The first Christians weren't Bible Christians

[Phatt Matt s]

[Aractus]

What you said about the Catholic Church not knowing what the correct canon was until the 16th Century is a cherished myth void of truth and can easily be proven so.

You haven't tried to trace the history of the LXX and Apocrypha. If you had this would be a very different discussion. The Latin Vulgate has its own Apocrypha section of three books rejected from the scriptures at the time, banished from the canon, and still rejected by Catholics, Protestants and Jews.

The Jewish canon can be traced all the way back to Christ very nicely. It is arranged into 3 sections - "Law", "Prophets" and "Writings"/"Psalms". There's overwhelming evidence for this, and this is the version of scriptures that Jesus is familiar with:

• Luke 24:44: Then (Jesus) said to them, “These are my words that I spoke to you while I was still with you, that everything written about me in the Law of Moses and the Prophets and the Psalms must be fulfilled.”

The structure of the LXX is different and is: Law, History Wisdom, Prophets. We can trace the Hebrew structure as it is in the MT back before Christ, we can trace the LXX structure to the 5th column of the Hexapla, that's where the order comes from, and in fact that's the first time we ever find the Apocrypha alongside the scriptures (as you mentioned, Tobit was found in the DSS alongside scriptures and plenty of non-scriptures). We never hear any mention of these 4 categories until the Hexapla.

There are six bodies of text that contemporary scholars consult for the Old Testament:

1. Masoretic Text (10th century)
   
2. Qumran Text (2nd cent BC-2nd cent AD)
   
3. Samaritan Pentateuch (composition c. 200-100 BC, earliest copy 11th century AD)
   
4. Septuagint (composition c. 1st cent BC-2nd cent AD - no complete ancient manuscripts of the LXX) Main Manuscripts: Codex Marchalianus (6th cent.), Codex Vaticanus (4th cent.), Codex Sinaiticus (4th cent.), Codex Alexandrinus (5th cent.), Codex Ephraemi Rescriptus (5th cent.) and, finally Codex Chisianus (9th cent. and the only manuscript to contain the LXX book of Daniel as it appeared in the Hexapla, besides the fragmentary P967).
   
5. The Peshitta (Syriac, Authors unknown, date unknown).
   
6. Vulgate (Latin, early 5th cent. the primary textual basis for the OT followed the LXX as it appeared in the Hexapla with the exception of Daniel which followed Theodotion's Daniel).

The other Greek translations - aside from some of Theodotion's - have been forever lost. While Theodotion translated the whole of the OT, it is known he did not include the apocrypha, aside from Baruch.

What you call the LXX has been shortened anyway, originally the LXX included the Prayer of Manasseh, 3 Esdras and 4 Esdras which ever since the Vulgate has forever been banished to non-canon status.

In any case the LXX traces back to the Hexapla, where it is beyond doubt that Origen substantially modified it as he went along (he even marked the areas that he changed). Jerome himself attests to this fact.

[Phatt Matt s]

Which mistakes were made at the council of Rome, Carthage, and Hippo?

It was the same Canon as the Council of Trent.

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You seem to know so please explain to me why the Septuagint book of Daniel was removed and replaced with the Theodatian book of Daniel? And how about while you're at it you tell me when and why this occurred? And while you're at it could you tell me when "the" LXX was written?

And I will take not of this and find out if it is true

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Who is the Final authority for determining the Canon? You?

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The problem is I don't at this time always know how I can determine if you know what you're talking about.

[Aractus]

[Aractus]

Still waiting...

As I see it Protestants just restored the OT to the Hebrew scriptures as it was for first century Jews and the first Christians, undoing the changes to the OT made by successive iterations of translations and revisions.

[Phatt Matt s]

Still waiting...

As I see it Protestants just restored the OT to the Hebrew scriptures as it was for first century Jews and the first Christians, undoing the changes to the OT made by successive iterations of translations and revisions.

I'm waiting for you to tell me which mistakes were made in the Councils of Rome, Carthage, and Hippo.

How do you know that it was a mistake?

Also, I've explained my stance. IF I were getting paid or a medal for winning a debate with you I might be more interested in getting more info.

However, I didn't come here to win an arguement. I'm not sure that your claims are correct because they don't add up with the Historical accounts that I read.

If one account says one thing and another says another, I am not in a position to say who is right or who is wrong...and there is always the possibility that both are wrong.

[Aractus]

I'm waiting for you to tell me which mistakes were made in the Councils of Rome, Carthage, and Hippo.

How do you know that it was a mistake?

Not every decision is written, some are de-facto. I've explained very clearly the development of the LXX as we have it - those facts are not in dispute. The most important being that changes were made to it on a number of occasions, not to mention that we do not reliably know who translated the books when or how they came to be a single volume, but we do know that Jews read from 22 scrolls (or as we count them, 39 books). The minor prophets were written on a single scroll for instance. This is confirmed by numerous early sources.

The full volume of the LXX has 51 books, yet the Catholic Bible has 46 OT books. The eastern Orthodox church includes the book of Odes in their canon, but the RCC excludes it - could you tell me when it was decided to banish it from the scriptures?

There's more variation of the OT canon in Greek than you are admitting to.

[Phatt Matt s]

And that is where it becomes extremely difficult to inerrantly determine which authority to follow

[rightcoaster]

... Paul seems to quote from the proto LXX ...


I believe that Paul ... made use of a proto-LXX

Someone here pointed me to a book by Hyam Maccoby on Paul as mythologizer, the true inventor of Christianity (and quite the opportunist and liar). Maccoby makes, inter many alia, the interesting observation that if Paul was really a Pharisee trained by Gamaliel he'd not have used the LXX. In some of the letters (those agreed not pseudonymous) he used LXX phrases that differ from their Hebrew counterparts, so that the Hebrew text was not his source. I can't recall them, and finding the specific cites would require drudgery.

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Still waiting...

As I see it Protestants just restored the OT to the Hebrew scriptures as it was for first century Jews and the first Christians, undoing the changes to the OT made by successive iterations of translations and revisions.

Aractus, if the Protestants did all that noble restoration, why do so many of their translations still have Isaiah 7:14 so wrong, and so very few have it right?

[Aractus]

Someone here pointed me to a book by Hyam Maccoby on Paul as mythologizer, the true inventor of Christianity (and quite the opportunist and liar). Maccoby makes, inter many alia, the interesting observation that if Paul was really a Pharisee trained by Gamaliel he'd not have used the LXX. In some of the letters (those agreed not pseudonymous) he used LXX phrases that differ from their Hebrew counterparts, so that the Hebrew text was not his source. I can't recall them, and finding the specific cites would require drudgery.

Well he didn't use the LXX, he used the proto-lxx, we do not know what it was prior to the Hexapla's fifth column. Also he used scribes, his scribes probably couldn't read Hebrew?

Aractus, if the Protestants did all that noble restoration, why do so many of their translations still have Isaiah 7:14 so wrong, and so very few have it right?

Well I'm glad you asked. Why? Because of this:

• Isaiah 7:14 LXX: Therefore the Lord himself shall give you a sign; behold, a virgin shall conceive in the womb, and shall bring forth a son, and thou shalt call his name Emmanuel.
  Isaiah 7:14 MT/DSS: Therefore the Lord himself will give you a sign. Behold, the virgin shall conceive and bear a son, and shall call his name Immanuel.
  Matthew 1:23: “Behold, the virgin shall conceive and bear a son, and they shall call his name Immanuel”

Matthew never quotes from the LXX(/proto-lxx), he in fact is quoting from the Hebrew just like Luke and I could go through all of his quotes and prove it if I had to. Here's another:

• Matthew 2:17-18
  Then was fulfilled what was spoken by the prophet Jeremiah:
  
  “A voice was heard in Ramah,
  weeping and loud lamentation,
  Rachel weeping for her children;
  she refused to be comforted, because they are no more.”
  
  Jeremiah 31:15
  Thus says the Lord:
  “A voice is heard in Ramah,
  lamentation and bitter weeping.
  Rachel is weeping for her children;
  she refuses to be comforted for her children,
  because they are no more.”
  
  Jeremiah 38:15 (LXX)
  A voice was heard in Rama, of lamentation, and of weeping, and wailing; Rachel would not cease weeping for her children, because they are not.

So the question for you would be actually why do both Matthew and the LXX translate as "virgin" independently of each other?