Yesterday on Twitter a friendly ecumenical dialogue developed around the Witch Test.
The biblical Deuterocanon came up, and the resulting discussion struck me as a perfect teachable moment.
If you’re not familiar with the Deuterocanon, it refers to the parts of the Bible that Catholics and Orthodox accept as divinely inspired but Protestants don’t.
While the deuterocanonical books include some parts of books the rest of which pretty much everybody accepts, the classification mostly refers to the following books:
- Tobit
- Judith
- The Wisdom of Solomon
- Sirach
- Baruch
- 1 & 2 Maccabees
Including the Deuterocanon gives Catholic Bibles a total of 73 books, while Protestant Bibles have 66.
The latter of which symbolizes double imperfection in Hebrew numerals.
Ominous.
Anyway, I can attest that each of these books is spiritually salutary and fit for moral and theological instruction.
The most common objection to the deuterocanonical books’ canonicity is the claim that they’re not part of the Hebrew Bible.
Which is misleading for a couple of key reasons.
That’s a screencap from the table of contents for the Septuagint, which was a Greek translation of the Old Testament prepared in the 3rd century BC.
Tradition has it that the Septuagint had 70 translators, hence its academic nickname the LXX.
And it includes the Deuterocanon.
Fun theological trivia: Pious legend held that all 70 translators came up with the exact same translation, despite working independently while having no contact with each other. Some even hold that the translation effort itself was divinely inspired.
Back to the verifiable historical facts, though …
The LXX enjoyed widespread use in the Ancient Near East, and even as far away as Rome.
It was tailor-made for Jews in the Greek-speaking diaspora, which had a larger population than Jerusalem.
And we know that not only was the LXX the go-to Bible of the early Church, Jesus and His apostles referenced it as inspired.
If the LXX was read and quoted by 1st century Jews including those at Qumran and Jesus Himself, where does the claim that the Deuterocanon, which the LXX contains, isn’t part of the Hebrew Bible come from?
Well, it is true that you won’t find the Deuterocanon in Jewish Bibles today.
Which is an irrelevant and pretty weird point in the context of Christian biblical discussion.
Keep in mind that the Old Testament canon was still up for debate in Jesus’ time.
In fact, various Jewish sects had their own specific canons.
The Bible canon used by modern Jews wasn’t closed until the Council of Jamnia late in the 1st century AD.
For those keeping track, that’s after Christ founded the Church.
As the One High Priest, Jesus had plenary authority over the canon of Scripture.
Even if you deny that Jesus delegated His authority to set the canon to His apostles and their successors, it’s self-defeating to claim that people who rejected His authority could have any authoritative claim to determine which books the Church accepts.
There is One Word of God, inverberated in Scripture and Incarnate in Jesus Christ.
The same Jesus is Head and eternal High Priest of the Church.
Saying that any group who deny the Word can determine what belongs to the Word is a contradiction.
Jesus and His apostles cited the Deuterocanon as trustworthy. The early Church used it in the divine liturgy. And the Council of Rome in 382 codified the Christian canon, including all the books of the LXX. The later councils of Carthage and Hippo affirmed it, and the Council of Florence defined the same canon. Which the Council of Trent then solemnly defined.
So read your Bible – your whole Bible, including Tobit, Judith, Wisdom, Sirach, Baruch, and 1 & 2 Maccabees.
Then read a non-inspired yet thrilling eerie adventure of biblical proportions.
Recent scholarship is suggesting that there was no ‘Council’ of Jamnia, and some debate on the deuterocanon in Jewish circles continued at least into the 2nd century AD. See Bergsma and Pitre, A Catholic Introduction to the Bible: The Old Testament, (San Francisco: Ignatius Press, 2018), p. 23. You can find the passage in the free sample from Amazon: https://www.amazon.com/Catholic-Introduction-Bible-Old-Testament/dp/1586177222/
Bergsma is a solid guy. I can confirm from experience since he was my OT professor.
Glad to hear it, and from what I’ve seen of his work, you were indeed fortunate there!
I love his blackboard cartoons.
Martin L Matthews:
He has a website with other collaborators like Brian Pitre.
https://thesacredpage.com/
I really enjoy reading his exegesis on various biblical passages. I’ll use a Romance language verb to express his talent: il vulgarise (French 3rd person sing present) complex scriptural passages so laymen like me can grasp them. He also provides historical context, which is quite helpful.
xavier
I’m not the most knowledgeable when it comes to Bible history, but I fail to see how reading the same scripture Christ and the apostles read, that they never declared non-canon, and that the early Church fathers all agreed with including, is wrong.
I’m sure there’s a convoluted argument from worldly authority arguing against this, there always is, but no one gave anyone the right to correct divine inspiration after the fact.
Jewish changes after the Resurrection also have no bearing on Christianity. It’s a different religion.
That’s what it comes down to: a bunch of guys showing up late to the party and arbitrarily declaring that everyone else had it wrong for 1500 years.
Rejecting Logos – even in part – has consequences. It may account for the pernicious strain of anti-intellectualism in Protestant thought.
Almost no one arrives at his convictions by reason and evidence. Most people go in search of whatever evidence validates their passions, however flimsy it is. That’s how people end up with weird public/private dichotomies. See the same people who say that venerating icons could lead to idolatry rejecting the slippery slope when it comes to the Second Amendment, for instance.
In my experience, Protestant theology is an attempt to systematize that process.
It’s fitting that you post this. I just got my first Catholic Bible yesterday. I wanted a full Bible for quite sometime now and finally got around to purchasing one. Thanks for the solid defense of the WHOLE Bible.
Outstanding. Give the glory to God!
If I may, my son just expressed interest on going to seminars for priesthood. Please pray for his vocational discernment.
Oops. Meant that to be it’s own post. Sorry.
No apology necessary. Praying for your son’s vocation!
On the topic of the “Hebrew Bible:” this seems to be treated as synonymous with the Masoretic texts, which came about something like 700 years after the death of Christ (and which disagree with things like the Dead Sea Scrolls.) I’m not an expert, but I think that these are the oldest surviving texts which reject the Deuterocanon. They are also usually what people refer to when saying “the Hebrew text says this, even though the Greek says that.”
Once I learned about this state of affairs, this always seemed wrong to me. The Septuagint is much closer in history to the original Hebrew, so it is more likely to say that if it disagrees with the Masoretic, then the Septuagint translation is probably closer to the original. Or at the very least that the original is lost and the Septuagint is the best we have.
Imagine that the left has its way and all copies of Roald Dahl’s works are destroyed other than their “corrected” versions, but they only manage this in English. 500 years later archaeologists find both “corrected” English versions of his book, and a Spanish translation made immediately after the books were originally published. They then declare that the “corrections” are in fact the original meaning of the text, with the Spanish translations alterations, simply because the languages match. It’s asinine. (And of course, the writers of the Masoretic texts had ample motivation to “correct” them to deny Christianity.)
Interestingly, I think Luther’s position on the deuterocanon as a sort of “lower level” of Scriptural inerrancy is actually permissible in Catholic theology. In his excellent book “Trent: What Happened at the Council” Fr. O’Malley notes that the Council fathers did not actually rule on Luther’s position, intentionally declining to address it, but instead simply reaffirmed that the deuterocanon was in fact a part of Scripture – which Luther *did* believe. And his position was not entirely unreasonable as it at least had support from St. Jerome.
I always explain this to Protestants, then say “With that said, if it is an open question I would tend to lean towards the deuterocanon being equal to the protocanon, for the simple reason nobody has ever shown me a convincing argument why it shouldn’t be.”
And that is my position today.
Interesting. I’m definitely open to considering that position. How do you square it with Dei verbum stating “the books of Scripture must be acknowledged as teaching solidly, faithfully and without error that truth which God wanted put into sacred writings ..” without distinction?
A good question. I do want to reiterate that I, personally, *do* hold the deuterocanon to be on the same level as the protocanon.
That said in regards to Dei Verbum I think it should be pointed out that the document was not attempting to settle the issue on if there was any distinction between the proto and deuterocanon or what that would like. I can still imagine a theoretical future document clarifying such a thing.
I can imagine it – but I don’t see it happening.
As someone who grew up reading the “Protestant Bible”, it’s a shame that they took out the Deuterocanonicals. The Book of Tobit is my favorite Book of the Bible (a close competition with Genesis), probably because it’s literally an adventure story complete with a hero’s journey.
GermanicusCaser117
Talking donkey, St Raphael as travelling companion, exorcism, love story. What’s not to love?
I’ve held the opinion that continental fantasy/scifi/adventure stems from the Acts of the Apostles+the hagiographies via the Legenda aureus; while English (actually Protestant) scifi/fantasy/adventure stems from Revelations+English civil war.
xavier