Christianity and how the bible was put together

Use?
Interesting term. What does that mean to you?

 

Really? Which academics have you been reading, then?

OK, let me rephrase it then to avoid ambiguity: the ECFs as a whole quote extensively from them, starting with Clement of Rome

 

Whatever the source is, it is inaccurate.
The Jews, the Apostles, the early believers, as we do today, all believed that only the original manuscripts are inspired. No translation is inspired. That is why in the synagogues, in the time of Christ, it was the Hebrew Scriptures that were always read. That was their sacred language. It was the only one that was accepted as Scripture. All the Jews were required to learn it.

Look at an example:
Paul, about to be arrested, says to a mob of Jews:

Acts 22:1-2 Men, brethren, and fathers, hear ye my defence which I make now unto you.
2 (And when they heard that he spake in the Hebrew tongue to them, they kept the more silence: and he saith,)

When he spoke in Hebrew, the common language being Greek, then the people were quiet and heard him. It was their sacred language; it demanded a respect from the people. It was the language of their forefathers; the language that their Scriptures were written in.

 

WM Christie
Raymond Brown--who has serious doubts about its historicity
Jack P Lewis primarily in Bruce Metzger's book.
I cannot remember what seminary you said you attended Matt but what did they say? What books did you use and did they believe it occured? I cannot imagine that the study of the formation of the canon would differ THAT significantly from school to school. Heck Harrington and Brown are Catholic historians.

The ECF's do not quote extensively from them at all. That is not an accurate assessment of the Ante-Nicene literature. A mention is not extensive. There are just as many mentions of books that never made it into anyone's Bible. Let's take Clement of Rome for example. How much of the OT that we do agree on does he quote versus the deuterocanonicals? Not even in the same ball park. Miniscule in comparision.

If we are going to be accurate, SOME of the books like Sirach MIGHT be mentioned in the Didache and Barnabas according to Daniel Harrington but as he states, "he sites them as good advice, but without attribution and in a different Greek form".

 

Use versus canonical? We would need to go book by book to see how they are quoted. But to be fair, we would also have to include books held in high regard and even called scripture, by Irenaeus and the Shepherd comes to mind, that never make anyone's canon.
Yes they used them.
Yes it was in flux even to the time of the earliest existing manuscripts.

 

We are running in circles...

Question when did the LXX contain the DC in your view?

Do you believe that the DC were in circulation as ONLY as a part of the LXX? Why? I am not trying to insult you by asking that question but some statements lead me to think you might actually believe that. I say actually because you would be the only person I know who has ever said that.

Something to add. I know you are aware but for any readers; the earliest versions of the LXX contain substantial textual differences AND different books.
In other words, the distinction LXX, while handy, must be followed with..which one?

 

WEll, seeing as the original MSS are, by and large, lost, that's all of us stuffed then.

 

Never heard of him. Who he?

I think the debate centres on whether or not there was actually a defined meeting at Jamnia or whether the term 'Jamnia' denotes a process (see below). I'm quite happy for our purposes to acccept the latter if that makes you happy, although it doesn't alter the conclusion for our purposes, as we shall see.

The late Fr Brown died in 1999. Since then, there has been further research by the likes of Justin Taylor and Etienne Nodet of the Ecole Biblique in Jerusalem to demonstrate that, whilst there might not have been an actual council that we can date, theer was nevertheless a clear process and movement of a Puritan nature within Judaism after the fall of the Second Temple which at least had the effect (if not the design) to put some clear blue water between Judaism and Christianity. The process went like this:-

1. The Jews who decamped from Jerusalem to Jamnia after 70AD questioned how God had allowed the Second Temple to fall.

2. They concluded that there was sin - leaven - in their midst and that that was the reason for the calamity.

3. Two specific instances of sin were identified:

a. The use of Greek - a goyim language - rather than Hebrew, including the use of Greek translations of the Jewish Scriptures such as the LXX.

b. The toleration of Christian sectaries - minim - within their ranks.

4. The result:-

a. A purging of the minim: the Jewish Christians were expelled from the synagogues (it is no coincidence that there is a ramping-up of anti-Jewish polemic in Christian literature of the time such as John's Gospel, Revelation and the Letter of Barnabas); at the instigation of Gamaliel II, there is the Birkat ha-Minim (the Curse on the Minim) included in the Prayer of the Eighteen Benedictions; rejection of the LXX and the DCs because these were used as Scripture by the minim.

b. A purging of Greek literature, including the LXX, and a reversion to Hebrew-only texts.

Whilst 4a took place in the 80s and 90sAD, 4b was a much longer process, only completed by about 200AD

I haven't - I'm not ordained. I have however studied under a pupil of the aforementioned Messrs Nodet and Taylor

See above

 

There is a difference between inspiration and preservation. Look at Scripture.

2 Peter 1:21 For the prophecy came not in old time by the will of man: but holy men of God spake as they were moved by the Holy Ghost.

Although the word used is prof-ay-ti'-ah, and is normally translated prophecy, as it is here, it can be translated simply as "scripture."
Holy men of God spoke as they were moved by the Holy Ghost. The Scripture came through the prophets and the Apostles. It was the Holy Spirit that inspired them to write the very words of God. Thus only the original manuscripts are the inspired copies.

However God has promised to preserve His Word. Preservation and Inspiration are two different things. We have the preserved Word of God. It is preserved in the original languages. When a translation is made meaning is always lost in a translation. One can never have a translation that is one hundred percent accurate because of idioms and untranslatable phrases or even words. Thus it becomes necessary to go back to the original languages many times. It is the manuscripts in original languages that God has preserved for us today.

 

I'm quite happy to call Jamnia-Yavneh a school rather than a council, if that helps.

 

' Zackly!:thumbs: