➔ Canonicity of the ➔ What is canon ◆ Derived from Greek and Hebrew for a reed or cane, denoting something straight or something to measure with. ◆ It came to be applied to Scripture to denote the authoritative rule of Faith and practice, the standard of doctrine & duty ➔ How did the Church come up with the current canon of the Bible? ➔ What is the Word of God? ◆ Inspired by God and committed once and for all to writing, they impart the word of God himself without change, and make the voice of the HOly Spirit resound in the words of the prophets and apostles (Dei Verbum 21) ➔ Church divided the writings into 4 categories: (these terms weren’t used until 16th century) ◆ Protocanonical ◆ Deuterocanonical ◆ Apocryphal ◆ Pseudepigraphal ➔ Protocanonical ◆ Proto - Latin meaning “first” ◆ It is a conventional word denoting these sacred writings which have always been received by Christendom w/o dispute ◆ 59 of these books ◆ Protocanonical books of OT correspond w/ those of the Bible of the Hebrews, & the OT received by the Protestants ➔ Deuterocanonical ◆ Deutero - “second” ◆ 14 of these ● 7 OT: Wisdom, , Tobit, Judith, Baruch, 1 & ● 7 NT: Hebrews, James, Jude, 2 Peter, 2 & 3 John, Revelation ◆ These books have been contested throughout history (partly b/c of some differences in language), but long ago gained a secure footing in the Catholic Church ➔ Apocryphal ◆ Greek “apokryphos” meaning hidden things ◆ Name used for various Jewish & Christian writings that are often similar to the inspired works in the Bible, but were judged by the Church not to possess canonical authority ◆ While they aren’t included, they’re still valuable as a source of religious lit / history, preserving valuable details of the development of Judaism & , as well as offering scholars the means of tracing emergence of heretical doctrines in the nascent Christian community (ex. ) ◆ No articles of Faith founded in the Apocryphal writings ◆ Canon = clear spring; most pure, best for you; Apocryphal = muddy water - can still help, & can be cleaned up; drinkable in an emergency, but might make you sick & definitely won’t taste good going down - cleared up through Scripture ➔ Pseudepigraphal ◆ False writings ◆ Refers technically to texts with a false attribution of authorship, though the collection has come to include several anonymous texts as well. Generally, the collection contains at a minimum pseudonymous Jewish extrabiblical writings from about 200 BCE (before common era) to 200 CE (common era) ➔ Did the Church create the Bible? ◆ The Church took the teachings of Christ through the Apostles and passed them on, first orally and then written down (so, yes and no; the words already existed, but the Church compiled them) ◆ She organized it ● Over many years, with numerous Councils ● Though most of the books of the Bible were being used by the earliest Christians, there was no canon to refer to ◆ She commissioned it ● The earliest list that is the canon we have today appeared in 150 CE ● This same list was most likely finalized at the Council of Hippo in 393 ● The canon remains the same today ◆ The list remained unchallenged until 1517 - Protestant Reformation ● Martin Luther - deutero books were useful for edification but were on a lower level than other books - what the Church would call Apocryphal ● John Calvin - deutero books were to be totally disregarded b/c they would confuse ppl ● 1648 Westminster Confessions - “The books commonly called , not being of divine inspiration, are no part of the canon of the Scripture, and therefore are of no authority in the Church of God, nor to be any otherwise approved, or made use of, than other human writings” ● Council of Trent (1546) made a definitive statement - formal decree “De Canonicis Scripturis” ➔ https://www.catholic.com/encyclopedia/canon-of-the-holy-scriptures ➔ How did they pick these books? ◆ Is it Apostolic? Written by the Apostles? ◆ Authorship - Apostle, student of an Apostle (some direct line to the Apostles) ◆ Time - when was it written? How close was it to the time Jesus lived? ➔ divided into 3 - TaNaK ◆ - 1st five books ◆ Nebi’im - Prophets ◆ Ketubim - the Writings ➔ NT also divided into 3 ◆ ◆ ◆ Other books ➔ Best translations of the Bible are based on the oldest manuscripts ◆ Before the 9th Century - Unicals: large block letters, no punctuation ◆ After the 9th century - Minuscules: small, cursive Latin letters with punctuation ◆ discovered in 1947, all written before 68 AD ● Best Catholic (translated by Catholics): New Jerusalem Bible and Revised New American Bible ● Best Protestant Bibles (translated by Protestants): New Revised Standard Version, Revised New English Bible