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Why is the belief in Biblical inerrancy important to people?

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  • The Deuts are Jewish Scriptures. They weren't written by Christians or Muslims.
  • mousethief wrote: »
    The Deuts are Jewish Scriptures. They weren't written by Christians or Muslims.
    Sorry if I appeared to suggest otherwise. I didn't say they weren't Jewish; they certainly are. But they aren't recognized as part of the scriptural canon by rabbinic Judaism, and are not part of the Tanakh.

  • MPaulMPaul Shipmate
    But the canon was not closed at Nicea, see my post above.
    Effectively, it was ‘closed’ long before. However and whatever wiki might have to say on the matter.

  • MPaul wrote: »
    But the canon was not closed at Nicea, see my post above.
    Effectively, it was ‘closed’ long before. However and whatever wiki might have to say on the matter.
    Right. Please show your work as everyone else here is making the point that it really wasn't.

  • MPaulMPaul Shipmate
    nick Tamen : Is it:
    The books and writings contained in Masoretic Text ultimately accepted by Jews?
    The canon as established in or around the time of Nicea, or the councils of Hippo or Carthage?
    The canon as it developed with slight tweaks in the ensuing centuries?
    The canon established by Luther and other Reformers in the 16th Century?

    And whichever one of these options one considers to be the correct answer, what's the basis for believing that option to be the correct answer

    There is always an agenda at work. I am not an expert obviously but accept the Protestant Bible.
  • MPaul wrote: »
    nick Tamen : Is it:
    The books and writings contained in Masoretic Text ultimately accepted by Jews?
    The canon as established in or around the time of Nicea, or the councils of Hippo or Carthage?
    The canon as it developed with slight tweaks in the ensuing centuries?
    The canon established by Luther and other Reformers in the 16th Century?

    And whichever one of these options one considers to be the correct answer, what's the basis for believing that option to be the correct answer

    There is always an agenda at work. I am not an expert obviously but accept the Protestant Bible.
    One thing we Protestants have to deal with one way or another is that the canon we accept and recognize does not include everything that was in the canon previously accepted and recognized by the church and by church councils. I think our need to deal with that becomes more acute if we're going to point back to councils such as Nicea as having settled the canon, but then do not accept the canon those councils settled on. How do you deal with that?

    Perhaps another way to put it is this: Scripture does not contain a list of which writings should be accepted as inspired and which should not. Given that, how should it be decided which books and writings should be considered "Scripture" and which should not?

  • MPaul wrote: »
    There is always an agenda at work.
    Including on the part of Protestants, who removed the Deuterocanonicals from their Bibles relatively recently.

  • Possibly because they could spell "Old" and "New" but not "Deuterocanonical".
  • Possibly because they could spell "Old" and "New" but not "Deuterocanonical".
    ROTFLMAO!

  • Martin54Martin54 Deckhand, Styx
    Eutychus wrote: »
    Martin54 wrote: »
    Eutychus wrote: »
    That would be nobody then. Unless you can show otherwise.

    You mean it's too wishy-washy even for him?!

    @Martin54, I'm seriously considering returning to Hell to deal with you.

    Unless I'm mistaken, the only self-proclaimed inerrantist to have expressed an opinion with regard to the Chicago statement since you introduced it here is @Lamb Chopped, and she expressed reservations about it.

    Having introduced the Chicago statement here, you are now wielding it as a standard to judge Shipmates who haven't even expressed an opinion on it despite it being clear that there is no consensus about it, even among inerrantists. You appear to be attaching as much authority to it as its original authors, which is ironic in the extreme.

    Discussion involves putting forward one's own opinions, not merely sniping obliquely at the shortcomings one perceives in others'.

    I was thinking solely of MPaul. Certainly not Lamb Chopped whom I have been nothing but inclusive toward. I wasn't aware that I was attacking MPaul, sorry nonetheless.
  • EutychusEutychus Shipmate
    edited February 2019
    Martin54 wrote: »
    I was thinking solely of MPaul.
    Then you should have had the courage to say so instead of have us all play blind man's bluff.
    I wasn't aware that I was attacking MPaul, sorry nonetheless.
    I never said you were, but attributing agreement with a statement you hold up for everyone to mock to somebody you won't name but expect everyone to recognise, who's not even expressed an opinion on it does not exactly seem like cricket to me. Just what thought process went into doing that, exactly?

  • Martin54Martin54 Deckhand, Styx
    Indeed.
  • How does one have to define what error is with regards to Scripture in order to be an inerrantist?

    Sorry if this has already been addressed, but can an inerrantist believe that each passage of Scripture has an allegorical, poetic, or other form of truth, even if the details of individual verses, even verses containing moral instruction, are not always literally true?

    Does an inerrantist have to believe that all parts of the Bible are true in the meaning intended by the author(s) of that part?

    Does an inerrantist have to believe that the correct interpretation of the truth of each part of the Bible was always known to the community of believers (or to the subset of the community of believers who faithfully guarded the true interpretation)?
  • How does one have to define what error is with regards to Scripture in order to be an inerrantist?

    Sorry if this has already been addressed, but can an inerrantist believe that each passage of Scripture has an allegorical, poetic, or other form of truth, even if the details of individual verses, even verses containing moral instruction, are not always literally true?

    Does an inerrantist have to believe that all parts of the Bible are true in the meaning intended by the author(s) of that part?

    Does an inerrantist have to believe that the correct interpretation of the truth of each part of the Bible was always known to the community of believers (or to the subset of the community of believers who faithfully guarded the true interpretation)?

    Any part that seems wrong or contradictory we explain away; everything that we can make a case for, we accept "at face value."
  • lilbuddhalilbuddha Shipmate
    edited February 2019
    To be honest, that is what everyone does, at least to an extent. That, by itself, isn't a significant difference.
    The difference is that errantists have more leeway to examine using context.
  • In my experience the difference is the errantists admit that's what they're doing.
  • I can wrap my head around details in the Bible's narrative being historically inaccurate. What I can't wrap my head around is why God would want a moral instruction to be in the Bible if that instruction were not a true teaching, at least when interpreted the right way. But there are moral instructions in the Bible that I struggle to see true in any interpretation that seems to be more than wishful thinking.
  • MPaulMPaul Shipmate
    the canon we accept and recognize does not include everything that was in the canon previously accepted and recognized by the church and by church councils

    ISTM very few people are qualified to judge. We have to respect the scholarship of People of the past who had access to

    Martin54 wrote: »
    Indeed.
    No worries Martin 54.
    Eutychus wrote: »
    MPaul wrote: »
    There is always an agenda at work.
    Including on the part of Protestants, who removed the Deuterocanonicals from their Bibles relatively recently.

    While it was included in the LXX, 300 years before Christ, was not the Apocrypha, always seen as a separate body of writings?
    I did read that Jerome was pressured against his own judgement into including it in his vulgate Bible.
    The KJV compilers when they included it, separated it. Apparently, way back when, there was a KJV with and a KJV without.


  • MPaul wrote: »
    the canon we accept and recognize does not include everything that was in the canon previously accepted and recognized by the church and by church councils

    ISTM very few people are qualified to judge. We have to respect the scholarship of People of the past who had access to
    If they had access to something that we don't, why would we have to respect it without knowing what it was. After all, whatever version of protestantism you are following, it is modified from what they came up with.

  • Why trust Jerome over the people who commissioned and sponsored his work? Because he agrees with the Reformers of course. No other reason.
  • mousethiefmousethief Shipmate
    edited February 2019
    The translators of the LXX didn't separate the Deuts from what became the Tanach. That came later. And those weren't Christians. They were Jews.
  • DoublethinkDoublethink Admin, 8th Day Host
    edited February 2019
    This has been an interesting read. I will admit that I had previously assumed believing the bible to be inerrant involved believing it to be literally true. So I stand corrected in that.

    I note earlier in thread people commenting about a hypothetical inerrantist believing if the bible could err they would have no foundation to their faith (paraphrasing obviously). But what about one’s relationship with God ? Or is it inherent in this belief that revelation ends with the completion of scripture ?

    Re stonespring’s comment, if you believe that the divinely inspired bible could err, why would it do so - I suppose I have two possible views of that, one is that divine inspiration is filtered through humans who are fallible. The second is that it may not be so much that the bible has errors, so much that the interpretations we have of it change over time - and that dynamic change may also be divinely inspired.
  • The second is that it may not be so much that the bible has errors, so much that the interpretations we have of it change over time - and that dynamic change may also be divinely inspired.
    That's where I'm at.

    Comparison and contrast with the fundamentalist tenets of Islam and where they end up (not limited to violent extremism) has been part of my thinking in this respect.
  • MPaulMPaul Shipmate
    lilbuddha wrote: »
    MPaul wrote: »
    the canon we accept and recognize does not include everything that was in the canon previously accepted and recognized by the church and by church councils

    ISTM very few people are qualified to judge. We have to respect the scholarship of People of the past who had access to
    If they had access to something that we don't, why would we have to respect it without knowing what it was. After all, whatever version of protestantism you are following, it is modified from what they came up with.
    Lil Buddha, I do not consider I am Protestant..or Catholic.
    That Erasmus had access to Byzantine Greek manuscripts that do not now exist simply because scrolls and Vellum fall apart eventually was well known and of course the printing press changed everything. The MS’s used by Erasmus became something called Textus Receptus that the KJV was based on.
  • MPaulMPaul Shipmate
    mousethief wrote: »
    Why trust Jerome over the people who commissioned and sponsored his work? Because he agrees with the Reformers of course. No other reason.


    There is another reason it is that the actual books were flawed to the point that the scribes knew they were not scripture. That they contain interesting history is the reason that there was a question. The Maccabean rebellion for instance. I have to say I did enjoy reading the story of Susannah but it is really hard to fit with any genuine post exilic records..ie scriptural ones.
    I think it was Pope Damasces 1 who commissioned Jerome and it seems too much of a coincidence that the only support for purgatory doctrine is gleaned from Maccabees.
  • MPaulMPaul Shipmate
    mousethief wrote: »
    The translators of the LXX didn't separate the Deuts from what became the Tanach. That came later. And those weren't Christians. They were Jews.


    Indeed they were Jews...believers in the true God at that point in History, 300 years before Jesus lived. As to the rest it is a guessing game. That the 70 scribes translated them with the Torah, prophets and the Writings is true. What status they gave them is less clear. How could you possibly know they were seen in the same class as scripture? And if they were, how is it that questions arose concerning them?
  • MPaul wrote: »
    That the 70 scribes translated them with the Torah, prophets and the Writings is true. What status they gave them is less clear. How could you possibly know they were seen in the same class as scripture? And if they were, how is it that questions arose concerning them?
    I think a more interesting question is what the 70 would have understood by the expression "the same class as Scripture".

    I think the "class of Scripture" as imagined by inerrantists, devoid of all history, tradition of transmission, and normalisation by the Church, is a misleading anachronism.
  • MPaul wrote: »
    Lil Buddha, I do not consider I am Protestant..or Catholic.
    That Erasmus had access to Byzantine Greek manuscripts that do not now exist simply because scrolls and Vellum fall apart eventually was well known and of course the printing press changed everything.
    You are basing your support on something about which you know nothing. This is hardly convincing.
  • Eutychus wrote: »
    The second is that it may not be so much that the bible has errors, so much that the interpretations we have of it change over time - and that dynamic change may also be divinely inspired.
    That's where I'm at.
    So, how did "go there to those people, including the babies, and murder them in the face" get mistranslated from something benign?
    Comparison and contrast with the fundamentalist tenets of Islam and where they end up (not limited to violent extremism) has been part of my thinking in this respect.
    Let's not go there, shall we?

  • From the way you put that, and given that you steadfastly refuse to tell us what sort of a belief house you live in, my perception is that you're not really interested in the answer except inasmuch as it may allow you to throw more stones.

    It's easy to tell what you don't subscribe to, but very difficult to tell what you affirm. I'm not really interested in engaging with such an aggressive approach on a thread like this.

    And I reject the false teaming implicit in "we".
  • lilbuddhalilbuddha Shipmate
    edited February 2019
    Eutychus wrote: »
    From the way you put that, and given that you steadfastly refuse to tell us what sort of a belief house you live in,
    What I say is accurate or not based on what I say, not who I am. Though it is a convenient way to dodge addressing the issue.
    my perception is that you're not really interested in the answer except inasmuch as it may allow you to throw more stones.
    The only stone I'm throwing here is at inerrancy. The Bible is errant. Parts of it makes no sense at all in relation to the God Christians typically describe. Parts of it do allegorically and parts of it do just fine as written.
    There are parts that cannot be passed of by translation errors, they are categorically opposed to Jesus.

    And I reject the false teaming implicit in "we".
    The point of my comment was let's not start bashing Islam on this thread. Fundamentalism is a problem in Christianity, no need to wander further.

  • LB is right. From where I stand (and that is, for now, inside the tent of faith, albeit leaning heavily on the poles and thinking that outside doesn't look so much worse) on its content alone, much Scripture requires a lot work to even qualify as "some interesting ideas", never mind "inspired" or the dizzy heights of "inerrant". If it's the Word of God it's not a God I want to meet, and not for the smug Fundamentalist accusation that I can't live up to it, but rather that I don't see how I can sink down to it.
  • DoublethinkDoublethink Admin, 8th Day Host
    lilbuddha wrote: »
    Eutychus wrote: »
    The second is that it may not be so much that the bible has errors, so much that the interpretations we have of it change over time - and that dynamic change may also be divinely inspired.
    That's where I'm at.
    So, how did "go there to those people, including the babies, and murder them in the face" get mistranslated from something benign?
    Comparison and contrast with the fundamentalist tenets of Islam and where they end up (not limited to violent extremism) has been part of my thinking in this respect.
    Let's not go there, shall we?

    I’d put that down to the, transmitted via fallible humans, bit.
  • lilbuddha wrote: »
    Eutychus wrote: »
    The second is that it may not be so much that the bible has errors, so much that the interpretations we have of it change over time - and that dynamic change may also be divinely inspired.
    That's where I'm at.
    So, how did "go there to those people, including the babies, and murder them in the face" get mistranslated from something benign?
    Comparison and contrast with the fundamentalist tenets of Islam and where they end up (not limited to violent extremism) has been part of my thinking in this respect.
    Let's not go there, shall we?

    I’d put that down to the, transmitted via fallible humans, bit.
    Which is not the bit Eutychus quoted.
    Even so, the genocide bit is hard to fit into either scenarios in your post.
  • Martin54Martin54 Deckhand, Styx
    MPaul wrote: »
    No worries Martin 54.

    You are a good bloke MPaul. And Eutychus was right. So my apology is unreserved and stands.
  • It's also worth noting that rabbinical Judaism considers the rest of the Tanakh (the Hebrew Bible, which for them today does not include the Deuterocanonical books) to not hold the same status as the Torah (the first five books) in terms of establishing laws and doctrine (of course, within Rabbinical Judaism, there is more emphasis on what one does than on what one believes, but there are right and wrong beliefs about God (less so in Reform Judaism, though)). The psalms and prophets are obviously still very important though, and the psalms are used regularly in worship.

    Rabbinic Judaism (at least Orthodox and, in a less strict way, Conservative Judaism) also believes that there was an additional Revelation to Moses, an Oral Torah, that is also binding on Jewish people.

    The Talmud, as a set of commentaries on both the Written Torah and the Oral Torah, is the definitive set of instructions on Jewish life for Orthodox Jewish people and is of key importance in defining the tenets of Judaism for Conservative and more observant Reform Jewish people as well.

    Judaism has a Biblical Canon but not all of it is treated equally and there are elements outside the Written Biblical Canon that are treated in ways that Sola Scriptura Christians only reserve for Scripture. In Jesus' time and beforehand, all of this was less defined so it is even more difficult to apply modern Christian notions of Biblical Canon to those times.

    (An expert on Judaism can probably correct me on some of this.)
  • lilbuddha wrote: »
    Which is not the bit Eutychus quoted.
    Just where do you see me (or anybody else) invoking "translation errors" to address the OT genocides?

    It's not about what you say; your questions are legitimate.

    It's about how you say it.

    I recently read some guidelines for interfaith conversations. A few applicable ones are:

    - Do not tell others what they believe, but LET THEM TELL YOU
    - SPEAK POSITIVELY of your own faith, rather than negatively about other people’s

    If you can sign up to those two, I might be prepared to engage.

    If all you can do is tell me I'm invoking translation errors to justify the slaughter of babies and prohibit me from explaining my thought processes as I looked at other belief systems, I repeat: I'm not interested. I'm trying to have conversations here, not shouting matches.

    What do you say?

  • MPaul wrote: »
    mousethief wrote: »
    Why trust Jerome over the people who commissioned and sponsored his work? Because he agrees with the Reformers of course. No other reason.


    There is another reason it is that the actual books were flawed to the point that the scribes knew they were not scripture. That they contain interesting history is the reason that there was a question. The Maccabean rebellion for instance. I have to say I did enjoy reading the story of Susannah but it is really hard to fit with any genuine post exilic records..ie scriptural ones.
    I think it was Pope Damasces 1 who commissioned Jerome and it seems too much of a coincidence that the only support for purgatory doctrine is gleaned from Maccabees.

    Doesn't engage in question-begging and/or circular logic? How do you know that the "scriptural" accounts are accurate? It seems like you're saying it's because they're scriptural, and other texts were rejected because they're inaccurate and we know they're inaccurate because they're inconsistent with "scripture". Have I missed something in the chain of logic? I'm sure if you applied the same methods you apply to the 39 books to the rest of the Septuagint you could "interpret" the plain meaning of the text to make them consistent. You don't because you've already decided they're non-scriptural based, in fact, on the Protestant tradition you have inherited. I think, in this situation, Protestant is as Protestant does.
  • MPaulMPaul Shipmate
    Eutychus: I think a more interesting question is what the 70 would have understood by the expression "the same class as Scripture
    That’s an easy one. The Torah,Prohets and Writings. Most Rabbis will tell you.
  • MPaulMPaul Shipmate
    How do you know that the "scriptural" accounts are accurate
    If you want to put yourself on the level of the sceptic and question absolutely everything that Christians believe just for the sake of orneriness, then fine. If you want to do your own research it is there to do. But the NT are actually primary historical sources. There are many people out there who have written extensively on this so reading FF Bruce, CS Lewis and latterly Malcolm Muggeridge might help.

    I personally do not doubt that the resurrection occurred as so many of those early believers otherwise died for a lie. If, for instance, the NT writers never mention things like the destruction of the Temple or the Neronic persecutions or the Jewish uprising in AD 66 that led the Romans to flatten Jerusalem, then it is a good indicator those events were still future.
  • EutychusEutychus Shipmate
    edited February 2019
    MPaul wrote: »
    Eutychus: I think a more interesting question is what the 70 would have understood by the expression "the same class as Scripture
    That’s an easy one. The Torah,Prohets and Writings. Most Rabbis will tell you.
    That tells you that they saw those books as special. What it doesn't tell you is whether they saw them as "special" in the way inerrantists seem to - standalone, untouchable.

    You only have to look at the Jewish tradition of midrash to see that they had no qualms about poking around with the sacred texts even as they acknowledged they were sacred, and attaching some authority to those (sometimes divergent) interpretations.

    As I understand it, Jesus' use of the OT as consigned by the New can be seen as standing in the midrash tradition.

  • MPaul wrote: »
    While it was included in the LXX, 300 years before Christ, was not the Apocrypha, always seen as a separate body of writings?
    No, not in the Septuagint, at least.

    The Septuagint divided Jewish scripture into 4, not 3, groups: Torah, Prophets, Writings and Poetry. What we call the Apocrypha was spread throughout those 4 groups, and included some complete books (like 1, 2, and 3 Maccabees), and some additional portions of other books in the OT, such as additional parts of Esther and Daniel.
    MPaul wrote: »
    Eutychus: I think a more interesting question is what the 70 would have understood by the expression "the same class as Scripture
    That’s an easy one. The Torah,Prohets and Writings. Most Rabbis will tell you.
    But that's the question at issue: Are the deuterocanonical writings included in what we now know as the Prophets and the Writings? The Septuagint—the Greek-language scripture of the Jews—treated them as though they were. Rabbinic Judaism (which didn't really emerge as the main form of Judaism until well after the apostolic era) does not. By the time of Jesus, that was not a settled question in Judaism.



  • Eutychus wrote: »
    lilbuddha wrote: »
    Which is not the bit Eutychus quoted.
    Just where do you see me (or anybody else) invoking "translation errors" to address the OT genocides?

    It's not about what you say; your questions are legitimate.

    It's about how you say it.
    How I say something is irrelevant to whether it is correct or not. I would point out that this is a long, on-going discussion and we've gone over the ramifications of certains ways of thinking many times so mine was an abbreviated response within that context.
    I recently read some guidelines for interfaith conversations. A few applicable ones are:

    - Do not tell others what they believe, but LET THEM TELL YOU
    - SPEAK POSITIVELY of your own faith, rather than negatively about other people’s
    Very nice, except that this is not an interfaith discussion, but one on a particular variation of Christianity. One, as I've mentioned, that is on-going. And I am not telling you what you think. I am speaking to the logic behind what you wrote, especially within the context of this discussion.

  • To the extent that you're not claiming to be a christian, this is an interfaith discussion. And dress it up how you like, you are trying to tell me what I believe.
  • Eutychus wrote: »
    To the extent that you're not claiming to be a christian, this is an interfaith discussion. And dress it up how you like, you are trying to tell me what I believe.
    I am discussing the logic of your statements. One that is in agreement with avowed Christians.

  • Two more of the guidelines:

    "Do NOT TREAT SOMEONE AS A SPOKESPERSON for their faith or culture"

    "DO NOT JUDGE PEOPLE here by what some people of their faith or community do"

    And you are not discussing the logic of my statements. You're screaming that I'm dodging difficult questions about God killing babies by invoking bad translation. I'm not. I'm waiting until you're prepared to discuss the issues in an adult fashion. Retracting that false assertion would be a good start.
  • Eutychus wrote: »
    Two more of the guidelines:

    "Do NOT TREAT SOMEONE AS A SPOKESPERSON for their faith or culture"

    "DO NOT JUDGE PEOPLE here by what some people of their faith or community do"

    And you are not discussing the logic of my statements. You're screaming that I'm dodging difficult questions about God killing babies by invoking bad translation. I'm not. I'm waiting until you're prepared to discuss the issues in an adult fashion. Retracting that false assertion would be a good start.

    You said your position is that the Bible doesn't contain errors, just that interpretations change over time. I challenged the position that translation differences cover every biblical problem.

    I have not made statements as to what you believe, no matter how many times you might suggest that I have, so there is nothing here to retract.

    I have not said anyone's belief represents the entirety of Christianity, indeed I have referenced the opposite.
  • EutychusEutychus Shipmate
    edited February 2019
    lilbuddha wrote: »
    You said your position is that the Bible doesn't contain errors, just that interpretations change over time. I challenged the position that translation differences cover every biblical problem.
    I'll answer for direct quotes from me and not your, um, translations of them.
    I have not made statements as to what you believe, no matter how many times you might suggest that I have, so there is nothing here to retract.
    In this post you quoted me saying a viewpoint was "where I was at" and immediately added the words "So, how did "go there to those people, including the babies, and murder them in the face" get mistranslated" which insinuates that I would blame your quoted words on a mistranslation. I don't, and have never said anything of the sort.
    I have not said anyone's belief represents the entirety of Christianity, indeed I have referenced the opposite.
    Then why are you asking me to defend views I don't espouse?
  • Dude. I am telling you I see problems with an error-free bible that is only "mistranslated"*. I illustrated one of the problems with that view as I see it. Colourfully, I will admit.
    That is the ball I kicked in your direction. You can address the ball or complain about form. Your choice of course.

    *The exact quote where you said you were at, bold mine:
    The second is that it may not be so much that the bible has errors, so much that the interpretations we have of it change over time - and that dynamic change may also be divinely inspired.
  • MPaulMPaul Shipmate
    Nick Tamen wrote: »
    MPaul wrote: »
    While it was included in the LXX, 300 years before Christ, was not the Apocrypha, always seen as a separate body of writings?
    No, not in the Septuagint, at least.

    The Septuagint divided Jewish scripture into 4, not 3, groups: Torah, Prophets, Writings and Poetry. What we call the Apocrypha was spread throughout those 4 groups, and included some complete books (like 1, 2, and 3 Maccabees), and some additional portions of other books in the OT, such as additional parts of Esther and Daniel.
    MPaul wrote: »
    Eutychus: I think a more interesting question is what the 70 would have understood by the expression "the same class as Scripture
    That’s an easy one. The Torah,Prohets and Writings. Most Rabbis will tell you.
    But that's the question at issue: Are the deuterocanonical writings included in what we now know as the Prophets and the Writings? The Septuagint—the Greek-language scripture of the Jews—treated them as though they were. Rabbinic Judaism (which didn't really emerge as the main form of Judaism until well after the apostolic era) does not. By the time of Jesus, that was not a settled question in Judaism.


    I think that you cannot know how settled the questions were. We do know that there was a strong body of oral tradition that the Pharisees embraced but Jesus did not. This is why I stated above that we all stand on the shoulders of others and in the end you trust..or you don’t what you cannot know. What we can know is that Jesus, in the gospels quoted or referred to the Torah, the prophets and the writings about 200 times. I do not think he referenced the apocrypha.

This discussion has been closed.