The Protestant's Dilemma by Devin Rose Read Free Book Online Page B
Authors: Devin Rose
not carry the day, the majority of his opinions did catch on with the Protestant Reformation as a whole and formed the basis for its common doctrines.
THE PROTESTANT’S DILEMMA
If Protestantism is true , then there is no reason why someone today could not remove any number of books from the New Testament and declare that he has come up with the true Bible, made up of whichever books coincide with his beliefs. After all, the father of the Protestant Reformation did just that to a thousand-year-old canon.
8: THE DEUTEROCANONICAL BOOKS
IF PROTESTANTISM IS TRUE,
God allowed the early Church to put seven books in the Bible that didn’t belong there.
As we saw in the previous section, Martin Luther was not afraid to challenge the canon of Scripture. Though his alteration of the New Testament ultimately wasn’t adopted by all of the Protestant movements, his alteration of the Old Testament was , and by the end of the Reformation, Protestantism had removed seven books (the deuterocanonicals) from the Old Testament canon.
Protestants Reject the Deuterocanonicals
The Protestants rejected these books for two main reasons. The first was a problematic passage in 2 Maccabees, and the second was their desire to go “back to the sources,” which in this case meant using the same books that the Jews ultimately decided upon. 2 Maccabees included a laudatory reference to prayers for the dead—a teaching that had been encouraged in the Catholic Church for the souls in purgatory. Recall Luther’s protest against the sale of indulgences to remove the temporal punishment due for already forgiven sins—punishment that must be paid before a soul would be fit to enter heaven. Luther and the Reformers rejected purgatory, so all that was connected with it also had to go: indulgences, prayers for the dead, and the communion of saints (which includes those both living and asleep in Christ).
The Reformers pointed out that these seven books were not included in the Jewish Hebrew Bible. Some Protestant apologists seek to bolster this claim by mentioning the theory that, around the year 90, a council of Jews at a city called Jamnia explicitly rejected these books. 28 Others like to point out that some Church Fathers rejected one or more of these books. They strengthen this argument with the testimony of Josephus and Philo—two Jews from the first century—who also did not accept them.
BECAUSE CATHOLICISM IS TRUE,
Christ’s Church, and not the Jews, possessed the authority and divine guidance to discern the Old Testament canon.
A little historical background is needed here. The first Greek translation of the Hebrew Old Testament, used during Jesus’ time, was called the Septuagint. It was an evolving set of books that was added to from the third century B.C. until the time of Christ. It remains the most ancient translation of the Old Testament that we have today and so is used to correct the errors that crept into the Hebrew text, the oldest existing examples of which date only from the sixth century. It was used extensively in the Near East by rabbis, and in the first century the apostles quoted prophecies from it in the books that became the New Testament. It was accepted as authoritative by the Jews of Alexandria and then by all Jews in Greek-speaking countries.
By the time of Christ, the Septuagint contained the deuterocanonical books.
Historical evidence also shows that there were multiple, conflicting Jewish canons at the time of Christ. How could the Jews close their canon when they were still awaiting the advent of the new Elijah (John the Baptist) and the new Moses (Jesus)? Thus the argument that Christians should base their Old Testament off of the Hebrew Bible rather than the Greek Septuagint is dubious. 29
Still, some say, should we be reading books as canonical to the Hebrew Bible if they weren’t written in Hebrew? Well, some of the seven deuterocanonical books were originally written
THE PROTESTANT’S DILEMMA
If Protestantism is true , then there is no reason why someone today could not remove any number of books from the New Testament and declare that he has come up with the true Bible, made up of whichever books coincide with his beliefs. After all, the father of the Protestant Reformation did just that to a thousand-year-old canon.
8: THE DEUTEROCANONICAL BOOKS
IF PROTESTANTISM IS TRUE,
God allowed the early Church to put seven books in the Bible that didn’t belong there.
As we saw in the previous section, Martin Luther was not afraid to challenge the canon of Scripture. Though his alteration of the New Testament ultimately wasn’t adopted by all of the Protestant movements, his alteration of the Old Testament was , and by the end of the Reformation, Protestantism had removed seven books (the deuterocanonicals) from the Old Testament canon.
Protestants Reject the Deuterocanonicals
The Protestants rejected these books for two main reasons. The first was a problematic passage in 2 Maccabees, and the second was their desire to go “back to the sources,” which in this case meant using the same books that the Jews ultimately decided upon. 2 Maccabees included a laudatory reference to prayers for the dead—a teaching that had been encouraged in the Catholic Church for the souls in purgatory. Recall Luther’s protest against the sale of indulgences to remove the temporal punishment due for already forgiven sins—punishment that must be paid before a soul would be fit to enter heaven. Luther and the Reformers rejected purgatory, so all that was connected with it also had to go: indulgences, prayers for the dead, and the communion of saints (which includes those both living and asleep in Christ).
The Reformers pointed out that these seven books were not included in the Jewish Hebrew Bible. Some Protestant apologists seek to bolster this claim by mentioning the theory that, around the year 90, a council of Jews at a city called Jamnia explicitly rejected these books. 28 Others like to point out that some Church Fathers rejected one or more of these books. They strengthen this argument with the testimony of Josephus and Philo—two Jews from the first century—who also did not accept them.
BECAUSE CATHOLICISM IS TRUE,
Christ’s Church, and not the Jews, possessed the authority and divine guidance to discern the Old Testament canon.
A little historical background is needed here. The first Greek translation of the Hebrew Old Testament, used during Jesus’ time, was called the Septuagint. It was an evolving set of books that was added to from the third century B.C. until the time of Christ. It remains the most ancient translation of the Old Testament that we have today and so is used to correct the errors that crept into the Hebrew text, the oldest existing examples of which date only from the sixth century. It was used extensively in the Near East by rabbis, and in the first century the apostles quoted prophecies from it in the books that became the New Testament. It was accepted as authoritative by the Jews of Alexandria and then by all Jews in Greek-speaking countries.
By the time of Christ, the Septuagint contained the deuterocanonical books.
Historical evidence also shows that there were multiple, conflicting Jewish canons at the time of Christ. How could the Jews close their canon when they were still awaiting the advent of the new Elijah (John the Baptist) and the new Moses (Jesus)? Thus the argument that Christians should base their Old Testament off of the Hebrew Bible rather than the Greek Septuagint is dubious. 29
Still, some say, should we be reading books as canonical to the Hebrew Bible if they weren’t written in Hebrew? Well, some of the seven deuterocanonical books were originally written
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