The Truth About the Christian Canon

[SavedOnebyGrace]

16 hours ago, Ezra said:

Well since the Lord Jesus Christ is the final authority in all matters, He is also the one who gave His stamp of approval to the OT canon as fixed in Palestine.  Here is what He said:

Then he said unto them, O fools, and slow of heart to believe all that the prophets have spoken: Ought not Christ to have suffered these things, and to enter into his glory? And beginning at Moses and all the prophets, [the Tanakh] he expounded unto them in all the scriptures the things concerning himself... And he said unto them, These are the words which I spake unto you, while I was yet with you, that all things must be fulfilled, which were written [1] in the law of Moses, and [2] in the prophets, and [3] in the psalms, concerning me. Then opened he their understanding, that they might understand the scriptures, And said unto them, Thus it is written, and thus it behoved Christ to suffer, and to rise from the dead the third day: And that repentance and remission of sins should be preached in his name among all nations, beginning at Jerusalem. (Luke 24:25-27; 44-47).

Christ alluded to the OT (the Tanakh) as (a) "Moses and all the prophets" and (b) the law of Moses, the Prophets, and the Psalms.  Those three divisions are found in the Hebrew Bible, which consists of 24 books (divided up in our OT into 39 books) as follows:

TORAH = The Law of Moses = 5 books

NEBIIM (NEVIM) = The Prophets = 8 books

KETHUBIIM (KETUVIM) = The Psalms = 11 books (with the Psalms as the first book in this division.

We could go into greater details as to which books belong where (since they are not in the same order as our OT) but the point is that Christ Himself limited the Palestinian canon to our OT, and excluded the Apocrypha.  All OT allusions in the NT are from the Tanakh.

Yes, I agree.  But that wasn't my question which I blame myself for not framing it better.  What modern day New Testament translation is most consistent with the Old Testament understanding that Jesus and the Jews would have?  NASB?  ESV?

[Ezra]

10 hours ago, Saved.One.by.Grace said:

Yes, I agree.  But that wasn't my question which I blame myself for not framing it better.  What modern day New Testament translation is most consistent with the Old Testament understanding that Jesus and the Jews would have?  NASB?  ESV?

Well the Authorized Version (KJB) is the most consistent, and the proof of that is that for many years the Jewish Publication Society (JPS) used that Old Testament as the translation of their Hebrew Bible. The NASB, ESV, etc. have all resorted to corruptions of the Masoretic Text.

Old JPS (1917)

The first JPS translation was completed in 1917 by a committee led by Max Margolis and was based on the scholarship of its day. Its literary form was consciously based on that of the King James Version; Margolis, a non-native speaker of English, felt that was the proper standard of language that Jews should adopt for their translation. 

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jewish_English_Bible_translations

[Hawkins]

On 12/7/2016 at 10:55 AM, Saved.One.by.Grace said:

There has been much discussion about the differences between the Christian Canon of Scripture, and the Roman Catholic Canon of Scripture.  The article hyperlinked should clear some of the confusion.

Source: The Canon of Scripture and How Did We Get It

The Roman Catholic Canon contains extra books.  The ten "books interpreted in the Septuagint (the Greek translation of the Hebrew Scriptures) were rejected because of the strict guidelines for canon: books must have conformed to the Torah, and had to have been written in Palestine, in Hebrew, and not after the time of Ezra (about 400 BC). Although the Catholic Bible today includes the Apocrypha, the vast majority of Hebrew scholars considered them to be good historical and religious documents, but not on the same level as the inspired Hebrew Scriptures. The Dead Sea Scrolls, discovered in 1947, have a few minor differences, but they are remarkably similar to the accepted Hebrew Scriptures we have today."
 

 

The formal canonization of the OT is said to be from King Hezekiah. That's why 17 out of the 22 books of the Jewish Bible are said to be with a Hezekiah mark or stamp. During the Babylon exile it is expected that the different versions of the Scriptures may flow around due to the lack of a central authority to do the publishing. Ezra then, under God's permission, re-united the Scripture after the exile. Then it is strictly guarded by the Jewish authority, this authority in Jesus' time is the Sanhedrin (i.e., the temple court). Only scribes authorized by the Sanhedrin can 'publish' the authenticated copies of the Scripture.

The last 2 to 3 books were written in Aramaic instead of Hebrew as Aramaic became a more common spoken language. The canonization itself finished after the death of Jesus Christ.

The Septuagint is not a maintained copy of the Scripture. Any Greek or Hellenistic publishers can base on any copy of the translations to produce any books at will without much control. That's why there could be a fundamental difference, even conceptually, between the Septuagint and the Jewish Bible. An example could be St. Stephen (a Hellenist) quoted the number of Patriarchs is different from the Jewish custom.  On the other hand when a Jewish writer, such as Paul, tried to quote an OT verse but in Greek the best source is still the Septuagint as long as he verified that the verse to be quoted is consistent with the Jewish Bible. Or else he may have to translate the verse by himself, but with the Hellenistic Jews may consider that it's wrongly or improperly quoted.

The Sanhedrin is composed of mainly the Sadducees and Pharisees and some others. However since the Sadducees only authenticate the 5 books of the Law, the Pharisees become the ones supervising and authenticating the OT Canon as a whole. That's why the Pharisees but not the Sadducees have the most influence over the Jews in majority.

The Dead Sea Scrolls are actually a library of the Essenes instead of the Pharisees. So it can't be told with certainty that whether they use their own version of the OT scrolls or those from the scribes of the Sanhedrin. 

Whether it is 22 or 24 books may b a matter of scroll arrangements. The Pharisees may keep the 22 book version of the bible while the rabbis may have re-arranged them into 24 books as the teaching Bible. The contents may remain the same. After the AD 70 siege, all Jewish authorities were gone. No one keeps an authenticated copy of the Scripture. However, the good of a religion (created by God) is that every single Jew keeps at least one copy of the Scripture with most of them from the authenticated scribes.

It is after AD 200 or later that a group of rabbis tried to revive Judaism. Though by then the Catholics are supposed to be the authenticated authority, it's not difficult for the rabbis to acquire an accurate copy of the Scripture. It's 24 books may be because it's based off a rabbinical source. Later, it may have become the Masoretic Text and the Jewish Bible we read today.

By the imperfect hands of humans, we don't seem to have anything today which can be confirmed to be fully original. However not only the Bible we read today conveys the same messages humans 2000 years ago had read, but also that it is the way how God makes things perfect through the hands of the imperfect men.

Besides the Bible, there's no any other human books allow us to trace its original contents as we can with the Bible. The Bible could be the only book which allow us to tell that theologically the same Word we read today is the same Word humans read 2000 years ago. The same message of salvation we convey today is the same message delivered to humans some 2000 years ago.

[TheMatrixHasU71]

On ‎12‎/‎7‎/‎2016 at 11:55 AM, Saved.One.by.Grace said:

There has been much discussion about the differences between the Christian Canon of Scripture, and the Roman Catholic Canon of Scripture.  The article hyperlinked should clear some of the confusion.

Source: The Canon of Scripture and How Did We Get It

The Roman Catholic Canon contains extra books.  The ten "books interpreted in the Septuagint (the Greek translation of the Hebrew Scriptures) were rejected because of the strict guidelines for canon: books must have conformed to the Torah, and had to have been written in Palestine, in Hebrew, and not after the time of Ezra (about 400 BC). Although the Catholic Bible today includes the Apocrypha, the vast majority of Hebrew scholars considered them to be good historical and religious documents, but not on the same level as the inspired Hebrew Scriptures. The Dead Sea Scrolls, discovered in 1947, have a few minor differences, but they are remarkably similar to the accepted Hebrew Scriptures we have today."
 

Catholics will sometimes being up how even the first editions of the KJV had the Apocrypha. Yes. But not only did that not last long but when they were part of that bible they were always kept in a separate section and the translators made it very clear that they are not part of the true Canon

[TheMatrixHasU71]

On ‎12‎/‎7‎/‎2016 at 1:51 PM, Saved.One.by.Grace said:

The Book of Jasher as mentioned in the KJV of the Bible, but somehow it's not included in the Bible.

Joshua 10:13 And the sun stood still, and the moon stayed, until the people had avenged themselves upon their enemies. Is not this written in the book of Jasher? So the sun stood still in the midst of heaven, and hasted not to go down about a whole day.  [KJV]
2 Samuel 1:18 (Also he bade them teach the children of Judah the use of the bow: behold, it is written in the book of Jasher.)   [KJV]
 

Very simple, its because no copies of Jasher exist. Probably would have been unnecessary to include that book anyway as all the important stuff that matters most is in the bible.

[SavedOnebyGrace]

7 hours ago, TheMatrixHasU71 said:

Very simple, its because no copies of Jasher exist. Probably would have been unnecessary to include that book anyway as all the important stuff that matters most is in the bible.

That is not true.  I have a copies of the books of Jasher, Jubilees, and 1,2 and 3 Enoch, as well as the KJV Apocrypha.

[whatdoIwant2callmyself]

On 12/7/2016 at 11:33 AM, Saved.One.by.Grace said:

Since most of us are Christians here, I'm sure we'll have pieces everywhere, er, I mean peace.

Isn't it the 11th command that says, arrive prepared?

[whatdoIwant2callmyself]

On 12/15/2016 at 10:01 AM, TheMatrixHasU71 said:

Catholics will sometimes being up how even the first editions of the KJV had the Apocrypha. Yes. But not only did that not last long but when they were part of that bible they were always kept in a separate section and the translators made it very clear that they are not part of the true Canon

It is true the 1611 KJV Bible did include the Apocrypha. But those texts were placed between the old and the new testaments because they were not part of the canon itself.

[TheMatrixHasU71]

On ‎12‎/‎15‎/‎2016 at 6:24 PM, Saved.One.by.Grace said:

That is not true.  I have a copies of the books of Jasher, Jubilees, and 1,2 and 3 Enoch, as well as the KJV Apocrypha.

UN-RE-LI-A-BLE since they are not the originals and likely not even close.

[TheMatrixHasU71]

On ‎12‎/‎16‎/‎2016 at 2:26 PM, whatdoIwant2callmyself said:

It is true the 1611 KJV Bible did include the Apocrypha. But those texts were placed between the old and the new testaments because they were not part of the canon itself.

Umm yeah that's what I just said