Saturday, November 06, 2010

Canon Debate – Are Tobit, Baruch, and other Deuterocanonicals Inspired Scripture?

On August 12, 2010, I debated on the topic of the canon of Scripture with Mr. William Albrecht (Roman Catholic). The issue was whether the Apocrypha (what the Roman Catholics call the Deuterocanonicals) are inspired Scripture. I demonstrated that they could not be, since they make various mistakes, particularly focusing on Baruch and Tobit. Additionally, I pointed out that they were not accepted as inspired Scripture by Jesus, the Apostles or the other Jews of their day. The conclusion is, of course, that although some of the church fathers may have regarded some of them as Scripture (particularly the wisdom literature of Sirach and Wisdom), nevertheless there is not a good reason to accept them as inspired.

I've embedded the playlist below (I had already provided the mp3 in a previous post).

- TurretinFan

6 comments:

Lucian said...

I would friendly advise you not to try discreditting the OT books that are not in the Hebrew by using arguments which very easily and quite frequently backfire against the ones that you do actually consider canonical... -- just a tip.

Turretinfan said...

How would you advise me to discredit them? Oh, not at all? ok :)

Coram Deo said...

Yes, TF; all's well so long as you train your exegetical firepower upon the dogmas peculiar to Rome; but when you begin demolishing sacred cows that are venerated by both the Romanists and Eastern Orthodoxy...well...it's best to let that sleeping dog lie, right Lucian?

In Christ,
CD

Anonymous said...

Aside from the fact that, again, I get to hear your voice, hear the plain depth of understanding and wisdom and knowledge God has caused you to attain to, I am not sure if what I just listened to was a waste of time?

Also I would note from the many fruits of the flesh elucidated by the Apostle Paul in his now noted sacred writings, the book of Galatians, this particular one seemed to me to be most evident with your debating opponent:


ἔρις
eris
er'-is
Of uncertain affinity; a quarrel, that is, (by implication) wrangling: - contention, debate, strife, variance.

And, it seemed to me the opponent was trying a case against Dr. White's Ministry and Faith in favor of his good personal Roman Catholic friend's, whose name and blog escapes me even more, promoting his book in favor of much established history!

What I will affirm is he is able to express himself, well, as I noted from that elucidated list of fruits of the flesh, from the book of Galatians, a fruit is evident, as established by a sacred writing ... .

steelikat said...

I believe Sirach and Wisdom are definitely worth reading and meditating on. You can do that without dogmatically insisting they are part of the Bible.

Chafer DTS said...

Many Roman Catholic apologist contend their OT Canon was followed prior to Trent. Here is a refutation.

Catholic scholar Cajetan said " Here we close our commentaries on the historical books of the Old Testament. For the rest ( that is, Judith, Tobit, and the books of Maccabees ) are counted by St Jerome out of the canonical books, and are placed amongst the Apocrypha, along with Wisdom and Ecclesiasticus, as is plain from the Prologus Galeatus. Nor be thou disturbed, like a raw scholar, if thou shouldest find anywhere, either in the sacred councils or the sacred doctors, these books reckoned as canonical. For the words as well of councils as of doctors are to be reduced to the correction of Jerome. Now, according to his judgment, in the epistle to the bishops Chromatius and Heliodorus, these books (and any other like books in the canon of the bible) are not canonical, that is, not in the nature of a rule for confirming matters of faith. Yet, they may be called canonical, that is, in the nature of a rule for the edification of the faithful, as being received and authorised in the canon of the bible for that purpose. By the help of this distinction thou mayest see thy way clearly through that which Augustine says, and what is written in the provincial council of Carthage " ( Commentary on all the Authentic Historical Books of the Old Testament, In ult. Cap., Esther. Taken from A Disputation on Holy Scripture by William Whitaker (Cambridge: University, 1849), p. 48. )