the Old Testament and denied the incarnation of God in Jesus as a human.” (from dictionary.com[/url:12cwapul]).
And like you, I wish the Didache was in Scripture because Catholics would certainly have a better case in terms of explaining the Eucharist and all that.
Did our bible come from Hebrew, Greek or Latin decent. I am still having issues on why there are so many different books in the bible. I certainly see why there are different factions when we have many bibles to read from.
I would think Hebrew would be the correct one.
[quote:e4fv0yhp]Did our bible come from Hebrew, Greek or Latin decent. I am still having issues on why there are so many different books in the bible. I certainly see why there are different factions when we have many bibles to read from. [/quote:e4fv0yhp]
The Correct answer is: Yes. I think.
My Understanding:
The copy of the Old testament that is used by Catholics comes from a Greek version of the Aramaic (Aincient Hebrew) scriptures, which was translated from the original Aramaic in about 400 BC.
The new testament is from the original Greek manuscripts, as Greek was the language of commerce and general written discourse in first century Palestine. Aramaic was spoken, Greek was (usually) written.
Around 400 AD, Jerome translates the bible into latin; The Vulgate. This is the version that made its way around the churches of the middle ages, because Latin was a language that everybody was on equal footing with.
Everything is more or less fine until the Reformation, when you’ve got two things:
1. Luther wanting to change the bible somewhat to get rid of purgatory and build up the doctrine of ‘Sola Fides’
2. The invention of the printing press. As a result of this, all of a sudden everybody and their dog learns to read, whereas before the printing press, your average joe in the pew couldn’t read a word.
So over the next hundred years, everybody starts making (and reading) copies of different bibles; the Douay-Rheims, The King James, The Gutenberg, etc, each of which are based on a different set of source criteria – Original Aramaic? Original Greek? Hmm?
What came out with the discovery of the Dead Sea Scrolls in, err, 1947? was that the Vulgate (remember Jerome?) was the most correct version, and most later translations have reflected that.
Also, many translations will bring to light the small differences between the various ancient manuscripts.
An important thing to remember is that Scripture is one of the Traditions of the Catholic Church. There is Scripture because of the Church – NOT the other way around.
“I would not have believed the Gospel, but for the Church professing it.” -St. Augustine.
There. That’s what I think.
Cheers,
Dave
” title=”Smile” />Our Bible, and all other Bibles, came from both Hebrew and Greek.
” title=”Smile” />The Old Testament was Hebrew and the New Testament was written in Greek.
At one point, before the canon of the Bible was finalized, it was all translated into Greek and called the Septuagint which means 70 (even though there were 72 books).
Edited to note that Dave beat me to it. I guess I just typed slow this morning.
Why can’t I open links posted in replies…whenever I click on the link it gives me an error..gone…
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