I had a long email discussion on the apocrypha with an Anchorite, most of it against my better choosing. Once you get past their "trap questions" on "how do you know which books are in the Bible," the discussion ends soon after. The best thing is to start asking specific questions about Apocryphal books. My normal line of approach was to start pointing out the errors in Tobit. An anchorite will respond that the Bible also has "apparent errors." Back-and-forth, back-and-forth.
Another line of approach is the historical-canonical one. Turretin explains by way of syllogism:
Premise: The Jews were entrusted with the oracles of God (which most would acknowledge as Old Testament).
Premise 2: The apocrypha is absent from the Palestinian canon:
---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Conclusion: the apocrypha is not "the oracles of God."
Another line of approach is the historical-canonical one. Turretin explains by way of syllogism:
Premise: The Jews were entrusted with the oracles of God (which most would acknowledge as Old Testament).
Premise 2: The apocrypha is absent from the Palestinian canon:
---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Conclusion: the apocrypha is not "the oracles of God."
No comments:
Post a Comment