Pi Schmi - Excellent! Hope questioning JWs read your post/info. Thanks for the share.
Encouraging scriptures for the day
by Kosonen 543 Replies latest jw friends
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PioneerSchmioneer
Kosonen:
So could it be that the writers of those non canonical books based their writings on those that already existed and just paraphrased what the inspired God’s prophets already had written?
To my knowledge the Christian Greek Scriptures almost exclusively quote from the canonical Hebrew scriptures. Maybe that was an important criteria in deciding what Hebrew scriptures should be included in the Bible?First, the Bible was canonized by the Catholic Church under the authority of Rome.
The process was begun by the invention of the canon by Marcion of Sinope, a bishop who was trying to introduce Gnostic thought into Christianity, and went to the pope in Rome with his "new invention" of a "canon" of Christian writings that supported his Gnostic ideas in the 2nd century (though he was not a true Gnostic himself). It ended in the 4th century, exactly on Easter Sunday of 367 CE, when a bishop by the name of Athanasius authorized the New Testament canon developed by Eusebius which included the 27 books we hold today.
By default, the Church was acknowledging the "Old Testament" of the Alexandrine Septuagint, which included the so-called "Apocrypha." In the 1500s, during the Council of Trent, the Church defined these books as "Deuterocanonical," and listed each one of them, including the Wisdom of Solomon and Sirach. Interestingly, the King James Bible would also include a translation of each and every one of these, which to date are still included in many copies.
As to whether the writers of these books "copied" from others...
In the case of the Wisdom of Solomon, no one in Israel was expecting the Messiah to be betrayed by his own people, let alone the religious leaders. This prophecy is obviously about the leaders in Israel, most of which are religious, talking about murdering the Messiah by torture. The idea of this was even alien to the apostle Peter, remember?--Matthew 16:21-23.
Even when Jesus actually was betrayed, it was so unimaginable and confusing that his actual followers were scattered and hid. Some lost their faith. Only Mary, Mary Magdelene, and John the Apostle reportedly stayed with Jesus until the end--perhaps a few other of the women. Everyone else abandoned and fled who they believed was obviously a failed Messiah.
The section in the Wisdom of Solomon when read in context does not look like a prophecy nor does it even say it is about the Messiah, like most other prophecies in the Hebrew Scriptures. It is hidden. In fact, when you are reading the book, it is at the very beginning, talking about how the wicked reject righteousness in general and how they mistreat the poor and are unkind. It doesn't say outright that the writer is speaking about the Messiah.--See Wisdom of Solomon chapters 1 & 2.
The Church since the time of the Apostles has understood that this text is about the Messiah, since the Church Fathers who through Tradition claim it is one of the texts Jesus explained to them after his Resurrection.--Luke 24:44-46.
Jehovah's Witnesses do not study or read the Church Fathers--which is a very large collection of works. They just post a few tidbits of phrases here and there in their publications, and they tend to avoid any texts that are contrary to their beliefs. Catholics and most Protestants read and study these texts--Catholics and Orthodox Christians tend to do this daily along with the Bible in order to know the foundations of the Faith as these are the building blocks of where their faith and the teachings of Jesus come from.
As for the text in Sirach, it outright claims in the text that references to various other Scripture texts is taking place. The writer is obviously familiar with the Scriptures because he is talking about all the famous prophets in this section, and here he is talking about Elijah in particular.
But the point I was making is that in the gospel accounts the apostles do not claim that one prophet or scribe claims that Elijah comes first. They claim that plural scribes or prophets do this.
In other words, in Jesus time, the apostles and Jesus Christ himself acknowledged that multiple writers foretold the coming of Elijah, who would be John the Baptist.
They ask: "Why do the scribes say Elijah must come first?" and not "Why does Malachi say Elijah must come first?"
These "scribes" that the apostles and Jesus acknowledge as foretelling the coming of John the Baptist must not only include Malachi but also Sirach, because the Church Fathers and the early Church included that book in the Old Testament--and they teach this since antiquity. This is one of the reasons the book was left in the collection of the Old Testament.
In fact, it would not be until 1804 CE--almost 2000 years after Christ--when some Protestants in Britian would consider dropping the Apocrypha from their printings of the Bible. Up to that point, even Protestants always included the Apocrypha in their Bibles.--See the "Apocrypha Controversy" of the 1820s.
The criteria for including which Scriptures to include in the Old Testament was simply what was found in the Alexandrine Septuagint. This was the text used by the Apostolic college and the Church Fathers. Eventually this was the basis for the translation of the Latin Vulgate. Thus, this became the official canon of the Old Testament for Christians.
To this day, technically speaking, the Jews do not have a closed "canon." What they did was standardize and preserve the Hebrew text for fear it would be lost since Jews stopped talking in Biblical/litugical Hebrew before the 1st century CE (and there was yet no Modern/Israeli Hebrew to take its place to help preserve it). Beginning in the 8th century they had the family of the Masoretes, great scribes, begin collecting the best extant Hebrew manuscripts, compare them and then develop a standardized Hebrew text. They completed it in the 10th century. It is what we call today the Masoretic text.
It does not have, for example, the works of the Wisdom of Solomon or Sirach, for one reason since there were no Hebrew texts of these works at that time.
In the mid-20th century, the Dead Sea Scrolls were discovered. We found every book of the Bible, including the Apocrypha, except for Esther, among them, in Hebrew. Some of the most startling finds have been Isaiah and Tobit--Tobit being a so-called book of the Apocrypha.
One of the best new translations of Tobit based on the findings of the Dead Sea Scrolls is now available in the official Catholic Bible for the United States, the NABRE. It can be found online.
So to answer you question, no. These books were not making these things up by copying from other books of the "canonized" Bible (there was no "canon" yet, so to speak).
You obviously have little knowledge of the Scriptures and Biblical history.
Why are you offering us "encouragement" if you don't know these things or studied canonization history or familiar with the Church Fathers or the library of what books were in the ancient Christians' canon?
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Queequeg
Narcissism is voluntary blindness, an agreement not to look beneath the surface.
- Sam Keen
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Kosonen
Hi PioneerSchmioneer, thank you for putting great effort to write down your thoughts for me. I read it through and decided to see why all Bibles have not the Apocrypha books.
Under this link there is a lot of information. I copied two paragraphs from that article for those who don’t want to read all the article:
https://wol.jw.org/en/wol/d/r1/lp-e/1200000305
Evidence Against Canonicity. While in some cases they have certain historical value, any claim for canonicity on the part of these writings is without any solid foundation. The evidence points to a closing of the Hebrew canon following the writing of the books of Ezra, Nehemiah, and Malachi in the fifth century B.C.E. The Apocryphal writings were never included in the Jewish canon of inspired Scriptures and do not form part of it today.
The first-century Jewish historian Josephus shows the recognition given only to those few books (of the Hebrew canon) viewed as sacred, stating: “We do not possess myriads of inconsistent books, conflicting with each other. Our books, those which are justly accredited, are but two and twenty [the equivalent of the 39 books of the Hebrew Scriptures according to modern division], and contain the record of all time.” He thereafter clearly shows an awareness of the existence of Apocryphal books and their exclusion from the Hebrew canon by adding: “From Artaxerxes to our own time the complete history has been written, but has not been deemed worthy of equal credit with the earlier records, because of the failure of the exact succession of the prophets.”—Against Apion, I, 38, 41 (8).
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Kosonen
To those who previously complained that I don't respond to all posts and questions and arguments. I am sorry for that. But I just lack motivation to respond to many statements. That's just what I am. So I hope you will accept that, even though that disappoints you.
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PioneerSchmioneer
There was no "closing" of the canon or even an invention of the "canon" until Marcion of Sinope in the 2nd century CE.
First, Josephus is not a Jewish historian. Flavius Josephus is a Roman historian. Once a Pharisee, during the Jewish Revolt, when all was lost, he told his fellow Jews to surrender to the Jews. He became obsessed with the Romans after being captured and eventually attached himself to the Roman cause and joined the Roman army--all which was forbidden under the Mosaic Law.
There was no such thing as a "canon" as the word is Greek not Hebrew or Latin.
The idea for a "canon" was a Gnostic one, not a Christian idea. Marcion of Sinope was a bishop of the 2nd century who fell in love with the Hellenistic religion, mixing the Gnostic idea of "salvation" via "learning" or gathering knowledge (in Greek "gnosis").
At the time, the earliest Christians met on the day after the Sabbath, often as soon as the Jewish Sabbath broke, which was Saturday at sundown or the next day, Sunday morning, for a meeting which resembled the synagogue service, except it ended with an extra reading, from some of the writings of the letters of the apostles and then a sharing in the Eucharist and a collection of the poor (and sometimes a meal, if it was on a Saturday evening).
The "letters" and "writings" of the apostles that circulated were of interest to Marcion. He believed they were salvific in the way the Gnostics taught.
The Gnostics also taught that only a select class were demi-gods, and Marcion was convinced that Jesus Christ was one of these. He also believed that anyone who studied selected parts of these writings could become one of these "saved" demi-gods.
But Marcion rejected the Hebrew Scriptures and all these Jewish. So how could he get Christian to this "correct" path of "salvation"? Marcion created a "rule," which in Greek is a "canon." It consisted of select writings of the apostle Paul, from which Marcion removed parts when Paul cited or quoted from the Hebrew Bible or talked about anything "too Jewish."
Marcion also wrote his own gospel--but it was most likely the Gospel of Luke with the first two chapters removed because those two chapters have very many Jewish references in them.
Believing he would change Christianity forever and get awarded for what he was doing (and because he already had many followers), Marcion went to the pope in Rome for approval for his canon of books. What he received instead was a demand to repent under threat of excommunication. When he refused, he was expelled from the Church in shame.
Because he had so many followers, and the Gnostic threat was only growing, the Church began to study the issue of canonization. Was there such a thing a closed canon of select books, both Hebrew and Greek? It would take another 150-200 years before the Church had a complete answer (and before the Marcionist threat was silenced).
But Josephus was not around when any of this happened. He was long dead before the idea of the invention of the canon was invented. Josephus died in 100 CE and Marcion of Sinope did not come up with his idea of a canon until 144 CE.
And the New Testament canon was not closed until 367 CE.
Josephus, a Jew who betrayed his people to join the Roman army, could not be speaking about something that did not exist or had not even been invented.
Why would you quote something like this? It doesn't prove anything.
It doesn't prove a thing.
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PioneerSchmioneer
So let's get back.
How did the writers in the Wisdom of Solomon get the details so exact?
Why do the Apostles and Jesus make reference to "scribes"--obviously to not just Malachi but also Sirach?
Why was the Apocrypha not removed until the Aprocrypha Controversy of the early 1800s and then only between the two British Bible Societies?
And why am I always able to give you answers saturated with references, Bible verses, and information--but all you can do is give me is cut and paste information from a religion you don't agree with, whose religious leaders disfellowed you.
That's like offering me poison and telling me it's good for me. That's not proving a point.
If you go back and rejoin the religion today, maybe you wouldn't sound like a hypocrite.
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Kosonen
PioneerSchmioneer:
"why am I always able to give you answers saturated with references, Bible verses, and information--but all you can do is give me is cut and paste information from a religion you don't agree with, whose religious leaders disfellowed you."
The simple answer might be, because it is the easiest and quickest way for me to respond. I think that could be described as pragmatism.
Because there is a lot I don't like in the WT library, but there are also things that are useful for me.
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PioneerSchmioneer
Kosonen:
Pragmatism is the employment of something that is practical, useful. If a person has a broken leg and you offer them a slice of cheese, how practical or useful is that just because that is the easiest and quickest way for you to respond?
If you are going to be a true disciple of Christ, you have to respond the correct way. To be a disciple means you can't offer what is easy for you.
“If anyone would come after me, let him deny himself and take up his cross and follow me. For whoever would save his life will lose it."--Matthew 16:24-25, ESV.
You have to stop doing what is easy for you and sacrifice this. Otherwise you are fooling yourself. You might as well make an idol for yourself and follow that.
Did you even know what that quote meant that you cited? Have you ever read Against Apion? Did you know that in it Josephus is only counting 22 Hebrew books, and is leaving out Ecclesiates and Song of Solomon (Song of Songs)? I studied this work alongside the works of the Church Fathers and the sages of Judaism.
The work you quoted was just a snip from a much larger work, composed around 94 CE, and it was written by Josephus’ to a man named Apion Pleistoneices, a Hellenized Egyptian. Did you know that?
While Josephus had all but become a Roman in a secular sense, he was once a Pharisee. He had sold out to the live a life as a pagan contemporary and serve in the Roman army.
Josephus was not a religious authority, but even when he used to be a Jew, he belonged to the same Pharisee group so often condemned by Jesus Christ. Would you, a Christian, be offering the traditions of a Pharisee from Jesus' time as authoritative Christian doctrine? I doubt it.
Would you offer the words of a person who was an apostate Jew? I doubt that too.
Yet you did. Josephus was both those things.
And at the time he wrote this, he had turned away from being a fully practicing Jewish man to serve in the Roman forces as their official historian. So why are you offering his word at all since he is not an authority on religious matters?
The full quote of Against Apion 1:8 is as follows (note the added italics):
For we have not an innumerable multitude of books among us, disagreeing from and contradicting one another, as the Greeks have, but only twenty-two books, which contain the records of all the past times; which are justly believed to be divine; and of them five belong to Moses, which contain his laws and the traditions of the origin of mankind till his death. This interval of time was little short of three thousand years; but as to the time from the death of Moses till the reign of Artaxerxes king of Persia, who reigned after Xerxes, the prophets, who were after Moses, wrote down what was done in their times in thirteen books. The remaining four books contain hymns to God, and precepts for the conduct of human life. It is true, our history hath been written since Artaxerxes very particularly, but hath not been esteemed of the like authority with the former by our forefathers, because there hath not been an exact succession of prophets since that time; and how firmly we have given credit to these books of our own nation is evident by what we do; for during so many ages as have already passed, no one has been so bold as either to add any thing to them, to take any thing from them, or to make any change in them; but it is become natural to all Jews immediately, and from their very birth, to esteem these books to contain Divine doctrines, and to persist in them, and, if occasion be willingly to die for them.
In the current Jewish canon there are 24 books.
According to Josephus’ count, there would only be 22 books: the five books of the Torah, thirteen books of the Nevi’im, and four other books of hymns and wisdom.
Your argument is still wrong after offering this quote from Josephus. It didn't help a bit.
You offered a slice of cheese to a broken leg. Instead of proving something with this, the Watchtower (and you) proved MY point--that there was NO canon of Hebrew books until the establishment of the Church, as the writings of the Church Fathers prove.
And as history and the Church Fathers claim, it was the Alexandrine Septuagint--with the extra Deuterocanonical Books, including the Wisdom of Solomon and Sirach--that made up the Old Testament. The first time these were removed was in the early 1800s by the British Bible societies in their Apocrypha Controversy.
All of this is backed up by history.
Would the Holy Spirit move you to use a flawed method? Or is this not proof you have no Spirit from God and that Jesus is not there with you?
What you have been taught and what you currently believe is incorrect. The Bible you have been taught to use is incomplete, and what you are teaching people here isn't helpful.
You need to be taught religion and the Scriptures from the beginning and unlearn all things Watchtower. You need to teach people not religion from the Bible, but how to use it to leave the Watchtower religion behind. That is what they will find most encouraging.
Until you do that, I will keep disproving all you post, disproving that you are not teaching the truth, until either you or this thread breaks, because you are hurting people with what you are writing--and you don't care.
You are offering what makes you feel good instead of sacrificing and doing the right thing. You won't give up what feels good to you. That is not right. You don't even realize what these things say that you are posting.
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Kosonen
Maybe there are some brothers or sisters who appreciate the scriptures I post on this thread? But if there are not, which I am unable to know, I could well stop posting. But I still hope someone is encouraged by the scriptures I post.