Common Objections

Common Objections

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Catholic Outlook

Common Objections

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Common Objections

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__________ The “Apocrypha” __________


“None of these books was written in the Hebrew language, which was alone used by God in the Old Testament.”


Gary Hoge


Actually, most of the deuterocanonical books were originally written in Hebrew, and only later translated into Greek (along with the rest of the Hebrew Old Testament) as part of the Septuagint. The Septuagint, sometimes referred to as the “LXX,” was the Greek translation of the Hebrew Old Testament. According to the Protestant New International Bible Commentary


Interestingly the completed LXX not only contained the 39 books of the Hebrew canon; it also contained other books as well, books commonly called apocryphal . . . books that for the most part were written in Hebrew and translated into Greek. (Only Wis., 2 Mac. and Ad. Est. were originally composed in Greek.)1


Also, even if we exclude the deuterocanonical books, the rest of the Old Testament was not written exclusively in Hebrew. Significant portions were also written in Aramaic (e.g., Ezra 4:8-6:18; Daniel 2:4-7:28). God is not required to express himself only in Hebrew, and he has obviously not chosen to do so.


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1 Gerald F. Hawthorne, “Canon and Apocrypha of the Old Testament,” New International Bible Commentary, ed. F.F. Bruce, (Grand Rapids, MI: Zondervan Publishing House, 1999), 34.

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