Canon Objections, continued - 11/02/14

Prayer: Breathe in me, O Holy Spirit

1. Objection 8: (from a Protestant site) When it came to the Old Testament, three important facts were considered: 1) The New Testament quotes from or alludes to every Old Testament book but two. 2) Jesus effectively endorsed the Hebrew canon in Matthew 23:35 when He cited one of the first narratives and one of the last in the Scriptures of His day. 3) The Jews were meticulous in preserving the Old Testament Scriptures, and they had few controversies over what parts belong or do not belong. The Roman Catholic Apocrypha did not measure up and fell outside the definition of Scripture and has never been accepted by the Jews.
  1. A: First, were these the “three important facts” that were actually considered? (No. This is an assertion without evidence, and it's actually false. Ask for proof.)
  2. Claim (1). You admit that the NT does not quote from or even allude to a couple of OT books. Does that mean you are willing to throw out Obadiah and Song of Songs because they are not quoted? Are you willing to add in books like Enoch (quoted in Jude 1:14)? In fact, the NT does not quote directly from 7 books (or up to 15 depending on which scholars you consult). To get down to 2, you must accept allusions as well. If I show you NT allusions to the deuterocanonicals, will you accept them as Scripture? e.g. Hebrews 11:35 is an indisputable reference to 2 Maccabees 7.
    Also, recall that the vast majority of NT quotations of the OT are taken from the Septuagint. Since the NT writers were inspired, this would mean that the Holy Spirit chose to use the LXX repeatedly, even when it is different from the Hebrew.
  3. Claim (2). Read: Matthew 23:35. This idea seems to me amazing on the face of it.
    1. 3 Jewish “canons” – Sadducees (Pentateuch, 5 books), Pharisees (Tanakh, 22 = 39 books), Hellenic Jews (LXX 46+). Our objector is claiming that Jesus is “endorsing” the Pharisees' canon by mentioning folks from the first and last books of the Tanakh. The LXX had a different book order, one that is actually much closer to our Christian Bibles.
    2. But, what does Jesus mean? In context, he's clearly pointing out the long history of the people of Israel – God's people – persecuting and killing His prophets. He's NOT trying to tell them which group of Scriptural books to use.
    3. Also, it's not certain which Zechariah Jesus refers to here. He speaks of Zechariah the “son of Berechiah,” who was a minor prophet with his own book in Christian Bibles. But a different Zechariah is mentioned as being killed in the Temple in 2 Chronicles 24 … although that Zechariah is the son of Jehoiada. The objector is assuming that Jesus actually means the latter, because Chronicles was the last book of the Hebrew Tanakh. But then, why does Jesus make a mistake about whose son he's talking about? Isn't that impossible?
    4. Plus, the Zechariah in 2 Chronicles was killed way back in the reign of Joash, before around 800 BC. The other Zechariah was one of the last prophets (incidentally, prophets come last in the LXX!) and lived around 3 c. later (~ 500 BC). Considering all the other prophets that were persecuted in the meantime, including Isaiah and Jeremiah, it makes more sense for him to be the one Jesus really means.
    5. But in that case, the objector's claim falls apart!
  4. Claim 3:
    1. Historically, this assertion – again offered w/o proof – is simply false. Yes, the Jewish people were careful with the Scriptures, but the canon was not closed at the time of Christ. There were indeed questions about which writings belonged in it and which did not. These were not settled until well after Jesus had founded the Church. Historically, it is certain that Greek-speaking Jews of the 1st century BC - 1st century AD did use the Septuagint with its additional books. Ethiopian Jews, 2! In addition, the Masoretic text (Hebrew Bible) has undergone significantly more corruption than the LXX, and sometimes has to be corrected based on the latter.
    2. The objector actually admitted this himself when he argues in claim 2 (above) that Jesus "endorsed" the Hebrew canon. How could He have done so if there had not been more than 1 Jewish "canon" or controversy about it?
  5. Finally, this argument relies on knowing which books belong to the NT. How do you know that? What authority guarantees it? [This writer waffles on this question – while weakly acknowledging that church councils were involved, he tries to make it sound as though their role was not at all important.]

Objection 9: (another Protestant site) The New Testament never quotes from the any of the apocryphal books written between 400 - 200 BC. What is significant here is that NONE of the books within the "apocryphal collection" are ever quoted. So the Catholic argument that "the apocryphal books cannot be rejected as uninspired on the basis that they are never quoted from in the New Testament because Ezra, Nehemiah, Esther, Ecclesiastes, Song of Solomon are also never quoted in the New Testament, and we all accept them as inspired." The rebuttal to this Catholic argument is that "Ezra, Nehemiah, Esther" were always included in the "history collection" of Jewish books and "Ecclesiastes, Song of Solomon" were always included in the "poetry collection". By quoting one book from the collection, it verifies the entire collection. None of the apocryphal books were ever quoted in the New Testament. Not even once! This proves the Catholic and Orthodox apologists wrong when they try to defend the apocrypha in the Bible.
1. A: anyone??

The Canon of Scripture is at bottom an authority issue. Next, let's look at sola scriptura, another authority issue.