A Reflection on Deuterocanon: why is it different with the Protestants?

A Reflection on Deuterocanon: why is it different with the Protestants? 

If you’ve ever compared a Catholic Bible with a Protestant one, you might have noticed a key difference: the Catholic Old Testament is longer. It contains books that Protestants do not consider to be part of the canon, often referring to them as the "Apocrypha." Catholics call these books the "Deuterocanon," and the debate over their status is a central historical and theological divide between the two traditions. So, why don't Protestants view these deuterocanonical books as canonical? The article "Protestantism's Old Testament Problem" offers a Catholic perspective on this question. Let's break down the core arguments.

The Core of the Disagreement: Sola Scriptura

To understand the Protestant position, we have to start with the Reformation and Martin Luther's challenge to the Church's teachings. Central to this was the doctrine of Sola Scriptura—the belief that the Bible is the sole, infallible source of authority for Christian faith and practice.

According to this doctrine, the Bible is divinely inspired by God Himself and therefore contains no errors. It is the first, best, and final source of all divine truth. But this powerful principle immediately raises a critical question: if the Bible is the only rule of faith, how do we know which books belong in the Bible in the first place? Which gospels or texts are divinely inspired, and which are merely human writings? A firm belief in an error-free Bible requires an equally firm method for identifying which books make the cut.

A Tale of Two Canons: The Septuagint

The Christian Old Testament has its roots in the sacred texts of the Jewish people. However, it's not quite that simple. A crucial text for early Christians was the Greek Septuagint, a translation of the Hebrew scriptures that was widely used in the time of Jesus and the Apostles. The New Testament writers frequently and almost exclusively quoted from it.

Here's the key difference: the Septuagint contained books that are not in the modern Jewish canon (the Tanakh). This wider collection of books was used by the early Church and forms the basis for the Catholic and Orthodox Old Testaments today. During the Reformation, Protestants re-evaluated the canon and ultimately reclassified these extra books—the Deuterocanon—as "Apocrypha."

Why Did Protestants Change the Canon?

According to the article, there were a few key reasons for this shift:

1. Problematic Theology in 2 Maccabees: A passage in 2 Maccabees 12:38-45 provides a basis for the practice of praying for the dead, a long-standing Catholic tradition. This passage implies that the dead can be aided by the prayers of the living to be cleansed from sin.

2. The Desire to "Return to the Sources": Reformers wanted to align their Old Testament with the canon used by the Jewish people of their time.

The issue with praying for the dead was particularly significant for Martin Luther. He strongly rejected the Church's teachings on purgatory and the selling of indulgences (documents that were said to reduce the temporal punishment for sin). For Luther, these concepts were not aligned with Scripture. The rejection of these doctrines formed a chain of reasoning:

• If you reject indulgences...

• ...you must also question the idea of Purgatory that they are tied to.

• ...and if you reject Purgatory, the scriptural basis for praying for the dead (found in 2 Maccabees) becomes a problem.

By removing 2 Maccabees, the Reformers could eliminate a key scriptural support for a doctrine they vehemently opposed.

The Catholic Counter-Argument: Who Has the Authority?

From the Catholic perspective, the question is one of authority. Why are the deuterocanonical books considered inspired?

The argument is that Christ founded the Church and gave it the divine authority to determine the canon of both the Old and New Testaments. Protestants argue that the Hebrew canon was "closed" by the time of Christ, but the article questions this. How could the Jewish authorities close the canon when they were still awaiting the coming of the "new Elijah" (John the Baptist) and the "new Moses" (Jesus Christ)?

Furthermore, Protestants face a logical problem when defending their canon based on historical evidence alone. Even if they find sufficient proof, there is no passage in the Bible itself that lists which books are canonical. This creates a direct challenge to Sola Scriptura.

If the canon must be determined by the Bible alone, there needs to be an inspired "table of contents" within the Bible—which doesn't exist. This leads to a circular argument: you need the Bible to define the Bible.

Authenticating the Canon: What About the Holy Spirit?

In the absence of a biblical list, the Protestant theologian, John Calvin, proposed two principles for how a Christian can know the true canon:

1. The authority of Scripture does not depend on the Church's approval. Scripture has authority because God inspired it, not because the Church says so.

2. A Christian can recognize the canon through the internal testimony of the Holy Spirit, not by simply trusting a Church council's decision.

However, the article argues that Calvin's criteria are historically and practically unrealistic.

• On what biblical principle can we assume God will guide an individual to the correct canon but not His Church as a whole?

• How does someone who isn't yet "inspired" by the Holy Spirit know which books to read to find the truth in the first place? How does a new Christian, still learning about the faith, distinguish the voice of the Spirit from their own voice?

• If two devout, Spirit-filled Christians disagree on which books are canonical, whose "internal testimony" is correct? What objective standard can settle the dispute? Even the early Christians closest to the Apostles proposed slightly different canons.

The very founder of the Protestant movement, Martin Luther, demonstrated that the canon is not self-evident, as he himself wanted to remove four books from the New Testament.

Personal Reflection and a Call for Critical Thought

In my own view, the questions raised about how an uninspired person can define the canon are a step in the right direction for contemplation. Responding to the article's arguments, isn't it clear that Christianity requires continuous study so that a person might gain the knowledge to "qualify" them to help define such important matters?

Ultimately, this long-standing debate highlights a key outcome of the Reformation: a new freedom in biblical interpretation, but also a new set of challenges in defining the canon itself. We must remain critical and open to many perspectives. The early Church, using the Old Testament available to it (the Septuagint), established its canon. Hundreds of years later, Luther arrived to correct what he saw as tragic errors arising from doctrines based on those texts.

The original article's author, Devin Rose, is highly critical of Luther and Protestantism. He firmly holds that the deuterocanonical books were consistently part of the Christian tradition from the 300s to the 1400s, despite occasional doubts within the Church. 

As a kind disclaimer, I am a layperson interested in apologetics and theology, thus I am not immune to errors in writing or understanding. This writing is simply, a vague representative of my thoughts. Further, it is a summary of the linked article, intended to make a Catholic perspective on the canon easier to understand. It should not be taken as a definitive or final word on the topic, yet it may be a reflection for us Christians. In every argument presented, further critical thinking is needed so that our understanding of the canon and Christianity does not stop at one person's subjective opinion. Although there exist differences between us protestant and catholic, we should not let this difference turn into a gap, separating our love in Christ.

The God who speaks