Apocrypha / Septuagint

The following quotation is taken from the Westminster Dictionary of the Bible page 33, article Apocrypha. Quote: " The [Greek word apokrypha means hidden or secret things, used by ecclesiastical writers for: 1) matters secret or mysterious. 2) of unknown origin, forged, spurious. 3) unrecognized, uncanonical.] The name generally given to the following 16 books: 1 and 11 Esdras, Tobit, Judith, the Rest of Esther, The Wisdom of Solomon, Ecclesiasticus, Baruch with The Epistle of Jeremy, The Song of the Three Holy Children, The History of Susanna, Bel and the dragon, The Prayer of Manasses, 1, 11, 111 and 1V Maccabees being omitted."

"Unlike the books of the Old Testament, which are in Hebrew, with some portions in Aramaic, the apocryphal productions are in Greek… The Jewish Church considered them uninspired, and some of their writers disclaim inspiration, (prologue to Ecclesiasticus; 11 Macc.2:23; 15:38). The Apocrypha and Pseudopigrapha were produced between about 250 BC and somewhere in the early Christian centuries. They are not found in the Hebrew canon: they are never quoted by Jesus; and it cannot with certainty be affirmed that the apostles ever directly allude to them…"

"The Church of England in the 6 th of the Thirty-nine Articles published in 1562 calls the apocryphal treatises books which the 'Church doth read for example of life and instruction of manners: but yet doth it not apply them to establish any doctrine.' The Westminster Confession of 1643 declares, as a matter of creed, that 'the books, commonly called Apocrypha, not being of divine inspiration, are no part of the canon of Scripture, and therefore are of no authority in the Church of God, or to be any otherwise approved or made use of than other human writings.'"

"The Council of Trent at its sitting on April 8th, 1546,…pronounced an anathema against anyone who ventured to differ from it in opinion. This has since regulated the belief of the Roman Catholic Church."…

"A controversy on the subject was carried on between the years 1821 and 1826, which resulted in the exclusion of the Apocrypha from all Bibles issued by the British and Foreign Bible Society." (Ref:H3)

We can see from the above that neither the Saviour, the Apostles, the Jewish Nation nor the Protestant Church reckoned that the Apocrypha was inspired. The only major group which currently holds to the Apocrypha is the Roman Church. In view of these facts, Stewarton Bible School's advice is that you look upon the Apocrypha as the writings of uninspired men and certainly of no use whatsoever when deciding doctrine.

The Septuagint is an ancient Greek translation of the Old Testament. It is not inspired.
Tradition has it that the Septuagint (known also as the LXX because 70 scribes were involved in its production) was written some 250 years before the Christian era. But this is not the case.

WAS THERE A PRE-CHRISTIAN SEPTUAGINT?
In his book Forever Settled (published by The Bible For Today: 900 Park Avenue, Collingswood. N.J. 08108 USA) Jack Moorman writes

on page 13

"Paul Kahle ( a famous O.T. scholar) who has done extensive work in the Septuagint does not believe that there was one original old Greek version and that consequently the manuscripts of the Septuagint (so-called) cannot be traced back to one archtype... Peter Ruckman (in the Christian's handbook of Manuscript Evidence) has taken a similar position. His arguments can be summarized as follows: The letter of Aristeas is mere fabrication (Kahle calls it propaganda), and there is no historical evidence that a group of scholars translated the O.T. into Greek between 250 - 150 B.C. The research of Paul Kahle shows that there was no pre-Christian LXX. No one has produced a Greek copy of the Old Testament written before 300 A.D. In fact, the Septuagint "quotes" from the New Testament and not vice versa, i.e. in the matter of N.T. - O.T. quotation, the later formulators of the Greek O.T. made it conform with the New Testament Text."

PROBLEM TEXTS
In his masterful book Problem Texts (published by Pensecola Bible Institute Press, P.O. Box 7135, Pensecola, Florida 32504. USA) Peter S Ruckman Ph.D. writes of the Septuagint in Appendix Two,

pages 407-409:

"I have a copy of the notorious Septuagint on my desk (Zondervan Publishing Co.1970, from Samuel Baxter & Sons, London). In the Introduction, the party line of the Alexandrian Cult is laid out as neatly as a tiled floor. Our writer says 'THE FACT' may be regarded as 'CERTAIN' that the Greek Old Testament LXX had begun to be translated before 285BC. The evidence for this? Don't be silly; the Alexandrian Cult never deals with evidence. Every LXX manuscript cited in the Septuagint Concordance was written 200 years after the completion of the New Testament. They are as follows:"

Ruckman then lists the 4 Greek manuscripts from which the Septaugint came. Brief details include:

A- "Alexandrinus:" written more than 300 years after the completion of the New Testament. It omits Genesis 14:14-17; 15:1-6, 16-19, 16:6-10, Leviticus 6:19-23, 1 Samuel 12:17-14:9, 1 Kings 3-6 and Psalms 69:19-79:10.

Aleph-"Sinaiticus:" written more than 200 years after the completion of the New Testament. It omits Genesis 23:19-24:46, Numbers 5:27-7:20, 1 Chronicles 9:27-19:17, all of Exodus, Joshua, 1 and 2 Samuel, 1 and 2 Kings, Hosea, Amos, Micah, Ezekiel, Daniel and Judges. It contains New Testament Apocrypha.

C- "Codes Ephraemi:" written more than 300 years after the completion of the New Testament. It omits Genesis, Exodus, Leviticus, Numbers, Deuteronomy, Joshua, Judges, 1 and 2 Samuel, 1 and 2 Kings and all of the major and minor prophets!

B -"Vaticanus:" It omits all off Genesis 1:1 - 46:28, all of Psalms 105:26-137:6, and parts of 1 Samuel, I Kings and Nehemiah. It contains the Apocrpha books of the Old Testament.

Ruckman continues:
"Those interested in further damaging evidence will observe that every papyrus manuscript found with any part of the Old Testament in it was written after the resurrection, with the exception of one scrap containing less than six chapters of Deuteronomy on it.
The "Septuagint" papyri (we have listed all 23 of them with all that they contain and the dates they were written in The Christian's Handbook of Manuscript Evidence pp.48-51, published in 1970) were all written within 60 to 500 years after John finished writing the Book of Revelation."

"The mythological LXX or Septuagint is the most persistent spook to haunt orthodox Christianity since the myth that Christ was born in a cave. The theory is based on abstract speculation of the wildest sort without one piece of reliable documented evidence of ANY kind that there was ever on this earth one single copy of an OLD Testament in GREEK before the heading up of the school at Alexandria by Origen, one hundred years after the entire New Testament was complete, yet to this day there exists on every campus of every fundamental school in the United States the nebulous ghost of this non-existent spook."

If the reader is interested in further studying this issue of Bible Versions and how that the King James Version is the infallible Word of God, then you simply must buy Ruckman's book Problem Texts. Never in all my days have I read such hard-hitting facts in favour of the Authorized Version. But be warned, Ruckman's style is not for the faint-hearted, especially if they are afraid of the facts!

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