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Dialogue on Whether the “Apocrypha” 

is Scripture

 

Shouldn’t we accept these books for the same reasons we accept the other biblical books?

 

Gary Hoge

 

The Bible, if God is the God I think he is, must be consistent, and not contradictory. If that is a given, then if some passages in the Apocrypha conflict with passages in the rest of the Bible, one or the other must be wrong.

 

I agree with you completely that the Bible must not contradict itself. My point was simply that apparent contradiction is not necessarily the same thing as actual contradiction. James 2:24 is an excellent case-in-point (which is why I cited it). Martin Luther thought that James and Paul were irreconcilable. He said he would give his monk’s cowl to anyone who could reconcile them. In the end he concluded that James was not apostolic and he removed it to the end of his New Testament (along with Hebrews, Jude, and Revelation). The point of all this is only that the Apocrypha must not be rejected solely on the basis of apparent contradiction, lest Luther’s error be repeated. Also, you said if the conflict were real, “one or the other must be wrong.” Since the Apocrypha was accepted by the Church at the same time as the other Scriptures, how would you know which to discard?

 

There are some places where the Apocrypha does contradict the rest of the Bible. You will be able to pick those places out yourself as you read it.

 

Since you believe that the Apocrypha contains demonstrable errors, do you believe that the Church in the fourth century was wrong to accept it, and that the Church for the next twelve-hundred years was wrong to continue to accept it? I assume you must. And if indeed the Apocrypha is erroneous, its acceptance by the fourth century Church would prove that the Holy Spirit did not guide the Church in selecting the Canon of Scripture. Do you think then that we should also reevaluate their decision regarding the New Testament Canon, since there’s no divine guarantee that they did any better in selecting those books? If not, why not?

 

From my reading of the Apocrypha most of it is on the mark. It is interesting and useful reading in my opinion. I do not think it should be included as canon, but I think it should be read by every serious Christian.

 

Do you not see the inconsistency with which Christians approach the Apocrypha? You said, “I do not think it should be included as canon.” So you think it’s okay to make an individual judgment regarding the canonicity of the Apocrypha, but for some reason it would never occur to you to do that to the book of James, for example. Don’t you see that we can’t have it both ways? Either we must have some outside authority decide what constitutes the Canon of Scripture, or we must all decide for ourselves. There is no third option, and it makes no sense to apply one standard to the New Testament Canon, and another to the Old Testament Canon. They were both decided by the same Church Councils. Either those councils were guided by the Holy Spirit, or they weren’t. If they were, then we should accept their decisions completely. If they weren’t, then the Canon of Scripture is purely a matter of opinion and individual judgment. Then who’s to say Luther was wrong to reject Hebrews, James, Jude, and Revelation? What authority can you cite, other than a Church Council, to show that Luther was wrong to do that?

 

You see, this is why I can defend the Apocrypha when I haven’t even read it. After all, I did not accept the New Testament because I personally reviewed and approved each book. No, I accepted it because the Church accepted it. So did you. We both have faith that the Church was guided to select only the right books. I simply don’t believe that the Holy Spirit guided Martin Luther to remove the Apocrypha from the Canon. His improper removal of the New Testament books is ample evidence of that.

 

Apparently then, the people who decided to label Apocrypha as “Canon” weren’t correct, as they included a few clunkers in with the gems. Thankfully, the Holy Spirit acted to keep the truly inspired books in among those that were most widely accepted as The Word of God, and later on the Holy Spirit further guided those who decided to chuck the excess baggage and get down to the sixty-six books that are truly “Canon.” Praise the Lord.

 

May I remind you that those who decided to “chuck the excess baggage” also considered Hebrews, James, Jude, and Revelation to be “excess baggage.” And if those in the fourth century who originally decided that the Apocrypha were Scripture “weren’t correct,” how do you know they were correct about which books belonged in the New Testament? Lucky guess?

 

To stimulate your thinking, please prove to me, without citing any Church councils, that the book of 3 John is not “excess baggage.” Prove that it belongs in the New Testament, if you can. And please do so in a way that could not also be used by a Mormon to prove the canonicity of the Book of Mormon.

 

At some point in the past, somebody(-ies) declared the current 66 as The Bible. That’s when the Holy Spirit finished guiding people to the conclusion that only these comprise inspired scripture. Isn’t faith wonderful?

 

So you have decided, on your own authority, that the sixteenth century marks the time “when the Holy Spirit finished guiding people” as to which books belong in the Bible, and which don’t. It probably would have come as quite a surprise to the people of the fifteenth century, or the fourteenth century, or the thirteenth century, or the twelfth century, etc. to find out that the Holy Spirit was letting them wallow in error for all those years.

 

Let me make sure I understand: In the sixteenth century one man (Luther) decided to remove books from the Bible, and you just accept that? If someone else did the same thing today, would you accept it? Why not? Faith is wonderful, and I admit you have more than I do, for I cannot easily accept late alterations to the Scriptures by one man. I also have to ask how you know when a man such as Martin Luther is tampering with the Bible under the guidance of the Holy Spirit (and therefore infallibly), and when a man such as [Mormon founder] Joseph Smith is tampering with the Bible on his own.

 

You need to get a copy and read it before you go any further defending it. If you want to regard it as Canon after you have read it that is fine.

 

My whole point was that I shouldn’t have to do that. What right do I have to decide whether a book is Scripture or not? It’s certainly not a standard I applied to the rest of the Bible. I accepted Revelation, for example, long before I actually read it. I accepted it, not on its merits (obviously, since I hadn’t read it), but because everyone else accepted it. It was in my Bible, so I assumed it must belong there. The problem I have now, when I consider the apocrypha, is that for eleven-hundred years it too was in the Bible, until a handful of men decided to remove it. I Praise the Lord that, with the exception of the apocrypha, the Canon of Scripture is not still considered open to debate in Protestant circles (it’s about the only thing that isn’t). Considering the multiplicity of interpretations of those things that are considered open to debate, can you imagine how many different canons we’d have? Every church would have its own Bible.

 

Before the sixteenth century there were 73 books in the Bible. It just seems strange to me that we Protestants have singled out seven of them as being subject to individual judgment, but we continue to blindly accept the other 66. Why don’t we apply the same standard to all 73?

 

You like to play devil’s advocate (no pun intended), but you might as well read it unless you are getting a message from God that you should not … in which case you should obey.

 

I was not playing devil’s advocate before; I was quite serious. I’ve decided that I must be consistent in my approach to the Bible. Either I must accept all of it (including the Apocrypha) on the authority of the ancient Church (on the theory that the Holy Spirit guided it to select the correct books), or I must decide for myself which of the Old and New testament books are truly inspired. In addition, I must also evaluate each of the New Testament Apocryphal books (The Epistle of Clement, The Didache, The Shepherd, etc.) to make sure the ancient Church didn’t leave one out that was in fact inspired. Given these two options, my choice is easy. I have neither the right, nor the capacity to determine what constitutes Scripture. Indeed, how could I? To what would I compare the teachings of each book to determine their truth? Everything I know about the faith comes from these books, so I have no objective external standard against which to evaluate them. Therefore, I will, in faith, believe that the Holy Spirit correctly guided the ancient Church to select the right books. All of them.

 

I have asked God what to believe about the Canon of Scripture, and he has given me a satisfactory answer (at least I’m satisfied with it): Neither I, nor Martin Luther, nor any other individual has the authority, or the ability, to correctly ascertain which books are or are not inspired. We must either accept the authority of the Christian Church on this issue, or give up the pretense of having any rational reason for accepting the books we do. (Did that sound harsh? Hope not.)

 

We don’t need the church to tell us that any given book of the Bible is inspired. We can look at them through the lens of the 66 that are accepted by all Christendom.

 

But don’t you see, that would beg the question by assuming the truth of what I’m trying to prove. In order to prove the truth of one book, I would have to assume the truth of the other 65. Besides, at best I could only demonstrate that the 66 are consistent with each other, and even that would be difficult because there are many apparent (but not actual) contradictions between them. Also, even if they are consistent, that does not necessarily prove that they are true. They might be consistently wrong. In order to determine their truth, I would need to have an outside, objective standard of truth to which to compare them. And even if I did have such a standard, the best I could prove would be that the 66 are consistent with each other and true. But that would still not prove they are inspired. A non-canonical book like The Epistle of Clement might not conflict with any of the 66 and might not contain any errors, but it’s still not inspired.

 

How, then, can I know whether a book is not only consistent and true, but inspired? As I said before, the only way I can know this is to trust that the Holy Spirit guided the ancient Church to select the right books. You described this as a leap of faith, and I suppose it is. But at least it’s a faith based on something other than my own feelings. It’s based on the promise of Jesus that the Holy Spirit would teach the apostles all things and guide them into all truth. It’s also based on the Biblical example of the guidance of the Holy Spirit in the Jerusalem Council (Acts 15). The alternative is to determine the inspiration of the books based on nothing but my subjective feelings, and to trust that these feelings are actually the Holy Spirit teaching me personally. That is a much greater leap of faith, if you ask me.

 

Why does everything have to be so rational?

 

Because God is rational. He is not a God of disorder, but of peace. Faith is above reason, but not against it. Also, the rationality of our faith is what separates it from that of, say, Mormons. Ask a Mormon how he knows the Book of Mormon is inspired and he’ll tell you it’s because he “feels” that it is, and he concludes that his feelings are instilled by the Holy Spirit. If that is exactly the same way we know our books are inspired, how can we argue with him? If he claims that the Holy Spirit confirms to him the inspiration of the Book of Mormon, how do we know he’s wrong? No, Human feelings are the least reliable indicator of truth, and I don’t see how we can say with any confidence that the internal assurance we have comes from the Holy Spirit, but the internal assurance a Mormon has does not. At least I can point to something outside of myself to explain why I accept the books I do. That still requires faith, as you pointed out, but a whole lot less than the alternative.

 

The Spirit of God bears witness with our spirit and that cannot be explained. You just know that you know that you know that Jesus is Lord and you have the desire to accept Him as your personal Savior from your sins. There are a lot of mysteries to the Christian faith.

 

Indeed, but the canon of Scripture is not one of them. If the Spirit guided the ancient Church to define that canon, then we are no longer free to differ on that issue. Because the Spirit cannot contradict himself, it cannot be coherently maintained that he guided the Church to include the Apocrypha, and that he also guided Martin Luther to remove it. If he guided the Church to accept the Apocrypha, then we should accept it too, and Luther was wrong to remove it. On the other hand, if the Spirit guided Luther to remove the Apocrypha, then he cannot have guided the ancient Church to accept it in the first place, in which case the Spirit did not collectively guide the Church to form the Bible. We must then assume that the Spirit meant to guide us individually to determine the canon of Scripture. Does this really seem like an issue the Spirit would have left to His individual guidance? I don’t think so, and in practice no Christian actually tries to determine the canon of Scripture for himself, with or without the aid of the Spirit. This is not to say that the Spirit does not confirm to us the inspiration of the Bible, which he guided the Church to form. I do think he guides us to believe it, but not to form it. And, again, if it be established that he formed it, he will not guide us to reject any of it, not even the Apocrypha. Any such guidance would not come from him.