King James and
Jamnia...
During the Protestant Reformation, the reformers took the
liberty of removing the seven disputed books, called apochrypha by them, and
deuterocanonicals by Catholics, from the Old Testament, mainly because they did
not agree with the 'new' protestant teachings regarding purgatory and other
matters. Martin Luther pulled these books from their
rightful place where they had been for almost 1500 years and placed them in an
appendix. Later these books were removed entirely and for many years and up to
the present time, the main protestant bible, the King James version, had 66
books compared to Catholic Bibles which have 73 books. However, I do notice that
some present versions of the King James are offered as King James 'With
Apochrypha'. Is there a conflict here in protestantism? Are some sending a
message that the Catholic Church was right all along regarding these books?
The seven disputed books are: Baruch, Judith, Sirach, Maccabees 1 and 2, Tobit,
and Wisdom. Also removed were parts of Daniel and Esther.
If you talk to fundamentalists today, they will tell you that, since the Jews
wrote the Old Testament, theirs is the 'correct' canon, and that is the reason
they give for the removal of those books.
What they will never tell you,
however, is the full detailed account of how
their version of the 'correct' canon of the Jewish Bible came into
being.
At around 200 B.C., 6 Jewish translators from each of the twelve
tribes of Judah, or 72 all told, labored in Alexandria Egypt for over 100 years
translating the Hebrew Old Testament into the Greek language. Alexander the
Great had forced the Greek language into the areas he had conquered. Hebrew was
on the wane. They finally finished it and it was called the Septuagint, or LXX,
and it contained all the books of the Old Testament and included the disputed
books. For over a century this was the translation Greek speaking Jews used.
Then came along Christianity. The Christians used the Septuagint also, as
there was no New Testament in the first century.
The Jews became upset that
Christians were using the LXX, and they called a meeting to deal with the
matter. This meeting was called at around 100 A.D. and became known as the
'Council of Jamnia', after the town in which it was held. They wanted to remove
references in the LXX which Christians were using, and so they removed the seven
disputed books by setting up a criteria that the books could not meet. For more
detail about this subject, see the separate file 'Deuters' elsewhere on this website.
To sum it up:
The Greek Septuagint up until the time
of Jamnia, had all of the seven disputed books.
The Greek speaking Jews
accepted and used the Septuagint for about two hundred years until Christianity
came along.
Jewish writers removed the seven books as a result of the
Council of Jamnia.
That Council was a Jewish Council, not a Christian
Council.
Protestant fundamentalists point to this Council as the source
of the 'correct' canon of the Old Testament.
Protestant fundamentalists
accept the ruling of a Jewish Council that was specifically called to counter
Christianity, and at the same time reject the ruling of the Christian (Catholic)
Council of Carthage in 397 A.D. which finalized the canon of the Old Testament
and included all 46 books.
Written by Bob Stanley, Sept 3, 1997 as
a supplement to 'The Deuters'.
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