#12887 What Do Protestants Get Wrong About Jerome and the Canon? - Stephen Boyce

0:00Buying or selling your home, real estate for life can connect you with a pro-life real estate agent. When real estate for life receives a referral fee, they donate 65% to Catholic answers. Learn more at realestateforlife.org. Hello and welcome to Cathagants was live. Oh, you have such a fun job. I get to talk to two really smart people today. Tim Staples, second hour, Dr. Stephen Boyce, the first hour from the Facts podcast. He tackles all kinds of early church stuff and history questions. I haven't do it the church, the church fathers, all of that kind of stuff. The perfect guy to talk to about the thing we want to talk about today, which is Saint Jerome and the Canon because it's

1:03very interesting as a Catholic, Saint Jerome is very popular among Protestants and very Protestant, very popular because of course among the many disputes between Protestants and Catholics and the understanding of the faith is what exactly is in the Canon and Saint Jerome, maybe a little bit of a complex figure in that regard. Many Protestants make him an ally. Is he an ally? Well, let's welcome Dr. Stephen Boyce. Thank you so much for being here with us. Talk about Saint Jerome. Yeah, thanks for having me back. It's always a joy to be here. Jerome's a good one because when I was Protestant, I used Jerome, especially doing a doctoral work that covered the subject of Canonicity. He was almost the go to every single time because he put doubt, particularly on the Deuteron canonical books as Protestants will call him the apocrypha. The interesting about that size is that they'll use a lot of his early works and one of the things

2:06that I started doing since becoming a Catholic is actually revisiting Jerome and revisiting him in chronological order of timeline and looking at the language that he did. I spent, I think I was 72 recorded hours. I time myself on how much reading and research I did on Jerome and I just started writing a paper while doing it and revisiting these subjects. And I saw a development in his thinking to the point where it's like people impose a lot about on Jerome, especially Protestants that are in his earlier works, but they ignore some of the things that he said after, in my opinion, some crucial decisions made by the church while he was alive. And it would be like somebody coming after me and saying, well, you know, Stephen believed this and he said this and then they're going five years back when I was a Baptist pastor. And it's like, well, I mean, yeah, I did say those things, but I've also changed my view and I've developed my thinking a little better on some things too. So, yes, I said those things, but I wouldn't stand behind him today. And we see some that would

3:07Jerome too. I think that his language about the Canon change, especially when Pope's, multiple folks in his lifetime, as well as synods and decretal letters and things were like we're issued out in his lifetime, actually canonizing and formally giving us lists of books that should be received as canon. And he never disputed that side. The question for him was these people that he worked with. Remember, he's in Bethlehem. He spent most of his life as a deceptic monk in Bethlehem. He loved he did not want to be around people. He didn't like people. He wanted just a mind-zone business and do his thing. And so he spent a lot of time with these people that he called the Hebrews. And I think the fallacy that's been made and I finally understood this from my own fallacy as a Protestant, as they assume that the Jews had this unified universal canon and that Jerome was appealing to this Jewish canon as opposed to the Christian canon. He sided with the Jewish canon being more

4:09accurate. But what we've learned and we actually now know is he wasn't speaking of a universal Jewish canon that was agreed upon. He was speaking about a specific sect of religious leaders, a part of a patriarchy that was particularly near the area of Tiberius, about 70 miles north, north west, I believe, of where he was. And so he's referring to these doctors, these specialists that were with the Hebrew language manuscripts who understood Hebrew ideology and Hebrew language. And so he saw these as an elite group leaders of the Jewish people. And he recognized there were different canons in the Jews. He talks about them. So what happened is a lot of people assume that when he was talking about these Hebrews, he was speaking of the Jewish canon that was like universally received in Judaism. And then there's a Christian that's not the case at all. He recognized the differences in these canons. He specifically was focusing on a sect of religious leaders that came particularly after the dispersion, especially the Hadrian crisis. They developed and they migrated to that area

5:11more toward Tiberius. And so those are the people that he was talking about. So Protestant softening appeal and say, see, he put doubt on the Deuteron canonical. He said the Jews didn't receive these. It's actually not what he said. He said the Hebrews don't receive these. Not the Jews because he knew Jews who did receive them. If you want to talk about Saint Jerome, whether you agree with Dr. Boyce or not, 888-318-7884, I have to say what you're talking about is something I did not understand at all myself until recent years when people like yourself started explaining it. I think there's this thought that the Jews had the Old Testament and then the Christians had the New Testament and that's the order that it went in. And that is certainly the order that it went in the writing. But as several people have subsequently pointed out to me, in the New Testament, the Jews don't agree on the Scripture. You have the Sadducees and the Pharisees who have two different lists of scriptural books. So the idea that before Christianity got started, the Jews

6:17had a well-established canon. This is the canon. This is the Bible. And then Christians came along and maybe either changed that or accepted it depending. It's just not true at all. That is not how historically this happened. Right. Yeah, and Jerome actually helps us with that. When he's giving his preface particularly when doing the the vulget, he covers Tobit and Judith. And he actually talks about how the Jews with Tobias or Tobit removed it from their registration of lists. Like they actually took it out and that's the language there that he used. So the Jews did not have this settled canon. And this is the rivalry that came into play because now from cumran, we know that they had volumes of works that they were using. They're part of a Jewish community. That guess what? Rejected the temple worship and their priest because they rejected who was in the pre-sign line. So you have Jews in cumran who do not follow the sacrificial system the same way they did in the city of Jerusalem because they rejected their priests. They also had a different corpus with them. Like you said, the the Sadducees particularly were Torah only. If you go to the north,

7:22if you go to Samaria, the Samaritan Pentateuch, they only use five books. They didn't use the Tenak. They only use Torah. And they only use it in the language of the Samaritan Pentateuch. And that's the whole dispute in John 4, by the way. This is why the woman at the well tells Jesus where your people worship over here and our people were in Mount Gares and why because there's actually a textual variant between the Hebrew text and Samaritan Pentateuch about the location of where God should be worshipped. And Jesus didn't settle the textual variant by saying your text is right and there's a wrong or vice versa. He basically says it's irrelevant now because I'm here. So he settled the textual dispute among somebody his own presence and saying God must be worshipped in spirit and truth. It's not locationally which speaks to the fact that we live within that existence in the true church. So these disputes were happening while Jesus was on earth. They didn't land a cannon. They were fighting not only which books but different recensions of those books and then even which versions of those in the readings. And we obviously know that the translators, the 70 of

8:22the Septuagint, they were Jews all throughout in multiple groups because it wasn't translated by one group. Multiple groups came in and translated this work. They're Jews. They're Hellenized Jews. So there was no agreed upon cannon particularly and then we even see other writers after the destruction of the temple. We see works particularly of Symmachus and we look at Aquila and the Adosian text. These are guys that are a part of the Jewish communities. They're translating these books into Greek. So there is no way to sit here and say that Jerome was acknowledging like a consensus in the Jews, some counsel met or something. That never happened. He particularly noted that a sect of Jews that he called the Hebrews. And by the way, a perfect example of this is Augustin and him getting to an argument because Augustin now has his new translation in North Africa in the book of Jonah and they get to the section about God cursing and bringing death to this vine or God. There's this big dispute. Augustin's upset with Jerome because he's not responding to his

9:22letters but he finally gets one to him and saying, hey, you've translated this wrong and our liturgy we read it in church the other day. It doesn't read what you have. And he went so far as to say, we've even asked some Jews in our community and they said you translated it wrong. Jerome got very defensive and said, tell them that they can go ask the Hebrews about it or they just don't understand the Hebrew language at all. He got very, very defensive with Jews and North Africa challenged him because at the end of the day, to him, it's not an issue about ethnicity having a canon. He's saying they're not the authorities over the text. These guys in Tiberius are so don't don't bring Jews to North Africa into this argument. Again, you want to talk about Saint Jerome. You want to talk about the early canon. You want to talk about the difference between Catholic scriptures and Protestant scriptures. That is the list of the books. You are welcome to call 888-318-7884. I get talking about this with you and I just want to keep talking. I'm so fascinated by what you know about it. But I got to take breaks and so we'll take the quick break. We'll come right back.

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11:27Welcome back, Catholic Answers Live. There's a list of books that belong in the scriptures that we can call scriptures. But not everybody agrees on what books are on the list. It does always impress me, I must say, that virtually everyone agrees on the Torah. Virtually everyone agrees on the four gospels. We don't want to exaggerate the difference. I mean virtually everyone, people who are on the crazy wild margins of the Jewish and Christian communities will tell you there's the books of the Torah, there's the gospels, those are scripture. But then you get to books where there's dispute. And so who do you want to go to to help resolve that dispute? Well, Jerome is a wonderful person to go to, living mostly in the 300s, dying in the 400s, a man who could absolutely brilliant in languages, lived in the Holy Land, Hebrew, Greek, Latin of course, and an ability to understand and grasp history in profound ways.

12:37So does he come down on the Protestant side or the Catholic side? Dr. Stephen Boyce is our guest and we are talking to him just about that. And so which side does he come down to? I believe you were saying it might depend on where you, what point in his career you'd talk to him about it. So Jerome is one of the people that loves to submit to the highest authorities. And the Jews had disputes and how did he solve those disputes? He went to the men that he said were the Hebrews. And they're a high class Jew. There are many talks about this even illustrious man. He mentions wonderful, Hellenized Jews like Philo of Alexander and talks about how special and brilliant he was. Then he talks about Paul. Paul, before he was converted, he says was a Hebrew. He uses that language and he said, and he understood and could write Hebrew. So he believes that there's a superiority complex to having an organized group of men who are authorities over a text and you land with them when there's ever a dispute amongst that category of people. And he always gave

13:37precedent to these Hebrews. We see this happen even in the church because for example, in 407, he wrote on the book of Daniel, not his preface, but he actually wrote a commentary on it. And he gets to the section about Susanna Belmedragon, which is only in the longer recentions of Daniel. And one of the things that he gets into those sections, he starts speaking about how there's this rejection of the 70 with the acceptance of the Theodosian text because the Septuagint does have but it's a different form and it's in a different location in the book. But having this story about the three young men, Belmedragon, that's only uniquely preserved within the Theodosian tradition. And he makes this comment, which I found really, really interesting. He talks about how the church particularly had chosen. He says, therefore, by the judgment of the authorities of the church, their addition, the 70, the Septuagint, was rejected and the Theodosian is commonly read. So I

14:39started doing a word search and I started going back through all of his writings where he used this idea of the Magistorum Ecclesiae or the Magistry because that's what he says, the authorities of the church, the Magistorum of the church. And I found out over and over again when he uses Magistry or Magistorum, he's always talking about either a council, a bishop, a group of bishops, its leaders, whether he's talking about church fathers in the past who came together and made very different decisions. These are authorities. And every single time there was a dispute, he would concede, even if his mind, will and intellect did not agree with it, he would concede to the highest authority. The problem is, is what happens when the highest authority of the church, which by the way, he recognized that the Deuteron canonical books were accepted. He even believed something happened at night, see a one that made these books canonical. But even more so, he starts speaking differently after his friend wrote a letter to Pope Innocent I and asked for clarity on the canonical

15:44books. And a decretile letter was written back to his friend, who he designated the book of his commentary of Zachariah to, his friend gets a whole list and all of a sudden that's in 405. We see the language start changing in Jerome's vocabulary. And two years later, after that letter, here he is talking about not just books of the Bible, but which forms of those books, because anybody agreed that Daniel was involved here, like, oh yeah, I mean, a Protestant would say Daniel, and a Catholic would say Daniel, but then which Daniel? Same thing was at that time, well, which form of Daniel do accept? It just so happens, he says they not only chose books, but the magiastorum, this authority chose which form of the book to read to. And it was the Theodosian over against the Hebrew and even the Seventy, that is the Septuagint. So Jerome appeals to authority. So what happens when the highest authority of the Jews differs from the highest authority of the church. That happens in his writings, the preface to Tobit and Judith. He actually says that he would

16:49rather be criticized by Pharisees than to be disobedient to the Bishops. Meaning, hey, at the end of the day, if I have to make a choice between the highest authority of the Hebrews of the Jewish texts, and I've got to make a decision between the highest authority and the church that I belong to, I'll choose the Bishops over against the Pharisees any day. And he did. He obeyed the Bishops. See, this is the difference between Jerome and Protestants who love to use him. Even if his mind will and intellect disagrees with the authorities, he learned how to submit his mind will and intellect. Protestants can't do that. If the Pope or a group of Bishops say something that he disagrees with, he's still submitted to the bishop, even while disagreeing. And we see his language change, by the way, after these decretal letters and the meetings and Carthage and hippo start happening, and the Pope's are signing off on certain cannons, he starts changing his language after that. And here's a perfect example where he submits to the magistrate. He submits to an authority. And

17:50it's always going to be the church authority, even if the highest Hebrew authority disagrees with the church. He'll always choose the church and he always did. And his writings. That's what that's him apart from Protestants. So, I mean, I suppose this is really the Catholic mind in a way, think with the church as we're taught. That is, say that it is true that there are many things that we might come to on our own that the church would say, nope, that's not it. And so maybe, would it be fair to say that left to himself as a scholar if there had never been a declaration by the church? He might have just stayed with what the Jewish authorities in Tiberius said. But there was a declaration by the church and so he just went with that. Yeah, I agree. I think that he would have just left intention because that's what he did in his early writings. The Hebrews don't have this in their collection. They reject it or they remove it.

18:51That's his statement. But then he would say the church receives him and he would kind of leave it in tension. By the way, his buddy Rufinus, and I say that tongue and cheek as they were really good friends and then he turned, they turned against each other in their writings, Rufinus actually accused him of choosing the Hebrew text over against the church. He said, whoa, whoa, whoa, I'm just telling you what they believe. I'm not saying I believe it. So there's times where you read Jerome, it's like, man, he's been awfully critical of the church's position on this and he seems to take the Jewish position. But then when he's challenged on it by a friend that turned into an enemy in his writings, he's like, actually, I'm not speaking for me. I'm speaking for them. They'll take this out on me kind of mindset. So Jerome would have left it in tension. He would have just stated the facts. Highest authorities in the Jewish community say it's not it's not what about the church. Oh, yeah, they say it's scripture. And so where do you land? I mean, if I got to choose, I'm going to choose the church every time because I'd rather make a bunch of Pharisees mad than disobey my bishops. But you could still tell intellectually he was actually more on the side of the Hebrews. We've got to be honest about this as Catholics. But I do think that

19:55starts changing because his friend, as I mentioned, exusperous, he's a bishop of Toledo and he's going into this or excuse me of Tolus, he's into loose. And in Tolus, they're writing this letter. And I think Jerome's the reason this letter happened. Exusperous writes to the Pope and Pope innocent. He's like, all right, so what is the canon list? Like what do we got? And we have a copy of innocence to credo leper letter, which lists all of them, including the Deuteron canon. And by the way, it's not in a two tier like priority canon, secondary canon, similar to what we see in the Eastern Orthodox view. It's no, they're all a part of one giant thing, which is consistent with the council of Carthage that happened before this and the car and also in hippo. And so we see this also repeated about 14 years later, again in Carthage in 419, where another Pope signs off. And so we have multiple papal figures within the end of the four century and to the fifth affirming a canon list, not as a first tier, second tier that we see prior to that. We see a lot of this, particularly with some of

20:58the Eastern fathers. We even see this in the festival letter of Athanasias. So we see this subset lettering like these are scripture and scripture, but this is a higher canon, lower canon view. That was kind of Jerome's point, but the bishop of Rome, both in the late four century and into the fifth kind of puts an end to that and doesn't leave the category anymore. And so we see him kind of changes language after that. We actually can demonstrate that he certainly believed that by the end of his life, he started speaking very differently about Ben Sirac, for example. Sirac was one of the big ones he changes language on. Was that because Sirac was written in Greek? Am I remembering that right or is that? Well, Sirac was actually probably written in Hebrew. There was actually a text that definitely came. It would have been Ben Sirac. And there's actually Hebrew, Aramaic fragments that were found, particularly this text in Jerome traces it in a Hebrew origin as well. So, but even then, he changes his language about it from before and after the decreto letter of innocent the first

22:02and these councils. He starts changing the way he speaks about it and he actually starts using them to combat palagians at the end of his life, which is very fascinating. I'm ready to go to calls. Dr. Stephen Boyce, you feel ready to go to calls? Sure. All right. Every single line is full. So people do want to talk about the biblical canon. I'm going to start in New York, Pennsylvania, Mark, in New York, Pennsylvania. Thank you for your call. Go ahead with your question. Yeah. Hello. Thanks for taking my call. I don't really have much so much to question. I just wanted to dispute several things that were said concerning the Jewish canon. There seems to be misunderstanding. I think that there was no canon when actually what it was, when the canon wasn't closed. By the first century, you already had the prophets and the Torah and also the Psalms

23:04considered scripture. And that's, that's includes the sages. That's another thing I keep hearing that the sages only had the Torah. That's not true. They had the prophets too and the Psalms, the Psalms were used in the temple worship. But what's the whole thing, Jerome talking about Hebrews and stuff? The reason that he's in the end of the third century, I mean, four century into beginning of the fifth century. First of all, the Pharisees were gone. It's the time of the rabbis, really, technically. And also the thing when the canon was closed, basically it was by early second century for sure. And all the, all the, all the, all the, the stuff with the rabbis was basically with everything that would make up the writings.

24:07Mark, I'll tell you what, I want you to make every single point, but I, we're going to have to take them one at a time because I don't want to just be a list and then Dr. Voice can't respond to them. So why don't you take the first one because you got about a minute and a half till the break. And then we'll work through them with Mark as long as we want to, as long as you both want to. Sure. Yeah. So Mark, thank you, thank you for the comment. Just to be very, very clear, we're not saying there was no canon. We're saying there was no agreed upon canon specifically. The Jews didn't have the consistent view of canon on which books are. We're not arguing whether there's some that held the Psalms and others. Of course, that is very much included. But we do have within the Samaritans and the Sadducees multiple attestation, because very little said about the Sadducees origin against Kelsus, by the way, says that they only use the Torah, the Pilates of Rome, which is second century and third century, says they did not use the prophets or the sages. They only use the law of Moses. Jerome and his commentary Matthew 22 actually argues at exact same point that the Sadducees only accepted the mosaic books. And that's why

25:11Jesus used the mosaic books against them in dealing with the subject, the resurrection as opposed to the prophets. So we actually have multiple attestation that the church was saying the Sadducees did not use anything but those five. So I'm going to side with the church fathers who had access to things. As far as the rabbis go, I agree the rabbis themselves developed that group that Hebrews that he's talking about. The Pharisees were obviously ruined particularly that group or that sect, but they developed into this group that migrated north, especially into the areas of Tiberius, because Epiphanius even talks about this group. And he talks about master Hebrew authors that are in that area that he had went and consulted with himself as did Jerome. So we agree there was development here from the time of the Pharisees of Jesus' day to these rabbis, but they're part of that same sect of authority. You can hear the music mark. If you'll hang on, you can continue to make your challenges to Dr. Stephen Boyce's understanding of the formation of the canon right after this. I'm Kathy Gantz was live.

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27:33Answer important questions and help you grow in confidence as a Catholic. Visit audible.com today, search for Catholic answers, and let the learning begin. Welcome back, Catholic answers live. Saint Jerome is having a moment. I guess he's getting 15 minutes. I don't know exactly what, but Saint Jerome died in 420. There's a lot

28:40of conversation about what does Saint Jerome think because he is the great biblical scholar of the ancient world in the Christian tradition. There are others, but he is the George Washington on the Mount Rushmore of that. Protestants will say, well, Jerome said this, and Catholics will say, yes, Jerome said that because Jerome is relevant. Dr. Stephen Boyce is our guest, Mark, in York, Pennsylvania is on the line, disagreeing with some of what you said. Mark, I'll just let you finish what you were saying and take it any direction you want, and we'll get Mark back on. Yeah, hold just back to the sadducees. That's not what most scholarship says, and whether Jerome, I don't know what his opinion was on it, but what they ejected to was the what became known as the oral law, which was beginning of what came the the torment, but it wasn't written down. They were against that. But like I said, the profits were already accepted as canon. So you're done. I

29:48don't know one in the third century BC. Just for somebody like me, Mark, who doesn't know all of the issues. The point that you're making is there was the Jewish canon was closed and done by what date? I don't know, but easily brought it sometime in the second century. Okay, Stephen probably time of Rabbi Kebup. Okay, Stephen, what do you say? Second century AD, if he's taken that line, and I would actually agree that it was I actually agree with you, Mark, that that would have finalized it for the sect that Jerome is referring to that migrated in the north and continued over into Tiberius up to his time. That's after dispersion, especially the Hadrian crisis. But again, that's the group that Jerome calls the Hebrews, but we now know that there's other groups that opposed those Jewish believers as groups of canons that were particularly like in North Africa or in Alexandria, especially in the Egyptian areas. They actually did not agree to the canon. The

30:52authorities did and and and I appreciate you saying that because it actually brings us to the major issue here is that there wasn't agreed upon canon within the authorities of the Jews, but not within all the communities of the Jews based on what we have. Now, I do want to ask you a question. You mentioned scholars that think the Sadducees did. There's some scholars that leave it in question, but there's only three statements in antiquity because Josephus kind of leaves it unknown, particularly. But so do you think when Orgin was talking to Kelsus, for example, and he said that the Samaritans and the Sadducees received Moses's books alone and Apolitas says the same thing and Jerome, are you saying that they're incorrect? They're working off a faulty information? Or are you saying that there's other counterarguments in history that point to the opposite? The Samaritans are a whole other thing. I mean, they had of course, goes back to the splitting of the Davidic kingdom in the two parts, but they had the law that they had to pour.

31:58They also had the book of Joshua, which makes sense because it's actually the continuation of Duton and I know it's a stif. They accepted that. They didn't accept any of the other stuff for good reason because basically it's just a prelude to the Davidic dynasties and they were totally against that because you had the whole question then of which is the rightful sanctuary. Mark, I think what Stephen was asking you about is do you accept the ancient sources? He gave you three ancient sources. So I know you're getting off onto something else, but do you accept? You have to check them. Right, you have to check them, but then you have to go to Jewish sources too. I mean, what you're basically saying is that lives can't be trusted on the things that are in the ground. Which Jewish source are you pointing to because it does seem you're very knowledgeable on this. Well, I'm not really. I just read the stuff in the Talmud and about it and certain ladders and things that they can tell that the way something is phrased

33:02and something was actually part of the canon. I forget some of the things I'll fan. Let me challenge you on that, Mark. Let me challenge you on that. The Talmud came later and some of the rabbis were still debating Ben Ciro. There was actually some that said absolutely not, do not read it publicly. And then there's some that are using it to make actually doctrinal ideas and concepts of wisdom who are actually utilizing and encouraging you to even even in the third fourth century. We have rabbis in the Babylonian Talmudic tradition that are still fighting and debating about Ben Ciro. Do you agree with that? That's a classy aspect to whatever it is. Is that the writer of that? There's three different rabbis that had opinions to my remembrance. And one of them was absolutely not. One of them was neutral. One of them was encouraging it. I'm not arguing about some of the books really that they excluded. Eventually all of them

34:08and mainly because some of the reason was after the Jewish war, they wanted to re-organize and they wanted to strike out what they could say, sectarian beliefs that includes things like the Essenes, various Essen groups and the Jewish Christians too. Stephen? But what I was saying, I'll just make it quick because you know I know that the canon was two thirds filled by the first century and it was accepted. And the main thing was over the books that were going in the writings and then of course all the other, the Deuteronry books, the popper for all that, it was in great. Mainly they were probably rejected because a lot of the Jewish Christians accepted

35:08them and that's probably one of the reasons why too. Plus they were also kind of cracking down what they thought was an excess of angelology and some of those books. Stephen, I would like to get your response to that. Thank you. No, I actually think you're onto something here Mark. I actually think we found some common ground here. The Jews were reacting to the Christians because the Christians were out using their text and they were utilizing books like The Wisdom and they were using books like Second Maccabees and they were basing a lot of theology around it and it actually created a problem for the Jews to decide what to do. That's why Jerome said Tobias was removed from their lists. There was an attempt, it seems like for the Jews to exterminate or to eliminate certain readings or writings of books not because they didn't recognize other Jews were using them. Obviously they did. I don't think anybody could even disagree with that. But they had to make a standard and sometimes that standard was a battle about how the Christians were utilizing the text and if it created a problem for their theology, they responded by removal. I think the Jews

36:14actually did have to make some of these decisions, theologically, against Christianity and I know that's a hard conversation to have but I think it needs to be had because we see that happen in places and even early Christian church fathers were even discussing that. So that's actually a good, I'm glad you brought that out Mark. Thank you. Mark, I'm going to, as you said, we do have every single line full so I'm going to keep going but thank you very much. I'm glad we started off with a good strong challenge to our guest Dr. Stephen Boyce. Questions about the canon? Welcome. Let's go to our friend Aaron in Hastings, Michigan. Go ahead, Aaron. Hi. My question is actually pretty simple. Was the, as you guys call him, do a chronicle? I think it's how you do it. Do the rocanonical, yes. Yes. Okay, thank you. Were those actually in the Jewish Bible or where did they come from? Great. Great, Aaron. Millions of people want to know that. Yeah, so yeah. Thank you so much Aaron for that question. This kind of goes back to the

37:17discussion with the previous caller. It just depends which Jewish community you ask. If you ask the Hellenized Jews who are utilizing particularly forms of, because there wasn't a single Septuagint and I want to be careful there until much, much later, but forms of the Septuagint, I do think that there is an element here where they would say, sure, yeah, yeah, we exist in our canon contains Baruch. It contains the book of first and second Macabees because it's there. It's in the Greek translations of the Old Testament. And so those Jewish communities would have no problem saying that. Now, if you go to more of these authorities that were being engaged with by Epiphanias and Jerome, they would say, no, it doesn't include these. And it would be something very similar to what we see in the Protestant Bible. And by the way, we need to be careful when we say that because these Hebrews also accepted certain things that are not in the Protestant Bible. For example, we struggle with the count and Aaron, this is wonderful because we struggle with the count here. A lot of times,

38:20you have men like Melito of Sardis, for example, who went to these same authorities at the end of that second period. And they go out and they investigate the canon. The question is, wait a minute, Melito, you have multiple Jewish communities in Sardis. Why do you got to go all the way to the East towards Turkey to go find out from Jewish authorities what the canon is? Just knock on the door of your neighbor. Like, why do you need to go all the way over there to find out the canon? Well, he comes back with lists. Well, here's a problem with some of these lists. For one, Esther's not in it. Two, a lot of times Baruch is included with Jeremiah. And so we actually find a lot of differences that, you know, it's not, again, this is what I was saying earlier, it's not just about counting books, which forms of those books. Are they exactly in the forms that we have in the Protestant Bible today? A lot of times, Esther's missing or a longer version of Esther is present or Baruch is included and the letter of Jeremiah is included. So it really becomes problematic. So

39:20to Aaron, to answer your question, were they in the Jewish Bible? It depends in which part of the world you're in and it depends on which community of Jews you're dealing with. If you're with the Hebrews, this authority that's based particularly close to Tiberius, then it's going to be the one that looks similar, not the same similar to what the Protestants say the Old Testament is. If you go outside, you're going to find that there's a lot of dispersion that has a different view and they would say these other books were included in their canon. So there is no harmony amongst the Jews and that's kind of the argument. No one settled the canon until the church settled it and the church brought clarity to the subject of canon. They even clarified it from a Jewish perspective. But thank you for the questions. A good one. Thank you. Thank you. No all that. That's why we have them on Stephen Boyd. That's what I say when he starts talking a lot of the time. I didn't know all of that. But you brought us right to the break, Aaron. So we'll take a quick break. We'll come back with more questions on the canon of scripture, especially around the person of Jerome.

40:23But you don't have to mention Jerome if you don't want to. You are welcome to ask whatever your canonical question is 888-318-788-4. Hello. This is Archbishop Salvador Cordelloni of San Francisco. Keep your dial to Catholic answers live. Alexian Brothers is a proud sponsor of Catholic answers live. For 800 years, these Catholic brothers have offered a prophetic and daring response to the gospel. Serving Christ in the sick, the poor, and the dying is God calling you to be a courageous disciple. If you feel call to total self-giving as a religious brother in the mission of Jesus, call our vocations office at 847-264-8703. That's 847-264-8703. AlexianBrothers.org In Worse Code, the sequence SOS is a distress call. It's been said that it stands for Save Our Souls. Well, right now our world is in big trouble. And we're putting out an SOS call for help.

41:23Will you answer that call? St. Paul's Street Evangelization, a Catholic non-profit has hundreds of teams who share the good news with souls who don't know Jesus. Catholic answers is supported in part by St. Paul Street Evangelization. Visit streetavangelization.com to get involved. I'm continually amazed and humbled at the way God can work through me to help so many people. Although I have no idea what the callers questions will be that day, I trust that the Holy Spirit can use my education and experience to guide, challenge or comfort those who call. Master Peel with Colleen Kelly Mast, Saturday morning, nine Eastern on EWTN Radio. Welcome back, Catholic answers live. Our guest is so good and I enjoy so much listening.

42:27To his scholarship and the level of his knowledge about the ancient world that I forgot to talk about his podcast, the faxpot. Why don't you just give us the elevator pitch for the podcast so the people will find you. Sure, you can find me on YouTube, Spotify, Podbean, Apple. I mean, we're on all the podcasts there and we typically do at least one show a week and have a co-host Pat May who is an Anglican priest who also converted to Catholicism as well. So we kind of mutually do things and have special guests and all the way have a neck, a medical discussion on Canon this Saturday with an orthodox, a Protestant, an Anglican and myself. So we're going to have a neck, a medical discussion about Canon. So that'll be a lot of fun. That's the Saturday at one o'clock Eastern if you want to check that out. And look for Steven Boyz. Look for him. Look under the fax or I just learned a new thing, Podbean. I never heard of that. I'm going to let you answer this much further. I didn't either until somebody told me we're on it. That happens to me here. That's how I learned about several social media things.

43:28Carl in Baltimore, Maryland. Thank you so much for waiting, Carl. Go ahead with your question. Hey, gentlemen, this is a fascinating discussion and I really appreciate the talk this afternoon. Thank you. I have a side of my family that is, I would describe them as rigidly, textual, literalists and here to the King James Version English translation exclusively of our Bible. So I've been trying to do some research, which brought me into many of the concepts that you've introduced today. My question for you is in my recent reading, I came to learn that the Old Testament was translated by the KJV translators using the Maserotic text. And I understand that those evolved beyond the time of Christ and in some way perhaps were influenced by the early Christian communities and perhaps in ways that were positioning themselves against Christianity. And I was curious if you might be able to talk about that. So I might be

44:31more well informed when I discuss the origins of this particular translation in the KJV with my family. Oh, that's so good, Carl. Thank you for that question. And you're in luck. I grew up in King James onlyism. I was raised and trained in King James onlyism. So this is very near and dear to me. It's a good question. Yes, the King James particularly used what's called the Bomberg printed Maserotic text, which comes from the mostly from the Leningrad Codex or the Ben Asher tradition. And you're right, those are very, very late. You're talking 9th, 10th century AD that came to you. Now there is a proto Maserotic text as I'm describing this that comes along. But what was principally used by the King James was the Bomberg printed editions. And what's fascinating is the King James translators were were better at Greek than Hebrew. In fact, one of their best translators

45:32of Hebrew died the beginning of the work. And remember, this is 1611. So before that they had started much, much earlier doing different groups at Oxford Cambridge. They were spread out doing different groups. Not all of them were sitting together in a room. They were split doing the gospels, the epistles, you know, and then you had your old testament. Their best old testament guy died at the beginning. What's interesting about the King James though is that they had to rely, they were so good at Latin. They love Latin. They wrote their notes in Latin when they were doing their translation. They would do a lot of statements to the bottom in Latin. There's times where they had to rely on the Latin when they didn't understand. In fact, they give you a list of words that they did not understand. And they're saying like, Hey, whenever these words are discovered in the Hebrew language, update our translation. And I'm paraphrasing one of the ones. Here's a really good one for you. Isaiah chapter 14. How off they'll fallen from heaven, oh Lucifer's son of the morning, right? This idea, this Lucifer, it's son of the morning is the idea of this, this, this idea of Venus really. By the

46:35way, they didn't translate the Hebrew there because they translated it as a personal proper name for somebody, Lucifer in the Latin. It's actually not a proper name. It's not. It's the idea of son of the morning, son of dawn, this idea, that's it's a description. It's not a name. All this time we call Satan before his fall, Lucifer as a person. Where did that come from? Well, it's actually barren from the King James who used the Latin instead of just translating the Hebrew there, they made a proper name out of it. Instead, and everybody's been using that proper name since, and it's not a proper name in the Hebrew. It's probably referring to Satan before his fall. I don't think anybody would disagree with that. But there's a lot of times they disregard the Hebrew and translated the Latin vulgate of Jerome instead. There's a perfect example. Hey, look that up for me and have that fun discussion with your family. I think you'll enjoy that one Carl. All right, Carl. Thank you. Can you, yeah, thank you so much. Can you recommend anything I might read along my journey of this King James only is in contest that I'm having? Oh, man. There's some actually,

47:42I tell you what, they're not going to listen to Catholics on this probably. So I'm going to give you guys that I personally would not recommend necessarily. But one of them actually is James White's King James only controversy, use a Protestant against a Protestant. I'm not a big fan of Dr. White anymore, but you know, he and I were friends and he helped me, that book helped me out of it. And as much as I don't want to recommend his writings, I'm recommending it for a Protestant that won't read a Catholic. Also, ward, Dr. Ward did a really good job on the King James. Timothy Berg doesn't write a lot on that. He's finishing his PhD. Wonderful scholar who's finishing at Southern theological seminary. Timothy Berg is one of the top premier that I would recommend on the subject of King James only is him. I would check them out. Carl, thank you. I'm going to keep moving just because I've been realizing we're close and I want to get everybody on if I can. Jason in Pennsylvania, thank you so much for waiting. Go ahead with your question about the biblical canon. Good evening. So my question is because I also come from an Anglican background.

48:44How much influence, how much influence did the Jews have on translation on what was put in the Bible, what was taken out? And I'll use the example of Enoch in the book of Jude who closed Enoch that the Lord's going to come with thousands and thousands of his angels. Or there's some scripture that early questions were afraid to offend when evangelizing or reaching out to the Jews or did the Jews influence any scriptures that were taken out put in because they didn't want to recognize Christ because like even the people that did this up to origin. Like when you look at this up to origin, I mean the book of Daniel and Esther are a lot longer that are then what's even in the Protestant Bible. So I'm curious what the influence was. Yeah, this is such a good point, Jason. It sounds like you've actually read into this a good bit and that's exciting. Yeah, there's a major influence. You mentioned Esther, for example, some Jews did not celebrate

49:44Purim. And that's probably why we don't see Esther anywhere found in the caves of cum ron. It's like the only book that there's no evidence of existing in cum ron out of the Old Testament. Enoch was a huge influence. Second-tippled Judaism had a major major influence, even if they did not hold these books as so-called canon. They weren't thinking of these books the way that we're thinking about them post-reformation, post-5th century. They didn't really have that strict. They were looking at prophets up to a certain period. By the way, that's what Josephus did. He went all the way up to the exiled up to the period, particularly where the Greeks started taking over in that that reign. So the Jews had a major influence on this and that's what Jerome was arguing for, the necessity of using the Jewish understanding. And even honestly, even at that point, this is where Augustan conceded like we do need the Hebrews to understand the text better. And Jerome convinced Augustan of that by pointing to Matthew showing idioms. Hebrew idioms that are not understood in Greek, particularly he shall be called a Nazarene. That's one of the examples that comes to mind.

50:47My son shall be called out of Egypt from Ozea. Jerome said, we need the Jews to help us understand this better. And that's why he did such a great job in the Volgaet because he was using Hebrew influence. But they influenced the text a lot. A lot of these communities, another point you made that's really good is the Jews, particularly when you see these church fathers recording. Some of the books they're recording isn't the church's position. It's, hey, if you're going to evangelize the Jews, these are the books to use. Use these books, not these books. It's not that they didn't believe those are the books or scriptures. The Jews can't be evangelized by them. So use these books. That's a great point, Jason. I hope answered your question. Is there any other aspects of that? Maybe you'd like me to hover over a little? Well, I just find it weird because I'm converted. I'm going on my way back to Catholicism. And it's just weird that the Protestants don't recognize, you know, the Deuteronica books. However, the King James had those apocryphal in

51:48open to like the mid 1800s. A lot of the Protestant Bibles had the apocryphal in them. Yes. Yeah. And by the way, Martin Luther had him in his and at the end of it, at the end of it, it says this ends the Old Testament after the apocryphal. So I mean, if you would, they'd do their canonical books. So it's interesting that all the early Protestant Bibles had them. Of course, they had notes to them and left a lot of the words of Jerome, which is what's led to this discussion. They quote Jerome as to how to categorize them, but they're always quoting early Jerome. Note that they're always quoting Jerome in the late 300s. They typically aren't quoting him in the early 400s after these edicts and councils and popes are writing to credo leopard letters. So that to me has always been fascinating. That's the point of my paper I wrote, by the way, on my academia edu page. You can read me going into a lot of this. It just came out two weeks ago. Love for anybody to read that and check that out. I want to put together what Jason is asking you about. And what I

52:50thought you might have said earlier and just get some clarity from you, Dr. Stephen Boyce. It seemed like you were maybe saying that the removal of books from the canon, actually those books were resisted by some Jewish leaders for anti-Christian reasons. So it sounded like you were saying that Protestant Christians actually have accepted an anti-Christian edit of the Bible. In a sense they have because a lot of these men that are quoting the so-called canon that I said that's really not the Protestant canon because I said a lot of them include Baruch and the letter of Jeremiah, which is not in the Protestant canon or the removal of Esther like Melito of Sardis. They don't mention that part. So when you're dealing with that, in a sense they are because why are they saying these lists? Jason spoke very well on this. They were evangelizing

53:53Jews in the dispersion and there were certain books that the churches were going to use to do that. Why use a book that's not going to convince them? Use the books that would convince them because that's the one they were raised in. That's the one they were used to in the synagogue that they're used to hearing. Show Christ from it. Then when they come into the church you can expand their understanding of authority. Why put a stumbling block in front of them when you don't need to? That's what was happening. A lot of these cases when they're collecting lists. For used to we see this was serial Jerusalem. It's exactly what serial Jerusalem was doing when you compiled his list. Yeah, so don't use books to evangelize Jews that the Jews themselves don't accept in other words. Yeah, like I said. Exactly. Jason, I'm very grateful for the call. Thank you so much. Thanks to everybody who called Tim Staples coming up next hour and we're going to talk about Protestant's objections to Mary and you are welcome to call 888-318-7884. Dr. Stephen Boyz, I just enjoy it every time you're on here. Thank you so much for doing this with us. Thank you guys. God bless you too.

54:58And I hope people will check out the facts podcast. Big debate coming up on Saturday or conversation, ecumenical conversation about the Canon. Check out the facts podcast with Dr. Stephen Boyz. Right back with Tim Staples on Catholic Dance was live.