Why Catholic Bibles Are Bigger (5 page)

While Metzger does not go as far as to say that Paul was
dependent upon the Book of Wisdom for his teachings, he does admit that the
Apostle borrowed thoughts and phrases from the Deuterocanonical books.
[44]
The renowned
Protestant exegete, E. H. Plumptre, echoes Metzger’s thoughts when he wrote,
“The whole passage [2 Cor 5:4] is strikingly parallel to Wisd. ix. 15.”

James 1:13–Sirach 15:11-13

James 1:13

No one experiencing temptation should say, ‘I am being
tempted by God;’ for God is not subject to temptation to evil, and he himself
tempts no one.

Sirach 15:11-13

Say not: ‘It was God’s doing that I fell away’; for
what he hates he does not do. Say not: ‘It was he who set me astray’; for he
has no need of wicked man. Abominable wickedness the LORD hates, he does not
let it befall those who fear him.

James and Sirach both record a similar accusation against
God.
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The
relationship between these two passages seems to be tenuous at best until the
reader takes into account that James 1:13 is only one of a series of such
contacts between the Letter of James and the Book of Sirach, as we will see
illustrated below.

James 1:19–Sirach 15:11

James 1:19

This
you know, my beloved brethren. But let everyone
be quick to hear, slow to speak
and
slow to anger.

Sirach 5:11 [13]

Be swift to hear, but slow to answer.

Both James 1:19 and Sirach 5:11 recommend that the godly be
quick to hear and slow to speak or give answer.

James 3:5–Sirach 28:12

James 3:5

So also the tongue is a small part of the body, and
yet it boasts of great things. See how great a forest is set aflame by such a
small fire!

Sirach 28:12

Blow on a spark and up it flares, spit on it and out
it goes; both are the effects of your mouth.

Commenting on the power of speech for good or ill, both the
Epistle of James and the Deuterocanonical book of Sirach use exactly the same,
quite distinctive, imagery: the kindling of a potentially destructive fire.
Other parallels continue throughout this chapter (e.g. Jas 3:6, 10). The
Protestant scholar Edersheim notes, “The result is to prove beyond doubt the
familiarity of St. James with Ecclus [Sir].”
[46]

James 3:6–Sirach 5:13

James 3:6

The tongue is also a fire. It exists among our members
as a world of malice, defiling the whole body and setting the entire course of
our lives on fire, itself set on fire by Gehenna.

Sirach 5:13

Both honour and disgrace come from talking, the tongue
is its owner’s downfall.

James 3:10–Sirach 5:13

James 3:10

…[B]lessing and curse come out of the same mouth. My
brothers, this must be wrong…

Sirach 5:13

Both honour and disgrace come from talking, the tongue
is its owner’s downfall.

James 5:3–Sirach 12:11

James 5:3

Your gold and your silver have rusted; and their rust
will be a witness against you and will consume your flesh like fire. It is in
the last days that you have stored up your treasure!

Sirach 12:11

Even though he acts humbly and peaceably toward you,
take care to be on your guard against him. Rub him as one polishes a brazen
mirror, and you will find that there is still corrosion.

Sirach 29:9-10

In obedience to the commandment, help the poor; do not
turn the poor away empty–handed in their need. Spend your money on your brother
or your friend, do not leave it under a stone to rust away.

Metzger notes three areas in which James 5:3 has an affinity
with no other book in the Greek bible but Sirach. For example, the verb
translated in the NASB as “have rusted”) is used in the Greek Old Testament
only in Sirach 12:11.
[47]
Moreover, the noun translated “rust” [Gk.: ho ios] in James 5:3 is not found
anywhere else in the New Testament. Yet, the same word in its verbal form is
used in Sirach 29:9-10. Likewise, the illustration of rust corroding unused
gold and silver appears nowhere else in the Greek Old Testament or in the New
Testament outside of these two books. Although Metzger does not consider the
views presented in Sirach and James to be compatible, he does conclude that
James drew his material from the Book of Sirach.

Consider the past few allusions, all of which trace from
James to the Book of Sirach:

James 1:13–Sirach 15:11-13
James 1:19–Sirach 15:11 [13]
James 3:5–Sirach 28:12
James 3:6–Sirach 5:13
James 3:10–Sirach 5:13
James 5:3–Sirach 12:11

Within the relatively short five chapters of James, there are
a half dozen allusions or references to the Deuterocanonical Book. Taken
individually, one or two of these may be dismissed. Taken collectively, it is
difficult not to get the impression that James is deliberately drawing from and
making use of material found in the Book of Sirach.

Matthew 11:28-30–Sirach 6:24-25, 24:19-22, 51:23-27

Matthew 11:28-30

Come to me, all you who labor and are burdened, and I
will give you rest. Take my yoke upon you and learn from me, for I am meek and humble
of heart; and you will find rest for your selves. For my yoke is easy, and my
burden light.

Sirach 6:24-26

Listen, my son, and heed my advice; refuse not my
counsel. Put your feet into her fetters, and your neck under her yoke. Stoop
your shoulders and carry her and be not irked at her bonds.

Sirach 24:18-22

Come to me, all you that yearn for me, and be filled
with my fruits; You will remember me as sweeter than honey, better to have than
the honeycomb. He who eats of me will hunger still, he who drinks of me will
thirst for more; He who obeys me will not be put to shame…

Sirach 51:23-27

Come aside to me, you untutored, and take up lodging
in the house of instruction; How long will you be deprived of wisdom’s food,
how long will you endure such bitter thirst? I open my mouth and speak of her:
again, at no cost, wisdom for yourselves. Submit your neck to her yoke, that
your mind may accept her teaching. For she is close to those who seek her, and
the one who is in earnest finds her. See for yourselves! I have labored only a
little, but have found much.

Our Lord’s words in Matthew 11:28-30, likening the training
His disciples will receive to that given with a yoke to a domestic animal, has,
clearly, a strong affinity to this passage in Sirach 51.

John 3:12–Wisdom 9:16

John 3:12

If I told you earthly things and you do not believe,
how will you believe if I tell you heavenly things?

Wisdom 9:16

And hardly do we guess aright at things that are upon
earth: and with labour do we find the things that are before us. But the things
that are in heaven, who shall search out?

John 3:12 appears by itself to be a mere statement of fact;
yet if one considers Wisdom 9 to be its background, one may find in Jesus’
words a profound statement about who He Himself is—and where He came from.

Revelation 8:2–Tobit 12:15

Revelation 8:2

And I saw the seven angels who stand before God, and
seven trumpets were given to them.

Tobit 12:15

For I am the angel Raphael, one of the seven, who
stand before the Lord.

There are, of course, other ways in which the author of
Revelation could have learned of the seven who stand before the Lord; it might
have been revealed to him in the vision itself, or he could have learned it
through Jewish tradition. Even so, the fact remains that the reference to seven
angels standing before God is found nowhere else in the Greek bible except this
passage in Tobit.

Ephesians 6:13-17–Wisdom 5:17-20

Ephesians 6:13-17

Therefore, take up the full armor of God, that you may
be able to resist in the evil day, and having done everything, to stand firm.
Stand firm therefore, having girded your loins with truth, and having put on
the breastplate of righteousness, and having shod your feet with the
preparation of the gospel of peace; in addition to all, taking up the shield of
faith with which you will be able to extinguish all the flaming missiles of the
evil
one
. And take the helmet of salvation, and the sword of the
Spirit, which is the word of God.

Wisdom 5:17-20

He shall take his zeal for armor and he shall arm
creation to requite the enemy; He shall don justice for a breastplate and shall
wear sure judgment for a helmet; He shall take invincible rectitude as a shield
and whet his sudden anger for a sword, And the universe shall war with him
against the foolhardy.

The “armor of God” motif used in Ephesians 6:13-17 is found
also in Isaiah 59:17ff and Wisdom 5:17-20—both of which have points of
dissimilarity with Paul, along with their affinities. Interestingly enough,
however, Ephesians uses the Greek word
panoplian
(translated “armor”) in
verse 13, a word found only in Wisdom’s description, not the Septuagint version
of Isaiah.

There are many other references that could be given as well.
Suffice it to say, the contention that there are no allusions or points of
contact between the books of the New Testament and those of the Deuterocanon
has been disproved. There are many such interlinking passages—as earlier, less
invested Protestant scholars (such as the KJV translators) well understood.

What then, of the larger contention of the argument at hand;
i.e., that the absence of such quotes or allusions would have demonstrated
rejection on the part of the sacred writers, and that, conversely, the presence
of such citations would have indicated acceptance?

This idea is so patently absurd that one marvels to find it
still in use. After all, does a New Testament citation automatically mean that
the cited text should be regarded as Scripture? Everyone knows that it does
not. The New Testament authors quote several works that are not part of
anyone’s bible, formally citing (i.e. with introductory remarks) works
non-canonical and even totally unknown (e.g. Jn 7:38; Jas 4:5 et al.). Perhaps
the most famous of these is the formal citation of the apocryphal Book of Enoch
found in Jude 14:

And about these also Enoch,
in
the
seventh
generation
from Adam, prophesied, saying, “Behold, the Lord came
with many thousands of His holy ones, to execute judgment upon all, and to
convict all the ungodly of all their ungodly deeds which they have done in an
ungodly way, and of all the harsh things which ungodly sinners have spoken
against Him.”
[48]

Notice that Jude even goes so far as to say that the writer of
Enoch “prophesied” when he composed this passage! Yet would anyone argue today,
based on this formal citation alone, that the Book of Enoch must be considered
Scripture? Use then, does not equate to canonicity. Neither is the converse
true; the absence of citation is no argument
against
canonicity; no one,
outside the confines of an argument against the Deuteros, has ever thought to
suggest that it does. Simply put, if the absence of New Testament quotations
would have proved the Deuteros non-canonical, then Judges, Ruth, Ezra,
Nehemiah, Obadiah, Nahum, Esther, the Song of Songs, and Ecclesiastes are all
non-canonical as well; for not one of these inspired, infallible, universally
recognized books of the Protocanon receives even a single New Testament citation.
Is Protestantism guilty then, of “going beyond what is written” in accepting
the book of Esther, for instance, and calling it Scripture—despite its complete
absence in any form from the pages of New Testament writing? Of course not.
What some Protestants
are
guilty of, however, is creating a completely
arbitrary “test by quotation” never heard of until modern times, and then
hastily applying it to a piece of Catholic tradition they dislike—without even
bothering first to find out how their own traditions would fare under the same
test!

Does this mean that the presence of Deuterocanonical quotes
in the New Testament has nothing whatever to contribute to the question at
hand? After all, did we not argue earlier that the use of the book of Wisdom by
St. Paul and St. James implied a positive judgment on that book? Yes, we did;
the use of Deuterocanonical sources within the books of the New Testament
certainly does imply some kind of positive assessment of those sources—without,
of course, signifying any disparagement of the Protocanonical books which do
not happen to have been used. Although this positive assessment does not
constitute incontrovertible proof of the Deuterocanon’s divinity it does show
how far modern Protestantism has slipped from biblical practice. Unlike modern
Protestantism, the New Testament never disparages, qualifies or in any way
distinguishes its use of the Deuterocanonical books. Indeed, the Deuterocanon
is employed in a far more substantial manner than truly apocryphal works in the
New Testament; non-canonical works are used rarely and sporadically within the
pages of the New Testament, whereas points of contact with the Deuteros are (as
we have shown) more numerous and much more influential; lending their tone, at
times, to entire chapters. Non-canonical sources are often used to add color or
detail to narratives or personages already established elsewhere in Scripture:
we think of St. Michael’s defense of the body of Moses in Jude 9 and 14, of the
names of Pharaoh’s sorcerers as supplied in 2 Timothy 3:8, and of the martyrdom
of Isaiah described in Hebrews 11:37. Some of the Deuterocanonical citations,
on the other hand, are primary sources of moral and theological thought for
their New Testament counterparts.
[49]
In other words, they provide the substance of what the New
Testament writer is saying.