Why Catholic Bibles Are Bigger (4 page)

The Feast of the Dedication, mentioned in John 10:22 and
known today as Hanukkah (Chanukah), was established during the time of the
Maccabees and prescribed as an annual feast in 1 Maccabees 4:59. Antiochus IV,
king of Syria, had defeated Egypt and turned his wrath toward Israel. He took
for himself the golden altar, lamp stands, and sacred vessels of the Temple and
sacrificed a pig to the god Zeus in the Holy of Holies. The Syrian king forbade
circumcision, Sabbath observance, and the keeping of the kosher laws. Judas
Maccabees refused to submit to the king’s oppressive rules and led a successful
rebellion on behalf of God’s People against their oppressors. On the
twenty-fifth of Kislev, the Jews rededicated the Temple. A special lamp called
the “ner tamid” or “eternal light” was relit, but there was barely enough
consecrated oil to keep it burning for a day, and a week would be needed to
prepare more. Second Maccabees records that God miraculously sustained the
burning lamp for eight days until a new supply had been prepared and
commissioned the celebration of a Feast on this date.

The origin of the feast is found nowhere in the Protestant
bible, yet our Lord not only attended this feast, but also he used the Feast of
Lights as a backdrop for His “Light of the World” discourse.
[31]
In a sense, this feast is fulfilled in Jesus,
who is the true light that enlightens every man.
[32]

6) & 7) Romans 9:20-22–Wisdom 12:12, 15:7, 12:20

Romans 9:20

On the contrary, who are you, O man, who answers back
to God? The thing molded will not say to the molder, ‘Why did you make me like
this,’ will it?

Wisdom 12:12

For who can say to you, ‘What have you done?’ or ‘who
can oppose your decree?’ Or when peoples perish, who can challenge you, their
maker; or who can come into your presence as vindicator of unjust men?

Romans 9:21

Or does not the potter have a right over the clay, to
make from the same lump one vessel for honorable use, and another for common
use?

Wisdom 15:7

For truly the potter, laboriously working the soft
earth, molds for our service each several article: Both the vessels that serve
for clean purposes and their opposites, all alike; As to what shall be the use
of each vessel of either class the worker in clay is the judge.

Romans 9:22

What if God, although willing to demonstrate His wrath
and to make His power known, endured with much patience vessels of wrath
prepared for destruction?

Wisdom 12:20

For if thou didst punish the enemies of thy children,
and they condemned to death, with such deliberation, giving them time and
place, whereby they might be delivered from their malice?

The 1611
King James Version
cross-references only
Romans 9:21 and Wisdom 15:7, but by themselves, the connection between these
two texts is not very impressive. The same imagery of the potter and the clay
is used in several other passages in the Protocanon.
[33]
Metzger notes, however, that while the image
of the potter and clay can be found elsewhere, only Romans and Wisdom agree in
the “twist,” that both good and bad are made from the
same lump of clay
.
[34]
Metzger bolsters this
observation by noting between these two texts several linguistic parallels that
are sustained through three consecutive verses from Romans 9:20–22.
[35]

8) Romans 11:34–Wisdom 9:13

Romans 11:34

For who hath known the mind of the Lord? Or who hath
been his counselor?

Wisdom 9:13

For who among men is he that can know the counsel of
God? Or who can think what the will of God is?

Here Paul is apparently quoting Isaiah 40:13 (Septuagint).
However, there is a more distant echo of the same thought in Wisdom 9:13.

9) 2 Corinthians 9:7–Sirach 35:9

2 Corinthians 9:7

Every one as he hath determined in his heart, not with
sadness, or of necessity: for God loveth a cheerful giver.

Sirach 35:8 [9]

With each contribution show a cheerful countenance,
and pay your tithes in a spirit of joy.

The Septuagint version of Proverbs 22:8a and Sirach 35:8
(KJV 35:9) echoes Paul’s thoughts in 2 Corinthian 9:7. It is interesting that
both of these texts are absent in the Hebrew
Masoretic Text
(MT) of the
Old Testament.

10) Hebrew 1:3–Wisdom 7:26

Hebrew 1:3

Who is the refulgence of his glory, the very imprint of
his being, and who sustains all things by his mighty word. When he had
accomplished purification from sins, he took his seat at the right hand of the
Majesty on high…

Wisdom 7:26

“For she is the refulgence of eternal light, the
spotless mirror of the power of God, the image of his goodness.

Like the Book of Proverbs, Wisdom 7:26 personifies the
Wisdom of God.
[36]
The
writer of Hebrews appears to have adopted Wisdom 7:26’s description of divine
Wisdom and applies it to Jesus. He is the
refulgence
of God’s glory. The
word translated
refulgence
[Gk. apaugasma] is extremely rare in the
Septuagint, appearing only in Wisdom 7:26, thus linking the two passages.
[37]

11) Hebrews 11:35–2 Maccabees 7:7

Hebrews 11:35

Women received back their dead through resurrection.
Some were tortured and would not accept deliverance, in order to obtain a
better resurrection.

2 Maccabees 7:1,13-14

It also happened that seven brothers with their mother
were arrested and tortured with whips and scourges by the king, to force them
to eat pork in violation of God’s law...13 Now when this man was dead also,
they tormented and mangled the fourth in like manner.14 So when he was ready to
die he said thus, It is good, being put to death by men, to look for hope from
God to be raised up again by him: as for thee, thou shalt have no resurrection
to life.

The writer of Hebrews provides a long list of figures from
sacred history whose faithfulness gained approval.
[38]
In near chronological order, the author
arranges a series of illustrations from the following Biblical figures: Abel
(Gn 4:4), Enoch (Gn 5:21-24), Noah (Gn 6:13-22) Abraham (Gn 12:1-4,8, 13:3,18,
18:1-9 et al.), Sarah (Gn 17:19, 18:11-14, 21:1), Isaac (Gn 22:1-10, 21:12,
27:27-29), Jacob and Esau (Gn 27:27-29, 48:1,5,16,20), Joseph (Gn 50), Moses
(Ex 2:2,10-11,15), Joshua (Jo 6:20), Gideon (Jgs 6-7), Barak (Jgs 4-5), Samson
(Jgs 13-16), Jephthah (Jgs 13-16), David (1 Sm 16:1-13), Samuel (1 Sm 1:20) and
the prophets. Hebrews continues his list of these great biblical figures by
recounting their exploits rather than listing their names. In Hebrews 11:35,
the writer refers to Maccabean martyrs depicted in 2 Maccabees 7:1-42.

This identification of the Maccabean martyrs with those
described in Hebrews 11:35 is of a high degree of certainty because there are
no other examples presented in the Greek Old Testament of persons undergoing
torture and not accepting deliverance for the hope of a better resurrection.
Twice in the episode of the Maccabean martyrs this hope for a better
resurrection is explicitly stated.
[39]

Hebrews 11:35 and 2 Maccabees are also linked linguistically
as well:

The word in Heb. xi. 35, rendered ‘tormented,’ is a
peculiar one (
tumpanizw
)…is used here in reference to the
tumpanon
,
in the account of Eleazar’s martyrdom in Maccabees, which the Dean does not
hesitate to assert is the case especially intended. Also the word for ‘cruel
mockings’ in verse 36 is peculiar to this verse and 2 Macc. vii. 7. Other of
the deeds and suffering enumerated are also based upon the Maccabean history.
[40]

Apart from dogmatic prejudice, this reference to 2Maccabees
is unquestionable, and both Catholic and Protestant scholars rightly
acknowledge this point of contact between Hebrews and the Deuterocanonical book
of 2 Maccabees.

Protestant apologists often argue that the citation of these
Maccabean martyrs is really nothing more than a simple historical reference,
and that it has no bearing on the discussion of whether 2 Maccabees ought to be
considered divinely inspired Scripture. The context of the eleventh chapter of
Hebrews would indicate the contrary. We are not dealing here with a mere
historical factoid; Hebrews 11 provides a panoramic view of
sacred
history
beginning with Abel in the Book of Genesis and continuing through (more or less
chronologically) to the Book of 2 Maccabees. None of the previous verses refers
to any mere historical personage; each and every prior reference is to some
biblical figure renowned for supernatural acts of faith. So we must ask: If the
writer of Hebrews had wished us to accept only the shorter Protestant canon and
had accepted such a canon himself, would he have placed as he does the heroes
of an apocryphal book on the same list with Noah, Abraham, Moses, and David—the
greatest figures of Salvation History? Or would he not, rather, have avoided
any reference to such a book, as most Protestants do, fearing to give it a
false impression of authority, and concluded his list instead with biblical
figures from before the time of Ezra?
[41]

Because the book of Hebrews does extend its panorama of “the
men of old who gained approval” from Abel to the Maccabees, we must honestly
conclude that the writer of Hebrews appears to have accepted the larger
Catholic canon.

Other Points of Contact

The editors of the
King James Bible
might well have
included many other similar connections, all of which have been known and
commented upon since the days of the Church Fathers. Several of these
additional points deserve mention in this section.

The first is a rather lengthy parallel between the thought
of the Apostle Paul in Romans 1:20-32 and that contained in the thirteenth and
fourteenth chapters of the Book of Wisdom. There are several points of contact
between these two sections, the breadth of which led the famed Protestant
exegete, J. B. Lightfoot, to comment thusly:

All which follow in this chapter shows a remarkable
correspondence with Wisd. xiii.–xv., a passage which St. Paul
must
have had in his mind.”
[42]

Paul, who learned his Hebrew theology at the feet of
Gamaliel, would certainly have known the Book of Wisdom well, as did all
learned Jews, whatever they may have thought of its status as inspired
Scripture. That the great Apostle was willing to echo the thoughts of such a
book so directly, borrowing them almost wholesale for use in his own arguments,
speaks volumes about his opinion of the supposedly “apocryphal” writings in
question. At the very least, however, this remarkable correspondence is an
example of something which (according to the argument we are examining) is not
supposed to have happened: a direct allusion to, if not a quotation from, the
Deuterocanonical books within the pages of the New Testament.

2 Corinthians 5:1-9–Wisdom 9:10-18

2 Corinthians 5:1-9

For we know that if our earthly
[Gk. epigeodos]
dwelling, a tent
[Gk. skenos]
, should be destroyed, we have a building
from God, a dwelling not made with hands, eternal in heaven
. For in this
tent we groan, longing to be further clothed with our heavenly habitation 
if indeed, when we have taken it off, we shall not be found naked. For while we
are in this tent we groan and are
weighed down
, [Gk. bareomai ] because
we do not wish to be unclothed but to be further clothed, so that what is
mortal may be swallowed up by life. Now the one who has prepared us for this
very thing is God, who has given us the Spirit as a first installment. So we
are always courageous, although we know that while we are at home in the body
we are away from the Lord, for we walk by faith, not by sight. Yet we are
courageous, and we would rather leave the body and go home to the Lord.
Therefore, we aspire to please him, whether we are at home or away.”

Wisdom 9:10–18

Send her forth from your holy heavens and from your glorious
throne dispatch her. That she may be with me and work with me, that I may know
what is your pleasure. For she knows and understands all things, and will guide
me discreetly in my affairs and safeguard me by her glory; Thus my deeds will
be acceptable, and I shall judge your people justly and be worthy of my
father’s throne. For what man knows God’s counsel, or who can conceive what our
LORD intends? For the deliberations of mortals are timid, and unsure are our
plans.
For the corruptible body burdens the soul
[Gk. barunei]
and the earthen shelter
[Gk. geodes skenos]
weighs down the mind that
has many concerns
. And scarce do we guess the things on earth, and what is
within our grasp we find with difficulty; but when things are in heaven, who
can search them out? Or who ever knew your counsel, except you had given Wisdom
and sent your holy spirit from on high? And thus were the paths of those on
earth made straight, and men learned what was your pleasure, and were saved by
Wisdom.

Metzger sees here both a parallel in thought and linguistic
contacts:

But the presence of certain verbal coincidences in the
Greek of both passages points to a literary connection. For example, it is
significant that the word
skēnos
, translated ‘tent’ or
‘tabernacle,’ appears
only
in these two passages in
all
of
Biblical Greek–the entire Septuagint and the New Testament.
[43]