There is no such thing as The Bible

Well, it was Jews who compiled the Septugaint - and generally they would have been closer to the writing of the books than the Pharisees who decided the current Jewish canon.And of course, from your view the Christian Church was in error from the very early days right up until Luther had the Apocrypha removed. Shouldn't the judgement of the Christian church carry more weight to a Christian than the judgement of the Pharisees ??

I think there are several versions of the Septugaint. The original version was only the 5 books of moses.. but since then, other books were added on. It is a process that lasted a couple of hundred years I think, so it was varied.

YOu're right the the original Septuagint was probably just the Torah. But by the time the early Christians were using it, it had accumulated the other books.

With re. to Canon, again, authorship was key. The Christian church would be in a poor position chronologically, to establish that for OT writings. The earliest reference I know of that refers to the Pharisees is from about 135 B.C. Most of the OT canon (the Law and the Prophets) was established long before the time of Christ (as early as the 4th century B.C). So those portions were set long before the Pharisees came along. The writings section was fixed perhaps only after the fall of Jerusalem in A.D. 70.
Re. the Apochrypha, it was never infallibly pronounced to be in the Canon until 1546. It may have been present with certain editions of the Bible but the church fathers' views on it were all over the map, of course, and there were plenty of Christian groups down thru the centuries outside of the Greek and RC churches who did not accept the Apochrypha, so this issue was hardly a settled one before the Reformation.
The fact that the NT often quotes from the Greek OT in no way proves that the Apochryphal books contained in the Greek manuscript of the OT are inspired. First, it is not certain that the Septuagint of the 1st century contained the Apochrypha. The earliest Greek manuscripts that include them date from the 4th century A.D. Further, even if they were in the Septuagint of apostolic times, Jesus and the apostles never once quoted them even, never mind, cited with introductory phrases like 'thus says the Lord', 'as it was written', or 'the Scriptures say', such as are typically found when canonical books are quoted.

SO you accept that the decisions on the canon were fallible human judgements. Which calls all of them into question.Aside from that you are in error in equating the writing of the books with their acceptance as canon. What is more you admit that several books were only admitted as canon after after Christianity had split from Judaism. In that case it msut be pointed out that the NT is not short of references to one of those books - Daniel.THe fact remains that whatever the view of some the Deuterocanonical books were generally accepted by Christians right up until the Reformation. As opposed to your claim that tey were rejected up until that point.

I do not accept that all were fallible judgments, as I said, I think those closest to the writings and their events made the right decisions regarding them, as one would expect, as they would know more of what was entailed in determining authorship than anyone else. The RCC does not fall into this category, especially where the OT is concerned.
Unlike liberal scholars, who have an anti-supernatural bias that forbids accurate prophecy, I do not hold to the late date they ascribe to Daniel, but that it was written in the 6th century. The fact is, Ezekiel (also from the 6th century) mentions him 3 times, which suggests he was a contemporary of his, not some later addition. This comes to one of my previous points about being recognised by their contemporaries...canonical books and their authors were often mentioned by their contemporaries, IN THEIR WRITINGS. I think you are confusing this with the idea of councils, which typically came later.
Also, even though the books of the Writings do tend to be later than the Prophets, it is only a tendency, and the overlap is considerable. Indeed the very assumption that the Writings are a late collection may have led to their individual books being dated later than they otherwise would have been. Finally, it puzzles me as to why Jews who did not accept Jesus as the Messiah, would accept the book of Daniel AFTER the two split, when it was, as you say, such a popular book with Christians...if, as you seem to imply, these things were all about politics, surely that would be a dumb thing for the Jews to do...to bolster the Christian cause by adding a book to the Canon that was popular for them?
Re. the Apochrypha, again, it all depends what you mean by 'accepted', doesn't it? Accepted as having historical value, well some did have, devotional value, some did have...as I said before, the notion that the whole of Christendom (including all of the early Church Fathers) were all in agreement that the Apochrypha were 'divinely inspired' before the Council of Trent is a fallacy. That's all I was saying. The idea that the Apochrypha was not part of the canon, as being an invention of Martin Luther, simply isn't historically true.

You've stated theat some were wrong - so how can you assume that any of them were not fallible human judgements ?I note that your judgement of Daniel is based on misepresenting the arguments against a late date. (Not your fault, I know, you are only re peating what you have been told by people who are biased and either ignorant or dishonest).The arguments for an early date are weak. Ezekiel's "Daniel" is an obscure figure - not identified as a contemporary or the author of a book. All we have is a na me. And we certainly are not on safe ground in assuming that the refernces indicated that Ezekiel's Daniel was a contemporary. In Exekiel 14 Daniel is one of a list of three - the other two being Noah and Job. Are you going to say that there names refer to contemporaries of Ezekiel ?And from the forgoing discussion you should already know that early Christians used the Septuagint, which adequately accounts for the acceptance of Daniel - not to mention that the Gospels claim that Jesus refered to Daniel.(added in edit)
The Jewish acceptance likely had nothing to do with Christianity. Daniel was a popular book at the time even if there was sufficient doubt about its origins to keep it classified amongst the Writings. (And if the Jewish judgeent is so reliable why not accept that they had grounds to suspect it might not be authentic ?).
(end addition)As for your final paragraph you are not only addressing a strawman you are forgetting that this discussion started with your historical error. An error you have not adequately explained. nThis message has been edited by PaulK, 09-09-2005 02:24 PM

So the Ethiopian Church, being among the oldest surviving denominations (predating even Catholicism), would have had the most authority in deciding Canonicity because they were the closest chronologically to the events.But they have way more books in their version of Canon than any other denomination. "Liberal scholars?" That only applies to scientifically dating manuscripts by determining the age of the substance they were written on. The people who determine Canonicity are Jews and Christians - certainly not atheists. They are the ones who try to attribute authorship and original dates - the scientific dating only applies to specific copies, and establishes the latest possible date of original writing (in the case that the copy found is actually the original document). Daniel does not necessarily prove that Jesus was the Messiah. Remmeber that the expectation of the Jews was not a spiritual redeemer, but rather a military savior to rescue them from Roman oppression and re-establish their place as God's Chosen People. This expectation was held even though they knew of Daniel and other books that were used (after the fact) to show Christ's divinity and establish Him as the Messiah. Remember, the Jews would have to read things very differently from how they traditionally had to establish Jesus as the Messiah. It's really not hard at all to believe that they wouldn't recognize Him - He wasn't what they were expecting. You aren't understanding what everyone is telling you. There are different versions of Canon, and the books considered by Protestants to be the Apochrypha are held as divinely inspired parts of the Canon by other denominations.No, Martin Luther did not simply decide the additional books were not inspired - but it is historically true that other denominations, seperate from the Catholic Church, did and still do consider a variety of additional books to be Canon.Thus there is no single Bible, as the thread states. Most Protestants agree on a single version, but Protestantism is not the whole of Christianity.

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Every time a fundy breaks the laws of thermodynamics, Schroedinger probably kills his cat.

Let's hear the grounds upon which you say the Jews had doubts about this book, and why they accepted it anyway. I still don't know why you are pursuing this topic re. this book.
From Ezekiel's mention of Daniel, the very least we could say, is that Daniel was a man of God on a par with Noah and Job, and that he did not live after Ezekiel died. I don't know how this proves that either Daniel's existence or his book, was written much later! I wasn't saying that everyone mentioned in someone's book would be a contemporary, but obviously, Ezekiel expected his readers to know who this Daniel was, if he was naming them alongside the other two. If he wasn't the author of Daniel, who was he, and how was he so well known??
I'm not denying that Christians used Daniel...they used almost all of the OT, so what?
Re. my 'historical error', the Apochrypha was not infallibly pronounced as part of the canon until 1546...what is my error?...it was 'infallibly' added then, was it not?? It had not been 'infallibly' added before, had it? Have I missed something? I told you about the differing degrees of acceptance..which meant various things to various people...for Catholics, it was 'infallibly' pronounced in 1546, right? I don't know about you, but if I were a Catholic (obviously I'm not) I would have thought infallible pronouncements carried some weight...am I wrong?...are they a pointless waste of time?

The reason the book is shown to be written (or at least modified), a lot latter is that hte book is historically inaccurate for the time period that the story of daniel is written. As the 'prophecies' get to be around the 2nd century b.c.e., it gets accurate, but once about 134 B.C.E. runs around, the prediction go totally off base.

With my term 'liberal scholars', I was actually referring to folks like the Jesus Seminar, though that is a kind term. They seem to decide what is or isn't in the NT on mere whim.
Re. the Ethiopian church, like I said before, I don't see how they could have any authority over the OT because those were not written by them to begin with. I don't know of any that they differ on re. the NT. Besides which, these are not arguments about the books already in both the Ethiopian and Protestant canons, only the ones exclusive to the Ethiopian canon.
I realise that the Jews' expectation of a messiah was different from Jesus (even some of Jesus' disciples took a while to figure that out!). Given their then recent pre-Jesus history in the books of Maccabees, this is not surprising. But even they don't have those books in their OT canon, and that's THEIR own history.
Well, my point of all this was that I felt (and still feel) that the majority of Protestants have the best arguments for the Canon as they have it. I'm still waiting for someone to come up with better arguments.

So, if you are correct, and I said the Jews accepted books based on my reasons stated earlier, then you are saying they accepted it on other terms...what other terms exactly?

I count about 58 seperate forcasts in Daniel. Which ones concerning the period after 134 B.C. do you have a problem with?
I know there have been 'historical problems' cited by 19th century critics that have been resolved by archaelogical finds, which have demonstrated how accurately the author of Daniel portrays details of empire history and court life.
For instance, the ethnic denotation "Chaldean" is also used correctly to designate a class of astrologer soothsayers or 'wise men'. Belshazzar, long scoffed at as an invention, has been identified as the son and co-regent of Nabonidus (he offered to make Daniel '3rd highest ruler in the kingdom' [Dan 5:16], because he himself was 2nd). The change in punishments from fire (Dan. 3) to the lion's den (Dan. 6) reflects a change from Babylonian to Persian practices.
Anyway, still wondering where you are going with this book.

It was a book written in the second century b.c.e. to try to inspire people who were under the impression of Antioch. It is a psuedographical work. It is just part of the 'writings', not the torah or the prophets.

So you say, based on what evidence??