JESUS CHRIST: GOD-MAN - Vital Christianity

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4. Judith (ca. 150 B.C.) Judith
5. I Maccabees (ca. 100 B.C.) I Maccabees
6. II Maccabees (ca. 110-70 B.C.) II Maccabees
7. Baruch (ca. 150-50 B.C.) Baruch 1-5
8. Letters of Jeremiah (ca. 300-100 B.C.) Baruch 6
9. Additions to Esther (140-130 B.C.) Esther 10:4-16:24
10. Prayer of Azariah (2nd or 1st cent. B.C.) Daniel 3:24-90
(Song of Three Young Men)
11. Susanna (2nd or 1st cent. B.C.) Daniel 13
12. Bel and the Dragon (ca. 100 B.C.) Daniel 14
13. Prayer of Manasseh (2nd or 1st cent. B.C.) Prayer of Manasseh63
The Old Testament apocrypha is never quoted in the New Testament and was not even
accepted by Jerome whose Latin version of the Bible (ca. A.D. 400) became the official Bible of
the Roman Catholic Church at the Council of Trent in A.D. 1546. While the apocrypha provides
helpful and interesting history between the times of the Old and New Testaments, it does not
claim to be the work of prophets much less Scripture itself.
A group of Jewish scribes called the "Massoretes" devoted their lives to preserve the
Hebrew text of the Old Testament. They carefully copied the best manuscripts available during
the period between A.D. 400 and A.D. 900. They invented a system of marking vowels since the
Hebrew language only had consonants. This was a way to preserve the proper pronunciation of
words.
Because of their great reverence for the Holy Scriptures, the Massoretes went through an
extremely careful process in their translation work. Not only were the words counted on each
page of every book of the Hebrew Scriptures, but so were the number of letters even to the
point of indicating the center letters. They wanted to make sure they were completely accurate in
producing their copies of sacred Scripture.
The official recognition of our present canon or canonical Scriptures as the act by which
the church gave them their canonical status took place at The Synod of Hippo in A.D. 393 and
was quickly repromulgated by the Third Synod of Carthage in A.D. 397. Since this time, there
has been no serious questioning of the authenticity of the canon until recently in which there is
an onslaught of criticism by liberal scholars and nonscholars who claim that the present New
Testament canon was made up arbitrarily. Is their criticism valid? A careful look at the historical
process of canonicity will provide overwhelming evidence for the authenticity of the present
New Testament canon.
The true criterion of canonicity is inspiration. If Scripture means the written record of
the authoritative word of God, whatever was given by inspiration of God was Scripture, and
whatever did not come by inspiration of God was not Scripture.
But how can inspiration be demonstrated?