 All right, welcome everyone it's like I said, I'm glad to see people I was expecting three or four people 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 show up but all of you right now you should congratulate yourselves because You are the hardcore Biblical scholars in this at this conference Let me explain because when you get back to your parishes and people ask you What talks do you go? What did you study at the conference? You're gonna 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 I 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 you know 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 book 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 wish to be consigned to writing amen All right, so it's also by the way an explosive topic for those who talk to our separate 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 from my money I think for Catholic Protestant apologetics the issue of the Old Testament canon is Privileged now. I've already thrown out a term. We need to start with defining terms So I've talked to a few people before to 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 us all up to speed. Okay, so let's 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 Okay, so all the books that are inspired are Canonical and Any book that's not inspired is not canonical. Okay, 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 now okay, 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 we're when I'm going to be talking about inspiration. I'm not talking about Motivation I'm not talking about, you know, getting good feelings and wanting to do something good I'm using it in a technical sense. Okay, so that's very important people get this mixed up because somebody could read a Bunyan's pilgrim progress or the Lord of the Rings and get inspired right 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 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 wish 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 Twist 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 scriptures 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 You know very blocky Primitive, but if you read like the book of wisdom, it's beautiful. It's 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 okay, let's talk a little bit about cannon and then we'll jump into the fun stuff All right I'm gonna make a division within the Old Testament Between protocanonical 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, but 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 protocanon Okay, the protocanon, protocanonical 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 called 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 Sierach, Tobid, Judith, Baruch Versus second Maccabees and also we have longer versions of Daniel and Esther So if you know somebody who's a self-styled Bible flumper Don't 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 That's the second term there. 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 So that's what this talk is going to be essentially except I'm going to put a different spin. I Tell you this was an interesting talk because this is the Ply Biblical Studies talk and Well, 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 the table of contests, right? So This is what I'm aiming for okay now. I wrote a book. It's called the 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 that's the thesis of the debate was that the apocrypha is not scripture And I went to the bait and I said 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 are 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 it'd be like 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 a considered scripture if not by all the Jews certainly by Jesus and his disciples So you see how it works. It's like how these texts are used Shows you that these are more than just mirror human documents Here's 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 Or it lists all the Old Testament saints, you know 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 35 B 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 is 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 are a Catholic or an Orthodox Bible Guess what? You find this reference in second Maccabees chapter six and seven Where the Maccabee and martyrs which in my next workshop will talk more about the Maccabee and martyrs Were tortured refused release For the sake of a better resurrection Exactly what it's described here in 1135 and guess what old Protestant Bibles have cross references So they recognized second Maccabees as being used Now I think on the surface That's a good reason to suspect that they believe second Maccabees was inspired Right after all you have all these biblical figures being listed. It would be strange if they listed somebody who was wasn't in the Bible, you know So I think you have an argument there But actually, you know God bless anti-Catholics. I love anti-Catholics because I was challenged by an anti-Catholic on this on you know 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 say at the Lord. It's actually there in Hebrews 11 But it's a 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. Okay The Greek words martyrio, you don't have to memorize marrero, but just know that the word The 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 He and what he notices very interesting is that word martyrio That verb is used seven times in the pistol 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 pistol of Hebrews it uses marrero to introduce Old Testament quotes like Accent 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 1135 B? Right glad you asked Because it's also used that very same word at the end in Hebrews 1139 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 Maccabees and martyrs are in the author of Hebrews 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 Maccabees and martyrs in it. Amen Does that mean it's inspired scripture? Yeah, it does Just and he makes no qualification between them and the others Okay, moving on All right Second-line argument the prophetic nature of the Deutero canon 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 Deutero canon 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 Deutero the Deutero canon 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 There the Deutero canon 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 proto canon 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 to Hebrews 1 3 as a cross-reference to wisdom 7 26 I think All right, you're 26 or 27. I can't see Okay, so let's look at a couple of these really quick Book of Baruch 335 338 now Bible modern Bible translations butcher this They butcher this text. So if you have a new American Bible, how many people here use a 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 You know translation, so this is actually a Protestant, but they get it right though to get the Greek right It says this is our God and there's none None other Be accounted in comparison of him He has found all the ways of knowledge He has given it on to Jacob his servant and Israel his beloved now those who 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 there's no one's ever seen God in the Old Testament When did God appear on earth and converse with us and? Jesus Christ right so here you have a prophetic predictive prophecy in a Deuteronical book concerning the incarnation and by the way Do you think the early Church father 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 Okay, and I have 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 2743 It's all in that context How can a document that's written purely by human ingenuity? come up with such a 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 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 years out. All right now Wisdom seven 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 him 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 has she is linguistic it's Sophia in Greek is wisdom and Sophia is a feminine noun So you can't say he you have to say she but don't let that mix 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 apogism Apogism in the entire greek bible old and new testament Apogism is used twice Once in the old Once in the new Once in wisdom 726 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 Where 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 in wisdom Its brightness is to eternal light It doesn't seem very profound at first But when you go through church history what you find Is it's very very very important Why because there was a heresy called arianism The arians believe 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 found me on that? Well, if you don't maybe this will make it clear So the early church fathers wondered combating this heresy about a trinitarian doctor 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 flames probably better Right, they didn't have light bulbs back in second century bc um 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 the fire Generate the fire Or does the fire generate the brightness? The fire generates the brightness Plug it into wisdom seven and Hebrews one Guess what that means the father generates the sun the sun does not generate the father Interesting, let me give you a how about this Can Can fire exists without brightness Can you have a fire that doesn't give off any brightness whatsoever? Think about it's kind of weird a black flame. I mean, I don't even know how that would look All 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 sun In other words the sun 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 sun in time Goes completely against this analogy also The sun is consubstantial with the father since everything that comes from god is god And the brightness comes from the fire That means that the sun is god And all that from a single verse Right in fact, I love this this little quote from augustin Talk about the arians. He says Give me then hear a fire without brightness and I believe you that the father ever was without the sun There's a great challenge to give jojoba witnesses They come to your door say yeah, show me a fire that doesn't give brightness And I'll show you because basically they believe the sun 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 resided the creed At mass. Okay. Thank you. Do you remember this? God from god light from light true god from true god be gotten not made Consubstantial with the father You ever wonder where light from light came from? It actually comes from wisdom seven Is the brightness of the eternal light the early fathers use 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. That's a I love the book of wisdom. I could go on and on. All right A third line of argument the early church fathers Yeah, this is this is a very interesting Um, see what I'm trying to get at is this I 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 there are his disciples. He's training them. Amen So jesus wouldn't like use a You know pseudoprographical work like janis and jamborees or something like that. He'd use scripture And it would have been the apostles 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 at sacred scripture We know the true and infallible canon That's how I use the case for the deutero canon So the early church fathers come into play But before we do that, I want to show you this. Okay, this is from 2nd timothy 3 16 through 17 And it's one of those few passages in scripture that speak directly to inspiration of scripture So it's all scriptures inspired by god and it's useful for teaching For refutation for correction for training and righteousness So that the one who belongs to god may be competent equipped for every good work Notice it has two things that 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 and righteousness Why because they have divine authority. All right So those two things Now I'm a nerd when it comes to deutero canonical stuff And I read all sorts of I I even read like old English newspapers with op-ed pieces You know one time I was reading one from like 1903 I forgot what paper was But they're beautiful because you know Catholicism 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 Use them to confirm doctrine Now that was a shock. I never heard that before The early church used the deutero canon 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, you know, 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 Or in the early church when the early church father quotes the deutero canon With something like scripture says Thus say at the lord the sun says the holy spirit says Any formal introduction that's class a Just like paul says all scriptures inspired by god and then for the other quotes if 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 15 I believe it's 19. Yeah 15 19 In a debate over purgatory Refuse to admit second maccabees into debate The yohannek cited second 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 yohannek You can't cite second maccabees for purgatory that can't be entered into debates 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 digging into the early church fathers um 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 dutero canon as proof text for debate All of them before 1519 Is is debate against yohannek? 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 way to um to the fourth century Up to the end of the fourth century Um, and guess what I found? uh What would you say? 20 30 Raise your hand if you think that's reasonable about 20 or 30 your offenses 40 50 60 70 100 100 I found 209 instances In 109 sources from 33 fathers That explicitly quoted The dutero canon as inspired scripture Let that sink in 209 times In the surviving documents from the early church just for the first four 500 years You have those and here's a quote from athenasius Where you can see an example of where he uses it saying it's the holy spirit says And he quotes sirac Okay How about confirming doctrine? Like I said, I thought wow, it's 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 dutero canon, I actually give you all the citations You 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 could be used for teaching Training and righteousness now. I thought okay fair turnabouts fair play I'm going to specifically look at times where the early church fathers Denied that the book's reference the book reference is not inspired So I went out of my way. I tried to do an even thorough more thorough search But 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 dutero canon In any way including like augustin 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 africanis and drone That's it In the class b negative qualification I found 15 instances in 11 sources from five early church fathers Okay, so Do you see When you compare them There is no comparison, right? In fact, roma sticks out like a sore thumb In fact, he is the first father that we have That called the dutero canon 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 the first and so on They said jerome you're a bible scholar. You know more than we do because he actually knew aramaic and hebrew Your entitles 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 interest. 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 a hebrew verity 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 that one of the big greatest biblical discoveries of our time or you know Dead sea scrolls we find the dead ski scrolls which include manuscripts from second century bc to The end of the first century ad And guess what we find out that There wasn't just one hebrew text in circulation. There were several hebrew text in circulation in the first century It was only we learned after 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 and kumran 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 ridgle And so we could prove jerome was wrong now. Here's now. Here's the Here's the thing that a lot of people don't realize is that the early reformers like martin luther kelvin Guess what your 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 you know 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 experts say that uh three out of five people experienced 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 funeral canon 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 a safe travel home And we ask this in the name of the father and the son holy spirit