multiple early church councils declared Maccabees to be scripture,
So, you accept completely every meeting of every denomination as binding on you and all Christians. Hum. I'll keep that in mind. But I think you don't tell the truth.... I suspect that you accept ANY little meeting you can dig up out of obsurity IF it SEEMS to support you.... and ignore every one that doesn't. I'd like to see you embrace every article of the Council of Trent or Vatican II since you think we all must agree with every Catholic church meeting. I doubt you do... so I find that apologetic absurd since you yourself likely reject it.
But let's look at this claim....
NONE - not one - of the Seven Ecumenical Councils (4-7 of which are accepted by all Catholics, Orthodox and some Protestants) ever mentions the canon. It never came up.
NOTHING was decided by ANY of them.... not even DISCUSSED at any of them. Add the 14 additional meetings CALLED "Ecumenical" but actually only the meeting of ONE, just one singular denomination (the Catholic Church - NO Eastern bishops were alllowed), and yup, we have one.... in the 16th Century... that declared the Canon - but you don't accept this meeting and you don't agree with it's canon (none other than the Catholic Church does). NOTHING ecumenical, NOTHING early. NOTHING from the Church. NOTHING. The Early Church did NOTHING concerning the Canon. AFTER that era, some western dioceses of the Catholic Church did some things about the Lectionary of their parishes but that's a whole different issue.
Now, the Catholic Church dug up three LONG AGO forgotten, obscure little regional meetings to TRY to say that it's declaration of it's own UNIQUE Canon YOU REJECT was correct. No one had heard of these.... they had not been mentioned for centuries.... Over the past 500 years, the singular Catholic Church has made lots of CLAIMS about this meetings but the substantiation is very lacking.
The Catholic Church NEVER had a singular canon... and NEVER did the Catholic Church agree with ANY other church on this issue. At the Council of Trent (a bit after Luther) it itself officially declared (in a binding way) the canon OF ITSELF. Unique... no other Christian group or church EVER agreed with that. And to TRY to substantiate that IT (alone!) had the right canon, it tried to look to history (but only of ITSELF) and developed a whole mythology about 3 lost, forgotten meetings. You echo them.
Let's look at these:
The Council of Leodicea. A diocese meeting, a synod, in 363 for the clergy in an area of Lydia and Phrygia. Although little is known for sure about this, it seems to have decided that "privately written psalms" are not to be in the Lectionary, but only the canonical books. Some claim those books were listed but that's disputed and seems unsubstantiated. No one outside that diocese mentioned this meeting, it seems none outside that area knew about it (and certainly didn't follow it).
The Council of Hippo. Also just a local synod, it was held in 393, this is even more obscure. But in the 16th Century, the Catholic Church claimed that it in some way affirmed the list of books that Athanasius wrote about.
The Third Council of Carthage. The best known of the 3 "forgotten" little regional meetings for one reason: Augustine participated and wrote about it. It resolves that nothing "beyond the canonical Scriptures" is to be read in the churches of that diocese. The issue was the LECTIONARY in that diocese, not some official declaration of what is and is not Scripture.
For centuries, there is little evidence that Christians of the East or West knew about these meetings - or cared - or followed their decisions. There were different acceptances of what is Scripture WELL into the Fifth Century and into the Eighth. The Apostolic C0onstitutions held to a very different set of books. It wasn't until 740 that we have evidence that Hebrews and the Revelation of John were universally accepted (athough in some cases NOT allowed in Lectionaries for several more centuries!). And of course, many Catholic tomes INCLUDED a 28th NT book, the Epistle to the Leodiceans (common in Luther's time). And to this day, the Eastern Orthodox Church as a DIFFERENT canon than any other.... the Greek Orthodox Church has a DIFFERENT canon than any other... the Syrian Orthodox Church has a DIFFERENT canon than any other... the Coptic Orthodox Church has a DIFFERNT canon than any other... the Anglican Church has a DIFFERENT canon than any other. IF your claim that one of these forgotten, obsure, regional synods DECLARED the canon in some final, definitive, offical way - then why didn't and don't anyone know that? Why have we not since then all had the SAME, IDENTICAL canon? In truth, few (if any) outside that area knew a thing about these meetings - for one simple reason, it didn't concern them. No, brother, there has been NO official, formal declaration of all Chritianity as to the canon. That's a Roman Catholic MYTH invented in the 16th Century to try to support the UNIQUE Canon of that one, singular denomination, a canon NONE other had EVER agreed with... one even the RCC often ignored (example: Epistle of the Leodiceans).
Now, back to your point: One of the Maccabee books MUST be the inerrant, canonical, divinely-inscripturated words of God BECAUSE it's one of the books that records an historical event which Jews even today celebrate.
YES, Jesus and all Jews today celebrate an event which many books (including at least one of the books with "Maccabees" in the moniker) record. Yup.
No one doubts that. I had a Jewish friend in college who celebrated that event. Now, How does the reality that many Jews celebrate an event PROVE that every history book that mentions that event
THEREFORE must be The inerrant, canonical, divinely-inscripturated words of God (Scripture) and must be seen as such by Christians and in every tome with "BIBLE' on the cover? How does the reality that Jesus and my friend David celebrate the event prove that books that speak of that event MUST therefore be canon Scripture? Brother, it seems to me that an historical event can be true WITHOUT it being mandated that all accept any book that mentions it as therefore be accepted as the inerrant, canonical, divinely-inscripturated words of God, and it being mandated to be in every tome with "BIBLE" written on the cover or used by Jews or Christians.
And I WILL remember that you accept everything said in all 21 Councils and in every meeting of every diocese of the unique Roman Catholic Church - thus you accept these 3 synods. Or maybe you don't... and thus you quoting them authoritatively is just hypocritical because you don't accept the authority of all such RCC meetings.
- Josiah
.