The Great Debate IX: Is The Apocrypha Scripture? (White vs Michuta)

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The following presentation is a production of Alpha and Omega Ministries, Inc. and is protected by copyright laws of the

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United States and its international treaties. Copying or distribution of this production without the expressed written permission of Alpha and Omega Ministries, Inc.

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is prohibited. Good evening, ladies and gentlemen.

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It's a joy to see you all out here. My name is Chris Arnzen from WMCA Radio and 970DJ

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Christian Radio, and welcome to the ninth annual Great Debate on the

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Apocrypha, the canonicity of the Deuteronomic Books. Ten years ago, many people laughed at me at the idea that a theological debate would actually draw anybody and catch on at all.

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Last year, many people laughed at me when I said that the Apocrypha would be a good subject to debate and that anybody would be interested in it.

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Many more people laughed at me this year because of a very ill -conceived liturgical dance

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I did at an Easter pageant, but that has nothing to do with what we're talking about tonight. Well I'd like to introduce to you the evangelical debater who will be participating in tonight's debate, a very dear friend of mine,

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Dr. James White. His head's big enough already, please.

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Dr. James White is the director of Alpha and Omega Ministries, an evangelical apologetics organization.

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He has lectured in Greek, Hebrew, systematic theology, and Christology for Golden Gate Baptist Theological Seminary, and theology and church history at Grand Canyon University.

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He is also professor of apologetics for Columbia Evangelical Seminary in Longview, Washington.

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He's the author of over 20 books, including The Roman Catholic Controversy, Dangerous Airwaves, Harold Camping Refuted and Christ's Church Defended, and The Forgotten Trinity.

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He is heard frequently as a guest in such national radio broadcasts as The Bible Answer Man with Hank Anagraph and Janet Partials America.

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In 1996, Dr. White had the good fortune to meet a brilliant young advertising salesman named

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Christopher Arnzen who has mentored him, molded him, and shaped him into the magnificent apologist and debater that he is today.

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Ladies and gentlemen, Dr. James White. I'd like to now introduce to you a friend of mine who has become invaluable to these debates, especially for his participation in inviting

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Roman Catholics. His name is Arnold Pilsner, and he is the president of the Americans United for the

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Pope. He is going to introduce to you our Roman Catholic debater, Gary Machuda, which, by the way, was referred to me by Patrick Madrid of Envoy Magazine.

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Many of you probably know who Patrick is, and it was Patrick who first brought up Gary's name to be an ideal candidate to be involved in these debates.

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Here's a man that I like to call Mr. Electricity, Dr. Arnold Pilsner. Thank you,

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Chris, for your introduction and for all the work you and your staff do each year to make this debate an outstanding success.

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My personal greetings and welcome also to Dr. James White and his staff, and a special thank you to Pastor Bill Schisco, our moderator, who has done an outstanding job over the past few years in moderating our debate.

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It is now my distinct honor and pleasure to tell you about our Catholic debater, Mr. Gary Machuda.

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Gary is the founder and director of Thy Faith Incorporated, a

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Catholic apologetics organization dedicated to helping Catholics share and defend their

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Catholic faith. He is a contributor to the upcoming Catholic Apologetic Encyclopedia to be published by Ignatius Press.

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Gary is also the managing editor of Hands -On Apologetics Magazine, one of three nationally published

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Catholic apologetics magazines in the United States. He contributes to on also this is also the contributors to this

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Hands -On Apologetics includes such notable Catholic apologetics as Dr. Scott Hahn, Stephen Ray, David Armstrong, and David Palm.

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He is also the host of his ministry's talk show, Hands -On Apologetics Live, that focuses on the practical aspects of apologetics and evangelism.

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Gary is a popular speaker for conferences as well as church and youth groups all over the

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United States and Canada. Gary and his wife, Chris, live in Southeast Michigan.

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So please join me in giving a warm welcome to our Catholic debater. I also have the good pleasure to introduce another good friend of mine who is moderating tonight.

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You know, when I originally was looking for a moderator for these debates, in order to be completely fair and balanced, impartial and even -handed,

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I originally wanted a moderator who rejected both the major tenets of Roman Catholicism and Protestantism, had no strong conviction of any particular major issue, and had no discernible, unwavering belief in any area at all.

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But unfortunately, John Kerry wasn't available. Will the

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Huntington House staff please wrestle the Democrat to the ground over there? Thank you.

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My dear friend, Pastor Bill Shishko, is none of those things I mentioned. He is a man of great conviction, but he is also a man who loves debate and has the integrity to moderate these debates with total impartiality.

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And both Roman Catholics and evangelicals, every year that he has moderated these debates, have applauded his magnificent job.

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And I just wanted to introduce you to my friend, Pastor Bill Shishko of the Orthodox Presbyterian Church of Franklin Square.

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And here's one of those things that always kind of brings the mood down that you have to announce from these pulpits, but there is a

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Lexus with a New Jersey license plate, RX -330 -PLU25H.

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It's white. You're parked on a bus, boy. If you could please move the car, but I am serious.

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It's somehow blocking someone, this white Lexus. If you could take care of that, that would be helpful.

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Well, I'm going to now turn the microphone over to our moderator, Pastor Bill Shishko.

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And I hope you enjoy tonight's debate, and I hope you all walk away, no matter what you are, whether you're

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Roman Catholic, Protestant, or neither, with a clearer understanding of the truth. Thank you very much.

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I don't know how either of these men is going to be able to top the

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John Kerry line tonight. This is a debate.

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It is not a baseball game. It is not a soccer game. It is not an ecclesiastical edition of survival.

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The purpose of a debate is that in an organized and in an orderly way, two opposing positions can be presented, rebutted, and questioned.

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So the rules that we have are for your benefit, as well as for the speaker's benefit, that all might be treated fairly, and so that you are able to have the opportunity for the best presentations of both sides.

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There will be a strict observance of the time limits. There will be opening remarks by each speaker for 25 minutes.

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There will be rebuttals by each speaker for 8 minutes. It will be a break. It says 10 minutes.

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When Chris Arnzen put this down, I'm sure that was a lapse in his sanity, but that's what he said. We'll try to keep it to 10 minutes.

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It will then be two cross -examination periods of 15 minutes each, closing remarks of 7 minutes each.

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Theoretically, we should be done that about 10 .30 this evening, and then there will be time for questions.

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Please do not interrupt any of the presentations with your applause.

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All that will do is interrupt the time for the speaker that you're applauding, and that is not helping that speaker.

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You are welcome to applaud at the end, but please observe decorum. Do not interrupt any of the speeches with applause.

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This, again, is not a ballgame. No boos, no hisses, no loud sighs, no saying loudly or softly, that's a lie or heresy.

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I have a gavel, and I will use it to call for order. That is not polite, and even though you are from New York, most of you, except the one from New Jersey whose car is on the busboy, you still must be polite during the debate.

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I ask that all cell phones and all beepers and any other bits of technology that will interrupt debate by beeps or rings be turned off so that no one is interrupted by them, or you may use your vibrate mode.

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And please, do not be so barbaric as to speak on the phone to someone in this room in the middle of the debate.

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If you absolutely must have your evening interrupted, please go out in the hall or outside and use your cell phone.

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Questions and answers. We have observed over the years that no one at a debate knows how to ask a question.

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I think that in our culture in which education has largely been flushed down the toilet, we don't even know what a question is.

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A question is an inquiry. It asks for an answer. It asks for clarification, or it asks for added information.

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And because we have found that no one in an audience knows how to ask a question, at least here in New York, we have provided question paper or cards for you to write down your question.

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It ends in a question mark. If you write down an affirmation, your doctrinal belief, or quotations from the

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Bible to illumine the speakers, that's not a question. It will not get very far. But if you will write down your question on a card or on the back of your ticket and bring it up here at the break, then

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I'll go through those cards and we will use those for the question times at the end. What I ask is that you put your address, if you desire, your address, regular home address or email address on the card.

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If these men are not able, don't have the time to answer your questions, they will get the questions at the end and they will communicate with you personally.

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I've given you the format. I make you one practical suggestion for how to take notes during the debate.

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Do not write your notes from top to bottom. That's not going to help you in a debate. You're best to take your sheet of paper, put it in landscape position and begin.

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Mr. Michuta is going to begin his speech in one column, write down the main points that he makes.

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And then in the next column, the main points that Mr. White makes. And then as the debate proceeds with questions and answers and rebuttal, follow across what's called a flow chart so that by the end of the debate, you have an idea of the issues that have been discussed, whether the men have really interacted with one another, whether questions have been answered and so forth.

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So one of my reasons for doing this is even though I do think it's largely hopeless that our culture will ever really appreciate debate, with these two competent men, you have the opportunity to learn.

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So try to use a flow chart for that purpose. So without further ado, we will begin the debate this evening.

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The topic which is presented this evening is the deuterocanonical or otherwise known as apocryphal books are scripture.

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Mr. Michuta affirms the proposition and Dr. White denies the proposition.

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We will begin with Mr. Michuta with his 25 minutes of remarks. Mr. Michuta. Is my mic on?

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My mic's on? Okay, there we go. I'm sorry. Yes. I'm okay,

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I think. Okay, good. Thank you very much.

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This paraphrasing Peter's words, it's good to be here. The resolution that I have to defend tonight is that the deuterocanon, which

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Protestants call apocrypha, is scripture. Now the books of the deuterocanon are

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Judah, Tobit, Wisdom, Sirach, 1st and 2nd Baccabees, Baruch, and also certain sections of Esther and Daniel.

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Now a term that you'll likely hear thrown around a lot tonight is the word canon, which in this context is not a weapon that shoots ballistic missiles.

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A canon is a technical theological term that denotes or connotes an authoritative list of books.

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Now since technical theological terms can change with time and people can draw an erroneous list of books,

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I'd rather focus on the biblical definition of scripture as given by St. Paul, that all scripture is inspired by God.

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It's God breathed. Therefore, if the canon is inspired, then it's scripture.

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If it's not inspired, then it's not scripture, regardless if someone wishes to attach the word canon to it or not, or canonical to them or not.

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Now in addition to demonstrating this positive aspect for the inspired status of these books, there's also a negative aspect

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I need to address. In other words, if these books are inspired, then there cannot be a closed, fixed collection of books so as to exclude the deuterocanonical books.

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Now some people might not be familiar with the term closed canon. A closed canon is not merely an affirmation that certain books are inspired and accepted without controversy.

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A closed canon is a declaration that these books and only these books are inspired scripture to the exclusion of all other writings.

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Now the topic, I'm sure Dr. White will agree with me, is quite complex tonight. We probably won't be able to even scratch the surface.

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So what I'd like to do in my opening statement is to provide a chronological overview of the evidence, not meaning to be complete, so we can get an idea of the breadth of the information we're dealing with.

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And since some Protestant apologists claim that the canon of the Old Testament was closed some 100, even 200 years before Christ, I'd like to start my chronology back to 200

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BC with the Hebrew book of Sirach. Now what evidence do we find in this

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Hebrew book of Sirach for a closed canon? While the writer of Sirach does not seem to be aware of any closure of the canon in his day, he provides no list of books, no enumeration of books, and no subdivisions within scripture, such as in later rabbinical

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Judaism, of the law, the prophets, and the writings. Instead, the Hebrew book of Sirach presents itself as giving the wisdom of God, which would indeed be odd if the canon had been closed in his day so as to exclude the book of Sirach.

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Well, maybe it took a while for the idea of a closed canon to come about. Let's move 50 years ahead in our chronology to 150

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BC, when the Hebrew book of Sirach was translated into Greek, and a

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Greek preface was attached to this book. So what evidence do we find in this Greek preface? Well, again, we do not find any awareness that the canon's been closed 50 years earlier.

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It provides no list of books, no enumeration of books, and no clear -cut threefold division.

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In fact, when the prologue to Sirach speaks of scripture, it speaks of the law, the prophets, and the other books that follow them.

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Or the law, the prophets, and the other books that were handed down by our ancestors. Or the law, the prophets, and the rest of the books.

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In three attempts, the translator of Sirach is unable to provide a name for the third category, later known as the writings.

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In fact, there's not even a hint here that you'd think it has a category in mind. This has led scholars to understand that the canon was still quite open and undefined 150 years before Christ.

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Let's move another 50 years in archeology to 100 B .C. with the books of Maccabees.

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What do we find in Maccabees? Well, there's no awareness that the canon was closed 100 years earlier, provides no list of books, no enumeration of books, and the only subdivisions we find in Maccabees is simply the law and the prophets.

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So there's no concrete evidence prior to Christ to indicate the existence of a closed, fixed canon that was universally accepted by the

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Jews, whose contents are identical to Protestant Bibles. Well, maybe if we move another 50 years in archeology, then we'll find some evidence for the closed canon.

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Well, we can look at Philo of Alexandria, who is an Alexandrian philosopher and also a contemporary of Jesus.

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Again, in the writings of Philo, we see no recognition of a closed canon 200 years earlier. It provides no list of books, no enumeration of books, and no clear -cut threefold division.

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Now, though some people may appeal to a passage in his contemplative life, Earl Ellis and other Protestant scholars have noted that one could discern anywhere between a two - and a fivefold division in the words of Philo.

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Well, what about the New Testament? Again, the New Testament does not provide us with a list of books.

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It does not provide us with a fixed number of books that were accepted in Jesus' day. And it never speaks of the whole of Scripture as the law, the prophets, and the writings.

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The closest it comes to is in Luke 24, 44, where our Lord speaks of the law, the prophets, and the

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Psalms. Now, if you were to turn to one of the most modern treatments on a threefold division in a book, say, the canon debate that was published a couple years ago, you'd see that the word

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Psalms there simply means the Book of Psalms, and it's not being used as a code word to describe an entire collection of writings whose contents are identical with Protestant Bibles.

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Some Protestant apologists also appeal to Luke 11, 51 as proof that our

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Lord rejected the deuterocanonical books when our Lord said, talked about the blood of Abel to the blood of Zechariah.

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But ladies and gentlemen, each of the premises in this argument is so tenuous, and its conclusion so ambiguous, that if you were to study anybody, any scholar who specializes in the area of the canon, you'll not find anyone who uses that as an argument that clinches the case for the canon.

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Now, even if you could establish a threefold division, it would not, therefore, rule out the possibility that the deuterocanonical books would be included in those threefold divisions.

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Now, when we look to how the New Testament uses books, we begin to find positive evidence for the inspiration of the books.

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Now, the deuterocanonical books are never formally quoted as the scripture says, but nevertheless, they are used and employed by our

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Lord and his apostles in the New Testament, and I'd like to provide two examples for you tonight.

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If you have a Bible, please open with me to the book of Hebrews, chapter 11. Now, in 11, verse 2,

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Hebrews 11, verse 2 reads, for by it, that is by faith, the men of old gained approval, or gained a good report.

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Literally, they were testified of. So who were these men of old who were testified of, according to Hebrews?

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Well, if you begin to peruse, you'll find he speaks of Abel, of Abraham, of Enoch, and others.

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Then the pace quickens in chapter 11, where he just mentions names such as Gideon, Barak, Samson, Jephthah.

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And then the book of Hebrews just explains the exploits of these men of old who gained approval, or who were testified of.

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In verse 35, you'll find something very interesting, where it speaks of, quote, others were tortured, not accepting release so that they may obtain a better resurrection, unquote.

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Now nowhere in your Protestant Old Testament will you find anyone who accepted torture and refused release explicitly for a better resurrection.

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But that's exactly what you would find in the book of Maccabees with the Maccabean martyrs. Moreover, there's a rare Greek word here used as translated torture, which is found nowhere else in the

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Greek Bible except in this passage, and in the passage in 2nd Maccabees, right in the context of the

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Maccabean martyrs. Now this has led both Protestant and Catholic scholars to recognize that this is an undoubted reference to the book of Maccabees.

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Now from this, I'd like to draw two very narrow conclusions. Number one, the inspired author of Hebrews does not terminate sacred history at the time of Ezra or Artaxerxes, as you would expect had he accepted only the shorter canon.

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But rather, he extends all the way down to the time of 2nd Maccabees, which would be co -extensive with the

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Deuterocanonical books. Now my second example comes from Matthew 27, verse 43, where the chief priests, scribes, and elders are mocking our

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Lord on the cross, and they state, quoting Psalm 22, quote, he trusted in God, let him rescue him now if he delights in him, for he said,

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I am the Son of God. Now this last phrase, for he said, I am the Son of God, the post -positive

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God there indicates that the chief priests, scribes, and elders predicated the disingenuous expectation of our

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Lord, the rescue of our Lord, based on the fact they claimed to be the Son of God. Now where did he get this understanding?

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Well if you turn to Psalm 22, you find out Psalm 22 does not mention anything about divine sonship. And they couldn't have got this from a general idea in the

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Bible, because after all the prophets were the sons of God, yet God did not always deliver them from their foes.

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However, in Wisdom 218, we find the following prophecy, quote, for if the just one be the

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Son of God, then God will defend him and deliver him from his foes. This conflation of Psalm 22 and Wisdom 2 indicates that the chief priests, scribes, and elders understood both texts to be

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Messianic. Moreover, because the Gospel of Matthew incorporates this in his Gospel, we have the

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Gospel of Matthew also affirming this fact. Now in case anyone here, and I'm sure there's no one here in the audience, thinks this is a product of an overactive

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Catholic imagination, realize that the original 1611 edition of the

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King James Bible had cross -references to these very texts, acknowledging what many

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Protestants fear today, that the inspired writers did indeed reference and employ the Deuterocanonical books in their text.

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Further evidence that Jesus and the Apostles accepted the Deuteros can be found in the Apostolic Fathers. Now the

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Apostolic Fathers were men who knew the Apostles themselves, were taught by the Apostles. Some of them were placed over churches to be ministers of the

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Word. Yet what do we find in the Apostolic Fathers? Well, I'd like to refer you to a doctoral dissertation written by R.

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J. Braben, where after an exhaustive study of the Apostolic Fathers, it concludes that the

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Deuterocanonical books, quote, were indeed known and used in a manner identical to those books now recognized as canonical or scripture.

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It is logical then to assume that these books were recognized and considered scripture at least in some

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Orthodox Christian circles and by some prominent church fathers. Braben further concludes that the

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Deuterocanonical books are never refuted by the

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Apostolic Fathers. They're never produced as inferior sources, and they're never dismissed as inaccurate.

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They're never treated as less than scripture, unquote. Now the same thing is true for the most primitive

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Christian church. From the time of the New Testament all the way until the time of Jerome in the late fourth Christian century, with the possible exceptions of Origen and Julius Africanus, every early

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Christian writer who used the Deuterocanonical books did so in a manner commensurate with sacred scripture.

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The divinity of all the Deuterocanonical books are attested to in this period, many of them several times over, and they're done in a very explicit fashion.

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For example, they're called Holy Scripture, Sacra Scriptura, Divine Scripture, Divina Scriptura, Theia Scraphus.

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They're called the Priestly Writings, Hieria Scraphus. Origen calls wisdom the divine words, which the

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Protestant exegete Edward Roos notes ought to underscore, quote, not only the intrinsic value of the passage quoted, but it ought certainly to remind us of its supernatural origin, unquote.

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Passages are introduced with the words like the divine oracle say, or the prophet says, or the

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Holy Spirit shows and predicts, or divine wisdom says, or the word of God says. Athanasius believed that the pre -incarnate word was, quote, teaching and speaking in the

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Book of Wisdom. And the authors of the Deuterocanonical books are introduced as being inspired by the

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Holy Spirit and established in the Holy Spirit. Passages from Wisdom and Baruch are frequently quoted as prophecies of Christ, and they're also included among the sacred history or counted among, quote, our

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Christian authorities, unquote, or among the, quote, divine volumes, unquote. And the psalm formula it is written is used so frequently from the quotations from the

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Deuterocanonical books that it's impossible for me to present them all here tonight. Now this raises a question.

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If the canon was not closed 200 years before Christ, and it wasn't closed in the early church, when was it closed authoritatively?

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Well, in terms of explicit evidence, we must place this closure about 132 A .D., just prior to the

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Bar Kokhba Revolt. Now let me give you some background information on the Bar Kokhba Revolt. Forty years after the resurrection of our

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Lord, the Jews rose up and revolted against pagan Rome. But this revolt failed largely due to the factionalism that existed in first century

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Judaism. So the second revolt was going to be different. The second revolt would be united under one leader, and that leader would be

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Bar Kokhba, in whom the head rabbi of Jamnia, whose name is Akiba, stated that Bar Kokhba was the messiah, as prophesied in Numbers 2417.

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It was thought that Bar Kokhba would defeat the Romans, rebuild the temple in Jerusalem, and reign as messianic prince.

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Now a large number of Jews followed in under the Bar Kokhba Revolt, which also included not only Samaritans, but even some pagans joined in the revolt.

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But there was one group that refused to join in, and that group was the Christians. Because of their refusal to join in the revolt, the

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Jews considered Christianity not to be merely a heretical sect, but to also consider it as traitors as well.

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It is Rabbi Akiba, the same rabbi who identified Bar Kokhba as the false messiah, who officially repudiated all things

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Christian. As the Protestant Hebrew scholar George Moore notes, quote, older than any catalog of the canonical books that have been preserved are specific decisions that certain books are not inspired scripture.

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And among these repudiated books, the Gospels stand in first rank, unquote. Akiba declared that the

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Gospels, the books of the New Testament, the book of Sirach, and all the books written after Sirach are not inspired.

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This has led the Hebrew Jewish scholar Lewis Ginsberg to note, quote, Akiba's the one who definitely fixed the canon of the

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Old Testament books. Ginsberg also explains that the motive underlying Akiba's antagonism to the

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Deuterocanonical books as, quote, the desire to disarm Christians, especially Jewish Christians, who drew their proofs from the

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Apocrypha, unquote. The same motive, by the way, Ginsberg also applies to Akiba's repudiation of the

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Septuagint, which was a Greek translation of the Old Testament that was frequently used by our

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Lord and his apostles. Now, Akiba's actions are a watershed in our chronology.

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It's only after the Bar Kokhba Revolt that we find a reoccurring accusation made by Christians against the

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Jews that they have altered or deleted texts from scripture. It is only after the Bar Kokhba Revolt that we find

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Christians trying to ascertain, well, which books are accepted by the Jews, beginning with Melito of Sardis in 170

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AD. It's only after the Bar Kokhba Revolt that we find among the datable texts in rabbinical literature the idea of a cessation of prophecy, which was an attempt to leak the authority of the rabbis to the

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Old Testament prophets. It was also roughly about this time where rabbinical Judaism adopted the

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Hebrew Masoretic text as the standard text. It would not be until the time of Jerome when one finds any

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Christian who dared to deny the divinity of the Deuterocanon. Based on an erroneous understanding of the textual transmission of the

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Old Testament, Jerome and a small group of followers, which included Rufinius, Gregory of Nazianzus, and Epiphanius, and others, broke with the consensus of the early church.

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As Bruce M. Metzger knows, quote, Jerome's standing in this respect almost alone in the West. And as the

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Protestant scholar H. H. Howarth explains, quote, Jerome's theory on the canon, whatever its merits, was not that of the primitive church, unquote.

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A fact which, by the way, Howarth considered of common and elementary knowledge. Jerome, knowing that his innovations ran against the

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Christian church, added critical prefaces to the various books he was translating for his Latin Vulgate.

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And in these prefaces, Jerome called the Deuterocanonical books, for the first time in Christian history, what

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Protestants call these books today, apocrypha, that is mere human writings. Now almost immediately after these books began to circulate, we find in North Africa several councils convening to reaffirm the divinity of the

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Deuterocanon, such as Council of Hippo in 393, Carthage in 397, and elsewhere.

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As F. F. Bruce notes, these councils, quote, did not impose an innovation upon the churches, but simply endorsed what had become the general consensus in the churches in the

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West and the greater part of the East, unquote. Even ardent followers of Jerome, such as Bishop Eusebius, for whom

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Jerome dedicated his commentary on Zachariah, was confused about his master's opinion, so he appealed to Pope Innocent I in 405

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A .D. as to, well, which books are included in scripture? From which, Innocent I simply replied by giving the list that were affirmed in the

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African councils. Now the common Christian Bible from this point on to the Middle Ages included the

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Deuterocanonicals intermixed without any qualification or distinction. The acceptance of the

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Deuterocanonical books as inspired scripture was so widespread that Pope Nicholas I in 846

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A .D. stated that Innocent I was, quote, part of the universal law of the church.

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But as Jerome's Latin Vulgate began to grow in popularity and circulation, so did

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Jerome's prestige as last word in biblical studies, and it's not unusual to find, especially in the

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Middle Ages, people parroting Jerome's words while in their other writings using the

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Deuterocanonical books as nothing less than inspired scripture. For example, John Wycliffe, who may be familiar with some of the people here tonight.

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Wycliffe parroted Jerome's words in his translation, but in his other writings we find

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Sirach, Wisdom, Baruch, and Maccabees being quoted as scripture capable of confirming doctrine.

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Even Martin Luther in his writings against Sylvester Macaloni, who was the official sense of Rome, stated in the debate that he would only accept the canonical scriptures.

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Yet we find Luther citing both Tobin and Sirach authoritatively against Macaloni. However, one year later in 1517, when

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Luther was cornered by Johann Eck in the Second Leipzig Disputation, Luther would deny that Second Maccabees had a place in the canon.

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Luther would not allow any book into the canon unless it was apostolic, by which he meant it affirmed his own

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Protestant theology. The earliest Protestants, while willing to allow the reformers to determine which books do and which books do not belong in the canon, nevertheless would not allow these books to be removed from scripture.

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As the Protestant theologian J. A. Hay notes, quote, at the time of the Reformation when men were brought up to revere them, that's revere the

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Deuterocanonical books, it would have been both imprudent and cruel to set them aside. So instead what

34:49

Luther did was he reformatted the New Testament, gathering the Deuterocanonical books into an appendix, calling it

34:55

Apocrypha and placing it between the New and the Old Testament. By the way, the colophon that's at the end of this appendix reads

35:03

The End of the Book of the Old Testament, unquote. As the Protestant Henry Vann notes, who is, by the way, a prominent evangelical missionary figure, says not only may the term holy scriptures, when used in the collective sense, include the

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Apocryphal books, but is often applied to them individually by the earliest Christian writers and by those of our own

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Reformed Church, unquote. This fact is borne out by the Anglican Bishop John Whitgift, who when pressured by the

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Puritan John Pandery to remove these books from Protestant Bibles, responded, quote, the scripture here called

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Apocrypha, abusively and improperly, are holy writings, part of the Bible, and so accounted for from the purest times of the

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Church and by the best writers, ever read in the Churches of Christ, and shall never be forbidden by me or by my consent, unquote.

35:53

Even on the continent, with the Reformed Synod of Dort, a radical faction tried to press

35:59

Dort to remove these books from the Reformed Bible, but Dort would not allow such a radical step to take place.

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Instead, as a compromise, they decreed that the Apocryphal appendix be removed from between the

36:11

New Testament and Old to the back of the Bible, that it be printed in smaller font, and that notes be attached to inform the reader where it contradicted

36:19

Reformed theology. It would not be until the 19th century, when reverence for the

36:27

Deuterocanonical books slipped into distant memory, that two Scottish Bible societies would successfully force the

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British and Foreign Bible Society to cut all funding to any Protestant organization who wished to produce

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Bibles with the Deuterocanonical books in them, and they give four reasons for this, which

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I find very enlightening. Number one, because the Deuterocanonical books present themselves as the inspired

36:52

Word of God. Number two, they teach Catholic doctrine. Number three, if Bibles circulated with the

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Christian Bibles, Protestants would become Catholic, and in fact, the Scottish societies feared that this had already happened with the

37:13

Toulouse edition of the Bible. And by the way, if there's anyone here who thinks that the

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Council of Trent added books to the Bible in reaction to Protestantism, listen well to this last point.

37:25

The Council of Trent affirmed the inspired status of these books. Therefore, Protestants who produced the

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Bibles that include these books would be, quote, aiding and abetting Rome, unquote. The refusal of Catholics to accept these sanitized

37:40

Bibles from Protestant Bible societies were misinterpreted by Protestants as attack upon the

37:45

Bible itself rather than on one mutilated version of it. As the noted

37:50

American historian Ellen Ray Billington notes, quote, thus the illusion was created that the papists were hostile to scriptures, and it continues, this supposed

38:00

Catholic attack on the Bible interested the church in the no -popery crusade and led them to take the first exploratory steps against Catholicism, unquote.

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Now from this, I'd like to ask the following questions. If the collection of sacred books were closed prior to the time of Christ, why do we not find any awareness that such a closure had taken place, or any concrete evidence that this is the

38:28

Bible? And if these books were never considered scripture, how does one account for the virtual unanimity of the earliest

38:37

Christians in favor of the inspired status of the Deuterocanonical books? And if neither Jews nor Christians accepted the

38:43

Deuterocanonical books as inspired scripture, what provoked Rabbi Akiba to make the declaration that the

38:50

Deuterocanonical books and the Gospels are not inspired? Moreover, why would it be imprudent and cruel for the earliest

38:59

Protestants to remove these books if, in fact, these books could not self -attest to their own inspired status?

39:06

The reason, I believe, is because the Deuterocanonical books are nothing less than inspired scripture.

39:13

Thank you. Well, good evening and welcome to the ninth of the great debates.

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Anybody been here for all nine? I have. Chris has. And that's why everybody comes back, actually, to see what he's got to say at the beginning.

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The second debate we had was on the subject of solo scriptura because in the first debate we realized in debating the

39:57

Marian dogmas that fundamentally the issue is one of authority. And I think when we get down to the final analysis this evening, we will once again see the issue of authority.

40:09

I think fundamentally the reason that most modern Catholic people today accept the canonicity of the

40:15

Apocrypha is because less than 60 men gathered in a place called

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Trent on April 8, 1546, decreed that it should be so. This was the first ecumenical dogmatic binding definition for Roman Catholics of the actual content of the canon.

40:36

Now, if one believes in the infallibility of the Roman Church, all of the historical and textual and patristic evidence in the world is not going to make the slightest difference if you believe that once the church speaks, the case is closed.

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But to the one who wishes to examine Rome's claims, this discussion provides an excellent example of where Rome in her infallible exercise of authority erred and did so against the vast majority of the evidence, though we have little reason to believe that those men who promulgated the decree at Trent were even aware of the majority of the information we'll examine this evening.

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The renowned Anglican scholar B .F. Westcott said concerning the action of the Council of Trent in dogmatically canonizing the

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Apocryphal Books that Trent gave a new aspect to the whole question of the canon. It was ratified by 53 prelates among whom there was not one

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German, not one scholar distinguished for historical learning, not one who was fitted by special study for the examination of a subject in which the truth could be determined by the voice of antiquity.

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And so as we examine this issue this evening, my thesis will be very straightforward. The Apocryphal Books, including

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Tobit, Judith, the Maccabees, Sirach, along with the additions to the canonical books like Baruch, Bell and the

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Dragon, Epistle of Jeremiah, whatever it might be, they are not inspired scripture. These books were not accepted as canonical scripture by the

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Jews to whom the oracles of God had been committed as the

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Apostle Paul says in Romans 3, verse 2. They were not a part of the books laid up in the temple and considered holy in Palestine or anywhere else for that matter.

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The books themselves refute the claim of their own canonical standing either by containing clear and irreconcilable contradictions and historical errors or by themselves making reference to the already closed canon of the

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Old Testament. Likewise, the Lord Jesus and the Apostles, though surely aware as we have seen of these books and their contents, never once cite them with the authoritative phrases, it is written, thus saith the

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Lord, all the phrases that are used to identify scripture which they do with the Old Testament books.

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Nor do we find any evidence of disagreement on the extent of the canon between the

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Lord and the Apostles and their Jewish opponents, for example, in the gospel narratives. When we move into specifically

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Christian history, we discover that those who accepted the apocryphal books did so based either upon ignorance or tradition, not upon the truth, and the many who rejected them tended to be those who knew the most about the

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Old Testament and the people of Israel. We find many early fathers, including Athanasius and Jerome, even

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Pope Gregory the Great, rejecting these books as being fully canonical and discover that the most commonly consulted commentary on the scriptures in the

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Middle Ages likewise rejected the canonical status of these books. All the way to the time of the

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Reformation, we find leading scholars rejecting these books, including Cardinal Cajetan, the highly educated and illiterate prelate who interviewed

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Luther, and Cardinal Jimenez, whose monumental work, the Completentian Polyglot, approved for publication by Pope Leo X, the same pope who excommunicated

43:59

Luther, clearly and without apology rejected the apocryphal books as fully canonical following the lead of Jerome.

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All the way to the middle of the 16th century, we find one canon informed by a knowledge of the background of the

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Hebrew canon promoted by leading ecclesiastical writers and scholars, and then the wider canon, the canon adopted by the

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Council of Trent. But please note, even here there are differences. For the canon adopted by Trent is not the same as that adopted by the provincial councils of Hippo and Carthage and approved by popes such as Innocent I, as we just heard.

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Hence, we find no reason to submit to the mistaken judgment of less than 60 men gathered in the city of Trent when their decision does not take into account the biblical and historical facts and rests solely upon the circular claim of ultimate authority inherent when you give infallibility to such a group of men.

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So let's start at the beginning. What does the Bible say? The Bible says in Romans 3, verses 1 -2, the

45:00

Apostle Paul writes, then what advantage has the Jew? What is the Jew's advantage? Verse 2 says, great in every respect, first of all, that they were entrusted with the oracles of God.

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Now, entrusted is a particular term. If I were to entrust someone with my laptop computer over here,

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I assume that they know which laptop they are to take care of. They're not just going to go looking for any old laptop.

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I'm going to identify for them that which I am entrusting to them. In the same way, the very same word is used in 1

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Thessalonians 2 -4, where Paul spoke of the apostles being entrusted by God with the gospel.

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Now, obviously, the apostles knew what the gospel was. They didn't know just a part of it.

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They weren't confused as to what the gospel entailed. They knew what the gospel was. It had been entrusted to them.

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Well, obviously, therefore, the Jews had to know what the scriptures were to be entrusted with them.

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Mr. Machuda will have to explain to us this evening what Romans 3 -2 means if he does not believe the

46:09

Jews actually knew the canon of the Old Testament. Yet the Jews never embraced the books

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Rome dogmatically defined as canon in 1546. We have not heard any evidence of this.

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I'd like to introduce some interesting discussion here. For example, in Baba Bathra, it's an ancient

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Jewish work. We have what's called a Baraita. A Baraita is an ancient tradition.

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Many of these traditions go well beyond the time of the New Testament, even into the intertestamental period.

46:41

It is these writings that shed so much light upon the customs of the Jews that we see in the gospels. And there you have a listing giving to us 19 books in the

46:51

Old Testament, excluding the books of the law, which were, of course, 5. Well, 19 plus 5 is 24, and we consistently find one of two numbers in Jewish sources, 22 or 24, and they're not actually two different numbers.

47:06

It depends on whether you, for example, attach Lamentations to Jeremiah, how you count the books in that particular way.

47:12

Both numbers represent the same canon found in Protestant Bibles today, and this is found in a

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Baraita, an ancient tradition going back even before the time of the New Testament. Josephus, an excellent resource,

47:25

Josephus the historian, refers to the practice that they had where they would lay up scrolls of the scriptures in the temple.

47:35

And he makes reference to this, for example, in a number of places, Antiquities 3, 1, 7, 4, 8, 44, 5, 1, 17, that they would lay these scriptures up in the temple.

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The apocryphal books were never laid up in the temple. Why would they be treated differently by the

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Jews themselves? We also read, for example, if, as the

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Tanniatic literature maintains, not just the law and the prophets, but also the hagiographa, that is the writings, belonged to the temple collection, those kept within the temple, and by the end of the temple period had belonged to it for such a long time that it was no longer permitted even to bring in fresh copies of the books, let alone copies of fresh books.

48:15

How can this be reconciled with the current belief that the hagiographa were not formally recognized as canonical until the

48:21

Synod of Jamnia held after the temple had been destroyed? Here, Roger Beckwith, his fine work, The Old Testament Canon of the

48:27

New Testament Church, demonstrates that the idea that the canon was still open and unknown at this time is simply against the factual evidence that we see in this particular situation.

48:39

Josephus, again, and against Appian 17, gives the number of books as 22. He specifically rejects those books written after Malachi, that is, the apocryphal books.

48:50

There is no reason to believe that Josephus' canon is recent. That is, as most believe today, he is referring to a canon that had been in place for 300 years.

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Now, Hellenistic Jews shared the idea that all the biblical books were prophetic.

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They believed that the books came from the Holy Spirit of God as He inspired prophets. But since they believed this, why would they accept 1

49:14

Maccabees when it asserts that prophecy had already ceased when it was written?

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1 Maccabees 4 .46, 9 .27, and 14 .41. This would place the book in a completely different category than the rest of the

49:29

Old Testament scriptures. We also read in Jewish sources, this is from the Babylonian Talmud, our rabbis taught since the death of the last prophets,

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Haggai, Zechariah, and Malachi, the Holy Spirit of prophetic inspiration departed from Israel.

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Likewise, from Seder Olam Rabbah 30, until then, the coming of Alexandria and the end of the empire of the

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Persians, the prophets prophesied through the Holy Spirit from then on, incline thy ear and hear the words of the wise.

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And Rabbi Samuel Bar -Inya said, the second temple lacked five things which the first temple possessed, namely the fire, the ark, the

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Urim and the Thummim, the oil of anointing, and the Holy Spirit of prophecy. Now, are all of these references just simply made up by the

50:16

Jews to try to get rid of the apocryphal books? I think not. It's interesting, we read the prologue of Ecclesiasticus and it makes no less than three references to the divisions of the

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Jewish canon. Just because a particular word was not used for the hagiographer at that time does not mean they did not recognize what those books actually were because they could enumerate them as either 22 or 24.

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Now, time precludes our investing much more time in another important area relevant to our subject, that being the fact that the apocryphal books simply do not measure up as scripture regarding their historical errors.

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The book of Judith, for example, is a mishmash of historical errors so obvious and so extreme that defenders of its canonicity have been forced to say it is actually an allegory or something along those lines.

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But there is no evidence of this. Likewise, you do not find canonical scripture asking the readers to forgive the book of its shortfalls as you do in 2

51:14

Maccabees chapter 15. But what about Jamnia? What about this alleged closing of the canon?

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Well, actually Jamnia was merely a Jewish college or academy founded by Rabbi Yohanan ben

51:27

Zekai. The date of the session may have been as early as AD 75 or as late as AD 117.

51:33

As regards the disputed books, the discussion was confined to the question of whether Ecclesiastes and the

51:39

Song of Psalms, and possibly just Ecclesiastes alone, made the hands unclean.

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When you would touch the scrolls of scripture, it would make your hands unclean because they were holy. That is, were they divinely inspired?

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That is all that was discussed there. There was no discussion about the apocryphal books being canonical because the

51:57

Jews had not ever viewed them in that way. What about Jesus and the apostles? Well, as Beckwith says, but the undeniable truth is that the

52:06

New Testament, by contrast with the early fathers, and by contrast with its own practice in relation to the books of the

52:11

Hebrew Bible, never actually quotes from or ascribes authority to any of the apocrypha.

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Did they know of those books? Of course they knew of those books. But remember, they knew of a lot of books.

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Paul quoted from pagan philosophers. Jude quotes from the pseudepigrapha. That doesn't mean they accepted those books as canonical, but they had read those books and were aware of their existence.

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Now what about early Christians and the apocrypha? It was stated that all of the patristic sources utilized these books as direct scripture.

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In reality, those early writings are so fragmentary that many books of the apocrypha are never even made reference to.

52:50

Some never make any reference to the apocryphal books at all. And so it is a very large step from a few references to saying all held a particular perspective.

53:00

We do know that Melito of Sardis inquired of the church in Palestine concerning the Old Testament canon around A .D.

53:06

175. He discovered that the canon did not include the apocryphal books. How can it be that he would inquire in Palestine, I must ask, if in fact the canon of the

53:17

Old Testament, including the apocrypha, was a matter of apostolic tradition, as Trent had claimed?

53:24

What about the Septuagint? We are often told, well, the Greek Septuagint contained these books.

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Well, many of the manuscripts that we have, in fact all our manuscripts of the Septuagint are Christian manuscripts. They're not produced by the

53:36

Jews. And many of them do contain one or more or all of the apocryphal books. But there is no one single

53:42

Septuagint. It wasn't like you put out the New American Standard Bible back then. You had handwritten versions that had different levels of clarity and value to them.

53:52

It developed over time in the centuries prior to Christ. Now Philo and Josephus, Philo the

53:59

Jew and Alexandria, Josephus the Jewish historian, both used the Septuagint, but both rejected the apocryphal books.

54:05

Evidently some in the early church, ignorant of the Old Testament canon and the backgrounds of the people of Israel, assumed that since some or all of the apocryphal books appeared in their

54:13

Greek translations, then they must be canonical. Those early writers who knew the most about the

54:18

Old Testament did not make this mistake. And remember, very few of the early church writers knew the

54:24

Hebrew language. There was a division, a schism between Judaism and Christianity very early on. And especially after origin, most looked at the

54:32

Old Testament as nothing but a book of allegory anyways. And so without knowing the Hebrew language and without knowing the backgrounds that are so important to the proper exegesis of the biblical text, it is easy to see how that kind of ignorance could take place.

54:45

However, Athanasius, the Bishop of Alexandria, the great defender of the Nicene Creed, in his 39th

54:50

Festal Letter in 367 AD, rejected all the freestanding apocryphal books, only accepting the

54:57

Greek additions to the canonical books that he had, possibly not even being aware that they were in fact additions to the canonical books themselves.

55:06

Who else? Hilary of Poitiers, Cyril of Jerusalem, Athanasius, Gregory Nazianzus, Basil the

55:12

Great, Epiphanius, Amphilochius, Rufinus, all rejected the freestanding apocrypha as fully canonical in their writings.

55:21

Indeed, J. N. D. Kelly has said, the view which now commended itself fairly generally in the Eastern Church as represented by Athanasius, Cyril of Jerusalem, Gregory Nazianzus, and Epiphanius, was that the deuterocanonical books should be relegated to a subordinate position outside the canon proper.

55:38

Augustine, however, disagreed. Augustine could not read Hebrew, and the manuscripts that he had contained these books, but interestingly enough, he is actually a witness for my side this evening.

55:47

Why? Because though he accepted the apocryphal books, he did so because he thought they were part of the

55:53

Hebrew canon. If he had known what the Hebrew canon was, he would have taken a different position than that which he took, but he was unaware of those particular facts.

56:02

Gregory the Great, in his morals on the book of Job, as pope, as bishop in Rome, wrote that 1

56:11

Maccabees was not canonical. It was edifying to the church, but it was not a part of the canon.

56:17

The New Catholic Encyclopedia confirms that Pope Gregory did not accept the canonical status of the apocrypha in volume 2, page 390.

56:24

We already know that St. Jerome likewise rejected the full canonical status, knowing the

56:29

Hebrew Old Testament and knowing the language of the Hebrew Old Testament, and this is confirmed in numerous sources as well.

56:37

My time is fleeting, so let me just mention a few other things very quickly. The Glossa Ordinaria was the medieval equivalent of the official study

56:47

Bible of Western Christendom. I guess we might call it the NIV study Bible of the medieval period.

56:53

It was a running commentary on the Bible that held tremendous sway and was used in all the theological centers of learning for hundreds of years.

57:02

In introducing each of the books of the apocrypha, it begins, here begins the book of Tobit, which is not in the canon.

57:11

This was the study Bible for centuries during the medieval period, and it said the books were not canonical.

57:20

I've already mentioned that Cardinal Cajetan, one of the greatest scholars of his day, in his commentary on the

57:26

Old Testament, likewise repeats Jerome's distinction and in fact describes as a raw scholar, a person who would be bothered by Augustine's statements or the words of Carthage and Hippo.

57:41

Fascinatingly enough, Cardinal Jimenez's Completentian Polyglot was approved for publication by Pope Leo X, and yet in his introductions provided in that publication approved by Pope Leo X, Cardinal Jimenez specifically rejected the canonicity of the apocryphal books.

58:02

Now it's very fascinating to note that Trent's canon differed from that of Carthage and Hippo and of previous popes, including

58:09

Innocent I, and the quotation was given earlier that it was a part of the universal law of the Church. Why?

58:15

Well, Carthage used the Greek Septuagint as its basis. The Septuagint contained 1 and 2

58:21

Estrus, which in that version comprised the extra canonical additions to Ezra and Nehemiah as 1

58:27

Estrus, along with the canonical Jewish version of Ezra and Nehemiah combined into one book as 2

58:33

Estrus. But Trent used the Vulgate. Jerome, knowing the Jewish canon, rejected those additions and separated

58:40

Ezra and Nehemiah from one another. Hence, in Trent's canon, following the Vulgate, 1

58:45

Estrus is Ezra and 2 Estrus is Nehemiah. Ironically, the New Catholic Encyclopedia acknowledges these differences and says

58:53

Trent, quote, definitively removed it, the material found in the Septuagint 1

58:58

Estrus, from the canon, end quote. But the problem is seen when we recognize that Carthage's canon, which differs from Trent's in that it included material not found in Trent, was included in papal letters and decrees, including those of Innocent I, Galatius, and Hormustus.

59:14

So how could Trent declare infallibly non -canonical what popes 1 ,000 years earlier had accepted?

59:23

Well, in summary, let's try to put all these facts together because they've been flying at you pretty fast and furious.

59:30

Fifty -three men gathered in 1546 in a small city called Trent and they ignored the mountain of counter evidence and elevated, only for their followers, the apocryphal books to the level of fully inspired scripture.

59:42

They did so in direct response to the Reformation and they anathematized anyone who rejected their decree.

59:50

In so doing, they ignored the fact that the Jews, to whom the oracles of God were entrusted, never viewed these books of scripture and for good reason.

59:58

The books give full evidence of their non -inspired nature containing errors in recognizing the pre -existence of the completed

01:00:04

Old Testament canon. The Jews knew prophecy had ended after Malachi and that these books did not speak with prophetic authority.

01:00:11

At least one of the books even says this. There was no wider canon outside of Palestine that included these books and anyone who says there was must provide evidence of this.

01:00:22

Trent canonized these books without being able to provide any evidence from the Lord Jesus and the apostles of ever having cited these books as scripture, not just historical sources, but thus says the

01:00:35

Lord, which given the Jewish rejection of these books would be required for their canonicity.

01:00:41

But Trent showed no concern for this. They likewise overthrew the testimony of such learned early writers as Melito of Sardis, Athanasius, Cyril of Jerusalem, Gregory Nazianzus, and most importantly,

01:00:51

Jerome, one of the only early writers who knew both Greek and Hebrew.

01:00:57

A small group of prelates at Trent probably were not even aware of the fact that Pope Gregory the Great had published as Bishop of Rome a theological work in which he rejected

01:01:05

Maccabees as canon scripture. But surely they could not be unaware of the long list of scholars down through the years who had rejected those books.

01:01:15

Some count as many as 52 major writers down through that time period. Surely they knew that the

01:01:22

Glossa Ordinaria introduced each book of the Apocrypha with the assertion that it was not a part of the canon.

01:01:28

And they could not have been utterly ignorant of the fact that only a matter of years before their meeting, leading scholars of their own fellowship like Cardinals Cayetan and Gimenez had published commentaries and editions of the

01:01:40

Greek New Testament and the Bible that rejected the Apocryphal books as fully canonical in the case of Gimenez's work with the approval of Pope Leo X.

01:01:50

So we must conclude that once again we see the error of investing in the Roman Church, the charism of infallibility resulting in the inability of correcting errors such as that made at Trent.

01:02:04

Had those prelates considered well the teaching of Paul in Romans 3 verses 1 -2?

01:02:11

Had they considered the fact that Paul said there that the oracles of God had been entrusted to the

01:02:18

Jews which requires that they had to know what those scriptures were?

01:02:25

The Lord Jesus had illustrated this when he held men accountable in Matthew chapter 22 for example for knowing what the scriptures said.

01:02:36

No one when Jesus held men accountable to the scriptures put their hands up and said excuse me but you can't hold me accountable for what it says there because I didn't know that was in the canon.

01:02:45

I don't have an infallible definition of the canon and in fact if what you need is an infallible definition of the canon nobody has that until 1546 from the

01:02:54

Roman Catholic perspective. That's a long time. How could they be held accountable by the

01:02:59

Lord Jesus for what the scriptures said if they did not know what the scriptures were?

01:03:06

But in point of fact they did know what the scriptures were. They did not argue that well we didn't know that was scripture.

01:03:12

There is no response along those lines. Why? Because as Paul said God had entrusted to his people the oracles of God.

01:03:22

Had those prelates at Trent considered well that teaching found in the New Testament, realized that the

01:03:27

Jews would have had to have known the extent of the Old Testament canon to be entrusted with them as Paul taught they might not have made the mistake that they did.

01:03:37

But we do not have to follow them in their error this evening. We can listen to inspired scripture and believe but that brings us full circle back to where I began my presentation this evening.

01:03:50

That is in each one of these debates in a greater or lesser way we've always come back to the issue of authority.

01:03:58

For the person who believes that the Roman Catholic Church is the ultimate authority in these matters, in reality all the factual evidence, all the

01:04:10

Athanasius' and Jerome's and Philo's and laying up of books in the temple really doesn't matter because fundamentally once Rome has spoken the case is closed.

01:04:20

Tonight we need to examine that claim in the light of history and scripture. Thank you for being here and allowing us to do so.

01:04:27

Thank you. We will now have the rebuttals, eight minute rebuttals beginning with Mr.

01:04:41

Machuta. Boy that's a long walk from the top of the dais down here.

01:05:14

One of my favorite scenes in the movies, I'm kind of a movie buff, comes from My Cousin Vinny, which since I'm in Long Island I guess you know we could use something like that.

01:05:25

If you're not familiar with the movie, Joe Pesci plays a brand new lawyer and he slept through pre -trial and he has to convince his client not to fire him.

01:05:37

So what he does is he wants to explain to his opponent, or excuse me, explain to his innocent client how the prosecution is going to build this case against him.

01:05:48

So one of my favorite scenes, he pulls, by the way I won't do a Joe Pesci impression, I'm sure James will be glad and everybody else will be too, a person six foot eight doing the

01:05:56

Joe Pesci impression. But he pulls out a card from the deck. He says the prosecutor is going to show the jury the card has the right length to be a brick, has the right height to be a brick, has the right color, the right texture, has all those things to be a brick.

01:06:12

But there's one angle he's not going to show them and that's to show that you're innocent. And in many ways that is how the

01:06:18

Protestant case against the Deuterocanon is. You'll see all sorts of different aspects which are true but they won't show you that one aspect that show that it's really not a brick but a playing card.

01:06:30

And I'm sure that analogy is going to hang me tonight, so please be nice to me. For example, Dr. White mentioned that Philo of Alexandria didn't quote from the

01:06:39

Deuterocanonical books. In fact, you know what, Philo of Alexandria actually quotes extensively from the

01:06:44

Old Testament canon. Scholars place the amount of references he makes in the neighborhood of 2 ,050 quotations from the

01:06:51

Old Testament. But what's normally not told is of those 2 ,050 quotations, 2 ,000 of those come from the

01:06:58

Pentateuch, the first five books of the Old Testament, leaving a mere 50 quotations to cover all the prophets and all the writings, a little over 2 % of all his quotations.

01:07:08

And I don't think anybody here would be surprised to find out that Philo's silence not only covers the Deuterocanonical books but a lot of the proto -canonical books that Protestants accept.

01:07:18

James asked me to give an interpretation of Romans 3. Well, it's true that the

01:07:24

Jews were entrusted with the oracles of God, and I will not dispute the idea of being entrusted.

01:07:30

I would like to point out two notes, though. Number one, it doesn't say we're entrusted with the writings of God, but rather it's talking about oracles of God.

01:07:39

Now, I'd also like to point out that Paul uses the aorist tense, or aorist, which points to that they were entrusted with the oracles of God.

01:07:48

You couldn't possibly think that they were entrusted with the oracle of God right now because the apostles themselves were entrusted with the oracles of God.

01:07:57

So much for St. Paul. We're told that Josephus stated that all prophecies ceased after the time of Artaxerxes or Ezra.

01:08:06

Well, if you look closely at the statement in which Josephus makes, he never says that all prophets ceased after Ezra or Artaxerxes.

01:08:15

He never says that a succession of prophets ceased after Ezra or Artaxerxes. What he says is that the exact succession ceases, in which

01:08:24

Rebecca Gray in her masterful work on prophetic figures in the late

01:08:29

Second Temple period, in the writings of Josephus, says the exact succession of prophets for Josephus means a continuous and sometimes overlapping historical narrative.

01:08:39

After all, again, context is so important. Against Appian is written against Jews who claim that the

01:08:45

Jewish race couldn't possibly have extended back to the time of Christ because they appear relatively late in pagan histories.

01:08:51

So Josephus needs to nail down the veracity of the oldest sacred writings of the

01:08:58

Jews. And so he places the 24 books because it makes up a continuous narrative.

01:09:04

We're told that Melito of Sardis didn't know which books were read in his own church. So he had to travel all the way to Palestine to find out which books were indeed sacred scripture.

01:09:16

Well, what wasn't mentioned was that scholars readily admit that there was a very large Jewish population in Sardis during the time of Melito of Sardis.

01:09:25

In fact, archeology is one of the largest synagogues in the Greco -Roman period that dates back to Melito's day.

01:09:32

So now we have to ask our question. If, as Dr. White has pointed out earlier, that the canon had been closed and fixed and every

01:09:39

Jew could tell you that there was 22 or 24 books in the Old Testament, universally well known, how is it that in 170

01:09:46

AD, Melito would travel all the way to Palestine to receive the same answer he could have got had he knocked on the synagogue next door?

01:09:55

Well, I think common sense tells us that Melito did knock on the synagogue next door and they were a canon themselves, so they pointed him to Palestine.

01:10:05

By the way, the canon in which Melito received in Palestine omitted the Book of Esther and included wisdom.

01:10:13

We're told to focus in on the numbers 22 and 24 books because whenever 22 or 24 is given, then that means that the

01:10:23

Deuterocanonical books are not included. Of course, this ignores the fact of how they computed the 22 or 24 books and also what was this list meant to represent, which is rarely explained by non -Catholics.

01:10:38

For example, Hilary Potier, which was mentioned as an authority on Jewish tradition, Hilary cites that there's 22 books according to the 22 letters of the

01:10:47

Hebrew alphabet. And they say, look, there, he affirms that the canon's been closed to exclude the

01:10:52

Deuterocanonical books. Well, if you continue in that same passage, he says, but if you want to add

01:10:58

Tobias and Judas so as to make 24 and correspond to the Greek alphabet, then you could do that.

01:11:03

And of course, then the Roman alphabet split between the Hebrew and the Greek. The fact of the matter is, is Hilary Potier wasn't concerned about which books were in the canon.

01:11:11

What he was concerned was the mystical correspondence of numbers and letters of the alphabet and books.

01:11:17

The same is true of Origen, which we also heard he was an expert in Judaism. Origen wants to produce 22

01:11:23

Hebrew names for the 22 books of the Old Testament. What's interesting is he accidentally omits the 12 minor prophets, which count as one book.

01:11:31

And then when he comes up with 21 names at the end, he has to come up with the 22nd, so he adds Maccabees and gives the

01:11:36

Hebrew name to Maccabees, even though he says it was excluded from the canon. The reason is, is because, again,

01:11:42

Origen is an allegorist. He's not interested in the literal historical meaning of the canon. The same is true with Epiphanius and others as well.

01:11:51

Now, ladies and gentlemen, I would like to make an admission, and actually, Chris, I don't know where you are, this might be the first time in the debate, but I have to say,

01:11:58

I agree with my opponent's thesis tonight. The Apocrypha are not scripture. But ladies and gentlemen, the

01:12:06

Deuterocanonical books are not Apocrypha. And proof of that comes from Athanasius' Three Ninth Vest Letter, which we heard

01:12:12

Dr. White eloquently talk about tonight. After listening to canonical books, he says that the canonical books alone are not entirely accurate, and it's also necessary to add other books as well, which are the

01:12:24

Deuterocanonical books. Then at the very end, he says, the former, my brethren, are included in the canon, the latter are read, and in no place is there mention of the

01:12:35

Apocryphal writings, unquote. In other words, Athanasius separates the Deuterocanonical books from the

01:12:40

Apocrypha. Now, Dr. White will say, well, yeah, he also separates them from the canon. But remember my opening statement.

01:12:47

It doesn't matter about the canon. The canon is a technical terminology. We have to go by the scriptural definition. Is it inspired?

01:12:54

And if you look in Athanasius' writings, you'll see that Athanasius affirms the divinity of the Deuterocanon very clearly.

01:13:00

The same is true at Seal of Jerusalem. Oh, my time has expired, so thank you.

01:13:38

I'd like to focus our thinking this evening in light of the fact that we have in a debate a thesis position and then the denial of that thesis.

01:13:49

The one who undertakes the thesis has the positive weight of proving the point.

01:13:57

I would like to ask you this evening as you do as you were instructed to do, I'm sure you're all doing this, no one would dare to disagree with Brother Shishko when he tells you to take notes in a particular fashion, that as, in fact, your flow sheets will be checked as you leave the door.

01:14:11

If you do not do the flow sheets, you will not be allowed to leave. But as you check the arguments that are being presented, look for the difference between positive evidence and saying, well, it doesn't necessarily mean this.

01:14:26

In other words, when you look at, for example, the dealing of the Jews and their understanding of what their scriptures were, do we have any

01:14:38

Jewish writers so far cited for us that say we accept as scripture these books?

01:14:46

Or do instead we have, well, they really didn't know. They were uncertain. They were unsure.

01:14:52

Maybe we can find a Jew over here that didn't know what his canon really was who lives outside of Palestine someplace.

01:15:00

That's not evidence that those apocryphal books are, in fact, inspired scripture, is it?

01:15:06

Because we could expand our examination to any number of books. Apply all the arguments that are being made tonight to the assumption of Moses in the book of Enoch, both cited by Jude.

01:15:19

If they will make those books canon scripture and Rome does not say they are, then the argument isn't valid, is it?

01:15:27

Keep that in mind as we consider what is being said this evening. We just heard it said, well, in Romans chapter 3, we do not have here a reference to writings.

01:15:40

I wasn't really completely certain what was being said there. What are these oracles? What are the oracles of God?

01:15:47

It was pointed out that this is an heiress. Yes, in fact, it's an heiress passive, but it's still the same idea.

01:15:54

He's enumerating the blessings, the advantages of the Jew, and it was to the

01:16:00

Jews that the oracles of God were entrusted. It was something

01:16:06

God did. That's why it's placed in the form that it's placed in. It was something that had happened to them, and yes, it is in the past.

01:16:16

And so, doesn't that mean that it took place in the past? They knew? Then why do we hear that the canon's actually not closed for another 130 years?

01:16:25

Or at the point of the writing of Romans, let's make it another 80 years. There simply isn't any evidence.

01:16:32

Can you imagine the amount of evidence we would have in the New Testament if there was disagreement between the

01:16:39

Jews and the Lord Jesus, and will we all agree the Lord Jesus knew what the canon was? I mean, if we believe that he was

01:16:47

God incarnate, he was the one who, by his spirit, inspired these books. And so, you would think that if these

01:16:54

Jews were wrong to reject them, would we not have any evidence somewhere of Jesus correcting them in their rejection?

01:17:02

Would we not have Jesus or the apostles citing from these books as authoritative scripture, not making an allusion to something as a historical source?

01:17:12

But we would have those special words. It is written, thus saith the

01:17:18

Lord. It is written by David through the Holy Spirit, that such and so. We don't have that anywhere in the

01:17:26

New Testament, even though in books like Matthew, you have extensive citations of the

01:17:32

Old Testament. Even in the book of Hebrews, tremendous numbers of citations of the

01:17:38

Old Testament. And certainly the writer of the Hebrews knows of those books. And there were many times he could have used them, but he never does, using those particular words, does he?

01:17:50

No, he does not. It is said, well, Josephus, you know, and even to these early fathers, they were doing things with numbers.

01:17:59

Yes, many of the early writers did. Those who accepted and did not accept the Apocrypha both did the same type of thing.

01:18:05

The point is there is no apostolic tradition, some universal perspective where everyone went, oh yeah, everybody accepts the

01:18:13

Apocrypha except these just few odd people out here. Instead you find that those who knew the

01:18:21

Hebrew Old Testament and knew the Hebraic backgrounds of the New Testament were the ones most likely to reject the

01:18:29

Apocryphal books because they knew that the Jews had never accepted them as Scripture.

01:18:36

When Josephus gives that number, he doesn't give us any indication of the 22 books.

01:18:42

And yes, they very frequently related them, that's why they broke them up the way they did, related them to the letters of the Hebrew alphabet.

01:18:48

Made it easier to remember, haven't any of you? How many of you had to try to figure out some way of remembering, if you were a

01:18:54

Protestant, all 66 books? At least us Protestants only had to cite 66 books in Sunday school. You Roman Catholics had to do more work than we did when you were in Sunday school.

01:19:02

But did you not come up with a way of remembering them? Some numerological idea in your mind, well

01:19:09

I've got five here and I've got to break this guy. Remember this one follows after this one. We all use methodologies like that.

01:19:15

That doesn't mean that somehow these writers are just to be dismissed as if they did not have any knowledge of what the issues of the subject particularly were.

01:19:23

And when Josephus uses this number 22, there's no indication when he does so that he has somehow just made this up.

01:19:30

It represents an ancient tradition or he wouldn't have used it in the form that he did. And isn't it just fascinating that these are the very same books that are laid up in the temple.

01:19:40

You see you can't just take each one of these apart. You have to see them as they relate to one another.

01:19:47

We were at, I guess, I really wasn't completely certain of what the reference was to Philo.

01:19:53

He's frequently citing the Pentateuch. Okay, that's fine. But as scholars will tell you, any theory about the viewpoint of Alexandrian Jewry is going to have to find in Philo evidence of its basis and there is no evidence in Philo.

01:20:07

And remember one side has the positive this evening, has to give positive evidence. There is no evidence in Philo of having accepted these books as canonical scripture.

01:20:19

And the question about Melito knocking on the door of the local Jewish rabbi to ask about the canon of scripture.

01:20:26

Well, I don't know if he did. There was certainly, sadly by that time as you know in reading

01:20:32

Justin Martyr and other early writers, a deep division that existed between Jews and Christians at that time.

01:20:41

And maybe because he lived in that city he couldn't just go next door. It wasn't like relationships that we have today where you could just simply go next door and ask a question of somebody.

01:20:53

But the best place in the world to inquire as to the nature of the canon would be

01:20:58

Palestine. And what, who this evening, if you have a Bible in your lap, whose

01:21:03

Bible this evening has the Palestinian canon, the canon that existed in Palestine before Christ and during the days of Christ amongst the

01:21:15

Jews? It's the Protestants. And so why

01:21:21

Melito didn't ask the folks next door, I don't know. But I know what he did find.

01:21:27

And what he did find was not a universal apostolic acceptance of the apocryphal books as scripture.

01:21:34

Thank you very much. We are now to have a 10 minute break.

01:21:46

We have made a modification in the cross examination periods. The question times will be 12 minutes each instead of 15 minutes each.

01:21:56

That should allow us about 20 minutes for some of your questions at the end. First cross examination period,

01:22:02

Mr. Machuta will now cross examine Dr. White for 12 minutes. James, would you agree with Roger Beckwith that Josephus is the only one who we have access to in extent writings that had first hand knowledge of which books were laid up in the temple?

01:22:30

Outside of the fact that Josephus would be reliant upon other sources and would be a witness to them,

01:22:37

I guess as far as extent writings, yes, that would be true. Okay. I hate to disagree with Roger Beckwith on anything.

01:22:44

Good. So would you, you cited three texts from Josephus' Antiquities which speaks explicitly of those books that are laid up in the temple.

01:22:55

No, that there were books laid up in the temple. That were laid up in the temple. Which books are those enumerated in the three quotes?

01:23:02

I didn't say they were enumerated in three quotes. Well which books does he refer to as being laid up in the temple in those three quotes?

01:23:08

And those three quotes, I don't recall him giving a specific list. He gives the list elsewhere in the 22 books that he lists in the standard 22 book form.

01:23:18

So would you agree with, again with Roger Beckwith, that Josephus in those three quotes speaks merely of the

01:23:25

Pentateuch and the Book of Joshua? I don't believe that he limited himself just to the

01:23:31

Pentateuch and the Book of Joshua, especially since I cited his own words in regards to the hagiographa as having been laid up.

01:23:39

And I can give you the page reference to that if you were looking for that.

01:23:45

86. Okay, what

01:23:52

I'm referring to, there's three citations. The scripture that is laid up, this is quote, a scripture that is laid up in the temple declares that God foretold that Moses, foretold to Moses that water would spring forth from the rock.

01:24:08

That's from Antiquities 317. The second one, this is by the way on Beckwith on page 84, such then the constitution that Moses left, he also handed over the laws of 40 years before, and it continues, then he recited them in a poem in hex meter verse, which he also left behind in a book that was kept in the temple, again he has that phrase laid up in the temple, containing the prediction of future events, and that is in Antiquities 4 .8

01:24:37

.44. And then the third quote, that the length of days increased on the occasion and exceeded customary measurement as made clear in the scripture laid up in the temple, and that's from Antiquities 5 .1

01:24:50

.17. So it seems here that Joseph, correct me if I'm wrong, but it's not

01:24:56

Josephus speaking about two books from the Pentateuch and one book from Joshua. Yes, but as Beckwith then goes on, on pages 85 and 86, he argues very clearly that the, for example on page 85, we find that numbers the hagiographer were present in the temple, and he goes on to point out that it would be improper to limit, since we only have those citations, the content of those scrolls that were laid up in the temple.

01:25:26

Similarly, I guess, to your argument in regards to Philo, how often he quoted from the Septuagint doesn't mean he didn't know anything else.

01:25:32

So I think if you continue on in the rest of his citations on 85 and following, you would find that he's not arguing that that means those were the only books that were laid up in the temple at all.

01:25:46

Unfortunately, this book's no longer in print, but it can sometimes be tracked down. I highly recommend it. Okay, so just so I understand you clearly, you're saying that Josephus said that all the books of the hagiographer were laid up in the temple, explicitly saying laid up in the temple.

01:26:00

I've never said that Josephus listed all the books that were laid up in the temple. I said that he said there were books that were laid up in the temple, and when he gives us the books that he considers scripture, he said there were 22 of those books, and that that is consistent with not only the

01:26:16

Jewish sources, but with those early Christian sources that made reference to the Jews. I never made any claim in regards to the citation.

01:26:24

I did not cite anything in my opening statement or rebuttal making that claim. Okay, is it not true that Beckwith makes the claim that besides the

01:26:35

Pentateuch and the book of Joshua, that the prophets and the writings were also included based on rabbinical writings?

01:26:42

Yes, he does. Do you agree with that? Yes, I do. I see no evidence to the contrary.

01:26:49

Now, in your opening statement and rebuttal, you made reference to several rabbinical writings in the

01:26:55

Mishnah and Talmudim, which not only speak of those texts that are laid up in the temple, but also of the cessation of prophecy.

01:27:03

Since most people here don't know Mishkanic literature or Talmudic literature...

01:27:10

Actually, I never said anything about, I never gave any citations concerning laying up from any

01:27:17

Jewish source outside of Josephus. Okay, well, just in regards to the cessation of prophecy, these are based upon the

01:27:27

Mishnah and Talmud. Now, since most people don't know much about the Mishnah and Talmud, could you tell us briefly, let's say, what does the

01:27:35

Mishnah contain and when did it reach its final form? The Mishnah is a codification of traditions and beliefs of the

01:27:44

Jews codified around the year 250, depending on which form of the Mishnah you use.

01:27:50

Then you have commentary on the Mishnah called the Gemara, and the Mishnah and Gemara together form the

01:27:56

Talmud. There are two primary forms of the Talmud, the Babylonian Talmud being the most popularly used form of that.

01:28:06

The Sensino Talmud is available in print today, and that's around 600 years after the time of Christ for the

01:28:13

Talmudic writings, depending on, again, which specific tractate you're looking at.

01:28:20

It's obviously not something that happened one day. Bingo, it's done today. There's a period of time which is being utilized.

01:28:26

Sure. Could you explain to the audience which rabbi is most usually referred as the rabbi who selected which oral traditions were and were not included in the

01:28:39

Mishnah? I don't know who you're referring to. There were many, obviously, who were involved in the collation of the

01:28:48

Mishnah, and there's a tremendous body of scholarly literature discussing the facts concerning whether what you find in the

01:28:58

Mishnah is reflective of which periods of what's called the

01:29:03

Tanaitic Judaism, Second Temple Judaism, and a tremendous amount of discussion as to what parts of that literature actually are reflective of the time when

01:29:14

Christ was ministering. That's a tremendous amount of discussion concerning all the issues relevant to that.

01:29:22

So I'm not sure which person you're making reference to. Is it not true that most

01:29:30

Jewish sources would point to Rabbi Akiva as the one who selected which oral traditions do and do not are included in the

01:29:37

Mishnah? I have actually found non -Jewish sources to be the best.

01:29:43

Well, I'll take that back. There are modern scholarly Jewish sources, and there are more ancient, less scholarly

01:29:52

Jewish sources. But I have not found those to be the best sources as for inquiry into that specific area personally.

01:30:02

But I'll take your word for it if that's what you're saying. You mentioned, now correct me, let me get clarification here, that those fathers who rejected the

01:30:14

Deuterocanonical books or the Apocrypha were those who were ignorant Hebrew or didn't have contact with the true rabbinical tradition.

01:30:24

Is that correct? I said in general, those who accepted the Apocrypha did so either on the basis of an uncritical acceptance of the

01:30:34

Septuagint, or they did so because they were not familiar with the Old Testament backgrounds, knowledge of Hebrew, things like that.

01:30:43

Origen, for example, one of the early church fathers who did know Hebrew, recognized that the

01:30:48

Jews rejected those books and would not use them in arguments with them, but also likewise himself held to them on the basis of church usage.

01:30:57

And then, of course, Jerome and his work on the Latin Vulgate. These individuals clearly showed a greater familiarity than someone like Augustine, who without a knowledge of the

01:31:10

Hebrew Old Testament was the primary reason why Hippo and Carthage did what they did. And so, yes,

01:31:18

I think it's a valid observation in the very few of them that actually discussed the issue or they just simply accepted one or the other based upon, well, it's what

01:31:27

I've always known. Okay. Now, would you agree with, say, the findings of Goodenough and others?

01:31:35

Of who? Goodenough. Okay. G -O -O -D -E -N -O -U -G -H. And others that contrary to the passion of the

01:31:43

Christ that first century Judaism in Palestine were bilingual people speaking Greek and either

01:31:49

Aramaic or Hebrew. I've never had any problem with the fact that if you lived in Palestine and there were

01:31:55

Roman soldiers that could make you pick up his pack and carry it for a mile, you better know what he's saying to you. So, in first century

01:32:02

Palestine, would it be unreasonable to believe a Greek speaking Christian could communicate with a rabbi?

01:32:10

Sure. Now, if that's true in first century Palestine, how much more true would it be throughout the diaspora where the

01:32:17

Jews could speak both Greek and Latin? I've never even suggested that the reason there was a massive division between Jews and Christians was because of a linguistic barrier.

01:32:28

The problem was that the rhetoric and the, sadly, hatred that grew between those groups resulted in, well, the literature of the patristic writers is, even in the patristic period, you will find tremendously strong statements being made, and I'm sure it goes the other direction as well, as the

01:32:51

Mishnah demonstrates. And so the division was not a linguistic division. I've never suggested it was.

01:32:57

It was, sadly, an interpersonal division, an interpersonal division that in many instances continues to exist to this day and only becomes tremendously exacerbated by what took place during the

01:33:09

Crusades. In your statement, you said that Gregory the

01:33:16

Great had repudiated the Book of Maccabees as being not canonical but presented for the edification of the church.

01:33:25

And this was included among those people that were said to know most about the biblical backgrounds and ancient languages.

01:33:33

I would not include Gregory in that at all, no. I don't consider Gregory an early father. Now the canon that Melito received in Palestine, which books were, was it not true that Esther was omitted and wisdom was included?

01:33:49

Actually, again, Beckwith has a very interesting discussion of that, and he spends a number of pages discussing that very issue and the numbers that are used concerning Melito's canon, where he derived it from, and what the sources were.

01:34:06

And there are a number of interesting questions there that since everyone sitting in front of me probably has not had the opportunity of reading

01:34:12

Beckwith's fine book, I won't go into. But, I'm sorry,

01:34:19

I forgot to start my call. Mr.

01:34:27

Vachuda, I did not understand what you said concerning Romans chapter 3, verses 1 through 2.

01:34:34

What does Paul mean when he says the oracles of God were entrusted to the Jews, if in fact, according to your thesis, the

01:34:40

Jews did not know the extent of the canon at the time Paul wrote those words? Well James, I made a distinction in my opening remarks of the difference between a canon in formation and a closed canon.

01:34:53

As I mentioned, a canon in formation is that certain scriptures were accepted unhesitatingly and without any controversy that they are scripture, but that did not necessarily mean that there was any definite ends to that, as opposed to a closed canon, which is a declaration that only these books are inspired to the exclusion of all writings.

01:35:15

So, when the Jews were entrusted with the oracles of God, I can agree with that, because I believe that the evidence shows that the canon was in formation prior to Christ, and as A .C.

01:35:27

Sundberg notes, that what we have is a collection of sacred writings whose definition has not yet been clarified.

01:35:36

Okay. Since the Apostle Peter identified the Old Testament scriptures as prophecy in 2

01:35:42

Peter 1, verses 20 -21, how do you explain the fact that the Jews themselves believed prophecy had ended at the time the apocryphal books were written, and that 1

01:35:51

Maccabees likewise says that there were no true prophets in Israel at the time? How could Peter's words apply to non -prophetic books?

01:36:03

Number one, I don't agree that 1 Maccabees, in either three of those citations, demonstrates or is speaking of a cessation of prophecy that supposedly happened way back in Ezra or Artaxerxes' time and continued to its present time.

01:36:20

Two of those references speak of temporary situation. For example, the stones of the temple, they didn't know what to do with it.

01:36:30

So, Maccabees says, we'll put them aside until a prophet should arise to tell us what to do with the stones.

01:36:36

Likewise, the election of the high priest and king is said that we will allow,

01:36:43

I believe it's Judas, to remain in this office until a true prophet should come and tell us what to do.

01:36:50

In both those situations, as Myers explains in Kittel, that proper exposition of those passages ought to see that prophecy as something that can occur within their lifetime.

01:37:06

For example, if I set some books over on the table and I said, these books should remain until a policeman should come and take them away, certainly

01:37:14

I'm expecting a policeman to come and take them away. The last passage, which speaks in a broad sense of prophecy of a time where there was such great distress amongst the

01:37:27

Jews that had not happened since prophecy had ceased, is referring to a point in time in the past where God stopped speaking to his people.

01:37:37

There's no indication in this passage that this cessation of prophecy begun in the past and continued all the way to the time of Maccabees.

01:37:46

Would you say that some would be in error to see a connection between the

01:37:52

Jewish citations that I provided and those citations in 1

01:37:58

Maccabees as being supportive of the idea that the Jews did recognize that the Spirit was not speaking during that time?

01:38:06

I'm not sure what you're referring to, the rabbinical passages. The ones that we had just discussed in your cross -examination that spoke of the

01:38:13

Holy Spirit of Prophecy no longer being in Israel. Wouldn't this passage in 1 Maccabees demonstrate that those are actually ancient traditions of the

01:38:22

Jews, even witnessed to by 1 Maccabees? No, they wouldn't. For one thing, the rabbinical writings that you cited do not predate the second

01:38:31

Christian century. Therefore, these are not firsthand accounts, but rather these are writings that I would argue was written after the time of Akiva, the man who actually closed the

01:38:42

Old Testament for rabbinical Judaism. And as scholars will note, for example, I believe

01:38:48

Myers notes, that the idea of the cessation of prophecy was, in a sense, a rabbinical tool to retroject or preject the post -Barkakba canon back into history.

01:39:00

Now in terms of Maccabees, there's nothing there to necessitate the idea that all prophecy ceased after the time of Ezra.

01:39:07

It merely speaks of a situation that was current among their time and of a time in the past in which

01:39:13

God did not speak to His people. Given that Pope Innocent I and Pope Galatius both affirmed the canon list of Hippo and Carthage, yet Trent and every pope since then has affirmed the different list that excludes the extra material in Estrus, which popes were right and which popes were wrong on this issue?

01:39:34

Well, actually, I'd say William Webster is wrong for making such an argument. The fact of the matter is that the

01:39:40

Council of Trent had certain headings in which the Council of Fathers were going to consider what to do with certain books that were not included in these particular canons but were included in the

01:39:51

Vulgate, among them the Book of Estrus, like you mentioned. The Council of Fathers voted, should we reject them as Apocrypha, which, by the way, in your opening statement,

01:39:59

I believe, or it may have been your rebuttal, said that Trent rejected, which is not true, or should they pass over in silence?

01:40:06

They voted to pass over it in silence. Therefore, the Council of Trent did not reject the Book of Estrus, but rather has merely affirmed the canon of all those books outside of those books.

01:40:19

So they left the question unanswered? In regard to the status of these books, yes, they deliberately passed over in silence.

01:40:28

So the definitive dogmatic with an anathema definition of the canon doesn't actually answer the question as to whether those books are fully canonical or not.

01:40:38

There is a difference between the two forms, is there not? There is a difference, but I'm sorry,

01:40:45

I don't understand the question. Well, since there's a difference in how the

01:40:50

Septuagint breaks books down and how the Latin Vulgate breaks books down, and Hippo and Carthage used one form and the

01:41:00

Vulgate used another form, and you say they simply passed the question over as to the differences between the two, then do you consider canonical the additions to Ezra and Nehemiah, or don't you?

01:41:16

Well, I would remain silent just like the Council remains silent. So you don't know? It's an open question, which has not been determined by Trent.

01:41:25

Therefore, there's no contradiction between Trent and the North African Councils.

01:41:31

When Pope Leo X approved the publication of Cardinal Jimenez's Completentian Polyglot, the most ambitious publication project of that date involving the original language of the

01:41:41

Bible, wherein Jimenez repeated the viewpoint of Cayetano and numerous others in rejecting the apocryphal books, was

01:41:48

Leo X approving a viewpoint that would bring the anathema of God only 30 years later in the decision of Trent?

01:41:55

No. What he did was approve the

01:42:00

Completion Polyglot, which isn't necessarily a dogmatic declaration of whatever opinions were in that book.

01:42:09

So, Pope Leo X approves the publication of a work that gives a canon that he knew was wrong?

01:42:19

No, he approved a work which was probably one of the best masterpieces in ancient literature at that time, without passing judgment on whatever critical notes were attached to those books.

01:42:31

And yet, in 30 years, holding the position Jimenez held would have anathematized him, yes?

01:42:39

At that point, yes. But it wouldn't have anathematized him 30 years earlier? No, but they would have looked—well, let me say no, because anathemas don't work in reverse.

01:42:51

Anathemas are canonical penalties that are attached to somebody who holds a view in contradiction to a defined dogma.

01:43:00

So, the reason that it was okay to hold that view before Trent was that it had not yet been defined, so no one really knew what the canon was before Trent.

01:43:12

No, well, there's—this is actually a very complex question, in that I would agree that some writers actually believed that the deuterocanonical books were not divine, although the majority of writers would agree that they are divine.

01:43:28

There's also another—there's a couple of other problems there at work here. For example, the word apocrypha, by the time of the 15th century, had become so twisted, and this is usually by medieval writers who tried to make

01:43:39

Jerome into an orthodox stance. They would twist his words on calling the deuterocanonicals apocrypha to mean something like inspired scripture that's somehow hidden.

01:43:51

By the time of the Council of Trent, the word apocrypha has been so twisted that you actually find fathers in the

01:43:57

Council of Trent who argue for the full divinity and canonicity of these books calling them apocrypha.

01:44:03

So, that's one problem. Another one is that this is a polyglot, which not only included the books of the

01:44:09

Vulgate, the Septuagint, and the Masoretic text,

01:44:15

I believe. In the Greek New Testament. Yeah, but it also included books that go beyond even the Council of Trent, such as,

01:44:21

I believe, 3rd and 4th Maccabees. Okay. How do you explain the many documented historical errors in the book of Judith, such as the assertion that Nebuchadnezzar reigned in Nineveh, and the placing of the building of the temple a century too early?

01:44:39

Well, I'd respond—actually, let me say that. It always saddens me when this particular tactic is taken by believers in Christ, because this is the exact same argument that nonbelievers would pose against Christians to prove that the

01:44:53

Bible is not inspired. They'll point to all sorts of so -called contradictions and errors in the

01:44:58

Bible and say, see, you can't believe in the inspired Word of God because the Word of God would not contain these errors.

01:45:05

So, as a rule, I don't entertain such questions, and I advise Christians not to entertain such questions.

01:45:11

The reason is biblical inerrancy is not based upon going through works and trying to determine whether or not true errors exist.

01:45:20

Rather, as O .J. Brown points out in his Origin of the Christian Bible, edited by Comfort, that there is, prior to that, a decision whether or not a book is inspired, and then from that decision follows whether or not so -called errors can be reconciled or can't be reconciled.

01:45:36

So, in answer to your question, James, I'm not going to answer your question. No. Is it not a fact, sir, that Nebuchadnezzar did not reign in Nineveh and that we know, in fact, to the very year without question when the temple was rebuilt in Jerusalem?

01:45:57

Well, James, yes, that is true, but reconciling what is said in that particular book to what we understand is to consider this to be an absolute error and not merely an apparent error.

01:46:09

As you well know, there could be problems in textual transmission. There could also be difficulties as a literary device that could be used in different literary forms.

01:46:20

But I'm not going to try to reconcile this because, as I said, it's really begging the question. You have already determined that this book is not inspired, and then when you find an error in it, you're using it, you're saying this is a real error instead of an apparent error.

01:46:38

This is the second cross -examination period. Once again, Mr. Machuta will cross -examine

01:46:43

Dr. White for 12 minutes. Hey, guys.

01:47:00

Thank you. Alrighty. The cross -examination will resume. Mr. Machuta.

01:47:06

Okay, let's move on to broad questions. Dr. White, can you name any

01:47:11

Christian writer from the time of the New Testament all the way through to Jerome, again with the qualification of origin and Julius Africanus, who explicitly denied the

01:47:23

Deuterocanonical books to be inspired? Yeah, I disagree with a number of the representations that you've made.

01:47:30

For example, I disagree with your representation of Athanasius' 39th Festal Letter. I disagree with the reading that you give of that very early and important canon source.

01:47:42

And I would likewise, and again, I guess we're passing over Melito Sardis as well, but I also would disagree with the broad assertion that is floating around here, and that is that this was something that the vast majority or even a majority of these early writers and their fragmentary writings even addressed.

01:48:08

And so it would be similar to asking me to give you a list of individuals during this period of time who addressed

01:48:18

Jewish dietary laws or things along those lines. This was not a major issue for the vast majority of the early writers.

01:48:29

In fact, I'm not familiar, maybe you could enlighten me as to any particular writing during that period of time that was devoted solely to canon issues.

01:48:39

And so I would list Athanasius, I would list Melito Sardis in that time period, and then

01:48:45

I would point to numerous early fathers who never once mentioned the apocryphal books or cite from the apocryphal books of Scripture and never addressed the issue at all.

01:48:55

Okay, let me rephrase that then. Would you agree that every father who used the

01:49:02

Deuterocanonical books did so in a manner commensurate with Sacred Scripture? No, I would not.

01:49:08

I would agree with Roger Beckwith, who I'm sure you're familiar with, who given a survey of the second century writers, for example, noted a number of them who only used these books for historical means and not for scriptural means, not for establishing points of theology, and in fact found that those who actually utilized that important terminology that you yourself pointed to, that being the proper use of the citation it is written, was actually in a minority at that point, not a majority.

01:49:43

But there were certainly some who, using the Greek Septuagint, believed that it was canonical.

01:49:49

No one's ever denied that. In regards to Rabbi Akiva's decree that the

01:50:01

Gospels and the books of the New Testament did not defile the hands, and that the book of Sirach and the books written after Sirach did not defile the hands, if it was a unanimous

01:50:12

Jewish acceptance that Deuterocanonical books were never scripture, and that Christians did not accept these books as a scripture, remember this is about 132

01:50:22

AD, why in the world would Rabbi Akiva make a declaration to forbid these books or exclude them from inspiration?

01:50:31

Well, I think that's a very simple question. In reality, given that no positive evidence has been presented this evening that the

01:50:38

Jews did accept these books as scripture and as making the hands clean, it's obviously an error from my perspective to read into that activity some idea that, well, actually there were

01:50:53

Jews who were, well, no, there were Jews who weren't. Well, were there some Christians? Seemingly there were.

01:50:58

No one's ever argued that point either. And so those books were listed because of the fact that there were those who believed or who would make claim that they were canonical.

01:51:12

There's no question about that, but it doesn't follow, seemingly from the argumentation, that this, even this decree had any kind of, there was no binding force to this.

01:51:26

I mean, there continue to be discussions, the scholarly literature is filled with discussions of just how much, you know, there wasn't even a council of Jamnia.

01:51:38

There was just simply a discussion concerning whether particular books made the hands unclean.

01:51:44

There was no indication this meant that the Old Testament canon had somehow been open and was uncertain.

01:51:51

There's a tremendous amount of discussion of these things, and I don't see any reason to believe that outside of positive evidence being given, that that means anything relevant to the apocryphal books being considered to be canonical by any

01:52:03

Jewish individuals whatsoever. Isn't that true that after the time of Akiba, around the

01:52:11

Bar Kokhba revolt, that those discussions, in fact, well, let me put it this way.

01:52:17

Isn't that true? There is, okay, I'm sorry. I guess

01:52:22

I won't lean. I guess. Isn't that true that there is a rabbinical discussion as to whether Sirach is inspired or not by the

01:52:31

Jews? In before or after Christ? After Christ.

01:52:38

Well, outside of that particular discussion, I'm unaware of any discussion of the book of Sirach being inspired by Jews at the time period where it would be relevant.

01:52:54

I mean, today you can find anything. You can find anything after that time period, but the only time period that would be relevant to the canonicity of these books would be prior to the writing of the

01:53:04

New Testament, at least for our purposes this evening. I mean, if there's discussions amongst

01:53:10

Jews in the medieval period about magical texts, that's hardly really relevant to the issue of the canon scripture at the time of the writing of the

01:53:19

New Testament. Can you produce any list of books that were prior to Christ as to which books were authoritatively accepted by the

01:53:28

Jews? You mean like provided by Josephus? Josephus wrote roughly about 90 to 100

01:53:36

AD. That's true. However, as a historian, he is the chief source of our information outside of, well, he's our chief source of information concerning the period of time prior to, and he's writing prior to, writing about the period prior to and including the time of Christ.

01:53:57

So, unless we're going to say that historical source writing after the fact is not itself a valid source, as you know, there's almost no extant writings that would even address that subject during that period of time.

01:54:13

I mean, I'm not sure what you're asking for, but if you're asking for a specific canon list of the

01:54:20

Jews prior to Christ, no such thing exists. That doesn't mean that they didn't know what the canon was.

01:54:25

Now, would you agree with Wildebor that Josephus' concern against Appian, which is where he gives the number 22, is more concerned with sacred history rather than the extent of the scriptural canon?

01:54:39

There's absolutely no evidence that I've ever seen. Beckwith certainly doesn't find any. No one that I've seen sees any evidence that what

01:54:47

Josephus is giving us in that citation is anything other than the very same source that Melito encounters when he goes to Palestine, that Origen makes reference to, that Jerome makes reference to.

01:54:59

Here you have all these different sources finding the same material coming from different places at different times.

01:55:06

The consistency has to have an explanation, and it would seem that that's why most scholars don't take that particular perspective, is that that consistency does have an explanation.

01:55:16

That's because that's what the Jews believed, and that's why we only find the New Testament writers citing from those same books.

01:55:22

Now, is it true, so you would say Josephus then is a trustworthy witness of the

01:55:30

Jewish canon prior to Christ? I don't see any reason whatsoever to question the validity of the information that he provides.

01:55:38

There's nothing in the context that indicates any overriding concern that would indicate that his giving of those 22 books is somehow to be put in a different category than the same use of those books as seen in other sources as well in later literature, or I would even argue in the

01:56:02

New Testament usage. Now, James, immediately after he gives the list of 22 books, and against Appian, he goes on to speak about a single stabilized text that was accepted by all the

01:56:14

Jews that went on for ages. Now, Frank Cross and the other scholars who are experts in the text of the

01:56:20

Old Testament show, demonstrate, that we don't have a single stabilized text in Judaism.

01:56:27

It doesn't even begin until roughly about between the destruction of the Temple in 70 A .D. to the

01:56:32

Bar Kokhba revolt. Is that not a gross exaggeration on Josephus' part in regards to the stable canon?

01:56:42

No, I don't think that it would be. You're confusing two issues. You're confusing the issue of what the Jews believed at the time of Josephus, and they did believe that they had a singular text, whether he was familiar with all the textual transmission issues concerning Samaritan Pentateuchs, or the origins of the

01:57:01

Septuagint, or the Masoretic text in proto -form, or issues like that is a completely separate issue from whether he was representing accurately the

01:57:10

Jews' understanding both of the number of their books and what they considered to be canonical, and the fact that they had had them for as long as anyone could remember.

01:57:18

I think Josephus is a considerably better historical source than Judith is. Now, I was commenting on that problem of when he says that there's 24 books and then immediately follows it with some gross exaggerations about how all the

01:57:37

Jews accepted a single stabilized text. A .C. Sundberg concluded that there's no reason to believe that Josephus was more correct in respect to his presumption on a longstanding canon than he was concerning the longstanding standardized text.

01:57:53

Do you agree with Sundberg's? No, I do not. Again, as I just explained, it confuses two things.

01:57:59

A person can accurately say that the people in my day believe X, Y, and Z is

01:58:05

Scripture, and that person may actually think that the form of the text that is his—notice he's not talking about the canon, but the form of the text that is his—has existed as it existed in that day back into antiquity, for all that matters.

01:58:23

If he's wrong about that, if someone today, for example, thinks the

01:58:28

King James Version has always existed—and I've actually run into some folks that actually sort of believe that—and yet he says that Christians believe that the

01:58:36

Gospel of John is canonical, his error about the form of the text has not changed the reality of his view of the fact that Christians believe the

01:58:45

Gospel of John is canon Scripture. No, I would not agree with that in any way, shape, or form.

01:58:52

Very quickly, you said that the use of 22 and 24 in relation to the Hebrew alphabet was a mnemonic device.

01:58:59

Yet, isn't it true that Hillary says, quote, this is the cause that the law of the Old Testament was divided into 22 books, so that I might agree with the number of letters?

01:59:08

Sorry. Yes, he said that. Thanks. Dr. White will now cross -examine

01:59:17

Mr. McKee. I'm a little confused about some of the answers that we got the first time around, and I don't want to seem to be beating a quote -unquote dead horse, but you had just asked me for a source prior to the time of Christ that listed the 22 books.

01:59:46

Do you have any sources prior to the time of Christ that list the apocryphal books as being canon Scripture for the

01:59:52

Jews? No. Do you have any place in the New Testament where the phrase, it is written, is used of a direct citation of an apocryphal book?

02:00:03

Well, James, actually, that's a very good question because, as you well know, the phrase it is written is indeed a very rare privilege for books to be quoted.

02:00:14

In fact, only nine books of the Old Testament are explicitly quoted as saying the

02:00:20

Scripture says of those nine books, two are from text that cannot be identified.

02:00:26

Only 12 books of the Old Testament are cited with the formula it is written, and eight books are cited with a formula such as you have heard or you have read.

02:00:36

So, a good portion of the Protestant Old Testament does not fall under that rubric, if you will.

02:00:43

Now, you made a very good point in your opening statement that the New Testament uses

02:00:48

Jude, and therefore we can't assume that just because something is cited that it's necessarily

02:00:53

Scripture. You mean Enoch and Assumption? Excuse me, I mean Jude, Enoch. Thank you. It was a good point, by the way.

02:01:00

But the same is true for not citing a text with some formula or any kind of formula that indicates there is

02:01:10

Scripture. We cannot assume, therefore, that it is not Scripture. If that was true, then the books of Ecclesiastes, Song of Songs, and Esther, we couldn't conclude that that was accepted as Scripture since, as Ryle points out, these books aren't even alluded to in the

02:01:26

New Testament. But, Mr. Machuda, I'm sorry. As I pointed out in my opening statement. I'm sorry, sir. You've yet to answer my question.

02:01:33

It had been going on for a minute and a half already. I asked, the question was very direct. Are the phrases, it is written, thus saith the

02:01:42

Lord, it is written in the prophets, any of those phrases used of an apocryphal book by a

02:01:48

New Testament writer? That's the only question that I asked. Right. And as I was pointing out, no, but that's also true with several books from the

02:01:56

Old Testament as well. Okay. And when you say that there are other Old Testament books that do not have that citation, are not those other

02:02:02

Old Testament books included by Josephus in the canon of Scripture? Well, Josephus never uses the term canon of Scripture, so I'm not sure what you're referring to.

02:02:14

Does Josephus identify them as being the Scriptures of the Jews? It is against Appian.

02:02:20

He would include them. Okay. However, as far as being laid up in the temple, not only

02:02:25

Josephus, but in the rabbinical writings, all three of these books, I believe, are absent from those that are explicitly said to be laid up in the temple.

02:02:33

And so, in answer to the first two questions I've asked, you cannot provide any positive citation as Scripture from the

02:02:43

Jews prior to Christ or from the New Testament regarding the apocryphal books.

02:02:48

Is that the case? Yes. Now, when I asked concerning the book of Judith, it sounded to me like you were saying that first you decide whether a book is

02:03:03

Scripture, and then you deal with the historical issues contained therein as best you can.

02:03:16

Was I misunderstanding what you were saying, or could you explain to me how an inspired book of Scripture can say that Nebuchadnezzar reigned in Nineveh?

02:03:26

Well, James, let me put, what I was referring to is a very good article written by Harold O .J.

02:03:31

Brown on the topic of biblical inerrancy. Now, what Dr. Brown points out is that there are difficulties within Scripture, not merely due to canonical books, but even the proto -canonical books is not.

02:03:45

So, the ultimate question is, are these difficulties real errors or only apparent errors?

02:03:51

So, Dr. Brown points out that a decision must be made prior to analyzing these texts whether or not they're inspired, and then based on that decision, you can determine whether it's a real error or an apparent error.

02:04:05

Do the canonical books of the Old Testament say Nebuchadnezzar reigned in Nineveh? I'm sorry, do the canonical books?

02:04:11

Do the canonical books that we would agree are canonical, non -apocryphal Old Testament books, say that Nebuchadnezzar reigned in Nineveh?

02:04:18

No. And so, you have a contradiction between Judith and the books that we would agree are canonical regarding where Nebuchadnezzar reigned and when he reigned, and I'm only using two examples here.

02:04:36

When we talk about contradictions, given what you just said, is there any way to prove a contradiction given the situation that you just enumerated from Brown in regards to deciding that something's canonical first?

02:04:59

Can we ever, could any book ever be disqualified on the basis of a contradiction unless, if you start with a description?

02:05:10

Well, if you start with saying that the Acts of Paul and Thecla are apocryphal works, they're not inspired, and you run into a contradiction that cannot be harmonized, you could say with some certainty that it is indeed a real error and not an apparent error.

02:05:26

Does that help answer? I'm not quite sure what you're asking. No, I guess my question may be too simple, but if a book says that the temple was rebuilt before it was destroyed, doesn't that give us a reason to sort of question the validity of that book?

02:05:44

No, it gives us reason to question whether or not, well first off, if it's

02:05:50

Scripture, then I place more trust in the Word of God than my own ability to reason through and sort out the problems that may be in that text.

02:06:00

Does the Word of God ever contradict known history? I would say as a believer it can't, by definition.

02:06:07

And so if we have a fact of known history, the Bible's not going to contradict that, is it? No, it cannot, because it's inspired by God.

02:06:14

So, if the temple is destroyed in 586, and Judith says that it's rebuilt in 637 or so, doesn't that cause us a problem?

02:06:25

Well, James, like I mentioned earlier, and apparently it was missed, that there, first off, it begs the question, because you have to determine whether or not it's inspired to say whether it's a true error or an apparent error.

02:06:38

Number two, there's many different ways in which you can try to harmonize text, which would be an appeal to, say, the textual tradition of a particular passage.

02:06:47

Is the translation that we have in front of us that of the original autograph? Is it possible to use various literary forms to work out this, just like you would use with regular

02:06:58

Scripture? But by you posing this question, you're actually begging the question, James, because you're assuming at the outset this cannot be inspired

02:07:05

Scripture, and then when you point to something, you say this is a real error, when in fact we haven't determined yet whether or not it's inspired

02:07:13

Scripture. So if I point out that a book places the rebuilding of a temple prior to its destruction,

02:07:19

I'm begging the question? Is that what you're saying? What I'm saying is you're making the assertion that this is a true error and not an apparent error, such as Harold O .J.

02:07:29

Brown says about the contradictions in the Protestant Old Testament and New Testament, supposed contradictions. Could you give me a parallel alleged error in anything

02:07:39

I consider to be canonical Scripture? To saying Nebuchadnezzar ruled over Nineveh when he didn't, and placing the building of the temple, rebuilding a temple, a century too early.

02:07:50

Could you show me any place where I, as a Protestant scholar, would have to deal with the same level of what seems to be very obvious error?

02:08:02

Well, James, although it's very enticing for me to get into a duel with you to try to figure out whether some of these supposed contradictions in Scripture are true or not,

02:08:14

I'm not going to fall for that, James, because as I said, this is a question that you have to determine first whether or not it's inspired before you move to the particulars.

02:08:24

Why? Because according to the doctrine, the Protestant doctrine of biblical inerrancy, true errors cannot necessarily follow from inspired

02:08:33

Scripture. If it's the Word of God, the Word of God does not give errors. Therefore, if we run into a difficulty, even a difficulty that we can't solve, for example, maybe our textual understanding of a particular text has been corrupted very early on, nevertheless, we place more trust that it is a divine document, that it's the

02:08:53

Word of God, and therefore, even though we can't reconcile it today, we know that ultimately it can be reconciled.

02:08:59

Could it be possible, Mr. Machuda, that some of the statement you just made is quite true in the sense that there are all sorts of possible errors that are based upon our ignorance of the original context, but could it just be possible that Judith, which is filled with numerous examples of this, not just one or two, but numerous examples of this kind of historical error, might that be one of the reasons why people like Jerome and others did not see this as being canonical

02:09:34

Scripture? Well, I would not agree with you that the early fathers that you cited earlier did not believe in Scripture except for Jerome, who definitely did reject the deuterocanonical books.

02:09:48

As far as I know, any kind of problems or contradictions within these texts,

02:09:53

I'm not aware of any of those where they would say, we have an error, therefore it can be wrong. Okay, so it's your assertion that Melito Sardis believed that Judith was

02:10:02

Scripture? Yes. And he listed as such? No, well, as I mentioned in my first rebuttal,

02:10:10

James, that it's important not only to look at lists, but what were the purposes of that list?

02:10:16

Now, according to your theory, Melito didn't know which books were read in his own church, so he had to travel to Palestine to get the true canon.

02:10:24

What I would propose is that, as Eusebius points out, after all, this is only preserved in a small passage in Eusebius' church history, is it comes from a book called

02:10:35

Extracts. Now, Extracts likely is an apologetic work to help

02:10:41

Christians evangelize the Jews. After all, it has certain points of doctrine that were taken from the

02:10:47

Law and the Prophets to confirm certain Christian doctrine. Therefore, that's why Melito traveled to Palestine to get the

02:10:54

Jewish canon. Because, after all, if you're going to do an apologetic work for Christians to evangelize the

02:11:00

Jews, the first thing you have to know is, well, which books are accepted by the Jews? Okay, but did

02:11:06

Athanasius list Judith as canon Scripture in the 39th Festal Letter?

02:11:11

He listed it as an inspired book. Did he list it as being a part of the canon? No, but this is also the very, another, let's go back to the opening statement.

02:11:22

The word canon... We now have our closing remarks,

02:11:27

Mr. Machuta for seven minutes and Dr. White for seven minutes. I'm sorry, seven minutes?

02:11:57

Well, ladies and gentlemen, we have two very different approaches as to which books constitute the inspired

02:12:05

Word of God. I have shown, notice that nowhere in my opening presentation or throughout these argumentations did

02:12:15

I ever appeal to the authority of the Catholic Church. I never said the councils of Carthage and Hippo were protected and infallible councils and therefore we have to acquiesce to whatever they said.

02:12:29

Rather, my opening statement and all my statements I made afterwards is based on Protestant scholarship.

02:12:35

In other words, in a sense, I can show from the very grounds that Dr. White is using tonight that there is a compelling case for the inspiration of these books.

02:12:46

Now, if we've heard Dr. White do what I said before, that he would focus on the numbers 22 and 24, he'll focus on canonical lists while not paying attention to exactly how they computed these lists or what these lists were meant to represent.

02:13:05

For example, Melito Vasardas' list was meant to represent those books that were accepted by the

02:13:12

Jews. After all, there had been a change in Judaism and Christians were very much well aware of those.

02:13:20

I have shown that the Deuterocanonical books are indeed sacred scripture. They are referenced and used in the

02:13:27

New Testament in a very significant way. For example, in Hebrews 11,

02:13:33

I showed that sacred history contains all the way up to 2 Maccabees. Now, we were told that, no, it's taught that all prophecy ceased at the time of Ezra.

02:13:43

No more prophecy. All written books, you know, all scripture has ended. There's no more inspired written books.

02:13:49

But the writer of Hebrews extends it down to 2 Maccabees, which would include the canon. It also included a prophecy about Christ and wisdom too.

02:14:02

Now, there's an old story of a Methodist minister who, while preaching a sermon, looked down at his notes and said,

02:14:13

Substantiation is weak here. Preach louder. So, I'm not going to preach, and I'm sure everybody up here, including

02:14:20

Dr. White, is glad I'm not going to preach. It would be almost as pathetic as my imitation of Joe Pesci.

02:14:27

But I don't have to preach, because most of my opening remarks haven't even been touched upon.

02:14:33

The Deuterocanonical books were accepted as inspired scripture by the bride of Christ from the earliest times, from the

02:14:39

New Testament through to the earliest centuries, all the way until Jerome. I did identify exactly where the canon of the

02:14:48

Old Testament was closed. This is something Dr. White did not do. He merely asserted that there's a certain number of books that were accepted without any argument in the

02:14:57

New Testament, which is absolutely true. That is what's called a canon in formation. But where they say only these books to the exclusion of the

02:15:06

Deuterocanonical books, that takes place with the Bar Kokhba revolt by Rabbi Akiva. It is after Rabbi Akiva that we find a consistent argument made by Christians that the

02:15:18

Jews had deleted text from the books. Am I cutting out? It sounds like I'm cutting out.

02:15:26

We're told that Josephus is a true witness to the

02:15:33

Jewish faith that he accepted 24 books to the exclusion of all others. Well, I've shown that in the words of Josephus, he was concerned only with the scriptures as historical writings.

02:15:44

There were other writings that were written that were not as highly esteemed as the first. But Josephus never says that prophecy ceased at the time of Ezra.

02:15:56

Proof of that, that Josephus did not believe in the succession of prophecy, comes from the

02:16:02

Antiquities itself, where he paraphrases those texts which James and I were talking about in 1

02:16:07

Maccabees. It's interesting, whenever Josephus brings up 1 Maccabees, for example,

02:16:13

I mentioned when they set aside the stones of the temple until a prophet should come. Josephus omits any reference to until a prophet should come.

02:16:23

Why? Because Josephus believed that prophets continued even down to his own day. Moreover, in the passage where he says there was much fear in Israel since the days where prophecy ceased, it's interesting that Josephus in Antiquities there indicates that this period occurred during the

02:16:42

Babylonian captivity. And if you'd like to read a little bit about when God stopped speaking to his people, which was a very fearful time, you can turn to Psalms 74 and Lamentations 2.

02:16:54

So now, the Protestant case against the New Canonical Books can only be done, as I said, by distracting us by showing one piece of the arguments and not the other pieces.

02:17:05

For example, as I pointed out, Hilary of Poitiers said that there's 22 books that correspond to the

02:17:10

Hebrew alphabet, but we're not told that there's, he says that you can add Judith and Tobit so as to include 24 books.

02:17:20

And we're told that Epiphanius likewise knew which books were in the canon. But if you look at his work on weights and measures, you'll see that he speaks of 22 generations that occur from Adam, excuse me, 22 acts of God that occurred during the creation of the world, 22 generations that came from Adam to Jacob, and 22 letters of the

02:17:43

Hebrew alphabet, which corresponds to 22 books. We're told that these are mnemonic devices, but ladies and gentlemen, these aren't mnemonic devices.

02:17:50

They don't care which books belong in the Bible. What they want to do is expound on mystical numerology.

02:17:55

After all, they're following their keen students of origin, who himself is an allegorist. What I have demonstrated, ladies and gentlemen, is that the

02:18:07

Deuterocanonical books are indeed sacred scripture, that they're used in the New Testament, they're affirmed by the bride of Christ from the earliest centuries onward, and that I was able to identify points in history exactly where people deviated from this consistent, persistent witness of the bride of Christ.

02:18:27

James, on the other hand, has not been, we're told that the canon was closed prior to Christ, but we're not told who closed it, or when, or what documents does he rely upon.

02:18:36

We're told that Jesus and the apostles accepted 22 or 24 books. We're not told any reference, any number, any list of books, but we do see that the

02:18:47

Deuterocanonical books were used by Jesus and the apostles. How about the apostolic fathers? Those who knew the apostles themselves were said by the apostles to be ministers of the word.

02:18:55

Jesus and the apostles... I'll close my opening statement. We were just informed that Jesus and the apostles used the apocryphal books, but if you've been listening carefully, you know that what is meant by that is they seem to have had an understanding that they existed.

02:19:29

We might be able to find a couple of references to them in a historical sense, because they did record the history of the

02:19:34

Jewish people, but as we heard in cross -examination, they never cited them as scripture, when they could have repeatedly done so, but they did not.

02:19:44

We've been told the Jews' canon was not closed until 132, and yet we know that those books were laid up in the temple, not just from Josephus, but from later

02:19:54

Jewish writings, and those apocryphal books are never laid up in the temple.

02:20:00

Why didn't the Jews do that? Because the Jews did not believe that the apocryphal books, as a body, which you are anathematized, if you reject, by the

02:20:09

Council of Trent, were in fact inspired scripture. There is no evidence that has been offered to us.

02:20:15

In fact, the form of argument this evening has been, well, actually what we've got going on here is there's a reason why this fact doesn't necessarily mean this isn't scripture, and there's a reason why this fact over here doesn't necessarily mean that the apocryphal books aren't scripture.

02:20:35

We can still believe they are. What's the fundamental reason why anyone believes this today?

02:20:41

Well, because of the anathema of the Council of Trent. It's a dogmatic teaching, and when you have a dogmatic teaching,

02:20:49

I would submit to you that it's very difficult for you to examine history when you've already been told what the result of your research is supposed to be.

02:20:57

That's why I point out that when we look at the book of Judith, a book filled, filled with gross historical errors, even

02:21:05

Catholic apologists have had to come up with, well, obviously, since we know this is all so wrong, that must be allegory.

02:21:13

What that's supposed to mean, we are not told. Fundamentally, when we got into that discussion, we discovered, well, you see, you start off with deciding whether it's scripture, and once you're told it's scripture, then it can't contain real errors, so somehow

02:21:28

Nebuchadnezzar reigned in Nineveh, even though it had been overthrown, and somehow the temple was rebuilt before it was destroyed.

02:21:39

Folks, when your system of authority, and Mr. Machuja said,

02:21:44

I didn't mention any authority in my opening presentation, but the form of argumentation assumed the correctness of the ultimate authority and used that as its foundation.

02:21:57

When the form of argumentation you use causes you to have to say, well, it can't be a real error that you rebuilt something before it was destroyed.

02:22:07

What does that lead you to? For example, we were just told that the writer of Hebrews extended the canon to 2

02:22:16

Maccabees by making reference to torture. By the exact same logic, does it not follow that Jude extended the canon to the assumption of Moses and Enoch by citing them in his epistle?

02:22:33

Now we know those are not even a part of the Roman Catholic deuterocanon, but upon what logical basis, if the mere reference to a historical source makes it scripture, then by extension, the assumption of Moses, Enoch, and various Greek philosophers cited by Paul should all be between the leather covers of your

02:22:58

Bible. Why aren't they? Because fundamentally, it's not a matter of consistent argumentation.

02:23:05

Fundamentally, it's a matter of the authority of the Roman Catholic Church. That is the issue.

02:23:13

Now my friends, I simply ask you to consider one thing this evening. In light of the fact that no positive evidence has been presented, that the

02:23:21

Jews, as the people of God, those entrusted with the oracles of God, ever accepted those books as inspired scripture.

02:23:30

They were entrusted with something that seemingly they didn't know what it was. Given that we have the admission that Jesus and the apostles never cited those books as scripture, given that we have seen numerous, and if you hear someone saying, oh, all the bride of Christ in those early centuries believed in the canonicity of these books,

02:23:55

I would just refer you to a survey that Beckwith does in pages 388 and 389 of his book where he goes through that and you discover that it's extremely fragmentary and in fact very enlightening as to how little used most of these books were.

02:24:10

But when you look at this and then you hear Jerome, the translator of the

02:24:16

Latin Vulgate being marginalized and the 52 ecclesiastical writers including

02:24:22

Pope Gregory the Great rejecting these books being said that they were just the odd people out.

02:24:31

And then we get to the point where we have Cardinal Jimenez, we have

02:24:36

Cardinal Cayetan, leading scholars of the day, the Glossa Ordinaria which

02:24:42

I have not heard a single comment about this evening, the standard commentary used in every single center of theological learning for hundreds of years and everyone starts, this is not in the canon, this is not in the canon, this is not in the canon.

02:24:58

Are these somehow just little interruptions in an apostolic tradition or was there a reason?

02:25:07

Was there a reason? I take you back to where we started.

02:25:15

I reject on the basis of usage and on the basis of the interpretation of the text the idea that we can understand what

02:25:23

Paul was saying in Romans 3 -2 as being the advantage to the Jews was they were entrusted with the oracles of God though they won't figure out what they are for another 80 years.

02:25:34

I reject that. That is not what Paul means. What Paul means was the

02:25:39

Jews had the advantage because they had the word of God and Jesus held them accountable to it.

02:25:46

He could not have done so if they did not know what the canon of the Old Testament was.

02:25:55

If the people of God to whom they were entrusted, the apostles of the Lord Jesus Christ and Jesus Christ himself rejected these books of scripture,

02:26:04

I don't believe that 53 men in Trent in 1546 can bind my conscience to those books.

02:26:13

Thank you very much. We have 19 minutes left for questions.

02:26:31

I've chosen questions that I believe are, in the first case, just providing some information you may not be familiar with.

02:26:40

Also, I've tried to pick top questions that are most pertinent to the topic and not esoteric and things

02:26:46

I think are most helpful to all. We'll begin, we'll alternate. We'll begin, the one first asked to answer the question will have 90 seconds and then the respondent, if he desires to add something, will have 45 seconds.

02:27:00

First question, and Mr. Machuta, this will go to you. Please tell us who are the apostolic fathers you are referring to?

02:27:10

The apostolic fathers are those fathers who were closest to the time of Christ.

02:27:16

This is actually a category that scholars will reference to. I don't know if it's clearly defined.

02:27:23

It certainly would include 1 Clement, Barnabas, Shepherd of Hermas, the

02:27:32

Didache. I'm sure there's probably Ignatius of Antioch, seven letters of A.

02:27:39

It would generally refer to those seven or eight writers that were at the earliest. James?

02:27:48

Yeah, and I would also include in that list the epistle to Diognetus. But again,

02:27:55

I don't believe, well, since it was just an informational question,

02:28:01

I'll stop there. We'll begin with Dr. White for this. This question shows my ignorance of the

02:28:07

Bible, but why is it so important to Catholics and Protestants to debate the inclusion of the

02:28:13

Apocrypha as authentic sacred Scripture? Well, some people feel that there's a tremendous amount of theological impact in regards to the actual teaching of these books.

02:28:22

I would not necessarily agree with that. For example, I don't believe that the second Maccabees passage about prayers to the dead and stuff like that is really all that overly relevant.

02:28:32

I think that fundamentally the issue here has to go to the issue of ultimate authorities.

02:28:39

That is, is the canon something that the church by its authority defines, or is the canon something that God defines by the act of inspiration and then by the

02:28:51

Holy Spirit passively leads His people to understand? And is the church itself infallible in its pronouncements?

02:28:59

Here, this really becomes the question. Because once the church infallibly announces something, then she cannot be corrected.

02:29:08

And even further evidence that comes to light cannot change these allegedly infallible pronouncements.

02:29:16

And I believe that the church exists in a relationship of dialogue with Christ. That is, the church prays to Christ, communicates with Christ, and hears from Christ in His Word.

02:29:27

Once you make the church infallible, you no longer have a dialogue, you have a monologue. Because the church's

02:29:34

Word becomes final, especially on issues like this, where there is so much information that it does not seem the

02:29:40

Council of Trent really seriously dealt with. I think that's what makes it so important.

02:29:49

Well, it's a very important issue because the Reformers thought it was a very important issue.

02:29:55

And the reason is, as I mentioned in my opening statement, those two Scottish Bible societies pointed out that these books do claim inspiration and they do teach

02:30:03

Catholic doctrine. Now, I feel good that James is being ecumenical in saying that it is possible that maybe we're a lot closer on this issue as possible.

02:30:15

But the fact of the matter is that I don't believe these are reconcilable, that these do teach Catholic doctrine.

02:30:21

And the reason why the Reformers opted to, at first, put them on a lower level than Scripture, and then eventually move them to the back of the

02:30:29

Bible, then eventually not only get rid of them, but get rid of all the cross -references to these books, indicate that there's something very important about these books that just don't fit into Protestant theology.

02:30:44

That was that, right. Mr. Machuta, this is a question for you. With the discovery of the

02:30:50

Dead Sea Scrolls, did they find the Deutero -canonical books in Hebrew? Great factual question.

02:30:59

Yes, they did. Let's see if I can flip really quick to that particular portion.

02:31:07

I believe, and James, you can correct me if I'm wrong, but I believe they found fragments of both Tovid and, let's see,

02:31:15

Sirach. You caught me flat -footed on that factual question.

02:31:21

But yes, there were fragments of the Deutero -canonical books found within the Dead Sea Scrolls. That's all

02:31:28

I got. Dr. White. I would just simply add to that that not all of them, because some of them seem to give evidence of not having been written.

02:31:37

And remember, the question was asking in Hebrew, not just in Greek. So, some of the Dead Sea Scrolls include

02:31:43

Greek fragments as well. So, that is actually an issue in regards to canonicity we didn't get into this evening.

02:31:55

For Dr. White, and Mr. Machuta responding, Dr. White, what is the

02:32:01

Jewish definition of the writings? What kind of writings could be included?

02:32:07

What should be excluded? Were there any historical, rabbinical boundaries to the writings?

02:32:13

You have 90 seconds. Well, I'm assuming that the writer is, when he's using the term, the writings, the

02:32:21

Ketevim is referring to what we call the Hagiographa. And that is in the three -fold division of the canon, you have the

02:32:30

Law, the Prophets, and the Writings. That's why the Jews refer to what we call the Old Testament as the

02:32:37

Tanakh, the Torah and the Nevi 'im and the Ketevim. By the way, if you want to do yourself a favor, never go into a

02:32:44

Jewish bookstore and ask them where they keep their Old Testaments. Bad move. Very not ecumenical at all.

02:32:55

The Tanakh is the term. And so, obviously, those would be defined, can be defined negatively as that which is not

02:33:02

Torah, which is not the Pentateuch, that which is not the

02:33:07

Prophets, which would include Isaiah, Jeremiah, the Minor Prophets. And hence, you have the Psalter, you have the

02:33:13

Wisdom Writings that make up the Ketevim. There are discussions concerning the fact that that is a delineation that does develop and become more traditional over time.

02:33:29

Even the New Testament will quote from the Psalms and talk about the Law. And so, at the writing of the

02:33:35

New Testament, it wasn't an absolutely firm boundary like we have in Western thinking, but it was one that was developing in Jewish thought.

02:33:44

Mr. Richuta. And that particular Jewish term for the writings took place in the second

02:33:50

Christian century. The word writings does not antedate the time of Christ.

02:33:55

And as I pointed out in my opening statement, that, for example, in the prologue to Sirach, we saw that they were able to speak of the

02:34:03

Law and the Prophets, but unable to come up with a name for that third category of the books, which they just said the

02:34:09

Law, the Prophets, and the rest of the books, indicating that that last third division of Scripture had yet to be defined.

02:34:16

And as I argued, that final collection, the Hagiographa, the writings, will not be defined according to the most explicit evidence until Akiva does so, just prior to the

02:34:28

Bar Kokhba revolt. Mr.

02:34:33

Richuta. If the Scripture is inspired by God, how can it contain errors?

02:34:41

Does inspired Scripture have errors? If they do, how does a Christian effectively defend his faith?

02:34:49

Let's see. Yes, no, and with every possible weapon we can get our hands on.

02:34:56

No, it's impossible that inspired Scripture can contain error because that would mean either that God didn't know the truth or wasn't willing to share the truth with us.

02:35:08

So a Christian can place greater store on the fact that what he's reading is the Word of God rather than his own abilities to reconcile apparent errors.

02:35:17

What I like to do with atheists and nonbelievers is to take them down to a more fundamental question, namely, does

02:35:23

God exist? How does God reveal himself? Upon what basis do we know that certain books are inspired

02:35:30

Scripture? Then once that's established, then maybe we could go on to look into errors, but usually that I found nonbelievers are quite willing to sidestep any question of errors or contradictions.

02:35:43

There's much more bigger fish to fry at that point. Dr. White. Well, I think as far as this issue is concerned,

02:35:51

I have indeed encountered many atheists who have attacked the validity of Scripture.

02:35:59

And in fact, it was said that the question I asked about Judas was similar to what atheists do. But I've never had an atheist be able to point me to anything in the

02:36:07

Bible that was certifiably demonstratable to be not only absurd but simply impossible, especially in a book that claims to be narrating history.

02:36:19

It's the Bible that has frequently proved the historians wrong, not the other way around. And so I think that the issue that came up regarding inerrancy really has more weight when you consider that a book has numerous clear errors in it.

02:36:38

This is to Dr. White. You have 90 seconds to respond. Could you share some contradictions found in the

02:36:46

Apocrypha that conflict with New Testament theology? Well, like I said earlier,

02:36:53

I don't think that, you know, you can go through the Book of Wisdom.

02:36:59

Certainly you can go through Tobit. Some of you remember what happened only a couple of years ago here in the debates. A man asked a question during the audience questions quoted from Tobit.

02:37:10

I believe it was 410 and one other passage. It might have been 417, that said that the giving of alms covers sins.

02:37:18

And the debate was on purgatory. And so he asked Father Peter Stravinskis, so does that mean

02:37:24

I can write a check? And some of you, how many of you were here for that? So you can testify as to what

02:37:31

I'm about to say here. It's on video. But much to the chagrin, I think of, much to my shock and the chagrin of others,

02:37:40

Father Stravinskis' response was, pay me now or pay me later. And so, you know, especially in books like that, you can come up with a lot of stuff that you can interpret as being contradictory to the text of the

02:37:56

New Testament. I certainly believe that 2 Maccabees chapter 12, even though I don't think it's relevant to purgatory since the men involved there had committed what would in Roman Catholicism be a mortal sin anyways.

02:38:05

But certainly you can demonstrate inconsistencies in regards to the view of praying for those dead individuals or whatever else it might be.

02:38:15

But I personally don't think that's really the primary issue in this particular debate.

02:38:22

The question raises a very good point because not only do you have factual errors that nonbelievers will bring up, supposed factual errors in the

02:38:30

Word of God, but you also have moral errors and theological errors. Really all these errors, all different aspects of the same thing.

02:38:38

How do you know what's being taught in the Deuterocanonical books is a demonstrable theological error? Well, first, if it's scripture, then it's a scriptural teaching.

02:38:47

If it's not scripture, then it's not a scriptural teaching. But, of course, you have to figure out first is this scripture or not and then determine whether or not it's a theological error or not or is it authentic scripture.

02:38:58

The same is true with moral errors and the same is true with supposed factual errors. They're all part of the same category.

02:39:04

What you have to first do is determine whether it's inspired and then see whether this is a problem that can be reconciled or not.

02:39:13

Mr. Machuta and then response, Mr. White, Dr. White, if there are popes that have denied the canonicity of the

02:39:20

Apocrypha and other popes that support its canonicity, does this not refute papal infallibility as this is surely a teaching on faith?

02:39:30

Well, thank you for that very simple three -part question. First, Gregory the

02:39:38

Great did not reject the Deuterocanon. Rather, he basically parroted the words of Jerome in his preface to,

02:39:46

I believe, Proverbs, namely that the Book of Maccabees, although not being canonical, is nevertheless brought forward for the edification of the people.

02:39:57

Now, of course, the question is if he's parroting Jerome's words, is this actually part of what

02:40:03

Gregory the Great actually believed, or is he just giving a nod to what is perhaps the greatest biblical scholar of his day?

02:40:10

This is a problem, by the way, with the 50 names that James brought up with Cosen, that you have 50 major theological writers who denied the

02:40:19

Deuterocanonical books, but what you find, and I'm the type that actually looks up all these 50 people, what you find is a great majority of them, they will parrot

02:40:28

Jerome's words, but in their own writings, they'll affirm the inspiration of the books. And that's what occurs with Gregory the

02:40:34

Great, that Gregory the Great affirms the inspiration of these books. In fact, all the writers that James has mentioned, except for Melito, because we don't have much from Melito, affirm the inspired status of these books, even though they may not have included it as canonical.

02:40:50

And that's because they had different ideas of what canon actually meant. Many of them believe the canon was really a subset of the

02:40:58

Old Testament. In other words, you have canonical Old Testament books and non -canonical Old Testament books. Mike?

02:41:06

I don't believe it's parroting Jerome at all. He says, with reference to which particularly we are not acting irregularly, if from the books, though not canonical, yet brought out for the edification of the church, we bring forward testimony.

02:41:17

That's Gregory the Great. And so he did not view them as being of the canon, that is, that which we derive our beliefs from, but they existed to be read for edification.

02:41:27

That was the constant differentiation that is made down through the centuries by the majority of these ecclesiastical writings.

02:41:34

And remember when it says he used them as if they were inspired. Remember, Mr. Matute has also said Jesus and the apostles used the apocryphal books as if they were inspired, which means they knew that they existed, but they never cited them as scripture.

02:41:50

But Dr. White, since there is no inspired table of contents in the

02:41:56

Bible, how can you infallibly know that your canon is the correct canon?

02:42:02

Excellent question. I wanted to ask that question in cross -examination of the Roman Catholic position because, in reality, the question assumes something that it shouldn't assume, and that is that we should somehow have the same knowledge of the canon that God does.

02:42:17

God knows the canon infallibly because he inspired the books that comprise the canon. He then communicates his infallible knowledge to us by means.

02:42:25

That takes a process of time, as it did in the Old Testament, as it does in the New Testament as well. To ask me for infallible knowledge, it's sort of like when people say, well, do you infallibly know this?

02:42:35

I like to return the favor and say, do you infallibly understand the doctrine of the Trinity?

02:42:41

And when I meet someone who actually believes that, I will have some questions for them that they may want to answer.

02:42:47

The issue is not infallible knowledge. It is sufficient knowledge. It is knowledge that is sufficient for us to live a life of godliness.

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And I believe that in the same way that God made known the canon of the Old Testament so that the

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Son of God could hold men accountable to it, which he did. He did hold men accountable to knowing what was and what was not

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Scripture. That the same God who made that canon known to his people to that sufficient level did the same thing in the

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New Testament. I have a quote from Augustine similar to that that I don't have time to read in 10 seconds.

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But the question assumes one element that is untrue and then does give us the opportunity of at least making reference to the means by which

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God makes the canon known to his people. From Achuta. The truth of the matter is that James can't tell us exactly which books were indeed accepted as sacred

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Scripture by Jesus. Because the very fact of the matter is there is no New Testament list.

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What I pointed out is that the New Testament does use the Deuterocanonical books in a manner commensurate with sacred

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Scripture. In other words, the New Testament evidence is neutral to positive in favor of these books.

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What James says is that no, these have to be rejected as apocrypha, as mere human writings.

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Which is something that the New Testament nowhere does. It's not what the apostolic fathers do, as I mentioned from Braben's doctoral dissertation.

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They're always using the matter commensurate with sacred Scripture. And the only time you have them repudiated as not being

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Scripture comes again from Akiva at the Bar Kokhba revolt. And then, of course, Jerome, relying on rabbinical

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Judaism of his day, also rejects the Deuterocanon. This is a two -way question.

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I'll give 90 seconds to each of you and this will wrap up the question time. First, for Mr.

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Machuta, how would a rejection of the apocrypha affect a genuine believer's walk with the

02:44:46

Lord? How could a rejection of the apocrypha affect the genuine...

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Well, I think James now would, well, maybe James wouldn't agree. The Deuterocanonical books teach doctrines such as purgatory, free will, the intercession of saints.

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This has been recognized from the very beginning in Protestantism. In fact, as Bruce M.

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Metzger notes, that the reformers wished to correct the church from doctrinal abuses.

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So first they had to determine, well, which books are indeed Scripture. And then they began to disparage the

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Deuterocanonical books specifically because they teach things like purgatory, intercessions of saints, and so on.

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So it does affect. It would probably be the difference between me as a Catholic and James as a non -Catholic.

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If this is the inspired word of God, then this is what we have to submit our mind and our intellect, our will, our hearts to.

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And if it's not, then it's mere human writing. And to believe that these books are inspired when they're not, what

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I would believe would be blasphemous. Dr. White, how might an acceptance of the apocrypha affect a genuine believer's walk with the

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Lord? Well, what was just said in many ways would reflect that in the sense that I would not agree that the apocrypha teaches this concept of purgatory.

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Sorry, I direct you to the purgatory debate for a full discussion of that. That's simply not the case. But given that these are not inspired writings, then you will not be able to make them consistent with the canon of Scripture.

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And it is that consistency of inspired Scripture that is such a tremendous possession of the true child of God who, looking into the word of God, sees this tremendous consistency in the inspired writ.

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You could not do that. We've seen that looking at Judith. You simply would have to so completely abandon any standard of true recording of history in Scripture that concepts of inerrancy and inspiration would be completely muddled.

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And so, really, it does go back to the issue of knowing the word of God and embracing the word of God.

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And upon what basis do we know what is in Scripture and what is not? Do we do so on the basis of examining the usage of Jesus and the apostles?

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Or are we left in a system where, fundamentally, 53 prelates in Trent in 1546 can anathematize you, separate you from the body of Christ, if you do not follow their decree on that issue?

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I think the evidence has been very clear this evening as to how we are to decide that fact. This brings us to the conclusion of the ninth annual

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Great Debate. And I think that you will all agree that both Mr. Machuta and Dr. White have comported themselves as gentlemen and scholars in this debate, and they deserve a round of applause.