A revelation about which OT books to include

[Jayne]

1 hour ago, Uber Genius said:

So your point is that when Jude and Peter quote 1 Enoch they are quoting oral tradition? Okay. 

No, I said "are Jude and Enoch quoting oral tradition?"  I asked since the books of Enoch do not come from God as they are inerrant in both doctrine and history and the Holy Spirit did not inspire those authors.  

My point - the authors of Enoch had to have gotten that quote from somewhere.  They didn't make it up - but they did quote it incorrectly, as shown in my above post.

Where did THEY get it from?

Edited December 7, 2018 by Jayne

[Willa]

The prophets were to be stoned to death if they made false prophecies or lied and made false statements.  There is so much false in most of the the apocrypha that they would never be considered to be Holy Scripture.  They are full of error.  I have read most of them, some only in part.  

[Still Alive]

14 hours ago, Abdicate said:

The 66 books of what we call the bible contains within its pages a list of six external books that are not written within its pages.

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.) 

1 Kings 11:41
And the rest of the acts of Solomon, and all that he did, and his wisdom, [are] they not written in the book of the acts of Solomon? 

2 Kings 23:2
And the king went up into the house of the LORD, and all the men of Judah and all the inhabitants of Jerusalem with him, and the priests, and the prophets, and all the people, both small and great: and he read in their ears all the words of the book of the covenant which was found in the house of the LORD. 

1 Chronicles 29:29
Now the acts of David the king, first and last, behold, they [are] written in the book of Samuel the seer, and in the book of Nathan the prophet, and in the book of Gad the seer, 

2 Chronicles 12:15
Now the acts of Rehoboam, first and last, [are] they not written in the book of Shemaiah the prophet, and of Iddo the seer concerning genealogies? And [there were] wars between Rehoboam and Jeroboam continually. 

2 Chronicles 20:34
Now the rest of the acts of Jehoshaphat, first and last, behold, they [are] written in the book of Jehu the son of Hanani, who [is] mentioned in the book of the kings of Israel. 

The book of Gad was found a few years back and is available today. I have it, but I've not read it and I do not know if it's legit or not.

Thanks for posting that.

[frienduff thaylorde]

1 hour ago, Still Alive said:

Thanks for posting that.

What some folks don't realize is this .    I myself could write a book about enoch or other names mentioned .    And then pawn it off as INSPIRED .

folks do those things . And isn't odd that contradictions have been found , at least in the ones I read .    But I have never found a contradiction IN THE ORIGINAL SIXTY SIX.

Their is a reason they called it secondary books .     While they do contain some common truths ,  they have lots of mens wisdom in it .

I have read some of them .    My advice ,  we better stick to ONLY the original sixty six .   Better to have what we Know GOD inspired ,

than what some may think HE did .   I would not be surprised if even they claim soon enough they have found another book .   WE DO KNOW

the agenda of todays men , RIGHT .   confusion .  Here a little confusion , their a little truth  ,here a little confusion truth blended with mens way of seeing it .

WE better all be on guard .   I mean Thomas is mentioned in the gospels ,   AND MEN came up with the gsople according to Thomas . ONLY YEAH DONT READ IT .

they can do the same with other names and make it seem valid , WHEN IN TRUTH It aint . 

[Billiards Ball]

On 10/18/2018 at 10:29 AM, Still Alive said:

For your consideration and comments.

I was listening to Micheal Heiser  this morning discussing "where we get our old testament" and something hit me like a brick. 

One quick background note - I've never respected any books not in the bibles in use today by protestants.

The core issue: 

1. In the time of the early church, the Septuagint was the main "bible" used by Christians and Jews. It was the koine Greek OT that "everybody" used. It was kinda like what the KJV of the entire bible was to the western world until the 20th century. It was the bible (OT) that everyone used. It was their "holy scripture".

2. At the time of the reformation, reformers determined that only books in the Septuagint that could be traced back to Hibrew beginnings should be considered canonical, giving us the OT most protestants use to this day. They believed that anything that could only be traced back to Greek origins should not be canonical. And that actually makes sense. 

3. Enter 1947 and the discovery of the dead sea scrolls. And guess what? Those very books are found to exist in these newly discovered  scrolls and fragments, and even written using old usage of Hebrew. This strongly implies that the reason for removing them from canon has been debunked. 

4. Considering number 1 above, take a look at Peter and Timothy https://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=2+Timothy+3%3A16%2C2+Peter+1%3A21&version=NIV

If they considered the Septuagint to be their holy scripture, and then made the statements they did, this makes a strong case for the books of the Septuagint being in our modern Christian bibles. And when the reason for taking them out in the first place vanishes with the discovery of the dead sea scrolls, that position is further strengthened. 

Bottom line is that an almost ironclad case for re-including the books of the Septuagint in our modern bibles now exists. What am I missing here?

 

 

A "Berean Christian" studies the books for themselves and makes their own decision. However, here are some reasons I do not accept books beyond the 66. The "other books":

1) Aren't accepted by the Jewish people

2) Aren't accepted by more than 99% of groups that began new church movements, via Bible study and study of non-canon books

3) Do not say, as the Bible says over 6,000 times, "This is the Word of God", indeed, they say things like "Here's wisdom my grandfather told me"

4) Contain teachings that contradict the Bible

5) Contain impious or "dirty" passages that are more sexual or violent in nature than the Bible, the Bible already being fairly explicit

6) Were reluctantly placed in some movements to keep the peace, while adding footnotes like "of unknown origin/veracity"

7) Contain self-contradictory teachings, like Person A disagrees with Person B in the same apocryphal work

? Show a lack of character: Daniel tricking people instead of being honest, Jesus putting a child to death, etc.

[Still Alive]

6 minutes ago, Billiards Ball said:

A "Berean Christian" studies the books for themselves and makes their own decision. However, here are some reasons I do not accept books beyond the 66. The "other books":

1) Aren't accepted by the Jewish people

2) Aren't accepted by more than 99% of groups that began new church movements, via Bible study and study of non-canon books

3) Do not say, as the Bible says over 6,000 times, "This is the Word of God", indeed, they say things like "Here's wisdom my grandfather told me"

4) Contain teachings that contradict the Bible

5) Contain impious or "dirty" passages that are more sexual or violent in nature than the Bible, the Bible already being fairly explicit

6) Were reluctantly placed in some movements to keep the peace, while adding footnotes like "of unknown origin/veracity"

7) Contain self-contradictory teachings, like Person A disagrees with Person B in the same apocryphal work

? Show a lack of character: Daniel tricking people instead of being honest, Jesus putting a child to death, etc.

Thank you. Well said. I also have to say that the absolute most ironclad of those is number 1. 

I've since learned that the writers of the NT often quoted non-canonical books since those books were part of their culture much as C.S. Lewis' or Josh McDowell's books are part of our culture and we quote them. But they are not canonical either.

[Uber Genius]

5 hours ago, Billiards Ball said:

Aren't accepted by the Jewish people

Jude, Peter, and Paul all lifted ideas out of 1 Enoch while we see the Ante-Nicene Church Fathers quote from almost all the books in the apocrypha. Since we now have the Dead Sea Scroll finds numbering in the 100s of thousands of documents,  we find that the Septuagint, rather than 1000 year later Masoretic text, is much more accurate a translation.

 

That said, the content and authorship is of a lower quality than the current OT texts in the Protestant Canon. And although Luther seemed to argue for their lack of authenticity through fallacious consequentialism (the consequences of inclusion would not support Luther's views) there are legitimate qualms with canonicity of these books from before Nicea.   

These books were read by Jesus and his disciples, and have some ideas that would be important to understanding the historical context, idiomatic language, and central themes that explain the NT Authors worldview. 

These are a valuable tool to pull out meaning instead of the ever-popular reading meaning into the NT texts.

Edited December 20, 2018 by Uber Genius

[Billiards Ball]

11 minutes ago, Uber Genius said:

Jude, Peter, and Paul all lifted ideas out of 1 Enoch while we see the Ante-Nicene Church Fathers quote from almost all the books in the apocrypha. Since we now have the Dead Sea Scroll finds numbering in the 100s of thousands of documents,  we find that the Septuagint, rather than 1000 year later Masoretic text, is much more accurate a translation.

 

That said, the content and authorship is of a lower quality than the current OT texts in the Protestant Canon. And although Luther seemed to argue for their lack of authenticity through fallacious consequentialism (the consequences of inclusion would not support Luther's views) there are legitimate qualms with canonicity of these books from before Nicea.   

These books were read by Jesus and his disciples, and have some ideas that would be important to understanding the historical context, idiomatic language, and central themes that explain the NT Authors worldview. 

These are a valuable tool to pull out meaning instead of the ever-popular reading meaning into the NT texts.

I question the dating of 1 Enoch. It's Occam's to say Enoch was quoting the NT rather than vice versa. Tanakh is quoted hundreds of times, alluded to a thousand times in the NT, pagans and oral Talmud get more NT quotations then the Apocrypha.

I question that Christ read NT apocrypha written after His ascension. My Jewish people have never held intertestamental apocrypha as authoritative. There are some demented ideas in the apocrypha (like the child Jesus killing a child, like Jesus being struck by a stone when the NT says stones could not thrown at Him before His cross time) and etc.

Edited December 20, 2018 by Billiards Ball

[Uber Genius]

2 hours ago, Billiards Ball said:

t's Occam's to say Enoch was quoting the NT rather than vice versa.

Since they are direct quotes of portions of 1 enoch and jubilees and both books predated the NT Authors by 250 to 300 years this would be hard to do. Have never even heard someone suggest that Septuagint is quoting NT. Do you have a reference I could check out?

[Billiards Ball]

2 minutes ago, Uber Genius said:

Since they are direct quotes of portions of 1 enoch and jubilees and both books predated the NT Authors by 250 to 300 years this would be hard to do. Have never even heard someone suggest that Septuagint is quoting NT. Do you have a reference I could check out?

I didn't say the Septuagint quotes the NT. That would be a ludicrous suggestion for me to make.

I do question the early dates for 1 Enoch and have trouble imagining only a century elapsing between Malachi and apocrypha during a prosperous Greek period of occupation.

I don't find the quotations "direct". I did point out the 8 or 9 problems I've found with the apocrypha besides the incredibly low rate of citations in the NT,