Sirach 50:17-24, Luke 14:15-24

The Protestant Reformers were wrong about the Bible, and our understanding of history allows us to see their errors. Moreover, we can correct their mistakes by opening the canon to include the Apocrypha and also writings from the first and second centuries that were excluded from the canon created by the church in the fourth century.

The Protestant Reformers hoped to recover the spirit of the first century church, but a lack of accurate historical information led them to make two mistakes. First, they used the Hebrew canon as the basis for their Old Testament translation, thinking it represented the scriptures read by Jesus. Today, however, we know that the Hebrew canon was created after 100 CE. In the time of Jesus, there was no closed canon of Hebrew scripture. First century Jews and Christians were reading books that are now in the writings that Protestants call the Apocrypha. Before the end of the first century, most Christians were reading all the Jewish scriptures in the Greek translation known as the Septuagint, and the New Testament when it quotes Jewish scripture almost always quotes from the Septuagint – even when Jesus is speaking.

It is an historical fact that the church began reading the Septuagint, and this is why in the fourth century the church used the Septuagint for the Old Testament. The Eastern Orthodox churches continue to this day to use the Septuagint (in Greek or translated into other languages) as the Old Testament, as does the Catholic Church. By using the Hebrew scriptures for their Old Testament Protestants did not recover the original scripture of the church, but this argument did help Protestants explain their reasons for resisting the authority of the Catholic Church.

The second error of the Protestant Reformers was an uncritical acceptance of the canon created by the church in the fourth century under Emperor Constantine. The Reformers did not question the presumed apostolic authorship or direct apostolic connection of the materials included in the New Testament canon. Today, however, it is clear that among the writings excluded from the Christian canon some are as closely related to the life and witness of the first and early second century churches as materials included in the New Testament.

Bible scholar F. F. Bruce notes in The Canon of Scripture that the early church would probably not have accepted any book of the New Testament, if it had been known that these writings were not apostolic. Yet, we now know the gospels attributed to Matthew and John were most likely not written by these apostles. We also know that writings as early as these also related to the apostles were excluded from the canon of scripture primarily because those in power were enforcing a restrictive orthodoxy rather than simply embracing the earliest witness to Christ.

Let’s explore each of these issues in a little more depth. The Septuagint, the Greek translation of the Hebrew scriptures that was used by Greek-speaking Jews in the first century, contains all the books in the Hebrew canon. Some of the particular passages of these books differ in the Hebrew and Greek texts. However, the major difference is the Septuagint also contains writings that after 100 CE were excluded by leading rabbis from the Hebrew canon.

The books of the Apocrypha include: Tobit, Judith, additions to the Book of Esther (in the Greek version of Esther), the Wisdom of Solomon, Ecclesiasticus (Wisdom of Jesus son of Sirach), Baruch, Letter of Jeremiah, Prayer of Azariah and the Son of the Three Jews, Susanna, Bel and the Dragon, 1 and 2 Maccabees, 1 and 2 Esdras, and the Prayer of Manasseh. When Jerome prepared the Latin Vulgate at the end of the fourth century, he followed the Hebrew canon but he also included the "apocryphal books" with a comment that they were not in the Hebrew canan. As the Vulgate was copied over the centuries, these comments were not always reproduced. So, during the medieval period the Western church read the books of the Apocrypha as scripture.

In the sixteenth century Protestants argued that material in the Septuagint, but not in the Hebrew canon, should be excluded from scripture. In reaction to Protestant criticism, the Catholic Council of Trent in 1546 decreed that the Old Testament included the Septuagint (except the Prayer of Manasseh and 1 and 2 Esdras). Today Catholic scholars identify the books authorized by the Council of Trent as "Deuterocanonical," which means "later added to the canon."

Protestant theologians justify their position by noting that none of New Testament books quotes from the Apocrypha. But surely it is relevant that during the first centuries of the church Christian theologians such as Irenaeus, Tertullian, Clement of Alexandria, and Cyprian referred to passages from the Apocrypha as "Scripture," "divine Scripture," "inspired," and so on. Not surprisingly, when the first Wyclif translation of the Bible into English was printed at the end of the fourteenth century, it included the books of the Apocrypha (with the exception of 2 Esdras). Wyclif simply translated the Bible the Western church had used for centuries, the Latin Vulgate.

The first "Protestant Bibles" excluding the Apocrypha were printed in Geneva in 1599, which means the Bible we read is no older than the beginning of the seventeenth century. In 1615 the Archbishop of Canterbury ordered that all copies of the King James Version of the Bible were to include the Apocrypha. It was not until the eighteenth century that editions of the King James Version of the Bible without the Apocrypha began to outnumber editions with the Apocrypha.

It is fascinating that Protestants, who excluded the Apocrypha from the Bible, nonetheless used these texts. For instance, the hymn "Now Thank We All Our God" depends on Martin Luther's translation of Sirach 50:22-24. Phrases in the hymn drawn from the Apocrphya include: "Now thank we all our God," Who wondrous things hath done," Who, from our mother's arms, Hath blessed us on our way," "And keep us in His grace," "And free us from all ills."

Today, in addition to reading the Apocrypha, Protestants should read first and second Christian writings excluded from the canon in the fourth century. Archeological discoveries in the twentieth century of ancient Jewish and Christian texts allow us to correct the mistaken assumption of the Protestant Reformers that the church began with a unanimity about the meaning of the Christ event. In fact, the church began with diverse interpretations. These views are reflected in the New Testament, but other first and second century texts now available to us reveal more fully the diversity within the early churches.

For instance, writings like the Gospel of Thomas, the Gospel of Peter, 1 Clement, the Didache, and the Shepherd of Hermas were read in second century churches alongside the letters of Paul and the gospels now in our New Testament. Moreover, the Gospel of Thomas may be as early as some of the New Testament gospels and contains many sayings of Jesus that parallel passages in the gospels of Matthew and Luke. Wee need to be reminded that the church began without the Bible, as we know it. The first few generations of Christians were reading Jewish scripture, generally in Greek, and also gospels, letters, and other church writings. The idea that scripture is a closed revelation was slow to gain acceptance among Christians and was resisted even after the canon was officially closed under the reign of Emperor Constantine.

Historically, the church used the closed canon of scripture to suppress diversity and defend orthodoxy. What is not explicitly condemned in scripture, such as slavery and the power of men over women, has been proclaimed on the authority of scripture to be God’s will. Expressed theologically, the closed canon has been used by Christians to restrict the Spirit of God to a first century understanding of history, morality, and even science.

Yet, after the canon of the Bible was closed in the fourth century under an Emperor that gave bishops the power to enforce this decision, churches continued to have diverse Bibles. What we know today as Eastern Orthodox churches simply ignored this ruling. And the Ethiopian church, which was founded in 330 CE, continues has always had a New Testament containing 35 books, which is 8 more than the canon authorized in Rome that same century.

Our challenge now is to embrace anew the spirit of the Protestant Reformers as well as the historical perspective that twentieth century scholarship affords us. By opening the canon we need not reject the Reformed doctrine that the Bible is the unique and authoritative witness of the church. Instead, opening the canon may help us open our minds and hearts to the faith of all those who were closest to the witness of the apostles. Amen.

Note – For information on the canon see "Introduction to the Apocryphal/Deuterocanonical Books" in The New Oxford Annotated Bible with the Apocrypha (New Revised Standard Version) and Lee M. McDonald, The Formation of the Christian Biblical Canon (1995 revised and expanded edition).

22 September 2002

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