And so as we examined this issue this evening, my thesis will be very straightforward.

The Apocryphal books, including Tobit, Judith, the Maccabees, Sirach, along with the additions to the canonical books like Baruch, Bell and the Dragon and the Epistle to Jeremiah. Whatever it might be, they are not inspired Scripture. These books were not accepted as Canonical scripture, by the Jews, to whom the oracles of God had been committed as the apostle Paul says in Romans chapter 3 verse 2.

They were not a part of the books laid up in the temple and considered Holy, in Palestine, or anywhere else for that matter.

The books themselves refute the claim of their own canonical standing, either by containing clear and irreconcilable contradictions and historical errors, or by themselves making reference to the already closed canon of the Old Testament.

Likewise, the Lord Jesus and the Apostles, though surely aware — as we have seen — of these books and their contents, never once cite them with the authoritative phrases:

“it is written”

“thus saith the Lord”

All the typical phrases that are used to identify Scripture, which they do with the Old Testament books.

Nor do we find any evidence of disagreement on the extent of the cannon between the Lord and the Apostles and their Jewish opponents, for example, in the gospel narrative.

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We have what’s called a BARAITA. A Baraita is an ancient tradition. Many of these traditions go well beyond the time of the New Testament, even into the Intertestamental period. It is these writings which shed so much light upon the customs of the Jews that we see in the Gospels.

And there you have a listing given to us [of]19 books in the Old Testament, excluding the books of the law, which were of course five: 19 + 5 is 24 — and we consistently find one of two numbers in Jewish sources: 22 or 24.  And they’re not actually two different numbers. It depends on whether you, for example, attach lamentations, Jeremiah, how you count the books in that way.

Both numbers represent the same canon found in Protestant Bibles today, and this is found in a Baraita, an ancient tradition going back even before the time the New Testament.

Josephus, an excellent resource, Josephus the historian, refers to the practice that they had where they would “lay up scrolls of the Scriptures in the Temple.” And he makes reference to this; for example, a number of places in Antiquities [Dr. White goes through the reference list too quick] that they would lay these Scriptures up in the Temple. The Apocryphal books were never laid up in the Temple.

Why would they be treated differently by the Jews themselves?

We also read, for example, if as the tannaitic literature maintains, not just the law and the prophets, but also the Hagiographa, that is, the writings belong[ing] to the temple collection, those kept within the temple and by the end of the temple period had belonged to it for such a long time that it was no longer permitted even to bring in fresh copies of the books, let alone copies of fresh books. How can this be reconciled with the current beliefs that the Hagiographer were not formally recognized as canonical until the Senate of Jamnia held after the Temple had been destroyed.

Here, Roger Beckwith has fine work, The Old Testament Canon of the New Testament Church, demonstrates that the idea that the canon was still open and unknown at this time is simply against the factual evidence that we see in this particular situation.

Josephus again, in Against Apion 1:7, gives the number of books as 22. He specifically rejects those books written after Malachi. That is, the Apocryphal books. There is no reason to believe that Josephus’ cannon is recent. That is, as most believe today, he is referring to a cannon that had been in place for 300 years.

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Now time precludes our investing much more time in another important area relevant to our subject, that being the fact that the Apocryphal books simply do not measure up as Scripture regarding their historical errors.

The Book of Judith, for example, is a mishmash of historical errors so obvious, and so extreme, that defenders of its canonicity have been forced to say it is actually an allegory, or something along those lines; but there’s no evidence of this.

Likewise, you do not find canonical Scripture asking the readers to forgive the book of its shortfalls as you do in Second Maccabees chapter 15.

But what about Jamnia?  

What about this alleged closing of the Canon?

Well, actually, Jamnia was merely a Jewish college or academy founded by Rabbi Yohanan ben Zakkai. The date of the session may have been as early as AD 75 or as late as AD 117 as regards to the disputed books, the discussion was confined to the question of whether Ecclesiastes and the Song of Psalms, and possibly just Ecclesiastes alone, made the hands unclean.

When you would touch the scrolls of Scripture, it would make your hands unclean because they were Holy. That is, were they divinely inspired? That’s all that was discussed there. There was no discussion about the Apocryphal books being canonical because the Jews had not ever viewed them in that way.

And what about Jesus and the apostles? Well, as Beckwith says, “the undeniable truth is that the New Testament, by contrast with the early fathers and by contrast with its own practice in relation to the books of the Hebrew Bible, never actually quotes from or ascribes authority to any of the Apocrypha.”

Did they know of those books?

Of course they knew of those books.

But remember, they knew of a lot of books. Paul quoted from Pagan philosophers. Jude quotes from the Pseudepigrapha. That doesn’t mean they accepted those books as canonical, but they had read those books and were aware. Of their existence.