Roman.

earlier, Angel, wrote:
>Which "Catholic" bible do you mean?  Roman,
>Coptic Christian, or Orthodox Christian?  As all three aren't having 
>to do with those Christians springing from the reformation movement.
>----- Original Message ----- From: "john schwery" <[log in to unmask]>
>To: <[log in to unmask]>
>Sent: Friday, May 10, 2013 7:06 PM
>Subject: Re: Catholic (with deuterocanonical books) Audio Bibles (NRS, DR)
>
>
>>Grant, good one.
>>
>>earlier, Grant E. Metcalf, wrote:
>>>Sharon Hooley ask: "Is there a difference between the Catholic 
>>>Bible and the new Jerusalem Bible?"
>>>
>>>Angel wrote: "There is no such thing as a 'Catholic' bible. The 
>>>Roman Catholic church recognizes the New Jerusalem bible, 
>>>however.  She recognizes all bibles which are translated from the 
>>>Septuagint wherein are found the deuterocanonical books."
>>>
>>>john schwery comments: When I see a version with the Apocrypha 
>>>added, that is a Catholic Bible."
>>>
>>>Grant comments:  Below I will provide several quotations which 
>>>indicate that there is a Roman Catholic version of the Bible 
>>>officially designated by the Council of Trent, 1546. I also 
>>>provide the info from the title page of a braille New Testament 
>>>given to me 45 years ago which seems to indicate that there is a 
>>>Roman Catholic Bible.
>>>
>>>Begin:
>>>  The New Testament of Our Lord Jesus Christ, Translated from the 
>>> Vulgate, A Revision of the Challoner-Rhemes Version, Edited by 
>>> Catholic Schollars, under the Patronage of THE EPISCOPAL 
>>> COMMITTEE of the CONFRATERNITY OF CHRISTIAN DOCTRINE, St. Anthony 
>>> Guild Press, Patterson, New Jersey. End of quotation.
>>>This comes in ten braille volumes with multitudinous explanatory 
>>>notes reflecting Roman Catholic views.
>>>
>>>Secondly, I quote numerous snipits from: Baker Encyclopedia of 
>>>Christian Apologetics, Norman L. Geisler, 1999. This is lengthy. I 
>>>will provide the entire 8 pages if you want to read the full 
>>>section. Write me off list.
>>>Begin:
>>>     Apocrypha, Old and New Testaments. Apocrypha most commonly 
>>> refers to disputed books that Protestants reject and Roman 
>>> Catholics and Orthodox communions accept into the Old Testament. 
>>> The word apocrypha means "hidden" or "doubtful." So those who 
>>> accept these documents prefer to call them "deuterocanonical," or 
>>> books of "the second canon."
>>>     ...
>>>     The Septuagint and the Apocrypha. The fact that the New 
>>> Testament often quotes from other books in the Greek Old 
>>> Testament in no way proves that the deuterocanonical books it 
>>> contains are inspired. It is not even certain that the Septuagint 
>>> of the first century contained the Apocrypha. The earliest Greek 
>>> manuscripts that include them date from the fourth century A.D.
>>>     ...
>>>     It is also important to remember that these books were not 
>>> part of the Christian (New Testament period) writings. Hence, 
>>> they were not under the province of the Christian church to 
>>> decide. They were the province of the Jewish community which 
>>> wrote them and which had, centuries before, rejected them as part of the canon.
>>>     ...
>>>     The Catholic Arguments in Summary. At best, all that the 
>>> arguments urged in favor of the canonicity of the apocryphal 
>>> books prove is that various apocryphal books were given varied 
>>> degrees of esteem by various persons within the Christian church, 
>>> usually falling short of claims for the books' canonicity. Only 
>>> after Augustine and the local councils he dominated pronounced 
>>> them inspired did they gain wider usage and eventual infallible 
>>> acceptance by the Roman Catholic church at Trent. This falls far 
>>> short of the kind of initial, continual, and full recognition 
>>> among Christian churches of the canonical books of the Protestant 
>>> Old Testament and Jewish Torah (which exclude the Apocrypha). 
>>> True canonical books were received immediately by the people of 
>>> God into the growing canon of Scripture. ... Any subsequent 
>>> debate was by those who were not in a position, as was the 
>>> immediate audience, to know whether they were from an accredited 
>>> apostle or prophet. ...
>>>     Arguments for the Protestant Canon. Evidence indicates that 
>>> the Protestant canon, consisting of the thirty-nine books of the 
>>> Hebrew Bible and excluding the Apocrypha, is the true canon. The 
>>> only difference between the Protestant and ancient Palestinian 
>>> Canon lies in organization. The ancient Bible lists twenty-four 
>>> books.... The Palestinian Jews represented Jewish orthodoxy 
>>> Therefore, their canon was recognized as the orthodox one. It was 
>>> the canon of Jesus, Josephus, and Jerome. It was the canon of 
>>> many early church fathers, among them Origen, Cyril of Jerusalem, 
>>> and Athanasius.
>>>     ...
>>>     Jewish Rejection. In addition to the evidence for the 
>>> propheticity of only the books of the Jewish and Protestant Old 
>>> Testament, there is an unbroken line of rejection of the 
>>> Apocrypha as canon by Jewish and Christian teachers.
>>>     Philo, an Alexandrian Jewish teacher (20 B.C.-A.D. 40), 
>>> quoted the Old Testament prolifically from virtually every 
>>> canonical book. However, he never once quoted from the Apocrypha as inspired.
>>>     Josephus (A.D. 30-100), a Jewish historian, explicitly 
>>> excludes the Apocrypha, numbering the Old Testament as twenty two 
>>> books (= thirty-nine books in Protestant Old Testament). Neither 
>>> does he ever quote an Apocryphal book as Scripture, though he was 
>>> familiar with them. In Against Apion (1.8) he wrote:
>>>     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 are justly believed to be 
>>> divine; and of them, five belong to Moses, which contain his law, 
>>> 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 at 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. [Josephus, 1.8.
>>>     These correspond exactly to the Jewish and Protestant Old 
>>> Testament, which excludes the Apocrypha.
>>>     The Jewish teachers acknowledged that their prophetic line 
>>> ended in the fourth century B.C. Yet, as even Catholics 
>>> acknowledge, all apocryphal books were written after this time.
>>>     ...
>>>     Jesus and the New Testament writers never quoted from the 
>>> Apocrypha as Scripture, even though they were aware of these 
>>> writings and alluded to them at times (e.g., Heb. 11:35 may 
>>> allude to 2 Maccabees 7, 12, though this may be a reference to 
>>> the canonical book of Kings; see 1 Kings 17:22). Yet hundreds of 
>>> quotations in the New Testament cite the Old Testament canon. The 
>>> authority with which they are cited indicates that the New 
>>> Testament writers believed them to be part of the "Law and 
>>> Prophets" [i.e., whole Old Testament] which was believed to be 
>>> the inspired and infallible Word of God (Matt. 5:17-18; cf. John 
>>> 10:35), Jesus quoted from throughout the Old Testament "Law and 
>>> Prophets," which he called "all the Scriptures" (Luke 24:27).
>>>    ...
>>>     Early church council rejection. No canonic list or council of 
>>> the Christian church accepted the Apocrypha as inspired for 
>>> nearly the first four centuries. This is significant, since all 
>>> of the lists available and most of the fathers of this period 
>>> omit the Apocrypha. The first councils to accept the Apocrypha 
>>> were only local ones without ecumenical force. The Catholic 
>>> contention that the Council of Rome (382), though not an 
>>> ecumenical council, had ecumenical force because Pope Damasus 
>>> (304-384) ratified it is without grounds. It begs the question, 
>>> assuming that Damasus was a Pope with infallible authority. 
>>> Second, even Catholics acknowledge this council was not an 
>>> ecumenical body. Third, not all Catholic scholars agree that such 
>>> affirmations by Popes are infallible. There are no infallible 
>>> lists of infallible statements by Popes. Nor are there any 
>>> universally agreed upon criteria for developing such lists. At 
>>> best, appealing to a Pope to make infallible a statement by a 
>>> local council is a double-edged sword. Even Catholic scholars 
>>> admit that some Popes taught error and were even heretical.
>>>     Early fathers' rejection. Early fathers of the Christian 
>>> church spoke out against the Apocrypha. This included Origen, 
>>> Cyril of Jerusalem, Athanasius, and the great Roman Catholic 
>>> Bible translator, Jerome.
>>>     ...
>>>     Conclusion. Differences over the Old Testament Apocrypha play 
>>> a crucial role in Roman Catholic and Protestant differences over 
>>> such teachings as purgatory and prayers for the dead. There is no 
>>> evidence that the Apocryphal books are inspired and, therefore, 
>>> should be part of the canon of inspired Scripture. They do not 
>>> claim to be inspired, nor is inspiration credited to them by the 
>>> Jewish community that produced them. They are never quoted as 
>>> Scripture in the New Testament. Many early fathers, including 
>>> Jerome, categorically rejected them. Adding them to the Bible 
>>> with an infallible decree at the Council of Trent shows evidence 
>>> of being a dogmatic and polemical pronouncement calculated to 
>>> bolster support for doctrines that do not find clear support in 
>>> any of the canonical books.... (End of quotations.)
>>>
>>>Hopefully this has been helpful to your understanding of Biblical 
>>>history and its canonicity.
>>>
>>>Listening for His shout!
>>>
>>>Grant E. Metcalf
>>>Bartimaeus Alliance of the Blind, Inc.
>>>Email:  [log in to unmask]
>>>Desk:  650-754-4207
>>>Home:  650-589-6890
>>>Website:  http://bartimaeus.us/
>>
>>John
>
>John