Why do 21st century Protestants still not include the deuterocanonical books in the canon?

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Accepted answer

Because Protestants do not believe that the Holy Spirit and Jesus Christ have borne witness to them that those texts are inspired scripture.

The Westminster Confession (1646) has a fascinating paragraph where it lists off many of the characteristics that set scripture apart from other writings, before dismissing them all to say that the ultimate reason we are persuaded that the scriptures are inspired is the inward work of the Holy Spirit and Christ in the lives of believers, witnessing to us.

WCF 1.5: We may be moved and induced by the testimony of the Church to an high and reverent esteem of the holy Scripture;
 and the heavenliness of the matter,
 the efficacy of the doctrine,
 the majesty of the style,
 the consent of all the parts,
 the scope of the whole (which is to give all glory to God),
 the full discovery it makes of the only way of man's salvation,
 the many other incomparable excellencies,
 and the entire perfection thereof,
are arguments whereby it doth abundantly evidence itself to be the Word of God;
yet, notwithstanding,
our full persuasion and assurance of the infallible truth and divine authority thereof,
 is from the inward work of the Holy Spirit,
 bearing witness by and with the Word in our hearts.

The same idea is present in the Belgic Confession (1559):

Article 5: We receive all these books and these only as holy and canonical,
for the regulating, founding, and establishing of our faith.

And we believe without a doubt all things contained in them—
not so much because the church receives and approves them as such
but above all because the Holy Spirit testifies in our hearts that they are from God,
and also because they prove themselves to be from God.

For even the blind themselves are able to see that the things predicted in them do happen.

Now of course as sinful humans we can ignore the work of the Spirit and Christ. But let's consider another example of an issue where I think the Spirit is surely trying to convince the Church about the truth of a matter: infant baptism. For centuries Protestantism has been divided over whether or not infant baptism is a good practice. Individual Christians sometimes switch from one camp to the other, in part I'm sure because of the work of God. It is the Spirit who helps us interpret the scriptures (WCF 1.6) and yet we have not come to an agreement over what the scriptures teach about baptism. Is that because we hold too tightly to our traditions to hear what the Spirit is saying? Perhaps for some people, but for others it appears that, if they are switching camp from falsehood to truth (whichever direction that really is), they are heeding the voice of the Spirit.

What about for the canon? There is no major group of Protestants who believe the dueterocanon is inspired, there is not even a minor group. I can't even think of any notable individuals who have said this. Over five centuries have hundreds of millions, possible billions, of Protestants all tuned out the Spirit's witness to the authority and inspiration of those texts? That does not seem plausible to me. We know that the Spirit has been a witness to the authority of the scriptures because we Protestants fully recognise James as scripture despite our founder Luther's reticence to do so. Instead I must conclude that the Spirit has not been witnessing because those texts are not inspired.

Upvote:0

Some protestants, especially those of us who believe in the Bible as infallible, could not add or subtract to what we believe is the Word of God, as it could add to, or even override what was originally written. Circumscision and the sacrificial system are two things that come to mind as being overridden with the advent of the New Testament. Introducing the deuterocanon would do the same, if included, and held in the same esteem as the original canon.

The question really is: Were these books inspired by the Holy Spirit? We don't know, but it is not likely, as many teachings are in direct contradiction with canon.

Jerome, when translating the Old Testament to Latin, could have used the Septuagint which contained apocrypha), but instead used the Hebrew Bible. In the final product he included the apocrypha, but "made it clear that those books should not be considered part of the inspired canon and should not be used to establish Christian beliefs."

Luther, when translating the Bible into German, also included the apocrypha, but "did not consider them equal in authority to the Scripture."

In regards to my specific denomination, some early Adventists leaders read an quoted the Apocrypha, nevertheless, as the Bible was futher studied, these were deemed to be unbiblical as well.

https://adventistbiblicalresearch.org/materials/bible-inspiration-and-historicity/what-about-apocrypha

Upvote:2

I am summarizing some of the stronger points from this article: https://carm.org/reasons-why-apocrypha-does-not-belong-bible

  1. Jesus defined the Old Testament portion of the canon here:

“From the blood of Abel [Gen. 4:8] to the blood of Zechariah [2 Chron. 24:20], who was killed between the altar and the house of God; yes, I tell you, it shall be charged against this generation (Lk. 11:51; cf. Mt. 23:35).”

The Jews (who did not include the deuterocanonical books) arranged their Bible differently. Genesis came first and Chronicles came last, listing Zechariah as the last martyred prophet. So this A-Z quote from Jesus defines the full scope of the Old Testament. Jesus argued with the Scribes, Pharisees and Saducees about how to interpret the Scriptures, but he never argued about the scope of the Scriptures, calling for them to add or remove any books.

  1. There are no authoritative statements from the Apostles or Jesus like "thus says the Lord," "as it is written," or "the Scriptures say" when making allusions to the Apocrypha, just as when Paul quoted a Roman poet, which did not therefore make that poet's corpus part of Scripture either.

  2. The Apocryphal books acknowledge that there were no prophets in Israel at their time (cf. 1 Macc. 9:27; 14:41). The Jews also admit that there were no prophets at that time.

  3. The Apocrypha contain a number of false teachings (see: Errors in the Apocrypha). (To check the following references, see http://www.newadvent.org/bible.)

    • The command to use magic (Tobit 6:5-7).
    • Forgiveness of sins by almsgiving (Tobit 4:11; 12:9).
    • Offering of money for the sins of the dead (2 Maccabees 12:43-45).

The article has other arguments, listing which church Fathers opposed including them, such as Jerome. (Roman Catholics and Protestants argue about whether Jerome changed his views later in life. Here is a strong article advocating for Jerome's holding onto a view that the Apocrypha are not inspired Scripture: http://beggarsallreformation.blogspot.com/2006/06/guest-blogdid-jerome-change-his-mind.html )

From a more personal standpoint, I (and others) have found several places in the Old Testament that prophecy a time of silence prior to the coming of the Messiah, when there would be no word from God for a time. These writings come from that time period. See Is there any Biblical Basis for 400 years of silence between Old and New Testament?

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