Book of Wisdom

faolteam

Can anybody explain to me is the Book of Wisdom a Reading from the Bible?

Is the Book of Wisdom a Catholic Book

The reason i ask you this someone i know was asked to read at a Church of Ireland servivce funeral was not happy to read a Passage from Wisdom Chapter 3 because its not a reading from the Bible is this correct???

PDN

The Book of Wisdom belongs to a group of books called the Apocrypha (Greek for 'hidden') or Deutero-Canonical books which are included in Catholic and Eastern Orthodox Bibles, but not accepted by most Protestant and Reformed churches.

Unlike the Old Testament books they were written in Greek, not Hebrew. Unlike the New Testament books they were written before the time of Christ. Back in the 5th Century Jerome (who translated the Bible into the Latin Vulgate) said they were not part of the Canon of Scripture, but later Catholic Church authorities disagreed and included them.

gimmebroadband

"St. Jerome did not think the "apocrypha" should be included in the canon because the European Jews did not accept them as scripture. He did not believe that they weren't inspired though. When the church declared them as part of the canon, he accepted it:"

http://matt1618.freeyellow.com/deut.html#But%20Didn%E2%80%99t%20the%20Jews%20Decide%20the%20Canon?
http://forums.catholic.com/showthread.php?t=763

philologos

So the Apocrypha weren't included in the original Bible at the Council of Nicea?

gimmebroadband

philologos wrote: »

So the Apocrypha weren't included in the original Bible at the Council of Nicea?

The following link will give you some info!!

http://www.ewtn.com/library/answers/deuteros.htm

PDN

gimmebroadband wrote: »

The following link will give you some info!!

http://www.ewtn.com/library/answers/deuteros.htm

I got as far as the second sentence before I stopped reading such a poor analysis of history.

The Reformers did not reject the Apocrypha on the grounds that they were incompatible with their theology. Anyone that suggest that is either extremely ignorant of Christian History or just downright dishonest.

The Reformers rejected the Apocrypha for two main reasons:
a) These books were not part of the Hebrew Bible as used by Jews.
b) They were almost certainly not in the Bible that Jesus used and referred to as 'the Scriptures'.

Now, anyone is certainly free to disagree with the Reformers on this issue. Heck, good honest disagreement is what makes discussion worthwhile, and thank God no-one is going to execute us alive for disagreeing with them on theological issues anymore. But to rewrite history to pursue one's denominational stance is simply bearing false witness.

philologos wrote:

So the Apocrypha weren't included in the original Bible at the Council of Nicea?

If we're talking real history (as opposed to The Davinci Code) it is worth noting that the Council of Nicea wasn't actually anything to do with the forming of the biblical canon.

georgieporgy

gimmebroadband wrote: »

"St. Jerome did not think the "apocrypha" should be included in the canon because the European Jews did not accept them as scripture. He did not believe that they weren't inspired though. When the church declared them as part of the canon, he accepted it:"

http://matt1618.freeyellow.com/deut.html#But%20Didn%E2%80%99t%20the%20Jews%20Decide%20the%20Canon?

That's an excellent link. It took me a few hours to read through it all but well worth it.

gimmebroadband

From another poster.

"They were in the Hebrew Bible at the time of Jesus and during the era of the Book of Acts. After the fall of Jerusalem and the scattering of Jews out of the Holy Land, when Judaism was reorganized, those books were removed because they were not originally written in Hebrew. They were originally penned in Greek. Undoubtably there is more to the story, but the key point is that religious Jews dropped them from their own "Bible" after they were being circulated within Christian churches as part of the Christian scriptures, and they got into the set of Christian scriptures because they had been in the Bible used by Jesus and the Apostles."

http://forums.catholic.com/showthread.php?t=490358

The following books were in the Hebrew scriptures at the time of the formation of Christianity. Only later did the Jews strip down their books to attempt to remove support for belief in Jesus that came from these books. The reformers seemingly followed the Jews!

The Catholic deuterocanonical scriptural texts are:

* Tobit
* Judith
* Additions to Esther (Vulgate Esther 10:4-16:24[14])
* Wisdom
* Sirach, also called Ben Sira or Ecclesiasticus
* Baruch, including the Letter of Jeremiah (Additions to Jeremiah in the Septuagint[15])
* Additions to Daniel:
*Prayer of Azariah and Song of the Three Holy Children (Vulgate Daniel 3:24-90)
* Susanna (Vulgate Daniel 13, Septuagint prologue)
* Bel and the Dragon (Vulgate Daniel 14, Septuagint epilogue)
* 1 Maccabees
* 2 Maccabees

The Orthodox Bible contains a few more:
* 3 Maccabees
* Esdras (also included in the Clementine Vulgate)
* Baruch is divided from the Epistle of Jeremiah)

http://en/wikipedia.org//wiki/Deuterocanon

PDN

gimmebroadband wrote: »

"They were in the Hebrew Bible at the time of Jesus and during the era of the Book of Acts.

I am unaware of any evidence whatsoever that a Greek book (Wisdom) would have been included in the Hebrew Scriptures that were used in Palestine during the time of Jesus.

Can you provide anything to support this extraordinary claim?

philologos

A quick scan of the link you gave doesn't have anything to say about the Council of Nicea.

So the Apocrypha weren't included in the original Bible at the Council of Nicea?

Could you give me a simple yes / no answer?

lmaopml

I found this article very handy and less biased than most ( and boy there are some whopping biased articles out there..lol...) to explain the canon...I hope it helps.

http://www.columbia.edu/cu/augustine/arch/sbrandt/canon.htm

gimmebroadband

More on the Canon of the Old Testament!

http://biblescripture.net/Canon.html

faolteam

Do High Churches in the Prodestant fate reconize it ?