A P O C R Y P H A : Included in every Holy Bible from the 4th century AD to the 19th Century AD

[Josiah]

So we not only had weird apocrypha books in the bible but we actually had a BIBLE that didn't come from a church authority???

You're beginning to deal with reality. There never has been one Bible.... there are many different ones. And there's NOTHING that indicates that all Christians have ever accepted everything EQUALLY - in the same way, with the same status. And authority? There's a very simple reason why you CANNOT name the date and place where the Ruling Body of all Christianity declared exactly what is and is not fully canonical, inerrant, verbally inscripturated words of God that is to be used canonically ( to source and norm dogma)... it's never happened. A handful of denominations have done something approaching that... kinda, sorta like that... all within the past 600 years, never with ANY other denomination agreeing and only for it itself alone.

You make huge claims - never with any documentation or substantiation. And with lots of circular reasoning and enormous, huge, illogical leaps. I don't know why (it's quite out of custom for you). Only to show they are wrong: no one kept you from reading and using ANYTHING... no one mandated anything be put in or taken out of anything.... there is no law or mandate or prohibition here.

You don't seem to know WHAT books you're even talking about.... the "them" of the Coptic Church, of the LXX, of the Syrian Church or the Greek Orthodox Church, of Jerome of German Catholic tomes, of Italian Catholic tomes, Luther's, ARticle 6 of the 39 Articles and the KJV? You don't seem to even know WHAT books you're talking about. And you don't seem to know HOW such books were regarded... for WHAT they were read.... canonically? deuterocanonically? as merely useful? You don't seem to know. Maybe because there was no single view historically?

You speak of Jewish Conspiracy theories - that someone you can't name ripped out of the LXX Psalm 151 and 4 Maccabees and the Prayer of Manasshe because Christians used them to support their claims about Jesus but kept Isaiah in because no Christians ever used that. But nothing to support this, either.

And again, I have no idea what your "beef" is.... Do you have a point? No one has EVER said you can't read Psalm 151 or 4 Maccabees or the Didache or the Revelation of Peter or Luther's Catechism - and you yourself have shown YOU have read whatever "them" you are talking about, so where is this prohibition you rant out, this mandate to keep you ignorant, this insistance that you cannot know anything to help you understand some verse in Hebrews? Where is this universal law of prohibition you keep alluding to?



.

Why was it so wide spread throughout many churches. And why would greeks and greek speaking Hebrews ever read a GREEK translation of HEBREW?? That it totally absurd to believe that the first Bibles originated from that! Yuck!

You go round and round with these little ditties...

Like Yeah im sure the New Testament got in the Bible but I can't prove how exactly it happened, no one was there that's alive today, but it did happen and it's in our Bible.... indubitably!

 

[MoreCoffee]

unbeliving Rabbis tricked his gullible life-long friend, Jerome, into throwing a wrench into Church tradition, which reflects back on the Apostles rendering them ignorant and illiterate of sacred Scripture, leaving behind an assortment of corrupted text and uninspired spurious books for their churches to inherit and become martyrs to for centuries.. until a merry sect of Jews found it in their heart to bless the Christians with the correct books that the apostles failed at doing.

I have no idea what motives the Rabbis had who helped Saint Jerome to learn Hebrew and may have helped Saint Jerome obtain Hebrew manuscripts from which to translate. Some do think that the Jewish people assisting Saint Jerome did intend to deal negatively with Christian tradition.

 

[Andrew]

You're beginning to deal with reality. There never has been one Bible.... there are many different ones. And there's NOTHING that indicates that all Christians have ever accepted everything EQUALLY - in the same way, with the same status. And authority? There's a very simple reason why you CANNOT name the date and place where the Ruling Body of all Christianity declared exactly what is and is not fully canonical, inerrant, verbally inscripturated words of God that is to be used canonically ( to source and norm dogma)... it's never happened. A handful of denominations have done something approaching that... kinda, sorta like that... all within the past 600 years, never with ANY other denomination agreeing and only for it itself alone.

You make huge claims - never with any documentation or substantiation. And with lots of circular reasoning and enormous, huge, illogical leaps. I don't know why (it's quite out of custom for you). Only to show they are wrong: no one kept you from reading and using ANYTHING... no one mandated anything be put in or taken out of anything.... there is no law or mandate or prohibition here.

You don't seem to know WHAT books you're even talking about.... the "them" of the Coptic Church, of the LXX, of the Syrian Church or the Greek Orthodox Church, of Jerome of German Catholic tomes, of Italian Catholic tomes, Luther's, ARticle 6 of the 39 Articles and the KJV? You don't seem to even know WHAT books you're talking about. And you don't seem to know HOW such books were regarded... for WHAT they were read.... canonically? deuterocanonically? as merely useful? You don't seem to know. Maybe because there was no single view historically?

You speak of Jewish Conspiracy theories - that someone you can't name ripped out of the LXX Psalm 151 and 4 Maccabees and the Prayer of Manasshe because Christians used them to support their claims about Jesus but kept Isaiah in because no Christians ever used that. But nothing to support this, either.

And again, I have no idea what your "beef" is.... Do you have a point? No one has EVER said you can't read Psalm 151 or 4 Maccabees or the Didache or the Revelation of Peter or Luther's Catechism - and you yourself have shown YOU have read whatever "them" you are talking about, so where is this prohibition you rant out, this mandate to keep you ignorant, this insistance that you cannot know anything to help you understand some verse in Hebrews? Where is this universal law of prohibition you keep alluding to?



.

Them be the deuterocanon from which Wisdom and Sirach were the first to groom me, I just saw a book that said HOLY BIBLE and I read it. I could care less about what men considered which books to be a certain whatever. I just read what was in my Holy Bible, it did not seem like a motivational self help book, or a Christian book about someone who is sad and then they're all happy because they prayed and fixed their marriage.
Sir Josiah, I read my Holy Bible and I have read some gnostic books and enoch and can rightly discern what is scripture and what isn't on my own, I have no problem with the deuterocanon nor the books in Brentons septuagint, they all have blessed me with incredible stories that no non Jewish writer could fabricate, they are written in the manner likened to Job, Joseph and his brethren, Daniel eating at the kings table, Jonah, but unlike Job and Jonah, Tobit contains prophecy, Wisdom contains prophecy, Sirach contains prophecy, Esdras contain prophecy.. they aren't like the new stupid fiction christian books at the books stores, you may like them, but they are lame and predictable. The Complete Holy Bible stories are out of this world and always have a twist and a deep moral that takes several sermons to explain.

I found commentary on Tobit from many interpreters and it's basically a spoil alert for the coming Church age.

 

[Andrew]

I have no idea what motives the Rabbis had who helped Saint Jerome to learn Hebrew and may have helped Saint Jerome obtain Hebrew manuscripts from which to translate. Some do think that the Jewish people assisting Saint Jerome did intend to deal negatively with Christian tradition.

A few ante-Nicene Church fathers wrote extensively on this. Rabbi Aqiba I believe was Jerome's teacher, Jerome studied under him, he wasn't just handed the scrolls and began his work.. he was being tutored in Rabbanic interpretation.

Rufinus called Jerome's Rabbi "Barabbas".

And you are correct for questioning why the Rabbis wanted to help Jerome. Jerome already knew Hebrew, he went to Jerusalem to translate the text of the Jews there and then he moved to Bethlehem.
He addressed those who question him and accused him of being gullible.. his defense was that he was just doing what the Pope asked him to do, to translate from the Hebrew, and when he asked the Rabbis about the books not found among them they told him that it's Apocrypha. However, Jerome still altered the translation, replacing some of the Hebrew lines with the Greek, because it would upset the church :/

It was his great work, so he had no shame, he was prideful and boastful and scoffed at those who disagreed with him.

 

[MoreCoffee]

It was his great work, so he had no shame, he was prideful and boastful and scoffed at those who disagreed with him.

Yet despite all these alleged faults, and I say alleged not because I say they are untrue but because I cannot confirm them to be fully true, he is nevertheless a saint and a Church Father and a Church Doctor. And his work, the Vulgate (Latin) is a constant source of inspiration for Catholic Christians even today. In some places, the Vulgate preserves readings that the Byzantine family do not have and that the oldest Greek manuscripts do not have.

Saint Jerome did relegate a number of books to an appendix - so tradition maintains - that he at one time regarded as inferior yet he did include them in his translation and the Pope at that time approved the work and the allegedly inferior books were received as canonical because the Church had already committed to their use in the sacred liturgy of the mass.

 

[Andrew]

Yet despite all these alleged faults, and I say alleged not because I say they are untrue but because I cannot confirm them to be fully true, he is nevertheless a saint and a Church Father and a Church Doctor. And his work, the Vulgate (Latin) is a constant source of inspiration for Catholic Christians even today. In some places, the Vulgate preserves readings that the Byzantine family do not have and that the oldest Greek manuscripts do not have.

Saint Jerome did relegate a number of books to an appendix - so tradition maintains - that he at one time regarded as inferior yet he did include them in his translation and the Pope at that time approved the work and the allegedly inferior books were received as canonical because the Church had already committed to their use in the sacred liturgy of the mass.

You're correct. Jerome did nothing wrong by doing the translation, I just don't agree with his word choice.

"This prologue to the Scriptures may be appropriate as a helmeted introduction to all the books which we turn from Hebrew into Latin, so we may be able to know whatever is outside of these is set aside among the apocrypha. Therefore, Wisdom, which is commonly ascribed to Solomon, and the book of Jesus son of Sirach, and Judith and Tobias, and The Shepherd are not in the canon. I have found the First Book of the Maccabees (is) Hebrew, the Second is Greek, which may also be proven by their styles"

 

[MoreCoffee]

You're correct. Jerome did nothing wrong by doing the translation, I just don't agree with his word choice.

"This prologue to the Scriptures may be appropriate as a helmeted introduction to all the books which we turn from Hebrew into Latin, so we may be able to know whatever is outside of these is set aside among the apocrypha. Therefore, Wisdom, which is commonly ascribed to Solomon, and the book of Jesus son of Sirach, and Judith and Tobias, and The Shepherd are not in the canon. I have found the First Book of the Maccabees (is) Hebrew, the Second is Greek, which may also be proven by their styles"

Even saints can be on the wrong side of a theological dispute which will be resolved centuries later by the Church. Saint Jerome was mistaken.

 

[Albion]

The subject is in regards to the books in the received text of the early churches ...which were undoubtedly inherited from the first churches ..which were undoubtedly established by the Apostles and their bishops...

A steady of stream of wishful thinking instead of the reality concerning these books is certainly not what the thread was supposed to be about.

 

[MoreCoffee]

The manuscripts speak to us from antiquity without any wishful thinking and without any modern biases. The story that the manuscripts tell is of inclusion of the full 73 books that Catholics receive as canonical holy scripture fully inspired by God.

 

[Albion]

The manuscripts speak to us from antiquity without any wishful thinking and without any modern biases.

Don't you wish?

And now let's turn to the Protocols of the Learned Elders of Zion and/or the Book of Mormon.

They "speak to us" from the past also, therefore we are obliged to believe that they are inspired works????

Since when?

 

[MoreCoffee]

Codex Vaticanus, from around 325 AD has this as its table of contents page - Tobit is on page 930, Judith on 908, Matthew on 1235,

 

[Albion]

Them be the deuterocanon

I could care less about what men considered which books to be a certain whatever.

Sir Josiah, I read my Holy Bible and I have read some gnostic books and enoch and can rightly discern what is scripture and what isn't on my own,

That seems clear enough.

 

[MoreCoffee]

Codex Vaticanus, from around 325 AD has this as its table of contents page - Tobit is on page 930, Judith on 908, Matthew on 1235,
View attachment 1814

Job is on page 769; Wisdom is on page 809

The table of contents is a later addition to the manuscript hence its use of numerals

 

[Andrew]

A steady of stream of wishful thinking instead of the reality concerning these books is certainly not what the thread was supposed to be about.

The Apocrypha was in every Holy Bible from the 4th - 19th century.

The discussion should be WHY

..because Christians and the church used them. That is not wishful thinking. To deny the fact that the so-called "Apocrypha" books were in the first CHRISTIAN BIBLE we must agree that they were accepted by CHRISTIANS thus CHRISTIANS put them in the CHRISTIAN BIBLE.

 

[Andrew]

That seems clear enough.

Yeah take some lines from my post and cherry pick them out of context.

I was expressing my first experience with the Bible, I did not know nor was I concerned about what canon and what Apocrypha was.. I just read the Holy Bible... should be very clear but im sorry you're having difficulty understanding what I write.. I often do so in a rush so I apologize.

 

[Andrew]

That seems clear enough.

In regards to why I mentioned that I have read some gnostic writings was because they are the actual apocrypha. I can, therefore, rightly discern between the so called Apocrypha and the actual Apocrypha as defined by the Church fathers

 

[Albion]

The Apocrypha was in every Holy Bible from the 4th - 19th century.

We've already discussed at length how that wording is misleading. If you still prefer to use it, what does that tell us?

That said, I still recognize that you pulled back what you said before. What you wrote before was this (bolded type for emphasis)--

"The subject is in regards to the books in the received text of the early churches ...which were undoubtedly inherited from the first churches ..which were The subject is in regards to the books in the received text of the early churches ...which were undoubtedly established by the Apostles and their bishops..."

Such a statement is of course waaayy over the top and unsustainable. But if you're now reducing your claim to this (below) familiar, if still factually incorrect and ambiguous, one--

"The Apocrypha was in every Holy Bible from the 4th - 19th century."

...maybe that does represent progress of a sort.

 

[Albion]

Yeah take some lines from my post and cherry pick them out of context.

There's no way those particular statements are the product of cherry-picking! Sorry, but no.

 

[Albion]

In regards to why I mentioned that I have read some gnostic writings was because they are the actual apocrypha. I can, therefore, rightly discern between the so called Apocrypha and the actual Apocrypha as defined by the Church fathers

Well, yes, but we all know this.

The word Apocrypha, in context, refers to certain books that have been the subject of controversy for the whole of Christian history. But it's also true that other dubious writings existed and the word (apocrypha) would describe their nature...except that mixing the two usages and/or talking as though there is any doubt about which books this thread is all about doesn't help the discussion at all. It's rather the opposite.

 

[Josiah]

So we not only had weird apocrypha books

Quote me saying anything is weird.

in the bible but we actually had a BIBLE

Whatever "they" of which you speak, "they" may be in some tome with the word "BIBLE" on the cover. There goes your argument that "they" don't. There goes your point that Protestants can't read them, that there's some conspiracy to keep Christians from having access to "them".

that didn't come from a church authority?

Whatever "they" of which you speak, no, there's a very obvious reason why you can't name the Ruling Body of Christianity that declared this mysterious corpus of "them" at a meeting you can't name at a place you can't name. Everyone realizes why you can't show that "they" were declared to be inerrant, fully canonical, divinely inspired - or even declared "them" to be anything whatsoever. The reason you can't identify this is that it never happened. At least not for Christianity. There are a FEW denominations that eventually did so for some books you may include in your mysterious "them" but none before the 15th Century and only for that single individual denomination and none that agrees with any other denomination on this. You've never even attempted to substantiate your "PUT IN" claim for this mysterious "them"

The Apocrypha was in every Holy Bible from the 4th - 19th century

You keep making this claim... even NEVER with ANYTHING to show it's true... and we all know why: it's not true. Never has been true. You seem to need us to accept that from the 4th Century on, every tome with BIBLE on the cover contained the exact same material. This is false. That's NEVER been the case, still isn't. Check out the Coptic Bible, the Syrian Bible, the Greek Orthodox Bible.... check out Catholic Bibles that for over 1000 years often contained the Letter to the Leodiceans, Orthodox Bibles that often did not contain the Revelation of John. Check out Luther's translation, the unique Anglican Bible.... we all know, they are NOT THE SAME. Never have been. Still aren't.

And I think it's obvious why you work so hard to evade naming the exact list of "THEM." Because there is no one list. There is the Coptic list, Syrian list, various Orthodox lists, Luther's list, the Church of England list... and some Catholic tomes (such as in Germany) included the Prayer of Manassah but those in Italy and Spain typically did not. You sometimes blunder and mention the LXX (as if there's only one) but don't seem to care about 3 and 4 Maccabees, Psalm 151, etc. which is found in a few of the lists of "them" but not in others.

There never has been some Christian embrace of which books are "THEM." And there has never been some endorsement by Christianity of "them" as anything at all. You know this, I suspect, because after all this time, you would have given the reference. And quoted the resolution of the declaration. You know you can't - because it's simply not the case.

And again, there is no law - there has NEVER been any law - about what may and may not be placed between the covers of a book with BIBLE on the cover by printers, publishers and book sellers. It's NEVER been true. Anyone and anything can put whatever they want in there. My Bible is some 2800 pages long, the Table of Contents lists some 300 items. The cover has the word "BIBLE" on it. What law did the publishing company violate? How does this tome prove that Luther's Small Catechism ergo has been declared by Christianity to be inerrant, fully canonical, inscripturated words of God and the law mandates that it appear in every tome that has the word BIBLE on the cover????????

why would greeks and greek speaking Hebrews ever read a GREEK translation of HEBREW??

Perhaps because very few could read Hebrew. Pretty simple, huh?

Today, lots of Bibles are in English. English is the most common language for Bibles today. How how does that prove that Christianity adopted some mysterious books you call "them" as the inerrant, fully canonical, inscripturated words of God and passed an international law that every publishing house, printing company and book store MUST include "them" in the tome (those but no others) or else??????


And does that prove all your Jewish Conspiracy theories? That God inspired the LXX as the Gentile Bible? That Christianity adopted certain books (you won't name) as all fully canonical, inerrant, equal, inscripturated words of God at some meeting you can't identify so that all Christians had the same Bible until some soceity the the USA ripped out a bunch of them two hundred years ago so now Coptic Christians, Syrian Christians, Greek Christians, Catholic Christians and American Evangelicals 200 years ago all have DIFFERENT Bibles??????


Now, what about

Post # 108

Post # 116

Post # 119

Post # 122

Post # 141

Post # 163

Post # 171




.