On Thursday, 20 August 2020, 01:30:22 pm AEST, Mandy <mandyflynn01@...> wrote:
Hi there Ray and fellow students as always thank you Ray for a thought provoking class, you said? some scholars wondered why this book was included in the? Bible as there is no reference to God. Does this mean that all the books of the Bible
were written independently and someone???? decided to join all these books in one book being the Bible.If so there could be other interesting books not included. Take care everyone Mandy?
Hi Mandy and everybody, There
are two questions here, a short one and a great big one.? I’ll answer the short question first with a lengthy
answer and then address the long one with a short answer.
WHY
DID/DO SOME RELIGIOUS PEOPLE (NOT SCHOLARS) DISLIKE “ESTHER”? - I specifically referred to Roman
Catholics as well as Reformers like Martin Lither and John Calvin.? This list is by no means inclusive.? For example, Martin Luther called Esther “less worthy of
being held canonical” than any other writing of the Old Testament (尝耻迟丑别谤’蝉 Bondage
of the Will), and he put it on a list with?II?Maccabees for books
that “Judaize too much and contain much pagan naughtiness.” (尝耻迟丑别谤’蝉 Table
Talk).
Jerome (AD 342-420) discounted
great portions of the book.? John Calvin
simply omitted it from his bible commentaries.?
No New Testament author quotes from it. They had many
reasons to hate the book for the reasons mentioned in class (doesn’t mention
God, etc.); because it is too Jewish (anathema to those who believe that the
Church has replaced Israel); because it's too earthy or too human; and on and on.?
I dare say that if one is anti-Semitic, this would be a hard book to
stomach. But all these “feelings”
are meaningless, because Esther is not a Christian book, it’s part of the Old
Testament (Tenakh) Hebrew canon.? No Christian
religion, denomination or sect determined which books to include or exclude as
part of the OT canon.? That was done
by the Jews.
- As an aside, there are two versions of
Esther, a Greek one and a Hebrew one.?
For the first 400 years (until Jerome), Christians preferred the Greek
version used by the Orthodox Church.? It has
extra sections which actually include the missing “God stuff”:
lengthy prayers by Mordecai and Esther, express statements about God, “These things have come from God,” he [Mordecai]
says. “The Lord has saved his people; the Lord has delivered us from all these
evils; God has done great signs and wonders, which have not occurred among the
nations” (10.1,9).
Esther’s prayer starts, “O my Lord, thou art our king; help
me, who am alone and have no helper but thee.…”?
She put on sackcloth and dung and prayed for three straight days. Early Christian Church
Fathers including Clement of Rome,
Athanasius of Alexandria, Ambrose of Milan, and Aphrahat the Persian
appreciated the longer book of Esther. But Jerome in his
Vulgate went the other way, choosing the “hidden” Hebrew language book that our English bibles have
today. But you can find
the full book in the New English Translation of the Septuagint and also in the
Revised Standard Version’s full version.
- To sum
up, The Old Testament Canon had basically been settled by Jewish Religious
Authorities by 270 BC in a Greek translation of the Hebrew originals. The
Catholics chose to add the Apocryphal books but they don’t call them part of
the Canon.? What we have in our Old
Testaments is what Jesus had as Scriptures in His day.
The Catholics did find a way to mess up Esther for us today when
Jerome chose to translate a shorted Hebrew script into Latin rather than the
longer Greek version in use then (and now) by the Orthodox Churches.? The Good News is that this doesn’t matter as
far as understanding the book; in fact, it might actually be helpful in
encouraging us to look at the version that we have even deeper.? Both versions, after all, tell the same
story.
WERE
ALL BOOKS WRITTEN INDEPENDENTLY AND SOMEONE DECIDED TO JOIN THEM? TOGETHER?
- The simple answer is yes.? Who decided??
Christians believe that the Holy Spirit was behind the God-inspired choices.? I’ve addressed the Old Testament above.
- Each
New Testament book meets a number of very specific criteria such as (1) universal
recognition as divinely inspired, (2) written (or dictated) by an apostle or
other significant eye-witness observer of Jesus, (3) widespread acceptance as being "inspired" and "apostolic", (4) having orthodox teachings, and from here different lists go different ways.? The 27 NT books meet all these and other
criteria.? No other book does.? For some time, I have personally chosen to believe that one of
the Apostle John’s roles as the last surviving disciple was to compile that 27
letters that we call the New Testament.?
Every single one would have come through his hands in Ephesus.
- To
sum up, this is a complex question that has resulted in a great many PhDs in
Theology granted to those who offer answers.?
Different great religions claim to have been the ones to build the Canon.? None of this matters, because it has stood
for the better part of 2,000 years as is.
Thanks for another great question, Mandy.
Blessings,
Ray
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Ray