Apocrypha (2)

So here is my interim conclusion on the Apocrypha.

I have tried to find out if anybody better educated than me knows whether or not Jesus and the disciples would have used the Apocrypha, but unfortunately my enquiries came to a dead end.

The following is therefore limited and probably full of errors, but here we go. Also, I shold link to all my sources but I've lost half and don't have time for the others. It's more feeling than substantiated theology.

• The Masoretic text excludes the Apocrypha.
• The Septuagint includes the Apocrypha.
• The Masoretic text derives from Jamnia, which rather than being a council as some suggest was simply a group of Jewish Scholars who over a period of time around 90AD eliminated the apocryphal texts because Christians were using them to support the doctrine of the resurrection. Ergo, early Christians used the Apocrypha.
• Early Christians used the apocrypha because many if not most were Greek speaking, and used the Septuagint.
• The doctrine of the Virgin Birth derives at least in part form the Septuagint translation of Isaiah, where the Hebrew ‘young woman’ becomes the Greek ‘virgin’.
• At the stoning of Stephen, he quotes the Septuagint talking about angels, which is why it seems different to the OT we have.
• Protestants who reject the apocrypha state that it is not quoted by Jesus or the Apostles. I found a website – which I have now lost – which had a long list of places where Jesus and the disciples quote the apocrypha. No doubt some are a bit dodgy, but I expect some work out just as well as alleged quotes of the remainder of the OT.
• The Council of Carthage, which most Protestants would cite as the agreement of the canon, included the Septuagint and hence the apocrypha.
• Jesus condemned the Saducees for not believeing in resurrection because they didn’t know the scriptures. As said above, the Apocrypha supports resurrection, so I speculate this is what jesus was talking about.
• Moving on to Luther, he believes in Sola Scriptura, but wants to be fairly selective about which Scriptures he is ‘sola’ about. He tries to get rid of those he feels support Roman Catholic doctrines such as James (and even Esther, which I would have thought was fairly innocuous) and is more successful with the apocrypha.
• Early versions of the King James Bible included it, and it was only dropped in the late 19th century.

So, my conclusion is that we should in fact include the Apocrypha. In view of its disputed status, we should be cautious about basing doctrines on it that we can’t substantiate elsewhere in Scripture, but that does not mean we can’t do it at all.

So, as a confirmed Prod, what am I going to do about the apocryphal verses that support the RC doctrines that I despise?

Apocrypha

So tell me: Did the scriptures used by Jesus and the Apostle Peter in the synagogue include the apocrypha?

(I know that the people at Jamnia excluded it, but this was much later. Carthage seems to have included it, and Luther excluded it since he was selective about which 'scriptura' he wanted to be 'sola' about. But the real answer lies in what Jesus himself considers to be the scriptures)

Trapped

I thought arriving late at evensong would get me off the hook of having to do anything. No luck, I was asked to do the OT reading. I agreed. I was given a reading from Wisdom 3. No time to object to being asked to read an Apocryphal book as if it were part of the OT. I have no objection to the Apocrypha as contemporary literature offering insights and some good stuff, as per the 39 Articles, but I don't like the way it was given the same presence as canonical books. I didn't like the way I was cornered into it, but that is my own fault. Anyway, I also think that sometimes God has to resort to these methods becasue if he asked me upfront I would say no. Can't have God's will getting in the way of my theology, can we?

Incidentally the 39 Articles also condemn the invocation of saints. So the score is

Cranmer with SaintSimon 2, Placement Church 0.