23) Why do Protestants
follow post-apostolic Jewish decisions on the boundaries of the Old Testament
canon, rather than the decision of the Church founded by Jesus Christ?
The Question's premises are inconsistent with historical fact:
1)There was no post apostolic Jewish decision on the OT canon (see "Holy
Scripture: The Ground and Pillar of Our Faith, (Christian Resources Inc.,
Battle Ground WA, 2001), pp. 322-324.
2)God authenticates the books Christ and His apostles
used, not the apocypha. It does not violate sola
scriptura to read those books and consider them canon as God bears them witness
they are His Word.
3)It is apostolic doctrine God entrusted the Old
Testament to the Jews, not pope and magisterium:
KJV Romans 3:1 What advantage then hath the Jew? or
what profit is there of circumcision?
2 Much every way: chiefly, because that unto them were committed the oracles of
God.
3 For what if some did not believe? shall their
unbelief make the faith of God without effect?
4 God forbid.
The best evidence for the extent of the Jewish
canon of the time of Christ is found in the New Testament. Both Jesus and the
apostles affirm only the canon containing the thirty-nine (twenty-four) books
of the Protestant Old Testament. This is supported by several lines of
evidence. First, no apocryphal book is ever cited as Scripture by either Jesus
or the New Testament writers, despite the fact that they obviously possessed
them and even made allusions to them. Coupled with the fact that Jesus and the
apostles did have occasion to quote from some eighteen of the twenty-two
(twenty-four) books in the Jewish Old Testament, the omission of any quotations
from the Apocrypha actually entails a rejection of these books. Second, the New
Testament makes at least a dozen references to the whole Old Testament under
the phrase “law and prophets” (cf. Matt. 5:17; Luke 24:27); and yet the
apocryphal books are admitted by both friend and foe to have never been in the
section of the canon known as “the prophets.” Their late date would
automatically have placed them in the “writings” or so–called third section of
the Old Testament. Even during the intertestamental
period (see II Macc. 15:9) and in the Qumran literature (Manual of Discipline.
I, 3; VIII, 15), the Old Testament is referred to under the standard phrase
“the law and the prophets.” The threefold division that emerged by the time of
Christ and is reflected in Philo, Josephus, and possibly in the introduction to
Sirach was apparently an alternate way of subdividing
“the prophets” into “prophets” and “writings” for festal or literary reasons.
Jesus’ possible allusion to a threefold division that emerged by the time of Christ
and is reflected in prophets and the psalms” (Luke 24:44) is used in direct
parallel with the phrase “Moses and all the prophets” earlier in the same
chapter (v. 27).
According to New Testament usage the phrase “law and the prophets” includes
“all the scripture” (Luke 24:27) and “all the prophets [who] prophesied until
John [the Baptist]” (Mark 13:31). Paul the apostle staked his complete
orthodoxy on the grounds that he believed “everything laid down in the law or
written in the prophets” (Acts 24:14). Jesus said he had come to fulfill “all”
according to what was predicted in the “law and prophets” (Matt. 5:17).
We cannot avoid the conclusion that the phrase “law and prophets” referred to
all divine written revelation from Moses to Jesus. This being the case, the
fact that neither the first century Jews, Jesus himself, nor the apostles
accepted or quoted the apocryphal books as inspired is sufficient evidence that
these books were not part of their canon of Scripture. This conclusion has been
the uniform testimony of Judaism throughout the centuries. The extent of the
Old Testament canon is limited, by both the Jews who wrote it and by Jesus
about whom it is written, to the thirty-nine (twenty-four) books listed in
Protestant Old Testament Bibles today.- Geisler, N.
L. (1976). Christian Apologetics. Includes index.
(366). Grand Rapids: Baker Book House.
__________________
The times of this ignorance God winked at; but now commandeth
all men every where to repent:
Behold, I stand at the door, and knock: if any man hear my voice, and open the
door, I will come in to him, and will sup with him, and he with me.-kjv