THE BOOKS OF THE OLD TESTAMENT are quite varied in character, and have
discrete histories. Generally speaking, they fall into four broad groups: the
books of the Law (the Pentateuch); the history books (e.g., the books of Kings;
the Prophets; and the books of Wisdom. It might be interesting to note in
passing that the first "disagreement" concerning the "table of
contents" of the Old Testament long pre-dated the Christian era: the
Samaritans were distinguished from the Jews by their refusal to acknowledge as
"scripture" any books other than those of Moses, the Pentateuch.
Most of the books of the Old Testament were written originally in Hebrew or
Aramaic, or a mixture of the two. There is, however, a whole group of books
which are an exception, having been originally written (or at least only known
to us) in Greek. These books are usually called the "Apocrypha,"
or "hidden books" - a complete misnomer, as there is nothing hidden
about them; they were an integral part of the Greek text of the Old Testament
as it was in use at the time of Our Lord, the Septuagint. Many quotations from
the Scriptures - the Old Testament- in the books of the New Testament are
identifiably from this Greek text. (A glance at any reliable reference edition
of the New Testament will readily confirm this... quotations which are clearly
from the Greek text are usually identified as, e.g., "Ps 145:5,
Septuagint). Nowhere, of course, do any of the New Testament books make any
distinction between the various books of the Old Testament. It is of all
this material that the holy Apostle Paul writes when he says "All
Scripture is given by inspiration from God" (2 Tim 3:16).
Complete Bible
It must be said that any volume which claims to be "the Bible" and
yet does not contain these books is, at best, an expurgated or abbreviated
Bible... and at worst an outright misrepresentation. It would be tedious and
unnecessary to list all the books in question; the quickest way to determine
whether a volume at hand is complete is to check the table of contents for the
two best-known books... the Wisdom of Solomon and Ecclesiasticus (not to be
confused with Ecclesiastes). All these books formed part of the original text
of the King James Version of the Bible, and are simply deleted from the text in
protestant printings.
Concerning the "table of contents" of the Old Testament, there was
little serious discussion in the early Church. The apostles and the fathers
alike consistently used the text of the Septuagint (Greek) Old Testament. They
frequently cited in their writings passages which exist only in the Greek
edition, or in which there is a significant difference in sense between the
Greek and the Hebrew editions (as is frequently the case in the Psalms and even
more so in the book of Jeremiah). This was no less true of the "other Jews"
of the time of Our Lord.
These "apocryphal" books came to be an issue, not for the
Christians, but for the post-Resurrection Jews. They in many cases clearly
prophesied concerning Our Lord and so were an embarrassment to those who
refused to accept His divinity. Consequently, they were officially barred from
the Jewish canon (official table of contents) of the Scriptures at the
Jewish Council of Jamnia at the end of the 1st century A.D., 60 or so years
after the Resurrection. The Protestant reformers of the 16th century chose to
accept the authority of this Jewish council in preference to that of the
Apostles and the Fathers.
We may reasonably ask why. It makes no sense that they should object to
these books on the same basis as that of the rabbis of Jamnia. The answer to
the puzzle is quite simple: the books (some of them) also make quite evident,
prophetically, the special role of the Theotokos, the Mother of God, the maiden
Mary of Galilee, in God's plan of salvation. Numerous passages from them are
cited quite effectively by the Fathers in discussing the Church's understanding
of the role of the Theotokos.
Consequently, the reformers simply opted to get rid of the books they
disliked, using the pretext provided by the rabbis that the books did not exist
in the Hebrew text. [Martin Luther did not quite have the courage (or the
pretext) to continue the pattern and delete the Epistle of James (which flatly
contradicts his teaching that salvation is "by grace alone") from the
Scriptures entirely... but he did attempt to rearrange the order of the books
of the New Testament, placing this epistle at the very end, hoping that no one
would read it. This "revisionism," however, unlike the other, was not
generally accepted. The "pick and choose" approach to the Scriptures
has proven to be the normal method of Western interpretation.]
We can see the logical consequence of such proceedings today: A thousand and
more protestant sects each claim to be "based on the Bible and the Bible
alone." Each claims to accept the Bible as the inspired word of God (we
leave aside the modernists, who apparently believe whatever they see fit
without reference to anything except themselves). Each quarrels with the other
as to what the Bible says. Why? Quite simply, because the
approach to the Scriptures is what is called the "proof text" method.
Those portions of Scripture which happen not to support (or even flatly
contradict) one's already established belief are either explained away or
ignored ... just as the reformers simply threw away a whole collection of books
of the Old Testament which they found troublesome.
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