In this seventh class, we give an overview of the debate regarding the Deuterocanonical Books of the Old Testament, which are in the Catholic Bible but missing from modern Protestant Bibles.
We then give the introduction to the book of Sirach, and a brief outline.
Handout below!
Listen online [here]!
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Wisdom Literature
Session 7, The Book of Enoch, part 1
The Fear of the Lord is the Beginning of Wisdom (Proverbs 9:10)
I. Course Outline
August 11th - Introduction, and the Life of King Solomon
August 18th - Books of Wisdom Literature, and Job
August 25th - Proverbs
September 1st - Ecclesiastes and Solomon’s final conversion
September 8th - Song of Songs, and prophetic foreshadowing
September 15th - NO CLASS
September 22nd - Book of Wisdom, and facing persecution
September 29th - The Deuterocanonical books, and Sirach, part 1
October 6th - Sirach, part 2
October 13th - Sirach, part 3 and Conclusions
II. The Deuterocanonical Books
Two of the books of Wisdom Literature are part of the Deuterocanon, which Protestants do not accept: Wisdom and Sirach.
Canon of Scripture: This means the list of the books that are part of the Bible.
Deuterocanonical books: These are books accepted by the Catholic Church as part of Sacred Scripture, but which were more debated in the early Church. They are part of the Canon of the Bible, but considered the “Second Canon” - not as less valuable or less inspired, but as only universally accepted at a slightly later time.
These are: Tobit, Judith, Baruch, Sirach (Ecclesiasticus), 1 and 2 Maccabees, Wisdom, and the Greek parts of Esther and Daniel.
We can also speak of the Deuterocanonical books of the New Testament: Hebrews, James, 2 Peter, 2 and 3 John, Jude, and Revelation.
Protocanonical books: These are the books which have been universally accepted as part of Sacred Scripture, and about which there was no significant debate in the early Church.
Apocryphal books: These are books which were important to the Jewish faithful in the century before the coming of Jesus, and which were also widely respected by both the Jews and the Christians in the 1st Century AD.
The list is extensive, but the Council of Trent included the following books as being of special value: 1 and 2 Esdras, Psalm 151, Prayer of Manasseh, and the Letter to the Laodiceans.
Other books which are respected in the Eastern Orthodox Churches include: 3 and 4 Maccabees (with 3 Maccabees often included in the Canon).
Finally, there are other books which were significant in the century before and after Christ: The Book of Enoch, the Book of the Assumption of Moses, and others. And even these had significant influence on the New Testament writers.
Pseudepigrapha: Books attributed to famous people of Scripture but not actually written by them and usually written at a much later date.
IV. Does the New Testament Use the Septuagint or Quote the Deuterocanonical Books?
Being written in Greek, the New Testament mostly quotes from the Septuagint translation when citing the Old Testament - though, there are plenty of times that the New Testament author seems to provide his own translation from the accepted Hebrew text, or even make a translation from an unknown Hebrew version.
Even well respected Protestant scholars will admit that the New Testament cites the Septuagint about 340 times, and chooses the Hebrew over the Septuagint in only 33 places.
V. Criteria for determining whether a book really is part of the Bible
A. Was the book in the Septuagint?
The seven deuterocanonical books of the Catholic Old Testament were in the Septuagint, and therefore were widely accepted by the Jews and early Christians. However, this criterion is complicated because there are some books in the Septuagint which the Catholic Church does not consider canonical - for example, 3 Maccabees is in some editions of the Septuagint (though not all); and 1 Esdras was part of all the best editions of the Septuagint.
B. Does the New Testament quote the book or refer to the book as important?
One problem with this criterion is that there are Old Testament books which are never cited or referred to in the New Testament (for example, Ecclesiastes, Song of Songs, Zephaniah, Nahum, Ezra, Nehemiah, Obediah, and Esther), and yet we all admit that these books are part of the Old Testament.
On the other hand, there are books quoted in the New Testament even as prophecy or as true history, which are clearly not to be considered canonical (most notably, the Book of Enoch [Jude 1:14-15] and the book of the Assumption of Moses [Jude 1:9]). Also, remember that the Old Testament very frequently refers to other books as important and worth reading - books which were not accepted as part of the Scriptures and which have been lost.
However, it is still helpful to note that the New Testament does refer to a number of the deuterocanonical books - Sirach 28:2 “Forgive your neighbor's injustice, then when you pray your own sins will be forgiven” and Matthew 6:14-15 “If you forgive others their transgressions, your heavenly Father will forgive you.”
Tobit 4:15 “See thou never do to another what thou woudst hate to have done to thee by another” and Matthew 7:12 “Do to others whatever you would have them do to you.”
Wisdom 7:26 “for she [wisdom] is the refulgence of eternal light, the spotless mirror of the power of God, the image of his goodness.” and Hebrews 1:3 “He [the Son] is the refulgence of his glory, the very imprint of his being.”
Wisdom 9:13 “For what man knows God’s counsel, or who can conceive what the Lord intends?” and Romans 11:34 “For who has known the mind of the Lord or who has been his counselor?”
And there are many more besides these.
C. Was the book read in the Sacred Liturgy?
This is one of the surer tests. In fact, what seems to have been the most important criterion in the early Church for determining the canonical status of a book was whether that book was accepted as Scripture by the Churches established by the Apostles and which had remained in union with Rome. The communities which had ties to the Apostles themselves and in which the bishops were in union with the Pope and other bishops of the world seem to have had a special grace to discern which books were truly inspired as part of the Bible - and they used these books in the Sacred Liturgy.
Therefore, in a real sense, the canon of the Bible actually comes from the Liturgy of the Church - at least, it is revealed through the readings which the Churches used in the Sacred Liturgy. If a book was used by all or most of the Apostolic Churches in the Mass (or in other Liturgical rites) as part of Scripture, then that book was considered to be part of the Bible.
D. Ultimately, the Church had to decide under the inspiration of the Holy Spirit who guided the Pope and the bishops.
It is important to realize that there was not an “Old Testament” or a “Hebrew Bible” at the time of Jesus. Rather, there was still much debate among the Jewish people about which books were truly part of Scripture – however, if anything, the Greek Septuagint was certainly the most widely accepted “Jewish Bible” (and it included the seven deuterocanonical books of the Catholic Bible).
However, the Jewish rabbis called the “Council of Jamnia” in 90 AD and at this time established the more limited Hebrew Bible (excluding the extra books of the Septuagint). Many believe that this action was taken as a way to set themselves apart from Christian Jews, and also to remove certain interpretations of the Septuagint which pointed more clearly to Jesus as the Messiah.
While there was real debate among the Church Fathers over the deuterocanonical books of the Old Testament (and even over some of the books of the New Testament), the Council of Rome (in 382) established the Canon of Scripture which we know today. This was reaffirmed by the Council of Hippo (393) and of Carthage (397). Though the matter was not entirely settled until the ecumenical Council of Florence in 1442 (and again at Trent in 1546), the Catholic Canon was not seriously doubted until Martin Luther (about 1517).
V. The Book of Sirach, Introduction
Haydock: “This book is so called from the Greek word that signifies a preacher: because, like an excellent preacher, it gives admirable lessons of all virtues. The author was Jesus, the son of Sirach, of Jerusalem, who flourished about two hundred years before Christ. As it was written after the time of Esdras, it is not in the Jewish canon; but is received as canonical and divine by the Catholic Church, instructed by apostolical tradition, and directed by the Spirit of God. It was first written in Hebrew, but afterwards translated into Greek by another Jesus, the grandson of the author.”
Haydock: “Many of the Fathers quote this book as the production of Solomon, because it contains many of his sentences preserved by tradition, and resembles his works.”
From the New Revised Standard Bible, Catholic Edition:
The Book of Sirach (Ecclesiasticus) belongs to the Wisdom literature and was written by Ben Sira, a “sage of Israel,” in the early second century B.C. It was originally composed in Hebrew, as we learn from the Prologue, and translated into Greek some fifty years later by his grandson. During these fifty years there had been a violent persecution of the Jews by the Seleucid kings in order to force them to adopt Greek religion and culture. The beginnings of this were already apparent in the time of Ben Sira, and it was to counteract such influences that his book was written. It is full of traditional Jewish wisdom and morals; indeed, full of worldly wisdom and written by one with wide experience of life. He re-emphasizes the traditional truths, but manages to do this in an interesting way and sometimes even from a new angle, e.g., his words on death (40:2; 41:2).
Sirach was included in the Greek Bible but not in the later Jewish canon. The Hebrew text was known to Jerome but later disappeared and was rediscovered, though not complete, only at the end of the nineteenth century in Cairo. Further fragments have been found recently in Palestine.
The Church accepted the book as canonical, but it was the Greek text she accepted. The name Ecclesiasticus was given to it in its Old Latin version—a name which appears to date from the time of St. Cyprian.
In order to distinguish this book from Ecclesiastes, it is often now called Sirach. The common abbreviation is Sir though Ecclus (or some other variation) is sometimes seen. In the Latin Vulgate, the book is called “The Wisdom of Jesus the Son of Sirach.” It is also sometimes called Liber Ecclesiasticus, meaning “The Church Book.” Finally, St Jerome notes that it was sometimes called “Parables of Solomon” on account of it’s similarity to the book of Proverbs.
St Jerome and the Catholic tradition always maintained that this book was written originally in Hebrew and then translated into Greek (as is stated in the Prologue to the book), but this was doubted by many Protestant scholars and other modernists. In the late 1800s and early 1900s, conclusive evidence and manuscripts were discovered which proved that the Greek text is indeed a translation of an original Hebrew version - vindicating the Catholic tradition.
VII. Outline of Sirach
From Catholic Encyclopedia:
The fundamental thought of the author of Ecclesiasticus is that of wisdom as understood and inculcated in inspired Hebrew literature; for the contents of this book, however varied they may appear in other respects, admit of being naturally grouped under the general heading of "Wisdom". Viewed from this standpoint, which is indeed universally regarded as the author's own standpoint, the contents of Ecclesiasticus may be divided into two great parts: chs. i-xlii, 14; and xlii, 15- l, 26. The sayings which chiefly make up the first part, tend directly to inculcate the fear of God and the fulfilment of His commands, wherein consists true wisdom. This they do by pointing out, in a concrete manner, how the truly wise man shall conduct himself in the manifold relationships of practical life. They afford a most varied fund of thoughtful rules for self-guidance
in joy and sorrow, in prosperity and adversity, in sickness and health, in struggle and temptation, in social life, in intercourse with friends and enemies, with high and low, rich and poor, with the good and wicked, the wise and the foolish, in trade, business, and one's ordinary calling, above all, in one's own house and family in connection with the training of children, the treatment of men-servants and maid-servants, and the way in which a man ought to behave towards his own wife and women generally (Schürer).
Together with these maxims, which resemble closely both in matter and form the Proverbs of Solomon, the first part of Ecclesiasticus includes several more or less long descriptions of the origin and excellence of wisdom (cf. i; iv, 12-22; vi, 18-37; xiv, 22-xv, 11; xxiv). The contents of the second part of the book are of a decidedly more uniform character, but contribute no less effectively to the setting forth of the general topic of Ecclesiasticus. They first describe at length the Divine wisdom so wonderfully displayed in the realm of nature (xlii, 15-xliii), and next illustrate the practice of wisdom in the various walks of life, as made known by the history of Israel's worthies, from Enoch down to the high priest Simon, the writer's holy contemporary (xliv-l, 26). At the close of the book (l, 27-29), there is first, a short conclusion containing the author's subscription and the express declaration of his general purpose; and next, an appendix (li) in which the writer returns thanks to God for His benefits, and especially for the gift of wisdom and to which are subjoined in the Hebrew text recently discovered, a second subscription and the following pious ejaculation: "Blessed be the name of Yahweh from this time forth and for evermore."
The Outline:
- Sirach 1:1 through Sirach 42:14.
The fear of the Lord, the keeping of his commandments. Practical advice on how the truly wise man lives. (This is very similar to Proverbs)
- Sirach 42:15 through Sirach 50:26
- Sirach 42:15 - 43:33. Divine wisdom seen in nature.
- Sirach 44:1 - 50:26. Divine wisdom seen in the great men of the Old Testament.
- Sirach 50:27-29 Conclusion, and Sirach 51 Appendix
There are also a series of six poems praising Wisdom: Sirach 1:1–10; Sir 4:11–19; Sir 6:18–37; Sir 14:20–15:10; Sir 24:1–33; and Sir 38:24–39:11.