Why Catholic Bibles Are Bigger (42 page)

^[691]
Bruce,
Canon,
103.

^[692]
Reuss,
History
, 339-40
translator’s note.

^[693]
Hagiographa is the Greek title of
the third section of the Hebrew Scripture known as the Writings. Its use here
implies that the Deuterocanon is part of the third division of the Old
Testament.

^[694]
Reuss,
History
, 340. Emphasis
added.

^[695]
Episcopalians also hold these
articles to be authoritative.

^[696]
Bruce,
Canon,
106. One may
add the
Belgic Confession
as well.

^[697]
Article 35. Emphasis added [L.
continet piam et salutarem doctrinam et his temporibus necessarium].

^[698]
See Bruce,
Canon,
107, FN 19.

^[699]
Daubney,
Use of the Apocrypha
,
67-68.

^[700]
Daubney,
Use of the Apocrypha
,
69.

^[701]
2 Tm 3:15. Emphasis added. Greek
means literally “every Scripture.”

^[702]
For example, Catholics may find Purgatory
taught both in the Protocanon and Deuterocanon. Daubney’s solution would
prescribe that the Deuterocanon can only be used to confirm doctrine that is
found in the New Testament
as explicated
by the
Articles
. In
effect, this solution places the
Articles
as the determiner of
Scripture.

^[703]
Westminster Confession
, 1.3.

^[704]
As quoted in Goodspeed,
Apocrypha
,
6.

^[705]
John Strype,
The Life and Acts of
John Whitgift
, Vol. 1 (Oxford, 1718), 80 as quoted in Daubney,
Use of
the Apocrypha
, 72.

^[706]
John Strype, 1.590 (1722 edition) as
quoted in Metzger,
Introduction
, 196.

^[707]
Goodspeed,
Apocrypha
, 6. If
Goodspeed’s assessment is correct, it is frightening to imagine what the
Puritans must have thought about certain portions of Protocanon that appear
even more sensational and/or of a lower “moral level’ than the Deuterocanon.

^[708]
The use of title “
The
Authorized Version” is misleading since there were two “authorized” texts prior
to the
Kings James Version
.

^[709]
Metzger,
Introduction
, 188.
Metzger notes that there were 113 references to the disputed books in the
King
James Version
(1611), with 102 found in the Old Testament and 11 in the New
Testament. These 11 New Testament references are listed in Metzger, 188 FN 6.
Emphasis added.

^[710]
Daubney,
Use of the Apocrypha
,
21.

^[711]
Daubney,
Use of the Apocrypha
,
21.

^[712]
The Apocrypha-less bibles were
styled as “the new cut” and slowly grew in vogue as something of a new fashion
among English Protestants.

^[713]
Arber, Edward,
A Transcript of
the Registers of the Company of Stationers of London
, Volume 5 (Birmingham,
1894). Violators were given a year in prison.

^[714]
These were the 1626, 1629, 1630, and
1633 editions.

^[715]
Goodspeed,
Apocrypha
, 7.

^[716]
Out of the 227 printings of the
Bible (between 1632 and 1826) only 40% included the Deuterocanon. See Wilhelm
Gundert, “The Bible Societies and the Deuterocanonical Writings
”
in
The
Apocrypha in Ecumenical Perspective
(United Bible Societies, 1991), 135.

^[717]
Anonymous author, “Essay on the
Books Commonly Called Apocrypha” (1740).

^[718]
Wilhem Gundert, “The Bible Societies
and the Deuterocanonical Writings,” The Apocrypha in Ecumenical Perspective,
USB
Monograph Series No. 6
(New York: US): 135.

^[719]
Biased footnotes and skewed prefaces
had long been tools for proselytization. Unsuspecting Bible readers unwittingly
use these footnotes to interpret Scripture in line with the particular sect
that published the Bible. The British and Foreign Bible Society in London was
designed to try to avoid this type of sectarianism by printing bibles without
footnotes or commentaries. See
The Third Statement of the Committee of the
Edinburgh Bible Society, being a statement respecting their conference, on
April 4, 1826, with a deputation from the Committee of the British and Foreign
Bible Society, relative to the Circulation of the Apocrypha
(Edinburgh: W.
Whyte & Co), 4.

^[720]
For Protestant areas, the
Deuterocanon was placed in an appendix. In Catholic and Orthodox areas, the
books of the Old Testament were arranged as was customary in those countries
(i.e. with the Deuterocanon intermixed with the Protocanon). There was even a
Slovakian Bible, printed in Moscow in 1815, which included, not only the
Deuterocanon, but 3 Esdras and 3 Maccabees as well! Unlike the
von Canstein
Bible Society
, bibles first produced by the BFBS omitted the Dueterocanon.

^[721]
Haldane was a supporter of the BFBS
and learned, almost by accident, that the Society had committed funds to print
bibles with the Deuterocanon.

^[722]
Gundert,
Bible Societies
,
137.

^[723]
“We conceive that the very terms in
which the designs and character of the Society are declared, in the body of
rules and regulations, do fully admit of the circulation of the Scriptures, as
they are received by different established churches throughout the world; and
we wish it to be considered whether the whole spirit of the Society, as
breathing love to mankind, and a desire for the salvation of the world, be not
contravened by the resolution in question…. “(London Bible Society, March 21,
1825).

^[724]
This can be seen in an article
quoted from
The Eclectic Reviewers
without title or author in
the
Third Statement
, 108-109.

^[725]
“…[T]he Apocrypha is no part of the
word of God. We are aware that it may be quite lawful for us to propagate many things,
which are not inspired. But to these…we should make the same objection, and
hold it good; because when we send them interspersed with the Bible, or in
company with it, so as to arrogate the same authority which it possesses, and
claim the same submission which it demands, we corrupt the holy communication
of heaven,—we put the wisdom, or it may be the folly, of man on a level with
the unerring consels of God, —and we so far endeavour to counteract the effect,
as well as degrade the character, of divine revelation. This maxim applies to
the ablest and the purest of mere human productions; and to say that least of
it, we see nothing in the Apocrypha which for us to know that it is not the
word of God, to satisfy us that we do wrong, and commit sin, when we give it to
any of our fellow-creatures, under the designation, or wearing on it
appearance, of the word of God.” (
Second Statement
, 15).

^[726]
Second Statement
, 16

^[727]
The “fundamental teachings” that the
Deutrocanon is said to strike against was not the Protocanon, but the Society’s
interpretation of the Protocanon. Catholicism has not difficulty harmonizing
the teachings of these Deuterocanon with the Protocanon.

^[728]
Second Statement
, 16-17
paragraph 3. Emphasis added.

^[729]
The traditional format being the
Deutrocanon intermixed with the Protocanon. This is the format of the most
ancient Christian Codices and canonical lists.

^[730]
Second Statement
, 17-18,
paragraph 3. Emphasis added.

^[731]
Second Statement
, 17-18.
Emphasis added.

^[732]
Second Statement
, 51-52.
Emphasis added.

^[733]
This “purification” was to be total.
All references to the Deutrocanon (apocrypha) in the table of contents,
footnotes, and even the cross-references were to be entirely omitted: 
“But, besides notes and comments in the contents, and marginal references to
the parts of Holy Scripture, there are many marginal references to the
Apocrypha, also.
This we hold to be a recognition of the Apocrypha as an
inspired record. It is employed to prove and illustrate divine truth
dogmatically, which presupposes it to be a part of the divine revelation.
And though the Apocyrpha is excluded from the volume that is circulated, this
reference to it, in common with the accompanying references to passages of Holy
Writ, must give the reader an impression of both being on a level in point of
origin and authority. And this being done, Apocryphas (sic) are to be had in
abundance for consultation by those who are thus prepossessed with reference
for them as part of God’s Word. [Example: 1 Cor 10:25–Bar 6:28; 1 Tm 1:18–Sir
46:1; 2 Cor 9:7–Sir 35:9].” (
Second Statement
, 135-136.) Emphasis added.
No trace of the Deuterocanon was left behind. This omission was so complete
that, as Goodspeed laments, “Very few people nowadays know that the Apocrypha
are, much less what they have to say.” Goodspeed,
Apocrypha
, 11.

^[734]
The Edinburgh Society’s opposition
to the Deuterocanon goes far beyond that of the early Reformers. This point was
not lost on Edinburgh’s opponents in the London
British and Foreign Society
,
as Rev. Mr. Venn stated ‘Not only may the term Holy Scriptures, when used in a
collective sense, include the Apocryphal books, but it is often applied to them
individually by the earliest Christian writers, and by those of our own
Reformed Church.”
Second Statement
, 117.

^[735]
Westminster Confession
,
Chapter 1, Section 6.

^[736]
Second Statement
, 50.

^[737]
  Second Statement
, 17,
paragraph 3. Emphasis added.

^[738]
Second Statement
, 50
(Emphasis theirs and mine).

^[739]
From “Twenty-one Reasons for not
contributing to the circulation of the apocrypha among the churches which deem
it canonical,”
Second Statement
, 4. Emphasis added.

^[740]
Second Statement
, 39.

^[741]
Second Statement
, 108.
Emphasis added.

^[742]
Second Statement
, 54.
Emphasis added.

^[743]
Howorth, “Bible Canon,” 208.
Emphasis added.

^[744]
Ss Dr. J. Hey noted, “At the
Reformation, when men had been brought up to revere them [the Deuterocanon], it
would have been both imprudent and cruel to set them aside” (ed. 1797, 4.490.
Quoted in Daubney, 61).

^[745]
Second Statement
, 45.
Emphasis added.

^[746]
Bruce,
Bible
, 112. Emphasis
added.

^[747]
Neuser, “Apocrypha,” 138.

^[748]
Howorth, “The Bible Canon Among The
Later Reformers,”
JTS
10 (Jan. 1909) 215.

^[749]
Billington, Ray Allen,
The
Protestant Crusade 1800-1860
, Peter Smith (Gloucester, Mass., 1963), 42-43.

^[750]
Few Americans are aware how deeply
rooted anti-Catholicism is in America culture and that these anti-Catholic
movements spawned violent assaults against Catholics and Church property. For
further reading, I recommend Ray Billington’s “The Protestant Crusade” (see FN
727); Mark J. Hurley’s
The Unholy Ghost: Anti-Catholicism in the American
Experience
(Our Sunday Visitor, 1992), and more recently Philip Jenkins
,
The New Anti-Catholicism: The Last Acceptable Prejudice
(Oxford University
Press: 2003).

^[751]
IJA,
12 (Jan.1916), 17.

^[752]
Daubney,
Use of the Apocrpha
,
11 FN 1.