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Father Mike's Bible Claim FALLS APART | Live Free with Josh Howerton
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I don't want to presume to say, thus saith the Lord, if the Lord has not in fact thus setteth. If I get it wrong, I'm going to end up believing things and living in ways that God doesn't want me to. So the stakes are actually pretty high. And I believe that's what happens with the Apocrypha.
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Hey, Live Free Nation. This is an introduction to a bonus episode. By the way, if you find these bonus episodes helpful, this is a bit of a test drive. So if you find them helpful, if you would head over to YouTube and comment on this, very frankly, that lets us know that, that this is helpful and it makes us go, oh, we should keep doing this. Here's what's going to happen. I'm introducing Chat G Paul C. Who is going to be responding to Father Mike, whose podcast we can never beat yet on the difference between the Protestant and the Catholic Bible. This is not to inflame tension or division or hatred between Protestants Catholics. This is simply a question that we receive so frequently about something that is very foundational to our faith. We why does the Catholic Bible have seven more books in it than the Protestant Bible? And what you're about to hear is Father Mike explaining a lot of the Catholic reasons for that and chatg policy gently and systematically deconstructing those things without further ado.
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Chad G. Paul C. What's up? Live Free Nation? Well, hey, piggybacking on what Pastor Josh just said. Like, for my Catholic friends out there, this is not in any way an attack. It's a response to a question we get all the time and to the kinds of videos we're about to watch from Father Mike together. And like on that note, Father Mike, you seem like a great guy and a good hang. Like, would love to hang with you sometime if you ever have some spare time on your on your hands. But even if you're a good hang, like if you say some things that can lead people in some bad directions or that our people are asking us about, well, like, we gotta respond. On that note, before we dive in, I think it'd be helpful to give you a little context about what we're talking about. As Pastor Josh just said, Catholics include seven extra books in their Bible. I've got right here with me a Catholic Bible that has seven extra books in it. Specifically, in the Old Testament, Protestants usually refer to these as the Apocrypha. Catholics called them deuterocanonical books. Deuterocanonical means second canon because they were officially received into the canon by the Catholic Church later than the other books that were already there in about the mid 1500s. I'll come back to that word canon in just a minute because it is super important for, for our discussion. Well, where did these seven extra books come from? These books are not in the Hebrew Testament, which I have a copy of right here, but were in many manuscripts of a Greek translation of the Hebrew called the Septuagint that was produced in the third century B.C. actually, let's go ahead and pause because I've already given you a ton of details. So let's recap. The Old Testament was originally written in Hebrew and Aramaic. It was then translated into Greek in the third century. And this translation is called the Septuagint. Well, sometimes the Septuagint would include Greek translations of additional books known as the Apocrypha. These additional books were written in what's known as the intertestamental period, that time between the Old Testament and the New Testament and around the time the Septuagint was being translated from Hebrew into Greek. They include a combination of history that happened during that time as well as some prophecy, some wisdom literature, kind of like what's found in the Book of Proverbs. These seven books include Tobit, Judith, Wisdom of Solomon Sirach, which is sometimes known as Ecclesiasticus Baruch, and First and Second Maccabees, in addition to some small additions to the Book of Daniel. Here's the key, and this is really important to understand why this debate and disagreement happens when we ask if these books, if the Apocryphal books are part of the canon and along with the Hebrew books that all of us accept, we're asking, are these seven books 100% inspired by God and thus completely true? And if they're completely true and inspired by God, they're also would be absolutely authoritative for determining what we believe and how we have to live. Catholics and Protestants disagreements. So we have different canons, we have different lists of completely authoritative books. Here's why this matters. Both Catholics and Protestants believe that the same God who spoke the universe into existence has spoken to us through his word, the Bible, which like is incredible by the way. The same God who said let there be light and then light just came screaming out of his mouth. And that same God, he now powerfully speaks to us and changes our lives as we read this book. The Bible, 2nd Timothy 3, 16 tells us all Scripture is breathed out by God and profitable for teaching and for proof and for correction and for training in righteousness. Catholics and Protestants completely agree on this. The question though is, well, which of the books are those authoritative scriptures that Paul is talking about here? Because the Bible is in yes, one sense one book, but in another sense is actually a collection or a library of a bunch of books that were written across hundreds and thousands of years. Well, which of those books, when I read them, can I say thus saith the Lord. Which books determine what I have to believe and how I have to live? Like that's a massive question because one, I don't want to presume to say thus saith the Lord if the Lord has not, in fact thus saith and two, if I get it wrong, I'm going to end up believing things and living in ways that God doesn't want me to. So the stakes are actually pretty high. And I believe that's what happens with the Apocrypha. With all due respect to my Catholic friends, I believe that we end up believing things and living in ways that God would never have us live and have us believe because we base it on the wrong thing. Catholic doctrines like Purgatory and appealing to saints to intercede for us are largely based on verses from the Apocrypha. Now don't get me wrong, that doesn't mean we can't read non biblical books and still get good and true things from them. For example, along with the Apocrypha, right here I've got a few books. I've got the Confessions of St. Augustine. Rich, beautiful book that I'll read devotionally and has many truths with the lowercase t in them. Great stuff in here. Also I've got a modern classic, C.S. lewis's the Weight of Glory. Incredible essay in here that when I first read it just flew floored me. I come back once or twice a year and reread it because it just speaks to me so much. There's also another thing called the Didache. It's a, it's a 1st century or early 2nd century Christian instruction manual that was written within about like 10 years about of the last book of the New Testament that was written so very, very close to the New Testament has a lot of great stuff in it. Like these books are very helpful to me and they contain many truths and good stuff. So the debate over the apocryphal books that are in the Catholic Bible is not if they have some truths with a lowercase T in them or if they can be helpful, it's if there the Apocrypha is in this stack over here with the Bible and that means that Those extra seven books are completely authoritative, or are they in this other stack of books that I have here with me that are not completely authoritative? It's not if they don't have some truths in them. It's if they, if those truths have to be evaluated by the truth that is outside of them, that is found in God's word alone is over with. Whether every word is inspired by God and must be believed and obeyed. Catholics today, including Father Mike, would say yes, and they would say it's always been that way. Protestants would say no. And that actually, if you look at history, it clearly hasn't always been that way and there's some good reasons for it. I wanna actually give you the two big reasons up front here at the beginning of our video. And then you're gonna see these come up as we jump into the video and begin responding to Father Mike. Two big things that I wanna say here at the front part. Number one, all the earliest list of the authoritative books, the authoritative Old Testament books that we have, all the lists that we have in the earliest centuries of the church, they more closely resemble the Protestant list than the Catholic list. And number two, this is a big one, the Hebrew Bible, the ones that Protestant use and recognize, is the one Jesus himself used and recognized. Well, hey, with that foundation laid, we're now going to go through Father Mike's video and I'm going to systematically poke holes in just about everything that, that he says and argue that while these books aren't bad, while the Apocrypha right here isn't bad, it's not the Bible. A bit of a heads up because Catholics confidently assert that their view is so obvious and simple and there's actually way more complexity than they want to admit. I'm going to have to get pretty technical and detailed and give a good amount of quotes and historical information so that you can be confident that the 66 books of the Protestant Bible are simply the Bible. Stick with me, it'll be worth it. Let's get going.
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If you're not Catholic, you might be listening to this saying, wait, you keep saying 73, but I know my Bible has 66 books. There's only 66 books that are in the Bible, I'd say. Yeah, that's really interesting. The story behind that whole thing is, well, in like 15, 17, 15, 20, somewhere in there, Martin Luther is doing his thing.
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Okay, so the crux of Father Mike's like, entire argument, the thing that he's going to basically imply throughout the entire thing, is that before Martin Luther Luther, every Christian everywhere believed that the Apocrypha, that these books were on par with the rest of the books that we consider Scripture and that we all agree on. I want to offer a very competing, different perspective from a couple of sources. I'm not going to put the title of them up yet, but we will put them on the screen so you can read along. And you don't just have to take my word for it. First one says this in the Latin Church. So in the Roman Catholic Latin Church, all through the Middle Ages, we find evidence of hesitation about the character of the Deuterocanonical. Remember, that's the Apocrypha. According to Catholic language, there is a current or one current friendly to them, another one distinctly unfavorable to their authority and sacredness. While wavering between the two are a number of writers whose veneration for these books is tempered by some perplexity as to their exact standing. And among Those, we note St. Thomas Aquinas, who with Augustine, was like the Catholic theologian of all time. Few are found to unequivocally acknowledge their canonicity. Okay, so, like, from what? Protestant? Like revisionist? Like history? You know, does this come from. Is this like, some Protestant historian who's misguided and misinformed? Nope. I simply just read you a section from an entry on the Old Testament canon from the Catholic Encyclopedia. Kind of just feels, like, awkward in here right now, even though, like, I'm doing this alone. It kind of feels awkward that Father Mike is saying, hey, before Martin Luther, no one believed this. But then, literally, the Catholic Encyclopedia said, oh, yeah, it was a contested issue up until the Middle Ages, in the Middle Evil times, which is exactly when Martin Luther was. Now, I want to read another source that corroborates this. So you don't think it's just the Catholic Encyclopedia's opinion? Okay, this person says this in this place. This person is writing a commentary on the Old Testament. In this place, we conclude the commentaries on the historical books of the Old Testament. For the rest, Judith Tobit and the books of the Maccabees are reckoned by Divine Jerome. We're going to get back to him in a bit because he's really important. They're reckoned by him as outside the canonical books, and he places among them the Apocrypha with the Book of Wisdom and Ecclesiasticus. Nor ought you to be disturbed if you find somewhere those books reckoned among the canonical, whether in the sacred councils or among the sacred teachers. This is saying, listen, even if you See, counselors or teachers who have said they are. This is what this writer is saying. Those books are not canonical. Okay? So, like, surely this is from one of those Protestant malcontents and false teachers like Calvin or Luther. And, hey, like, I don't actually believe they're false teachers. I'm just pretending. Pretending to be a Catholic person right now. Like, no, this comes from Cardinal Cajetan, who was one of Martin Luther's fiercest opponents during the Reformation. Like, one of his biggest adversaries agreed with Martin Luther on the Apocrypha that it was not actually supposed to be in the Bible, that it should be placed separately with all other books and evaluated by what's in the Bible. Okay, so what's happening here? So unlike what Father Mike is saying, actually, throughout all of Christian history, there's actually been two schools of thought on the Apocrypha. One school of thought is that they are completely inspired and authoritative. But there's another school of thought that says they're not the actual authoritative Old Testament is the Hebrew Old Testament. So there's two different schools and two different traditions. And Martin Luther and Protestants after him are saying, that is the tradition we belong to. A tradition that goes all the way back to the earliest years of the Church. That's right. The Protestant belief that the Hebrew Old Testament is the authoritative canon goes back to the earliest centuries of the Church. In fact, if you go back in the first 300 years, we have different lists of people who are basically saying, hey, these are the authoritative books, the ones that we consider inspired, not just New Testament, but also Old Testament books. And for the first 300 to 350 years, every single list that we have record of agrees more closely with the Protestant list. Let me give you a few examples. The Bryennios list, it comes from somewhere in the 100. So this is the earliest known list that we have to this point. It lists, in terms of the authoritative books of the Old Testament, the Hebrew Old Testament minus Esther. What's missing? Any Catholic apocryphal book in that same time period in 170ad, we have a guy named Melito of Sardis. He lists his authoritative books. Again, the Hebrew Testament minus Esther on this list. There's possibly one that could be a Catholic apocryphal book. It's called the Wisdom of Solomon. But many people actually believe that Melito is actually just saying, this is another thing that the Book of Proverbs is known as. So there's some debate there. You go to Origen, who's in the late 1000s and mid-2200s. Origen, who's a huge early church father, he believes that is the Hebrew canon that's authoritative and that there's a symmetry between the 22 books of the Hebrew Old Testament and the 22 letters that are in the Hebrew Alphabet. This is also adopted by a guy named Cyril of Jerusalem. I actually have a quote that we're going to put on the screen because it's really important. It shows a very common belief at this time. Learn also diligently and from the church. So when he says that, he is basically assuming that this is the standard teaching of the Church at this time, where he's at. Learn also diligently and from the church which are the books of the Old Testament and which of the New. For all men are not competent to enumerate them. And hence some have most shamefully presumed to frame for themselves apocryphal books. Read the divine scriptures, the 22 books of the Old Testament. These that have been Translated by the 72 interpreters have nothing to do with the apocryphal writings. Moving on. 367. A guy named Athanasius releases a letter at Easter. And this is a really important letter because this is one of the first complete list of the New Testament books that, by the way, all Catholics and Protestants agree on the 27 books of the New Testament. We. But what a lot of people leave out is that he also lists books that he believes are the authoritative books from the Old Testament. And guess what? They are. It's the Protestant canon. It's the Hebrew Old Testament. He does mention how there are some apocryphal books that he says are not in the canon, but they are appointed by the Fathers to be read by those who newly join us and wish for instruction in the word of godliness. But he specifically says they are not canonical and they are not authoritative. Okay, there's one more huge person that we're going to address. I feel like. Let's save him for just a few minutes. Let's get back to the video. But before we get back to the video, let me just basically sum this up with a couple of key points. While Catholics will try to say that all Christians saw the apocrypha the same way before Mountain Luther, this obviously isn't true. And that kind of leads to point number two, which is the idea of, hey, there's actually two schools of thought. And Protestants adopted the earliest tradition and the earliest view in the Christian church. But it wasn't until the Late three hundreds that we get guys like Augustine who they released the list and they included the apocryphal books. But that comes after the other list that we have that all base it on the Hebrew Old Testament. And this really plays into something that Martin Luther and the Protestants, what their goal was. A lot of people, especially Catholics, would try to say, oh, like Protestantism is something new and you were trying to teach new things. And you're like, the heart of Protestantism is not to do or teach something new. It's to recapture what is old and what is earliest. Theirs was a renewal movement. And the idea of a renewal movement is when you take something like a piece of furniture and you do stuff to it, not to create something new, but actually make it look like how it was when it was first new in its original condition. That's what Martin Luther and Protestants have been trying to do, including with the Bible in the authoritative list of those Testament Scriptures that we find in the Protestant canon. All right, that being said, let's get back to Father Mike.
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And you know, I think it's fascinating that from 1517 to 1520, Martin Luther was quoting those seven books, we call them the deuterocanonical books. Those seven books that Martin Luther took out of the Bible or removed them in the Bible, he was still quoting them as Scripture.
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It wasn't until, okay, so this is true, but it doesn't prove anything. First, Martin Luther was in the process of wrestling with what he believed and what the church was teaching. And as time went on, he got more clarity. And I'm just going to just gently say this as much as I can. Catholics really can't accuse Martin Luther of anything here in terms of his views developing, because it wasn't until 1870 that the official doctrine of Papal infallibility was passed, 1950 with the assumption of Mary. And even talking about this topic in terms of whether the apocrypha belongs in the canon or not, it did not become official in Catholic teaching until 1545, 46, about 20 years, years after this is happening. And so we can't bring in this conversation, did views develop? If Catholic views are free to develop in one direction, Martin Luther is free to develop his views in the opposite direction and try to reclaim what the earliest Christians believed. Number two. And this is key because you'll sometimes see this on social media, or maybe a Catholic will watch this video and put something in the comments, or their response will be like this. Well, hey, many people throughout church history, they would say quoted the apocrypha as Scripture. In fact, some of the people I've already mentioned and some of the people I'll mention in a bit, they would say, as Scripture says or as it is written, this is really important. We have to understand that when we today say Scripture, we automatically refer to the books that we believe are 100% inspired by God and authoritative throughout church history. People could use the word Scripture or it is written and have a two tier system for what they mean by that. Some of the guys that will quote the Apocrypha and say, hey, it is written, or as Scripture says in that same work or within that same time period, they will then say that, that that book is not in the canonical list of authoritative books. They had a two tier system. The first tier were books they believed were authoritative to tell us what we have to believe and how we have to live. The second tier was often called ecclesiastical books or books that were useful for instruction but weren't completely true. And I believe this is Martin Luther's view as well. Let's keep going.
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The year 1520, that Martin Luther was in a debate with a German theologian, a priest named Johann Eck, where they're debating on the efficacy of the Mass. That Johann Eck was saying that, no, the Mass does something. Mass actually, it's not just a memorial. It actually is a sacrifice we're offering to the Father and it gives us grace. It's incredible. And Martin Luther says, no, I don't believe that it does anything. He says, well, are you kidding me?
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Okay, communion isn't the main issue in this video. But just briefly, what Father Mike is saying here isn't true. It's a very common misconception. Luther actually believed in something called the real presence of Christ in communion. He believed that communion does confer grace, not saving grace, but it does confer grace to us as we take it. He just disagrees with the specific Roman Catholic belief of transubstantiation. Can't get into it in this video, but I just wanted to clear up real fast, that's really not true what Father Mike just said. Let's keep going.
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I'm paraphrasing also they were speaking German and I don't know this, but he said, but we offer Mass for those who are dead. And Martin Luther says, I don't believe in offering Mass for those who are dead. He said, what about purgatory? And Martin Luther says, I don't believe in Purgatory. And Johannes says, what about two Maccabees, chapter 12, where it says it's A good and holy thing to pray for the dead. And in that. That moment, Martin Luther removed or at least merely moved those seven books from the Bible. And it's interesting because. Why? Because it didn't fit with his. With his theology.
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Okay, actually, Luther kept the seven apocryphal books in his Bible that he translated himself into German, but he did move them between the Old and New Testaments. And he said that while these are not authoritative, they are useful and helpful to read. Also, by the way, that's true of the King James Bible. Most people don't realize this, but the first version of the King James Bible had the Apocrypha in it. I actually have the King James version of the Apocrypha right here. It's the one I've been holding up throughout this episode. Eventually, Protestants did take them out of the Bible because they didn't want your average reader to read those books and think that they were on par and as authoritative as all the books surrounding them. But let me really just double click on this thing where basically Father Mike is saying, well, hey, he's just doing this because Scripture and the Church didn't agree with Martin Luther's theology. And instead of submitting to Scripture into the Church, Martin Luther just stuck with whatever he wanted to believe. This is not true. Rather, what Martin Luther is doing here is he is reclaiming Jerome's view. If you don't know Jerome, don't be. Don't feel bad. But Jerome was the translator of a translation of the Bible called the Vulgate. So in the late three hundreds, Jerome, who is the preeminent scholar at that time, was commissioned to make a standard unified Bible, Latin, that the whole Church could read. And he a couple interesting things. Number one, he based his translation of the Old Testament off of the Hebrew, which excluded the Apocrypha. And then number two, while in the Vulgate he did include the Apocrypha, he made abundantly clear that he did not believe these books were inspired or authoritative. But again, don't take my word for it. Let's hear from Jerome himself. Jerome speaking and basically giving an introduction to what's called the Books of Solomon, says this as then the Church reads Judith Tobit in the Book of Maccabees. Again, that's part of the Apocrypha, but does not receive them among the canonical Scriptures. So also she reads these two volumes, Wisdom and Ecclesiasticus, for the edification of the people, not to establish the authority of ecclesiastical doctrines. Another quote, and this is really important because it sets up for a second big point that we need to make here in a minute. Jerome says the Hebrew Scriptures are used by apostolic men. They are used, as is evident by the apostles and evangelists. Our Lord and Savior himself, whenever he refers the Scriptures, takes his quotations from the Hebrew. Jerome is saying that if the Hebrew Bible was good enough for Jesus, it should be good enough for us. So Jerome finishes the Vulgate and it is used for over the next thousand years as the standard Catholic Bible. So here's what's interesting is that where you, as you could accuse Martin Luther of trying to invent something new. Actually he was reclaiming a view that was as old as the Bible that Johann Eck would have likely been holding when he was debating Luther. Johann Eck at that point would have been using the Vulgate. And the translator of that version of the Bible he was holding did not believe the Apocrypha was authoritative. All right, let's keep going.
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And he appealed to this. He appealed to some, some Jewish, the Jewish canon, Jewish list of scriptures that wasn't developed until a couple hundred years after Jesus. Well, 100 to 200 years after the time of Jesus. And he appealed to the Jewish canon that doesn't have those seven books has considered divinely inspired. But here's an interesting thing. At the time of Jesus, there wasn't actually an established Jewish canon.
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All right, I'm going to hold off on my main point for a few minutes, but I feel like I need to rapid fire interact with a lot of the statements that Father Mike is making and that he is about to make. There is a grain of truth here. Some groups did have other books. But to say that there wasn't an established canon in Jesus's day is misleading and way overstated. Literally within 60 years of Jesus's death and resurrection, a Jewish historian named Josephus is writing a book explaining Jewish beliefs. And he says this about what he believes the Old Testament canon to be. He says in the book Against Appion, we have not an innumerable multitude of books, but only 22 books that would have been the Hebrew Testament, which contain the records of all the pastimes which are justly believed to be divine. It is true our history hath been written since Artaxerxes, very particularly these, referring to some of the apocryphal books. But they have not been esteemed of the like of authority with the former by our forefathers, because there hath not been an exact succession of prophets since that time. Now, Josephus didn't decide the Old Testament canon, but he is basically saying this is the common view of Jews in his day within 60 years of Jesus's death and resurrection. And notice his reasoning. His reasoning is that after the prophets had ceased, there was no more authoritative revelation because there were no more authoritative prophets that had arisen. Keep that in mind now, because I want to give you another testimony that corroborates Josephus's testimony. Listen to this. So there was great distress in Israel, such as had not been since the time that prophets ceased to appear among them. What's that from? That's from First Maccabees, 9, 27. That's from the Apocrypha, which is itself acknowledging that the time of prophets in authoritative revelation had ceased. It admits it itself. All right, let's continue.
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At the time of Jesus, there were different groups that believed that different books. Yeah. Should be in the Bible. Some shouldn't be. I mean, we even know the story of the Sadducees. Right? The Sadducees, they only believed the first five books of Moses should be in the Bible. They didn't take the others as divinely inspired.
- [26:47]
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Right? That is true. But they were a vast minority. They were literally like in the single digits of the population. And we have writings in the first centuries that talked about most of the people that. But they did not receive their doctrine. The doctrine that people most rarely received was from the Pharisees. They adopted what's called the three part division of the Hebrew Old Testament. The law, the prophets and the writings in Hebrew. It would have been the Torah, the Nevi' Im and the Ketuvim. This was their adoption and what they believed. And it would have been the Hebrew Old Testament that would not have included the Apocrypha. Also, I'd like to add that, you know what? Something that the Sadducees and Pharisees had in common. Neither of them believed that the apocryphal books were authoritative
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Essenes. There are people who lived in the Dead Sea area. They believed that that had a bunch of books that they might have considered divinely inspired. What books?
- [27:38]
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All right, so this point with the Essenes is overblown all the time. The Essenes did have a really big library of books, but the common misconception is, oh, they held all of these books in equal esteem and in equal honor. But that's like if all of a sudden, in like 2,000 years from now, someone discovered my lib in that library. They found the Bible, the Septuagint, the apocrypha, they found C.S. lewis and St. Augustine and they found psychology books and history books and leadership books and said, oh, Paul must have held all these books in equal honor and believed that they were all equally true. No, that'd be absurd. Of course people wouldn't believe that about me. It's the same thing with the Essenes. In fact, I think we can actually get a sense of the books they held in higher honor and esteem and to be authoritative by how many copies they had of them on hand. And I want to read you for them in order of the amount of copies and they had. Here's the ones they had the most of. Psalms, Deuteronomy, Isaiah, Exodus, Genesis, Leviticus, Numbers and the minor prophets, which all sound like the books one would find in the Hebrew Old Testament. What was missing or barely hinted at at all? First and second Maccabees, Judith, Wisdom of Solomon and the Greek additions to Daniel, also known as the Apocrypha. So let's come at this maybe in a different way than Father Mike. Were there groups that had differences between them? Yes, but do you know what they all had in common? No major group in Jesus time would have recognized the apocrypha as authoritative. Like the people who lived where Jesus lived and they walked where Jesus walked. All would have believed that the Hebrew Old Testament alone was authoritative to tell them what they had to believe and how they had to live. And that is the one that Protestants accept.
- [29:27]
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Books were divinely inspired at the time of Jesus was still a debated topic. And actually the Jewish rabbis did not settle upon an established canon until 100, 200 years after the time of Christ.
- [29:40]
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All right, again we already established this, but literally in the first century the majority of Hebrew people had that three part division. But do you want to know a rabbi who also at accepted that three part division? Jesus, like Jesus himself held the view of the three part division of the Hebrew Old Testament and believed that those were the authoritative books of the Old Testament. We see this very clearly described in the gospels. In Luke 24:44 it says everything written about me in the law of Moses and the prophets and the Psalms must be fulfilled. The Psalms often was kind of a stand in word for the writings because it was the first book at that first part of the division of that writing section. And so Jesus is literally saying, hey, the entire Old Testament points to me. And his Old Testament would have been that three part division. So listen, in all this conversation like for sure we've established already that hey, from the earliest days of the church, people believed more in the Hebrew Testament authority than any kind of other authority. But really, we gotta come down to this. How did Jesus see it? What was the canon that he recognized and that he utilized? The Hebrew Old Testament. You also see this and it's this fascinating little detail that people often miss. In Matthew 23:35, it says this. Jesus is talking to the Jewish leaders about how they're going to be responsible for all the blood, all the righteous blood shed on earth. Listen to this. From the blood of Abel to the blood of Zechariah. Here's why that's significant. Abel is in Genesis, the first book of the Hebrew Old Testament. Zechariah would have been in Second Chronicles, the last book of the Hebrew Old Testament, of the Hebrew canon, the bookends. So if the canon were open ended, that statement from Jesus would have made no sense to his hearers. So what Jesus is saying again is the entire Old Testament from beginning to end points to him. And the beginning and end for Jesus is the Hebrew canon that Protestants accept. And here's what's right here. Like what's infinitely more important than what Catholics believe and what Protestants believe, or what this theologian says or that theologian says, or even what I say or Pastor Josh or anyone else says is how would Jesus have landed on this issue? What did he see as authoritative? And listen, if the Hebrew Bible again I'll just say it again for us, was good enough for Jesus, it should be good enough for us too. Let's keep going.
- [32:12]
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And that's the list to which Martin Luther appealed. But you think about this. That canon was established by who? It was established by Jews who had rejected Jesus as the Messiah.
- [32:24]
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Whether they rejected him or not is really irrelevant because as Paul was going around the Greek speaking world, he encountered Jews who also rejected Jesus. And they would likely have had the Septuagint that may have included the apocrypha. So if we're going to reject the Hebrew canon, we'd have to reject that as well. But here's the bigger thing. And again, I just keep coming back to it, like how did Jesus see this? Jesus never quotes the Apocrypha in the Gospels and then says it is written or as Scripture says, but he does do that with the Hebrew Old Testament and so should we.
- [32:58]
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So they don't have no authority. It wasn't until the Catholic Church in the year 382 in the Council of Rome and then again 397, Council of Carthage and then later on, because Martin Luther had taken those seven books out in the Council of Trent had said, no, These are the 773 books, and this is one of.
- [33:14]
A
So again, this is an overstatement. The councils of Rome and the councils of Carthage were what was known as regional councils. So there were these other things called ecumenical councils, like the Council of Nicaea in 325 or the Council of Constantinople in 381. And Ecumenical Council was where the whole church came together from different parts of the world at that time, and they would land on something that all Christians everywhere had to agree on. These councils that Father Mike just mentioned were regional councils that. That did not have that authority. Literally, within 20 years of that council that he mentioned, Jerome would be writing his book and he would be. I mean, his translation of the Bible, and he would be saying that the apocryphal books are not authoritative. The first dogmatically binding definition of the Old Testament that would have included the apocrypha for Roman Catholics did not come until the mid 1500s. Once Protestants like Martin Luther began challenging theology that the Roman Catholic Church based largely on, on the apocrypha. They waited until then to solidify their view. How convenient. All right, let's go to this last section, and we'll wrap up with Father Mike and make some final comments.
- [34:24]
C
Saddest things. One of the saddest things is when I've done. When I did the Bible in here, we had a bunch of people who are not Catholic. Maybe you're part of that. That group that they lived their whole lives not realizing that God had given them seven extra books that one guy in Germany years ago took out. That actually, to realize that all 73 books are part of your inheritance, what God has wanted you to have your entire Life are all 73 books.
- [34:51]
A
Okay, while this sounds so compelling and so impassioned, let me just ask you a simple question. If they were your inheritance, if they were the books that God wanted you to have, why didn't he make that clear when he was walking the earth in the flesh? Like, here's something that Catholics and Protestants can agree on. We take our cues from Jesus. Hebrews, chapter one, says, long ago, at many times and in many ways, God spoke to our fathers by the prophets. But in these last days, he has spoken to us by his son. Well, if his son, Jesus Christ recognized the Hebrew and Aramaic Old Testament, that would have excluded the apocrypha. Why shouldn't we? Do we? Do you really believe you have a better Bible than Jesus himself? Read. No. No. Everything God wants for you, everything that he wants to communicate to you about who he is and who you are and how he wants you to live in the world that he has created is found in the 66 books of the Protestant Bible. That really just is the Bible. Everything else, whether it's your favorite devotion or the apocryphal books that were written 2200 years ago, even if they're helpful, they're not the final authority over what you believe and how you live. All the lowercase T truths that are in them must ultimately be evaluated by the capital T truth that is found outside of them and that is only found in God's Word. Sam.