Pints With Aquinas - BONUS: Do Protestants Have the Correct Old Testament Canon?

Starting point is 00:00:00 Hello, hello, and welcome to Pints with Aquinas. I am really excited about today's debate. You are very welcome, whether you are a Catholic or a Protestant or an Orthodox Christian or somebody who's just curious about what a debate on the Old Testament canon looks like. You are very welcome, and we are so glad that you're here. Today, Trent Horn and Steve Christie will be debating the question, do Protestants have the correct Old Testament canon of Scripture? Steve, a Protestant, will be arguing in the affirmative, and Trent, a Catholic apologist from Catholic Answers, in the negative. Now, for those of you who aren't aware, while Protestants and Catholics agree on what constitutes the New Testament canon, we disagree about what constitutes the Old Testament canon. Catholics recognize seven additional books than Protestants do. These are sometimes referred to as the

Starting point is 00:00:52 deuterocanonical books of scripture or the apocrypha. Those seven books that Catholics accept, but which Protestants do not accept, are Tobit, Judith, the Book of Wisdom, Sirach, which is also called Ecclesiasticus, Baruch, 1st and 2nd Maccabees. Now, in addition to those seven books, Catholics also have additional portions of the books of Esther and Daniel. So in a moment, I'm going to be inviting up our debaters and I'm going to be asking them to introduce themselves really quickly and to tell us why this is an important debate to have. But before we do that, I want to say thank you to our sponsor, Exodus 90. Exodus 90 is one of these awesome programs. It's a Catholic spiritual exercise for men, and you take 90 days to just pray and fast and

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Starting point is 00:02:58 With all that said, let me invite up our debaters today. Trent Horn and Steve Christie. Lovely to have you both. Steve, maybe you could begin, just introduce yourself a little and tell us why this is an important debate to have, and then we'll turn it over to you, Trent, as well. Yes, well, first of all, I want to say thank you, Matt, for agreeing to host this debate, and also to Trent for agreeing to debate on this topic, which I think we would both agree is important. And for my background, I was raised Catholic in a very loving Catholic devout home. I graduated

Starting point is 00:03:31 from Catholic grade school, high school, and college, which is where I converted to being a Protestant. And I learned right away that the reason this topic is important is because whatever the one true church of Christ is, it will have the correct number of books, no less books, but also more books that don't belong in the Bible. And this is something that's been on my heart since I converted in August of 2004, and it actually all began actually with Trent when I called into Catholic Answers a few years ago on the topic of why aren't you Catholic, and Trent made a very generous challenge saying, well, rather than ask why are Catholic Bibles bigger, perhaps somebody should discuss why Protestant Bibles are smaller. So although people think that it's a play on word on Gary Machuda's

Starting point is 00:04:24 books, I have to give the hand over to Trent. And so it is an honor and a privilege to debating somebody of his caliber, someone who I respect. And with that, I'll give it over to Trent. Thank you very much, Steve. Trent. Sure. And Steve, it's a pleasure to be debating you as well. So my story is a little bit more inverted than Steve's. So I was raised in a non-Catholic family. I was then befriended by Catholic high school students, and then it was during that time in high school, I was actually, I didn't really believe in any kind of organized religion. I believed in a God who was out there, who only cared about me if I was in a jam in a

Starting point is 00:05:03 trigonometry test, but otherwise I was not Christian, was not Catholic. These people befriended me. I investigated the claims of Jesus Christ, found them to be credible, and then after that investigated the claims of the Catholic Church and found it to be credible as well. And I was received into the Catholic Church, baptized, confirmed, received my first Eucharist, and that was about 18 years ago. And then I've been working as

Starting point is 00:05:26 a staff apologist at Catholic Answers since 2012, and I agree with Steve, this is a very important subject that we are debating today. I think both Steve and I, as Christians, agree we should revere the Word of God, we should revere the Word that has come to us in the written form, and that's why it's very important to understand if we revere Scripture and revere the written Word of God, that we make sure we know what is the written Word of God, and not exclude books from our consideration that do testify to God's wisdom poured out to us in the written Word. And so that's why I'm really excited to be debating this issue with Steve today. Very good, okay. And so for those in the chat, later on we're going to have a time of Q&A in which we'll're taking questions.

Starting point is 00:06:05 To make sure your question gets asked, you could send it over on Patreon or as a super chat. We have the debate format in the description below. I won't go through it right now, but you can go check that out. We're going to begin with opening statements of 15 minutes each. And Steve, since you are arguing in the affirmative, you let me know when you're ready, and I'll click the timer. All right, go. Was there a set canon that the first century church knew what books did and did not belong in the Old Testament, and then pass this information down to its successors? Or did they fail to communicate this to them and

Starting point is 00:06:45 were clueless to its complete contents even to the present day? The fourth session of the Ecumenical Council of Trent stated, the written books received by the apostles from the mouth of Christ himself have come down even unto us, transmitted as it were from hand to hand. Trent receives and venerates all the books, both of the Old and of the New Testament, seeing that God is the author of both. The Catechism of the Catholic Church also states, holy tradition transmits in its entirety the word of God, which has been entrusted to the apostles by Christ the Lord in the Holy Spirit. It transmits it to the successors of the apostles, the list of the sacred books. This complete list is called the canon of scripture. Then the catechism lists all the books included in Catholic Bibles today, specifying the first

Starting point is 00:07:31 and second of Esdras, the latter of which is called Nehemiah. Dr. David Anders, host of Call to Communion on EWTN Catholic Radio, affirmed, the canon of the Bible was recognized by Christians in the first century. The proper Old Testament canon was recognized by Christians in the first century. The proper Old Testament canon was out there. So the Council of Trent, the Catechism, and Dr. Anders all affirmed that whatever the proper and complete Old Testament canon included and was limited to was known by the original 12 disciples of Christ, who then transmitted it to their successors in the first century church. This means the entirety of the Old Testament did not develop centuries into the church age, but was known by the first century church, which Jesus affirmed,

Starting point is 00:08:10 the scriptures cannot be broken. And until heaven and earth pass away, not one jot or tittle will pass from the law until all is accomplished. Jesus told his disciples, For all things that I have heard from my Father I have made known to you, and to you it has been granted to know the mysteries of the kingdom of heaven. The Bereans were more noble-minded than those in Thessalonica, for they received the word with great eagerness, examining the scriptures daily to see whether these things were so, which they could have only done if they knew what the scriptures were and were not. The Council of Trent also declared, if anyone does not accept as sacred and canonical the aforesaid books in their entirety and with all their parts, as they are contained in the

Starting point is 00:08:51 old Latin Vulgate edition, which in use for so many hundred years, let him be anathema. But what was included in that old Latin Vulgate edition of Jerome that had been around for so many hundred years? The right Reverend Henry Graham, author of Hindrances to Conversion stated, Pope's innocent the first in 405 and Galatius in 494, both of whom issued lists of sacred scriptures identical with that fixed by the four century councils of Hippo and Carthage. Jerome completed translation of the old Latin Vulgate in 405, commissioned by Pope Damasus in 382, the same year the Council of Rome convened, which Jerome was a key member of, and listed the canon of scripture. In this list, it included the

Starting point is 00:09:32 books of the first and second of Esdras, which was repeated in the succeeding councils of Hippo and Carthage, defined as part of the canonical scriptures. However, since these local councils followed the Septuagint, as did Augustine, 2nd Esdras was originally not the single book of Nehemiah, like in the later Ecumenical Council of Trent, but instead the combined book of Ezra and Nehemiah, while 1st Esdras in these local councils was a separate book written in the 3rd century BC, which included two and a half chapters not found in the Ecumenical Council of Trent, nor in Catholic Old Testaments today, which included two and a half chapters not found in the Ecumenical Council of Trent nor in Catholic Old Testaments today, which even Gary Machuda acknowledged during his 2004 debate with Dr. James White. It was Jerome who separated the combined book of Ezra and Nehemiah into the single

Starting point is 00:10:17 book of Ezra to become 1st Ezra's and the single book of Nehemiah to become 2nd Ezra's. The original 1st Ezra's, which included these two and a half extra chapters, Jerome then classified as third Ezra's, including it in the Vulgate since it was in the Septuagint. So the old Latin Vulgate edition in use for so many hundred years, complete with all its parts, included third Ezra's, which the New Catholic Encyclopedia affirms, quote, the Council of Trent definitively removed Third Esdras from the canon, which was not included in the later ecumenical councils of Florence and Trent, which declared that later anathema. In 787, canon one and two of the Second Ecumenical Council of Nicaea affirm the previous canon lists of Hippo and Carthage,

Starting point is 00:11:03 which included Third Esdras and these two and a half extra chapters. By doing this, 2nd Nicaea was proclaiming it had in its possession the written books received by the apostles from the mouth of Christ himself, which have come down even unto us, transmitted as it were from hand to hand. When Florence convened 700 years later, not only did it not include 3rd Esdras, it did not pass over and silence this book like Trent would do a century later. This causes four major problems with the Catholic biblical canon. First, three ecumenical councils contradicted themselves on inspiration and canonicity of

Starting point is 00:11:38 Third Esdras, which was in Jerome's old Latin Vulgate edition, as well as in Hippo and Carthage, and affirmed by the same pope in the same year the Vulgate edition, as well as in Hippo and Carthage, and affirmed by the same pope in the same year the Vulgate was completed by Jerome. Second, by Trent passing over in silence Third Esdras, as well as other books in Orthodox Bibles, rather than making a judgment call like Second Nicaea and Florence had done previously, the Ecumenical Council of Trent declared it did not know whether or not these books were in the Old Testament canon of Jesus and the first century church who did know. Third, the Council of Trent ended up anathematizing not only Florence but also itself since they both rejected Jerome's old Latin Vulgate edition in its entirety with all its parts, which included those two and a half chapters in Third Esdras. And fourth,

Starting point is 00:12:21 not only did Trent omit Third Esdras, previously declared canonical as well as not canonical by the two previous ecumenical councils, Trent also included the book of Baruch and the epistle of Jeremiah, which were not included in the Council of Rome, nor the Old Testament or Old Latin Vulgate, affirmed by Jerome himself, and later rejected as canonical as well as the rest of the Deuterocanon, by the Glossa Ordinaria, the authoritative Bible used for the training of theologians throughout the latter Middle Ages. But is there any evidence from antiquity for the canonicity of the Protestant Old Testament canon? In the foreword to the Deuterocanonical Book of Sirach, which enumerates no less than 17 of the 22 books of the Hebrew Bible, beginning with Genesis and ending with 2 Chronicles,

Starting point is 00:13:05 including books from the writings, the grandson of Jesus Ben Sirach wrote about his grandfather, Jesus, who having devoted himself for a long time to the diligent study of the law of the prophets and the rest of the books of our ancestors. The New American Bible, authorized by the Confraternity of Christian Doctrine and approved by the National Conference of Catholic Bishops, regarded this time period as before the time of Sirach, according to the threefold division of the present Hebrew Bible, which would be before 300 BC, meaning he did not consider his grandfather's writing a part of this threefold division, but distinct from it. Other intertestamental writings writings such as 1 and 2 Maccabees list the other five books, including Esther. Around 400 BC in Nehemiah chapter 9 records Israel gathered in a great assembly, confessing their sins and worshiping God, reading from the scriptures, which involved praying from the book of the Lord their God,

Starting point is 00:14:03 beginning with a creation account in Genesis through Deuteronomy, Judges and Joshua, and from 1 Samuel through 2 Chronicles, which Nehemiah concluded in verse 38 was then committed in writing. These are among several reasons why 2 Chronicles is listed as the last canonical book in the Hebrew Bible, the Tanakh, which are the same Old Testament bookends Jesus used in Matthew 23 and Luke 11 when he defined its parameters from the blood of Abel to the blood of Zechariah, which even the Vatican has described the Tanakh, the Hebrew Bible, as, quote, the sacred scriptures which Christians call the Old Testament. The New Testament uses around 300

Starting point is 00:14:41 metonyms, terms to introduce Old Testament writings, like it is written. 100% of them are used to quote books from the Hebrew Bible, while zero are used for the Deuterocanon, including books like Sirach and Wisdom, which are merely alluded to in it in the New Testament, but not with a metonym. in his church history wrote that Josephus enumerates the canonical scriptures forming the Old Testament, which was limited to only 22 books, beginning with the five books of Moses and spanning from the death of Moses to that of Artaxerxes, the latter dying around 400 BC, when the last book of the Hebrew Bible was penned. These designations and historical boundaries for the Old Testament canon are used consistently throughout the first few centuries, even by doctors of the church, including Jerome, Cyril of Jerusalem, Athanasius of Alexandria, and others like Irenaeus, Melito of Sardis, Origen, and even later by various popes, cardinals, and other renowned Catholics like Erasmus, right up to the time of the Reformation.

Starting point is 00:15:40 Even though their Old Testament lists are not always identical, what we do see consistently is a much smaller canon far closer to the Protestant Old Testament. For example, Josephus' 22-book list includes the five books of Moses, the prophets after Moses recorded in 13 books, and the remaining four contain hymns to God. Despite not listing each individual writing, we can be certain what these books were by thinking like a first century Jew in Israel. When individual Old Testament prophetic books are merged back to their original form, such as the 12 minor prophets merged back to a single book like mentioned in Sirach, they reduced to 13 books. The only four hymns of God written prior to the death of Artaxerxes were the Psalms and Proverbs, which the New Testament specifically identifies as scripture, and the Song of Solomon and Ecclesiastes, which were also authored by King Solomon. By adding the five books of Moses to the 13 prophetic books to the four hymns of God, we get 22 books, which are the same 22 books that both Josephus and Augustine stated were

Starting point is 00:16:41 laid up in the temple 200 years before Christ, and Rabbi Ben Akiba described it as making the hands unclean, meaning holy and inspired. Although later editions of the Septuagint, the Greek translation of the Old Testament, included the Deuterocanon, none of these books were included in the earlier version in Jesus' day, which was limited to those 22 books in the Hebrew Bible. When the New Testament quotes directly from books from the Septuagint, specifically as Scripture, it only quotes books from these boundaries. But as Trent Horms stated on his Council of Trent podcast, Jesus and the Apostles quote from the Old Testament a lot. And no, there's no direct quotation from the Deuterocanonical books in

Starting point is 00:17:20 Scripture, including those alluded to in the New Testament over a hundred times, like Sirach and Wisdom. As Gary Machuda admitted after the first century, more and more books were added to the Septuagint, so the Septuagint today is much bigger than before. Not only do these later versions of the Septuagint include the Deuterocanon, they also include the Apocryphal writings, including 3rd Esdras, 1st Enoch, the Apocalypse of Baruch, 3rd and 4th Maccabees, the Odes, including the Prayer of Manasseh, the Psalms of Solomon, Psalm 151, and several other books not found in Catholic Old Testament today, which the New Testament also alludes to or even directly quotes more frequently than most of the Deuterocanon, which Trent Horn even admitted in his podcast. There's also direct quotations from other apocryphal works and non-biblical works. In the centuries just prior to the time of Christ,

Starting point is 00:18:09 it was not unusual for pseudepigraphal writers to title their books after well-known biblical characters like Enoch, Moses, Solomon, Manasseh, Isaiah, and Ezra, as well as Jeremiah, Baruch, Daniel, and Esther, despite these books being written centuries after these biblical characters had died, which were added to later versions of the Septuagint. Eusebius would later identify its original boundaries by quoting Irenaeus in the second century. Quote, regarding the Septuagint, these divine scriptures from beginning to end at the time of Artaxerxes, God inspired Ezra to restore all the words of the prophets of old, as well as the law given by Moses, which are the same books in Protestant Old Testaments today. John Martinoni of the Bible Christian Society, and host of EWTN's Open Line, acknowledged the Septuagint

Starting point is 00:18:55 was completed around 134 BC, which was before most of the Deuterocanon was even written, including Judith, 1 and 2 Maccabees, the Greek additions to Daniel and Esther, and possibly Tobit, Baruch, and the epistle of Jeremiah. One of the reasons Luther rejected the so-called Deuterocanon was because he could not find them in the Targums, that is, Aramaic paraphrases of the Old Testament written between the 1st century BC to the 1st century AD, which include virtually all of the books in the Hebrew Bible, including Esther, but none from the Deuterocanon, including those originally written in Hebrew, such as Sirach and Tobit and possibly 1 Maccabees, Judith, Baruch, and parts of wisdom,

Starting point is 00:19:35 despite all of them having been written before the Targums were penned. When examining the writings of early church fathers who wrote closer to the time of the apostles, in regions where the Old Testament was written, and who were aware of the contents of the Hebrew Bible of antiquity, we consistently find their Old Testament canons with virtually all of the books in Protestant Old Testaments. But you don't find even a single one whose canon even resembles a Catholic Old Testament until at least the late 4th century or even later, and even then not consistently. And that's because unlike the books in the Hebrew Bible, the Deuterocanon does not possess the three most importantly godly criteria. One, free from errors and contradictions

Starting point is 00:20:16 with previous and later inspired scripture. Two, written during the time of Moses to the death of Artaxerxes when prophecy ceased. And three, written during a time of miracle-performing prophets to validate the writings originated from God, just as the New Testament was written by miracle-performing apostles and not afterwards. Perhaps this is why even doctors of the church, such as Jerome, Cyril, and Athanasius, and even Cardinal Cajetan and the Glossa Ordinaria, describe the Deuterocanon as apocrypha, while simultaneously affirming the books in the Hebrew Bible as being part of the Old Testament canon.

Starting point is 00:20:49 In Mark chapter 12, when Jesus asked the Jewish leaders, have you not read the scripture and then quoted Psalm 118? He was not merely expecting them to know that just this single psalm was scripture, or just that the book of Psalms was scripture, but rather he expected them to know the difference between which writings were Scripture and which ones were not, and therefore what the Old Testament included and what it did not, which demonstrates the Old Testament canon did not develop, yet neither the Ecumenical Council of Trent nor the Magisterium of the Catholic Church today know,

Starting point is 00:21:19 even though Jesus and the first century Church did know. Okay, thank you very much, Steve. Trent, whenever you're ready. All right. Let's bring this up here. Okay. All righty. Well, thank you very much, Steve.

Starting point is 00:21:44 I'd like to thank—oh, here, let's start right now, and let's go. I'd like to thank Matt for hosting this debate, and I'd like to say, Steve, for... Thank Steve for participating in it and for that wonderful opening statement. The resolution for our debate today is that all Christians should accept the Protestant Old Testament canon, or that only these 39 books represent the inspired Word of God. This would exclude duro-canonical books of Sirach, Wisdom, Tobit, Judith, Baruch, 1st and 2nd Maccabees, and additional portions of Daniel and Esther. In order to justify the claim that Steve is defending, he needs to present a standard that tells us what writings prior to Christ are inspired

Starting point is 00:22:23 and why we should accept that particular standard. Remember, he carries the burden of proof in this debate as carrying the affirmative resolution. What I will do in my opening statement is show that no such standard exists and is contradicted by the biblical and historical evidence. First, let's start with the last books of the Protestant Old Testament, which Steve says are Ezra and Nehemiah in the 5th century. He claims that Ezra closed thehemiah in the 5th century. He claims that Ezra closed the Hebrew canon along with other learned men at a meeting called the Great Synagogue. However, the earliest evidence for this alleged event comes 600 years later in the 2nd century after Christ. It's not mentioned in any book of the Bible or even in non-biblical witnesses like Josephus or Philo. And contrary to what Steve asserts in his book, Nehemiah says

Starting point is 00:23:05 nothing about arranging the canon, starting with Genesis and ending with 2 Chronicles. In fact, as Baptist scholar Lee McDonald points out, the book of Malachi only implores its listeners to remember the law of Moses, which would be strange if there was a fixed set of writings established by Ezra called the prophets at this time. That's why Protestant scholars since the 19th century have rejected the idea of the canon being closed at Ezra's great synagogue. Steve also cites in his book Gagin and Holmes' The Bible for Dummies in favor of the great synagogue, but on page 11 the authors make no mention of this event, nor do they describe Ezra's canon being identical to the Protestant Old Testament. Instead, they say some

Starting point is 00:23:45 Jews accepted the deuterocanonical books of Scripture and that many Christian communities embrace these works as part of the Bible. What about the deuterocanonical books of Scripture written in the 400 years before Christ's birth? Did their authors believe God had stopped speaking decades or centuries earlier? No. In fact, the authors of books like Sirach said they were led to write down God's wisdom and that all wisdom comes from God, which indicates they thought they were writing scripture, which wouldn't make sense if the Hebrew canon were closed. The Jews eventually settled on a threefold division of scripture, the law, the prophets, and the writings, the latter of which wasn't a category during the

Starting point is 00:24:22 time of the Deuterocanonical books and wasn't closed until after the time of Christ. According to Old Testament scholar Otto Kaiser, the Deuterocanonical books, quote, preserved the validity of the Law and the Prophets and also utilized the Ketubim, or writings collection, which was at the time still in the process of being formed and not yet closed. Steve claims the term, in his book he says the term the law and the prophets refers to the Protestant Old Testament canon, when in reality it's often used as a generic term for scripture without specifying exact boundaries. Lee MacDonald says all sacred books that were not a part of the law were considered by Jews, Jesus, and his followers to be a part of the prophets. And biblical scholar Andrew Steinman,

Starting point is 00:25:05 who holds to an early closing of the Hebrew canon, even admits that when it comes to 2 Maccabees' reference to the prophets, quote, we cannot be certain what the content of the prophets were. And the same is true of the writings. Jeffrey Hanneman says in his book on the Jewish canon, the writings, the remaining elements, still appear undefined to New Testament writers. canon, the writings, the remaining elements, still appear undefined to New Testament writers. This section also included the deuterocanonical books, as is evidenced in the Talmudic tract Babakama 92b, which quotes Sirach 1215 as belonging to the writings. Nobody denies the Jews had scripture. Where we disagree is on what books made up the law and the prophets, just as we disagree in this debate on what books make up the Old Testament. In fact, in Luke 16, 16, Jesus says the Law and the Prophets were until

Starting point is 00:25:50 John the Baptist, not Malachi. This means the period of the Law and the Prophets would include the time of the Deuterocanonical books of Scripture. For example, the Essene Jews, whose writings have been preserved in the Dead Sea Scrolls, recognize the deuterocanonical books as being inspired. Qumran scholar Immanuel Tov says books like Sirach were written in a special layout that was reserved for biblical compositions. However, Steve claims in his book that we can know, in spite of Jewish disagreement about the canon's contents, that God inspired the Protestant Old Testament through a somewhat speculative argument. It goes like this.

Starting point is 00:26:26 One, the canon of the Pharisees was identical to the Protestant Old Testament canon. Two, the Pharisees had supreme teaching authority in Jesus' time. Three, God chose Paul, a Christian who remained a Pharisee, to write one-third of the New Testament. And four, therefore the Pharisees had the correct Old Testament canon, and so we should accept the Protestant Old Testament canon that matches it. The problem with this argument is that all the premises can be easily challenged. First, while the canon of rabbinic Judaism that developed after Christ

Starting point is 00:26:57 matches the Protestant canon, we have no evidence the Pharisees in Jesus' time held to this canon, or that they even had a defined canon. Steve cites in his book a video of my colleague Jimmy Akin talking about the contents of the Pharisees' canon. But he probably should have also cited in his book what Jimmy said before that. Namely, it wasn't entirely clear to every group of Jews exactly what books belonged in the Old Testament. In Jimmy's work, The Bible is a Catholic Book, he said of the Pharisees' canon, the boundaries of this collection were still somewhat fuzzy. Some rabbis opposed the

Starting point is 00:27:31 scriptural status of six books, Ruth, Esther, Proverbs, Ecclesiastes, Song of Solomon, and Ezekiel. By contrast, some quoted Sirach as a book of scripture, though it was eventually excluded. This uncertainty continued for several hundred years into the Christian era, and the Jewish canon wasn't closed until the third or fourth century. Timothy Lim, in his book Formation of the Jewish Canon, agrees, saying, Paul belonged to a Jewish sect that had a canon that was determined, but not yet defined. We do not know the extent of his canon. Paul's letters were occasional, and the scriptural texts that he cited and used were determined largely by the circumstances in which he was

Starting point is 00:28:09 writing. In the video Steve cites, Jimmy goes on to say that Jesus and the apostles went a bit further than the Pharisees on the issue of the canon. That's because they primarily quoted the Septuagint, or the Greek Old Testament. Timothy Michael Law, who serves as the co-editor of the Oxford Handbook on the Septuagint, says the deuterocanonical books were included in the Septuagint, and it would be mistaken to imagine they had never been read as divine scripture. Now, Steve claims that the deuterocanon was not in the first century Septuagint, but the evidence points in the complete opposite direction. 1 Clement cites from the deuterocanonical books, as well as Polycarp, so early apostolic fathers cite from it.

Starting point is 00:28:48 Josephus, who cited from the Septuagint in the first century, cites Deutero-Esther and Maccabees in his Antiquities of the Jews. And finally, the Kyge-Ressentient, a product of the Pharisees that added a Hebrew flavor to the Septuagint, includes Deuterocanonical Daniel and Baruch. Second, he was incorrect in his book when he said the Pharisees had unique doctrinal authority over all the other Jews. That's because Jesus said the Pharisees shared the seed of Moses with the scribes, some of whom belonged to other Jewish sects. So it's not a stunning endorsement of the Pharisees by any means. Let's see here. Well, I'll go on with this, I suppose.

Starting point is 00:29:29 To continue with the argument that Steve makes in his book, Paul stopped being a Pharisee after he became a Christian. While Acts 23 describes Paul citing his Pharisaical heritage as a defensive legal maneuver, in Acts 26.5, Paul tells King Agrippa that he lived in the past tense as a Pharisee. In Philippians 3.7, he says whatever gain he had as a Pharisee, he counted as a loss for the sake of Christ. In Galatians 1.13, he calls his Pharisaical past a former way of life. Also, Paul drew extensively on themes from the Deuterocanonical works in his own writings. Denver Seminary

Starting point is 00:30:05 Professor Joseph Dodson says, scholars for at least three centuries have found value in comparing the Deuterocanonical Book of Wisdom and Romans. Moreover, if Paul wrote the letter to the Hebrews, then he clearly cites the Deuterocanonical Book of Maccabees, as I'll explain shortly. So, let's see here. So what did Jesus and the apostles say about the canon of Scripture? Some people claim that they only accepted the Protestant canon because they never cited the deuterocanonical books of Scripture. But if being cited in the New Testament makes an Old Testament book inspired, then this would invalidate nearly a dozen Old Testament books. Protestant scholar Bruce Metzger says, nowhere in the New Testament is there a direct quotation

Starting point is 00:30:47 from the canonical books of Joshua, Judges, Chronicles, Ezra, Nehemiah, Esther, Ecclesiastes, the Song of Solomon, Obadiah, Zephaniah, and Nahum. And the New Testament allusions to them are few in number. Moreover, Jude cites the apocryphal book of Enoch that is in neither Catholic nor Protestant Bibles. He even says Enoch prophesied, which Steve says in his own book is a metonym or a substitute term for inspired scripture. This means that if we ignore the teachings of Christ's Church and we

Starting point is 00:31:15 only tried to reconstruct the Old Testament canon based on how it is cited in the New Testament, we would have to include apocryphal works like 1 Enoch and disqualify many Old Testament books that are not cited in the New Testament. Instead, we should follow the evidence where it leads and honestly ask, what did the apostles and the early church think of the deuterocanonical books of Scripture? According to Protestant scholar David A. De Silva, New Testament authors weave phrases and recreate lines of arguments from apocryphal books into their new texts. They also allude to events and stories contained in these texts. The word paraphrase very frequently provides adequate description of the relationship.

Starting point is 00:31:55 But we can go even further and show they believe these works were inspired scripture. For example, Hebrews 11.35 describes a group of people during salvation history who, quote, were tortured, refusing to accept release, that they may rise again to a better life. The only record of an event like this is found in 2 Maccabees 7, which describes brothers who accept torture over violating Jewish law and hope for a better resurrection in the process. Catholic apologist Gary Machuda has posted excerpts on his website from 50, five zero, Protestant commentaries that agree with this conclusion. And since the context of Hebrews 11 includes the men of old who received divine approval, it follows that the books

Starting point is 00:32:37 describing the Maccabean martyrs were part of the Old Testament that was used by the author of the letter of the Hebrews. Or to provide another example, many Protestant scholars say Wisdom chapter 2 contains a messianic prophecy. That's because verse 18 describes the enemies of the righteous one saying, if the righteous one is the son of God, God will help him and deliver him from the hand of his foes. This perfectly parallels Matthew 27 43, which records the Jewish leader's taunts about God saving the Son of God during the crucifixion. It says, they said, he trusts in God. Let God deliver him now if he desires him, for he said, I am the Son of God.

Starting point is 00:33:18 No other passage in the Protestant Old Testament describes the promise that God will rescue the Son of God from his enemies that the Jewish leaders would have quoted to taunt Jesus, except for that found in Wisdom chapter 2. What about after the Apostolic Age? When it comes to ancient Jewish authors, Christians shouldn't be concerned if they, like most Jews today, didn't believe the Deuterocanonical books were Scripture. They also didn't believe that the New Testament documents were inspired. So these ancient Jewish authorities don't have a great track record when it comes to identifying scripture. Moreover, there was a diversity of thought among Jews until the second century after Christ over what constituted their canon. Indeed, the Talmudic tract Sanhedrin 100b refers

Starting point is 00:33:59 to rabbis withdrawing Sirach or declaring it to be no longer inspired and thus removing it from synagogue reading. Because so many Jews were reading Deuterocanonical books, a leading rabbi had to declare they were not scripture, which is evidence against a uniform closed Hebrew canon during this time. Christian authors, however, never present a list of inspired books written before the time of Christ that matches the Protestant Old Testament canon. Origen and Melito present lists that modern scholars recognize are Jewish in Origen, and so they lack the Deuterocanonicals. But even these lists are missing books like Esther and the Minor Prophets. They don't match the Protestant canon that Steve is defending in this debate.

Starting point is 00:34:42 Moreover, these fathers and ecclesial authors, Origen, Melito, and many others, what we do find in them are hundreds of citations of the deuterocanonical books as inspired scripture. Cyril of Jerusalem refers to Baruch as the prophet, and he cites it in defense of the deity of Christ. Athanasius calls wisdom in Judith scripture, and he uses wisdom chapter seven as evidence for the deity of Christ.

Starting point is 00:35:06 Even St. Jerome, who is skeptical of the manuscript history of these books, testifies that the Council of Nicaea considered Judith a part of scripture. As the Protestant scholar J. N. D. Kelly says, for the great majority of the early Church Fathers, the deuterocanonical writings ranked as scripture in the fullest sense. Finally, don't forget who has the burden of proof in this debate, and watch out for a tactic that Steve may deploy. Steve has the burden of showing that all Christians should accept as the Old Testament canon only the 39 books that make up the Protestant canon. He needs to show us where God revealed this truth,

Starting point is 00:35:40 and so far he's only done that with shaky, conjectural arguments and attacks on the Catholic way of articulating the canon. So what he may end up doing is furthering an attack on the Deuterocanonical books and claim the Protestant canon wins by default. But that's not enough to meet the burden of proof and show all Christians should accept the inspiration of the Protestant Old Testament canon. What do all of those books have in common that justifies every Christian assenting to only

Starting point is 00:36:06 their inspiration as Old Testament books? And why did the early Church almost universally accept the deuterocanonical books of Scripture in spite of Steve's claim that the apostles gave them directly a canon that did not include them? These are the crucial questions Steve needs to answer, and I look forward in my rebuttal period to further addressing the arguments he has proposed and show why they don't justify assent to the Protestant Old Testament canon. All right, thank you, Trent. We're going to now move into our first rebuttal period, starting with you, Steve. You have seven minutes. Begin whenever you're ready. Wow, seven minutes to cover all that. I'll do my best. Well, as far as the...

Starting point is 00:36:49 Hey, we'll start again there. Oh, okay. That was my timer. We'll also deduct two points from Trent Warren's first rebuttal for interrupting. Go for it whenever. Okay. Well, I actually did give some godly criteria in my opening statement, one of them being errors and contradictions that are found in every one of the Deuterocanonical books that are not found in any of the Hebrew Bible books. as well as the Hebrew Bible, but when it comes to the Deuterocanon, it's interesting how Catholic apologists will try to say that these books are allegorical or something like that. And I'd be

Starting point is 00:37:31 curious what Trent would say about Judith claiming not once, twice, but four times that Nebuchadnezzar was the king of Assyria who ruled ruled Nineveh when in reality it was Babylon. But as far as being cited, I think Trent missed the point in my book about certain books being quoted with certain terms like it is written. Because certain books were grouped together like Jeremiah and Lamentations. So just because Lamentations is not cited with one of these formulas, because it was part of that book, it was considered to be just as much inspired because it was originally part of it. Same with Ruth and Judges and Obadiah and some of the other 12 minor prophets. And also, I did not say that 1 Enoch was saying that it's prophecy, making it a point that it is scripture.

Starting point is 00:38:23 It's saying that that specific verse is prophetic, and it's prophetic inspired because it's in the New Testament, but Jude is not saying that it is Old Testament Scripture. There's a difference between something that's prophecy, which can be verbal and written down later, versus something that is written. And as far as Hebrews 11.37, And as far as Hebrews 11.37, the writer of Hebrews is not saying that 2 Maccabees is Scripture. All he's saying is that those martyrs were demonstrating their faith, which we find out at the very beginning of Hebrews, and it doesn't use a metonym like it is written to qualify it as scripture. As he mentioned, Wisdom chapter 2, that it is a reference to Matthew chapter 27, 43. And yet in both the New American Bible, which is a Catholic version and the New Catholic version of the Bible, it actually says that it is citing Psalm 22 or 21, depending on what type of version of the Bible that you have.

Starting point is 00:39:26 And if you actually read a wisdom chapter two, it actually has an additional part that's not found in Matthew chapter 27. I would encourage you to actually look at the part in wisdom chapter two that Trent is talking about. And it doesn't say that in Psalm 22, nor in Matthew chapter 27. Rather, Matthew is citing back to Psalm 22. As far as Esther, according to Roger Beckwith in his book, The Old Testament Canon, the New Testament book, New Testament church, there are reasons why Esther might not have been included. It might have been included under another book, and Testament church, there are reasons why Esther might not have been included. It might have been included under another book. Another thing is that the Essenes, after their split with the Pharisees, might have had a problem with Esther because they were on a solar calendar while the

Starting point is 00:40:17 rest of the Jews were on a lunar calendar, and they could not have holy days on the Sabbath, which the holy day of Purim would have fallen on that day. And as far as the discrepancies, as the New Catholic Version or the newadvent.org states, as far as the differences between the different Pharisaic schools, they were simply theoretical difficulties. But even in the school of Shammai, they actually included all those books in their canon. Trent would have to prove that those books were not in those scriptures. And we also have to remember both Philo of Alexandria in the early part of the first century and Josephus limited these books down, and Josephus specifically says 22 books. So Trent is confusing what Josephus limited these books down, and Josephus specifically says 22 books. So Trent is confusing what Josephus may have personally believed with what he's saying that the Jews of his ancestries believed. And again, you can only get 22 books by including all the books including Esther.

Starting point is 00:41:19 That's why this number 22 or 24 is used both prior to the time of Christ and afterwards. For instance, in the book of Jubilees, it says that there are 24 books, and it doesn't mean that there are two more books. It was just whether or not Jeremiah and Lamentations and Ruth and Judges were separated or not. Let's see what else. And it's not unusual that later on in church age that some early church fathers, including Cyril, would include Baruch as part of their canon, because by then Baruch was part of the Septuagint, then. There were various versions of it, you know, over the centuries, you know, into the church age, which is something that we can prove from history. And as far as J. N. D. Kelly, you know, saying that they're canonical in the fullest sense, he also said that they were at a, that those books were considered at a lower level, especially with early church fathers in the East. Another thing, too, is that even Augustine made a difference between a book that was canonical versus ecclesiastical.

Starting point is 00:42:34 And the canonical books were specifically mentioned as being those books specifically of the Hebrew Bible, the ecclesiastical books were good for edification and reading in the church, but not considered to be at the same level as canonical scripture. That's why Sixtus of Siena ended up placing the Deuterocanonical books at a lower tier in the 16th century than the books of the Protocanon or the Hebrew Bible and the other books that we would all consider to be apocryphal in the third tier. And as far as the seed of Moses, this is in Matthew chapter 23, when he's talking to the Pharisees, and he says that the Pharisees specifically are in the seed of Moses, and then later on in the chapter he identifies the parameters of their canon, which is from the blood of Abel to the

Starting point is 00:43:26 blood of Zechariah. And I would be curious, Trent, what you would think of his claim, Jesus' claim to the Pharisees, by identifying those parameters which end with 2 Chronicles. And I'll give up my last 20 seconds. All right, thanks very much. Trent, you have seven minutes. All righty, let me set my timer. All right. All right, well, thank you, Steve. There's a lot of arguments. Let's see how many that we'll get through.

Starting point is 00:43:56 First, you can't say— if you're going to say that the Deuterocanonical books don't belong in the Bible because there are apparent errors in them, I've got the Encyclopedia of Biblical Errancy in here. This is an atheist who's cataloged thousands of apparent errors in the proto-canonical books of Scripture you and I agree with. So, Steve, if you believe that someone can believe in the Bible, that it's inspired, the Old Testament's inspired, without having to answer

Starting point is 00:44:20 every single one of these arguments for the proto-canon, I can believe the deuterocanon is inspired without answering all of the objections that are placed there. Though I will say about Judith, as I cite in my book, Martin Luther considered Judith to be a fictional parable or allegory. Kerry Moore of the Anchor Bible Commentary series said that the gaffe about Nebuchadnezzar is, quote, no slip of the pen, and that the author of Judith, if he read his book aloud, would have given his listeners a slight smile or a sly wink. It's not literal history, it's an allegory that's being presented. The argument that Jesus was laying out the canon from the blood of Abel to the blood of Zechariah, let's go into that a little more deeply. So Jesus said to the Pharisees, all the righteous blood shed on earth, and blood of innocent Abel

Starting point is 00:45:03 to the blood of Zechariah, the son of Berechiah, who you murdered between the sanctuary and the altar. What Steve is trying to say is that Jesus is saying that the canon starts with Abel in Genesis and Zechariah in 2 Chronicles. This argument has a ton of problems with it. First, ancient Jews kept their books in a series of scrolls, not in a book with a table of contents. So it's an anachronistic argument. in a series of scrolls, not in a book with a table of contents, so it's an anachronistic argument. Second, the earliest codex we have is the 10th century Aleppo Codex, and that places Chronicles at the beginning of the writing, so the order's all wrong, which he was trying to make. Third, Professor Edmund Gallagher says the Church Fathers never read this verse as a reference to

Starting point is 00:45:39 the Old Testament canon. Fourth, the Zechariah killed in 2 Chronicles was the son of Jehoiada, not Berechiah, as Jesus mentions in Matthew 23. Fifth, H. G. L. Peale notes in his study of this very passage, he says Jesus is not marking beginning and end points in time. He's contrasting Abel's secret death in the wilderness, and of course, Abel is not a prophet, he's not talking about all the prophets. His secret death in the wilderness was Zechariah's public death in the temple. He says, quote, Jesus' words would have sounded exactly the same if the narrative of Zechariah's death had occurred in the book of Kings or the Psalms. This cannot figure as a witness of the Old Testament canon being fixed and closed.

Starting point is 00:46:18 That's why even scholars who believe the canon was closed before Christ, like Andrew Steinman, reject this argument. When it comes to Enoch and prophecy, that's not correct. In Steve's book, he said that prophesied is a metonym referring to sacred scripture, and he cross-references Matthew 2.23. When it comes to wisdom chapter 2, that's correct. Matthew 27 does cite Psalm 22, but Psalm 22 doesn't talk about God rescuing the Son of God. Wisdom 2 does, and the King James Version of the Bible, the 1611 Authorized Version, references this, because it cross-references Matthew 27 with Wisdom 2 and Psalm 22. Second, Hebrews chapter 11, verses 35 to 37, the beginning of the chapter uses a biblical metonym that says these men were approved, they were attested to, which is

Starting point is 00:47:02 something Steve also recognizes in his book, and they refer to this being sacred scripture. When it comes to Esther, Steve made a weak excuse, well, maybe the Essenes just didn't celebrate Purim on their solar calendar. Actually, a 2018 discovery just showed they actually did celebrate Purim in a wineskinned archaeological find. The Catholic Encyclopedia saying the doubts among the Pharisees being only theoretical, that's an article that's over a hundred years old that relies on the theory that the rabbis closed the canon at the Council of Jamnia, which was later refuted 50 years later in Jack Lewis's 1964 article, What Do We Mean When We Speak About Yavne? So it's just out of date, and it's clear when you look at all the historical records

Starting point is 00:47:41 that the schools of Hillel and Shammai disagreed about several books of Scripture, and also considered books like Sirach to be in the Bible, but then it was later taken out. Steve mentioned Philo not citing the Deuterocanonicals, that's true, but however, Philo, the ancient Jewish philosopher, out of his 2,000 citations of the Old Testament, 1,950 of them are in the Pentateuch, are in the first five books. So it's not a real good source to tell us what he thought about the writings of the Deutero-canon. When it comes to Josephus, Josephus cited Deutero-Esther as inspired scripture in the Antiquities and references 1 Maccabees in the Antiquities. Josephus, in his argument against Appian, he's making an apologetic against pagan critics. He's exaggerating, which is something that Josephan scholars recognize. These include people like Steve Mason, Joseph Campbell, or Jonathan Campbell,

Starting point is 00:48:31 I should say. They recognize Josephus as exaggerating. Not only does he say that the canon was 22 books in uniform, but he claims the manuscripts had never been altered at all, which we know is not true based on the divergent Hebrew manuscript traditions. When it comes to the Catholic councils, this is kind of extraneous because it doesn't deal with the point of our debate, which is, should we believe in the Protestant Old Testament canon? That's what we're debating today. But I will say that he's incorrect in that. When we're talking about Esdras, this is complicated. Esdras, 1 Esdras, also called the third Ezra, it's not an apocryphal book, it's a compilation of material in Ezra Chronicles and Nehemiah. And so when the councils mention things like two books

Starting point is 00:49:11 of Ezra, they're referring to Ezra and Nehemiah as separate books, which is confirmed by Cyril in his catechetical lectures and Augustine, who says that the book of Ezra, the second book of Ezra, is not first Ezra's, as Steve might be implying. It's a sequel to the continuous regular history that terminates with Kings and Chronicles. When it comes to, let's see here, oh, the Targums. Steve said that an evidence against the Deuterocanonical books being scriptures that they're not cited in the Aramaic Targums. Targums are a paraphrase of the Bible.

Starting point is 00:49:43 When the Bible was in Hebrew, it was later paraphrased or copied into Aramaic for people to read. The problem with this argument is that the Aramaic Targums also don't include Ezra, Nehemiah, or the book of Daniel as well, yet they're inspired. Moreover, the earliest Targum on Kellos from the first century is just a summary of the Torah, the first five books of the Bible. Later Targums that don't include the Deuterocanonical books, like Targum Jonathan, date from the 3rd century after Christ, and would reflect later Rabbinic Judaism's rejection of the Deuterocanon, not the contents of the Septuagint in the 1st century, or what Jews and Christians accepted as Scripture at that time, and since I already said in my opening that Jesus and the Apostles primarily, 80% of the time, cite from the Septuagint,

Starting point is 00:50:24 and we have evidence from the Apostolic Fathers, from of the time, cite from the Septuagint, and we have evidence from the Apostolic Fathers, from Josephus, from documents like the Kyge Recension that show that Deuterocanonical books were a part of this collection, and from them being cited in the Bible itself as being Scripture, as being referenced as Scripture, we have more than enough evidence to show that they definitely did not hold to the Protestant Old Testament canon that Steve is defending in this debate. Okay, thanks Trent. We're going to move now to our second round of rebuttals before our cross-examination. That's okay, it's just part of the show, it's a Pints with Aquinas theme thing, that's what it is. So whenever you want to start,

Starting point is 00:51:00 Steve, I'll click start. Okay, this is four minutes, right? Correct. Okay. All right. Regarding his reference with the atheist book, I would like him to show me one error that is not reconcilable in the Hebrew Bible that would be at the same level as Judas saying that Nebuchadnezzar ruled in Nineveh. And to say that it's an allegory, I'm sorry, but that's just an easy exit way out. Philo, he had Pharisaical tendencies, you know, and so, and we actually read a lot of the books that he actually considered to be scripture and he cited.

Starting point is 00:51:36 They were books from the Hebrew Bible, not the Deuterocanon. Josephus, yeah, he did some exaggeration saying that all Jews from their birth accepted these books, but he was not exaggerating about the 22 books, and that's the reason why this number pops up so much in church history by Irenaeus, you know, and so many other people as well. You know, and again, he's talking about the history of Judaism. Trent is also incorrect as far as the First Esdras reference. First Esdras included two and a half chapters that are not found in Catholic Old Testaments today, as I mentioned in my opening statement, and it was part of the Septuagint, and even the Catholic Encyclopedia states that Trent removed this book from the canon. It's also mentioned in the Glossa Ordinaria

Starting point is 00:52:26 as well. I don't want to spend too much time because I'm running out of time here, but as far as the blood of Abel to the blood of Zechariah, what Trent may not know is that it was a common rabbinical practice even prior to the time of Christ in order to cite someone that has some of the same characteristics and even the same name as someone else. So when he says in Matthew, from the blood of Abel to the blood of Zechariah, the son of Berechiah, he's actually referencing that this is the son of Jehoiada, not the son of Edo, which is actually mentioned in Aramaic Targum of Lamentations.

Starting point is 00:53:07 And it was very common. For example, in Psalm 34, David pretended madness before Abimelech, but in 1 Samuel 21, it was actually King Ashish. And this is what's known as a name conflation, and that Jesus was actually drawing from an already set canon. And you don't see this as much in Matthew's Gospels as you do in Luke, so maybe a proper reading of it would be, so that upon you may fall the guilt of all the righteous blood of all the prophets, since the foundation of the world that may charge against this generation from the blood of righteous Abel to the blood of Zechariah, whom you murdered between the temple and the altar.

Starting point is 00:53:49 He wasn't saying that this was during the time of Jesus that the Jews had killed this Zechariah. He's talking about the son of Jehoiada. It wouldn't be the son of Berechiah or son of Edo, because during that time, Jews were relatively peaceful to their own and to the prophets, but prior to the Babylonian captivity, they were murdering their own prophets. And you get this setup when you go all the way back to chapter 21 and 22, when he talks about the parables, and he says this specifically to the Pharisees. So he's drawing on a canon that the Pharisees would have recognized, and it's no coincidence that he begins with the first prophet. And a prophet isn't someone necessarily that predicts the future.

Starting point is 00:54:34 It's someone who speaks on behalf of God, and Abel was the first martyred prophet who God drew vengeance with, and he ends with the last prophet that where God is drawing vengeance from, which would be from 2 Chronicles. And this is why even early lists have 2 Chronicles as their last book, and the Jewish readers would have understood who the Zechariah is. In Catholicism they don't know who the Zechariah is, they can only speculate. Okay, thank you, Steve. Trent, you have four minutes to respond, and then we'll move into our cross-examination. Sure thing. Thank you, Tom. Is your head spinning a little bit? That might be understandable. We've been throwing a—this is called inside baseball, you might say. We're throwing a lot back and forth

Starting point is 00:55:24 at each other. It could be hard to keep track. So let me bring this down for everyone to run us through and get back to the core of this debate. Steve has taken the affirmative. The affirmative position has the burden to defend a claim. The claim is that we should all accept the Protestant Old Testament canon and only those books. So ask yourself this.

Starting point is 00:55:44 What standard did Steve give to say, if you follow this, you will know that this is the standard you use, and then it will reveal that these are the only books that are inspired for the Old Testament canon. These are the ones you should follow, this standard. Has he given that kind of a standard? Well, no, he hasn't. He did exactly what I thought he would do. He's attacking the deuterocanonical books and going after the Church instead of building up a case of his own, which doesn't bode well for his position. Now, when it comes to errancy, it's interesting here that Steve will allow—I'm sure he would agree—there are passages in here that people have a hard time explaining the difficulties. Even 2 Peter 3.16 says there are things in Paul's letter that are difficult

Starting point is 00:56:24 to understand. People twist to their own destruction. There are difficult, apparent difficulties in the Bible, but that doesn't stop us from believing that the Bible is inspired. In order to know if something is without error, you have to know if it's inspired first. And then Steve said that saying Judith is an allegory is an easy way out. So is he saying Martin Luther took an easy way out? Is he saying that other biblical scholars who have written book-length commentaries on Judith, like Carey Moore, have taken the easy way out? I actually think it's Steve who's taken the easy way out on this one. When we go and look at Josephus, it's very clear when you read the

Starting point is 00:56:58 scholarly work on him that his rhetoric runs ahead of reality. And this is similar to many of what he says when he puts forward lists to try to match things up to the Old Testament books, which he does not enumerate, which Steve admitted. It doesn't match how he actually uses the book. So you'll have church fathers do something similar where they won't include the Deuterocanon. They include it not as uninspired scripture, but as something that is inspired, but is not necessarily used in public disputes with Jewish or pagan authorities, for example. And that happens all the time. If Steve and I were debating purgatory, for example, I would not cite 1 Corinthians 3.15 and 2 Maccabees 12 in the same vein,

Starting point is 00:57:41 because Steve doesn't accept 2 Maccabees. And the Church Fathers experienced the same thing with the Deuterocanonicals that the rabbis had rejected. When it comes to 1 Esdras, I'm just going to take over Steve's larger point he made in his opening statement, that somehow the Council of Trent is at fault for passing over certain books and not saying whether they're inspired. When the Council of Trent declares the 73 books of the Catholic canon, it's not saying what is not Scripture. It's saying what is Scripture, and it leaves the matter open in other areas. And the Church has the authority to do that. Finally, we look at the blood of Abel and the blood of Zechariah. First, he says, well, Abel is the first prophet. I would

Starting point is 00:58:21 challenge Steve, okay, where does the Bible call Abel a prophet? Where does it say that? There are so many assumptions in this argument. This is the only argument he's got that comes anywhere close to giving you the Protestant Old Testament canon, and it spectacularly fails. As I said before, 2 Chronicles may be the last book in some later rabbinical lists of the Old Testament canon, but it's not the same for many earlier lists, and they didn't even keep them in a book. They kept them as a series of scrolls. And as I cited before, scholars simply disagree with him. This includes people like Andrew Steinman, Lee Martin MacDonald. Notice in our different exchanges, ask yourself, who has been citing biblical scholars to make their case? Myself. And who hasn't been, has been using shaky, conjectural opinions instead.

Starting point is 00:59:08 Okay, thank you, Trent. Well, in a moment, we are going to head into our cross-examination period, which is always a fun time. I want to thank everybody in the live chat who's viewing this right now. Do us a favor, click that thumbs up, share it on Facebook facebook and subscribe if you haven't already but look before we get into the cross-examination period i want to say thank you to ethos logos investments do you want to feel good about your investments it doesn't matter if you've never invested before or if you've been investing for decades ethos low-cost investments makes it easy to invest in portfolios that are good for you both financially and spiritually. We know from Jesus's parables of the talents that Christians are called to exercise good stewardship over their money. We also know we are called to

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Starting point is 01:00:51 So with that out of the way, we're about to move into our cross-examiner is allowed to interrupt and even expected to interrupt and move the flow of the argument as he sees fit. So it's not a matter of being rude. That's just what you get to do when you're the one cross-examining. So Steve, you get to cross-examine Trent for 12 minutes and then Trent will be able to cross-examine you for 12 minutes. Let me know when you're ready. examine you for 12 minutes. Let me know when you're ready. All right. Okay. Jesus and Matthew expected their Jewish audience to know who Zechariah, the son of Berechiah, was. So why does the Catholic Church understand, as an understanding of Matthew chapter 23 and Luke 11 do that? Because we are not in the same—we don't have access to the same datum that a first-century listener would have to what Jesus is referencing. This is a weak point in the argument that you've made, Steve, about the blood of Abel, the blood of Zechariah. It's not the most fatal weak point, but it's one of them. The identity of the Zechariah, who are we referring to?

Starting point is 01:02:10 There are other traditions that say that this is referring to the prophet Zechariah being killed in the temple. Josephus even describes, decades after Christ, a Zechariah being killed in the temple. So this is not a strange occurrence for it to happen. He even says that you have killed. He's talking about something even happening amongst them presently. So yeah, sure, you can interrupt, it's your right to do that. Yeah. But like it says, when he says you, if you combine Matthew and Luke's accounts, you don't get this so much from Matthew as you do from Luke. But when he's saying you, if you combine Matthew and Luke's accounts, you don't get this so much from Matthew as you do

Starting point is 01:02:46 from Luke, but when he's saying you, he's also saying that this is going to come on you or this generation when he's talking about Abel as well as Zechariah, and you still really haven't answered my question, because since the Catholic Church affirms to be the same one true church from the first century, which was Jewish, who knew who Zechariah the son of Berechiah was, how come the same Catholic Church who claims to be that same first century Church, why don't they know since they have the Scriptures? Well, because not every—well, first, I don't believe that all of God's—like you do, I don't believe in sola scriptura, I don't believe all of God's Word is communicated to us through the written Word alone. Some of it comes to us

Starting point is 01:03:28 through sacred tradition. But part of that includes that the apostles—there are things that the apostles taught related to Scripture that was not communicated either in sacred Scripture or in sacred tradition. I'll give you an example. What evidence do you have of that? Sure, I'll give you an example. In 2 Thessalonians chapter 2, which is where actually Paul says that, he says, hold on to our teaching, either by word of mouth or epistle, he talks about, I told you when I first spoke with you the identity of the restrainer, that which would restrain the man of lawlessness. So this is something he told the Thessalonians in person, but it was not preserved in Scripture or in sacred tradition, because to this day, biblical scholars debate the identity

Starting point is 01:04:10 of the restrainer that Paul is talking about in 2 Thessalonians chapter 2, so I would just say that the identity of Zechariah could be just as open. And I don't want to get this into a sola scriptura versus sola ecclesia debate, but when you actually read that passage from 2 Thessalonians, it says, from the word of mouth or from epistle, he's not saying one tradition from the word of mouth and the second one from epistle. If you read the previous statements and the verses that Paul talks about, he's actually talking about the same tradition that's passed down either by word of mouth or by epistle, because this is an example of quote-mining scripture out of context. But again, I want to kind of get away from that. But so your answer is, you don't know, and the Catholic Church

Starting point is 01:04:50 doesn't know, who this Zechariah is, and leaves the Church open to confusion, even though they claim to be the same one true Church, and the Church back then knew, Jesus knew, his Jewish listeners knew. Am I correct? Your question is, do I believe the Church has not formally defined the identity of the Zacharias son of Berechiah that Jesus is mentioning in Matthew 23? Yeah, the Church has—see, the Church has only formally defined the meaning of a handful of biblical passages, like John 3-5, for example. The Church gives great latitude for biblical scholars to propose various interpretations of biblical texts. Okay, so, well, so in other words, you don't know, even though Jesus and the first century Church did know. Okay, let's move on. If there was no set canon by the time of Jesus,

Starting point is 01:05:43 when he held the Jews accountable for knowing what it was when he said have you not read the scriptures it is written which he mentioned numerous times why is there no argumentation from the Pharisees or the Sadducees when he says this in other words why don't they say well I can't be held accountable for that because that wasn't in my canon. Like when Jesus cited from Jonah the prophet, or he identified himself as the son of man, which comes from Daniel, which both Pharisees and Sadducees were present in. Well, I would say that Jesus held men accountable to the revelation that God had given. that God had given. And I think you would agree that the Gospels never record Jesus explicitly saying, these are the books that God has restricted his revelation to. I think an interesting episode to answer your question, Steve, would be when Jesus is speaking, when the Sadducees question Jesus about the resurrection of the dead, what's interesting is that Jesus doesn't say, the reason

Starting point is 01:06:42 you don't believe in the resurrection of the dead is because you don't have all the scriptures, you've rejected the prophets like Daniel, where he could just quote Daniel and put the matter of the resurrection of the dead to an end, because it's very obvious in Daniel there's a resurrection. Instead, he makes a more indirect argument quoting Exodus. So instead of correcting the Sadducees on their canon, he tolerated those differences that existed at that time, but appealed to them and gave an argument for the Resurrection based on the restricted canon that they held. And I think you would agree the Sadducees only believed in the first five books. And that actually leads to the next question, what evidence that you have prior to the time of Christ that the

Starting point is 01:07:17 Sadducees only believed in the first five books of the Bible outside of the Catholic Church telling you that? Well, that's just a general truth that's accepted in biblical studies. Also, I believe... Isn't that true that that belief doesn't really surface until around the time of origin, which would be around the early 3rd century of the Church Age? Well, many of our teachings about Judaism during Christ's time, that arises later on in the Talmud, for example, going back several hundred years. But Josephus is also a witness to the diverse schools of thought between the Pharisees and the Sadducees. But even Scripture itself talks about the Pharisees—it talks about the Sadducees denying these central elements that are present in the other biblical texts, like the belief in their bodily resurrection,

Starting point is 01:08:17 for example. Right, and as Beckwith had pointed out, they considered that more to be an allegory as opposed to, and leaving their children behind as opposed to rejecting the actual books. In fact, there is, I think, either a Beretta or a later church age writing that says that the Sadducees actually quoted from the book of Job in order to refute the resurrection. But that's because a common argument at that time, which is why it's interesting when you see the book of Job combined with the Torah or the Pentateuch, was that there's an ancient rabbinical tradition that the book of Job also had Moses as its author. Okay. So, which certainly is possible, because we don't know. But to move on, how did a believing Jew 50 years before Christ know that books like Isaiah and 2 Chronicles were Scripture when there was no magisterium back then? I mean,

Starting point is 01:09:18 especially when Jesus held them accountable when he said things like, it is written, have you not read the scriptures say? Well, they inherited a tradition from the rabbis that they found themselves loyal to or listened to. So what you would have, the Judaism in Christ's time, if you look at even scholars of Second Temple Judaism, like James Dunn, E.P. Sanders, N.T. Wright, they would more properly say the Judaisms of Jesus's time. And so it's very clear when you look at them, we've discussed the shorter canon of the Sadducees, but it's very clear you also had other Jews that had a wider canon, like the Essenes, who we have found fragments of the Deuterocanonical books in that special psychographical style. Only two. Only two, and they actually found a whole lot more.

Starting point is 01:10:05 So if you consider those to be inspired Scripture, then you also consider the Temple Scroll, War Scroll, Copper Scroll, and all those other books. Well, I only consider what's inspired Scripture what has been received in the Church. As the Council of Carthage in Augustine talks about, the understanding of what belongs in the canon, which was the kerfuffle that Jerome raised that prompted Carthage and Augustine talks about, the understanding of what belongs in the canon, which was the kerfuffle that Jerome raised that prompted Carthage and Hippo to define the

Starting point is 01:10:31 canon for their regional councils. What Augustine said was we know what the scriptures are based on how they've been received into the churches and the temple scroll. And Augustine also made a distinction between canonical scriptures and ecclesiastical scriptures, the latter being edification for the church, and the canonical scriptures being more inspired. And if your authority is Catholic... But that's important. They're inspired. But he's not saying they're inspired. He's saying they're ecclesiastical. There's a difference, and Augustine brings that up. In fact, he even says that the book of Pharisees or the book of Maccabees were not in the law of the Prophets and the Psalms that Jesus was talking about.

Starting point is 01:11:07 But if your authority is going back to Carthage, then you believe in those additional two and a half chapters not found in Catholic Bibles today that is in 1 Esdras. No, as I said earlier in referencing what Gary said in his previous debate with James White, what Gary said in his previous debate with James White, these other books that are not presented, that are not represented at the solemn definition at the Council of Trent, Trent passed over whatever ones that it did not include in the canon that was present at that time. You had mentioned about what passed over means. What's interesting is that the majority of people at Trent passed over in silence, but then there were also those who outright rejected him. So passed over in silence does not mean outright rejection, and that which is different from Florence, which outright rejected. They didn't pass over in silence. So don't you feel that since the Catholic Church did not define specifically the exact

Starting point is 01:12:03 scriptures until the Council of Trent, that that's a bit late in Church history? No, because when councils define, no more than the idea of the Church defining that Christ has, to a human nature and a divine nature, the Council of Chalcedon over 400 years after the crucifixion is not late, or defining at the Fourth Lateran Council the real presence of Christ in the Eucharist a thousand years later, the Church usually defines—to define means to put define, to put an end to something, to controversy that is raised. But those are things that you can actually find in Scripture, those things that you're talking about, but what I'm talking about are the ecumenical councils

Starting point is 01:12:44 contradicting each other, because you have 2 Nicaea affirming Hippo and Carthage, which included these additional works. You've got Florence outright rejecting it, saying it's not Scripture because it doesn't include it, and then you've got Trent not rejecting it, but actually just passing over in silence, meaning they didn't affirm it and they didn't reject it either. Okay, so, but at Carthage it talks about two books of Ezra, which would correspond to Ezra and Nehemiah. No, actually, because this is where you're wrong. First, Ezra's was the additional works of the book of Ezra, and second, Ezra was the combined book of Ezra and Nehemiah. Jerome was the one who separated and put in the Vulgate.

Starting point is 01:13:28 And that's time. Yeah. Okay. Okay, Trent, whenever you'd like to begin, you have 12 minutes to cross-examine. All righty. And then we'll move to our Q&A period. All righty. Steve, I've got just a few questions here for you.

Starting point is 01:13:45 Sure. Did any Jewish source prior to the time of Christ define the Old Testament canon with an enumerated list that corresponds to what you're defending in this debate? book, you don't find anything, whether it's Catholic, Protestant, or anything else, but we do find is, for instance, in Sirach, it enumerates 17 out of the 22 books, and then there's other books that are mentioned as Scripture in 1 and 2 Maccabees, as well as other intertestamental writings, and even Jubilees, which is written prior to the time of Christ, enumerates as, I think, 22 or 24 books. Okay, but there's none before, there's no Jewish source prior to the time of Christ, enumerates as, I think, 22 or 24 books. Okay, but there's no Jewish source prior to the time of Christ that gives the 39-book list you're defending? No, but that doesn't mean that we can't know what it is,

Starting point is 01:14:36 based on putting the puzzle together from various different sources, where there might not be an enumerated list, it'll say 22 books 24 books or more the parameters prior to you know even Sirach doesn't say that it's scripture you know because it it talks about the law the prophets and the rest of the of the writings that okay but but he in other words he distincts it his own writing from those books of his ancestors which the cat even the New American Bible says are the same books that are in Hebrew Bibles today. Okay, here's my next question. Who was the first Christian after the death of the apostles in church history to agree with the canon that you are defending

Starting point is 01:15:16 that excludes the Deuterocanonicals and the Deuteroportions of Daniel and Esther? All right, well, that question actually has to be taken apart a little bit, because as I mentioned, the Septuagint was added to and continued to grow after the first century. So to actually give a list like that, like it says, you could go to, as far as the Old Testament, you can go to Melito, you can go to Origen. As far as Origen is concerned... Wait, wait, wait, let's go back a little bit because melito does not include uh the book of ester and origin doesn't have the minor prophets yeah and and as as beckwith brought up in his book this was either an error of eusebius who preserves that or it was either an error on um on um origins part and the way that we we know this for is because Hilary of Portier actually references

Starting point is 01:16:05 and he references not only all those books but also the books that are in that order and it includes the 12 minor prophets in front of Isaiah. So you're going to say Melito or Origen? So I want to know who is the first Christian?

Starting point is 01:16:21 Let me rephrase my question. Who is the first Christian that held to the canon you're defending, that did not consider—we look at all their writings, not just the lists they put forward, but they don't cite the Deuterocanonical books or the Deuteroportions of Daniel and Esther, they don't cite them as Scripture. So who is the first Christian that has the same canon you do? Well, like it says, if you want an enumerated list, I would say Melito. In Origin, if you want to talk about when those writings were— Does Origin ever cite the Deuterocanonical books as scripture in his own writings?

Starting point is 01:16:58 Origin specifically states—or was it Melito—that these are the books of the Old Testament canon. And Melito says these are the books of the Old Testament canon, and Melito says these are the books of the Old Testament canon, which he got from the Jews, and it was the Jews who God was given the oracles of God to, meaning the scriptures. So you're going to say that Origen never cited, you're going to go against the hundreds of citations that can be collected where Origen speaks about the deuterocanonical books as being Scripture. For example, the Fortress Bible Commentary says that when it comes to Baruch, a number of Church Fathers—Clement, Origen, Tertullian—understood Baruch 337 as being an analogy with John 114, for example. Well, again, that's a quote of somebody

Starting point is 01:17:47 else that's in a direct quote of Origen, and again, what he's saying, this is what belongs in the Old Testament. And he gives this list of books. Let's see here, but what about when...let's see. All right, well, I'll go to another, um, another question here that I have. Um, let's see. Um, so are you saying that the, the, the canon was closed at the great synagogue of Ezra? Is that where you're fixing the closing of the canon? Well, where the idea of this great synagogue comes from, another word for synagogue is the word assembly. And in Nehemiah chapter 9, it actually says they gathered at an assembly, and then it began by beginning with Genesis and ending with 2 Chronicles.

Starting point is 01:18:33 So that's where the canon was closed? That's where the canon was closed, yes. Okay, what is the earliest source that explicitly describes the men of the great synagogue in Ezra's time, closing the Hebrew canon and saying that this is the end of the canon, there'll be no more inspired books after this. What is the earliest source that corroborates that? Well, for one thing, in order for a book to be inspired scripture, it would have to be written by a prophet or someone of that caliber. And during the intertestamental period, there was no prophet during that time. Was Ezra or Nehemiah, were they called prophets? Ezra and Nehemiah were part of the third division of the writings. So you don't have to have been formally called a prophet to write scripture?

Starting point is 01:19:21 That's why there were three divisions of the—as far as a formal prophet who spoke from God, but Ezra was actually considered to be a scribe. Right, so he—and I think Nehemiah was a cupbearer. Right. But here, I want to go back, though, to my question, which is— But there were prophets during that time like Malachi, Haggai, and Zechariah. But who— They were written during the time of the prophets before they ceased. But isn't it true the first source that corroborates the idea that the canon was closed in the time of Ezra is the Talmud, written about 600 years later?

Starting point is 01:19:59 Well, people marginalize the Talmud, but we have to understand what the Talmud is. People marginalized the Talmud, but we have to understand what the Talmud is. The Talmud was a formal written document of the Jerusalem and the Babylonian Talmuds, which wrote down Berettas, which were written down centuries later. So the first source confirming this, your conclusion of when the canon was closed is about 600 years later. Well, actually, there's a Beretta around the 2nd century AD, but again, this Beretta wouldn't have been something that was invented then. It would have been a tradition that would have been handed down centuries before that, and the fact that even Maccabees in his own time realized that prophecy had ceased. Not that it didn't mean that it wouldn't start up again, because even, I believe, Malachi and Zechariah bring that up. Here's another question. So if the apostles communicated their 39-book Old Testament to the churches, they found it— Well, 22.

Starting point is 01:20:56 Sorry, you know— Oh, for the—well, 22. Yeah. I'm enumerating every book. To get 22, you have to combine books. All right, sorry. Go ahead. Yeah, so the 39 individual books of the Old Testament. Why did these early churches uniformly read the Deuterocanon as Scripture, and the Church Fathers testify to this? Why was the information lost and lost so quickly on such a widespread scale? Well, that's the reason why it's important to have things

Starting point is 01:21:30 written down and not go by oral tradition, because oral tradition can be lost. And as I mentioned before, as the Septuagint continued to grow, as Gary Machuda stated, it was a liturgical book. They began to embrace these additional writings in the Septuagint which were not in the Septuagint during Jesus' day. So you're saying that the apostles gave the churches the canon, the deuterocanonical books were added to the Septuagint after that point? Yes, because there's absolutely no evidence of the deuterocanon being in the Septuagint prior to the time of Christ, or even in the first century. What did Josephus cite then when he cites Deutero-Esther, or when Clement is citing Tobit or Judith? What are they citing then? Where are they finding these Deuterocanonical

Starting point is 01:22:21 books that they're citing in Greek? Well, that doesn't mean that they weren't aware of them, and they also referenced them. You even gave the example of 1 Enoch that Jude cited and called prophecy. Actually referring to them as Scripture is not the same thing, or citing them are not the same thing as saying that they're Scripture. And to answer your question, too, if you're going to go that route with the early Church Fathers, then I suppose the Shepherd of Hermas should be in your New Testament, because Irenaeus specifically called it Scripture. When were the Deuterocanonicals—so you're saying the Deuterocanonicals were not in the first-century Bible that Jesus read. When were they specifically added, and what evidence do you have to support that assertion? The earliest that we have of any

Starting point is 01:22:59 Deuterocanonical book being added to the Septuagint is sometime after the first century. Most likely, the Greek additions to Esther and Daniel that Irenaeus may have accepted, but it's not really until we get to the third century that we start seeing books being added to the Septuagint. And by the way, those aren't the only books. Like I said, there's a ton of other books that you and I would consider to be Apocrypha that were also added after the first century. Right, and when you read, for example, in Origen, have you read in Origen when he says Enoch does not circulate in the churches as divine when he's writing in the third century, which would be evidence against it being considered a part of the Septuagint? But your argument was about the Septuagint, and what I'm saying is that it was in the Septuagint,

Starting point is 01:23:47 just like the Deuterocanon were. Right, but you're saying the Septuagint in Jesus' time did not possess Deuterocanonical books. What would you say about the Kygei Recension, which would be a copy of the Septuagint dated to the end of the first century BC, produced by the Pharisees, that has been edited to more closely resemble the Hebrew manuscripts, yet contains Baruch and Deutero Daniel. Would this not be an example of Deuterocanonical works in a first century, prior to first century, Septuagintical source? Well, like I said, you're talking at the very end of the first century, too. B.C. B.C. B.C. B.C. Yeah, well, to be honest, I'm not familiar with that, but what I do know is

Starting point is 01:24:31 that the Greek, we have very few manuscripts or fragments of the Septuagint that are in the, from the prior to the time of Christ, and what we do have is from Deuteronomy, we have from Job, we have from the Psalms, so not just from the law, but also the books and the writings. Okay. Last question. Wait, Matt, how much time do we have? 49 seconds. Regarding Hebrews 11.35 and 2 Maccabees 7, can you cite a single instance in the Protestant Old Testament canon where someone is explicitly tortured and refusing release in order to obtain a better resurrection, where they are explicitly

Starting point is 01:25:11 tortured for that reason? Well, in Hebrews, we're going from the specific to the more general, and as William Webster had brought up, that could actually be references to Jeremiah and Isaiah. Last question, do you think, last question, do you think those 50 Protestant commentaries Gary has assembled that link Hebrews to 2 Maccabees, do you think they're all wrong? I'm not saying that they're wrong. I'm saying that he's not actually using it as scripture because he's not using a metonym like it is written.

Starting point is 01:25:40 As far as the test and all it's doing is using the word to describe the demonstration of their faith. All right. All right. Thanks very much, guys. All right. So in a minute, we are going to move into a time of Q&A. 30 minutes we'll take for Q&A.

Starting point is 01:25:57 And we're going to take some questions from our patrons and from here in the YouTube chat. Make it a super chat. We'll make sure we get to you. What we'll do is we'll ask you to address your question either to Steve or to Trent. I'll ask them. Let's say I ask Steve, he'll have two minutes to respond and then Trent will have one minute to reply and vice versa. But before we do that, I just want to say thank you so much to all of y'all

Starting point is 01:26:22 who are supporting us on Patreon. We want to start doing more of these debates, but one of the things I'm kind of committed to doing is actually paying people to come and do these debates. They're going to spend a lot of time, obviously, when they prepare and come on. So we're doing that. We're doing a whole lot of other things. So if you want to support what we're doing here at Pints with Aquinas, please go over to patreon.com slash Matt Fradd. want to support what we're doing here at Pints with Aquinas, please go over to patreon.com slash Matt Fradd. We have Advent coming up and I've put together an e-book and an audio book where I take out sections of Thomas Aquinas for every day of Advent. We send you beer steins like this and signed copies of books and stickers. We have online courses from university professors, from Dante, we study him. Flannery O'Connor, we just did one on the great books and man,

Starting point is 01:27:07 lots of stuff. So anyway, if you like the show and you want to support it, please go over to patreon.com slash Matt Fradd, patreon.com slash Matt Fradd. Okay, so we've got 30 minutes now. I'll click start in a second and then I will address my questions here. And again, maybe you've gone over some of these gentlemen, but going over it again, I don't think will be too bad. So here we go. Trent, this question is for you. Why do the Orthodox churches have more books than are in the Catholic canon? Sure, that's correct, that when you read in Eastern Orthodox Bibles, you have things like 3 Maccabees, for example, although Barbara Aland, who is one of the editors of the authoritative Greek New Testament manuscript everyone uses for scriptures, says that there are only faint,

Starting point is 01:27:58 very faint contacts between 3 Maccabees and the New Testament. When we look at how the canon was received in the early church, there is a gradual process of, first, Scripture being disseminated and then being taught within the churches. Augustine says what the churches have received informs us as to what the canon is, though some of the Eastern churches did receive more documents that they read as a part of their scriptures. 3 Maccabees would be one, Psalm 151. Also, when you see the prayer of Manasseh would be another example. But what I would say is that when the Church comes together to issue its teachings to help the faithful to understand Scripture,

Starting point is 01:28:39 it provides particular guidelines to understand what is Scripture that people may not deny, but it does leave open a question as to whether God, these churches have received Scriptures, and how to understand them, especially if the Eastern Orthodox were ever to come into communion with the Catholic Church, the question would be they may be allowed to continue to read their Scriptures as Scripture, they may be canonical but not ecclesiastical. They may have that intermediate stage the deuterocanonicals had 1,600 years ago. But for now, we just go by understanding the 73 books for Catholics that a person may not deny. These other books are left open. I would say to Steve, though, it's interesting, he seems to not appreciate the idea that you can't say these are not scripture. I guess what I'd be curious for Steve to answer

Starting point is 01:29:24 at some point would be, could I be a good Protestant if I accepted sola scriptura, sola fide, I accepted everything Protestants believed, but I retained belief in the Deuterocanonicals? I'd be interested to see if I could be a Christian and still believe in the Deuterocanonical books of Scripture. I would say that the Orthodox, if they ever became Catholic, they could still be a part of Christ's Church, even if they read these other books. Steve, you have one minute to respond. Oh, wow. I think Trent is conflating two things, Sola Scriptura versus a formation that can. The two don't really have anything to do with each other, and they're not dependent on each other, nor do they conflict with one each other.

Starting point is 01:30:00 But I don't know how Sola Scriptura or Protestant could consider these books to be inspired scripture, since there's no evidence of that theologically or historically. Regarding the books in the Orthodox Bibles, including 3rd Esdras, which was in the Councils of Hippo and Carthage, but not Trent, a lot of these books, including 1st Enoch, were in early versions of the Septuagint and were written even prior to the time of Christ. And even the Oriental Orthodoxy includes 1 Enoch, as well as 3 and 4 Maccabees. And even prayer of Manasseh, I think, was actually part of Jerome's Vulgate, maybe as an appendage or something. Okay, let's see here. This next question comes from Luca. He says, I have a question for Steve Christie. If historical inaccuracy disproves canonicity, how does he explain the fact Luke seems to put census of Augustus during the wrong year of Christ's birth? Yeah, Luca, that's actually a very good question, and actually it's been proven historically that Luke did not make a historical mistake about that. I would actually recommend getting the John MacArthur Study Bible or Bible commentaries because he discusses in great detail then that I don't have time to go into now.

Starting point is 01:31:17 And the other thing, too, is I think it was Sir Walter Ramsey or William Ramsey. I'm probably getting his name wrong, he actually stated that the evangelist Luke was the greatest of historians, that it turns out that Luke was proving the historians wrong, not the other way around. And that's kind of the point that I'm making. When you take a look at the books, 27 books of the New Testament, the 39 books of the Old Testament, there's not a single error or contradiction that's in there that cannot be reconcilable. Some are more difficult than others, but not like the point of Judith, which the New American Bible states is a historical book, not a book of allegory. And that's just one example. There are tons of errors that are in Judith, which is why they've been forced to say that it's a book of edification.

Starting point is 01:32:08 Okay, Trent? Man, what I would say is that this is the absolute worst argument against the deuterocanonical books of Scripture. Notice the attitude change, that when Steve looks at a proto-canonical book, when someone says it has an error, he'll bend over backwards to explain it no matter what, because he's already decided they're inspired, and no allegation of error will change his mind. So if the deuterocanonical books are just as inspired, Catholics should be allowed to have the same attitude. You can't settle the question of errancy until you settle the question of inspiration first. What

Starting point is 01:32:45 ends up happening is that Steve probably doesn't like it when atheists approach the Bible and they're just searching for contradictions and they won't allow the text to be flexible to see the resolutions, and yet Steve and other Protestants adopt this very same mindset when they look at the Deuterocanonical books, because they've already decided beforehand they're not Scripture. Remember, we cannot settle the question of errors until we settle the question of inspiration first. Okay.

Starting point is 01:33:13 This next question comes from Agoy4Jesus. He says, does Trent believe burning fish guts drives away demons, per Tobit? This is exactly what I'm talking about. This questioner is attempting to see something in the deuterocanonical books that he considers an error that would invalidate them. What's funny about many of these errors that Protestants will bring up is that they're very similar to alleged errors that atheists will bring up in the proto-canonical books. For example, if that is considered something that is bad for an angel to instruct someone to use a material means like fish guts to drive away demons or to accomplish God's will,

Starting point is 01:33:56 what do we do in Genesis 30-31, where God tells Jacob to have cows mate in front of different speckled colored rods to change what their progeny will look like, whether they're spotted or have different colors. Many atheists will point to that. Rather, what we see in the Bible is in Genesis 30, God used a particular folk ritual to accomplish a supernatural end, and the same thing happens in the book of Tobit. Though I believe Pliny the Elder, actually in Tobit it also talks about using fish guts to heal the eyes, Pliny the Elder gives us a similar medical remedy in his own natural writings written around the same time. Okay, Steve? Yeah, Trent, again, is an error, assuming that Protestants begin by already

Starting point is 01:34:41 deciding that these books are Scripture. Rather, as a former Catholic, and actually as an unbeliever at one point, I approached every book about both Old and New Testament with the same type of criteria. Unfortunately, what Trent has done, he has already begun by assuming that these books are Scripture, and because they are Scripture, and he believes it because the Church tells him that they are, therefore they can't contain any errors. But again, like I said, even the example that he gives with Jacob, again, Jacob was a farmer, and he would have actually known how to actually mate the cattle or whatever in order for them not to have these spots. Again, the MacArthur Study Bible does an excellent job explaining this, but this is not the same thing as taking fish guts and putting it on your eyes or doing some type of witchcraft type thing in order to have demons to go away. And I would just like to ask Trent, you know, when's the last time that he put fish guts on his eyes

Starting point is 01:35:38 for medicinal purposes? Okay, this next question, Super Chat, comes from David. It's not covered under my health plan. Thank you so much, David. You don't got the PPO? They limited my providers. That's what happens when you work for a Catholic apostolate. All right, so this question comes from David. Thank you so much for your kind Superchat. He says, this is a question for Steve, how come prophecy ceased in 400 BC if Luke states the Holy Spirit was upon Simeon or that Anna was a prophetess? These people lived in the so-called intertestamental period. Thank you.

Starting point is 01:36:22 Right. Well, first of all, there's nothing saying that prophecy wouldn't start up again. In fact, I think Josephus even alludes to that, that when he talked about there not being an exact succession of prophets. And another thing, too, is that the Old Testament does talk about a forerunner to the Messiah, which would be John the Baptist. And John the Baptist was conceived six months before Jesus was conceived. And this was a prophecy that was given to Zechariah when he was in the temple. So prophecy did cease during those 400 periods. And again, when you look at the Deuterocanonical books, do you see any active prophecy where they're engaging with God? No, you don't. You don't see that at all.

Starting point is 01:37:05 Trent would have to prove that there was and there wasn't. There may have been false prophets, but not genuine prophets. So I hope that answers David's question. It was a resurgence of prophecy in the New Testament, which was a fulfillment of the old. of the old. Yeah, and what I would say is that Maccabees is not talking about prophecy ceasing for hundreds of years until the Messiah would come. Rather, it's talking about a prophetic lull, which happens throughout salvation history. Similar prophetic lulls are described in Psalm 74.9, Lamentations 2.9. 1 Maccabees 4 and 14 even give directions for people that would last until a prophet would come or arise. So there was a prophetic lull during the time of the Maccabees, but of course the writer of Maccabees was writing after those events took place to describe them,

Starting point is 01:37:58 so there's no problem there in saying God cannot inspire someone. By the way, this came earlier in our discussion, you don't have to be a prophet to write Scripture. God can inspire. He inspired Mark and Luke to write Scripture, and they weren't prophets. God just has to inspire you to do that. And also, the inspired Scripture does not have to contain prophecies, because Esther does not contain prophecies. Proto-canonical Esther doesn't even mention God, and yet it's still considered an inspired work. Written during the time of the prophetic age, which I might add. Okay. I get a sneaky, I get a little ad later. I'll put mine in my pocket. I owe you that. I'll take one. We'll address this one. Thank you, Camo Richie. He's asked,

Starting point is 01:38:42 we'll address this to Trent. Why are there books in our Bibles that we accept today as inspired, but some church fathers rejected, like Revelation or 1st, 2nd, and 3rd John, I think? God bless. Oh, actually, that makes a good point related to the Deuterocanonical books. Merely showing that there was doubt in the church about particular books is not enough to show that the book is not inspired, because Eusebius records this, other Church Fathers record this. They did not consider books like 1 and 3 John, Revelation, the Letter to the Hebrews. The Letter to the Hebrews is a genuinely anonymous letter.

Starting point is 01:39:25 Origen once said, only God knows who wrote Hebrews. So there was doubt about that, but these books were eventually received deeper within the Church's understanding of the Church's life, and that's where the magisterial teaching authority of the Church comes in, that we see in the councils of Hippo, Carthage, the letter of Pope Innocent I to a friend of his who was a big fan of Jerome, to correct Jerome on that. So while the deuterocanonical books were controversial because the rabbinic Jews did not accept them, after the Church weighed in on this at the end of the 4th century, we see the controversy cease among regular people and bishops, only to be maintained

Starting point is 01:40:05 among biblical scholars who were still copying Jerome's Vulgate. Okay, Steve. Yeah, in response to that, Revelation particularly was used extensively by the Montanist cults, you know, so that's why some early Church Fathers like Cyril and churches in the East had shied away from it. In fact, it's not even in the apostolic constitution in 400 AD. And we need to make a distinction between the Old and New Testament. The Old Testament had already written by the time of Christ Jesus, and the apostles knew what it was. The New Testament was still in formation in the first century. But again, the same type of criteria that Trent would use for the New Testament, written during a specific time period, no errors and contradictions, written by either an apostle or an apostolic writer who validated the writings, like the apostle Paul validating Luke's, they're allegories, they're used for edification,

Starting point is 01:41:05 but they're somehow still inspired, even though Judith has the wrong kingdom of Nebuchadnezzar. And yet we believe in Mark, even though no apostle testifies to his work. And that's what Trent just took out of his pocket. So, okay. I'm going to cash that in. Alright, we have a super chat here from

Starting point is 01:41:27 TheCastMan777 probably not his real name. He says, Steve, since you believed that saying Judith is an allegory is taking the easy way out to explain its apparent error, do you believe that Revelation

Starting point is 01:41:43 is in error when it says that Jesus was crucified in Sodom, Revelation 11, 7? I'd actually have to look at that particular passage. It kind of caught me without really knowing the actual verse. And again, here's an example where I would have to look at it, but if I looked at it, it would be easily reconcilable. I wouldn't have to go and say, oh, it's just an allegory. Perhaps, you know, quoting the actual verse, and again, I'll have to admit, I have read that passage. I didn't have a problem with it because it's easily reconcilable

Starting point is 01:42:25 without having to backtrack and say it's an allegory. Okay. Trent. Right, and what I would say, this goes back to exactly what I was, what we were discussing earlier about inspiration and inerrancy. It's interesting that Steve seems so confident, like, oh, well, these are easily reconcilable. If all of these difficulties—I admit some of them are, because some of them, you get thousands of them, some will be easy, but some are not. If they were so easily reconcilable, why does Gleason Archer and Norm Geisler, why do they have to write entire

Starting point is 01:43:00 encyclopedias to explain these difficulties. And also, when you read Protestant authors explaining these difficulties, many times they don't agree with each other. If it's so easily reconcilable, one Protestant will resolve a difficulty one way, and another Protestant will say, well, no, no, it's resolved this way, and they don't even agree on how to resolve it. So it's just not the case that I would would say once again, Steve only has this attitude towards the proto-canonical books because he already believes they're inspired for other reasons. Just because something lacks errors, that does not mean it's inspired. I mean, you could have a math book that has no errors in it, but it's not inspired.

Starting point is 01:43:38 Quick question, was that Revelation 11-7 he said? It's no longer in front of me, sorry. Because if it's 11.7, it doesn't say that, as far as our Lord being crucified, it says, which is spiritually called Sodom. That's what the text actually says. Okay. This question is for Trent.

Starting point is 01:44:02 This comes from Philip Gallet, one of our patrons. He said, would there be an event where more books could be added to the canon? Actually, it might be interesting to have both of you respond. I'll give you two minutes each. Theoretically, is it possible that more Scripture could be added and recognized as such, Trent? Well, theoretically, I mean, think about if we pose this question and how it would be understood in Church history. As Scripture was disseminated in the Church and understood, there was a gradual awareness and consensus of understanding what its contents were that were defined at the councils of Hippo, Carthage, through the papal pronouncements, up through the ecumenical councils.

Starting point is 01:44:44 councils of Hippo, Carthage, through the papal pronouncements, up through the ecumenical councils. But as I said before in the debate, like in the Council of Trent, Trent anathematized those who rejected the books it put forward in its canonical list. It did not say that all other books that exist are not Scripture. It did not say what Scripture wasn't. It just said what Scripture was. And it's true, our Eastern Brethren in the Orthodox Church, they read a wider canon, and they have valid holy orders. They are a legitimate Church. And so if they came into communion with our Church, we'd have to ask serious questions. We would probably start with allowing them to read their Scriptures as Scripture,

Starting point is 01:45:18 though it would not be imposed on the rest of the Church. And then maybe after centuries, there may be more of a conscious awareness that God gave these scriptures in the Deposit of Faith, but they were reserved in the Eastern Church for some time, and now they become more aware in the Universal Church. Even you and me, Matt, we attend a Byzantine Church, we pray the prayer of Manasseh during the night prayer and great fast. So it's still, in the Eastern Catholic Church, it forms a part of the liturgy, even if it doesn't form a part of the canons. The question is, it's possible, but I'm just saying what the

Starting point is 01:45:50 Church has taught. The Church has spoken what is Scripture, not necessarily what isn't. Okay, and Steve, do you want me to restate that question? No, yeah, I have it. And it all goes back to Trent having an open canon. It says that it defined the canon of Scripture, but by saying it's possible to add books to it, then it's not complete. And as far as the council is, the 53 prelates, 79% passed over and silenced 3rd Esdras, but only three of them rejected the book entirely, and eight accepted it. So more people accepted 3rd Esdras than didn't, and the New Catholic Encyclopedia says they took it out. And plus, Trent rejected the books of the old Latin Vulgate because 3rd Esdras was actually in this book. So it was in the Bible at that time. So it's defined, but it's not complete.

Starting point is 01:46:43 But with the Protestant Old Testament, it's going to have the same books 500 years from now as it did 500 years ago. And again, 16th century, that's rather late in church history to define a canon which Trent is admitting can be added to. Okay, and we'll take another question here. Again, I'm just reading the questions as they come, so I'll let you guys knock them out of the park. This one comes from patron Tyler R., and this is for Steve. The Jews at the time of Jamnia rejected the gospel, which shows that they had some kind of deficiency

Starting point is 01:47:16 in their understanding of Scripture, otherwise they would have been converted to Christ. How do you justify relying on people who had a false understanding of Scripture to tell you what the canon is? Yeah, well, he's conflating two things. I mean, just because you reject your Messiah, that doesn't mean you have the wrong canon. For example, Trent would agree with the state of a cantist who believes in the Trinity and the deity of Christ, but I'm sure he would reject the idea that the Pope's seat has been vacant since Vatican II. And Jamnia, it wasn't—we have to understand what Jamnia was. It was a rabbinical school that wasn't talking about what additional books can be added to Scripture. It was

Starting point is 01:47:58 actually talking about a canon that had already been set at that point, but books that were already considered inspired Scripture, the same books that are in Protestant Old Testaments today, whether or not, you know, they're truly canonical, but in the end, they end up agreeing on the same books. But as far as the Gospels are concerned, that's what made their rejection, the Jews' rejection of Jesus so heinous, because they had the complete Old Testament scriptures, and that's why Jesus condemned them in Matthew chapter 23 when he said, from the blood of Abel to the blood of Zechariah, he was acknowledging the canon of the Pharisees.

Starting point is 01:48:38 Trent. Sorry, I was sketching out thoughts for what I wanted to say. So the question was— Sorry, yeah, no problem. The question had to do with the Council of Jamnia. The Jewish sources, yeah. Yeah. Right, and what I was hearing, I think the questioner is right on tack,

Starting point is 01:48:57 and this goes to something in the entire debate that needs to be driven home. What standard has Steve given for us to say, this is the canon that we should accept? Primarily, what he has to rely on for the Old Testament canon, he's saying, well, we should accept the canon that the—not even the Jews, because there was a diversity of opinion on the canon—what particular Pharisees believed. But as I said, yeah, they don't—they didn't fully understand Scripture. Now, you can—now, a broken clock is right twice a day, but it's not necessarily I want to trust with getting to my meeting on time.

Starting point is 01:49:30 So why should we feel bound, not just as a preference, but bound as Christians to follow what some Jews accepted? And not only that, the only Jews that had this particular Protestant canon, beyond a doubt, were those, the rabbinic Jews after the time of Christ, after, in the 2nd second and third century after Christ, not those during the time of Jesus, as I showed in the debate, who differed, who included books like Sirach, and had doubts or rejected other proto-canonical books like Ruth, Esther, Ecclesiastes, even Proverbs. All right, thank you so much. We're going to now move into our closing

Starting point is 01:50:06 statements, where each participant has five minutes. Steve will give his closing statement first, and then Trent. Steve, are you ready? Yep, I'm ready. Go for it. In 1546, 53 individuals, about one-fourth the size of an average church today, gathered together to officially define the boundaries of the biblical canon for the first time in church history, despite failing to declare whether or not certain books in Eastern Orthodox Bibles belonged in the Old Testament. Out of these 53 prelates who gathered, 42 passed over and silenced books like Third Esdras, while eight accepted and only three rejected them entirely. On February 15th, at a general council, a minority vote accepted the previous canon of Florence, while a majority failed to accept the Florentine canon. 27% rejected it and 29% abstained. Then according to Catholic historian Peter Dunker, the Council of Trent on April 8, 1546, by vote 24 yea, 15 nay, 16 abstain, approved the present Roman Catholic Bible canon, including the Deuterocanonical books.

Starting point is 01:51:16 Even though more people yea'd than nay'd or abstain, only 44% officially defined the canon at Trent and approved the present Roman Catholic Bible. sent officially define the canon at Trent and approve the present Roman Catholic Bible. This does not sound like a complete list of canonical books in its entirety and with all its parts received by the apostles from the mouth of Christ himself, having come down even unto us, transmitted as it were from hand to hand. This was a simple popular democratic vote due to the uncertainty of those present, none of which had any real historical knowledge of the Old Testament Hebrew canon of antiquity that Jesus had embraced and communicated to his church. Again, why did they even vote on 3rd Esdras if it wasn't in the canon? This uncertainty is also the official position of the magisterium today. Since Jesus and the first century church knew whether or not these books were or were not God-breatread scripture and belonged in the Old Testament, then shouldn't the magisterium also know, since it professes to be the same one true

Starting point is 01:52:09 church from the first century, which passed down the complete Old Testament canon in its entirety and with all its parts to its apostolic successors right down to the present age? Or should we trust in the Jews of antiquity, who the Apostle Paul stated God had entrusted the oracles of God, meaning the Old Testament scriptures, which according to Jimmy Akin from Catholic Answers, is identical to Protestant Old Testaments today, whose canon Jesus validated in Luke chapter 16. Jesus promised to his church that he would build the gates of Hades, would not overcome it. During a YouTube interview with Matt Fradd, Gary Machuda stated, Christ is a norm that sets all norms, and he knew which books were inspired and which ones weren't, and he certainly would have handed that on to the inspired apostles who had handed that on to the church. Therefore, Jesus would have not built a church that did not know for certain what writings from the Old Testament are and are not inspired Scripture,

Starting point is 01:53:05 since he expected them to know the difference. Nor would he allow his church to lose knowledge of this information communicated to them by his disciples. But the magisterium of the Catholic Church desires Catholics and others to believe otherwise. Just prior to his crucifixion, Jesus prayed to his heavenly father, sanctify them in the truth. Your word is truth. God could not have sanctified them if they did not know what was and was not part of the Old Testament canon. And it is this truth, the truth of God's word, meaning scripture, that the shield and pillar is to defend and uphold, which Rome is still uncertain in its entirety and completeness. By Trent passing over and silencing these books

Starting point is 01:53:40 found in Orthodox Bibles, it allows a probability of adding to God's Word more books that Trent did not officially define as God-wreathed canonical scripture. This means in 500 years, the Catholic Bible could realistically be much bigger than today. However, the Protestant Bible will still only have its smaller 66-book biblical canon it has today, just as it did 500 years ago. And that's because unlike Rome, which is uncertain of what books were included in the Old Testament of Jesus, since they lost this oral tradition, Protestants are certain because they base their Old Testament canon from the written words of Jesus and the writings of the inspired New Testament, where we can glean from regarding who possessed the complete Old Testament canon, the Jews.

Starting point is 01:54:23 And there are 22 books laid up in the temple that made the hands unclean. But this is not just having assurance of what does and does not belong in the Old Testament, but also the assurance of the true gospel salvation of imputation by grace alone through faith alone. God made Christ who knew no sin to become sin for us, so we might become the righteousness of God in Him, instead of what the Apostle Paul calls another gospel of cooperating in our salvation by infusion of grace through agreeing to participate in the sacraments, which were simply given as a command of obedience to the already redeemed Church, but not the means of salvation.

Starting point is 01:55:01 I'd like to thank both of you for this debate and hosting it, and for everybody that chimed in. God bless you all. Thank you kindly, Steve. Trent, you have five minutes for your closing statement. Sure. So Steve seems really concerned that in 500 years, the Protestant Bible will be the same, and there is a very slight, small possibility the Catholic Bible could be bigger. All that proves is that the Protestant biblical canon will always be wrong, and the Catholic biblical canon will just be—it's possible it may become more correct and share what our Eastern brothers and sisters have received since the time of the Apostles as a slim possibility. But that's not fatal to the position that I've argued for tonight, which is

Starting point is 01:55:42 the Church's position. By the way, when Steve said that only 44% of the Council Fathers voted at Trent for the canon, that's totally wrong. Read Gary Machuda's book, 15 Myths and Misrepresentations in the Deutero Canon. It was 44% who voted dealing with, against adding the anathemas to that, not to the canon itself, which was accepted unanimously. Also, something interesting here, notice what Steve was supposed to give us, a standard. Why should we believe in the Protestant Old Testament canon? And Protestantism cannot give us a sure foundation. What does the Bible say in 1 Timothy 3.15? What is the pillar and foundation of truth? It's not the Bible. It says it's the Church of the Living God. Protestantism cannot give us the kind of certainty Steve says that the Catholic Church lacks. So what

Starting point is 01:56:35 he ends up doing, instead of building up his own case, he tries desperately to attack the Church and sow doubt there, and just hope his Protestant view of the biblical canon will win by default. But it simply can't, because he gave us no criteria whatsoever in this debate to say, oh, here's how we know these 39 books are the Old Testament, here's how we know that they're the Old Testament, and the Catholic Old Testament is wrong. He gave us no standard for that whatsoever in the debate. Here's some of the things that he did give that ultimately fall short. He said, what about the presence of errors? Once again, you cannot tell if something is inspired or not, whether it has errors. There are human books that don't have error. They're not inspired. You can only know if the Bible does or doesn't have errors if you know it's inspired first.

Starting point is 01:57:22 That's what we have to settle. So I just wish Stephen or the Protestants would approach the Deuterocanon with the same flexibility that they give to the Protocanon, even when atheists come after it. He talked about prophecy, once again as I showed in the debate. There may have been prophetic lulls, but the Church, but the Bible never declares that the canon was closed, that there wouldn't be prophets. God can inspire Scripture with people who are not prophets, like Ezra, Nehemiah, Augur is quoted in Scripture. So you have all of these elements here. Steve said, yeah, but the Jews were given the oracles of God. That's right, in Romans 3.2, it uses the aorist,

Starting point is 01:58:02 the past tense. They were given, not even the scriptures, the oracles of God. N.T. Wright says that this is probably a reference to the fact that in Romans chapter 3, Paul is saying Jews have an advantage over Gentiles in that they were given divine revelation. But that doesn't imply that the Jews had a uniform canon. And as I showed multiple times throughout the debate, repeatedly citing Protestant biblical scholars who agree the Jews did not have a uniform canon. Lee Martin MacDonald agrees in his book, The Biblical Canon, that the Sadducees did have the smaller canon. And he says that Beckwith, Roger Beckwith, only argues against that and other points because he's so committed

Starting point is 01:58:40 to the Protestant Old Testament canon that he just won't follow the evidence where it leads. So when you read all these scholars, you see there's just no evidence that fixes the Protestant Old Testament canon, that he just won't follow the evidence where it leads. So when you read all these scholars, you see there's just no evidence that fixes the Protestant Old Testament canon either before the time of Christ, which as we saw with Steve, that the idea during the time of Ezra having it being fixed was a legend that developed hundreds of years later that was not known to anyone in the time of Jesus, or amongst the Church, that if the canon were fixed, if the Apostles gave the Church the canon that Steve is arguing for, then there was a colossal failure, a colossal failure amongst all the Churches in showing across all of them. As Gary Machuda has tabulated, when you look across

Starting point is 01:59:18 33 Church Fathers and other authors, you see 209 affirmations of the Deuterocanonical books as Scripture, and you only find two authors and five examples where they explicitly deny the Deuterocan as Scripture. You have this overwhelming testimony reaffirmed by the magisterium of the Church, which is the way that we can objectively know what is and isn't in the Bible. Because if you say Scripture tells us what Scripture is, then you're reasoning in a circle. Instead, I'm going to follow what the Church teaches. It gives us the books of wisdom, the books of God's Word. My favorite Bible verse is a Deuterocanonical book, Sirach 2, 4-6. Accept whatever befalls you. In crushing misfortune, be patient. For in fire, gold is tested, worthy men put in the crucible of humiliation. Trust in God, make straight your ways, and hope in Him.

Starting point is 02:00:08 Okay, thank you very much, Trent. Thank you very much, Steve. Very, very gracious debate, and lovely to have you both on. As we quickly wrap up here, Steve and Trent, just tell us where people can learn more about you, or maybe buy a book you've written recently or something like that. Steve. Trent, you go first.

Starting point is 02:00:24 Sure, I would just say that you can go to Catholic.com, my website is trenhorn.com. I also have a podcast, The Council of Trent. So when Steve was saying Trent, Trent, Trent, over, he's not talking about me a ton, he was talking about, there's the Ecumenical Council of Trent, my podcast is a play on words, C-O-U-N-S-E-L, The Council of Trent, that you can listen to on iTunes, Google Play, or become a premium subscriber at trenhornpodcast.com. Okay. As far as my book, Why Protestant Bibles Are Smaller, you can get it on amazon.com. As far as contacting me personally, my catch name is atbornagainrn. I'm a registered nurse, and that's my name on Twitter and Facebook and YouTube,

Starting point is 02:01:08 and you can become a subscriber, and it won't cost you anything. Excellent. Well, hey, I'll put your link to your book in the description after this debate. Sorry it wasn't there yet, Steve, but I'll put that there for those who are watching after the fact. I would also let people know, Matt, if they would like to look at a Catholic book on this subject, Catholic Answers has a book. So Steve has a book, Why Protestant Bibles Are Smaller. Catholic Answers has a book called Why Catholic Bibles Are Bigger by my friend Gary Machuda.

Starting point is 02:01:33 So if you are really interested in this topic today, I would recommend get Steve's book, Why Protestant Bibles Are Smaller, and Gary's book, Why Catholic Bibles Are Bigger, available at Catholic Answers Press, and read both books and compare them. I want to know what book is bigger, Why Catholic Bibles Are Bigger or Why Protestant Bibles Are Smaller? I don't know. I only have the electronic version of Steve's book, so I don't know. I'd have to say mine's smaller, so it's accurate. So someone needs to write a book, Why Protestant Bibles Are Smaller Is Smaller Than Why Okay, doesn't matter. Hey, God bless you guys.

Starting point is 02:02:06 I really appreciate you being on. It was terrific to have you, and thanks again. God bless you as well. You too, Matt. Alright, everybody. That does it for this fantastic debate. I want to thank everybody for being here. Now, what I had told you

Starting point is 02:02:21 in the beginning on this live chat was that if I got up to 500 thumbs up, I'd have a whiskey with you. And we got up to 514. Now, I've got to be honest with you. I have to work out. There's a gym across the road in eight minutes. So, let's do this. My show is called Pints with Aquinas. If you're new here, please be sure to subscribe. We explain and defend the faith through a Thomistic lens.

Starting point is 02:02:50 We actually just did an episode on why getting drunk is a grave sin. So please, nobody think that I'm glorifying alcohol. But Jesus Christ drank wine. Thomas Aquinas says that we can drink in moderation. So I'm going to have a little whiskey here before I start doing kettlebells. Kettlebell swings. That'll be fun. Now, don't judge me. You're probably wondering what whiskey I have here. My favorite scotch is Lagavulin 16. It's becoming very pricey. Favorite bourbon, I'd say Widow Jane. But the other day, I went in there, didn't have much money, and I saw this little bloody number, American-born peach whiskey. Now, rule of thumb is never, ever buy a whiskey that's flavoured.

Starting point is 02:03:28 If you have to flavour it, it probably wasn't good to begin with. This is also true of coffee. Yeah? Anyway, so I'll have a little bit of whiskey. Not sure if you have one there with you, but cheers. Not bad. Actually, that's not bad. Actually, that's not bad. Anyway, God bless you all.

Starting point is 02:03:51 Thank you kindly. I'm loving doing these debates. I tell you what, one of the things we're doing is reaching out to folks and asking them if they want to come on the show. I have reached out to James White's assistant. I've reached out to him. Well, Jimmy Akin reached out to him over Twitter. We'd love to have him on Pints with Aquinas to debate Jimmy Akin, but it doesn't look like he wants to respond. So if you happen to know him, feel free to reach out and ask him if you'd like to debate Jimmy Akin. We also have maybe Eric Ybarra, God bless him, who's been here in the chat with us today, said he might be open to or is very much open to rather debating different topics surrounding Catholic and Orthodox relations.

Starting point is 02:04:24 So we're hoping to do one of these every month. As I say, I like to pay the people who come on. So if you like the show, support us at pintswithaquinas.com. No, no, no, no. Mess that up. It's because of the whiskey. I'm already drunk. That's a joke.

Starting point is 02:04:38 It's not a funny joke, but it's still a joke. Patreon.com. Oh, I got to tell you one more thing, and I can't believe I've almost forgotten to mention it. Let me have one more drink here, again, before the kettlebell swings. Golly. That's really good.

Starting point is 02:04:56 I hope you guys... By the way, before I get to what I'm going to tell you, I hope you have a bloody good weekend. A lovely weekend. Can I tell you what I'm going to do? After I go and... Well, before I go work out... No.

Starting point is 02:05:09 Yeah, I'm going to work out. I'm going to come back to my office. I'm going to upload this as an audio podcast to Pints with Aquinas. So if you're interested, go check it out tomorrow, probably tonight it'll launch. And then I'm leaving my computer and my phone here and I'm headed home just to spend the weekend reading. There will be no one who can text me, no one who can email me at, well, I mean they can, but I will not be answering them. I'm just so excited. If you have never had a tech-free weekend, consider breaking your phone or at least giving it to a friend because, like me, you may not have self-control. Leave it at your office and head home.

Starting point is 02:05:35 I'm really excited about having a tech-free weekend. I try to do this most weekends so I can read good books. One of the books I'm reading right now is by Ralph Martin called A Church in Crisis, talking about the current crisis within the Catholic Church. And I'll be interviewing Ralph this Monday about that very topic. Now, speaking of that, I know we have many Protestants who listen to Pints with Aquinas, and we do get emails and messages over Patreon very frequently from people saying they are considering becoming Catholic, but they don't know what to do next. Well, I have some really good news for you. In the live chat right now, we have Benjamin Handelman, who is an awesome guy. He is a convert from Protestantism to Catholicism. He has started a little Marco Polo

Starting point is 02:06:16 group, which is a video small group, which you can be a part of if you are a sincere seeker and have questions about the Catholic faith. So right below in the description, click that link. Download the Marco Polo app, and it's a little private group of individuals who are serious about becoming Catholic, but maybe they have honest questions. It's no judgment, right? Judgment-free zone. People are there not to kind of condemn or proselytize,

Starting point is 02:06:40 but just to ask questions and to help you understand the Catholic faith better from people who have walked the walk or swam the Tiber, depending on what analogy you want to use. So be sure to click that link below to the Marco Polo group and Benjamin Handelman, who is one of our moderators. He'll be a great guy. He'll be running that video small group and chatting with you and I might pop in to say hi as well. So God bless y'all. If you haven't yet, please subscribe. I know people say that all the time, but it actually really does help Pints with Aquinas. We're almost at 100,000 subscribers and we would love to be able to reach more people with the gospel. So you would help us out if you just click subscribe and that bell button, even if you never wanted to listen to us again, it would

Starting point is 02:07:18 still help. No, please listen to us again. It's lovely to have you here. God bless you. One more drink. Cheers. Kettlebell swings in four minutes.

Pints With Aquinas - BONUS: Do Protestants Have the Correct Old Testament Canon?

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