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All right, welcome everyone.
Like I said, I'm glad to see people.
I was expecting three or four people to show up.
So yeah, so here's the beautiful part.
I've been thinking a lot about this.
That's why I wasn't sure how many people would show up.
But all of you right now, you should congratulate yourselves
because you are the hardcore biblical scholars at this conference.
Let me explain, because when you get back to your parishes
and people ask you, what talks did you go?
What did you study at the conference?
You're going to say, I went and I studied the table of contents.
Now tell me, if you're not really into the Bible, right,
you would, of all the great talks, and I wish I could buy, locate, and go to some of them,
you picked the table of contents.
So good for you, and it's nice to know I'm not the only nerd in the world.
But that being said, the table of contents is incredibly important
because it's so foundational.
In other words, you need to know which books are the word of God and which ones aren't.
Because if you have books in Scripture that aren't inspired,
how are you going to base your theology?
Your theology will be way off.
Or, if your Bible's missing inspired books,
there's divine revelation that will also be missing.
So it's very pivotal for theology to make sure, at the ground level,
that you have all those books and only those books
which the Holy Spirit wished to be consigned to writing.
Amen?
All right, so it's also, by the way, an explosive topic
for those who talk to our Cypriot brethren, to Protestants,
because Protestants don't share the same view on the Old Testament canon,
and I'll talk about that in a second as well.
So that's, for my money, I think, for Catholic Protestant apologetics,
the issue of the Old Testament canon is pivotal.
Now, I've already thrown out a term.
We need to start with defining terms.
So I've talked to a few people before the talk.
Some of you are not familiar with the subject.
Some of you are very advanced.
So please be patient.
I'm going to try to bring this all up to speed, okay?
So let's start by defining terms.
I already used the word canon.
And the table of contents is a good way to think of a canon.
The canon basically is the extent of inspired writings.
The extent of inspired writings.
So in a way, God makes the canon objectively by inspiring a set number of books.
So all the books that are inspired are canonical,
and any book that's not inspired is not canonical.
It doesn't belong in the Bible.
Everybody with me? Amen?
All right, very good.
I'm going to use the Tim Staples method of affirming propositions.
All right.
So what does it mean to be inspired?
Well, if you're going to be inspired, this is the wrong talk to go to be inspired.
Because when I'm going to be talking about inspiration,
I'm not talking about motivation.
I'm not talking about getting good feelings and wanting to do something good.
I'm using it in a technical sense.
So that's very important.
People get this mixed up because somebody could read Bunyan's Pilgrim Progress
or The Lord of the Rings and get inspired in their faith.
But that doesn't mean The Lord of the Rings belongs in the Bible.
There's a big difference between the two.
So when we talk about inspiration in this talk,
very simply what we mean is that the Holy Spirit is the primary author of the work.
So there are actually two authors in the Bible.
There is God, the Holy Spirit, who's the primary author.
So all those things and only those things the Holy Spirit wished to consign to writing
was consigned in Scripture.
So the Holy Spirit can look at the Bible, look at every word in the Bible,
and say, that's mine.
At the same time, there is also the secondary author, the human author.
And the human author is inspired by the Holy Spirit to write.
And he uses all the agencies that he normally has.
So he relies on his own human memory.
He relies on his own literary twists and turns.
And he's an authentic author of Scripture as well.
So the human author can look at the book that he just wrote and say, this is mine.
So Scripture is a mysterious thing because it actually has two authors who wrote everything.
And by the way, that's why when you read the books of the Bible,
different books sound different.
Like to me, the book of Judges sounds almost like caveman talk,
very blocky, primitive.
But if you read the book of Wisdom, it's beautiful.
It's wonderful.
Don't sound anything alike because the two different authors, human authors,
yet they're both the Word of God.
They're both inspired by the Holy Spirit.
All right, so let's talk a little bit about canon.
And then we'll jump into the fun stuff.
All right.
I'm going to make a division within the Old Testament
between proto-canonical books and deuterocanonical books.
Now, this division is not any different in terms of inspiration
or anything of the like.
It's just a way to divide.
Like the Law, the Prophets, and the Writings are divisions.
Or you could have the sapiential books versus the historical books.
Just ways of categorizing things.
They're all the Word of God.
They're all inspired.
Now, okay, the books that are found in Catholic, Orthodox, Protestant,
and Jewish Bibles, we all share these books.
These are the books of the proto-canon.
Okay, the proto-canon, proto-canonical books.
Those are books that we all share together, Jews, Protestants, Catholics,
the Orthodox.
There's 39 books.
Now, there are seven Old Testament books that are found in Catholic
and Orthodox Bibles, but they're not found in Protestant or Jewish Bibles.
These books, Catholics and Orthodox, call deuterocanonical,
which is just a fancy Greek term for second canon.
And again, for us, it's just a division within Scripture.
It doesn't have anything to do with it being less inspired or anything like that.
So if I say deuterocanonical books, I'm talking about seven Old Testament books,
and here they are again.
They're omitted in Jewish and Protestant Bibles.
The books of Wisdom, Sirach, Tobit, Judith, Baruch, 1 and 2 Maccabees,
and also we have longer versions of Daniel and Esther.
So if you know somebody who's a self-styled Bible thumper,
tell them they should become Catholics so they have more Bible to thump
because they don't have these books.
Now, we include them because they're inspired.
Protestant and Jewish people don't include them,
at least not as part of the canon because they deny the inspiration.
They have a different term, and that's apocrypha.
Apocrypha just means hidden.
These are books that aren't publicly read as Scripture in the church.
And this is a really poor term.
Even Protestants admit that the deuterocanon doesn't really fit the term apocrypha.
So that's what this talk's going to be, essentially,
except I'm going to put a different spin.
I tell you, this is an interesting talk because this is applied biblical studies talk,
and I want you to be inspired in the human sense.
I want you to be willing to dive into the Word of God.
How can you do that with a table of contents, right?
So this is what I'm aiming for.
Okay, now, I wrote a book.
It's called A Case for the Deuterocanon.
It's time for a cheap plug.
It's interesting how this book came about.
Years ago, I did a debate against one of the most prominent anti-Catholic persons out there,
and I'm not going to mention James White's name.
But the thesis of the debate was that the apocrypha is not Scripture.
And I went to the debate, and I agreed with the thesis as a Catholic.
I said the apocrypha is not Scripture, but the deuterocanon is not apocrypha, right?
So that was my position.
And I think it went pretty well.
It went pretty well.
Got a lot of Protestants who were interested, came up to my table afterwards with some sincere questions.
So I thought, well, you know, this is an important topic.
Boomerang, wouldn't it?
Gee, if that's the best they can do from Scripture, maybe this guy is the Messiah, right?
But they quote the Book of Wisdom.
So what does that imply?
Wisdom was considered authoritative.
It was considered Scripture, if not by all the Jews, certainly by Jesus and his disciples.
So you see how it works?
How these texts are used shows you that these are more than just mere human documents.
Here's one that I recently discovered.
And I discovered it in, of all things, Protestant commentaries.
Like I said, why limit to quotations when you could use references?
Now, I don't know if you guys know this, but in Hebrews 11,
I'm sure you'd know that it's the great hall of faith,
where it lists all the Old Testament saints,
beginning with Abraham, Isaac, Jacob, Sarah, David, Jephthah,
just goes through this whole hall of fame.
That in Hebrews 11, 35, the second half, so it's 35b, it says this,
And others were tortured, not accepting their release,
so that they might obtain a better resurrection.
Who is that referencing?
Now, here's the curious thing.
It gives us three clues, right?
Whoever's being referenced, they were tortured,
they were offered a chance to be released,
explicitly for the resurrection.
In other words, they refused to be released
because they knew their bodies would rise again at the end of time.
Now, who in the Old Testament fulfills this?
If you have a Protestant Bible, a modern one,
without the so-called apocrypha,
you won't find anyone who can satisfy all three of those markers.
There is no one in the Old Testament.
But if you have a Catholic or an Orthodox Bible, guess what?
You find this reference in 2 Maccabees 6-7,
where the Maccabean martyrs,
which in my next workshop we'll talk more about the Maccabean martyrs,
were tortured, refused release,
for the sake of a better resurrection.
Exactly what it's described here in 11, 35.
And guess what? Old Protestant Bibles have cross-references.
So they recognized 2 Maccabees as being used.
Now, I think, on the surface,
that's a good reason to suspect that they believe 2 Maccabees was inspired.
After all, you have all these biblical figures being listed.
It would be strange if they listed somebody who wasn't in the Bible.
So I think you have an argument there.
But actually, God bless anti-Catholics.
I love anti-Catholics.
Because I was challenged by an anti-Catholic on this,
on the New Testament use.
And that made me dig.
And I uncovered something very interesting here in Hebrews 11.
What I uncovered was a formal reference.
Now, remember back I was saying a formal reference,
like, it is written, thus saith the Lord.
It's actually there in Hebrews 11.
But it's kind of hidden.
And so these Protestant scholars see it,
but they don't put two and two together.
Okay, so let me walk through this slowly,
and I'll show you what I mean.
The Hall of Faith is introduced with the words,
it is attested.
For by it, by faith, the men of old gained approval.
That's how it is in the New American Bible.
Other Bibles will have, like, well attested.
The Greek word is martyrio.
You don't have to memorize martyrio,
but just know that the word, by it,
the men of old gained approval.
Gained approval is martyrio.
Now, this is from the Word Biblical Commentary
edited by William L. Lane for Hebrews.
And what he notices, very interesting,
is that word martyrio,
that verb is used seven times in the Epistle of Hebrews.
And he gives you the references here,
so if you want to grab your cell phone,
take a quick shot.
There are all the references where that word is used.
And notice what he says.
He says, in each instance,
the reference is to the witness of the Biblical record.
Oh, that's interesting.
In fact, in the Epistle of Hebrews,
he uses martyrio to introduce Old Testament quotes
akin to it is written,
only he says it is testified.
You see that?
So that's a formal introduction
that's used for Scripture exclusively in Hebrews.
Okay, Gary, big deal.
So that one verse has that word.
What does that have to do with Hebrews 11.35b, right?
Glad you asked.
Because it's also used, that very same word,
at the end in Hebrews 11.39.
It says, yet all these,
all these people that were just mentioned,
approved because of their faith,
did not receive what God had promised.
That word approved is martyrio, the same word.
Martyrio at the beginning of the list,
martyrio at the end of the list.
Okay, now, everybody with me so far?
Okay, because we are getting into technical waters.
Now, here's the interesting thing.
Scholars recognize that this is what's called an inclusio,
which is a real fancy term that you can use with your friends.
And basically an inclusio is what marks off the sections in text.
Think of it like bookends.
You know, if you have a bookshelf with bookends,
inclusio is two bookends that enclose the books in between.
Now, put this all together,
which you don't find in Protestant scholarship,
what you find is all those who are listed are attested.
All those who are tested are people in the Bible.
Maccabees is attested.
Therefore, the Maccabean martyrs are in the author of Hebrew's Bible.
This is the equivalent of it is written.
But it's kind of hidden, though.
You kind of have to tease it out a little bit.
You see that?
So we know that the inspired author of Hebrews, his Bible,
had the Maccabean martyrs in it.
Amen?
Does that mean it's inspired scripture?
Yeah, it does.
And he makes no qualification between them and the others.
Okay, moving on.
All right.
A second-line argument, the prophetic nature of the Deuterocanon.
This one's maybe not quite as a lock.
And, by the way, there's many other instances as well.
If you want those, you can get the case for the Deuterocanon.
Also, I have a YouTube channel called the Apocrypha Apocalypse,
the worst possible title you can have for a YouTube channel
because no one gets it right.
Or you could just type my name in YouTube and it'll come up.
And we're doing videos where we're breaking down the issues of the Deuterocanon and stuff.
So if you want more, there's tons of stuff in there.
Or you could get the case.
Good stuff.
Okay, prophetic nature.
The Deuterocanon says things about God that I think go way beyond any mere human document.
Now, all these were written before the time of Christ.
And I think this is a good indication that since they can't learn it from nature,
and there's nothing in the protocanon, those books everybody accepts,
that could give them a clue about these things,
then it has to come from God because it's affirmed in the New Testament.
Okay?
Now, here's another snippet from the 1611 King James Bible.
There's other Protestant translations also have these cross-references.
This is the Hebrews 1.3.
It has a cross-reference to Wisdom 7.26, I think.
All right, either 26 or 27, I can't see.
Okay, so let's look at a couple of these really quick.
Book of Baruch 3.35-38.
Now, modern Bible translations butcher this.
They butcher this text.
So if you have a New American Bible, how many people here use the New American Bible?
Okay, if you do use it and you didn't raise your hand, I don't blame you.
Even New Revised Catholic Edition doesn't get it right.
This is from the King James.
This is the King James Apocrypha translation.
So this is actually a Protestant, but they get it right, though.
They get the Greek right.
It says,
This is our God, and there is none other be accounted in comparison of him.
He hath found all the ways of knowledge.
He has given it unto Jacob his servant, and Israel his beloved.
Now notice what it says here.
Afterwards did he show himself upon earth and conversed with men.
Hmm.
When did God appear on earth and converse with men?
I thought no one could see God and live.
In fact, John says no one has ever seen God.
So he confirms.
No one's ever seen God in the Old Testament.
When did God appear on earth and converse with us?
In Jesus Christ, right?
So here you have a prophetic, predictive prophecy
in a Deuterocanonical book concerning the Incarnation.
And by the way, do you think the early church fathers saw this and ran with it?
You betcha, right?
Okay, here's another one.
If anybody wants to check their eyesight, you know, you could try to do this.
This is how all my PowerPoints looked for the first ten years of ministry.
I was terrible at putting it together.
The reason I have this the way it is is because it's easy to see.
This is a portion of the second chapter of the Book of Wisdom.
And you don't need to read the words.
I did it so each line is a verse.
Now, in addition to that, whenever something in the verse is confirmed in the New Testament,
I give the references in yellow.
So you don't really have to read it. Just look at the yellow.
Notice, like, every verse except one doesn't have a confirmation in the New Testament.
And yet it goes into amazing detail, prolonged detail,
about the persecution of the righteous one.
And notice at the end it has that text that's referenced in Matthew 27, 43.
It's all in that context.
How can a document that's written purely by human ingenuity
come up with such an extended, detailed prophecy about the Messiah
hundreds of years before Jesus?
Hmm. That's interesting.
Okay.
So again, it doesn't prove it, but it does kind of, it's a persuasion.
It moves you in that direction that there's something more going on in wisdom
than just mere human wisdom.
All right.
Next.
One of my favorites.
Sorry, didn't mean to blow the ears out.
All right.
Now, Wisdom 7, one of my favorite chapters in the book of Wisdom,
probably my favorite chapter in the whole Bible, in the Old Testament.
It's talking about the relationship of God's wisdom to himself.
Okay?
Very interesting.
And again, in the next workshop,
I'm going to explain how that fits in with salvation history.
But in it, it describes wisdom.
It says, for she, that's wisdom, is the refulgence of eternal light.
The reason it has she is linguistic.
Sophia in Greek is wisdom.
And Sophia is a feminine noun.
So you can't say he.
You have to say she.
Don't let that mix you up because it's just linguistics.
It doesn't mean feminine per se.
So God's wisdom is the refulgence of eternal light.
That is the relationship of those two.
What's refulgence?
It's a weird word.
Very rare in English.
We don't use it a lot.
King James renders it, I think, very well as brightness.
That the wisdom of God is the brightness of eternal light.
Okay?
And it's a rare word in English.
It's a rare word in Greek.
The word there is apagesma.
Apagesma.
In the entire Greek Bible, Old and New Testament,
apagesma is used twice.
Once in the old.
Once in the new.
Once in Wisdom 7:26.
The other in Hebrews 1:3.
That cross-reference that we saw at the beginning.
So Protestants saw this connection.
The exact same Greek word.
Hebrews is talking about, interesting enough,
the relationship of the son to the father.
And how does he describe that relationship?
The son is the brightness of his glory.
The very imprint of his being.
So the son is related to the father as brightness is to glory and wisdom.
Its brightness is to eternal light.
It doesn't seem very profound at first.
But when you go through church history,
it's very, very, very important.
Why? Because there was a heresy called Arianism.
The Arians believed that the son, before the incarnation,
was created by the father.
So there was a time where the son was not.
And then the father created the son, and then the son was.
And since he's a creature like us,
he's not of the same substance or nature.
He's like the father in nature, but he's not the same as the father.
Okay? Everybody follow me on that?
Well, if you don't, maybe this will make it clear.
So the early church fathers, when they're combating this heresy,
about a Trinitarian doctrine, this is what they came up with.
Now, all right.
So the eternal light and brightness.
Now, when you think of eternal light, think of the sun or a flame.
Flame's probably better, right?
They didn't have light bulbs back in 2nd century BC.
So a flame, okay?
All right. A flame gives off brightness.
Now, there's some interesting things you could deduce from that, okay?
For example, if the sun is like the brightness to God's fire, if you will,
then let me ask you a question about fire and light.
Does the brightness of the fire generate the fire,
or does the fire generate the brightness?
The fire generates the brightness.
Plug it into Wisdom 7 and Hebrews 1, guess what?
That means the father generates the son.
The son does not generate the father.
Interesting.
How about this?
Can fire exist without brightness?
Can you have a fire that doesn't give off any brightness whatsoever?
Think about it. It's kind of weird. A black flame?
I mean, I don't even know how that would look, right?
No. Brightness is generated by the fire,
and so if you don't have a fire, you don't have brightness,
but if you have a fire, you have brightness.
So what does this mean in terms of the father and the son?
If you have the father, you have the son.
In other words, the son is co-eternal with the father,
because it's the eternal light that exists.
You have the eternal brightness that exists.
You see that?
So this idea that the father created the son in time
goes completely against this analogy.
Also, the son is consubstantial with the father.
Since everything that comes from God is God,
and the brightness comes from the fire,
that means that the son is God.
And all that from a single verse, right?
In fact, I love this little quote from Augustine.
Talking about the Arians, he says,
Give me then here a fire without brightness,
and I believe you that the father ever was without the son.
There's a great challenge to give Jehovah witnesses.
They come to your door and say,
Yeah, show me a fire that doesn't get brightness,
and I'll show you, because basically they believe the son is created.
Okay.
Now, this might sound familiar to you.
Why?
Because how many people here have ever been at Mass?
Okay.
That was a safe question.
How many people here have recited the creed at Mass?
Okay, thank you.
Do you remember this?
God from God, light from light,
true God from true God,
begotten, not made,
consubstantial with the father.
You ever wonder where light from light came from?
It actually comes from Wisdom 7.
It's the brightness of the eternal light.
The early fathers used this to hammer the Arians
and help develop Trinitarian doctrine.
Now, let me ask you a question.
If Wisdom is just a mere human book,
how in the world did the author know about the Trinity
and the exact relationship of the son to the father?
If not, the Holy Spirit inspired that.
So I like that.
I love the Book of Wisdom.
I could go on and on.
All right.
Third line of argument,
the early church fathers.
Yeah, this is very interesting.
See, what I'm trying to get at is this.
What Catholics and Protestants agree with is
that there's only one person who infallibly
and with absolute certainty knew the canon of Scripture,
and that is God.
So Jesus Christ, God incarnate,
knows the canon infallibly.
Amen?
Yeah, Protestants would say amen to that.
Now, Jesus, knowing the true canon of Scripture,
would have shared that with his disciples
because after all, they're his disciples.
He's training them.
Amen?
So Jesus wouldn't use a pseudepigraphical work
like Janice and Jambres or something like that.
He'd use Scripture.
And it would have been the apostle's duty
to hand on that collection to the early church
because in Matthew 28, the Great Commission,
Jesus says go and teach everything that I've told you.
And that would include the canon.
Amen?
So if we could determine what the early church
received from Jesus and his apostles,
that sacred Scripture,
we know the true and infallible canon.
That's how I use the case for the deuterocanon.
So the early church fathers come into play.
But before we do that, I want to show you this.
Okay, this is from 2 Timothy 3, 16 through 17.
And it's one of those few passages in Scripture
that speak directly to inspiration of Scripture.
It says,
All Scripture is inspired by God,
and it's useful for teaching,
for refutation, for correction,
for training in righteousness,
so that the one who belongs to God
may be competent, equipped for every good work.
Notice it has two things that it says about Scripture.
First, all Scripture is inspired.
Second, since the Holy Spirit inspires these writings,
they're authoritative.
You can use these writings to do teaching,
refutation, correction, training in righteousness.
Why?
Because they have divine authority.
All right?
So those two things.
Now, I'm a nerd when it comes to deuterocanonical stuff.
And I read all sorts of...
I even read old English newspapers with op-ed pieces.
One time I was reading one from 1903.
I forgot what paper it was.
But they're beautiful because
Catholicism is still very much...
It's a lot of anti-Catholicism in England at that time.
And so whenever they'd have an anti-Catholic article,
usually you'd have a very well-educated priest
who would write a counter to it.
So there's actually some little nuggets in there.
And I was reading one of the articles,
and this priest said,
How can these books not be inspired Scripture
since the early church fathers
used them to confirm doctrine?
Now, that was a shock.
I never heard that before.
The early church used the deuterocanon to confirm doctrine?
So he gave 11 examples of where it's used,
like we saw with Wisdom 726,
where it's used for the Trinity.
There's other examples as well.
So me, I'm thinking,
Okay, that was 19-oh-whatever.
I'm sure I could probably find
12 or 13 other instances.
Maybe 14, you know,
that we've discovered work since then.
There's probably 14, 15.
So I decided I'm going to go through
the early church fathers,
and I'm going to look for those two things.
So for Class A, if I find anything
where in the early church,
when an early church father quotes the deuterocanon
with something like,
Scripture says,
thus saith the Lord,
the Son says,
the Holy Spirit says,
any formal introduction,
that's Class A.
Just like Paul says,
all Scripture is inspired by God.
And then for the other quotes,
if it ever confirmed doctrine,
like this priest says,
I'll put it in the Class B citations
where they use it to confirm doctrine.
Okay?
And this is important
because this is the whole reason
why Protestantism rejected these books.
Martin Luther in 15,
I believe it's 19,
yeah, 1519,
in a debate over purgatory,
refused to admit 2 Maccabees into debate.
The Johann Eck cited 2 Maccabees
as proof of purgatory.
And here's what Luther says.
He says,
there's no proof of purgatory
in any portion of sacred Scripture
which can be entered into argument
and serve as proof.
Says,
for the book of Maccabees
not being in the canon
is of weight with the faithful,
but avails nothing against the obstinate.
So Luther says,
hold on, Johann Eck.
You can't cite 2 Maccabees for purgatory.
That can't be entered into debate.
Why?
Because it's not canonical.
It's not inspired.
Okay?
So did the early church agree with Luther?
Or was Luther following the early church?
It's funny.
Protestants say he's just following the early church.
Catholics say the opposite.
It's a historical question.
We could look it up and find out.
So I started diving into the early church fathers.
By the way,
in my book,
Why Catholic Bibles are Bigger,
I actually found three instances
where Martin Luther,
in a theological debate,
uses the Deuterocanon as proof text for debate.
All of them before 1519,
his debate against Johann Eck.
From that point on,
he no longer uses them.
And Protestants no longer use them.
So I found a flip-flop for Luther.
All right.
So anyway,
I look at there and I'm thinking,
okay, I could probably find 15 or 16.
That'd be really impressive.
So I looked.
I only looked at the early church fathers
from the time of Christ,
the apostolic fathers,
all the way to the 4th century,
up to the end of the 4th century.
And guess what I found?
What would you say?
20?
30?
Raise your hand if you think that's reasonable.
About 20 or 30 references.
40?
50?
60?
70?
100?
I found 209 instances
in 109 sources from 33 fathers
that explicitly quoted the Deuterocanon
as inspired scripture.
Let that sink in.
209 times in the surviving documents
from the early church,
just for the first 400 or 500 years,
you have those.
And here's a quote from Athanasius,
where you can see an example
of where he uses it,
saying it's the Holy Spirit says,
and he quotes Sirach.
Okay.
How about confirming doctrine?
Like I said, I thought,
wow, this is probably about 15, right?
I found 236 instances
in 130 sources from 39 fathers.
Wow.
I didn't expect that.
And in the case for the Deuterocanon,
I actually give you all the citations.
You can look it up for yourself,
determine for yourself
whether or not they fit in.
By the way, since then,
I found probably another 20 or 30.
So I'm going to update my book one day,
and the number is going to be a lot higher.
So they confirm it's inspired by God,
and it can be used for teaching,
refutation, training, and righteousness.
Now I thought, okay, turnabout's fair play.
I'm going to specifically look at times
where the early church fathers denied
that the book reference is not inspired.
So I went out of my way,
and I tried to do an even more thorough search
of anyone who denied the authority of them.
And I also looked at any time
an early church father in any way
qualifies its use of the Deuterocanon.
In any way, including like Augustine,
where he says the Jews don't use this book,
but we do, and he believes they're canonical.
But I put him in this list anyway
just because he qualified it in some sense.
So this is what I found.
Five instances and five sources
from two early church fathers,
Julius Africanus and Jerome.
That's it.
In the class B negative qualification,
I found 15 instances and 11 sources
from five early church fathers.
Okay, so do you see when you compare them,
there is no comparison, right?
In fact, Jerome sticks out like a sore thumb.
In fact, he is the first father that we have
that called the Deuterocanon
what Protestants call it today, apocrypha.
And he did it because he was operating
under a faulty understanding
of the transmission of the Old Testament text.
You see, in Jerome's day,
and this is in like the 380s, 390s, early 400s,
there were several different Greek translations
of the Old Testament,
but there was only one Hebrew translation.
And Jerome thought, since there's only one,
these Greek translations are probably
loose translations of the Hebrew.
So whatever's in the Hebrew text,
that's the original.
That's Hebrew truth.
Anything that's not in the Hebrew text,
that's added on later.
And the early church met in council
and reaffirmed the ancient canon of the church.
That's those North African councils
from the fourth century.
Hippo, Carthage, right?
Pope Innocent I and so on.
They said, Jerome, you're a Bible scholar,
you know more than we do
because he actually knew Aramaic and Hebrew.
You're entitled to your opinion as a scholar,
but we the church say
we've always used these books as inspired scripture.
You're wrong.
These are the canonical books.
Now here's a very interesting part.
All the church could go on
was sacred tradition to say, Jerome, you're wrong.
We can't demonstrate you're wrong.
Maybe Hebrew verite is true,
Hebrew truth is true.
Can't do anything about it.
But sacred tradition says you're wrong.
Guess what?
Something interesting happens in the 1940s.
What's one of the greatest biblical discoveries
of our time?
Dead Sea Scrolls.
We find the Dead Sea Scrolls,
which include manuscripts from second century B.C.
to the end of the first century A.D.
And guess what?
We find out that there wasn't just one Hebrew text
in circulation,
there were several Hebrew texts in circulation
in the first century.
It was only, we learned through other sources,
it's only after the time of Christ
around the second Christian century
that the rabbi selected one Hebrew text
to be their authoritative text.
All the other ones disappeared
except for those that were in the jars in Qumran.
So the church couldn't prove Jerome was wrong
in the fourth century.
Today, we can demonstrate he definitely is wrong.
The Hebrew text doesn't have a direct line to the original.
And so we can prove Jerome was wrong.
Now here's the thing
that a lot of people don't realize
is that the early reformers,
like Martin Luther, Calvin,
guess which early father they appealed to?
Jerome.
They appealed to Jerome.
They said Jerome said these aren't canonical,
therefore they can't be used in debate,
they're not scripture.
But now Jerome has been proven wrong.
So the historical case in Protestantism
for the smaller canon without these books
is resting in thin air.
There is no foundation in the early church.
None.
And look at the figures.
The figures speak for themselves.
All right, so now that I put everybody to sleep.
And by the way, I recommend my book
if anybody has insomnia.
Experts say that three out of five people
experience drowsiness during the first paragraph of my books.
So I highly recommend that you check it out.
In the name of the Father, Son, Holy Spirit.
Amen.
Dear Lord, thank you so much
for bringing us together to study your word.
Thank you for the Deuterocanon
and all of scripture
that discloses the wisdom,
your Son, to us.
And we ask that you continue to bless us
throughout this conference
and give us safe travel home.
And we ask this in the name of the Father,
and the Son, and the Holy Spirit.
Amen.