Not only were the
7 Deuterocanonical Books (
Baruch,
Wisdom,
Judith,
Tobit,
Sirach and
Maccabees 1 & 2) a part of the
OPEN Jewish Canon before
and during the life of Christ, they are referenced some
200 times in the New Testament. Here are a few
examples:
Eph. 6:13-17 - in fact, the whole discussion of armor, helmet, breastplate, sword, shield follows
Wis. 5:17-20.
Heb. 11:35 - Paul teaches about the martyrdom of the mother and her sons described in
2 Macc. 7:1-42.
1 Pet. 1:6-7 - Peter teaches about testing faith by purgatorial fire as described in
Wis. 3:5-6 and
Sir. 2:5.
Matt. 7:12 - Jesus' golden rule "do unto others" is the converse of
Tob. 4:15 - what you hate, do not do to others.
As for
WHEN the Deuterocanonicals were
ejected from Scripture, that's an interesting bit of
history...
The
Septuagint (
Greek OT) was translated by
70 JEWISH (
NOT Catholic) scholars about
200 years before the birth of Christ.
There were
7 Books that were part of the
OPEN Jewish Canon (
Baruch,
Wisdom,
Judith,
Tobit,
Sirach,
Maccabees 1 & 2) along with portions of
Daniel and
Esther. This is the Canon of Scripture that
Jesus and the
NT writers studied from.
AFTER Jesus Died, Resurrected, and Ascended to Heaven, the
Apostles started their mission. Around the year
70 AD,
Jerusalem was sacked by the Romans and the
Temple was
destroyed.
SOME rabbis began to have second thoughts about the
Deuterocanonical Books because of their
"Hellenistic" influence in the
Diaspora (
Dispersed Jews). Around the year
135, during the
2nd Jewish Revolt, a rabbi named
Akiva declared
TWO things:
I. The
Deuterocanonical Books needed to be
REMOVED from the
OPEN Canon, and the canon
CLOSED.
II. A man named
Simon Bar Kokhba was the
"real" messiah. Of course, he turned out to be a
false messiah, making Akiva a
false prophet.
SO, Protestants adhere to a
POST-Christ,
POST-Temple OT Canon that was determined by a
FALSE Prophet (
Akiva) who declared a
FALSE Christ (
Kokhba).
It's
Protestants who have a
much bigger problem than a simple rejection of these
7 Deuterocanonical Books. They have the task of trying to reason why God would have allowed these uninspired books to be considered Scripture for the first
1500 years of Christianity. That is
A LOT of people who were duped for
15 centuries — or were they? Did Jesus tell the Apostle that the Holy Spirit would guide His Church to
SOME Truth or to
ALL Truth? (John 16:12-15)
The fact is that
Jesus and the
NT writers studied from and referenced the
Septuagint, as I have illustrated, which included the
7 Deuterocanonical Books and portions of
Daniel and
Esther that were jettisoned from the Hebrew Bible. At Jabned, a new Septuagint was compiled sans those Books.
Eminent
Protestant historian, J.N.D. Kelly observed: “It should be observed that the Old Testament thus admitted as authoritative in the Church was somewhat bulkier and more comprehensive...
It included, though with varying degrees of recognition, the so-called apocrypha or Deuterocanonical books.”
The fact is that the
Deuterocanonicals were part of the
Septuagint during Jesus's time. I have already provided examples from the
NT with regard to this. The rabbis at Jabneh
removed the
Deuterocanonicals from the
Septuagint, hence a "new" version was created.
There are
5 major Traditions in the first century:
- The Samaritan tradition
- The Sadducee tradition
- The Pharisee tradition
- The Essene tradition
- The Septuagint tradition
Only the
Samaritan and
Sadducee Traditions were fixed or closed. None of the others were considered “closed.”
God is Mary's Savior because He preserved Her soul from inheriting the stain of original sin, and thus She was born with an immaculate soul, which allowed Her to be full of His Grace, and coupled with Her natural good will She never sinned. Only someone so perfect as to be second to God could conceive God Incarnate, the most Holy and Perfect One.
Jesus referred to Himself as God in various ways more than once, even the Pharisees understood that He did, which is why they told him they were going to stone Him for "blasphemy" for "making Himself God." Mary conceived Jesus, God Incarnate. Consider, only the High Priest was allowed into the Holy of Holies to offer sacrifice to God for the sins of humanity. Would one not have to be so perfect, to the point of being second to God, in order to conceive God Incarnate, the most Holy and Perfect One, and offer Him, God the Son, to God the Father as sacrifice for the sins of humanity?
Yes or
no?