Bible Canon

THE BIBLE CANON : M. M. NINAN
Council. At the time of the Protestant Reformation the authority of the Apocrypha was
challenged.
The Roman Catholic Church at the Council of Trent held in Tridentum, Italy from 1545 to
1563 canonized all the books of the Apocrypha, except I and II Esdras and the prayer of
Manasseh,, The accepted books were then called "Deuterocanonical" by them.
In 1672, at the Council of Jerusalem, the Eastern Orthodox Church accepted I Esdras, Tobit,
Judith, the Wisdom of Solomon, Ecclesiasticus, Baruch, the Prayer of Azariah and The Song
of the Three Young Men, Bel and the Dragon, and I and II Maccabees into their canon.
As it stands the general Christian consensus is lacking regarding the canonicity of Old
Testament books.
Protestants do not accept the apocrypha as canonical.. Martin Luther (1483-1546) did,
however, included the apocrypha in the appendix of his German translation of the Bible. The
Protestant Churches essentially hold Luther's view on the OT Canon.
The Roman Catholic Church in the Council of Trent (1548) accepted as inspired eleven of
the fourteen books of the apocrypha. It excluded I & II Esdras and the Prayer of Manasses
of the apocrypha from the list of canonical books. This decision was reiterated in the First
Vatican Council in 1870. Thus the Roman Catholic Old Testament has eleven more books
that the Protestant one.
The Eastern Orthodox Churches accepted Tobit, Judith, Ecclesiasticus and the Wisdom of
Solomon as canonical in the synod at Jerusalem in 1672. The canon of the Eastern Orthodox
churches contains in addition to all the books in the Roman Catholic Old Testament I Esdras,
III Maccabees and the Letter of Jeremiah. The Ethiopian Orthodox Church has expanded
canon of has all the books of the Eastern Cannon along with I Enoch, Jubilees and
Josippon's Medieval History.
"There are some 250 quotes from Old Testament books in the New Testament. None is from
the Apocrypha. (Jude [v. 14] quotes from the noncanonical book of Enoch, but that book is
classified as Pseudepigrapha, not Apocrypha.) All Old Testament books are quoted except
Esther, Ecclesiastes, and the Song of Solomon. [In Matthew 5:17] the Lord said that the
Law and the Prophets were authoritative because they were sure to be fulfilled. This twofold
division covers all of the Old Testament. [In Luke 11:51] the Lord said something definitive
about the extent of the canon of the Old Testament that He accepted. In condemning the
leaders of the Jewish people for killing God’s messengers throughout their history, He
charged them with being guilty of shedding the blood of all the righteous from Abel to
Zechariah. The murder of Abel is recorded in Genesis 4, and the murder of Zechariah in 2
Chronicles 24, which in the arrangement of the Hebrew canon was the last book in order (as
Malachi is in our arrangement). So the Lord was saying, 'From the first to the last murder
recorded in the Old Testament.' Now, of course, there were other murders of God’s
messengers recorded in the Apocrypha, but the Lord does not include them. Evidently He
did not consider the books of the Apocrypha to be of equal authority with the books from
Genesis to 2 Chronicles."
Charles C. Ryrie (1999-01-11). Basic Theology: A Popular Systematic Guide to
Understanding Biblical Truth (Kindle Locations 1999-2010). Moody Publishers. Kindle
Edition.
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