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Sunday, July 12, 2009

World's Oldest Bible

The world's oldest Bible is now available online, and it contains the deuterocanonical books.

I wonder if this is the one Candy claims was found in a monastery trashcan? It came from the monastery of St. Catherine at Mt. Sinai.

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7 comments:

Moonshadow said...

Just because it's now online doesn't mean that nobody knew what was in it before.

And unless you want to claim 4 Maccabees, Shepherd of Hermas and the Epistle of Barnabas, it doesn't necessarily prove anything. FWIW, I'd claim 4 Maccabees - it's lovely. :-)

I remember an interview Michael Horton did of Anne Rice on the White Horse Inn just after her book Christ the Lord was published. He asked her about the apocryphal books in the Catholic New Testament! And Rice didn't catch it or correct him.

But maybe Horton was thinking of the canon of the Codex Sinaiticus.

Kelly said...

Now I can refer people to it, and they can see for themselves. I often used this link previously:

http://etext.virginia.edu/kjv.browse.html

And unless you want to claim 4 Maccabees, Shepherd of Hermas and the Epistle of Barnabas, it doesn't necessarily prove anything.

All of those were read in the early Church. I seem to remember that the Shepherd of Hermas was especially popular.

Non-Catholics often comment on this blog that although the Bible was not compiled in its current form until later, "everyone" knew which books were canonical and which were not.

Moonshadow said...

"everyone" knew which books were canonical and which were not.

Yeah, I know. They like to say things like, "You can just tell by reading such-n-such that it isn't sacred Scripture."

But it remains that everyone already knows this ancient codex includes some deuterocanonicals.

I just bought an ESV with the Apocrypha but I don't think that means the Calvinists at Westminster have suddenly accepted the fuller OT canon!

Robin said...

This is amazing! Great link.

Moonshadow - where did you get your ESV with the deuterocanonicals?

Kelly said...

I just bought an ESV with the Apocrypha but I don't think that means the Calvinists at Westminster have suddenly accepted the fuller OT canon!

I'm glad to hear that some Bibles are now going back to the tradition of including the deuterocanonical books. I understand that some Christians feel that these books, while not having the same authority as the canonical books, are included as reference material, similar to the maps. At least, that is what a commenter told me previously.

At any rate, as has been mentioned before, this blog exists to refute Candy's allegations against the Catholic church.

Candy has said that:

*Apocrypha means false, therefore these books are false gospels.

*None of the earliest manuscripts included these books. They were added at a later date by the Catholic Church.

*The KJV only included them because of a Jesuit plot.

I feel that this link provides evidence against these specific allegations of Candy's.

You are feel to disagree.

Moonshadow said...

I got mine here because my friend gets a kickback, but it's Oxford University Press, so you can get it anywhere - in fact, it's cheaper at Amazon

I don't intent to disagree, Kelly.

Robin said...

Thanks Moonshadow!