Is the Apocrypha Inspired Scripture – Part 4
A Response to Rev. Henry Graham's Book, “Where We Got the Bible: Our Debt to the Catholic Church”
In the course of writing this article series, I had occasion to converse with several Roman Catholic apologists. One of them suggested I read “Where We Got The Bible: Our Debt To The Catholic Church” by Rev. Henry G. Graham. I found the book and read it. In reading it I discovered it was not just an attempt by Rev. Graham to validate the Roman Catholic church's position regarding the inspiration of the apocrypha; but it appeared to me that Rev. Graham also took the opportunity to toss in some derogatory comments regarding Protestants. When asked if I had read the book, I commented that I had, but that I did not appreciate the anti-Protestant bigotry presented by Rev. Graham. To which the Roman Catholic apologist retorted, “That's your bigotry coming out.”
In the way of a response to the false claim of my bigotry, I present you to, Reader, those sections of Rev. Graham's book that clearly show his anti-Protestant sentiments. What he really thinks of Protestants.
1. Rev. Graham claims Protestants invent lies about the Roman Catholic church.
“The Protestant account of pre-reformation Catholicism has been largely a falsification of history. All the faults and sins that could possibly be raked up or invented against Rome, or against particular bishops or priests, were presented to the people of this unhappy land, and all her best acts misconstrued, misjudged, misrepresented, and nothing of good told in her favour. She has been painted as all black and hideous, and no beauty could be seen in her.”
2. Rev. Graham claims Protestants are delusional.
“A last point must always be kept clearly in mind, for it concerns one of the greatest delusions entertained by Protestants and makes their fierce attacks on Rome appear so silly and irrational—the point, namely that the Bible, as we have it now, was not printed in any language at all till about 1500 years after the birth of Christ, for the simple reason that there was no such thing as printing known before that date.”
[Note: no Protestant I am aware thinks there was no Bible prior to the printing press. Not one. And no Protestant I am aware of actually believes no one knew how to print prior to 1500 A.D.]
3. Rev. Graham claims Protestants believe salvation is gained by owning a Bible.
Graham states Protestants believe salvation is gained by owning a Bible, and that every soul for 1500 years went to hell. He calls is the “most flagrant absurdity.” In reality, however, this is a bald faced lie as no Protestant every believed or taught this heresy. Graham wrote: “The Protestant theory, on the contrary, which stakes a man’s salvation on the possession of the Bible, leads to the most flagrant absurdities, imputes to Almighty God a total indifference to the salvation of the countless souls that passed hence to eternity for 1500 years, and indeed ends logically in the blasphemous conclusion that our Blessed Lord failed to provide an adequate means of conveying to men in every age the knowledge of His truth.”
4. Rev. Graham is dismissive of Protestant beliefs.
“It was written by the Church, by members (Apostles and Evangelists) of the Church; it belongs to the Church, and it is her office, therefore, to declare what it means. It is intended for instruction, meditation, spiritual reading, encouragement, devotion, and also serves as proof and testimony of the Church’s doctrines and Divine authority; but as a complete and exclusive guide to Heaven in the hands of every man—this it never was and never could be. The Bible in the Church; the Church before the Bible—the Church the Maker and Interpreter of the Bible—that is right. The Bible above the Church; the Bible independent of the Church; the Bible, and the Bible only, the Religion of Christians—that is wrong. The one is the Catholic position; the other the Protestant.”
5. Rev. Graham mocks the Protestant belief that the early church, from the days of the Apostles, had God's Word.
“Now we know that the Gospels and Epistles of the New Testament were read aloud to the congregations of Christians that met on the first day of the week for Holy Mass (just as they are still among ourselves), one Gospel here, another there; one Epistle of St Paul in one place, another in another; all scattered about in various parts of the world where there were bodies of Christians. And the next question that naturally occurs to us is, when were these separate works gathered together so as to form a volume, and added to the Old Testament to make up what we now call the Bible? Well, they were not collected for the best part of 300 years. So that here again I am afraid is a hard nut for Protestants to crack”
6. Rev. Graham claims that without the Roman Catholic church, the Protestants would not have a Bible.
“It is through the Roman Catholic Church that Protestants have got their Bible; there is not (to paraphrase some words of Newman) a Protestant that vilifies and condemns the Catholic Church for her treatment of Holy Scripture, but owes it to that Church that he has the Scripture at all. What Almighty God might have done if Rome had not handed down the Bible to us is a fruitless speculation with which we have nothing whatever to do.”
[Note: It seems rather arrogant for someone to think God needed the Roman Catholic church to produce a Bible, as if God could figure no other way.]
7. Rev. Graham claims Protestant's “cast out” inspired Scripture to invent a new canon.
“Therefore, I say that for people to step in 1500 years after the Catholic Church had had possession of the Bible, and to pretend that it is theirs, and that they alone know what the meaning of it is, and that the Scriptures alone, without the voice of the Catholic Church explaining them, are intended by God to be the guide and rule of faith—this is an absurd and groundless claim. Only those who are ignorant of the true history of the Sacred Scriptures—their origin and authorship and preservation—could pretend that there is any logic or commonsense in such a mode of acting. And the absurdity is magnified when it is remembered that the Protestants did not appropriate the whole of the Catholic books, but actually cast out some from the collection, and took what remained, and elevated these into a new 'Canon’, or volume of Sacred Scripture, such as had never been seen or heard of before, from the first to the sixteenth century, in any Church, either in Heaven above or on earth beneath, or in the waters under the earth!”
[Note: What Rev. Graham fails to mention is, that the Protestant Bible contains the exact same books as Melito of Sardis listed in 170 A.D. “new Canon” indeed!]
8. Rev. Graham claims Protestants “deliberately cut out” the apocrypha.
“Open a Protestant Bible, and you will find there are seven complete Books awanting—that is, seven books fewer than there are in the Catholic Bible, and seven fewer than there were in every collection and catalogue of Holy Scripture from the fourth to the sixteenth century. Their names are Tobias, Baruch, Judith, Wisdom, Ecclesiasticus, I Machabees, II Machabees, together with seven chapters of the Book of Esther and 66 verses of the 3rd chapter of Daniel, commonly called 'the Song of the Three Children’, (Daniel iii., 24-90, Douai version). These were deliberately cut out, and the Bible bound up without them.”
[Note: What Rev. Graham fails to mention is that the apocrypha was rejected by the early Church until the late fourth century. See part two of this series.]
9. Rev. Graham claims early Protestant Reformers were sacrilegious and unhappy.
“The criticisms and remarks of Luther, Calvin, and the Swiss and German Reformers about these seven books of the Old Testament show to what depths of impiety those unhappy men had allowed themselves to fall when they broke away from the true Church.”
10. Rev. Graham claims early Protestant Reformers were contemptuous of Holy Scripture, picking only those books that fit their personal beliefs.
“The presumptuous way, indeed, in which Luther, among others, poured contempt, and doubt upon some of the inspired writings which had been acknowledged and cherished and venerated for 1000 or 1000 years would be scarcely credible were it not that we have his very words in cold print, which cannot lie, and may be read in his Biography, or be seen quoted in such books as Dr. Westcott’s The Bible in The Church. And why did he impugn such books as we have mentioned? Because they did not suit his new doctrines and opinions. He had arrived at the principle of private judgment—of picking and choosing religious doctrines; and whenever any book, such as the Book of Machabees, taught a doctrine that was repugnant to his individual taste.”
11. Rev. Graham claims Protestant Martin Luther mutilated God's Word, and added his own personal beliefs to it.
“Luther allowed to remain, and pronounced to be worthy to find a place within the boards of the new Reformed Bible. In short, he not only cast out certain books, but he mutilated some that were left. For example, not pleased with St Paul’s doctrine, ‘we are justified by faith’, and fearing lest good works (a Popish superstition) might creep in, he added the word 'only’ after St Paul’s words, making the sentence run: 'We are justified by Faith only’, and so it reads in Lutheran Bibles to this day.”
12. Rev. Graham claims Protestants are ignorant, stupid and unlettered, and have created their own Bible and religion.
“But this was the outcome of the Protestant standpoint, individual judgment: no authority outside of oneself. However ignorant, however stupid, however unlettered, you may, indeed you are bound to cut and carve out a Bible and a Religion for yourself.”
13. Rev. Graham accuses Protestants of elevating the Bible into a false position.
“The Reformers should appropriate unabridged the Bible of the Catholic Church (which was the only volume of God’s Scripture ever known on earth), even for the purpose of elevating it into a false position.”
14. Rev. Graham claims Protestants will receive God's curse for taking away from the Book of Life.
“Which has proved, by its actions, its love and veneration? and which seems most likely to incur the anathema, recorded by St John, that God will send upon those who shall take away from the words of the Book of Life?”
[Note: This is a bald-faced lie, as no one can remove anything from the Lamb's Book of Life, save God Himself.]
15. Rev. Graham accuses Protestants of adding to the Bible.
“Consider the various ways in which corruptions and variations could be introduced. The variations might have been (a) intentionally introduced or (b) unintentionally. (a) Under this class we must unfortunately reckon those changes which were made by heretics to suit their particular doctrine or practice, just as, for example, the Lutherans added the word 'only’ to St. Paul’s words to fit in with their new fangled notion about 'justification by faith only’.”
16. Rev. Graham mocks Protestants, and claims they do not understand the doctrines of infallibility and inerrancy.
“Well, the Bibles, before printing, are full of varieties and differences and blunders. Which of them all is correct? Pious Protestants may hold up their hands in horror and cry out, 'there are no mistakes in the Bible! it is all inspired! it is God’s own Book!’”
[Note: Protestants are, and have always been, knowledgeable of the doctrines of infallibility and inerrancy. Protestants know infallibility extends only to the original manuscripts; and inerrancy refers to the Bible not containing any error in doctrine. Again Rev. Graham presents a caricature of Protestants]
17. Rev. Graham claims Protestants are to blame for the rampant sin of the twentieth century.
“People in ages to come will, mayhap, regard this century with its boasted progress and civilisation, and this land with 350 years of Protestantism behind it as an age and a country where drunkenness and dishonesty and immorality and matrimonial unfaithfulness and extravagance and unbelief and youthful excesses and insubordination and barbarity of manners were so universally and so deeply rooted that the authorities of the kingdom were simply helpless to cope with them.”
18. Rev. Graham speaks dismissively of Protestants, implying Protestants know nothing of Roman Catholic history.
“Spain began to publish editions in the same year, and issued Bibles with the full approval of the Spanish Inquisition (of course one can hardly expect Protestants to believe this).”
[Note: More than anyone, Protestants are well aware of the Spanish Inquisition; and that the Roman Catholic church published Bibles in Spain. Roman Catholic church approved Bibles that is.]
19. Rev. Graham claims the beliefs of John Wycliffe, an early forerunner of Protestantism, were “pestilential errors.”
“It was not from hostility to a translated Bible as such that the Church condemned Wycliff; and that she [the Roman Catholic church] never would have issued her decree, if his sole purpose had been the edification and sanctification of the readers. It was only when the design of the Lollards was discovered, and Wycliff’s subtle plot unmasked of disseminating their pestilential errors through his translation, that the Church’s condemnation fell upon him.”
[Note: John Wycliffe was not a Lollard. His followers were known as Lollards. And the “pestilential errors” the Roman Catholic church condemned him for were: 1. The pope had no part to play in worldly affairs; 2. The church was too worldly; 3. Monasticism had drifted from its spiritual foundation; 4. The Bible should be available to everyone in their own language; 5. 'Dominion is of Grace', that is, true power is God's, and attempts to use power for individual gain is therefore wrong. Although the Roman Catholic church wanted Wycliffe turned over to them, the king of England refused to allow it. When a monarch sympathetic to the Roman Catholic church came into power, some 41 years after Wycliffe's death, the Roman Catholic church still wanted revenge on Wycliffe, so they exhumed his remains, and burned them.]
20. Rev. Graham again claims Protestants believe no one could be saved prior to the invention of the printing press.
“On Protestant principles it must seem a pity that the Lord waited so many centuries before He invented printing machines to spread Bibles about among the people; and it seems also very hard on all preceding generations that slipped away without this lamp to their feet and light unto their path.”
[And again, this is a bald-faced lie. No Protestant has ever believed this.]
21. Rev. Graham makes untrue, libelous defamatory statements about Protestant Reformer William Tyndale.
“Well, William Tyndale (and for that matter Martin Luther too), was born almost a 100 years after John Wycliff died, that is, 1484. He studied at Oxford and became a priest, and was seized with the ambition of getting the Bible printed in England. Now, there were three great objections to this step being approved. In the first place, Tyndale was not the man to do it; he was utterly unfitted for such a great work. He says himself he was 'evil favoured in this world, and without grace in the sight of men, speechless and rude, dull and slow witted.’ He had no special qualifications for the task of translation. He was but a mediocre scholar, and could not boast of anything above the average intellect.”
[Note: William Tyndale was a theologian and a biblical scholar. He could speak seven languages and was proficient in both ancient Hebrew and Greek. He was hardly a “mediocre scholar” of “average intellect.” What better man to translate the Hebrew and Greek Scriptures than one who is proficient in those languages?]
22. Rev. Graham claims the teaching of Protestant Martin Luther was heresy.
“The Lutheran Revolution was in full swing abroad (1520), and the Lutheran heresy was spreading everywhere, carrying with it rebellion and immorality, and the English Bishops might well have cause to fear lest the infection should poison the faithful under their own jurisdiction.”
[Note: Martin Luther's beliefs were taken directly from God's word. To call them heresy is to call God's word heresy.]
23. Rev. Graham again makes untrue libelous statements about Protestant Reformer William Tyndale.
“[Tyndale was an] irresponsible private chaplain [who] had become already known as a man of dangerous views, who was exceedingly insulting in his manner, unscrupulous, and of a most violent temper. … [the Tyndale translation] was a false and erroneous and anti-Catholic version of the Holy Scriptures. It was full of Lutheran heresies. Tyndale had fallen under the influence of the German Reformer, who by this time had revolted from Rome. About 1522 he had been suspected and tried for heresy; he had declared: 'I defy the Pope and all his laws’; and now he actually embodied in his English version Luther’s notes and explanations of texts, which were as full of venom and hatred against Rome as an egg is full of meat. 'It has long been a notorious fact,’ says Mr. Allnatt (in his Bible and the Reformation), 'that all the early Protestant versions of the Bible literally swarmed with gross and flagrant corruptions—corruptions consisting in the wilful and deliberate mistranslation of various passages of the sacred text, and all directly aimed against those doctrines and practices of the Catholic Church which the “Reformers” were most anxious to uproot. But the most interesting point about the whole affair is that time has abundantly justified the action of the Catholic Church and proved that she did the proper thing in attempting to stamp out Tyndale’s Bible.” [emphasis added]
[Note: The way in which the Roman Catholic church attempted to stamp out Tyndale's Bible was the same way in which the Roman Catholic church dealt with those who broke away from her – at least those they caught. They tried Tyndale and pronounced him guilty of heresy. They then publicly degraded him, bound him to a beam, and fixed both an iron chain and a rope around his neck. They then stacked wood around him and added gunpowder to it. A Roman Catholic official then gave the signal, and the executioner began strangling him with the chain and rope, as the fire was lit by another Roman Catholic official. The Roman Catholic church murdered William Tyndale in a horrible, tortuous, and inhumane manner. So much for the love of Christ the Roman church claims it possesses.]
24. Rev. Graham then presents a bald-faced lie about Protestant Reformer John Calvin.
“as Luther a few years before burnt the books of Canon Law, and the Bull of Pope Leo, and in 1522 John Calvin burnt all the copies he could collect of Servetus’ Bible at Geneva, because these contained some notes he did not think were orthodox. Indeed Calvin went a step further than that—he burned Servetus himself.”
[Note: Calvin did not burn Michael Servetus. Nor did he play any role in his death. Local officials, whom Calvin had no authority or influence over, tried Servetus and executed him in the same manner used by the Roman Catholic church. They burned him to death. Calvin was actually friends with Servetus, and spent many long hours with him in his cell comforting him and begging him to recant the statements he had made which had served to convict him. Again, Calvin did not kill Servetus, nor did he play any role in his death. I do not blame Rev. Graham for his false statements, as he is merely repeating the official Roman Catholic position on John Calvin.]
25. Rev. Graham accuses Protestants of inventing a rule of faith and mocking religion.
“Or had Protestants a different Rule of Faith according to the century in which they lived? according to the copy of the Bible they chanced to possess? What a mockery of Religion! What a degradation of God’s Holy Word, that it should have been knocked about like a shuttlecock, and made to serve the interests now of this sect, now of that, and loaded with notes that shrieked aloud party war-cries and bitter accusations and filthy insinuations! Is this zeal for the pure and incorrupt Gospel? Is this the grand and unspeakable blessing of the 'open Bible’? It only remains now to show by contrast the calm, dignified, and reverent action taken by the Catholic Church, towards her own Book.”
[Note: The Protestant rule of faith is based solely on God's word. Not according to the time period in which we may live. Nor do we make the Bible serve our personal interests. Nor do we shriek “aloud party war-cries and make bitter accusations and filthy insinuations.” And thankfully we are not calm and dignified and reverent as the Roman Catholic church has been when they murdered innumerable people for disagreeing with them.]
26. Rev. Graham states Protestants are fanatics, clowns, and heretics from the pit of hell. He also claims the Protestants have revived the old heresies.
“By the end of the sixteenth century no less than 270 new sects had been enumerated, and some that had been extinct for centuries, like Arianism, revived under the genial influence of Luther. Dr. Walton, Bishop of Chester, and author of the famous Polyglott Bible that bears his name, laments this fact in his Preface about the end of the seventeenth century. 'There is no fanatic or clown’ ' says he, 'from the lowest dregs of the people who does not give you his own dreams as the Word of God. For the bottomless pit seems to have been set open from whence a smoke has risen which has obscured the heavens and the stars, and locusts are come out with wings—a numerous race of sectaries and heretics, who have renewed all the old heresies, and invented monstrous opinions of their own.”
[Note: This statement of Rev. Graham's is not simply another bald-faced lie. It is a lie designed to stir up animosity towards Protestants. This is born out by the numerous Roman Catholics who continue to propagate this same or similar lie.]
27. Rev. Graham states Protestants are violent, blundering malicious sectaries who treat God's word with infinite degradation and contempt.
“Who is there that has followed the sad story of the non-Catholic treatment of the Sacred Scriptures but will be forced by contrast to admire the wisdom, the calm dignity, the consistent and deliberate policy of the Ecclesiastical authorities of the Catholic Church in England, which stands as a reproof to the violent, blundering, malicious methods of the sectaries and which, if it had been acquiesced in by others, would have saved the Word of God from infinite degradation and contempt?”
I believe it is very clear that my conclusion of Rev. Graham was correct. His own words prove that he is strongly anti-Protestant, and clearly bigoted against Protestants. My stating this obvious fact, again as born out by his own words, is not in and of itself any indication of bigotry on my part.
Rev. Graham's position on the Bible and the apocrypha is, in my opinion, so poorly presented in his book, that if anything it lends support to the fact the apocrypha is not divinely inspired Scripture, and should never be treated as such. God's Holy Word stands alone as divinely inspired, without the apocrypha.
**********
List of Research Sources Used in Preparing This Series of Articles:
1. Roman Catholic Sources
5 Myths about 7 Books
by Mark Shea
http://www.catholiceducation.org/en/religion-and-philosophy/apologetics/5-myths-about-7-books.html
A Second Response to William Webster on Esdras
By “The Catholic Legate,” May 7, 2007
http://www.catholic-legate.com/a-second-response-to-william-webster-on-esdras-2/
Catholic Biblical Apologetics
By Paul Flanagan and Robert Schihl, Catholic Biblical Apologetics, © Copyright 1985-2004, Paul Flanagan and Robert Schihl
http://www.catholicapologetics.org/ap030700.htm
Defending the Deuterocanonicals
by James Akin
https://www.ewtn.com/library/ANSWERS/DEUTEROS.HTM
Deuterocanonical Books in the New Testament
by John Salza
http://scripturecatholic.com/deuterocanon.html
used here by his permission
Did Some Church Fathers Reject the Deuterocanonicals as Scripture?
By “matt1618”
http://matt1618.freeyellow.com/deut.html
How can I defend the book of Judith against Fundamentalist charges?
Catholic Answers Staff, August 04, 2011
https://www.catholic.com/qa/how-can-i-defend-the-book-of-judith-against-fundamentalist-charges
New Advent Catholic Encyclopedia Entry for “Apocrypha” http://www.newadvent.org/cathen/01601a.htm
New Advent Catholic Encyclopedia Entry for “Codex Alexandrinus”
http://www.newadvent.org/cathen/04080c.htm
New Advent Catholic Encyclopedia Entry for “Codex Vaticanus”
http://www.newadvent.org/cathen/04086a.htm
Response to White’s Assumption(s)
by Steve Ray, August 16, 2007
http://www.catholicconvert.com/blog/2007/08/16/response-to-whites-assumptions/
The Apocrypha?
http://www.catholicnewsagency.com/resources/apologetics/bible/the-apocrypha/
The Collegeville Bible Commentary Series, Volume 1
The Collegeville Bible Commentary: Old Testament
edited by Dianne Bergant, Robert J. Karris, Liturgical Press, 1992
NIHIL OBSTAT: Robert C. Harren, J.C.L. Censor Deputatus
IMPRIMATUR: + Jerome Harms, O.S.B. Bishop of St. Cloud, October 19, 1988
(note: Fr. Robert Karris is a past president of the Catholic Biblical Association of America and currently research professor at The Franciscan Institute of St. Bonaventure University.)
Where We Got the Bible: Our Debt to the Catholic Church
by The Right Rev. Henry G. Graham
Originally published in the Catholic Press, 1908-1909
https://archive.org/details/WhereWeGotTheBibleOurDebtToTheCatholicChurch
2. Protestant Sources
A Further Response to Gary Michuta and John Betts on 1 Esdras
by James Swan, April 23, 2007
https://www.aomin.org/aoblog/2007/04/23/a-further-response-to-gary-michuta-and-john-betts-on-1-esdras/
A Grammar of the Old Testament in Greek According to the Septuagint by Henry Thackeray, Cambridge University Press, 1909
Ancient Canon Lists
Bible Research by Michael D. Marlowe Website
http://www.bible-researcher.com/canon8.html
Apostolic Bible Polyglot, 2nd Edition
Charles Van der Pool, translator
Are The Canons Of Carthage And Trent The Same?
by Jason Engwer, April 23, 2007
http://triablogue.blogspot.com/2007/04/are-canons-of-carthage-and-trent-same.html
Bill Webster Responds to Gary Michuta Part I
by James White, March 28, 2007
http://www.aomin.org/aoblog/2007/03/28/bill-webster-responds-to-gary-michuta-part-i/
Bill Webster Responds to Gary Michuta, Part II
by James White, March 30, 2007
http://www.aomin.org/aoblog/2007/03/30/bill-webster-responds-to-gary-michuta-part-ii/
Bill Webster Responds to Gary Michuta, Part II
by James White, April 1, 2007
http://www.aomin.org/aoblog/2007/04/01/bill-webster-responds-to-gary-michuta-part-iii/
Canons and Decrees of the Council of Trent
The Fourth Session
Celebrated on the eighth day of the month of April, in the year 1546.
English translation by James Waterworth (London, 1848)
Decree Concerning the Canonical Scriptures
http://www.bible-researcher.com/trent1.html
Canon Fire
by “First Things,” January 2008
https://www.firstthings.com/blogs/firstthoughts/2008/01/canon-fire
Documents of the Early Church, Henry Bettenson – Editor, Oxford University Press, 1953
“Enoch, Book of,” Cyclopaedia of Biblical, Theological and Ecclesiastical Literature, Vol. III, John M‘Clintock, and James Strong, (Grand Rapids, MI: Baker Book House) 1969
Eusebius' Ecclesiastical History, translated from the original, Baker Book House, 1958
Gary Michuta Says: Read My Book
by James Swan, April 4, 2007
https://www.aomin.org/aoblog/2007/04/04/gary-michuta-says-read-my-book/
Melito of Sardis and the Old Testament Canon: Overview & Arguments
by James Swan, May 30, 2010
https://beggarsallreformation.blogspot.com/2010/05/melito-of-sardis-and-old-testament.html?m=1
New Catholic Encyclopedia: The Canon Was Not Settled Until Trent
by James Swan, August 07, 2015
http://beggarsallreformation.blogspot.com/2015/08/new-catholic-encyclopedia-canon-was-not.html
St. Augustine's City of God, Chapter 8.—The Canonical Books.
http://www.ccel.org/ccel/schaff/npnf102.v.v.viii.html
Study resources for the Old and New Testament Canon
Appendix A: Primary Sources for the Study of the Old Testament/Hebrew Bible Canon
From: Lee Martin McDonald, James A. Sanders, Editors: The Canon Debate, Appendix A, B, p 580-584, 2002
http://www.bible.ca/b-canon-resource-list-macdonald.htm
Team Apologian
by James Swan, May 9, 2007
http://beggarsallreformation.blogspot.mx/2007/05/team-apologian.html
The Ante-Nicene Fathers: The Writings of the Fathers down to A.D. 325 (1867-1885)
Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers: Series I (1885)
Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers: Series II (1885)
28 Volumes Total
Alexander Roberts and James Donaldson (original translators and editors);
Philip Schaff (editor)
Originally published by T. & T. Clark, Edinburgh, Scotland
Published in America by the Christian Literature Company, edited by A. Cleveland Coxe
https://www.ccel.org/ccel/schaff
The Apocrypha and Pseudepigrapha of the Old Testament in English
by R.H. Charles, Oxford : Clarendon Press, 1913
The Apocrypha is Not Scripture
by Dr. C. Matthew McMahon
Part 1: http://www.apuritansmind.com/apologetics/apocryphamainpage/apocryphaarticle1/
Part 2: http://www.apuritansmind.com/apologetics/apocryphamainpage/apocryphaarticle2/
Part 3: http://www.apuritansmind.com/apologetics/apocryphamainpage/apocryphaarticle3/
Part 4: http://www.apuritansmind.com/apologetics/apocryphamainpage/apocryphaarticle4/
Part 5: http://www.apuritansmind.com/apologetics/apocryphamainpage/apocrypha-article-5-a-closing-remark/
The Council of Jamnia and the Old Testament Canon
by Robert C. Newman, Westminster Theological Journal 38.4 (Spr. 1976) 319-348, Copyright © 1976 by Westminster Theological Seminary. Cited with permission. https://faculty.gordon.edu/hu/bi/ted_hildebrandt/otesources/00-introduction/text/articles/newman-canonjamnia-wtj.pdf
The Michuta Canon Dilemma
by James Swan, April 7, 2007
http://beggarsallreformation.blogspot.com/2007/04/michuta-canon-dilemma.html
The Old Covenant, commonly called the Old Testament, by Thomson, Charles, 1729-1824; Aitken, Jane, 1764-1832. pbl; Pells, S. F. (Samuel Frederick); Massachusetts Bible Society, Published 1904
The Old Testament Canon and the Apocrypha
A Survey of the History of the Apocrypha from The Jewish Age to the Reformation
by William Webster
http://www.christiantruth.com/articles/apocryphaintroduction.html
The Roman Catholic Canon and the Book of Esdras (Part One)
by James Swan, June 17, 2016
http://beggarsallreformation.blogspot.com/2016/06/the-roman-catholic-canon-and-book-of.html
The Roman Catholic Canon and the Book of Esdras (Part Two)
by James Swan, June 24, 2016
http://beggarsallreformation.blogspot.com/2016/06/the-roman-catholic-canon-and-book-of_24.html
The Septuagint Bible
Translation Of Charles Thomson, 1774-1789, As Edited, Revised, and Enlarged By C. A. Muses M.A. Ph.D (Columbia), Printed by Jane Aitken, No. 71, 1808
http://thetencommandmentsministry.us/ministry/charles_thomson/
The Works of Josephus, Complete and Unabridged, translated by William Whiston, Hendrickson, 1989
3. Jewish Sources
Council of Jamnia and Old Testament Canon
by Peter Shirokov and Dr. Eli Lizorkin-Eyzenberg March 8, 2014
http://jewishstudies.eteacherbiblical.com/jamnia/
Jewish Encyclopedia entry for “Ahasuerus”
by Gerson B. Levi, Kaufmann Kohler, George A. Barton
http://www.jewishencyclopedia.com/articles/967-ahasuerus
Jewish Encyclopedia entry for “Artaxerxes I”
by Richard Gottheil, Eduard Meyer
http://www.jewishencyclopedia.com/articles/1827-artaxerxes-i
Jewish Encyclopedia entry for “ESDRAS, BOOKS OF”
by Richard Gottheil, Enno Littmann, Kaufmann Kohler
http://www.jewishencyclopedia.com/articles/5852-esdras-books-of
4. Secular Sources
Chronological List of Early Papyri and MSS for LXX/OG Study (plus the same MSS in Canonical Order appended)
collected by Robert A. Kraft (University of Pennsylvania)
http://ccat.sas.upenn.edu/rak/earlylxx/earlypaplist.html
Codex Sinaiticus:
http://www.codexsinaiticus.org
Encyclopædia of Religion and Ethics, Volume XI, Sacrifice-Sudra, Charles Scribner's and Sons, 1921, edited by James Hastings, John Alexander Selbie, Louis Herbert Gray
St. Jerome, The Prologue on the Book of Ezra: English translation
[Translated by Mark DelCogliano]
The Prologue of Eusebius Hieronymus on the Book of Ezra
http://www.tertullian.org/fathers/jerome_preface_ezra.htm
The Lost Apocrypha of the Old Testament: their Titles and Fragments Collected, Translated and Discussed, by Montague Rhodes James, London: Society for Promoting Christian Knowledge (NY: Macmillan) 1920 [UPenn BS 1700.J3; electronic edition coordinated by Robert Kraft, 2002
http://ccat.sas.upenn.edu/rak/publics/mrjames/james.htm
The Septuagint
http://www.sacred-texts.com/bib/sep/index.htm
The Septuagint with Apocrypha, Sir Lancelot CL Brenton edition, originally published by Samuel Bagster & Sons, Ltd., London 1851, The English Septuagint is made available by Ernest C. Marsh, “The Common Man's Prospective” website (http://ecmarsh.com), 2010
http://www.bennozuiddam.com/Septuagint.pdf
Wikipedia entry for “Septuagint Manuscripts”
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Septuagint_manuscripts
Wikipedia entry for “Rylands Papyri”
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rylands_Papyri
Wikipedia entry for “Codex Vaticanus”
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Codex_Vaticanus
Wikipedia entry for “Codex Alexandrinus”
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Codex_Alexandrinus
A Response to Rev. Henry Graham's Book, “Where We Got the Bible: Our Debt to the Catholic Church”
In the course of writing this article series, I had occasion to converse with several Roman Catholic apologists. One of them suggested I read “Where We Got The Bible: Our Debt To The Catholic Church” by Rev. Henry G. Graham. I found the book and read it. In reading it I discovered it was not just an attempt by Rev. Graham to validate the Roman Catholic church's position regarding the inspiration of the apocrypha; but it appeared to me that Rev. Graham also took the opportunity to toss in some derogatory comments regarding Protestants. When asked if I had read the book, I commented that I had, but that I did not appreciate the anti-Protestant bigotry presented by Rev. Graham. To which the Roman Catholic apologist retorted, “That's your bigotry coming out.”
In the way of a response to the false claim of my bigotry, I present you to, Reader, those sections of Rev. Graham's book that clearly show his anti-Protestant sentiments. What he really thinks of Protestants.
1. Rev. Graham claims Protestants invent lies about the Roman Catholic church.
“The Protestant account of pre-reformation Catholicism has been largely a falsification of history. All the faults and sins that could possibly be raked up or invented against Rome, or against particular bishops or priests, were presented to the people of this unhappy land, and all her best acts misconstrued, misjudged, misrepresented, and nothing of good told in her favour. She has been painted as all black and hideous, and no beauty could be seen in her.”
2. Rev. Graham claims Protestants are delusional.
“A last point must always be kept clearly in mind, for it concerns one of the greatest delusions entertained by Protestants and makes their fierce attacks on Rome appear so silly and irrational—the point, namely that the Bible, as we have it now, was not printed in any language at all till about 1500 years after the birth of Christ, for the simple reason that there was no such thing as printing known before that date.”
[Note: no Protestant I am aware thinks there was no Bible prior to the printing press. Not one. And no Protestant I am aware of actually believes no one knew how to print prior to 1500 A.D.]
3. Rev. Graham claims Protestants believe salvation is gained by owning a Bible.
Graham states Protestants believe salvation is gained by owning a Bible, and that every soul for 1500 years went to hell. He calls is the “most flagrant absurdity.” In reality, however, this is a bald faced lie as no Protestant every believed or taught this heresy. Graham wrote: “The Protestant theory, on the contrary, which stakes a man’s salvation on the possession of the Bible, leads to the most flagrant absurdities, imputes to Almighty God a total indifference to the salvation of the countless souls that passed hence to eternity for 1500 years, and indeed ends logically in the blasphemous conclusion that our Blessed Lord failed to provide an adequate means of conveying to men in every age the knowledge of His truth.”
4. Rev. Graham is dismissive of Protestant beliefs.
“It was written by the Church, by members (Apostles and Evangelists) of the Church; it belongs to the Church, and it is her office, therefore, to declare what it means. It is intended for instruction, meditation, spiritual reading, encouragement, devotion, and also serves as proof and testimony of the Church’s doctrines and Divine authority; but as a complete and exclusive guide to Heaven in the hands of every man—this it never was and never could be. The Bible in the Church; the Church before the Bible—the Church the Maker and Interpreter of the Bible—that is right. The Bible above the Church; the Bible independent of the Church; the Bible, and the Bible only, the Religion of Christians—that is wrong. The one is the Catholic position; the other the Protestant.”
5. Rev. Graham mocks the Protestant belief that the early church, from the days of the Apostles, had God's Word.
“Now we know that the Gospels and Epistles of the New Testament were read aloud to the congregations of Christians that met on the first day of the week for Holy Mass (just as they are still among ourselves), one Gospel here, another there; one Epistle of St Paul in one place, another in another; all scattered about in various parts of the world where there were bodies of Christians. And the next question that naturally occurs to us is, when were these separate works gathered together so as to form a volume, and added to the Old Testament to make up what we now call the Bible? Well, they were not collected for the best part of 300 years. So that here again I am afraid is a hard nut for Protestants to crack”
6. Rev. Graham claims that without the Roman Catholic church, the Protestants would not have a Bible.
“It is through the Roman Catholic Church that Protestants have got their Bible; there is not (to paraphrase some words of Newman) a Protestant that vilifies and condemns the Catholic Church for her treatment of Holy Scripture, but owes it to that Church that he has the Scripture at all. What Almighty God might have done if Rome had not handed down the Bible to us is a fruitless speculation with which we have nothing whatever to do.”
[Note: It seems rather arrogant for someone to think God needed the Roman Catholic church to produce a Bible, as if God could figure no other way.]
7. Rev. Graham claims Protestant's “cast out” inspired Scripture to invent a new canon.
“Therefore, I say that for people to step in 1500 years after the Catholic Church had had possession of the Bible, and to pretend that it is theirs, and that they alone know what the meaning of it is, and that the Scriptures alone, without the voice of the Catholic Church explaining them, are intended by God to be the guide and rule of faith—this is an absurd and groundless claim. Only those who are ignorant of the true history of the Sacred Scriptures—their origin and authorship and preservation—could pretend that there is any logic or commonsense in such a mode of acting. And the absurdity is magnified when it is remembered that the Protestants did not appropriate the whole of the Catholic books, but actually cast out some from the collection, and took what remained, and elevated these into a new 'Canon’, or volume of Sacred Scripture, such as had never been seen or heard of before, from the first to the sixteenth century, in any Church, either in Heaven above or on earth beneath, or in the waters under the earth!”
[Note: What Rev. Graham fails to mention is, that the Protestant Bible contains the exact same books as Melito of Sardis listed in 170 A.D. “new Canon” indeed!]
8. Rev. Graham claims Protestants “deliberately cut out” the apocrypha.
“Open a Protestant Bible, and you will find there are seven complete Books awanting—that is, seven books fewer than there are in the Catholic Bible, and seven fewer than there were in every collection and catalogue of Holy Scripture from the fourth to the sixteenth century. Their names are Tobias, Baruch, Judith, Wisdom, Ecclesiasticus, I Machabees, II Machabees, together with seven chapters of the Book of Esther and 66 verses of the 3rd chapter of Daniel, commonly called 'the Song of the Three Children’, (Daniel iii., 24-90, Douai version). These were deliberately cut out, and the Bible bound up without them.”
[Note: What Rev. Graham fails to mention is that the apocrypha was rejected by the early Church until the late fourth century. See part two of this series.]
9. Rev. Graham claims early Protestant Reformers were sacrilegious and unhappy.
“The criticisms and remarks of Luther, Calvin, and the Swiss and German Reformers about these seven books of the Old Testament show to what depths of impiety those unhappy men had allowed themselves to fall when they broke away from the true Church.”
10. Rev. Graham claims early Protestant Reformers were contemptuous of Holy Scripture, picking only those books that fit their personal beliefs.
“The presumptuous way, indeed, in which Luther, among others, poured contempt, and doubt upon some of the inspired writings which had been acknowledged and cherished and venerated for 1000 or 1000 years would be scarcely credible were it not that we have his very words in cold print, which cannot lie, and may be read in his Biography, or be seen quoted in such books as Dr. Westcott’s The Bible in The Church. And why did he impugn such books as we have mentioned? Because they did not suit his new doctrines and opinions. He had arrived at the principle of private judgment—of picking and choosing religious doctrines; and whenever any book, such as the Book of Machabees, taught a doctrine that was repugnant to his individual taste.”
11. Rev. Graham claims Protestant Martin Luther mutilated God's Word, and added his own personal beliefs to it.
“Luther allowed to remain, and pronounced to be worthy to find a place within the boards of the new Reformed Bible. In short, he not only cast out certain books, but he mutilated some that were left. For example, not pleased with St Paul’s doctrine, ‘we are justified by faith’, and fearing lest good works (a Popish superstition) might creep in, he added the word 'only’ after St Paul’s words, making the sentence run: 'We are justified by Faith only’, and so it reads in Lutheran Bibles to this day.”
12. Rev. Graham claims Protestants are ignorant, stupid and unlettered, and have created their own Bible and religion.
“But this was the outcome of the Protestant standpoint, individual judgment: no authority outside of oneself. However ignorant, however stupid, however unlettered, you may, indeed you are bound to cut and carve out a Bible and a Religion for yourself.”
13. Rev. Graham accuses Protestants of elevating the Bible into a false position.
“The Reformers should appropriate unabridged the Bible of the Catholic Church (which was the only volume of God’s Scripture ever known on earth), even for the purpose of elevating it into a false position.”
14. Rev. Graham claims Protestants will receive God's curse for taking away from the Book of Life.
“Which has proved, by its actions, its love and veneration? and which seems most likely to incur the anathema, recorded by St John, that God will send upon those who shall take away from the words of the Book of Life?”
[Note: This is a bald-faced lie, as no one can remove anything from the Lamb's Book of Life, save God Himself.]
15. Rev. Graham accuses Protestants of adding to the Bible.
“Consider the various ways in which corruptions and variations could be introduced. The variations might have been (a) intentionally introduced or (b) unintentionally. (a) Under this class we must unfortunately reckon those changes which were made by heretics to suit their particular doctrine or practice, just as, for example, the Lutherans added the word 'only’ to St. Paul’s words to fit in with their new fangled notion about 'justification by faith only’.”
16. Rev. Graham mocks Protestants, and claims they do not understand the doctrines of infallibility and inerrancy.
“Well, the Bibles, before printing, are full of varieties and differences and blunders. Which of them all is correct? Pious Protestants may hold up their hands in horror and cry out, 'there are no mistakes in the Bible! it is all inspired! it is God’s own Book!’”
[Note: Protestants are, and have always been, knowledgeable of the doctrines of infallibility and inerrancy. Protestants know infallibility extends only to the original manuscripts; and inerrancy refers to the Bible not containing any error in doctrine. Again Rev. Graham presents a caricature of Protestants]
17. Rev. Graham claims Protestants are to blame for the rampant sin of the twentieth century.
“People in ages to come will, mayhap, regard this century with its boasted progress and civilisation, and this land with 350 years of Protestantism behind it as an age and a country where drunkenness and dishonesty and immorality and matrimonial unfaithfulness and extravagance and unbelief and youthful excesses and insubordination and barbarity of manners were so universally and so deeply rooted that the authorities of the kingdom were simply helpless to cope with them.”
18. Rev. Graham speaks dismissively of Protestants, implying Protestants know nothing of Roman Catholic history.
“Spain began to publish editions in the same year, and issued Bibles with the full approval of the Spanish Inquisition (of course one can hardly expect Protestants to believe this).”
[Note: More than anyone, Protestants are well aware of the Spanish Inquisition; and that the Roman Catholic church published Bibles in Spain. Roman Catholic church approved Bibles that is.]
19. Rev. Graham claims the beliefs of John Wycliffe, an early forerunner of Protestantism, were “pestilential errors.”
“It was not from hostility to a translated Bible as such that the Church condemned Wycliff; and that she [the Roman Catholic church] never would have issued her decree, if his sole purpose had been the edification and sanctification of the readers. It was only when the design of the Lollards was discovered, and Wycliff’s subtle plot unmasked of disseminating their pestilential errors through his translation, that the Church’s condemnation fell upon him.”
[Note: John Wycliffe was not a Lollard. His followers were known as Lollards. And the “pestilential errors” the Roman Catholic church condemned him for were: 1. The pope had no part to play in worldly affairs; 2. The church was too worldly; 3. Monasticism had drifted from its spiritual foundation; 4. The Bible should be available to everyone in their own language; 5. 'Dominion is of Grace', that is, true power is God's, and attempts to use power for individual gain is therefore wrong. Although the Roman Catholic church wanted Wycliffe turned over to them, the king of England refused to allow it. When a monarch sympathetic to the Roman Catholic church came into power, some 41 years after Wycliffe's death, the Roman Catholic church still wanted revenge on Wycliffe, so they exhumed his remains, and burned them.]
20. Rev. Graham again claims Protestants believe no one could be saved prior to the invention of the printing press.
“On Protestant principles it must seem a pity that the Lord waited so many centuries before He invented printing machines to spread Bibles about among the people; and it seems also very hard on all preceding generations that slipped away without this lamp to their feet and light unto their path.”
[And again, this is a bald-faced lie. No Protestant has ever believed this.]
21. Rev. Graham makes untrue, libelous defamatory statements about Protestant Reformer William Tyndale.
“Well, William Tyndale (and for that matter Martin Luther too), was born almost a 100 years after John Wycliff died, that is, 1484. He studied at Oxford and became a priest, and was seized with the ambition of getting the Bible printed in England. Now, there were three great objections to this step being approved. In the first place, Tyndale was not the man to do it; he was utterly unfitted for such a great work. He says himself he was 'evil favoured in this world, and without grace in the sight of men, speechless and rude, dull and slow witted.’ He had no special qualifications for the task of translation. He was but a mediocre scholar, and could not boast of anything above the average intellect.”
[Note: William Tyndale was a theologian and a biblical scholar. He could speak seven languages and was proficient in both ancient Hebrew and Greek. He was hardly a “mediocre scholar” of “average intellect.” What better man to translate the Hebrew and Greek Scriptures than one who is proficient in those languages?]
22. Rev. Graham claims the teaching of Protestant Martin Luther was heresy.
“The Lutheran Revolution was in full swing abroad (1520), and the Lutheran heresy was spreading everywhere, carrying with it rebellion and immorality, and the English Bishops might well have cause to fear lest the infection should poison the faithful under their own jurisdiction.”
[Note: Martin Luther's beliefs were taken directly from God's word. To call them heresy is to call God's word heresy.]
23. Rev. Graham again makes untrue libelous statements about Protestant Reformer William Tyndale.
“[Tyndale was an] irresponsible private chaplain [who] had become already known as a man of dangerous views, who was exceedingly insulting in his manner, unscrupulous, and of a most violent temper. … [the Tyndale translation] was a false and erroneous and anti-Catholic version of the Holy Scriptures. It was full of Lutheran heresies. Tyndale had fallen under the influence of the German Reformer, who by this time had revolted from Rome. About 1522 he had been suspected and tried for heresy; he had declared: 'I defy the Pope and all his laws’; and now he actually embodied in his English version Luther’s notes and explanations of texts, which were as full of venom and hatred against Rome as an egg is full of meat. 'It has long been a notorious fact,’ says Mr. Allnatt (in his Bible and the Reformation), 'that all the early Protestant versions of the Bible literally swarmed with gross and flagrant corruptions—corruptions consisting in the wilful and deliberate mistranslation of various passages of the sacred text, and all directly aimed against those doctrines and practices of the Catholic Church which the “Reformers” were most anxious to uproot. But the most interesting point about the whole affair is that time has abundantly justified the action of the Catholic Church and proved that she did the proper thing in attempting to stamp out Tyndale’s Bible.” [emphasis added]
[Note: The way in which the Roman Catholic church attempted to stamp out Tyndale's Bible was the same way in which the Roman Catholic church dealt with those who broke away from her – at least those they caught. They tried Tyndale and pronounced him guilty of heresy. They then publicly degraded him, bound him to a beam, and fixed both an iron chain and a rope around his neck. They then stacked wood around him and added gunpowder to it. A Roman Catholic official then gave the signal, and the executioner began strangling him with the chain and rope, as the fire was lit by another Roman Catholic official. The Roman Catholic church murdered William Tyndale in a horrible, tortuous, and inhumane manner. So much for the love of Christ the Roman church claims it possesses.]
24. Rev. Graham then presents a bald-faced lie about Protestant Reformer John Calvin.
“as Luther a few years before burnt the books of Canon Law, and the Bull of Pope Leo, and in 1522 John Calvin burnt all the copies he could collect of Servetus’ Bible at Geneva, because these contained some notes he did not think were orthodox. Indeed Calvin went a step further than that—he burned Servetus himself.”
[Note: Calvin did not burn Michael Servetus. Nor did he play any role in his death. Local officials, whom Calvin had no authority or influence over, tried Servetus and executed him in the same manner used by the Roman Catholic church. They burned him to death. Calvin was actually friends with Servetus, and spent many long hours with him in his cell comforting him and begging him to recant the statements he had made which had served to convict him. Again, Calvin did not kill Servetus, nor did he play any role in his death. I do not blame Rev. Graham for his false statements, as he is merely repeating the official Roman Catholic position on John Calvin.]
25. Rev. Graham accuses Protestants of inventing a rule of faith and mocking religion.
“Or had Protestants a different Rule of Faith according to the century in which they lived? according to the copy of the Bible they chanced to possess? What a mockery of Religion! What a degradation of God’s Holy Word, that it should have been knocked about like a shuttlecock, and made to serve the interests now of this sect, now of that, and loaded with notes that shrieked aloud party war-cries and bitter accusations and filthy insinuations! Is this zeal for the pure and incorrupt Gospel? Is this the grand and unspeakable blessing of the 'open Bible’? It only remains now to show by contrast the calm, dignified, and reverent action taken by the Catholic Church, towards her own Book.”
[Note: The Protestant rule of faith is based solely on God's word. Not according to the time period in which we may live. Nor do we make the Bible serve our personal interests. Nor do we shriek “aloud party war-cries and make bitter accusations and filthy insinuations.” And thankfully we are not calm and dignified and reverent as the Roman Catholic church has been when they murdered innumerable people for disagreeing with them.]
26. Rev. Graham states Protestants are fanatics, clowns, and heretics from the pit of hell. He also claims the Protestants have revived the old heresies.
“By the end of the sixteenth century no less than 270 new sects had been enumerated, and some that had been extinct for centuries, like Arianism, revived under the genial influence of Luther. Dr. Walton, Bishop of Chester, and author of the famous Polyglott Bible that bears his name, laments this fact in his Preface about the end of the seventeenth century. 'There is no fanatic or clown’ ' says he, 'from the lowest dregs of the people who does not give you his own dreams as the Word of God. For the bottomless pit seems to have been set open from whence a smoke has risen which has obscured the heavens and the stars, and locusts are come out with wings—a numerous race of sectaries and heretics, who have renewed all the old heresies, and invented monstrous opinions of their own.”
[Note: This statement of Rev. Graham's is not simply another bald-faced lie. It is a lie designed to stir up animosity towards Protestants. This is born out by the numerous Roman Catholics who continue to propagate this same or similar lie.]
27. Rev. Graham states Protestants are violent, blundering malicious sectaries who treat God's word with infinite degradation and contempt.
“Who is there that has followed the sad story of the non-Catholic treatment of the Sacred Scriptures but will be forced by contrast to admire the wisdom, the calm dignity, the consistent and deliberate policy of the Ecclesiastical authorities of the Catholic Church in England, which stands as a reproof to the violent, blundering, malicious methods of the sectaries and which, if it had been acquiesced in by others, would have saved the Word of God from infinite degradation and contempt?”
I believe it is very clear that my conclusion of Rev. Graham was correct. His own words prove that he is strongly anti-Protestant, and clearly bigoted against Protestants. My stating this obvious fact, again as born out by his own words, is not in and of itself any indication of bigotry on my part.
Rev. Graham's position on the Bible and the apocrypha is, in my opinion, so poorly presented in his book, that if anything it lends support to the fact the apocrypha is not divinely inspired Scripture, and should never be treated as such. God's Holy Word stands alone as divinely inspired, without the apocrypha.
**********
List of Research Sources Used in Preparing This Series of Articles:
1. Roman Catholic Sources
5 Myths about 7 Books
by Mark Shea
http://www.catholiceducation.org/en/religion-and-philosophy/apologetics/5-myths-about-7-books.html
A Second Response to William Webster on Esdras
By “The Catholic Legate,” May 7, 2007
http://www.catholic-legate.com/a-second-response-to-william-webster-on-esdras-2/
Catholic Biblical Apologetics
By Paul Flanagan and Robert Schihl, Catholic Biblical Apologetics, © Copyright 1985-2004, Paul Flanagan and Robert Schihl
http://www.catholicapologetics.org/ap030700.htm
Defending the Deuterocanonicals
by James Akin
https://www.ewtn.com/library/ANSWERS/DEUTEROS.HTM
Deuterocanonical Books in the New Testament
by John Salza
http://scripturecatholic.com/deuterocanon.html
used here by his permission
Did Some Church Fathers Reject the Deuterocanonicals as Scripture?
By “matt1618”
http://matt1618.freeyellow.com/deut.html
How can I defend the book of Judith against Fundamentalist charges?
Catholic Answers Staff, August 04, 2011
https://www.catholic.com/qa/how-can-i-defend-the-book-of-judith-against-fundamentalist-charges
New Advent Catholic Encyclopedia Entry for “Apocrypha” http://www.newadvent.org/cathen/01601a.htm
New Advent Catholic Encyclopedia Entry for “Codex Alexandrinus”
http://www.newadvent.org/cathen/04080c.htm
New Advent Catholic Encyclopedia Entry for “Codex Vaticanus”
http://www.newadvent.org/cathen/04086a.htm
Response to White’s Assumption(s)
by Steve Ray, August 16, 2007
http://www.catholicconvert.com/blog/2007/08/16/response-to-whites-assumptions/
The Apocrypha?
http://www.catholicnewsagency.com/resources/apologetics/bible/the-apocrypha/
The Collegeville Bible Commentary Series, Volume 1
The Collegeville Bible Commentary: Old Testament
edited by Dianne Bergant, Robert J. Karris, Liturgical Press, 1992
NIHIL OBSTAT: Robert C. Harren, J.C.L. Censor Deputatus
IMPRIMATUR: + Jerome Harms, O.S.B. Bishop of St. Cloud, October 19, 1988
(note: Fr. Robert Karris is a past president of the Catholic Biblical Association of America and currently research professor at The Franciscan Institute of St. Bonaventure University.)
Where We Got the Bible: Our Debt to the Catholic Church
by The Right Rev. Henry G. Graham
Originally published in the Catholic Press, 1908-1909
https://archive.org/details/WhereWeGotTheBibleOurDebtToTheCatholicChurch
2. Protestant Sources
A Further Response to Gary Michuta and John Betts on 1 Esdras
by James Swan, April 23, 2007
https://www.aomin.org/aoblog/2007/04/23/a-further-response-to-gary-michuta-and-john-betts-on-1-esdras/
A Grammar of the Old Testament in Greek According to the Septuagint by Henry Thackeray, Cambridge University Press, 1909
Ancient Canon Lists
Bible Research by Michael D. Marlowe Website
http://www.bible-researcher.com/canon8.html
Apostolic Bible Polyglot, 2nd Edition
Charles Van der Pool, translator
Are The Canons Of Carthage And Trent The Same?
by Jason Engwer, April 23, 2007
http://triablogue.blogspot.com/2007/04/are-canons-of-carthage-and-trent-same.html
Bill Webster Responds to Gary Michuta Part I
by James White, March 28, 2007
http://www.aomin.org/aoblog/2007/03/28/bill-webster-responds-to-gary-michuta-part-i/
Bill Webster Responds to Gary Michuta, Part II
by James White, March 30, 2007
http://www.aomin.org/aoblog/2007/03/30/bill-webster-responds-to-gary-michuta-part-ii/
Bill Webster Responds to Gary Michuta, Part II
by James White, April 1, 2007
http://www.aomin.org/aoblog/2007/04/01/bill-webster-responds-to-gary-michuta-part-iii/
Canons and Decrees of the Council of Trent
The Fourth Session
Celebrated on the eighth day of the month of April, in the year 1546.
English translation by James Waterworth (London, 1848)
Decree Concerning the Canonical Scriptures
http://www.bible-researcher.com/trent1.html
Canon Fire
by “First Things,” January 2008
https://www.firstthings.com/blogs/firstthoughts/2008/01/canon-fire
Documents of the Early Church, Henry Bettenson – Editor, Oxford University Press, 1953
“Enoch, Book of,” Cyclopaedia of Biblical, Theological and Ecclesiastical Literature, Vol. III, John M‘Clintock, and James Strong, (Grand Rapids, MI: Baker Book House) 1969
Eusebius' Ecclesiastical History, translated from the original, Baker Book House, 1958
Gary Michuta Says: Read My Book
by James Swan, April 4, 2007
https://www.aomin.org/aoblog/2007/04/04/gary-michuta-says-read-my-book/
Melito of Sardis and the Old Testament Canon: Overview & Arguments
by James Swan, May 30, 2010
https://beggarsallreformation.blogspot.com/2010/05/melito-of-sardis-and-old-testament.html?m=1
New Catholic Encyclopedia: The Canon Was Not Settled Until Trent
by James Swan, August 07, 2015
http://beggarsallreformation.blogspot.com/2015/08/new-catholic-encyclopedia-canon-was-not.html
St. Augustine's City of God, Chapter 8.—The Canonical Books.
http://www.ccel.org/ccel/schaff/npnf102.v.v.viii.html
Study resources for the Old and New Testament Canon
Appendix A: Primary Sources for the Study of the Old Testament/Hebrew Bible Canon
From: Lee Martin McDonald, James A. Sanders, Editors: The Canon Debate, Appendix A, B, p 580-584, 2002
http://www.bible.ca/b-canon-resource-list-macdonald.htm
Team Apologian
by James Swan, May 9, 2007
http://beggarsallreformation.blogspot.mx/2007/05/team-apologian.html
The Ante-Nicene Fathers: The Writings of the Fathers down to A.D. 325 (1867-1885)
Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers: Series I (1885)
Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers: Series II (1885)
28 Volumes Total
Alexander Roberts and James Donaldson (original translators and editors);
Philip Schaff (editor)
Originally published by T. & T. Clark, Edinburgh, Scotland
Published in America by the Christian Literature Company, edited by A. Cleveland Coxe
https://www.ccel.org/ccel/schaff
The Apocrypha and Pseudepigrapha of the Old Testament in English
by R.H. Charles, Oxford : Clarendon Press, 1913
The Apocrypha is Not Scripture
by Dr. C. Matthew McMahon
Part 1: http://www.apuritansmind.com/apologetics/apocryphamainpage/apocryphaarticle1/
Part 2: http://www.apuritansmind.com/apologetics/apocryphamainpage/apocryphaarticle2/
Part 3: http://www.apuritansmind.com/apologetics/apocryphamainpage/apocryphaarticle3/
Part 4: http://www.apuritansmind.com/apologetics/apocryphamainpage/apocryphaarticle4/
Part 5: http://www.apuritansmind.com/apologetics/apocryphamainpage/apocrypha-article-5-a-closing-remark/
The Council of Jamnia and the Old Testament Canon
by Robert C. Newman, Westminster Theological Journal 38.4 (Spr. 1976) 319-348, Copyright © 1976 by Westminster Theological Seminary. Cited with permission. https://faculty.gordon.edu/hu/bi/ted_hildebrandt/otesources/00-introduction/text/articles/newman-canonjamnia-wtj.pdf
The Michuta Canon Dilemma
by James Swan, April 7, 2007
http://beggarsallreformation.blogspot.com/2007/04/michuta-canon-dilemma.html
The Old Covenant, commonly called the Old Testament, by Thomson, Charles, 1729-1824; Aitken, Jane, 1764-1832. pbl; Pells, S. F. (Samuel Frederick); Massachusetts Bible Society, Published 1904
The Old Testament Canon and the Apocrypha
A Survey of the History of the Apocrypha from The Jewish Age to the Reformation
by William Webster
http://www.christiantruth.com/articles/apocryphaintroduction.html
The Roman Catholic Canon and the Book of Esdras (Part One)
by James Swan, June 17, 2016
http://beggarsallreformation.blogspot.com/2016/06/the-roman-catholic-canon-and-book-of.html
The Roman Catholic Canon and the Book of Esdras (Part Two)
by James Swan, June 24, 2016
http://beggarsallreformation.blogspot.com/2016/06/the-roman-catholic-canon-and-book-of_24.html
The Septuagint Bible
Translation Of Charles Thomson, 1774-1789, As Edited, Revised, and Enlarged By C. A. Muses M.A. Ph.D (Columbia), Printed by Jane Aitken, No. 71, 1808
http://thetencommandmentsministry.us/ministry/charles_thomson/
The Works of Josephus, Complete and Unabridged, translated by William Whiston, Hendrickson, 1989
3. Jewish Sources
Council of Jamnia and Old Testament Canon
by Peter Shirokov and Dr. Eli Lizorkin-Eyzenberg March 8, 2014
http://jewishstudies.eteacherbiblical.com/jamnia/
Jewish Encyclopedia entry for “Ahasuerus”
by Gerson B. Levi, Kaufmann Kohler, George A. Barton
http://www.jewishencyclopedia.com/articles/967-ahasuerus
Jewish Encyclopedia entry for “Artaxerxes I”
by Richard Gottheil, Eduard Meyer
http://www.jewishencyclopedia.com/articles/1827-artaxerxes-i
Jewish Encyclopedia entry for “ESDRAS, BOOKS OF”
by Richard Gottheil, Enno Littmann, Kaufmann Kohler
http://www.jewishencyclopedia.com/articles/5852-esdras-books-of
4. Secular Sources
Chronological List of Early Papyri and MSS for LXX/OG Study (plus the same MSS in Canonical Order appended)
collected by Robert A. Kraft (University of Pennsylvania)
http://ccat.sas.upenn.edu/rak/earlylxx/earlypaplist.html
Codex Sinaiticus:
http://www.codexsinaiticus.org
Encyclopædia of Religion and Ethics, Volume XI, Sacrifice-Sudra, Charles Scribner's and Sons, 1921, edited by James Hastings, John Alexander Selbie, Louis Herbert Gray
St. Jerome, The Prologue on the Book of Ezra: English translation
[Translated by Mark DelCogliano]
The Prologue of Eusebius Hieronymus on the Book of Ezra
http://www.tertullian.org/fathers/jerome_preface_ezra.htm
The Lost Apocrypha of the Old Testament: their Titles and Fragments Collected, Translated and Discussed, by Montague Rhodes James, London: Society for Promoting Christian Knowledge (NY: Macmillan) 1920 [UPenn BS 1700.J3; electronic edition coordinated by Robert Kraft, 2002
http://ccat.sas.upenn.edu/rak/publics/mrjames/james.htm
The Septuagint
http://www.sacred-texts.com/bib/sep/index.htm
The Septuagint with Apocrypha, Sir Lancelot CL Brenton edition, originally published by Samuel Bagster & Sons, Ltd., London 1851, The English Septuagint is made available by Ernest C. Marsh, “The Common Man's Prospective” website (http://ecmarsh.com), 2010
http://www.bennozuiddam.com/Septuagint.pdf
Wikipedia entry for “Septuagint Manuscripts”
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Septuagint_manuscripts
Wikipedia entry for “Rylands Papyri”
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rylands_Papyri
Wikipedia entry for “Codex Vaticanus”
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Codex_Vaticanus
Wikipedia entry for “Codex Alexandrinus”
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Codex_Alexandrinus
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