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Sunday, March 09, 2008

Orthoducks-hunting

I won’t respond to everything the hostile commenters have said, in part because Jason, Gene, and S&S have already made many of the necessary corrections.

JIMMY SAID:

“Metzger is like a human xerox machine. He doesn't do much in depth research, but he's good at repeating stuff he heard.”

To say that Metzger didn’t do much in-depth research is a total falsehood. It betrays the insecurity of his Orthodox faith that Jimmy has to resort to such demonstrably false statements. Here’s an overview of Metzger’s scholarship:

***Quote***

Internationally recognized as a leading NT textual critic, Metzger was arguably the greatest textual specialist and biblical translator America has produced. Among his many publications, pride of place belongs to his trilogy on the text, versions, and canon of the NT. Most widely influential is his handbook on The Text of the New Testament (1964; translations include German, Japanese, Korean, Chinese, Italian, and Russian; 3d, enl. ed. 1992; 4th ed. with Bart Ehrman, 2005), from which multiple generations of textual critics learned their craft. It presented (in a genuinely balanced and pedagogically useful form) the essentials of what would later be termed "reasoned eclecticism," the dominant approach in the discipline today (his influence with regard to methodology was extended even more widely by A Textual Commentary on the Greek New Testament). Without rival in the field, and an outstanding example of Metzger's wide-ranging and encyclopedic knowledge, is his Early Versions of the New Testament (1977), which surveys not only the expected major versions, but also many minor ones (e.g., Thracian and Sogdian). The Canon of the New Testament (1987) combines careful and erudite attention to historical matters with a concern for theological questions and implications — another typically Metzgerian characteristic.

Metzger's recognition as a leading NT textual critic is due also to his influential role as a member of the editorial committee responsible initially for The Greek New Testament and later for the Nestle-Aland Novum Testamentum Graece, and also his involvement in, and leadership of, the International Greek New Testament Project (1948-1984).

The full breadth of Metzger's scholarship is most visible in his hundreds of articles, which cover textual criticism, philology, palaeography and papyrology, classical topics, Greco-Roman religions, the Hebrew Bible, the Apocrypha, the New Testament, patristics, early church history, and Bible translation (to name only the major areas). In addition he has published (in at least two dozen journals) reviews of hundreds of books written in eight languages. A master of bibliographic detail, Metzger would find that telling reference in sources the rest of us did not know existed (see, e.g., p. 271 n. 28 in the latest edition of the Text of the NT). In a remarkable feat, Metzger published in eight different decades: his first article appeared in 1938, and his most recent book in 2006.

http://www.sbl-site.org/publications/article.aspx?articleId=638

***End-Quote***

Continuing with Jimmy:

“They've found inscriptions from the time of Christ in Greek on the ruins of a synagogue mentioning the leader's name in Greek. It appears there were Greek speaking synagogues. Thus the earliest Christian community received the LXX.”

i) The earliest Christian communities included Gentile Christians, Hellenistic Jews, and Palestinian Jews.

ii) To say that some Christian communities received the LXX doesn’t imply the identity of the 1C LXX with the version used by the Orthodox church.

“Firstly, no one can seriously claim that by the time of Christ the LXX has anything specificallly to do with Alexandria. By this time it was all over the world.”

Irrelevant. Alexandria was the capital of Hellenistic Judaism. If the LXX canon was fluid even in a place like Alexandria, one can hardly appeal to the LXX to establish the Orthodox canon.

“But other rabbis from the same era did quote from them.”

Are you referring to Talmudic sources? That would be a secondary source for what 1C rabbis supposedly believed. By contrast, Philo is a primary source.

“Though Origen lists what local Jews considered the canon in his time, he did not restrict himself thus.”

You’re resorting to ambiguity. What, exactly, was Origen’s position on the Apocrypha? Ambivalent, perchance?

“And among all these learned quotes, do we see any evidence of what the actual Hebrew canon of Jesus' time was? Nope. Just rumour and innuendo.”

We also don’t find any evidence of how to change a flat tire in Metzger’s book. Metzger’s book is a monograph on the Apocrypha. He’s not attempting to make a full-course case for the Palestinian canon.

Other scholars have done so, e.g. Roger Beckwith, E. E. Ellis.

“First of all it begs the question of a need for a standard critical edition of the set of books that are the Orthodox canon of Scripture. Critical editions of texts are a uniquely modernist development based on Enlightenment epistemological presuppositions not shared by either Jesus or the Apostles.”

i) If Healy is indifferent to textual criticism, then his appeal to Jesus and the apostles begs the question. For his appeal assumes that we have a reliable textual witness to the words of Jesus and the apostles. So Healy needs to identify and justify his textual tradition.

ii) We know that the process of transcription gives rise, over time, to a discrepancy between what an author or speaker originally said or wrote, and the record of his speech or writing.

For those of us to take the word of God seriously, it makes a difference to us what Jesus, the prophets, and apostles actually said. It makes a difference to us whether the words attributed to them are authentic or spurious.

But, to judge by their reaction, Orthodox believers don’t care what Jesus, the prophets, or the apostles really said. They don’t care if they attribute inspiration to uninspired scribal errors or interpolations.

“It also presupposes and imposes on the biblical canon an understanding of accuracy that is predicated upon the original texts and the individual words and particles of that text.”

The meaning of a sentence is dependent on the individual words and particles that compose that sentence. Suppose we were to tamper with Healy’s sentence, changing a word here or there. That could alter the meaning of his sentence.

“The non sequitor, of course, is that absent a standardized text critical edition of the Scripture that utilizes modernist presuppositions about accuracy of the text, no group can claim a canon of Scriptural texts.”

I’m more interested in Healy’s indifference to textual integrity. Suppose the text were 90% corrupt. Would that still be adequate according to Healy?

“That is to say it the other way around, simply because one cannot bring forth a standardized (according to modernist mores) text of, say, Jeremiah (which is a mess in the LXX).”

So Jeremiah is a mess in the LXX. That’s a striking admission from an Orthodox epologist. Why should a Protestant favor the LXX version of Jeremiah over the MT if, by Healy’s own admission, the LXX version is a mess? Why should the messy standard of the LXX be the standard of comparison?

“It presupposes that a canon necessitates strict verbal identity between manuscripts, or at least a recoverable approximation of the autograph.”

No, what it presupposes is that we should make a good faith effort, with the best available evidence, to have an edition that approximates the Urtext.

To the degree that it doesn’t approximate the Urtext, then we don’t have the words of Jesus or the apostles or the prophets. Instead, we have the words of an anonymous, uninspired scribe. Is that what Healy is basing his faith on?

We don’t need a perfect text, any more than we need perfect eyesight or hearing or a perfect memory to do God’s will. But it is incumbent on us to make a good faith effort to use the evidence which God has providentially put at our disposal.

“Origen and Jerome included these books in their versions of the Old Testament, and in so doing testified to the widespread use of these books as Christian Scripture.”

In discussing both the separation of the church from the synagogue as well as the transition from the scroll to the codex, Metzger has already explained how Apocryphal works could infiltrate the canon of Scripture. So widespread use is not a mark of authenticity.

“Also, what Protestants fail to appreciate is that our earliest surviving codices were not simply editions of the New Testament which we use as witnesses of manuscript traditions and families, but, were, in fact, among the first complete Christian Bibles, and included in their contents, those ‘extra, apocryphal’ books.”

Since, in the material I quoted from Metzger, he himself discusses that very point, I wouldn’t be quoting that portion of Metzger if I failed to appreciate that particular point.

As Metzger explained, these editions functioned as Christian lectionaries. It was convenient to include other Christian literature, along with the canonical books, in one compact source.

“So, in point of fact, the Protestant excision of these books from their Bibles is a departure from the canonical traditions of the Church.”

i) The Protestant canon was never predicated on lock-step adherence to the “canonical traditions of the Church.”

ii) These editions include Christian literature which was excluded from the canonical traditions of the church. For example, Codex Sinaiticus includes Barnabas and Hermas while Codex Alexandrinus includes 1-2 Clement. So Healy’s argument is self-refuting.

“Unlike Protestants, Orthodox do not believe that Scripture alone establishes doctrine and Tradition. Rather, Scripture itself is the primary but not the sole witness to the Apostolic Tradition. That is to say, Scripture does not stand over Tradition in the sense of judging it, but stands with Tradition as authoritative co-witness to the Apostolic Faith and way of life.”

If you’re indifferent (indeed, hostile) to NT textual criticism, then you’re indifferent to what the Apostles actually said. In that case, you’re indifferent to the Apostolic faith. You don’t care whether your faith is apostolic or spurious.

“That is to say, Scripture was not read as a book alone, isolated from a communal and worship context.”

Healy is obfuscating the issue by blurring the distinction between the identity of Scripture and its practical function in the life of the church. One must *have* a Bible before it can be put to use.

“This does not mean that Orthodox do not have a canonical tradition for Scripture, and thus do not have a Bible, but, rather, that their Bible is the same Bible with allowable variations.”

i) Having a canonical *tradition* of Scripture is not the same thing as having *Scripture*. The question is whether the tradition corresponds to its putative object. The Mormons also have a canonical tradition of Scripture.

ii) To say the Orthodox Bible is the *same* Bible with *allowable variations* is an evasive and tendentious equivocation of terms.

“Of course, looking at Orthodoxy from the lense of Protestantism further assumes that Protestantism is the standard by which the historical Church is to be judged.”

Of course, looking at Evangelicalism from the lens of Orthodoxy further assumes that Orthodoxy is the standard by which the historical Church is to be judged.

JIMMY SAID:

“So why don't you throw out Esther since the majority of the witnesses exclude it?”

Do they now? Esther’s “canonicity has been attested by Josephus, by Aquila, by the baraita on the order of the Prophets and Hagiographa, by the inclusion in the Mishnah of a tractate on the obligation to read the book (the tractate Megillah), and by the citation of the book as authoritative Scripture in the other Tannaitic literature,” R. Beckwith, The Old Testament Canon of the New Testament Church, 290.

By contrast, the Essenes opposed it because it conflicted with their sectarian calendar—but the Essenes were a fringe group.

“You ARE willing to go with what evidence you have, right?? Or are you just bluffing?”

I’ve now laid my cards on the table. Time for you to show your hand. Where’s your counterevidence? Or are you just bluffing?

“In part yes, because they are but individuals attesting to what they know in their place and time, without access to the reflection of further centuries of God's people.”

I)“Further centuries” take us further away from historical witnesses who would be closer to the relevant evidence.

ii) Moreover, as Metzger documents, the OT canon of the Orthodox church is fluid throughout the history of the Orthodox church.

“Really, so a Christ-rejecting Jew carries more weight.”

What makes you think that 3C BC Jews are fundamentally different from 1C AD Jews? If the Jews are so untrustworthy, why do you put your faith in Jewish translation of the OT (the LXX)—even assuming that the Orthodox version corresponds to the original?

“Great, except that Jospehus lists no canon.”

This is simpleminded. One can reconstruct his canon from what he says. One place to start is: S. Leiman, “Josephus and the Canon of the Bible,” L. Feldman & G. Hata, eds. Josephus, the bible and history (Detroit 1989), 50-58. Follow that up with Beckwith’s detailed analysis.

“You can't prove what the ancient Jews had as a canon.”

We don’t have to reinvent the wheel every time an Orthodox apparatchik drops in. What Protestant scholars have you bothered to read on the subject, anyway? Have you read Ellis, Bruce, Beckwith, Hanhart, &c.?

Have you studied the intertextuality of Scripture?

“And yet your Metzger quotes concede that the very earliest Christians used an expanded LXX canon. Go read Metzger again.”

And Metzger also explains how they got off track in so doing. Go read Metzger again.

“How do conflicting Jewish sources trump conflicting Christian sources? What nonsense.”

Earlier sources generally trump later sources. That’s a standard presumption in historiography.

“But this best evidence, is simply the opinion of some Jews. Why you think this is good evidence, but the opinion of the Church isn't, is completely mystifying.”

i) Your church doesn’t speak with one voice on the subject. It moves in zigzag fashion from one time and place to another. So we couldn’t follow your church even if we wanted to. If we tried to follow your directions, we would be backtracking, taking detours, going in circles, running into blind alleys, washed-out bridges, &c. It’s a roadmap to no man’s land.

ii) You need to make a case for your church before you can invoke the authority of your church to settle anything else.

“Josephus is not part of Holy Tradition.”

You haven’t given us any reason to credit “Holy Tradition.”

“LYOSHA07 SAID:

“At the time of Jesus, the state of the canon was in flux, both inside and outside of Palestine. Greek-speaking Jews by and large were very likely to use the Septuagint, and thus their canon(s) resembled the Eastern Orthodox and the Roman Catholics.”

You’re appealing to the 18C notion of an Alexandrian canon. This has been debunked by numerous scholars, viz. Beckwith, Bruce, Hanhart.

“You must remember that people then were very superstitious and illiterate.”

No more superstitious than in our own day, including secular superstitions like ufology, 9/11 conspiracy theories, &c.

And no one is more illiterate than Richard Dawkins or Christopher Hitchens when it comes to their knowledge of Christian theology or Evangelical scholarship.

“Jesus had a definite opinion with regards to the canon (even though nothing is stated to such effect in the New Testament).”

The NT is a major witness to the OT. For starters, read Beale & Carson’s (eds.) Commentary on the New Testament Use of the Old Testament.

“The Greek converts (such as Paul) must have (or at least, should have) done away with their traditional Septuagint canon and adopted the Palestinian canon, without this being indicated in the New Testament.”

Aside from your unfounded assumption about an Alexandrian canon, Paul was a Pharisee who studied in Jerusalem.

“Moreover, for your arguments to be accepted by RCs and EOs, you must convince them to accept these premises, particularly #2 and #3.”

To the extent that Catholic and Orthodox believers have nonnegotiable commitments to their sectarian belief-system, it’s beyond my power to convince them otherwise, but that’s not my responsibility.

“You cannot do this. But even if you could they wouldn't accept it, because they assume value the canons of the Greek Jews and those of the Christian Churches more than you do.”

This oversimplifies the evidence. As Metzger documents, many pre-Tridentine Catholic scholars favored the Hebrew canon. And contemporary Catholic scholars go their own way too.

“This only points to the impossibility of rational theological dialogue, especially when you are describing categories ("inspiration") that defy analysis or observation.”

You’re mental states are also unobservable. Therefore, you deny the possibility of rational dialogue about anything at all if empirical categories are the only categories you accept.

JIMMY SAID:

“Oh ok, so gives a rip what Philo quoted?”

We understand that you don’t give a rip, since you’re an Orthodox apparatchik—but for those of us who haven’t committed self-decapitation, the reason we care about what Philo quoted is because—as Metzger already explained—we we’d expect him to quote the Apocrypha if there were, indeed, an Alexandrian canon of the OT.

“Ok great, so please shut down this blog now since everyone is going to have a different opinion of what the internal evidence points to.”

i) I look forward to your polling data to bear out that universal claim. How many billions of people, living and dead, have you interviewed thus far?

ii) Unlike you, some of us care about the ways in which earlier books of the canon foreshadow later books, while later books allude to earlier books.

JNORM888 SAID:

“It never was when the Church was young and it never will be because Sola scriptura was never a doctrine of the Church. A difference in the Canon of scripture is only a problem for protestants because of their doctrine of sola scriptura.”

In other words, it’s irrelevant to you where revelation begins and leaves off. You don’t care about excluding some books in which God has spoken while including other books in which a false prophet has spoken. For you, the boundary between true and false prophecy is irrelevant.

“Most of your arguments against the Deutocanonicals are lame.”

What a compelling assertion! Who needs evidence when we have your ipse dixit!

“Everybody knows that the MSS is a post christian hebrew compilation that took about 900 years to edit.”

There’s no such thing as “the MSS.” “MSS” is an abbreviation for the plural form of manuscript.

i) Your blunder is a classic example of self-reinforcing ignorance. You don’t know enough to care, so you don’t care enough to know, and vice versa.

ii) There is such a thing as the MT. But Protestants don’t rely on the MT alone. That’s supplemented by the DSS, versional evidence, &c.

“Protestants had the Deuto's in their Bibles untill Calvinistic Bible Societies took them out in the 17 & 18 hundreds.”

Another good reason to be a Calvinist.

“The LXX was, is and always will be the christian Old Testament text.”

i) Where can I find the official edition of the LXX in the Orthodox church?

ii) Your assertion is unfortunate for your own position since the canonical edition of Daniel in your theological circles isn’t even based on the LXX:

“The longer version of Daniel is known primarily from the Greek, surviving in two rather different editions. The older edition, the ‘Septuagint’ proper, survives in its entirety only in a single manuscript, Codex Chisianus from the ninth century (Codes 87; Papyrus 967 contains chs. 5-14), and in the Syriac translation of Origen’s edition of the Septuagint (Pfeiffer 1949; 4:33,441; Moore 1977: 33). The more recent edition, called 'Theodotion,' displaced the older 'Septuagint' edition in the usage of the Christian church by the late third century, so that all the major codices of what we call the Septuagint actually contain the Theodotion edition Daniel…Theodotion prepared his version in the early second century CE, but appears to have utilized an earlier Greek text of Daniel that differed markedly from the Septuagint (Grelot 1966),” D. deSilva, Introducing the Apocrypha (Baker 2004), 222-223.

Continuing with JNORM888:

“And there is nothing you can say or do that will ever change that historical fact.”

And there is nothing you can say or do that will ever change the checkered history of the Apocrypha in the Orthodox church.

And there is nothing you can say or do that will ever change the checked history of the LXX.

And there is nothing you can say or do that will ever change the checked history of the Council of Ferrara-Florence.

LVKA SAID:

“Saying that THEN was just like saying some half-a-century ago that communism will eventually fall and succumb: it was just unthinkable at that particular time: that was Isaiah's prophecy, and it was breath-takingly unbelievable to say the least. :-|… You just can't ‘deduce’ from the text itself, -were it to read "young woman"-, the idea that what You should *actually* look for over there is a miraculous or super-natural [virginal] bith: it's just not possible. :-\”

Protestant scholars have no difficulty establishing the Christian interpretation of Isa 7 from the MT. Read J. A. Motyer’s “Content and Context in the interpretation of Isaiah 7:14,” TynB 21 (1970), 118-25.

JIMMY SAID:

“There's a big difference between what Tacitus wrote about some Emperor and what some Jew writes about the canon. The canon is a theological question.”

It’s also a historical question. And you would need to furnish some hard evidence that the Jews were suppressing OT books which contain Messianic prophecy. But as Jason and I have pointed out, if that was their method and motive, then they managed to overlook many OT books which house a mother-lode of Messianic prophecy (e.g. Isaiah, Daniel, the Psalter) while—on the other hand—I notice that Orthodox apologists are very selective about which books of the Apocrypha they mine for Messianic prophecy.

Not only is there no evidence to substantiate your conspiracy theory, but plenty of counterevidence.

“This is about as good as what Josephus tells us - an apologetic for his own flawed, theologically heretical sect.”

There’s no evidence that the Pharisees had a heretical view of OT the canon.

JEFFREY LEVINE SAID:

“The Jews living at the time of Jesus, had no problem rejecting him. Gentiles with ni knowledge of Judaism were the only people to accept Jesus as Christ, and most of thise people were coerved by force!”

Since, except for Luke (who was likely a proselyte), every other NT writer was a Jew, your statement is clearly false. In addition, there were Messianic (i.e. Jewish-Christian) churches in the 1C

“G-d through the Torah gave the Jewish people a number of indicators that would readily identify the awaited messiah. The only requirement that Jesus did fulfill was that he was born of a Jewish mother. G-d was not intended to be the father of the Messiah.__When you examine these passages, you will realize that Jesus was nothing more than a regular man. That is why the Jews rejected Jesus. He was not the Messiah. If you can't accept that, check with the Jewish Torah (not the Christian version). It will teach you everything you need to know!”

What Christian books or articles on Messianic prophecy have you actually read? Try the following:

http://findarticles.com/p/articles/mi_qa3817/is_200103/ai_n8935232/print

http://www.amazon.com/Answering-Jewish-Objections-Jesus-vol/dp/080106063X/ref=sr_1_2?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1205093310&sr=1-2

http://www.amazon.com/Look-Rock-Testament-Background-Understanding/dp/product-description/0825431697

http://www.amazon.com/Servant-King-Bibles-portrait-Messiah/dp/1573832634

http://www.amazon.com/Christ-Prophets-O-Palmer-Robertson/dp/0875525644

“You should also remember that there is not a single mention of this person named Jesus oputside of the Chritian Bible. Forget about the Josephus forgeries.”

i) You’ve been corrected on Josephus.

ii) Tacitus and Pliny the Younger name Christ.

iii) What evidence do you have for the existence of Moses outside the OT?

The Talmud is too late and too derivative to corroborate the existence of Moses.

9 comments:

  1. The very breadth of Metzger's credentials betrays his lack of depth. Yes, his breadth of reading and study is amazing, but his study doesn't go beyond the general consensus of his contemporaries. Even his text criticism shows a kind of mechanicalness. The reading he accepts at John 10:29 is quite absurd and not accepted by anyone else, but he takes it because of a rather mechanical methodology.

    To say that some Christian communities received the LXX doesn’t imply the identity of the 1C LXX with the version used by the Orthodox church.

    It indicates a high probability that it was close to the LXX as we know it, since all sources we have for the LXX, early or late, include many of the extra books.

    But then, I don't have to bother about the exact relationship between the 1C LXX and the later LXX, because I don't have to assume a-priori that the Church inherited an intact canon, instead of a process of recognizing the canon. Just as well too, since the Jews didn't leave us a list of books.

    If the LXX canon was fluid even in a place like Alexandria, one can hardly appeal to the LXX to establish the Orthodox canon.

    But the inconsistency of sources for the alleged Palestinian canon indicate it is "fluid" too. So if I can't point to the LXX, you can't point to any of your sources either. And there ends any scholarly discussion.

    “But other rabbis from the same era did quote from them.”

    Are you referring to Talmudic sources? That would be a secondary source for what 1C rabbis supposedly believed. By contrast, Philo is a primary source.


    You do realise that almost all of Philo's quotes are from the Pentatuch, right? If you want to take what Philo quotes as the canon, you're going to have a very much abridged list of books. Philo is hardly a primary source for anything unless you want to do major surgery to your bible.

    Of course one person who quotes extensively from the extra books is Josephus. To claim that the extra books aren't part of the 22 book canon when there is no contemporary evidence of this, is to assume what you want to prove. Even more so seeing that later 22 book lists generally include at least some of the extra books.

    You want some examples of 1st C Jews citing the extra books as scripture? Simeon Shetah from the 1st C cites Sirach as scripture. It is also found in the Qumran fragments, as well as at Masada. Later Amoraic rabbis also cite it as scripture. If you can extrapolate Philo's silence on the extra books, why can't I extrapolate this to the extra books?

    You’re resorting to ambiguity. What, exactly, was Origen’s position on the Apocrypha? Ambivalent, perchance?


    Hardly, he considered it scripture. Origen wrote to Africanus that there were things in the Greek bible not found in the Hebrew and that the Church could not be expected to give them up. (this is found in Jerome's Commentary on Daniel). In his Epistle to Africanus 13 he said the Churches should use TObit and Judith even though the Jews he knows did not.

    But, to judge by their reaction, Orthodox believers don’t care what Jesus, the prophets, or the apostles really said. They don’t care if they attribute inspiration to uninspired scribal errors or interpolations.

    Do you have an uninterpolated copy of the scriptures with no scribal errors? Nope, didn't think so. So ironically you have to ascribe inspiration to an interpolated text.

    Suppose the text were 90% corrupt. Would that still be adequate according to Healy?

    How would you measure this 90%? SInce there are about 8000 verses in the NT, and between the Tregelles, Tischendorf, Westcott-Hort and Nestle-Aland texts there are more than 4000 differences, then on a verse by verse basis it would be 50% corrupt. And the difficulties of the NT are small compared to the OT.

    To the degree that it doesn’t approximate the Urtext, then we don’t have the words of Jesus or the apostles or the prophets. Instead, we have the words of an anonymous, uninspired scribe.

    Anonymity is no obstruction to something being scripture and therefore inspired.

    If you’re indifferent (indeed, hostile) to NT textual criticism, then you’re indifferent to what the Apostles actually said. In that case, you’re indifferent to the Apostolic faith.

    If your faith is dependant on textual criticism, then your faith is built on an area of study where the best scholars can't agree.

    Do they now? Esther’s “canonicity has been attested by Josephus

    Josephus? Ok I'll bite, where does Josephus say Esther is canonical?

    by Aquila

    Aquila left nothing more than a translation, right? But didn't you say that the content of the LXX can't indicate its canonicity? So how would the content of another translation indicate its canonicity? Hypocrisy!

    And since all we have of Aquila is a few scraps of Kings and Psalms, what is your citation that he even included Esther?

    Now what about all the other lists of 22 books that exclude Esther? Athanasius, Synopsis Scripturae Sacrae, Gregory of Nazianzus, Melito of Sardis, Jerome, Rufinus and Rab Judah?

    Who told you they are wrong?

    You ARE willing to go with what evidence you have, right?? Or are you just bluffing?

    “Further centuries” take us further away from historical witnesses who would be closer to the relevant evidence.

    Since Esther is dated to around 4 centuries BC, what evidence that is historically relevant are we going to find four or five centuries later anyway? What's the difference between half a millennium and a full millennium? Neither one attests to any further inside historical knowledge of the who, when or where of the book.

    Moreover, as Metzger documents, the OT canon of the Orthodox church is fluid throughout the history of the Orthodox church.

    If true, your certainty can only be less than that of the Orthodox church, since your basis is on a mere subset of Orthodoxy's 2000 year insight.

    What makes you think that 3C BC Jews are fundamentally different from 1C AD Jews?

    You assume that 1C Jews are a monolithic block, which they certainly weren't.

    If the Jews are so untrustworthy, why do you put your faith in Jewish translation of the OT (the LXX)—even assuming that the Orthodox version corresponds to the original?

    The issue is not Jews being untrustworthy, the issue is that those outside the true people of God are untrustworthy in theological issues.

    Great, except that Jospehus lists no canon.”

    This is simpleminded. One can reconstruct his canon from what he says.


    No you can't. I could just as much say his canon includes the extra books since he cites them so much.

    Is your argument so convoluted and complex that you can't tell us? You make the statement, you back it up. Don't run scaredy cat back to some scholars.

    You’re appealing to the 18C notion of an Alexandrian canon. This has been debunked by numerous scholars,

    Many of the same scholars who debunk the Alexandrian canon based on the silence of history also abandon the Palestinian canon as a settled canon based on the exact same silence.

    the reason we care about what Philo quoted is because—as Metzger already explained—we we’d expect him to quote the Apocrypha if there were, indeed, an Alexandrian canon of the OT.

    1) Since he almost exclusively quotes the Pentatuch, we wouldn't expect this.

    2) Your care for Philo is selective since you don't care about everyone else who disagrees with you.

    There’s no evidence that the Pharisees had a heretical view of OT the canon.

    Recent scholarship since 1990 has sought to move scholarly perceptions forward by demonstrating that Josephus was not a Pharisee (Cf. Steve Mason, Todd Beall, and Ernst Gerlach).

    ReplyDelete
  2. There are a lot of problems with what Jimmy is arguing. He still hasn't told us which Apocryphal books he accepts, he still hasn't given us any reason to trust Eastern Orthodoxy to settle the canon for us, and he keeps misrepresenting the evidence we've cited for our canon.

    Keep in mind that questioning the popularity of Esther among the ancient Jews and Christians doesn't give us any reason to add the Apocrypha to our canon. If Protestants are off by one book, the solution isn't to add several other books for which we have even less evidence.

    And the Protestant argument involves an appeal to a canon accepted by most ancient Jews, not a canon that was universally accepted. Some Jews disputed Ezekiel, but most accepted it. The same seems to be true of Esther. It's not enough, then, for Jimmy to cite the fact that a book like Esther was sometimes disputed. Steve Hays has quoted Roger Beckwith's discussion of the evidence for widespread acceptance of Esther among the ancient Jews. Jimmy has ignored most of that evidence, and replied with the following citation of mostly Christian sources:

    "Now what about all the other lists of 22 books that exclude Esther? Athanasius, Synopsis Scripturae Sacrae, Gregory of Nazianzus, Melito of Sardis, Jerome, Rufinus and Rab Judah?"

    Notice that Steve Hays was discussing Jewish sources, whereas Jimmy responds by citing mostly Christian sources, in addition to ignoring most of the Jewish sources Steve cited. The last source Jimmy cites, Rab Judah, represents a minority of Jews, as Roger Beckwith mentions just after the passage in his book that Steve quoted (pp. 290-291).

    Furthermore, as usual, Jimmy provides no documentation for his assertions. Why are we supposed to believe that Jerome, for example, excluded Esther? Jerome mentions Esther as part of the Jewish canon:

    http://www.bible-researcher.com/jerome.html

    Jimmy is also wrong about Rufinus:

    http://www.bible-researcher.com/rufinus.html

    A lot of the other details relevant to Esther can be found in sources like Beckwith, which Steve has already cited. Some Christian sources do leave Esther out of their list, and different scholars suggest different reasons for it, but the primary issue here is Jewish acceptance of Esther. And the evidence suggests that Esther was accepted by most of the ancient Jews. That's why it's been part of most Jewish and Christian canons.

    Don't trust what Jimmy tells you. Look at the sources yourself.

    ReplyDelete
  3. He still hasn't told us which Apocryphal books he accepts

    The ones accepted by Orthodox church councils.

    he still hasn't given us any reason to trust Eastern Orthodoxy to settle the canon for us

    Because its the church the apostles founded.

    If Protestants are off by one book, the solution isn't to add several other books for which we have even less evidence.

    But we have MORE evidence for many of the extra books than we have for Esther. I already gave the example of all the Jews who cite Sirach as scripture. This is where your gross hypocrisy become evident.

    nd the Protestant argument involves an appeal to a canon accepted by most ancient Jews

    Wow, "most" ancient Jews! Where is statistically compiled door-to-door survey of ancient Jews???

    Next time Orthodox talk about what most ancient Christians believed, I don't want to be hearing any trite response from you since you are capable of trotting out these bare faced assertions.

    Jimmy has ignored most of that evidence, and replied with the following citation of mostly Christian sources:

    Here again the gross hypocrisy is evident. Jews belonging to Christ-rejecting sects of unknown beliefs and origin are to be trusted, but Christian sources are to be consistently rejected.

    The last source Jimmy cites, Rab Judah, represents a minority of Jews, as Roger Beckwith mentions

    Where's the survey? A minority of actual citations does not prove a minority of Jews. That is, if it is a minority, because so far you're all bluster. You haven't shown Josephus' saying Esther is scripture, nor have you shown Aquila saying it is scripture. Why don't go back to bed until you can document your claims?

    I withdraw what I said about Jerome, but the point remains the same. Most ancient lists omit Esther. There's more evidence for the extra LXX books than for Esther.

    ReplyDelete
  4. Jimmy said:

    "The ones accepted by Orthodox church councils."

    Which councils?

    You write:

    "Because its the church the apostles founded."

    As any reasonable person ought to know, that sort of assertion should be accompanied with an argument. We know that Eastern Orthodox claim that their denomination is "the church the apostles founded". I was asking you for a justification of that claim, not just an assertion of it.

    You write:

    "But we have MORE evidence for many of the extra books than we have for Esther. I already gave the example of all the Jews who cite Sirach as scripture. This is where your gross hypocrisy become evident."

    Go reread the evidence for Esther that Steve cited from Roger Beckwith. You haven't cited anything comparable for Sirach, because Sirach never had that much acceptance among the Jews of antiquity.

    Even if Sirach had been so widely accepted, what about the rest of the Apocryphal books you accept?

    You write:

    "Wow, 'most' ancient Jews! Where is statistically compiled door-to-door survey of ancient Jews???"

    Do you rely on a "door-to-door survey" every time you claim that most Eastern Orthodox hold a particular belief? I doubt it. We can have evidence that a majority is probable without having a "door-to-door survey".

    You write:

    "Next time Orthodox talk about what most ancient Christians believed, I don't want to be hearing any trite response from you since you are capable of trotting out these bare faced assertions."

    How can you ask for a "door-to-door survey", then go on in the next sentence to refer to how you and other Eastern Orthodox make claims about majorities without such surveys?

    I haven't criticized Orthodox for making claims about majorities on the basis that majorities in antiquity can't be discerned. Rather, I've criticized Orthodox for making claims about majorities when the evidence doesn't support those claims.

    And I haven't made "bare faced assertions". I've referred you to Roger Beckwith's comments on Esther, part of which Steve quoted. That's more documentation than you usually give us.

    You write:

    "Here again the gross hypocrisy is evident. Jews belonging to Christ-rejecting sects of unknown beliefs and origin are to be trusted, but Christian sources are to be consistently rejected."

    As we've explained to you repeatedly, the fact that a Jewish source rejected Christ doesn't eliminate that source's relevance in identifying the Jewish canon. And you yourself have cited Jewish sources when you've thought they've supported your position.

    I didn't say that "Christian sources are to be consistently rejected". Rather, since we were discussing the canon of first-century Jews, the comments of ancient Jewish sources are more relevant than, say, the canonical beliefs of a fourth-century Christian bishop.

    You write:

    "A minority of actual citations does not prove a minority of Jews. That is, if it is a minority, because so far you're all bluster. You haven't shown Josephus' saying Esther is scripture, nor have you shown Aquila saying it is scripture. Why don't go back to bed until you can document your claims?"

    Do you have Beckwith's book? You aren't even interacting with all of the evidence Steve cited from Beckwith, much less Beckwith's other comments.

    You write:

    "I withdraw what I said about Jerome, but the point remains the same."

    You were also wrong about Rufinus. You don't seem to do much research before you post your assertions.

    You write:

    "Most ancient lists omit Esther."

    You listed seven sources, and you've had to retract part of that list. You've done nothing to demonstrate that a majority of lists leave out Esther, you've ignored most of the evidence Steve cited from Beckwith, you've included Christian sources that aren't as relevant as the Jewish sources, and you keep focusing on lists while ignoring the fact that lists aren't the only means of commenting on Esther's canonicity.

    ReplyDelete
  5. JIMMY SAID:

    “The very breadth of Metzger's credentials betrays his lack of depth. Yes, his breadth of reading and study is amazing, but his study doesn't go beyond the general consensus of his contemporaries.”

    Even if that were true, it wouldn’t falsify his scholarship. Notice that Jimmy hasn’t shown that any of the material I quoted from Metzger (on the history of the Apocrypha) was in error. So this is just a smokescreen on Jimmy’s part.

    Metzger documents a diversity of opinion, both in time and space, regarding the Orthodox canon.

    BTW, he documents some of the same diversity respecting the Catholic canon. I quoted that as well.

    “Even his text criticism shows a kind of mechanicalness. The reading he accepts at John 10:29 is quite absurd and not accepted by anyone else, but he takes it because of a rather mechanical methodology.”

    Three problems:

    i) Jimmy’s first objection is that Metzger’s scholarship doesn’t buck the consensus of opinion. Now, however, he faults Metzger for adopting a reading which is “not accepted by anyone else.”

    So, by Jimmy’s rubber yardstick, we should reject Metzger out of hand because he’s too mainstream—and we should also reject Metzger out of hand because he’s too idiosyncratic.

    ii) Jimmy merely asserts that this reading is “absurd.” He offers no supporting argument.

    iii) Jimmy doesn’t document the claim Metzger’s reading is “not accepted by anyone else.”

    “It indicates a high probability that it was close to the LXX as we know it, since all sources we have for the LXX, early or late, include many of the extra books.”

    i) All our major sources for the LXX are late. It’s just a choice between late, later, and latest.

    ii)”Including extra books” doesn’t get Jimmy where he needs to go since some of the extra books which the codices include are books excluded in the Orthodox canon.

    iii) Moreover, some of the extra books are Christian literature (Barnabas, Hermas, 1-2 Clement), which were obviously not among the books that pre-Christian Jews translated from the Hebrew OT. So extant copies of the LXX don’t correspond to the original canon of the LXX. Indeed, the inclusion of Christian literature is evidence of a highly anachronistic or eclectic edition.

    “But then, I don't have to bother about the exact relationship between the 1C LXX and the later LXX, because I don't have to assume a-priori that the Church inherited an intact canon, instead of a process of recognizing the canon. Just as well too, since the Jews didn't leave us a list of books.”

    i) In that event you cannot claim that the LXX represents the authentic OT canon, whereas the “Christ-hating” rabbis suppressed certain OT books which were originally included in the OT canon to obscure the Messianic prophecies contained therein.

    ii) You would also have to resign the claim that the LXX represents the OT of Jesus and the Apostles if you now identify the LXX of the Orthodox church with a more expansive, post-apostolic edition.

    “But the inconsistency of sources for the alleged Palestinian canon indicate it is ‘fluid’ too. So if I can't point to the LXX, you can't point to any of your sources either. And there ends any scholarly discussion.”

    i) This rejoinder would only work, if at all, assuming you now concede that you can’t appeal to the LXX to establish the true canon of the OT. Is that your actual position?

    ii) You’re also equivocating. A proper analogy would operate at the same level, viz. different editions of the LXX (or different codices containing the LXX) are comparable to different editions (or codices) of the Vulgate.

    iii) The general phenomenon that different sources disagree about something doesn’t put an end to all scholarly discussion. It just means that we need to sift the sources in time, place, motive, &c.

    “You do realise that almost all of Philo's quotes are from the Pentatuch, right? If you want to take what Philo quotes as the canon, you're going to have a very much abridged list of books. Philo is hardly a primary source for anything unless you want to do major surgery to your bible.”

    i) Philo’s quotes aren’t limited to the Pentateuch. So it’s striking that a Hellenistic Jew doesn’t *ever* quote from the Apocrypha as Scripture if his edition of the LXX contained the Apocrypha.

    ii) We single out Philo in this specific case given his identity as a Hellenistic Jew who would be conversant with any distinctive additions to the canon in the LXX—if, indeed, they were part of the LXX canon at that time and place.

    iii) I’d add that Philo is a witness to the general contours of the OT canon (in discussing the canon of the Therapeutae). Read Beckwith.

    “Of course one person who quotes extensively from the extra books is Josephus.”

    You’re equivocating. Does Josephus quote them as *Scripture*?

    “To claim that the extra books aren't part of the 22 book canon when there is no contemporary evidence of this, is to assume what you want to prove.”

    I’m not assuming anything. Unlike you, I cite my sources of information, where scholars *argue* for their viewpoint.

    “You want some examples of 1st C Jews citing the extra books as scripture? Simeon Shetah from the 1st C cites Sirach as scripture.”

    i) That’s not responsive to my question. I asked:

    “Are you referring to Talmudic sources? That would be a secondary source for what 1C rabbis supposedly believed. By contrast, Philo is a primary source.”

    i) Do you have primary source data on particular rabbi? There’s nothing necessarily wrong with citing secondary sources, but if it’s a choice between primary source like Philo on the state of the LXX during the 1C, and a later, secondary source, then Philo takes precedence, barring further considerations.

    ii) BTW, I assume the rabbi you’re apparently referring to wasn’t “Simeon Shetah [sic.]," but Simeon ben Shetach, not “Shetah [sic.”,” and he wasn’t a 1C rabbi. Rather, he lived a century or so before the time of Christ.

    iii) Finally, he was a Pharisee, was he not? But you automatically discount the testimony of a Pharisee as heretical.

    “It is also found in the Qumran fragments.”

    But the Qumran community distinguishes between Scripture and its in-house literature. Cf. R. Bauckham, Jude and the Relatives of Jesus, 226.

    “As well as at Masada. Later Amoraic rabbis also cite it as scripture.”

    You need to be more specific about your sources.

    “If you can extrapolate Philo's silence on the extra books, why can't I extrapolate this to the extra books?”

    Because of the time differential, among other things.

    “Origen wrote to Africanus that there were things in the Greek bible not found in the Hebrew and that the Church could not be expected to give them up. (this is found in Jerome's Commentary on Daniel). In his Epistle to Africanus 13 he said the Churches should use TObit and Judith even though the Jews he knows did not.”

    So he was torn between his scholarship, on the one hand, and his deference to ecclesiastical custom, on the other hand. Ambivalent.

    “Do you have an uninterpolated copy of the scriptures with no scribal errors? Nope, didn't think so. So ironically you have to ascribe inspiration to an interpolated text.”

    Notice how this is unresponsive to what I actually said. I said:

    “But, to judge by their reaction, Orthodox believers don’t care what Jesus, the prophets, or the apostles really said. They don’t care if they attribute inspiration to uninspired scribal errors or interpolations.”

    You don’t even attempt to distinguish between the Urtext and scribal accretions. What is more, you’re prepared to affirm that a scribal interpolation like, say, the long ending of Mark, is inspired on the mere say-so of your traditions. If Orthodox tradition canonized the Frogs, by Aristophanes, you’d be fine with that.

    That impious indifference to the word of God is not the least bit comparable to my own position. I attribute inspiration to the Urtext, and I attribute inspiration to a copy or critical edition insofar as it approximates the Urtext.

    “How would you measure this 90%?”

    You’re changing the subject, as usual. I don’t have to measure it. I’m posing a hypothetical. Healy, with your approval, dismisses the very idea that our editions of Scripture should approximate the Urtext as far as possible. So the question stands: how much deviation from the actual words of Christ, or Isaiah, or St. John, is acceptable to you?

    If, in reporting a dominical speech, a MS got 9 out of 10 words wrong, would you care? If you and Healy don’t think that discrepancies between a copy and the actual words of Christ are relevant, then you apparently have no problem attributing to Christ the words of a scribe. Not merely in practice, but in principle. You just don’t care who really said it. Is that your position?

    “SInce there are about 8000 verses in the NT, and between the Tregelles, Tischendorf, Westcott-Hort and Nestle-Aland texts there are more than 4000 differences, then on a verse by verse basis it would be 50% corrupt.”

    Of course, that’s a stupid comparison. A 19C critical edition is not the standard by which we measure a 21C critical edition. And most differences are trivial.

    But Healy’s stated position isn’t limited to trivial differences. He is repudiating the very attempt to approximate the Urtext.

    “Anonymity is no obstruction to something being scripture and therefore inspired.”

    Now you’re misquoting me. My clause contained a noun modified by two adjectives: “words of an *anonymous, uninspired scribe*.”

    You’ve dropped the noun, as well as one adjective. Did I say that anonymity, per se, was an obstruction to inspiration? No.

    Thanks for reminding my readers that an Orthodox believer can only defends his faith through dissimulation.

    “If your faith is dependant on textual criticism, then your faith is built on an area of study where the best scholars can't agree.”

    i) Like who? Bart Ehrman?

    ii) Textual criticism is not an act of faith.

    iii) I go by the evidence that God has chosen to preserve. That’s where faith comes in.

    “Josephus? Ok I'll bite, where does Josephus say Esther is canonical?”

    Consider his use of Esther in the Antiquities.

    “Aquila left nothing more than a translation, right? But didn't you say that the content of the LXX can't indicate its canonicity? So how would the content of another translation indicate its canonicity? Hypocrisy!”

    Are you dishonest or merely obtuse? Did I ever say we can’t use the LXX as a witness to the OT canon because it’s a translation? No.

    Rather, I said we can’t use it to attest the OT canon because we have various lines of evidence indicating that extant copies of the LXX don’t correspond to the original canon of the LXx.

    “And since all we have of Aquila is a few scraps of Kings and Psalms, what is your citation that he even included Esther?”

    Try Beckwith (p277).

    “Now what about all the other lists of 22 books that exclude Esther? Athanasius, Synopsis Scripturae Sacrae, Gregory of Nazianzus, Melito of Sardis, Jerome, Rufinus and Rab Judah? Who told you they are wrong? You ARE willing to go with what evidence you have, right?? Or are you just bluffing?”

    Jason has already pointed out some of the errors in your litany. To mention a few more problems:

    i) Why are you citing Greek Fathers (Athanasius, Gregory Nazianzus) on the exclusion of Esther from the canon? Does the Orthodox canon exclude Esther from the canon? No. You’re shooting yourself in the foot when you cite Greek Fathers who contradict Greek Orthodox tradition.

    ii) I don’t simply quote sources. Rather, I sift sources.

    Intelligent truth-seekers draw some elementary distinctions in evaluating sources that attest the OT canon.

    In general, Jewish sources (e.g. Philo; Josephus) are better than Gentile sources.

    Gentile sources in direct contact with Jewish sources (e.g. Origen, Epiphanius, Jerome) are better than Gentile sources which are ignorant of Jewish sources.

    Christian churches or church fathers native to Palestine (e.g. Justin, Melito, Cyril of Jerusalem, Syria) are better positioned to speak to the issue than Christian churches or church fathers outside Palestine.

    Some historical sources enjoy more prima facie value that others, based on chronological and/or geographical proximity. But it’s possible for this presumption to be overcome by other extenuating factors.

    iii) In addition, as I’ve said on multiple occasions, external evidence is not the only form of canonical attestation. There is also the intertextuality of Scripture.

    “Since Esther is dated to around 4 centuries BC, what evidence that is historically relevant are we going to find four or five centuries later anyway? What's the difference between half a millennium and a full millennium? Neither one attests to any further inside historical knowledge of the who, when or where of the book.”

    i) If you want to respond that way, fine. You originally appealed to “further centuries” of ecclesiastical reflection. If you now admit that an interval of 400-500 years is too long for tradition to preserve a reliable memory of events, then, of course, you torpedo any appeal to ecclesiastical tradition, since that is far more attenuated.

    ii) I’d add, however, that the very nature of textual transmission by the scroll is highly resistant to inserting a new book in-between a preexisting literary sequence—unlike the codex or loose-leaf form. That’s totally disruptive to the process of transmission. And the Jews used scrolls.

    “If true, your certainty can only be less than that of the Orthodox church, since your basis is on a mere subset of Orthodoxy's 2000 year insight.”

    i) 2000 years of “insight” is irrelevant to historical attestation.

    ii) And you can’t appeal to Orthodox tradition if you’re going to dismiss Jewish tradition out of hand.

    “You assume that 1C Jews are a monolithic block, which they certainly weren't.”

    Care to quote me on that?

    “The issue is not Jews being untrustworthy, the issue is that those outside the true people of God are untrustworthy in theological issues.”

    What evidence do you have that the Jewish translators of the LXX belonged to the “true people of God”? Do you think that all Intertestamental Jews belonged to the “true people of God”?

    “No you can't. I could just as much say his canon includes the extra books since he cites them so much.”

    Once again, you’re equivocating and prevaricating. How does he cite them? As Scripture?

    “Is your argument so convoluted and complex that you can't tell us? You make the statement, you back it up. Don't run scaredy cat back to some scholars.”

    This anti-intellectual response to the work of reputable scholars betrays the desperation of your own position.

    “Many of the same scholars who debunk the Alexandrian canon based on the silence of history also abandon the Palestinian canon as a settled canon based on the exact same silence.”

    Only one thing missing from your assertion: names, titles, and pages.

    “Since he almost exclusively quotes the Pentatuch, we wouldn't expect this.”

    See above.

    “Your care for Philo is selective since you don't care about everyone else who disagrees with you.”

    i) It’s “selective” for the obvious reason that sources vary in their area of expertise. Philo would be an authority on the Alexandrian canon—if it existed in his day and age.

    I’m also “selective” in going to a dentist rather than an automechanic to have an orthodontic checkup. And I’m just as selective about going to an automechanic rather than a dentist to have a vehicular checkup.

    ii) Since “every one else” doesn’t disagree with me, your statement is an exercise in hyperbolic nullity.

    “Recent scholarship since 1990 has sought to move scholarly perceptions forward by demonstrating that Josephus was not a Pharisee (Cf. Steve Mason, Todd Beall, and Ernst Gerlach).”

    Assuming, for the sake of argument, that this is correct, then you can’t dismiss the testimony of Josephus on the grounds that he belonged to the “heretical” sect of the Pharisees.

    ReplyDelete
  6. We know that Eastern Orthodox claim that their denomination is "the church the apostles founded". I was asking you for a justification of that claim, not just an assertion of it.

    It's an historical fact. You're asking the equivalent of proving that the Israel of the 1st century is the Israel of Moses. It's a matter of historically documented continuity.

    You haven't cited anything comparable for Sirach, because Sirach never had that much acceptance among the Jews of antiquity.

    Since nobody has actually cited anybody from the 1st C saying Esther is scripture, it can hardly be less.

    ReplyDelete
  7. Notice that Jimmy hasn’t shown that any of the material I quoted from Metzger (on the history of the Apocrypha) was in error.

    I don't need to disprove unsubstantiated repetition of protestant mythology about the canon.

    So, by Jimmy’s rubber yardstick, we should reject Metzger out of hand because he’s too mainstream—and we should also reject Metzger out of hand because he’s too idiosyncratic.

    Mechanical application of consensus methodology IS idiosyncratic.

    iii) Jimmy doesn’t document the claim Metzger’s reading is “not accepted by anyone else.”

    You want me to document a negative?

    Just look at every bible translation based on NA27, only one follows NA27 and that is Metzger's own NRSV.

    i) All our major sources for the LXX are late. It’s just a choice between late, later, and latest.

    Not at all. We know from Church Father quotes what was in it.

    ii)”Including extra books” doesn’t get Jimmy where he needs to go since some of the extra books which the codices include are books excluded in the Orthodox canon.

    I never claimed that the LXX was a settled list. What I said was that the LXX always contained an expanded list relative to the protestant canon.

    So extant copies of the LXX don’t correspond to the original canon of the LXX.

    There is no "original canon of the LXX". The content was fluid, but always larger than protestantism's list.

    i) In that event you cannot claim that the LXX represents the authentic OT canon, whereas the “Christ-hating” rabbis suppressed certain OT books

    I never said anyone "suppressed" certain books. That's certainly a possibility but since the list was fluid, it is unnecessary to claim that.

    i) This rejoinder would only work, if at all, assuming you now concede that you can’t appeal to the LXX to establish the true canon of the OT. Is that your actual position?

    I don't have to state a position to point out the hypocrisy in your position.

    ii) You’re also equivocating. A proper analogy would operate at the same level, viz. different editions of the LXX (or different codices containing the LXX) are comparable to different editions (or codices) of the Vulgate.

    An LXX list IS comparable to a list by an ancient personality.

    iii) The general phenomenon that different sources disagree about something doesn’t put an end to all scholarly discussion. It just means that we need to sift the sources in time, place, motive, &c.

    Well great, so you have no complaints then about the alleged differences in Orthodox canon lists.

    i) Philo’s quotes aren’t limited to the Pentateuch. So it’s striking that a Hellenistic Jew doesn’t *ever* quote from the Apocrypha as Scripture if his edition of the LXX contained the Apocrypha.

    1) You assume what you wish to prove by drawing a line between your canon and the apocrypha in Philo, when there are many books in your canon he also doesn't quote.

    2) Philo DOES quote the apocrypha. Philo quotes from Ben Sira and Wisdom of Solomon. (Julio C
    Trebolle Barrera) The Canon Debate, Lee Martin McDonald)

    You’re equivocating. Does Josephus quote them as *Scripture*?

    Well if they're scripture then they're quoted as scripture, right? Do you mean does he say "Scripture says XYZ", my question is how many of your sources for the alleged Jewish canon and who quotes what, limit those quotes to "scripture says"?

    Unlike you, I cite my sources of information, where scholars *argue* for their viewpoint.

    Name dropping scholars is not an argument. What are you here as the marketing department for protestant scholars? Annunciate an argument yourself.

    i) Do you have primary source data on particular rabbi? There’s nothing necessarily wrong with citing secondary sources, but if it’s a choice between primary source like Philo on the state of the LXX during the 1C, and a later, secondary source, then Philo takes precedence, barring further considerations.

    How is name dropping "Philo" more of a primary source than my mentioning Simeon Shetah?

    ii) BTW, I assume the rabbi you’re apparently referring to wasn’t “Simeon Shetah [sic.]," but Simeon ben Shetach, not “Shetah [sic.”,” and he wasn’t a 1C rabbi. Rather, he lived a century or so before the time of Christ.

    1) My sources call him Simeon Shetah. Since ancient spelling is fluid, your name may well be equivalent.

    2) I stand corrected, he was 1C BC. Remembering of course that you claim to go with the most ancient witness, when are you adding Sirach to your canon?

    iii) Finally, he was a Pharisee, was he not? But you automatically discount the testimony of a Pharisee as heretical.

    Christ rejecting Jews are heretical.

    Remember, I don't have to give a rip what someone in antiquity said when I have a living church.

    But the Qumran community distinguishes between Scripture and its in-house literature. Cf. R. Bauckham, Jude and the Relatives of Jesus, 226.

    Oh, so we're back to name dropping scholars because you can't put together your own argument? I can do that too. Lee M McDonald, The Formation of the Christian biblical canon P 72 says that contrary to what some scholars have proposed, Qumran had an expanded canon, and there is no reason to suppose it was the shortened canon of later Judaism.

    “As well as at Masada. Later Amoraic rabbis also cite it as scripture.”

    You need to be more specific about your sources.


    See McDonald, ibid.

    So he was torn between his scholarship, on the one hand, and his deference to ecclesiastical custom, on the other hand. Ambivalent.

    Citing what later Jews said does not make him ambivalent. I can cite what Mormons think without being ambivalent.

    You don’t even attempt to distinguish between the Urtext and scribal accretions.

    Does your bible in front of you have scribal accretions? If so why don't you "distinuish" them out of there?

    What is more, you’re prepared to affirm that a scribal interpolation like, say, the long ending of Mark, is inspired on the mere say-so of your traditions.

    As opposed to... what? Yes, the say so of our traditions which beats your own personal theories and flights of fancy. You've given us no reason to believe that the long ending of Mark, if it isn't by Mark (which is disputed), would be no less inspired than other anonymous books like Hebrews.

    That impious indifference to the word of God is not the least bit comparable to my own position. I attribute inspiration to the Urtext, and I attribute inspiration to a copy or critical edition insofar as it approximates the Urtext.

    Remembering of course that Urtext doesn't mean the autograph, it simply means the earliest text that you can find.

    So the question stands: how much deviation from the actual words of Christ, or Isaiah, or St. John, is acceptable to you?

    What difference does it make since I don't have Christ's original words, but rather the copies which you describe as interpolated? I'll take what's available thankyou.

    If you and Healy don’t think that discrepancies between a copy and the actual words of Christ are relevant, then you apparently have no problem attributing to Christ the words of a scribe.

    Apparently. Like 2000 years of Christians, and 4000 years of God's people.

    Of course, that’s a stupid comparison. A 19C critical edition is not the standard by which we measure a 21C critical edition.

    1) There's no 21C critical edition.

    2) If it changes every century, that hardly helps your case.

    3) The Nestle 1-25 text is a 20th century text based on WH and Tischendorf.

    4) The span in time between NA-1 and NA26 is closer to 50 years than hundreds of years.

    Anonymity is no obstruction to something being scripture and therefore inspired.”

    Now you’re misquoting me. My clause contained a noun modified by two adjectives: “words of an *anonymous, uninspired scribe*.”


    Of course, you can document the source of all these words, who wrote them and their inspired status, right?

    “If your faith is dependant on textual criticism, then your faith is built on an area of study where the best scholars can't agree.”

    i) Like who? Bart Ehrman?


    Like whoever you want to pick.

    ii) I go by the evidence that God has chosen to preserve. That’s where faith comes in.

    I thought you weren't happy with what is preserved and have to go and manufacture an Urtext? Make up your mind, is the text the scribes preserved ok or not?

    “Josephus? Ok I'll bite, where does Josephus say Esther is canonical?”

    Consider his use of Esther in the Antiquities.



    LOL, that's not an argument. Why don't YOU consider his use of the deuteros in the Antiquities?

    Rather, I said we can’t use it to attest the OT canon because we have various lines of evidence indicating that extant copies of the LXX don’t correspond to the original canon of the LXx.

    The issue is not some phantom "original canon", the issue is the canon(s) of the LXX in use in the 1st C. So you remain hypocritical.

    Try Beckwith (p277).

    Bzzt. Beckwith is not a 1st century character. If you can't state an argument for yourself, clearly it is bogus.

    Why are you citing Greek Fathers (Athanasius, Gregory Nazianzus) on the exclusion of Esther from the canon?

    Because I don't have to conform to some arbitrary cut off date for recognizing the canon like you do.

    In general, Jewish sources (e.g. Philo; Josephus) are better than Gentile sources.

    Again, you haven't proven that the Church didn't inherit a canon recognizing process rather than an intact canon. Thus there is no reason to suppose a Jewish source is better than a Christian source. And in fact there are plenty of reasons not to, namely their lack of discernment in rejecting Christ, their unknown status in terms of their representation of their contemporaries and the lack of the leading of the Holy Spirit.

    Gentile sources in direct contact with Jewish sources (e.g. Origen, Epiphanius, Jerome) are better than Gentile sources which are ignorant of Jewish sources.


    Again, assuming what you have to prove.

    Christian churches or church fathers native to Palestine (e.g. Justin, Melito, Cyril of Jerusalem, Syria) are better positioned to speak to the issue than Christian churches or church fathers outside Palestine.

    Again, assuming what you have to prove in that we're given no reason to assume that Jews in Palestine are more likely to have a correct canon than those elsewhere. And also assuming that Church Fathers in Palestine are more well informed than those elsewhere.

    i) If you want to respond that way, fine. You originally appealed to “further centuries” of ecclesiastical reflection. If you now admit that an interval of 400-500 years is too long for tradition to preserve a reliable memory of events, then, of course, you torpedo any appeal to ecclesiastical tradition, since that is far more attenuated.

    No, I'm saying that what is preserved after 500 years is no more or less than is preserved after 1000 years. If you want to say something was lost after 500, it's up to you to prove it.

    ii) I’d add, however, that the very nature of textual transmission by the scroll is highly resistant to inserting a new book in-between a preexisting literary sequence—unlike the codex or loose-leaf form. That’s totally disruptive to the process of transmission. And the Jews used scrolls.

    No, the scroll system is far less resistant to adding books, because all you do is throw another cylinder in the box. The codex being bound as one resists adding books.

    ii) And you can’t appeal to Orthodox tradition if you’re going to dismiss Jewish tradition out of hand.

    I don't appeal to all traditions, only those of the true people of God.

    What evidence do you have that the Jewish translators of the LXX belonged to the “true people of God”? Do you think that all Intertestamental Jews belonged to the “true people of God”?

    I don't have to know or care. I have a true people of God TODAY.

    This anti-intellectual response to the work of reputable scholars betrays the desperation of your own position.

    Why don't you just set this up as an Amazon associates book store, and stop wasting everybody's time?

    Only one thing missing from your assertion: names, titles, and pages.

    See McDonald, ibid.

    Assuming, for the sake of argument, that this is correct, then you can’t dismiss the testimony of Josephus on the grounds that he belonged to the “heretical” sect of the Pharisees.

    No, I reject him because he belongs to an unknown heretical sect.

    Let's review where you've got so far. You cited Philo, which I refuted as he quoted the deuteros. You cited Josephus, but he has no list and he does quote the deuteros. You cited a few other Jewish sources, and I cited a few Jewish sources including deuteros.

    We've got Metzger's concession that the earliest Christians included an expanded canon. We've got some Eastern fathers who omitted Esther and also included some deuteros or all detueros. We've got western fathers who included all deuteros.

    None of this can give you a canon! Much less the protestant 66 book canon.

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  8. Jimmy said:

    "It's an historical fact. You're asking the equivalent of proving that the Israel of the 1st century is the Israel of Moses. It's a matter of historically documented continuity."

    That's an assertion, not an argument.

    You write:

    "Since nobody has actually cited anybody from the 1st C saying Esther is scripture, it can hardly be less."

    You keep changing your standards. At one point, you'll ask for lists, as if only canonical lists are relevant. But, at another point, you'll acknowledge that "saying Esther is scripture" is enough. At one point, you'll cite sources after the first century commenting on the canon while dismissing a first-century source like Josephus. At another point, though, you'll ask for sources "from the 1st C".

    Aside from your inconsistencies, why should we think that only first-century sources are relevant? If no first-century source commented on a subject, yet several second-century sources commented on it, why should we assume that those second-century sources were advocating a position that didn't arise until the second century? It's possible that the position didn't arise until the second century, but it would be ridiculous to assume that it's so just because the sources are from the second century. Later sources sometimes reflect earlier beliefs. You have to examine more than just the dating of the sources. Do you want us to assume that each doctrine of Eastern Orthodoxy arose at the time when the first extant source mentions it?

    We know that Esther was widely accepted among the Jewish sources of the early church era. As Steve has explained, and as Roger Beckwith discusses in more depth in his book that we've cited, the widespread acceptance of Esther among the Jewish sources, combined with other data we have about the closing of the canon, for example, suggest that Esther had been accepted for a long time. The concept that Esther was rejected by most sources, then became accepted by most shortly afterward, isn't the best explanation of the evidence. Rather, it's a scenario that you assume without doing much to argue for it, because you want it to be true.

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  9. We've got Metzger's concession that the earliest Christians included an expanded canon.

    We've been over this ground already. He draws a distinction between those books they considered canonical and those which were in proximity to the canon.

    You've also not yet told us how you get from the modern Orthodox canon to the 1st century LXX.


    No, I reject him because he belongs to an unknown heretical sect.


    So, if he belonged to a known heretical sect, that would mean you would accept him?

    Yet you seem to accept Origen who is accounted a heretic by Orthodoxy.

    I don't have to know or care. I have a true people of God TODAY.

    But Orthodoxy didn't produce the LXX on its own.

    Note that on the one hand you tell Steve he is "assuming what he needs to prove," yet you make this claim without an argument that Orthodoxy is that people. That's a double standard.

    I don't appeal to all traditions, only those of the true people of God.

    Who was "the true people of God" at the time the LXX was translated? Is it your position the Jews of that time were graceless and unregenerate? If so, then this undercuts the LXX, for now you're accepting the work of graceless unregenerate, Jews and calling it canonical Scripture.

    Because I don't have to conform to some arbitrary cut off date for recognizing the canon like you do. Au contrare, many Orthodox epologists on this blog in our archives say otherwise, saying it took until the 16th century or so for this to happen, so you do have to conform to such a date.

    1) There's no 21C critical edition.

    2) If it changes every century, that hardly helps your case.

    3) The Nestle 1-25 text is a 20th century text based on WH and Tischendorf.

    4) The span in time between NA-1 and NA26 is closer to 50 years than hundreds of years.


    That's an elementary blunder. The NA 27 is a 21st century critical edition.

    You're assuming w/o benefit of argument that any "changes" are negative.

    No, the scroll system is far less resistant to adding books, because all you do is throw another cylinder in the box. The codex being bound as one resists adding books.

    Wrong.

    1. A scroll is a limited space, so you can only record a small amount of material on it in comparison with a codex.

    Incidentally, this is a standard argument in discussing the content of the Gospels. There's a reason the Evangelists didn't write large books - they used scrolls with a limited space. When the scroll ran out, that was it. Ditto with the Epistles. 1 scroll - 1 epistle or gospel, not 2 or 3 or 4 or more. So, scrolls are naturally resistant to the addition of books.

    One could only "add books" with scrolls by collecting a number of individual scrolls together, all different "books." The Jews used scrolls,not books,and they collected their scrolls. The also, as at Qumran, made it clear what they believed was Scripture and what was not.

    A codex, by way of contrast, is a bound book with pages. Pages can be added and subtracted with greater ease. 1 codex - many "books." That's why the codices of the LXX don't match. Books can be easily added or even substracted.

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