All Doves:

I closed off with a discussion of the Jewish historian Josephus.  Josephus was not the only Jewish writer to lend evidence to the idea that the Jewish canon was closed during the 400 year inter-testamental period.  The Jewish philosopher Philo Judaeus, of Alexandria (20 BC-40 AD) was a prolific writer.  In his writings, he repeatedly quotes from and uses all 39 of the canonical Old Testament books, and pointedly ascribes divine inspiration to many of them; and clearly recognizes the same three-fold division of the Canon which was indicated by Josephus and by the early Church.  Never once does he quote from or allude to an apocryphal work.  Hence, he provides both negative and positive evidence regarding the rejection of the Apocrypha from the Jewish canon.  He recognizes positively what is regarded as canonical, both by his direct statement regarding some books, and his inferred view as seen by his view of the three-fold canon.  He also negatively recognizes what is not canonical, by his disuse of a rather large body of Jewish literature which was readily available to him (his being in Alexandria, where most of these books and writings were or first written and circulated) and could have been used if he had been inclined to do so. Though this is an argument from silence (not always the best kind to make, mind you), it would seem to be a pretty good one in this case, as the type of literature which the apocryphal books represent (historic, pietistic, and wisdom literature) is very similar to that found in many of the canonical books.  Thus, if these books were viewed as inspired, Philo could, and probably would, have made ready use of them to support the arguments he made on a great number of issues. 

The Dead Sea Scrolls, the record of the Jewish Essene community at Qumran from the Inter-testamenal period and shortly after, are likewise very sparse in their testimony reference to the Apocrypha.  Whereas the Scrolls have been found to represent every book in the Old Testament, except Esther, Nehemiah, and Obadiah, the evidence for the Apocrypha is scant.  In fact, the only portions of the Apocrypha to have been found among over 800 scrolls recovered are a mere three scrolls, containing portions of Ecclesasitcus; Tobit (in Aramaic), and the letter of Jeremiah (in Greek).  Whereas anywhere from eight to ten commentaries on Canonical Old Testament books have been found (the number varies due to controversies over whether a couple are actually "commentaries" in the normative accepted sense); there has not been found one bit of evidence to date for any sort of commentary or expository work regarding any apocryphal writing,

Furthermore, scholars suspect that the Scrolls containing the fragments of apocryphal works may not have even been copied by the Qumran scribes themselves, but were rather brought in from the outside at a later date.  It cannot even be determined whether these books were present at Qumran before or after the time of Jesus of Nazareth, so there is no positive way or reason to claim as many Catholic apologists will suggest, that the presence of the Apocryphal books in the Qumran caves necessarily indicates that these books were viewed as canonical by the Essenes.  The truth of the matter is these books may very well have been completely ignored by the early scribes completely, as would seem to fall in line with the testimony of Josephus concerning the lower esteem in which those books were held as compared to the Canon.  Further, the mere presence of these fragments of Ecclesiasticus, Tobit, and the Letter of Jeremiah do not conclusively indicate that the Essenes included in their Canon, as the Dead Sea Scrolls as a body contain fragments of numerous other apocryphal and pseudepigraphal works such as the book of Giants, the book of Jubilees, 1 Enoch, the book of Noah, etc., which have never been under serious consideration for inclusion in the Jewish Canon. 

Another bit of evidence presented by the Qumran scrolls is found in the 'Essene Manual of Discipline', which functioned as a sort of "rulebook" for the behavior of entrants into the sect, and regulated their behavior.  This was similar to the Didache of the early Christians.  The testimony of this Manual of Discipline is against the use of the Apocrypha as Scripture.  You will not find present-day advocates of the Apocrypha because it does not serve their interests.  Dr. Randall Price, a respected archeologist and faculty member of Liberty University in Virginia writes of this in his books on the Dead Sea Scrolls.  The Manual of Discipline, along with another Essene work known as the Zadokite fragments, repeatedly quote from Deuteronomy, Numbers, Isaiah, Proverbs, and Leviticus, using the literary formula, "It is written".  The Zadokite fragments also use the phrase "God said" in reference to portions of scripture from Malachi, Amos, Zechariah, Hosea, Deuteronomy, Numbers, Isaiah, and Micah.  While these works also quote from various Apocryphal works (both those of interest to this discussion, and those outside the Catholic canon), these formulas which indicate the ascription of inspiration are NEVER used.  Dr. Randall Price's book, 'The Dead Sea Scrolls' published by Harvest House around 2002 or 2003 provides tallies, lists, and details of the makeup of the body of writings. 

Moving on, we see that this ancient testimony to the Jewish Canon was affirmed by Jewish religious leaders in the Christian era.  In 90 AD, the so-called "Council" of Jamnia was assembled in the coastal town of Jamnia.  Roman Catholic and Liberal Protestant historians make much of this council, basically casting it as some sort of formal Jewish religious council which was convened for the expressed purpose of determining the Jewish Canon.  That's not the case at all.  Furthermore, then, many Catholic apologists take up this time line of reasoning and state that the Jewish council of rabbis determined a smaller canon than had been used before this time, as a reaction to the Christians who were proving so successful as propagating their faith with the larger (i.e. Catholic) canon which included the Apocrypha.  They will say that the Jewish rabbis arbitrarily decided to throw out the Apocryphal books since they were being used to such great success by Christians in converting Jews and others to their religion.  This argument falls short for several reasons.  This point is raised often by two of the advocates for the Apocrypha posted by folks who do not know squat from or about what they post.

If the Jews were going to get rid of books which Christians were using to such great effect in proving the claims of Jesus as the Messiah, then they would also have had to gotten rid of such books as Isaiah, Micah, Zechariah, and the Psalms, for we readily see the testimony of the early church from both the Bible and from the apostolic and post-apostolic Patristic writers as to their heavy reliance on books such as these to prove the claims made about Jesus Christ.  In fact, the testimony of the Patristic writers, which we will look at in much greater detail shortly, shows very little reliance upon the apocryphal works until at least two centuries AFTER Jesus Christ, and well over a century after the council of Jamnia.  The sub-apostolic authors, who were at and shortly after the time of Jamnia, were almost completely silent regarding the Apocrypha, and the few places where they quote or allude to these books show no reliance whatsoever upon them for actual teaching of doctrine or practice.

Further, we should note, the apocryphal books do not contain the mark of propheticity upon them (they contain errors, contradictions internally, and contradictions with other canonical books).  The one passage in an apocryphal book routinely relied upon by supporters of the Apocrypha as providing an "important" Messianic prophecy -(Wisdom 2:12-20), in fact, actually contradicts doctrine concerning the Lord Jesus Christ taught in the Gospels.  The fact is that Roman Catholic "Devil's Advocates" have continuously, like flies at a picnic, continued to buzz and irritate the theological and archeological experts.  Jesuit theologians never give non-Catholics a "pass" on any issue.  They are as predictable as those "devil's advocates" that nit-pick my posts. 

What in fact happened at Jamnia was far from a "council" in the sense in which the word was used in the early church.  It was not a body which came together for the expressed purpose of issuing authoritative findings on matters of faith, doctrine, or practice.  Rather, it was a convention of many learned rabbis who had fled Jerusalem after the destruction of Jerusalem and the Temple in 70 AD.  The exact purpose of the gathering is to this day speculated upon.  The actual agenda which the rabbis carried out was a series of discussions on several books in the Jewish canon which, for various reasons, were considered doubtful in their canonicity by some (but which had not been previously REJECTED as canonical).  As best as can be understood from later rabbinical literature (the only source we have for the goings-on at Jamnia), the discussion centered on the following books:

    ++Esther - Questioned by some because of the lack of reference to the name of God.  Doubts were dispelled by the fact that, though it lacks direct reference to God, the overriding providential hand of God can be clearly seen throughout the book.

    ++Song of Solomon - Doubted by some because of the "erotic" nature of certain passages in the book.  This book was cleared by the rabbis after they accepted a more allegorical interpretation of the book (much like some modern-day Evangelicals).  In over fifty years I have only known of or heard of but one pastor to ever preach from the Song of Solomon.  After I left the United Methodist Church, I was hired as an Associate Pastor for Small Group Ministries, at an Evangelical Presbyterian Church and the senior pastor did an entire series of six messages on the Song of Solomon. 

    ++Ecclesaties - Questioned because it supposedly contained statements which contradicted other portions of Scriptures.  These difficulties were dispelled by careful cross-study of the Scriptures in question.

    ++Ruth, Proverbs, Ezekiel, and possibly Daniel and Ezra were also discussed, but doubts which may have been entertained by certain rabbis were dispelled during the course of the discussions.

What is important to keep in mind about Jamnia is that it was NOT a council which was convened to determine the limits of the Canon of the Jewish Scriptures.  Now, as I said, Roman Catholic apologists and Liberal Protestants will argue to the contrary.  The participants already understood what the limits of the Scriptural Canon were, and their discussions took place under the assumption that the books being discussed were in the Canon, and that the Canon as it traditionally had been was being affirmed and defended.  This explains why there was no mention of the apocryphal books made at this council.  Quite to the contrary to Roman Catholic claims, the Council of Jamnia did not "remove" the apocryphal books from the Jewish Canon.  Rather, the Council merely discussed a few "questionable" books already in the Canon (and accepted as such by all, with varying degrees of assurance).  The Apocrypha never was (as we've seen above) in the Canon, and hence it did not even enter into consideration at this time. I have read several Roman Catholic articles that have disingenuously misrepresented the Council of Jamni on this topic.

What the Council of Jamnia implicitly did was to affirm something which Judaism had known since the days of the Maccabees, that the Canon had closed during the time of Artaxerxes' reign, and only those books accepted up to that time were rightfully in the Canon.  In fact, Jamnia's effect on the Old Testament Canon was the equivalent to that which the 3rd Council of Carthage in 397 AD had on the New Testament Canon:  It affirmed what those who had already been using the Scriptures in question for hundreds of years already knew.

In the next post on this series, I will discuss why the Apocrypha was not used as inspired Scripture by the New Testament writers.

My major point of my writing on the Apocrypha is to note why today we are being confronted with this disingenuous effort to somehow lead people to believe the Apocrypha has been somehow ripped from the pages of the Bible, and the Christian world are being robbed of important Scripture.  The puppets pumping up the Apocrypha have been deceived into believing something that is blatantly false.  Their lack of integrity, both to the truth and to the known facts, only reveals their intention to give Roman Catholic theologians credibility on the bogus Apocrypha writings.

It is the Roman Catholic Institution that has much to gain by polluting the theological waters today.  Without the Apocrypha as such, they cannot give Biblical legitimacy to their heretical teachings they have established as doctrine for their adherents.  This battle becomes even more important as the clock winds down during the final days of the institutional church, and as the Protestant daughter-churches follow the ecumenical roads to re-unification in the coming One-World-Church that Rome will head.  That One-World-Church is being formed as we speak and touted and promoted as "Interfaithism"!

Keep looking up, the Pre-Tribulation Rapture will thwart Satan's church's agenda!

Blessings in the name of Christ Jesus, our Lord and Savior,

Pastor Bob