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In this episode Trent debates Jonathan Sheffield on the question of the Old Testament canon and the deuterocanonical books of scripture that Catholics accept and Protestants reject.
Welcome to the Counsel of Trent Podcast, a production of Catholic Answers.
Joshua:
All right, everyone, welcome to another really good event, that I’ve been looking forward to. It’s really nice to finally get together, actually sooner than we anticipated. We have one of those debates that’s been going on for some time actually in the community, and today we will be discussing the Protestant versus the Catholic canon. We actually have an official motion here, which is that… The motion says, “The Old Testament cannon only contains the 39 books listed in the Protestant can…”
Joshua:
Sorry. “The Old Testament canon only contains the 39 books listed in the Protestant canon.” An Anglican scholar and a good friend of mine actually, I’m proud to say, Jonathan Sheffield will be arguing the affirmative and Trent Horn will be affirming the negative position. We won’t vote for a winner, but you guys can decide who did better. But it’s not about winning and losing. Jonathan, please go ahead and you can introduce yourself, but we have 15 minutes of an opening statement starting from you. Again, you hold the affirmative position. All right, let’s go.
Jonathan Sheffield:
What is and is not canon in the history of the Greek, Latin, and Aramaic apostolic churches may well be a matter of debate among the Magisterium. But such debate is of little use to the millions of Orthodox Jews in the synagogues of the world of whose authority and testimony of its canonical tradition, there was almost certainly never really any doubt. Therefore, to open my dialogue with Mr. Horn, I would like to outline the intended plan of action, while judiciously addressing today’s question.
Jonathan Sheffield:
First and foremost, my objective is to document the empirical standards by which to identify and define the canon of the Old Testament. After establishing this foundation, I will frame the decisions on the Old Testament canon reached at the Councils of Rome, Hippo and Carthage in its proper context in, order to explain the purpose of the assembly and the underlying data and assumptions that guided them in affirming these canonical lists. Thirdly, I aim to bring attention to the overwhelming weight of empirical and testimonial evidence in support of the canon that has been independently handed down by the Hebrews, and commonly received among their synagogues, as defined in the Anglican Church’s 1562 39 Articles of Religion.
Jonathan Sheffield:
In constructing an empirical framework to identify and define the Jewish canon, we first turn to St. Paul, who makes the empirical observation that the Oracles of God were committed unto the Jews, thereby placing the Hebrews, not the Greeks, as the authoritative appointed witnesses and guardians of the received text of the Old Testament. Take notice of the fact that Paul did not appeal to the Septuagint as an exemplar of the Jewish canon, even though he could have, given his letters to the Corinthians and Romans, demonstrate clear knowledge of that version. Additionally, this is a standard followed by St. Jerome, during his translation project of the Old Testament who advocated it was necessary to seek the single fountain head and emphasized that whatever is not found among the Hebrews should be set aside and classified as apocryphal.
Jonathan Sheffield:
Even origins pursuit of understanding the canon of the Old Testament began by appealing first to the writings handed down by the Hebrews. Secondly, to objectively identify the canonical writings, Saint Augustine prescribes that we judged the records according to the following criterion: to prefer those that are received by all the Catholic churches to those which some do not receive, among those again which are not received by all, he will prefer such as has the sanction of the greater number and those of greater authority, to such as are held by the smaller number and those of less authority. Augustine’s full declaration provides us with two key takeaways. Firstly, this judgment is to be exercised on the whole cannon of scripture. Secondly, his model to evaluate the question of canonicity introduces two principal concepts reflected in our [inaudible 00:04:29] formulas, i.e., Catholic and apostolic.
Jonathan Sheffield:
To meet the criterion of being Catholic, the writing should be universally received among the relevant witnesses. To be apostolic is to trace back to its original jurisdiction through an unbroken chain of custody, which in this case would be the Jewish synagogues who established the transfer and control procedures to safeguard its text. To that end, the culmination of different synagogues across a wide geographical area provides an objective framework to examine the differences and consensus in the received texts of the Hebrews. Tertullian employed a similar model in his two part test against the heretics and applied the framework to evaluate Marcy’s textual claims concerning Luke’s gospel. By the same token, our objective standard is no different. Our final measure comes from Josephus, who provides historically significant testimony certifying that the Jewish cannon was closed by 400 BC. He establishes this point in two parts.
Jonathan Sheffield:
First, he surveyed the publications since the time of RC [inaudible 00:05:44], reporting that those writings had not been esteemed of the like authority with the former records. This was reiterated by the Jews, according to Jerome in his time, whereby they objected to the writings of the Hellenistic to include the story of Susanna, the song of the three children and the story of bell and the dragon considering they are not found in the Hebrew volume. Augustine, in the city of God, makes the same observation reinforcing that the Jewish writings from the time of the second temple down through the Maccabee line of Aristobulus, we’re not classified as canonical by the Jews, especially as it relates to Macabees. Second Josephus makes an objective demonstration calling attention to the fact that throughout the passage of so many ages, since the time of RC [inaudible 00:06:35] no one has been so bold as to add or take anything away from the Jewish cannon. This assertion can be empirically tested and measured in the following case.
Jonathan Sheffield:
If the Jews were so inclined to add a work to their cannon after the time of RC Zerces, it would have certainly involved a history of the Macabees, portraying their epic struggle against the [Secludians 00:06:58], that marked one of the most important military campaigns since the time of David. Despite the importance of this event, which is still commemorated during Hanukkah, this was never added to the Orthodox Jewish can. However, it was included in the Septuagint, the Jewish liturgy, the scroll of fasting and the Talmid thereby demonstrating objective evidence of the unchanging legitimacy of the Jewish canon. This measure is also supported by the finding that the Orthodox Jews would have considered a blasphemy to alter the cannon after the reign of RC Xerces by virtue of a belief that the holy spirit was withdrawn after the last books of Haggai, Zechariah,, and Malachi a belief witness through rabbinic literature inside and outside to Talmid demonstrating widespread belief, not private opinion. Therefore, any new work since the time of RC Xerxes, would also be precluded by this criterion. Ultimately it is upon these objective standards we evaluate the question of canonicity.
Jonathan Sheffield:
Yet, it is important to frame the decisions on the old Testament cannon reached at the councils of Rome, hippo and Carthage in its proper context, in order to explain the purpose of the assembly and the underlying data and assumptions that guided them in affirming those canonical lists. Firstly, the political atmosphere leading into 382, saw the disintegration of the Arian party in the east in 378 emperor Theodosius effort to unify and attain consensus of all Christian dome at Constantinople in 381, and Jerome’s translation projects to secure standardized text for the Western churches beginning in 382. The councils in the Western part served a similar purpose, particularly in resolving ecclesiastical disputes, creating standards for the church, given the number of controversies and achieving peace. Secondly, the byproduct of these canonical lists in the west do not stem from the Hebrew line, but a divergent Greek stream representing many competing traditions that came over into the Latin, that doesn’t even reconcile with the Greek apostolic churches. More importantly are the questionable assumptions underlying its decisions on these texts.
Jonathan Sheffield:
As we consider Augustine’s statement and its titled work, the city of God, it is important we give it the proper context considering he represents this historical periods, defining spirit, a spirit that valued the tradition of preserving the writings they had received in accordance with his ecclesiastical constitution. His goal in this section, I believe, is to strike a delicate balance between Jerome’s translation project and the longstanding place of honor the Septuagint has held among the Greek congregations, as to not cause disruption among the congregations. To that end here is the problems with that approach. Firstly, Augustine recognized the book of Macabees as canonical on account of the extreme and wonderful suffering of certain martyrs. Despite his observation, that the record is not witnessed by the Jews for the apocryphal works of wisdom and Ecclesiasticus, canonical status is granted due to some resemblance of style with Solomon three recognized works, even though the more learned scholars did not support this conclusion.
Jonathan Sheffield:
It seems in Augustine’s pursuit of peace, he even constructs a postmodern narrative to frame both the Hebrew cannon and the Septuagint, on equal footing despite its many differences with the spirit speaking at various times and places in each version. This is the reasoning one must resort to when they choose to ignore the biblical injunction that solely recognizes the Jews as the appointed witnesses and side steps and empirical foundation for a subjective one, which only leads to diversity of opinion in answering this question as convinced in the Greek and Latin textual traditions. Not withstanding just as Iranians looked out across the known world and made an empirical observation, of the textual tradition witnessed in every apostolic church, we too examine the canon echo throughout the Orthodox Jewish synagogues that have come down to us, which provides independent attestation to the same writings recognized in the Protestant confessions, meeting the criterion of Catholic and apostolic for the Jewish cannon. The empirical observation carries great weight in advancing our thesis since in any normal court of law, independent witnesses that agree with relevant knowledge of the facts, having not colluded on their testimony would be conclusive.
Jonathan Sheffield:
The Orthodox Jewish communities were never one unified group and neither were the rabbis. Even the Talmid, which represents the collection of writings that cover the full gamut of Jewish law, and tradition has two separate versions. Yet the various groups that subscribe to either the Babylonian or Jerusalem text only recognize one can, which is a Testament to the consistency in their canonical tradition. Even the testimonial evidence available to us from relevant and notable historians, further corroborate this form of the Jewish canon. Despite Augustine’s opinion, on the matter he did confirm that the Jews of his day found Jerome’s laborers to be faithful representatives of their Orthodox canonical tradition. We must also certainly give substantial evidential weight to the testimony of Josephus on account of two observations. First, he is unlikely to have gotten away with lying much about the Jewish canonical tradition, given he was in a perpetual public battle with the rival historian justice of Tiberius, who composed similar historical treaties. Second Jos description of the 22 books is consistent with the Orthodox Jewish canonical tradition, especially since the grandson of Sarah also witnesses to a threefold formula, corroborating the record an Josephus.
Jonathan Sheffield:
Additionally, the details recorded in the Talmid, Bava Batra 14B through 15A, on the books and authors of the Hebrew canonical tradition provide further confirmation of our thesis, leading to only one natural conclusion. How else do we explain these facts? Other than this canonical tradition among the Orthodox Jews represents a receive an authoritative cannon of the old Testament, affirmed in the Anglican and Protestant confessions. While I assume that Mr. Horn may dispute some of this evidence, I’d like to emphasize that the statistical probability of the accumulated documentation being incorrect is almost zero. There was never one Jewish group that was able to control Judaism, even to this day. This explains why we saw a two major kingdoms yet, no emperor Caliph or Pope who could have had the power and authority to make such a binding canonical determination throughout the synagogues. In the Hellenistic period, there were writings that came into the Greek world that were respected by the Jewish communities, similar to the letters of Fatima. But they were not put into the cannon.
Jonathan Sheffield:
There is no conclusive evidence these works were ever part of the Jewish cannon and in the major studies throughout church history, the learned opinion of Jerome, Cardinal Hemanez, Cardinal Cajetan and the Anglican church held that they should not be admitted as canonical works or have authority over doctrines in the church, but simply read for the edification of the people. With that, I stopped my time and thank you, Trent, for listening to my thesis.
Joshua:
Oh, you finished up a little early. Okay. Thank you. All right, Trent. Your time begins when you are ready. So will you be sharing anything or no?
Trent Horn:
No. I’m too old school, I guess. I don’t have a fancy side, like Jonathan. I’ll try to make up with other flare, I suppose. So-
Joshua:
Whenever you’re ready.
Trent Horn:
All righty. Well, I’d like to thank Canadian Catholic for posting this debate and Jonathan for being willing to participate in it. I really enjoyed a lot of his other engagements. He’s done great work against Richard carrier. So he’s an excellent scholar though. I do believe he’s mistaken in this regard. So let’s talk a little bit about the resolution. We’re… Jonathan wants us to believe that Christians should only accept the 39 books of the old Testament, that are found in the Protestant cannon. And I would ask, well, what standard has he put forward that would bind all Christians, Catholic, Orthodox, Oriental Orthodox, to this particular standard? Where is it come from, and does it have good evidence to support it? In order to show that no such standard exists and that it’s actually the standard he’s advocating is contradicted by biblical and historical evidence, I want to take you on a little historical tour of the old Testament cannon.
Trent Horn:
So let’s start with the last books of the Protestant old Testament. There’s no evidence that the cannon was closed at this time. The books themselves don’t make any mention of this. In fact, as the Baptist scholar, Lee Martin McDonald points out the book of Malachi only employs its listeners to remember the law of Moses, which would be strange if there was a fixed set of writings established by Ezra called the prophets at this time. So even the last books of the old Testament don’t give any hint that, of the Protestant old Testament, I should say that a Canon had been closed at this time. What about the Deuterocanonical works themselves these works would include Sirach wisdom, Tobit, Judith, Baruch, first and second Macabees and portions of Daniel and Esther. Do they give any indication that they were written during a period of a closed cannon? No, not at all. Authors of texts like Sirach for example said they were led to write down God’s wisdom, which indicates they thought they were writing scripture.
Trent Horn:
Now the Jews did settle on a threefold division of scripture, the law and the prophets and the writings or the [inaudible 00:17:46], but the writings was a category that was open. It wasn’t anything that was closed. The old Testament scholar Otto Kaiser says the Deuterocanonical books presuppose the validity of the law and the profits, and also utilized the [inaudible 00:18:01] or writings collection, which was at the time still in the process of formation and not yet closed. McDonald, as I said, a Baptist scholar writes all sacred books that were not a part of the law, were considered by Jews, Jesus and his followers to be a part of the prophets. And biblical scholar, Andrew Steinman, who holds to an early closing of the Hebrew cannon, even admits that when it comes to second Maccabe’s reference to the prophets, we can’t be certain what the content of the prophets were. So we know that there were the law, the prophets and the writings during this time period, but it was somewhat open as to what were contained in them, including the Deuterocanonical book.
Trent Horn:
Jeffrey Hanman and other scholar says in his book on the Jewish cannon, that the writings, the remaining element after the law and the prophets, still appear undefined to new Testament writers. And this can also be included in Talmid itself and tracked Bava Kamma 92B quotes, Sirach 1215 as belonging to the division of the writings of the old Testament. So there’s not really any evidence that during the time prior to Jesus, that there was a belief that the old Testament cannon was closed. But what about around the time of the old Testa, sorry, around the time of the first century, Jews during this period. In Jonathan’s opening statement, he made a lot about how Jewish orthodoxy defines the old Testament cannon, but this is extremely problematic because Jews of the first century had divergent opinions about the content of the old Testament cannon. For example, the [inaudible 00:19:39] Jews whose writings have been preserved in the dead sea scrolls, they recognize Deuterocanonical books as being inspired.
Trent Horn:
The Kumron scholar Emmanuel Tove says that books like Sirach were written, that we find in the dead sea scrolls were written in a special layout reserved for biblical compositions. Even when it comes to the Pharisees whose cannon was much closer to the Protestant old Testament cannon, it still wasn’t exact. The scholar, Timothy Lamb in his book, formation of the Jewish cannon writes this. Paul belonged to a Jewish sect that had a cannon that was determined, but not yet defined. We do not know the extent of his cannon. Paul’s letters were occasional, and the scriptural texts that he cited and used were determined largely by the circumstances in which he was writing. So we see this even among rabbis of the first century, there are disputes about song of songs, Ecclesiastes, Esther, and other similar books in the old Testament cannon. So we don’t have even unification among the Jews during this time period. But what we do have is use of the step Septuagint, which would be the Greek translation of the old Testament. And it did include the Deuterocanonical books.
Trent Horn:
Timothy Michael law, who serves as the co-editor of the Oxford handbook on the step Septuagint says the Deuterocanonical books were included in the Septuagint, and that quote, “It would be a mistake to imagine that they had never been read as divine scripture.” Paul also Paul himself drew extensively on themes from Deuterocanonical works in his own writings. So, when Jonathan says that Paul never privileged the Septuagint, sure he didn’t do so explicitly, but we can tell that he certainly used the Septuagint in his own writings. Denver seminary professor Joseph Dodson says that scholars for at least three centuries have found value in comparing the Deuterocanonical book of wisdom and Romans. According to the Protestant scholar, David, a deSilva new Testament authors, weave phrases, and recreate lines of arguments from apocryphal books into their new texts. They also allude to events and stories contained in these texts. The word paraphrase very frequently provides adequate description of the relationship. We also see this in other new Testament works.
Trent Horn:
Look at the letter to the Hebrews, which some people would attribute to Paul, which would bolster support my argument for Paul’s view the Septuagint, but even if you treat Hebrews as anonymous, it still shows the new Testament reliance on the Septuagint. For example, Hebrews ten five, when quoting the Psalms uses for a prophecy of Jesus, a Septuagint rendering of the verse that relates to a body being prepared for me in relation to the incarnation. Hebrews 1135 in that Hebrews chapter 11 has the long history of people in salvation history, Abraham, Moses, Gideon, David. But then it says that there were some people in salvation history who quote were tortured, refusing to accept release, that they may rise again to a better life. The only record of an event like this, it’s not found in the Protestant old Testament cannon. It’s found in the Deuterocanon, in second McAfee’s chapter seven, which describes brothers who accept torture over violating Jewish law in hope for a better resurrection. The Catholic Apologist, Gary Machuda, has posted excerpts on his website from 50 Protestant commentaries that agree that Hebrews 11 is drawing from second Maccabee seven in this regard.
Trent Horn:
And since the context of Hebrews 11 includes men of old who received divine approval, it follows that the books describing the Maccabee and martyrs were part of the old Testament. They weren’t secular history. They were part of a sacred history, the author of Hebrews was citing. Or to provide another example, many Protestant scholars say that wisdom chapter two contains a messianic prophecy. That’s because verse 18 describes the enemies of the righteous, one saying “If the righteous one is the son of God, God will help him and deliver him from the hand of his foes.” Now this perfectly parallels Matthew 27 43, which records the Jewish leaders taunting Jesus about God saving the son of God during the crucifixion. No other passage in the Protestant old Testament describes a promise that God will rescue the son of God from his enemies. But wisdom two does. So Matthew, so this is either a prophecy or as some scholars say, Matthew is using wisdom as a framework in writing as gospel. So I think that it’s very clear here that we see the use of the old Testament.
Trent Horn:
So we’re going before the time of Jesus, there is no evidence that there was a uniform Jewish cannon that matched the Protestant can Jonathan is referring to here. In fact, we had divergence. We had the Essenes, who had more books Pharisees, who were disputed about some books, like song of songs or Esther. And also we had other Jewish groups that had a radically truncated version of the cannon. There’s good arguments that the Sadducees only accepted the Pentateuch, or the first five books of the old Testament since they denied doctrines like the resurrection of the dead. So we can’t really speak of a Jewish cannon that would be binding upon all believers today. Rather during the time of Jesus, there were Jewish canons. Then later, what happened though, is that after the time of Jesus, well, what happens with the cannon after the time of Jesus? The Jewish cannons become consolidated in the early second century during the second Jewish revolt against Rome, under rabbi Akiva.
Trent Horn:
And this becomes very clear that there was still a multiplicity of cannons at this time, because in the Talmid tracked Sanhedrin 100 B refers to rabbis withdrawing Sirach, or declaring it to no longer be inspired and removing it from synagogue reading. So they withdrew Sirach and the other Deuterocanonical books, which is evidence that during this time in the first and early second century, there were a large number of Jews. Many of them, probably Jewish Christians who were reading these books as inspired scripture. But what about Josephus? Jonathan mentioned him. Let’s talk about after the time of Jesus, the Jewish cannon, what does Josephus have to tell us? It’s true that some Protestants cite Josephus in his mention of the 22 books of sacred history that terminate in the reign of Artaxerxes of Persia around the fifth century BC. But the problem here is that it’s the claim that these 22 books only account for the 39 books of the Protestant old Testament. The other issue that we have to resolve here is the claim that Josephus is saying books written after Artaxerxes are not inspired.
Trent Horn:
He doesn’t say that. Rather, what he says is that there is not an exact, prior to Artaxerxes, there is an exact succession of prophets. He then says the books after Artaxerxes in Judaism do not preserve the exact line of prophetic succession. How so they are not held as high esteem, but they still recognize that there is a time of prophets. Josephus mentions prophets existing after that time period, which would not preclude prophetic books or inspired books being written. And of course inspired books can be written by people who are not even prophets. And it’s true. Josephus does mention this. We also have to take into account some of the things he says is that he’s prone to exaggeration what he’s saying here about the… he says things like from their very birth, all Jews, no one esteemed the books of scripture. No one is ventured to add or to remove or alter a syllable of the Hebrew scriptures, which contradicts modern scholarship that knows there are multiple Hebrew manuscript traditions at this time.
Trent Horn:
Josephus is writing in against Apion, an apologetic for the Jewish faith and scholars recognize that he tends to exaggeration on this point. Joseph Campbell in his Campbell, in his study of Josephs says that Josephs’ rhetoric has run ahead of reality. It undermines the theory that there was a single cannon by the late first century. Now what about the early church fathers? So for me, if I’m going to look to see what can of scripture we should use, I would ask what did those who inherited the faith of the Apostles use? And when we look, we see an abundant amount of testimony among the church fathers that the Deuterocanonical books of scripture are indeed inspired. You can find over 70 citations in the pre Nicene fathers alone. People like first Clement, for example, going through recognizing and citing these books, not just citing them, but citing them as scripture using them to confirm prophecy. After the council of Nicaea. We also see this Cyral of Jerusalem refers to Baruch as the prophet, and he uses Baruch in defense of the deity of Christ.
Trent Horn:
Athanasius called the book of wisdom in Judith’s scripture, and he appealed to wisdom chapter seven, as evidence for the deity of Christ, the Anglican scholar, J N D. Kelly says that for the great majority of the early church fathers, the Deuterocanonical writings ranked as scripture in the fullest sense. In fact, the only outlier to all of this, the most prominent outlier for frankly, really the only one, is Saint Jerome who followed the mistaken view, that there was only one Hebrew manuscript tradition, the Masoretic text that should be followed in translation, and that the Septuagint is just a poor copy of the Hebrew Masoretic text. But as scholars like Megan Hale Williams has shown, this was a quote idiosyncratic insight followed by Jerome that the rest of the church did not follow and was later corrected a few decades later at the regional councils of hippo and Carthage.
Trent Horn:
In fact, Jerome doesn’t follow the Protestant old Testament cannon. He accepts the writings of deutero Daniel, for example. And he himself included these works in his translation of the Vulgate because of the immense pressure from the rest of Christendom as having accepted these books. And I’ll talk about that a little bit more in my rebuttal, but when it comes to Jerome, he even says that the council of Nicaea accepted Judith as a part of the canon of scripture. So with the one lone tradition of Jerome, using this idiosyncratic view of Hebrew manuscripts as later turned out to be correct, that is the one witness against all of these other witnesses within the ancient church holding to a larger cannon. In fact, I would wonder if Jonathan would also agree with Jerome about other doctrines, like the perpetual virginity of Mary and if not, why does he accept Jerome on some things rather than others?
Trent Horn:
Well, so I think when you put all that together, we see there is no standard, that Jonathan has offered that should compel Christians to accept the shorter Protestant old Testament cannon, and dissuade them from going with the longer cannon that was popular as J N D. Kelly says with the great majority of the church fathers.
Joshua:
All right, Trent, that is just on time. Let me just take this away. All right. So Jonathan you’re muted, but now we will move into the rebuttal period. So Jonathan will get seven minutes.
Joshua:
We will move into the rebuttal period so Jonathan will get seven minutes. And do you still have slides or no for this one?
Jonathan Sheffield:
No slides. As much as I’ve seen lots of Trent Horn’s work and once again, very impressed with your work as well Trent. You did an excellent job against Matt Delahanty, Gavin. I think you’ve done some really good stuff against Gavin as well, and some of the others so great work all around. Thank you Joshua for having us on and with that let me…
Joshua:
All right, so whenever you’re ready.
Jonathan Sheffield:
Okay. Yeah, let me start now. So let me address some of the observations that Trent made during his opening. I think the first thing I want to address is yes, obviously Paul whose ministry was to the Greeks is obviously going to be using a translation that had been in the public, that had been in use for the Greeks for him to use. His ministry is primarily focused on the Gentile nations and obviously in quoting scripture, he would do that. Now as Trent noted that he didn’t privilege it and what we see in the apostles, what we see in Paul’s writings is he uses a lot of quotations, not only from the Septuagint, but he quotes Pagan authors. We even see Jude making reference to Enoch and that is something I think both the Jews agree on, the Catholics and the Protestants with the exception of Ethiopia on that.
Jonathan Sheffield:
So they were quoting a number of different items, Pagan histories, works like Enoch, the Septuagint but this doesn’t sanction that version as the official and this is where Paul does do that. In the biblical injunction it say that, “The Jews are the appointed witnesses.” In one of my points of Jerome is in both his translation projects, he stressed the emphasis of going back to the single Fountainhead, given the divergent manuscript traditions that were out there. For the New Testament, he felt the need to go back to the original Greek and for the Old Testament, given that the Latin is three places removed from the Hebrew, he wanted to go back to the Hebrew and make an empirical observation of the Canon that they had so that establishes our framework from the starting point.
Jonathan Sheffield:
Now, I also want to bring up the fact of what Trent mentioned at the beginning regarding the Essenes having some affinity for the books of Syriac. Now, to explain that in its proper context, what we find in the Dead Sea Scrolls, in addition to all the other literature I believe it’s three manuscripts or parchment of Syriac but Trent there is laying a foundation that, just because they’re found within the collection and once again, we do not know specifically who those people were, that were probably running off into the caves as a result of war and they’re bringing their libraries with them.
Jonathan Sheffield:
Just like I have libraries over here, I’m going to take a number of works. While I have the Bible, I’m going to take some of the church fathers, I’m going to take Philo but this doesn’t mean I esteem all the works of the same literature. And Trent may be a little hard press to substantiate that foundation that, whatever group did own those texts, considered those texts canonical. And we understand these writings are used within the Jewish liturgy. Maccabees, this is part of the Jewish histories. And I think one of the points that Josephus makes is, these are still recognized writings. These are writings within the Jewish tradition that have immense value, but they are not held at the same esteem as the earlier writings.
Jonathan Sheffield:
And I think one of the things that we have to focus on is the empirical observation that the canon that did come down didn’t include these works that we can see, from what Jerome saw. Augustine makes the same observation. Another thing that Trent mentioned was the council. I believe he’s referring Jamnia. Now once again, in my opening, one of the things that I did stress was the fact that there was no universal Bishop in Judaism. There’s no council that came to any definitive definition in terms of, this is going to be the authorized text and we’re going to send this out. What we do have in the latter end of the first century is discussions that are occurring regarding some of these texts, the song of Psalms. And we can understand how a work of that nature would be purview by those outside Judaism with its strong language.
Jonathan Sheffield:
And they did discuss certain works, but that’s not the same thing as saying these works weren’t already considered canonical. And Trent, I think to establish his position, we would need to see some sort of affirmation that went out or some letter. We don’t even have the full information from what was happening here at Jamnia to make any official determination. The only thing that we can see that was observed by Augustine, Jerome, even Origin, that there were items not received in the Jewish volume. And this is something that is consistent but one of my last points, since I know I’m running on time is to understand the context which these documents were received. And while Trent does recognize that there was divergent manuscript traditions, Augustine does give us some background on why the Septuagint, why it held such a place of honor.
Jonathan Sheffield:
So remember, Jews and Christianity and Judaism was separated for over 300 years. They weren’t just openly handing the Hebrew texts to the Christian churches to use. What we had available was the Septuagint that had come into our possession and used for the first, basically 300 years of Christianity. But Augustine does let us know that this is the only one that the churches really received. They weren’t aware of the other additions prior to that and this is why it held such a place of honor among their congregations. I believe my time is up so I will…
Joshua:
Almost. You were five minutes under actually so you actually fit well into time. Alright. I think Trent, whenever you’re ready, please just start.
Trent Horn:
Alright. Well, thank you Jonathan. And let me address some of the different points you’ve raised and try to tie us together so far. Quickly, I didn’t mention the council of Jamnia. That’s been known since Jack Lewis’ article in 1964, What Do We Mean By Jabneh, that there was no such council of Jamnia in the first century that closed any canon. There was a Jewish Rabbinical School at Jamnia but there was no such council. Rather, what I was arguing was that the closing of the Jewish canon and compiling all of these different canons that existed in the first century. We don’t see uniformity in the Jewish canon until after the time of Rabbi Ben Akiva in the early second century during the Bar Kokhba revolt. And this is very clear reading through the Talmud and seeing as I mentioned earlier, the withdrawing of Syriac from the synagogues. We don’t see this uniformity until the mid second century.
Trent Horn:
And so for me, yes, I agree that modern Judaism follows Rabbinic Judaism, the early second century in denying the deuterocanonical works but that carries absolutely no weight with me because Rabbinic Judaism also denies the gospels and the new Testament. So Jonathan decided Romans 3:2, where Paul says that the Jews were entrusted with the Oracles of God. That’s in the [inaudible 00:40:17] in the past tense. Now, all Paul is saying here is that there is value in Judaism over being a Gentile because Jews were given divine revelation and in fact, it doesn’t necessarily mean scriptures. It says the Oracles of God, N.T. Wright and A.T. Robertson say, “This just may talk about how the Jews were given general divine revelation itself.” Nothing here says that the Jews had an enduring authority to determine what the canon is of the Old Testament. The people of God do.
Trent Horn:
And the people of God is now found within the Christian church, with the Church of Christ. Now when it comes to the Septuagint, Jonathan says, “Yeah Paul used a Septuagint , but he doesn’t privilege it.” I say he doesn’t explicitly privilege it, he and the other New Testament authors but we can see it is heavily favored. Gleason Archer and Gregory Chirichigno in their book, Old Testament Quotations in the New Testament, cite 33 places where the new Testament cites the Hebrew Masoretic Text but 340 places where it cites the Septuagint.” So it’s a 10 to one ratio in favor of the Septuagint. When it comes to the Essenes, I didn’t make the argument that well, “The books were there and the caves, therefore they felt that they were scripture.” I cited scholars like Emmanuel Tov that said, “There’s a special typographical layout and parchment that is used. There’s a special form of lettering and materials that are used to indicate these are biblical books that are used for the Protocanonical books, as well as for Syriac.”
Trent Horn:
And when it comes to, why would it be the case that even Jewish scholars have recognized why the canon was truncated in the mid second century? The Jewish scholar, Lewis Ginsburg, says that Akiva may have repudiated the use of the Greek Septuagint and the deutero canon. It was a desire to disarm Christians, especially Jewish Christians, who drew their proofs from the Apocrypha. Must also be attributed his wish to emancipate the Jews from the dispersion, from the domination of the Septuagint and the other things that Jewish Christians were using from the Septuagint and from the deuterocanonical books in their particular disputations with the Jews, such as what I referenced earlier, like applying the prophecy in Wisdom, chapter two to the description of Christ crucifixion in Matthew 27. In one of Jonathan’s slides, it talked about the Jewish authorities saying that prophecy had been taken away, indicating that Jews believed that prior to the time of Christ, the canon was closed.
Trent Horn:
Although Jonathan hasn’t provided any citations to show that dating this belief prior to Rabbinic Judaism, which I would say is that the Talmud speaking about this is engaging in revisionist history. He hasn’t cited any citations from prior to Christ saying that the canon was closed. In fact, we had manuscripts of things like the Septuagint, what are called the [inaudible 00:43:22] Recension. That’s a manuscript of the Septuagint produced by the Pharisees that has deuterocanonical books like Baruch in it. And in fact, when we even look at these Talmudic writings talking about prophecy being taken away, it doesn’t talk about a general closing of the canon or an ending of divine revelation prior to Christ. Baba Batra 12B says that, “From the day on which the house of the sanctuary was destroyed,” which is the old temple, Solomon’s temple, “Prophecy was taken away from prophets and given over to sages.”
Trent Horn:
So it talks about a different manner of prophecy being delivered, not it simply being ended. Jonathan also talked about a criterion, what do we use to determine if something’s canonical? All of the Jews received these books. As I said, that’s actually quite disputed, is what I’ve shown but also dispute itself, some not receiving them. This would apply to New Testament books. There were church fathers who didn’t accept the book of revelation, who had doubts about Hebrews, doubts about the letters of John. So if we try to apply doubts about the deuterocanon in the Apostolic period to account against its canonicity, that would apply to some New Testament works as well. Now his citation of Augustine, I found to be very odd that Augustine recognized that the Jews of his time by then has certainly rejected the deuterocanonical books of scripture but Augustine and Tertullian certainly did not. The two, a father and ecclesial writer that Jonathan mentioned, Augustine quotes the Book of Wisdom.
Trent Horn:
He calls it, one with many passages of holy scripture. He calls its author a prophet and he uses the Book of Wisdom because it contains a prophecy about what will happen at the Judgment Day. According to the Catholic scholar, Charles Costello, “St. Augustine, not only states that these early fathers regarded the Book of Wisdom as one of the divine scriptures, but also testifies and gives proof they use its authority in supportive Catholic teaching.” So Augustine accepted the deuterocanon, not because of one line about the Maccabean martyr, that’s just one isolated line from his writings. He over and over talks about it because it’s the accepted opinion of the church that he’s receiving and he goes back to authors like Saint Cyprian to recognize that. Well, I had a comment here on the Anglican use of the deuterocanon. I’ll save that for later. That’d be fun. I’m almost out of time. So let’s end it there and then I’m interested to hear more of Jonathan’s responses.
Joshua:
Yeah, that’s fine. That was again, just in time. Okay. Now we move on to four minute rebuttal period. And again, I think we will continue with the alternating order. So Jonathan, whenever you’re ready. Please, let’s go for four minutes.
Jonathan Sheffield:
Oh, okay. I’ll start now. Thank you, Trent. Let me go into a couple of points that you had brought up. And to kind of clarify my position is from the Talmud. And once again, the Talmud is based on their ancient archives. So while the production of these records do come into being later, starting in the third century and working its way down the next few hundred years, they are based on much more older ancient traditions that Josephus even refers that he had access to in his antiquities. Now regarding the departing or the withdrawing of the spirit and what we mean by that is what they say. While the Book of Ezra was composed in the spirit of prophecy, the spirit was withdrawn after this. Now what that doesn’t preclude, because while I’m well aware that in these writings, it does refer to the spirit. The Talmud also gives us a little bit more information on that, that while the spirit was withdrawn, they would nevertheless still make use of the divine voice.
Jonathan Sheffield:
And this is what we see in some of the literature from Josephus and other ancient writers doing the work. I mean, to this day as Christians, we still utilize the voice but not everything that we say is going to be thrown into the canon. The other thing I want to bring out from Trent’s statement is this idea that Akiva may have, in some manner, helped formulate the standardization or created this movement to help standardize the canon. Because I think where I do see there’s some agreement between Trent and I is when Augustine Jerome is looking out of the Jewish Rabbinic tradition. This is the tradition of the Essenes so it must have been part of some sort of movement to standardize. The only problem with that is obviously if it was done after the Bar Kokhba war. Before it, not only was there the war, but the Jews were dispersed. They were still in Babylon.
Jonathan Sheffield:
They were in Yemen. They were in Egypt. And one of the interesting points made by Rabbi Solomon of Barcelona during the middle ages, who also had to deal with these polemic attacks on their canon, undergoing these amendments or standardizations or changes is, if something did happen, given that there was no central authority, we would see evidence of it in the manuscript traditions from the standpoint of the later groups. Trent did recognize that, well, there were groups. We definitely understand that the Samaritans were only using their version of the Torah. I’d probably disagree a little bit with Trent on the Sadducees but what we do see is, we had groups that only kept this form of the scripture. But after the second century, what we don’t have is any definitive document. We don’t have actual testimonial evidence from the period to show how they would’ve orchestrated such an action throughout all of the known world, throughout the Roman Empire. There’s no letters to this effect. You would had to have reached synagogues and Jewish committees all throughout the known world and there is no indication of that. And Rabbi- [inaudible 00:50:18]
Joshua:
Yeah, your time is up but that’s fine. I mean, if you just want to finish a point, that’s totally fine.
Jonathan Sheffield:
Yeah. My final point is if something of this magnitude happened, there would’ve been some groups that would’ve maintained their loyalty to the textual tradition that they believed was correct. And we’d be able to empirically see this tradition in Judaism after the mid second century. Some group would have held up this and with that, I’ll stop my time.
Joshua:
All right. No worries. Okay, Trent, we will go with another four minutes. I think whenever you’re ready, [inaudible 00:50:58].
Trent Horn:
Sure. In response to what Jonathan has said. Well, I can think of one group that has held this. The Ethiopic Jews to this day have a wider canon, some of which includes what we call the deuterocanonical books. So there were Jews even after the advent of Rabbinic Judaism that did not sign onto this radically truncated canon that was present in the Septuagint that was used during the time of Jesus and the Apostles. Well, let me try to pull everything together here before we kind of have a back and forth. What I’ve tried to find here is, Jonathan given us a standard to say, “Alright, the Old Testament is only comprised of these 39 books.” Well, how would we know that? As I’ve shown, the Protestant Old Testament itself does not say that. The deuterocanonical books don’t act as if the canon itself was closed during this time. They don’t act like that they’re going against the grain in this regard or that any of that had ceased.
Trent Horn:
By the time of the first century, the time of Jesus and the Apostles, there are multiple cans that are in existence. Jonathan disputed about the Sadducees but you didn’t offer any reason to think that they had a radically truncated canon, or showing that we knew that the Pharisees had the same canon Protestants do. It was not a fully determined can at that time, as I showed from the scholars that I cited like Lim in Formation of the Jewish Canon. So far through all of this, the first source that we really get that gives us a Protestant canon would be the writing of Josephus. But I’ve already shown that Josephus as Campbell cites, his rhetoric runs ahead of reality. He’s known for exaggeration and then when we compare that to how the deuterocanon was used among the Apostolic fathers who quoted it as scripture, that it’s true that you have different quotations where there’s the Dead Sea Scrolls or others, the new Testament quotes Greek poets.
Trent Horn:
You have Enoch being quoted by some church fathers, but what you don’t have with these books, that you do have with the deuterocanon is, you have a trajectory of calling this divine scripture, of using it to cite prophecy, of using it to prove Christian doctrine using metonoms and other introductions like, It is Written. So the only time, and then in the second century, as I showed my citations from the Talmud, we see Jewish rabbis saying that the books of Syriac and others are being withdrawn. Now Jonathan’s right, it would take some time but that’s exactly what happened. We see it took time for Jews to be able to determine what were and were not the sacred books.
Trent Horn:
In fact, this can be seen in Melito of Sardis in the second century, who sought out to write up a list of the Jewish canon but instead of going to the local synagogue in Sardis and just asking, “What’s your canon?” He goes all the way back to Jerusalem, to the holy land, to find out because even by this time, there was not uniformity and this belief in Rabbinic Judaism had to spread. So we see this standard arises, but it’s not a standard that comes from any kind of divine revelation. It is a standard that ultimately comes from the opinions of some rabbis who sought to restructure Judaism in the light of the destruction of the second temple. And in that respect, we’re not bound to follow that decision that they made. Rather, we should follow the tradition that has been given to us from the churches in time immemorial so that is what I will put out there. Well, how much time do I have Josh?
Joshua:
You have 20 seconds or so.
Trent Horn:
Let’s see. That means if I keep talking, I only have 10 seconds left. I’ll leave it at that and then I’m sure we’ll have some discussion, back and forth.
Joshua:
All right. Great. Okay, so now we will start the cross examination period and this will be 15 minutes. And again, I will just go into alternating order. I know some people do it otherwise, but I think this is easier for me. Jonathan, you will have minutes to cross examine Trent and then we’ll just repeat that back with Trent doing it. So we’ll start the time whenever you are ready.
Jonathan Sheffield:
Okay. I guess for my first question and Trent, obviously you’re very familiar with the history leading up into the Council of Rome’s decision. We know Christianity was in hiding or underground until the [inaudible 00:55:39]. We were being persecuted by the Romans. There was this division or separation from Judaism. We inherited a tradition through the Greeks, not the Romans, that we throughout were pre-deposed to. This was the one that we placed a lot of value on. So given that environment and before the start of Jerome’s translation project, which took a while, was the Church of Rome and even Hippo Carthage to that degree, in the best position to address this question given the prior influences over the last three, 400 years.
Trent Horn:
Okay. So the question is that there is Roman persecution prior to the times of the councils of Hippo and Pope Damasus declaration of Rome on the canon. Are they in a good position to accurately reflect what the canon of the Old Testament was? Because-
Jonathan Sheffield:
Yeah, in the sense that there hasn’t been any real serious study of this question, and they’ve been pre-deposed to a tradition of the Septuagint in their churches for the last 300 years. So how much influence do you think that had in framing out their canonical list in 382?
Trent Horn:
Right. Well, first I would dispute the assumption in the question that there was this constant persecution that would’ve prevented the church from having an accurate assessment of how the word of God is handed down. First, by the time we have these councils at the end of the fourth century, Christianity had legal toleration for 60 or 70 years. By the time of the councils, Christianity was now the official religion of the Roman empire under Theodosius. But even before this point, there were persecutions but they weren’t constant. They still allowed for engagements between Christians and Jews. And so we see this in Origin and Melito when they write up what is handed on to the Jews and they create these canonical lists, but they explicitly contrast these lists with the divine scriptures that Christians venerate.
Trent Horn:
So I would say the councils are in a good position to know what has been uniformly celebrated in the liturgy, in the churches, what is read in the churches. For example, Origin cites the deuterocanonical books. He also cites Enoch, but he says, “Enoch is not read in the churches.” Now that wasn’t entirely true, there were some who did but we see that they can recognize a general trajectory of accepting these books. And I don’t see any external factors that would prevent the councils in North Africa or Pope Damasus from recognizing what had been generally received so I don’t quite see the problem here.
Jonathan Sheffield:
For my next question. I think one of the things that we do realize is that Maccabees, well as it’s highly revered in the Jewish tradition. I mean, it’s celebrated every year. It’s part of the Jewish liturgy. It’s part of their scroll of fasting. Given the significance of this event, why don’t we see this work in the Jewish canon, given its value? Something that they would not necessarily be against. Doesn’t this go against your notion that this was at any time considered canonical by the Jews? And how do we explain that a high priestly class, like a Judas Maccabees or his family line who would’ve had power to add it, there’s no record that they did?
Trent Horn:
So your question is, if Maccabees is inspired, why didn’t the Jews recognize it? Though I think that question, it is assuming partially what it’s trying to prove because I would say, how do we know that it was not recognized as scripture prior to the second century in the Talmud and Rabbinic Judaism? I would say the burden of proof would be all one to say that Maccabees was not accepted as scripture during this time period. Certainly in later Rabbinic Judaism, for whatever reason they had for not accepting books written after the time of Syriac, it wasn’t accepted but I see no reason to believe that it was not accepted prior to that time. We see Jesus celebrating the Festival of Lights, that’s referenced in the New Testament, but also I guess another point that I might bring up is that even if something was a Jewish festival, writings related to it, there could still be controversy related there and why it might not be adopted. Purim is a widely accepted Jewish festival but that didn’t prevent some Jewish and Rabbinic traditions from not accepting the book of Esther.
Trent Horn:
Esther was extremely controversial because the protocanonical sections of Esther, the shorter version in the Jewish and Protestant canons doesn’t even mention God. And there was a lot of controversy there in relation to that with Esther, as opposed to the longer deutero sections, even though the story has been well known, Purim was celebrated. There was still [inaudible 01:01:33] controversy there. So I guess my answer to the question would be, I just reject the assumption built into it. There’s rejection in Rabbinic Judaism, but I don’t see evidence that the book was rejected prior to that point. And as I showed in my opening statement, there is evidence that Jewish Christians accepted it because of the citation I referenced in Hebrews chapter 11 to second Maccabees seven.
Jonathan Sheffield:
My next question goes to a statement-
PART 2 OF 5 ENDS [01:02:04]
Jonathan Sheffield:
Next question goes to a statement, and correct me if I’m wrong, Trent. I think in a previous discussion you’ve had on this, you discussed about the differences in the Greek Orthodox canon. Obviously they sort of have ten or more. And I think you mentioned if they did come back in communion with Rome, we may possibly accept that canon. And definitely let me know if I’m off base. So upon what standard or objective standard are you applying there where obviously you’re not accepting them now. Does that also mean if the church of Ethiopia comes under the communion of the Roman Catholic church, we would simply accept Enoch? So what empirical standard are you applying there, if the Greek Orthodox church came back under communion with Rome?
Trent Horn:
Well, first I would say that this, I’m willing to entertain this line of questioning, even though it’s not germane to the question that we are debating here, which is that all Christians should accept the Protestant Old Testament canon. That’s really the standard that we need to be debating. I do have a different standard, and I’m happy to defend that in a positive affirmation in another format, which I believe that revelation is given to us both in scripture, sacred tradition and the magisterium that the apostles have successors. And I actually watched your debate with Gavin Ortlund on apostolic succession. Nicely done. We share a belief in some kind of authority continuing from the apostles. And so I would say that teaching authority is given to Christ’s church, and it is what brings a definitive end to disputes that might arise about the nature of the canon.
Trent Horn:
And so what we have at the council of Trent in the 16th century is a solemn declaration about the canon in light of Protestants who rejected some deuterocanonical books, [inaudible 01:04:15] deuterocanonical books. And in referencing what are the contents of the Canon, Trent passes over in silence other books. So what you’re asking is really a kind of a hypothetical question. The church teaches that the 73 or 72 books, depending on how you count them, books of scripture, that they are inspired, that’s definitive, but it has not made a definitive judgment about other books. If the Eastern Orthodox came back into communion with Rome, what would we do there? And once again, this isn’t really directly related to our debate, but I’ll answer speculatively.
Trent Horn:
I imagine if that were to happen, those books would have a kind of quasi-canonical status in that one would be permitted to recognize that their scripture, without being obliged to, since nothing in them contradicts the faith, and then maybe, many, many, many years down the line, or centuries even, they would be fully subsumed and there’d be some recognition that the word of God was preserved in this Eastern tradition for thousands of years and wasn’t fully recognized by the West. Just like when you look in the early years of the church, you’ll see some apostolic traditions are more heavily preserved in certain geographic areas than others. But as I said, that would be a bit speculation. The question on Catholic and Eastern Eastern Orthodox authority is interesting, but I do think it’s important for us to stay focused on whether there is enough evidence that all Christians should accept the Protestant authority on the Old Testament canon, and I have not been convinced of such evidence.
Jonathan Sheffield:
And to kind of turn back to that question, get us back in court, just relating to Augustine’s criteria. Now it’s interesting because he does in Contra Faustus, he lays out a big empirical framework on authorship on Christian doctrine. He lays out, while he does have a difference of opinion on this book, he does go back to an empirical framework. Now, when he talked about all the Catholic churches, obviously I understand that in a broad sense, for the communities, and that those who would be in greater authority.
Jonathan Sheffield:
So given that the Jews were the guardians, the receptors of this today, would they have more authority over this question, given their communities, unless we can specifically establish collusion among them over the Christian churches? Would that then reflect the Catholic part that it has been universally received as canon, and they would be the ones of greater authority since these records trace back, and if these other documents are not there, it would naturally presume they were never received as their canon. So would we assign greater weight and authority on this question to the Jewish congregations, over and above the councils in the Western church?
Trent Horn:
No, I would not do that, because, and this goes back to the crux of the disagreement that we’re having. Part of this is rooted in our understanding of what Paul means in Romans 3:2, when he says the Oracles of God were entrusted to the Jews. Once again, as I said, he’s using the aorist or past tense to describe how not necessarily determination of canonical status is giving to the Jews, but rather what Paul is saying here in Romans 3 is that the Oracles of God, which is an odd phrase to use, rather than just the scriptures or the word of God. As N.T. Wright says, this probably just refers to divine revelation itself. All Paul is saying here is that there are… In Romans 1, he gives the pagans a tongue lashing. Romans 2, he gives the Jews a tongue lashing. Then Romans 3, he says, but you know, there’s benefits to being Jewish over being pagan.
Trent Horn:
One is Jews receive divine revelation. God spoke directly to them. They were entrusted with it. But it does not follow from this that anyone who identifies as a Jew or just even a majority of Jewish thought has an exclusive ability to define what constitutes something like the Jewish canon or the Old Testament canon. So for me, your argument would have significant weight if we could show that at the time of Christ, all the Jews accepted the canon you are defending in our debate today, and there was no evidence that Jesus and the apostles differed from them in any way, shape, or for. That time of Apostolic Second Temple Judaism, that is more interesting to me than later rabbinic Judaism that rejects the New Testament, rejects the gospels.
Trent Horn:
But as I showed, there is abundant evidence that Jews at the time of Christ accepted the deuterocanonical books through the citations that I gave, and that they accepted them so much, later rabbis in the rabbinic period had to have those books withdrawn and had to lead people away from them. So if the authority was from Jews from the time of Christ, and Christ and the apostles agree with them, sure, yeah. But the evidence counts against that. If it’s from the rabbinic period, that doesn’t carry weight with me.
Joshua:
You’re muted, Jonathan.
Jonathan Sheffield:
Sorry. How much time do I have left?
Joshua:
You have 25 seconds, but I’m fine with like one question, if that, like, you go ahead. As long as Trent doesn’t object.
Jonathan Sheffield:
Trent, your thought… Yeah. Last question on this round. Now, Josephus, I know you’ve made the assumption that he’s exaggerating in this point. Obviously he is a witness with knowledge of the Jewish histories. He had access. He was a court historian, but how likely as I opened up, given his public rival Justice Tiberius, who was writing a similar set of histories, Josephus was obviously writing his own [inaudible 01:10:46], how likely is it he would’ve lied about these things, given Justice Tiberius writing something and he would’ve been called out in exaggerating this tradition, something that he would be familiar with? Is this where we would see exaggeration from Josephus?
Trent Horn:
Well, as I cited in my reply, scholars admit that Josephus lends himself to exaggeration. He devises speeches from battles where there are no surviving witnesses, for example, to deliver speeches to him. Now, I agree with you that Josephus is, at least according to first century standards, a generally reliable historian telling us a lot about the first century, but he’s far from infallible. And some things he talks about have to be taken with a grain of salt. So the point I was talking about when it came to exaggerate… I mean, I agree, I don’t think he lied, but exaggeration is not lying. That’s getting carried away with your own rhetoric. That’s what I meant when I cited scholars like Campbell and others who’ve done studies on Josephus, saying his rhetoric has run ahead of reality. Like in Against Apion, when he’s there, the apologetic he’s doing and trying to say there are 22 books of the Jewish canon, the sacred histories up to Artaxerxes, that he would not be concerned about justice of Tiberius going up against him, because both of them are trying to defend the authenticity and antiquity of Judaism.
Trent Horn:
If we had the writings of Apion and other pagan or Egyptian critics, maybe we would get the other side on this point, that rather his writing it Against Apion, he makes these grand claims like every Jew from his birth knows the scriptures, knows what the scriptures are, no one has dared to change even a syllable in the manuscript traditions, which is patently false. And so here he is trying to defend against his pagan interlocutors. He’s trying to say, “Look, you believe your views are ancient and well attested. Our ancient views are also well attested.” He’s not as concerned about after Artaxerxes, because he is trying to defend the more antiquated parts of Jewish history.
Trent Horn:
And so he is defending that and throws some of the other parts on bus, so to speak. But that still doesn’t count against when he describes how there are prophets active after Artaxerxes. He never makes any kind of definitive statement of the canon being closed or anything like that. So I think ultimately, Josephus’s witness, it may count for something, but I don’t believe it has enough value to outweigh what we have from other Jewish witnesses, as well as from the church fathers who did receive the deuterocanon as JND Kelly, an Anglican historian says, they received it as scripture generally in the fullest sense.
Joshua:
All right. Thank you so much. Now, Trent, your rebuttal begins, and we will again go for 15 minutes. And guys, thank you so much for the questions. Just a reminder, after this rebuttal, we go to the Q and A period. If you want to specify to whom the question is, that’s up to you, but if it’s for both, that’s totally fine too. No problem or pressure there. Okay, Trent, whenever you’re ready, we’ll start.
Trent Horn:
Okay. Sure. So, well, my first question would be for Jonathan. Who would you say is the first Christian author or church council to affirm the Protestant canon you are defending, which would not include the deuterocanon, or the longer portions of Daniel and Esther. Who would you say is the first church father or council or Christian writer that affirms that exact canon?
Jonathan Sheffield:
Well, I think this would be consistent with Jerome’s position and I think, and once again, I do frame that in the understanding that Jerome was under a lot of pressure. In some ways, 382, after the Aryans were just being just done away with, they had come out. The last thing the Western church needed was another dispute of this magnitude. We know his translation of Job incited a riot because of what they had remembered seeing or hearing in the Septuagint, that has such a long established history. So what we see consistent with Jerome, who does the first serious study on this, from Jerome, is this position. And I think it is consistent in his writings that he did imply an empirical standard that we see in his preface to the gospels, that we need to go back to the Hebrew line on the Old Testament and the Greek line on the New.
Jonathan Sheffield:
So we understood that, and he does understand that whatever wasn’t received in the Hebrew list, and he does make this consistent affirmation, should be set aside and only partitioned to be read given his observation. So I would say that Jerome is the first to really undertake this study. I don’t think what origin did, even though his list and Melito’s of Sardis, is much more consistent with the Protestant confession, even though he had differences on Daniel and some of the other longer passages, but I would say his is. And I think in some-
Trent Horn:
So you would admit though that he doesn’t agree with the Protestant canon because he accepts that deutero-Daniel is scripture, based on the Theodotion Septuagint. So he does affirm… Would you agree with that he affirms to deutero-Daniel based on his letter to Rufinus?
Jonathan Sheffield:
No, and I believe how I interpret that is he’s stating an opinion and I think it goes back to his logic. Now he does say, I’m not basing this on my opinion, but that of the Jews, which is consistent with his framework on this is how I’m going to formulate the canon. And I think in regards to Theodotion’s version in his commentary on Daniel, which he obviously does a lot of work trying to refute Porphyry of Tyre on that, he basically almost condemns Theodotion’s version and that Porphyry was actually led aray by that version. So Jerome’s writings don’t indicate how favorable he was. In Rufinus, what he’s saying there is this is not of my opinion, but he’s bringing it back to the Jews, which is consistent what we see in his commentaries.
Trent Horn:
Sure. How do you square that with his reply to Rufinus where he says this. The churches, so he’s not talking about Jews, he says, the churches choose to read Daniel in the version of Theodotion, which is the longer deutero-Daniel, but sin have I committed in following the judgment of the churches. So there doesn’t that seem like that he’s referring to a Christian tradition to defend a deuterocanonical writing, versus looking at the Jews?
Jonathan Sheffield:
Well, we got to remember the political reality of this environment that he’s in. He’s obviously not only his translation of Job, but what he was, I mean, this caused a lot of commotion throughout North Africa. He was receiving a lot of pressure, not only on this issue, but his work on the New Testament, in the sense that he’s being accused of being a forger, he’s changing things, he’s adding things. But when I see that opinion, yes, and Augustine talks about that too. It’s accepted on the church. The church has decided to receive it as authority. But if we read the rest of his response to Rufinus there, what he’s saying is the Jews, which I quoted, do not receive those records in their volume, which seems more consistent with the pattern that we see in Jerome’s writing of him going back to that standard.
Jonathan Sheffield:
I think he is trying to navigate a very difficult situation, being attacked, and I give him a lot of credit. He’s being attacked from all areas. And Rufinus made these claims. He was being attacked, and this is how he’s trying to navigate those waters. So I don’t think he’s giving… because the Anglican confession, we quote Jerome, that’s our standard, say, well, we separate them out. And I think that would be consistent with that passage from Rufinus.
Trent Horn:
I’ll save my question [inaudible 01:20:11] confession if we have time here. I’ll stick to Jerome a little bit. Let me understand, make sure your argument… are you saying that the witness of Jerome on the deuterocanon, it should have a privileged place, at least, in our understanding of the Old Testament Canon, because Jerome is a very able biblical scholar, he understands Hebrew, like this is a really solid ancient Bible scholar for us to follow, looking at the Hebrew in the old Testament. What was that? Sorry. I thought I heard something.
Joshua:
Jonathan you’re muted again.
Jonathan Sheffield:
Oh, sorry about that. What I would say is, first we’re basing off what Jerome observed. And I think one of the points I did make in my opening was Augustine, in the city of God, made that same observation, that Jerome was very learned, he was skilled in all three languages, and the Jews themselves also confirmed his work.
Trent Horn:
I want to jump in though, then, the follow up to that. Would you accept Jerome’s translation of Genesis 3:15, where he translates it, where God says, “I will put enmity between you and the woman, that thy seed and her seed, she shall crush thy head.” That famous passage, Genesis 3:15, where it’s normally translated as “He will crush the serpent’s head,” Jerome translates it as she shall crush the serpents head. And from that, there have been a lot of Catholics who have derived a kind of Marion typology from this in Genesis 3:15. Given the Jerome, his able scholarship, do you agree with his translation of it?
Jonathan Sheffield:
Well, so here’s what I would say about… Oh, sorry. I got to move my mouth because it keeps going over that point. So here’s why I would say about Jerome’s translations. There’s a number of things that I would agree with his translations on, and there’s things that I may not. Now in particular, he was very familiar with the Hebrew canon. There’s no doubt about that. He definitely exhibits that when he is writing back to Augustine on why he chose what he did, in Jonah. Now, as far as accepting that, there are many things I do accept from Jerome in his textual critical analysis, and there’s things that I don’t, but it’s still based on the weight of the evidence. And Jerome is making an empirical observation that seems consistent with what we find in Josephus, what we find in the Talmud, what we find even in the prologue to Syria. So when we have independent witnesses coming to the same conclusion, that’s where we’re weighing it in favor for him.
Trent Horn:
Well, you cited one thing there, because those other examples would be after the time of Christ, including after the writing of the majority of the new Testament, except for the prologue to Cyrac. How would the prologue to Cyrac show that there is any kind of closing of an Old Testament canon, given that the author of Cyrac, the author of the prologue, the grandson of Cyrac, only notes the law, the prophets, and the other writings. So would you agree that the author of the prologue of Cyrac does not make an explicit statement that canon had been closed at that time? You’re muted.
Jonathan Sheffield:
Oh yeah. So.
Trent Horn:
It’s consistent.
Jonathan Sheffield:
It is sort of consistent with what we’re seeing, but I think the other thing that… He talks about a threefold division, and I think this is where I’m trying to establish resemblance to what we find in Josephus. So is it easier to pair that up with what Josephus is saying? And it does give the writings period sort of an idea about our ancestors, books of our ancestors, the books that followed afterwards. And we have Josephus that give some really good descriptions on what those writings are. And then we see in the tracta, in the Talmud, these things. So those are all consistent. And then Jerome comes in and sees these things. And that’s where I would say it’s not on any one piece of evidence. We have to look at where the independent witnesses are consistent and agree on these points, Trent. That’s why I think we got to-
Trent Horn:
Would you agree then, prior to Jerome, the vast majority of the church fathers and ecclesial writers cite the deuterocanon as scripture?
Jonathan Sheffield:
Well, yes, I would agree. Now, I think that is based on predisposition to a text that they weren’t particularly connected with the Hebrew. Remember, the Christians very early on in John, we see them starting to get kicked out of the synagogues. Obviously there weren’t a lot of open sessions and dialogue going through this period, and they’re pre-deposed to a particular translation. And remember there were other Greek manuscript traditions. And one of the things I’ve showed is just in the Greek tradition alone, you cannot conclusively come to what those deuterocanonical books are, unless you remain within one tradition.
Jonathan Sheffield:
So the Septuagint provided at least somewhat of consistency standard for the church and being deposed to that version of scripture, which Augustine says was widespread, they didn’t know about any other version, because they didn’t have the affinity to go to the Hebrew until Jerome. And most did agree with it as divine scripture. Though, I would say, what we find in the list that Eusebius provide from Eusebius, from origin, [inaudible 01:26:54], and what we see in the [inaudible 01:26:58] list is much more consistent with the Protestant canon than it is with the Catholic.
Trent Horn:
How much time do we have Josh?
Joshua:
You have two minutes.
Trent Horn:
Okay. Let me move forward in time then, because it seems like, I also am concerned that this notion of a Protestant canon might not be as unified as we think as if there was one that was just immediately recognized in 1517 or anything like that. So looking at the 39 articles of the Anglican church, the sixth article prohibits the use of the deuterocanon to defend doctrine or to confirm doctrine. But are you aware that the 35th article in the 39 articles, it recommends the Book of Homilies being used among Anglicans, which dates from the time of Edward VI, and that that book does use the deuterocanon to support doctrine? I’ve always noticed that kind of a contradiction there in the 39 articles. I was just wondering if you were aware of that.
Jonathan Sheffield:
Well, and let’s put the context of the Homilies in context of the period. First, not that saying that the Anglicans ever give bad sermons, but they did. And the Homilies, a large set that was written by Thomas Krammer, was used to really build up our core doctrines. But I find them still consistent because what do we say in article six is that it should be read for the edification of the people. So they do have value in this particular tradition, because the sermons are to be read to the churches. And I think one of the things that I do want to make sure you understand is the tradition that they should be read, while I understand why some of the Protestant communions took a different direction, I think in large part, given the controversy of them being forced on to accept these works, that’s why they split apart, but the homilies are consistent because we do read, we do accept that tradition that they should be read-
Trent Horn:
Here’s my last question then before we run out of time. Here’s the quotation from the 16th century Anglican Archbishop of Canterbury John Whitgift. So I think there’s, to demonstrate a plurality of opinion here, diversity, he says “The scripture here called apocrypha, abusively and improperly, our holy writings, void of error, part of the Bible, and so accounted of in the purest time of the church and by the best writers ever read in the Church of Christ, and shall never be forbidden by me or by my consent.” That would be so an Anglican Archbishop in the late 16th century. I’m guessing you would probably just, your position would be in disagreement with Whitgift’s then, would be my question.
Jonathan Sheffield:
No, because Whitcliff is saying they still should be read, but are you saying as-
Trent Horn:
Well he calls them holy writings, part of the Bible, void of error, accounted in the purest time of the church. It seems more ever read in the Church of Christ. It seems like he’s saying more than just that they’re a valuable set of writings, but that they’re on par with scripture. Seems to be in the opinion that he has.
Jonathan Sheffield:
Not that saying you’re stretching on that a point, Trent, but how is that different? I mean, I would find that consistent with Cardinal Cajetan, who obviously was greatly indebted to Jerome on his separation of the canonical from uncanonical. But he still considered them part of canon, not in the sense of establishing point of faith, but they’re called canonical for the edification of the faithful, in so much that they’re received in the canon of the Bible for this purpose, and treated with respect.
Trent Horn:
Are you aware that Cardinal Cajetan had a really, really, really high view of Jerome that he actually said this: “For the words of the councils, as well as of the doctors are to be submitted to the correction of Jerome. That do you think it’s possible that Cajetan and some other medieval scholars might have uncritically followed Jerome without taking all of the church’s opinion on this matter into account?
Jonathan Sheffield:
Here’s why I would say no Cardinal Jimenez, who was actually much more influenced, not only by Erasmus, but by Lorenzo Valla on the work that he did on his textual studies, which led to his addition of the complication Bible. And he too went with the learned opinion of Jerome on this matter. So we have two high officials within the Roman Catholic community, members of high standard, those that were actually involved in, I mean, with Cardinal Jimenez, in actually engaging in a reconstruction to reconcile the Greek and the Latin traditions, and that’s the position he came to. And I think what we see is this consistent, learned opinion throughout history being used. And so I don’t think it’s only on them, because Cardinal Cajetan, what he says in his treaties as well, is that he freed us from the reproach of the Hebrews, who blamed us for framing books or parts of book on the ancient canon, which are absolutely without. So he’s not only going on Jerome’s opinion, but he’s empirically looking at-
PART 3 OF 5 ENDS [01:33:04]
Jonathan Sheffield:
On Jerome’s opinion, but he’s empirically looking at what had come down from the Jews and making the determination on that as well.
Joshua:
All right, guys. So the time is out actually. Okay. There we are. Okay. So now we will be moving into 30 minute question and answer session. So I’m going to actually start with one of the super chats we received early on. Now super chats have some precedence, but don’t worry, we get to all the questions as fast as we can. Let me first set the time, because we will need to do 30 minutes of this, and the first one isn’t actually a question. Let me just display it. It’s a super chat that says…
Trent Horn:
Those are the best questions.
Joshua:
Yeah. I love you, Trent Horn, from a friend of mine, Richard.
Trent Horn:
My answer would be I am flattered, happily married indeed, but always appreciative of support, and I hope our commenters though will show similar support to Jonathan as well, because it’s quite interesting. In the discussion that we are having here, I mean, I would find, with Jonathan, far more common ground theologically than I had, for example, with Steve Christie, who I previously debated on the Old Testament canon, who is probably the furthest away theologically for me one could get with reformed low church theology versus Jonathan’s more high church Anglicanism.
Joshua:
All right. So now another one of those I want to display is kind of a question. It wasn’t framed as a question, but it is. I think it primarily addresses Jonathan, but I think both of you will get, and the way this works is that the person to whom the question is directed will have two minutes to answer, and then if the other person has thoughts one minute, and probably equal time if it’s to no one in particular. Okay. Here is from Father James. He’s an Anglican priest who goes by barely Protestant. He wants to simply note, and again, probably ask your thoughts that the Book of Homilies, a part of our Anglican formularies explicitly cited Deuterocanon as scripture. So what are your thoughts on that, Jonathan, and then Trent, if you have any?
Jonathan Sheffield:
I think initially when we look at article six, which specifically defines how we understand Deuterocanonical books in the Western Church and their use within the polity of the Anglican communion, I think squares very well. In many ways, they are treated as canon in sense, or they are part of the received tradition of the Apostolic Question Church. So in that way, we do receive it. We do account it canonical on that status, but we make a distinction and we do quote Jerome on there. So I think when we read the Homilies, which is designed to read to the people, and article six specifically says these documents should be read for the edification. I do think that squares pretty well with article six and the 35. I would have to get where specifically the Homilies, which are mostly written by Cranmer, and there was some others as well. I mean, they drew up these articles.
Joshua:
So, I mean, I think he’s given Second Book of Homilies, Homily 11 and Homily of Alms, Deeds, et cetera, et cetera. So that’s the one he’s given [inaudible 01:36:40]
Jonathan Sheffield:
I believe I read that, which is a really good one, and this may go back to Trent’s point, and maybe Trent can help me understand where he sees that article six and article 35, since we are advocating for it to be read to the congregations and treated as scripture in essence, where’s there the discrepancy between that?
Trent Horn:
Sure. Let me see if I can bring… Well, because the 35th article says that the Second Book of Homilies contain godly and wholesome doctrine necessary for these times, as doth the former Book of Homilies. So it talks about them containing this godly and wholesome doctrine. Yet in many cases, in order to confirm that doctrine, it uses the Deuterocanonical books, and does so in a fashion different than what the sixth article says one should not do. I just think that’s interesting. It’s just kind of a contradiction. I think it reveals that the Deuterocanon had an entrenched place within Christiandom that Protestantism had to really rip and tear away from. And we can see this, for example, in the fact that Protestant Bibles, you look at the 1611 King James version, it cross references Matthew 27 and Wisdom Two, citing a Deuterocanonical book as a part of that biblical prophecy in the 1611 king James version.
Trent Horn:
And so the Deuterocanonical books are there in the KJV and in most Anglican Bibles and others, but then when you get to the 19th century, you have a lot of Protestant Bible societies getting rid of the Deuterocanon out of the Bible, not even as an appendix, and yet things like the KJV footnotes still remain, but they point to a book that’s no longer there. In fact, I think it was the Edinburgh Bible Society in Scotland that said that they would not include the Deuterocanon, even as a uninspired appendix in the Bible, because they were worried that would lead people to Romanism essentially.
Jonathan Sheffield:
Yeah, I would frame it in the context of just how we use Jude. Obviously we don’t accept Enoch, but we do accept Jude. So we recognize it is quoting other literature just as Paul quoted pagans, and obviously there’s a number of illusions in the New Testament gospels, which probably when in doubt does go back to that. So they were using literature of this period. The Jews still use a number of this literature, but I don’t think in the same way that Jude doesn’t canonize Enoch, in the same way the Homilies, in referencing these documents, are not canonizing the Deuterocanonical books.
Joshua:
All right. So this is a question for Trent from Dan Chappa, another great guy I’m proud to call a friend. For Trent, granting some exceptions, do you disagree that the Hebrews generally agreed on the canon by the time of Christ?
Trent Horn:
Well, let me see. The question has loaded an important phrase in there, granting some exceptions, but I think that that is the crux in what is important. I believe that just as there were Judaisms in the second temple Judaism at the time of Christ, we also found canons. And I think that is really the opinion that comes to when you look at scholarly research on things. As I cited earlier, Timothy Lamb’s book, The Formation of the Jewish Canon, Timothy Michael Law’s handbook on the septuagint, Lee Martin McDonald’s work on the Canon Volume One, the Old Testament, all show this kind of gradual approach to understanding that ends up revealing different.
Trent Horn:
I think all that we could say, with a time of the Jews in the first century, everybody agreed on the Torah, the Pentateuch. They all agreed on the first five books are a gold standard. That’s no wonder then that Philo, the Jewish Alexandrian philosopher, when he cites scripture, 98% of his citations are the Torah. He doesn’t cite the Deuterocanon, but he also doesn’t cite many of the prophets or the writings, that the Torah was the baseline. And then from there after, you get a substantial disagreement between the Sadducees, the Essenes, even after the Torah about the status of Esther, of Pslam of Songs, of many of these other works.
Trent Horn:
So, no, I don’t think there was this kind of uniformity. That would make sense, by the way, of why, when Jesus engages the Sadducees on the question of the resurrection, he does not cite a prophet like Daniel, even though he does cite Daniel before the Sanhedrin, in his own defense. He doesn’t cite Daniel on the resurrection where the doctrine is quite explicit. Rather, he cites the Torah. He cites the book of Exodus because this was a book, the first five, or something that all Jews held in common. So I would disagree with the question, or I don’t think that there was a uniform canon. At least not one like the Protestant canon that’s being defended here.
Joshua:
And do you want to add anything, Jonathan, or is that fine?
Jonathan Sheffield:
Well, I think I understand the observations that Trent is making. I think, first, the understanding of the Sadducees we get from Josephus antiquities. They admit no observance at all, apart from the laws, and I think this is where the assumption is built that they didn’t accept anything outside the Torah. It’s not specifically stated and I still have to read this in the ream of other statements from Josephus, where he does, when he is specifically speaking about the canonical tradition of the Jews, he doesn’t preclude them there, but wraps his mind around the idea that this is to receive tradition of the Jews.
Jonathan Sheffield:
And I think we have to read that in context. So as Trent brought up, before the Sanhedrin, discussion happens a little further, but I would still say we would have to still sort of reconcile both statements from Josephus. I could see where that statement from Josephus, that they admit no observance at all, apart from the laws, but is this referring to maybe more of their oral traditions, as opposed to the prophets, which are bringing different messages, than their Torah traditions?
Trent Horn:
So you’re saying, in this case, Josephus might be imprecise or exaggerating when it comes to the Sadducees.
Jonathan Sheffield:
No, I would probably say that it’s not as definitive or clear.
Trent Horn:
Imprecise, yeah.
Jonathan Sheffield:
What he means by they admit no observance at all, apart from the laws, does that preclude them recognizing the prophets? I’m not sure. It’s difficult to read the interpretation.
Joshua:
All right. Trent, this is for you, from another guy who is a very good friend of mine, Steve Christie, and he wants to ask question for Trent. Can you name one Jewish or Christian list, I guess a list of books, identical to the Catholic Old Testament canon prior to the fifth century like you can for Protestant canon from the second and third centuries? And he cites Bothra and Origin, I guess. So that’s the question.
Trent Horn:
Yeah. I would say that the lists that are proposed at the councils of Hippo and Carthage are the same lists that are reaffirmed at Florence and Trent. There is a bit of a dispute about the content of the book of Esdras, what that means. So some people, like Steve, have tried to argue that the canons are different, but Esdras is not a distinct book of the Bible itself. It’s primarily copies of what is in Ezra and Nehemiah and Chronicles. So when we understand, like how Saint Augusta understood, there’s technically four books of Esdras, E-S-D-R-A-S, that become a little complicated to sort through what each one is, but we understand them in their proper context.
Trent Horn:
I think it’s clear that the canon that is received at the fourth century councils, as well as the canon that Pope, I want to say it was Pope Leo, he gave in a letter at Toulouse to Exuperius, I believe, would be the same canon that was reaffirmed at the Ecumenical Council of Trent. So I would place that there, but even Athanasius’ canon in the fourth century, it’s Old Testament canon does not match the Protestant canon as well. There are differences there, but I do believe what comes from the regional councils is reaffirmed at Trent.
Joshua:
All right. Great. Do you want to say anything on that, Jonathan, or is that fine?
Jonathan Sheffield:
No, I think that’s pretty fine.
Joshua:
Okay, great. Another one from Steve Christie for you, again. Trent, hypothetically, if some Eastern Orthodox books could be added to the Catholic canon later, isn’t the Catholic canon missing inspired books, I guess, now. Okay.
Trent Horn:
Yeah. So this just once again goes to a hypothetical. Yeah. So this is a hypothetical question. What do we do if the Eastern Orthodox chose to reunite with the Western church, which I would love by the way, and I’d love for the Anglicans come back too. I mean, of the three groups, we’re a lot cl- It’s way more likely I can get Jonathan to come on board than Steve at this point, when it comes to our doctrinal differences. Well, frankly, Jonathan, if you ever in town, I’d be happy to take you to the Anglican ordinary in Dallas, by the way.
Jonathan Sheffield:
Oh, definitely.
Trent Horn:
If you ever stop by, that would be the Catholic liturgy of that was preserved, much the Anglican form. So once again, and this is hypothetical. It could just be the case. It could also be the case that if the Eastern Orthodox were brought into communion with Rome, it may also be the case that they would have to accept that the sacred writings for them, like Psalm 151, others that are not in the Deuterocanon, only have the status of permissible, but they are not divine revelation. That one could read them. They’re safe to read. They would have a kind of secondary canonical. They would become Deuterocanonical almost in a sense, or quasi.
Trent Horn:
So we don’t know. It’s possible that the canon would remain the way it is and these books would never be fully incorporated into it. So if someone’s concern is that, well, the Catholic canon could add books to it and I can’t [inaudible 01:48:30] that. That might not happen. I don’t know. Anyone who speculates on church history, it’s very hard to make these kind of future judgements on things, but it’s also possible that these books would be preserved and it would just be the case, not that they were missing inspired book per se, but that the church had not formally recognized them until, let’s say, the year 2,400. Much the same way that the church, the formal recognition of these books, did not take place in a conciliar way until the fourth century.
Trent Horn:
It doesn’t mean that Catholics did not recognize them as inspired scripture prior to 382 or the end of the fourth century, just like Christians recognized the Trinity, even though it wasn’t formally defined until Nicaea in 325. So all that would prove is that they were recognized later, not that they weren’t inspired. It would just show that they had just been preserved in a particular time and place, but as I said, it’s more of an interesting hypothetical question.
Joshua:
All right, Jonathan, you’re fine with that?
Jonathan Sheffield:
Yeah, no, I think it goes back to the question I asked Trent earlier on this.
Joshua:
Yeah, probably that’s where he got it from. Okay. Another one, Trent, [inaudible 01:49:45] superstar. Okay. Oh, by the way, before that, I want to say that Steve Christie wants to tell you that he loves you, Trent, and he wants you to work on your Australian accent. I think you’re having a sit down with another friend of mine, Paul, who goes by the other Paul. So great channel guys. Definitely check it out.
Trent Horn:
I will do my best. I think I’ve tried my best to do the Australian. Good day, good day, good day, good day. If I could just start with that, maybe. Actually, I think some Australians have said that’s kind of on point.
Joshua:
You’re picking that up from Fred.
Trent Horn:
Good day, mate.
Joshua:
All right.
Trent Horn:
All right. So we got another question.
Joshua:
Yeah. This is from Father James. He’s an Anglican priest, goes by barely Protestant. This is for you, Trent. In your view, does the magisterium determine the canon or infallibly recognize the canon? Sorry if this was already addressed in the debate. It wasn’t actually, but even if it was, that’s fine. I mean, there’s nothing wrong with asking that question. Okay, go ahead.
Trent Horn:
Yeah. What I would say is that there are two views that I believe would mischaracterize the church’s role in its relationship to the canon of scripture. So one mistaken view would be that the church determines what is canonical. The word canon comes from a Greek word that means rule, okay? So it’s the rule of faith. What is this, something we believe? And of course, canon isn’t just Bible. We have things like the canon of Star Wars. What is canonical Star Wars? What is non-canonical? I believe that the Endor Holocaust should be canonical Star Wars. Maybe it’s not. I’m willing to have another debate on that, with Endor Holocaust deniers at a future point here. Look it up on Wookieepedia if you don’t know what I’m talking about.
Joshua:
Yeah. I deny that, by the way.
Trent Horn:
Yeah. Well, there’s always the Endorian bigots out there, the anti [inaudible 01:51:34] and their bigotry. But in any case, it doesn’t determine in the sense of we have these writings and the church makes a decree and some become scripture and others do not. God determines which books are inspired and thus become the rule of faith for Christians by inspiring them. So God determines the canon. He determines what constitutes written revelation by choosing which human authors to inspire to write his sacred text. So God determines it, not the church. However, that does not imply the other view, which would be that the church merely discovers the canon. It is not the case that the church’s role in the canon is that the church kind of fumbled about in the dark, so to speak, and went through a certain kind of purely human process of discovering which books are inspired or which are not, which would be summarized by the late Protestant author R. C. Sproul, who said that the canon is a fallible list of infallible books.
Trent Horn:
So those would be the two extremes. It’s not determines canon, it’s not discovers canon, it’s declares canon in the middle authoritatively. So when the church chooses to resolve an issue related to something like the canon and dispute among Christians, the church is able to authoritatively declare, at the very least, these particular books, which would include the Deuterocanon, protocanon, Deuterocanon, are inspired scripture, and Christians are not free to reject them. And the church speaks with the authority given to the apostles, what you bind on earth is bound in heaven, et cetera. So there, I would say, it does not determine. God does that. It does not discover through human means. It authoritatively declares by virtue of the magisterial teaching office, the charism of teaching that comes from the apostles.
Joshua:
All right. Do you want to say anything about that, John?
Jonathan Sheffield:
Yeah. The only thing, and it’s probably just more of a clarification, in the Council of Carthage in 419, one of the statements that they end with in canon 24 of scripture is that these are the writings which we have received to be read in the churches. So I think there’s a little bit of distinction and I know where barely Protestant is going at. We receive the tradition, and maybe this is a subtle point, but we can see that it’s both Catholic and apostolic. And I think this is why I brought up Iranius, is he made that empirical observation, looking at the churches of the apostles and seeing the self same tradition that had come down by the succession of bishops. And he was able to recognize empirically what God had revealed to its churches, which are it’s true guardians and witnesses.
Trent Horn:
Yeah, and I would just say the declaration is not arbitrary. It is rooted in the apostolic tradition.
Joshua:
All right. So now here’s a question for you. I can’t find it to display it, but I remember it quite well. So this is for Jonathan, which is why do you think that the four major codices all contain the apocryphal or the Deuterocanonicals? And for those that don’t know, the four codices, as we know, are the most ancient Bibles, not just the manuscript, but actual Bibles that are put together, Christian Bibles, not Jewish ones. And they’re, as we all know, Sinaiticus, Vaticanus, Ephraemi, and Alexandrinus. So these are fourth, fifth century manuscripts, the oldest Bibles we have. So, Jonathan, the question is, I think it was from Tom, I can’t remember, why do you believe they all contain or contained the apocryphal?
Jonathan Sheffield:
Well, I think it’s important to understand they come from the Greek line, and we know that there was a lot of influence in these writings. I mean, even among the Greeks, it was just so exciting to see how this small group of Jews were able to take over the Macedonian army from the [inaudible 01:55:53] So I think it was more of a surprise. We see some of the Hellenistic philosophy coming into them, and as far as myself, what I understand, even given some of the church fathers understanding of how the [inaudible 01:56:17] the Greek Old Testament tradition came about, I think there’s some differences. If I look at Josephus, Philo, and the Talmud, they say Ptolemy the second only did the Old Testament or just did the Torah. We see what the letter of [inaudible 01:56:33] and Augustine and others, the diversion of the 70 did the whole.
Jonathan Sheffield:
But I think the byproduct of the Hellenistic period is you had these other writings from the Jewish histories that came in and were of value in that period. I mean, there was a number of Hellistic Jews that did enjoy these writings. So they come in in the Greek tradition. So in the Greek tradition, we are going to find these, but I do think… So this is what we should expect to find, because it’s part of that tradition. I think the bigger question is why don’t we see it in the Hebrew tradition or their canonical tradition from that case, but, yeah, we would expect it. But with those codices, there are differences. So even if we look at the ancient codices, there are differences. So looking at just those four manuscript traditions, it indicates what Jerome, Origin, Augustine all realized. These traditions are all over the place. Yeah, they contain that tradition, but the books are different. So you don’t get a definitive answer on which one is correct from four different Greek manuscript traditions.
Joshua:
All right, Trent.
Trent Horn:
Yeah, and I would just offer my thought. It’s true, they are different in regards to the Deuterocanon, but they’re also different in regards to the protocanonical books of the Old Testament. So Codex Vaticanus, for example, from the early fourth century, doesn’t have Timothy, Titus, or Philemon. Sinaiticus is missing parts of the Pentateuch, and Joshua, and Samuel. So we also see that as well, but they all, it’s correct, they do contain the Deuterocanonical books, and I don’t think that chopped up to, well, it just comes from the Greek [inaudible 01:58:25] tradition.
Trent Horn:
I believe the problem here is that, yes, that is the important tradition, but we’ve been given no reason to see why it should not be trusted given its overwhelming citation in the New Testament,, as I showed earlier. You also have, even as late as the Council of Trent, you’ll have some Protestants say, “Oh, well the clergy of Trent didn’t really know Hebrew,” and that’s not true. Francisco Ferrera, who is one of the fathers at Trent, had written a commentary on Isaiah based on the Hebrew Messianic text. So we have, throughout history, people who were aware of Hebrew, aside from Jerome, who did not reject the Deuterocanical as a result.
Joshua:
All right. Okay. Now here’s another question for Trent, we’re back to Trent, quickly. Steve Christie, again, wants to ask, since Paul is speaking in the past tense, the Jews were entrusted with oracles of God, doesn’t this mean the Jews knew what the canon was prior to Paul’s [inaudible 01:59:23]
Trent Horn:
Right, and I would say that what Paul is talking about here is that he’s not making a discussion. It’s always important when we exegete a text to ask what is the main topic that is being discussed? And the issue in Romans three is not about the canon of scripture. It’s not about whether Jews possess the fullness of divine revelation, whether they were missing parts of divine revelation. That is not what Paul is discussing in Romans chapter three. He’s using the [inaudible 02:00:05] So a completed past tense doesn’t always mean that, but I would say it does mean that in this sense to talk about an action that had happened in the past, like how God appeared to Moses under the form of a burning bush. That didn’t happen to the Gentiles.
Trent Horn:
God appeared to Moses, and he gave them the law, and Leviticus makes it clear, you shall not lie with a man as with a woman. Whereas, in Romans one, Paul says the pagans can be held accountable for things like homosexual conduct, because you can know from reason that that’s wrong. But then he adds in Romans three, hey, the Jews, we even get divine revelation as being very clear about this. However, I think as I’ve made it clear in this debate and in my writings and in other scholarship of Judaism, I would just be very careful as a Protestant to say, “Well, I’m just going to have the Jewish canon,” because we don’t have a uniform Jewish canon until the second century, after the [inaudible 02:01:02] revolt. Because at that point, the Sadducees are defunct because of the destruction of the temple. The Estines have been eliminated, essentially. All you have left are rabbinic Judaism under the Pharisees and Jewish Christians, because Christ told the Christians to flee to the mountains. When the time comes, flee to the east, or flee to the mountain when the destruction comes.
Trent Horn:
And so we see the divergence here where we have rabbinic Judaism having the truncated version, as I quoted from other Jewish scholars, possibly to cut off Jewish Christian apologetic and the Jewish Christians preserving the Deuterocanonical books. But prior to that point, first century and going back, there’s far too much divergence. The empirical evidence chose far more divergence on these points. There is a uniform. It could be that what Paul’s referring to is the uniform belief in the Torah. Yeah. They all agreed on that, but where the canonical boundary ends, way, way messier.
Joshua:
All right. Are you fine with that, Jonathan?
Jonathan Sheffield:
Yeah. The only point that I’ll just make is that we know the Jews were dispersed throughout the known world, and I think what we see coming down, and even within the Pharisees, there was the house of Shaima the house of [inaudible 02:02:28] So did they really have one standard on things? Not really. They couldn’t get over which way to wash your hands, and were they willing to accept a broad view on the canon? So I would say they would’ve had to known, they’ve had different traditions, the Babylonian, Talmud, the Jerusalem. I would say it’s consistent from the sources that we have, seems that this is the tradition that they brought down with them that has been consistent.
Joshua:
All right, so I’ll take three more questions because we have a lot, but I can’t get to all of them in time and we’ve already been going for two hours. So I’ll take three more, just a quick note, Steve Christie wanted to let Trent know that last Jedi, he does not recognize as canonical.
Trent Horn:
Oh yeah. I personally am a Jedi for contest. So I do not believe that anything after Return of the Jedi is canonical. I’m possibly willing to make an exception for Rogue One. That would have Deuterocanonical status.
Joshua:
All right. That’s great. Okay. So this is a follow up actually to a question Trent already answered from Father James. He asked you a question, does the church get self established again or just infallibly recognizes? I think your answer was more it infallibly recognizes, and he says, “If it is so, if it infallibly recognizes the canon, wouldn’t that mean that it would have to be from the material sufficient…
Wouldn’t that mean that it would have to be from the material sufficiency of the scriptures?
Trent Horn:
Do you know what is so funny? I saw a clip about this because I was just perusing YouTube, instead of studying before this came up. I saw a clip related to this discussion on what “The other Paul highlights”. So I believe other Paul is another protestant apologist, who though he comes from more of a low church tradition barely protestant. And I will be dialoguing soon. [Crosstalk Right]? And they were having a discussion about this point, and I thought it was an interesting argument and I’d like to process it more before I give a complete reply. The argument they were making is this is that “if you believe in the material sufficiency of scripture” which would be, there’s two different views, one could be that all doctrine necessary for salvation is found in scripture, even implicitly, or that all doctrine all Christian doctrine is implicitly found in scripture, Catholics that’s one view of material sufficiency. Catholics may hold that view, but they do not have to hold that view. And the argument that they’re making is if that is the case, then would that mean the can of scripture is implicitly found in scripture. And so that would support Protestantism. And so I’ll tie it back to the question here is if an Albi recognizes a cannon, would that mean it would have to be from the material sufficiency of the scriptures?
Trent Horn:
No, it may not because if you hold the another view, which is called the partum view, which is that divine revelation is found partly in scripture and partly in tradition, the can itself may be something that exists in tradition that is neither implicit nor explicit in scripture. And so the horn of dilemma, they tried to put in the video clip, I watch, and I have to think through their argument more to give my full response is that well, if you do material that second, Timothy three 16 through 17 proves at least material sufficiency, I’m not sure that it does that.
Trent Horn:
So I don’t think that is at least not a robust material sufficiency like that all doctrine is there maybe related to salvation, but not necessarily to the full limits of the canon or anything like that. But so that’s one problem with it. So the argument here could be that the church declares the canon and it is material sufficient, it’s found implicitly at scripture, but I don’t think that would help Protestantism because one may solve a problem of explicitly bringing it out in an authoritative way where you need the magisterial to be able to do that. That would be one or two, a Catholic might take another approach and just say, deny the material sufficiency premise, and say that revelation comes partly in scripture and partly in tradition, I have not fully made up my mind on this particular question. I’m open to both views.
Trent Horn:
The parts in part 10 view seems interesting, because I think that there are beliefs like the divine revelation ended with the death of the last apostle last apostolic man that are not implicit in scripture. And yet we hold to them infallibly, even if we were to include the east Eastern Orthodox works back into scripture later on, it would be because they have an apostolic origin. We would never include the book of Mormon, for example, that was written in 1830 golden plates aside a discussion for another time. So in any case, that was a long answer, but it was a thoughtful question and that’s I’ll hopefully have a more comprehensive reply in future time.
Joshua:
Yeah. Jonathan, are you fine with that?
Jonathan Sheffield:
Yeah. The only thing from the Anglican perspective, we recognize obviously scripture first, then tradition and reason. So tradition is a part and I would say in the canon specifically, that is a tradition that has been at all times in all places, we see the canon. So there is a much more objective framework and the way we state it in the Anglican articles is to commonly receive texts are canonical. So it’s a much more objective definition and it’s obviously takes in consideration the tradition or the Greek Latin and Aramaic apostolic church’s traditions in there. So [crosstalk all right]
Joshua:
Now this is a question from Sid and this is his summary of it. Basically, if the Catholic canon is the historical and Apostolic canon, how do we rationalize the differences between the Orthodox Church, which also has a valid Apostolic succession and I guess, between Catholics?. All right.
Trent Horn:
Yeah. I would just say that particular question might be more of a sociological and historical question, dealing with kind of the slow folding divorce that occurred in the early church after the fall of Rome, where you have the division between the Western Eastern empire and lack of communication between the two different customs, culture, language and traditions, arising as a result even though there is still a mutual Catholic faith and a recognition of a universal jurisdiction of the Bishop of Rome, we see very diverging customs emerging. And part of that may have also included the venerating of certain old Testament text.
Trent Horn:
So we see this in just differences between how the Cappadocian fathers approach theology versus those in the Ambrosian and Augustinian traditions. So it’s a bit broad of a question to explain exactly why that is the case? but I don’t think the fact that it is the case counts against the authority of the Catholic Church, at least in that respect there, you just might there are different options one would have to take that the Orthodox may have been mistaken in accepting these books. That is one approach, or you might take another course is your Orthodox, you could say the Catholics are wrong about not including them or, you could take, which would be the other approach saying that they should have been recognized earlier, but specifically the Council of Trent did not deny these books for scripture. It passed over them in silence as the Latin term that is used.
Trent Horn:
So which, would still allow their formal recognition later. So yeah, I guess a few thoughts on that.
Joshua:
Right. Johnson, you good with this?
Jonathan Sheffield:
Yeah. I still come down to the point where, where two or three witnesses agree, that is where we would have, [crosstalk right yeah!] but I would have the Jews in that point of authority as well.
Joshua:
That’s fine. Okay. So now this is for Jonathan, it was clarified by examining truth. And he wants to just correct a little bit, the question a little bit, I’m going to read the corrected version without the normative authority for you, Jonathan, without the normative authority. Isn’t it troubling that if you reject a book of scripture, that God wants to be scripture, you’re truncating your data set and you may be distorting your doctrine as a result.
Jonathan Sheffield:
Without the authority? Well, I would say the authority lies with the independent witnesses. So I think this is why it’s not dependent on anyone sold jurisdiction, but we look at the different relevant witnesses, part of this tradition in making the decision. And I think this is what prevents us from actually rejecting a book. Obviously, there are many things as part of the Western church we agree with, but I think we still have to bring this around to include the other witnesses. I think what we are doing here, if we are leaving it within the sole authority of the Western Church, maybe we are taking a blurred vision because we are not bringing in, the Greek Orthodox or to that sense, the Aramaic Churches who are also witnesses, it is why I think this needs to be a representative decision from not only the Greek, Latin, Aramaic and Apostolic Churches, but the Jews as well.
Joshua:
So I think looking at it just from the lens of the Western church, even though I’m pre deposed to their, to our bias, I think we got to take off the glasses and start looking at the other witnesses as well.
Joshua:
And Craig are you fine with That?
Trent Horn:
Well yeah and I would say that when we examine witnesses to something like the old Testament canon, not all of the witnesses are of equal evidential value, much the same as when we say well, how do we understand the identity of Jesus, of Nazareth? Who is he? There are a variety of witnesses. There would be Jewish, prophetic witnesses B.C. There would be the witnesses contemporaneous with Christ, like the apostles, and then those after like the church fathers or rabbinic Judaism and all of those witnesses, rabbinic Judaism is the least helpful in only indirectly attest the thing that conversion through its mockery, and calumnies of Christ.
Trent Horn:
The same way When I try to determine the old Testament canon and I look at what is the Jewish testimony prior to Christ? How did the apostles view the Tugen? How used in the new Testament? How do the church fathers use it? And then finally rabbinic Judaism afterwards how it views it? But it’s going to have far lower evidential status because of its break from second tempera Judaism.
Joshua:
All right. Now we are moving into closing statements. So we will have five minutes for both sides to offer closing statements, perhaps reminisce, or just some of the case for us. Okay. So Jonathan, wherever you are ready we are going to start with you five minutes.
Jonathan Sheffield:
Okay. Just give me one moment. Not that I forgot about it just [laugh] [crosstalk all right]. Going through my notes here. Okay once again thank you Trent for this conversation. Once again given kind of familiarity with the Western tradition are definitely having the same or same basic policy or coming from the same tradition. I really appreciated this engagement. I think once again, there is a lot more that probably unites us than divides us on this issue. And there is a number of things that we recognize as part of our tradition that made this to be a much more fruitful discussion that I’ve probably seen in some of the evangelical communities. So thank you for that. It was so refreshing someone of your caliber being very familiar with the writings of the fathers and being able to engage their literature in a respectful forum.
Jonathan Sheffield:
So, with that said I think it’s important when we look at the historical evidence and obviously I frame this in light of the Jewish testimonies. I think in accordance with Augustine’s formula, I do believe greater weight would be assigned to a number of independent Jewish communities. And I think one of the points I recognize is when we look throughout the known world, this is the text that they come down with. And I have to determine was collusion the result of this uniformity that we see in the Jewish canonical tradition, was there any member of their rabbinic tradition that would’ve had the ability to standardize a specific canon, across the various factions of Jews that still existed at that time?
Jonathan Sheffield:
And if there was an attempt why don’t we see that hundreds of years later? Why when we look at the Church fathers in both the Greek, Latin and Aramaic Apostolic Churches, and see that they too did recognize a uniformity within the Jews, it was something that they recognize that was a major difference to the text they have today. And I think one of the simplest explanations that we can make for this is that the Apocrypha, that is the writings that were the product of the Hellenistic period that had come into the cat or come into the period after the Jewish cannon had closed, just weren’t received by the Jewish synagogues, because I have to explain why Yiddish, which is very consistent with their liturgy of keeping kosher and not mixing with the gentile nations or the book of Maccabees that is completely ingrained into Jewish society does not end up in And I think the simplest explanation for that is the canon was already closed. They believed that the spirit had already withdrawn, even though there was a divine VOR still present with the Jews. And I think when we weigh the testimony, we do have to factor in that the Apostolic Churches were the byproduct of a very divergent Greek manuscript tradition.
Jonathan Sheffield:
And if we want to have a much more cleaner assessment of this question, we have to go back to the Jews and make a comparison of what they have come down, taking part, any differences that they may have. So while I do recognize the issues raised throughout the history of the churches with respect to the apocryphal were complex at times, appeared uncertain in terms of canonicity. I think what I brought forward today and trying to at least bring over to Trent is that I think we do see a consistent learning opinion in the statements of the fathers, where that, there is this consistency of making a clear distinction between ecclesiastical use and the writings that we are going to consider as part of the basis of our Christian doctrine on there. And with that, thank you, Trent, for this opportunity. Thank you, Canadian Catholic for hosting this. [Crosstalk inaudible]
Joshua:
All right. Thank you so much. Just call me Josh.
Jonathan Sheffield:
Yes. [laugh]
Joshua:
All right. So Trent, we begin five minutes whenever you are ready.
Trent Horn:
Yeah. Once again, I’m really grateful that Josh and you invited us both here and Jonathan, to be able to engage you on this subject. It is always fun to have substantive discussion. And I think that’s what we were able to accomplish today. And I would definitely encourage anyone who wants to learn more about this subject to yes go and do more of the research. So two sources that I would, well, I’ll say the sources till the end, actually. So they’re fresh in your mind. You should go do your own reading.
Trent Horn:
I would say, I agree with Jonathan. Yeah, what are the Jewish sources? What do they say? And what I’ve tried to do in this debate is to say that the [inaudible] canon, my favorite Bible verse Sirach two four through six. “Accept whatever befalls you in crushing misfortune, be patient for in fire Gold is tested and worthy men put in the crucible of humiliation trust in God, make straight your ways and hope in him”. I love that verse, and I believe that it’s not just a nice Jewish proverb, but it is the word of God, and I find solace in that. It is the word of God. And seeing that also in wisdom too, it’s prophecy of Christ. The book of the Maccabees recording sacred scripture, all of this.
Trent Horn:
And so if someone says to me, that’s not scripture, I’m going to ask them, why should I believe you? Why should I believe that? Where is your evidence for that claim and Jonathan presented evidence but I don’t think it was very compelling evidence. I think he admitted that the church fathers, the people we should go to aside from Jerome, who as I showed had an idiosyncratic view and incorrect view of the Hebrew manuscript tradition, they accepted “The Tudor conical books” and specifically cited them as scripture.
Trent Horn:
Jonathan said, well we should go back to the Jews, and I said, what rabbinic Judaism says, doesn’t carry much weight with me because they rejected the Jewish Messiah. But I do agree we can go back to the Jews. I might go back to the author of Hebrews, a Jewish Christian writing to encourage other Jews of his time to not return to the temple, which was probably still standing. I think Hebrews was written around in the fifties. And what’s interesting here, and this wasn’t disputed in our discussion, but I showed that Hebrews sites second Maccabees as not secular history, but as sacred history. So it views this books as belonging to inspired scripture. And it’s interesting, Jerome himself said to Ruffinos as one of his arguments for the Hebrew manuscript tradition over the SEP Tugen show that there is anything in the new Testament, which comes from the SEP Tugen but is not found in the Hebrew.
Trent Horn:
And our controversy is at an end. Well I can put it at an end. As I referenced earlier in the debate, Hebrews 10, five through seven uses the Tugen version of Psalm 40 as a prophecy of Christ and the Hebrew Masoretic text misses the line, “a body you prepared for me” in talking about the Messiah, which is something I referenced earlier in the debate. So for me, when I look at all of the testimony and the witnesses, there is not the fact that Jews later after the, during the rabbinic period, after the time of bar Kokhba rejected the deuterocanon. And we know this because as I mentioned in the debate, the rabbis in the town that had to give explicit instructions that the book of Sirach and the other deuterocanonical books are withdrawn, just like the new Testament in gospels. They said, do not defile the hands.
Trent Horn:
They had to instruct fellow Jews that the new Testament and the deuterocanon are not scripture, which implied that the canon far from being closed was still open. And that Jews at that time recognized it as such. And so I am not convinced by the evidence. Jonathan is presented to warrant I or Orthodox Christians or others abandon the deuterocanonical books though. I do appreciate the respect with which he proposed this. And in fact, I think it’s very telling that even in our discussion, I think it’s very clear the first Christians to embrace the exact canon he proposed, which rejects the deuterocanonical and the extra portions of Daniel and Esther is long after the apostolic period. Because as I showed Jerome followed the authority of the churches on Deutero Daniel, rather, we don’t find that until the Protestant reformation. And even there you have Anglican and Protestant witnesses who were not ready to give up the deuterocanon because it was an entrenched part of the Christian tradition. So I would recommend my advice to you want to go deeper in this book, on this subject for a Protestant view on this issue, I would recommend Steve Christie’s book. “Why are Protestant Bibles smaller?” For a Catholic view, I would recommend Gary Michuta´s book “Why Catholic Bibles are bigger?”. So, that is easy to remember to read them both read Steve’s book. “Why Catholic Bibles are smaller?” Read Gary’s book, “Why Catholic Bibles are bigger?” And make up your mind.
Joshua:
So, all right, thanks. That was actually right on time. And I want to first of all, thank both of you so much for making this happen and you guys are amazing. And again, Jonathan, I’ve known for sometime now actually. And he was actually, when my channel was still developing, he was actually one of the first ones before you go, I want to bring something to your attention. And I want to hear both of your thoughts, just a brief one, which is something I’ve observed. And I don’t mean people like Jonathan or [inaudible] , but it has been my observation that many people who style themselves as Protestants only pay lip service to the idea that apocryphal, while not being scriptures still I held in high regard, because I’ve heard, for example, then argue that it’s contradictory fault tale teaches [inaudible] so forth, but they will still pay the lip service to this idea that, oh! No, no! it’s still very useful. It’s just not scripture. Do you guys notice this at all?
Jonathan Sheffield:
Yeah, , and I think it’s the byproduct of a number of I hate to say fundamentalist movement. I, because I think what happens is, when we look at the reformation, there is a sort of break with the sacred of traditions. And I think from the Roman Catholic or Western point of view, I think this is probably not a healthy perspective or the direction that we wanted to go. And I think to some sense, the Catholics even Luther, they were fearful. This is what may start to happen. And obviously the Anglican tradition, and was a big defender of maintaining the polity, despite what we may have sawed as abuses within the Roman Catholic tradition that we would still hold. And part of that is recognizing that the tradition to receive the due to canonical books in the Western and Eastern churches should still be received.
Jonathan Sheffield:
But, and I think Trent brought this up about this movement in the 19th century, which I don’t know if it’s a byproduct of what they saw as forceful dogmatic position maybe from Rome onto canonize or accept these books that made him take a sort of Athanasius position to here I stand, I’m not going to do anything else, but there has been a large movement within the evangelical community that further separates themselves from the sacred tradition. I mean, I mean, as Trent, mentioned, I felt it was important to have this conversation with a Gavin on apostolic succession because I think this is another part where they’re breaking their anchor from history. And when they do that with the due to canonical books, they’re doing the same thing, they’re separating themselves away from the history of the church and they have no anchor. So what do they have after that?
Trent Horn:
Right. Well, what’s, what’s interesting. It’s so fascinating to me, the deuterocanonical books that, after the reformation, they, for centuries, they are still printed within Bibles and Protestant Bibles. You still find them even today I think in the Anglican books of common prayer and lectionary, you still, where I believe the root of the opposition to them really in the 19th century, it co I think it comes mostly from Puritans, who felt that the Anglican church had not shed its popish Romanist heritage enough. And so the Puritans were the ones who were behind this and especially zeroed in on the deuterocanonical books as, and that’s where we see a lot of them in different Bible societies, pushing for them to not even be in the Bible at all. And another factor that seems to have played in the 19th century of the deuterocanon disappearing from the Bible, not, not even because it was for a long time, at least in an appendix disappearing entirely was you had Bible societies wanting to print Bibles to give away to others and do mass produce them. And by eliminating the deuterocanon, it becomes cheaper to produce these Bibles. And so there was also 19th century, not just from Puritan theology, but from there was a financial motivation for Bible printers to remove the books, to make it cheaper, to produce the Bible.
Joshua:
Yeah, that was very fascinating when I discovered that. And actually, this is the fascinating part I was brought up in a non-denominational uncharged kind of family. Like nothing, not really, you would say connected with any historical church. And it’s interesting because we actually viewed it in a historical sense. We didn’t know about confessions or, at least we didn’t read them or anything, but we actually did view the Apocrypha as it’s not inspired, but it’s still very profitable and we would have Bible studies around. But anyways, I’m not going to hold you guys up, because I’ve already taken you guys hostage for two and a half hours. All right, Trent. Thanks so much. I it’s. So it was so surprising to find out you’re a Jedi [inaudible]. That was very interesting. All right. You should write a lot more about that. We would
Trent Horn:
One of these, one of these days, for sure.
Joshua:
Okay. And thank you, Jonathan. Again, both of you. Wonderful, wonderful people guys, go ahead and support their work. I don’t know if Trent has a Patreon, do you have a Patron?
Trent Horn:
Yeah. People can support my work at trenthornpodcast.com. So just trenthornpodcast.com.
Joshua:
Yeah. And definitely guys it’s worth your money. Very, very awesome discussions. Even if you’re an atheist good philosophical topic. So you don’t want to miss them. Sometimes even reverse debates were trying to argue your position. So again.
Trent Horn:
And then this, this weekend, people can tune in at if you live in Houston, by the way, you can go to the capturing go to capturing christianity.com. I’ll be at the exchange and I’ll be dialoguing with Alex O’Connor “The cosmic skeptic”. That’s actually fun. I was just going to go to the exchange as a guest and have fun, but the Christian, the Protestant debater, the Christian had a visa issue. So I’m going to hop in and dialogue with Alex.
Joshua:
That’s the one where Joe Schmidt is going to be as well.
Trent Horn:
Yes. And Joe will be there. And Tom Holland himself. [Music background]
Joshua:
That’s funny. And we’ll be hosted by Cam and Jonathan, go ahead and support his work as well. Great YouTube channel, great animation stuff. And I really like his novel takes on biblical texts, many people have abandoned that, and Jonathan does a great job with that. So don’t miss that opportunity again. I think he also has a Patriot just supported well worth your money. And you know, he’s a San Antonio’s first fan as well like me. So, [laugh] all right, thanks to both of you and God bless both of you. Thank you so much for being here. I am very, very thankful to both of you, right? God bless.
Trent Horn:
All right, God, a blessed to hear you.
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