Thursday, March 29, 2012

Too few books in the Canon?

A Catholic blogger, Joe Heschmeyer, argues that Mark Driscoll is not only wrong about what we Protestants call the Old Testament Apocrypha, but that he is "...not wrong in the sense that I disagree with his reasoning or belief. Wrong in the sense that he makes factual claims that are objectively false." Heschmeyer later comments that "For the record, I think he's sloppy, not acting out of bad faith. He gets historical details wrong all over the place, and on important events." Heschmeyer:
Popular Protestant pastor Mark Driscoll (of Mars Hill church) thinks we Catholics have too many Books in our Bibles. That's no surprise; almost all Protestants think this. But thankfully, Driscoll takes the time to explain why he thinks this, which makes it easy to show where and how he's wrong.

If you're not familiar, the Catholic Bible has seven more Books [Tobit, Judith, Wisdom, Sirach, Baruch (including the Epistle of Jeremy, a.k.a., Baruch 6), 1 and 2 Maccabees], along with longer versions of Esther and Daniel, compared to the Protestant Bible. We call these Books the Deuterocanon; Protestants call them (and several other books) the Apocrypha. So the question is: are Catholic Bibles too big? Or are Protestant Bibles too small? ....
Joe Heschmeyer goes on to quote Driscoll's arguments, responding to each.

A good description of the relationship of the Apocrypha to the rest of the Old Testament can be found here: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Biblical_apocrypha#Modern_editions. [Thanks, Ben]

Shameless Popery: Mark Driscoll and the Canon of Scripture

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