Why wouldn’t you want this in your Bible?
I originally had the following post scheduled for this weekend, but since yesterday Joe posted an article entitled Defending the Deuterocanon Book by Book (Part 1), I thought I’d post it a little earlier…
In case you were unaware, Catholic Bibles are bigger than Protestant Bibles. Protestant Bibles are lacking the following books:
Tobit, Judith, Wisdom, Sirach, Baruch, 1 Maccabees, 2 Maccabees, …
…as well as three chapters of Daniel (3:24-90; 13; 14) and six chapters of Esther (10:14-16:14)
Occasionally I run across a non-Catholic who insists that this Deuterocanonical books (referred to as the “apocrypha” by Protestants) should not be part of the Bible. I don’t usually get too much into the apologetic arguments in favour of the inclusion of the Deuterocanon, although they certainly do exist. Instead, I just invite the person simply to read them! I usually suggest that they start with Wisdom, Sirach and Tobit as they’re my favourites.
Before they do that though, I always invite them to start by the following extract from Wisdom, to which I’ve added a series of underlined New Testament hyperlinks. Does any of this sound strangely familiar?
…the ungodly by their words and deeds summoned death… they reasoned unsoundly, saying to themselves…
“Let us lie in wait for the righteous man, because he is inconvenient to us and opposes our actions; he reproaches us for sins against the law, and accuses us of sins against our training. He professes to have knowledge of God, and calls himself a child of the Lord. He became to us a reproof of our thoughts; the very sight of him is a burden to us, because his manner of life is unlike that of others, and his ways are strange. We are considered by him as something base, and he avoids our ways as unclean; he calls the last end of the righteous happy, and boasts that God is his father.
Let us see if his words are true, and let us test what will happen at the end of his life; for if the righteous man is God’s son, he will help him, and will deliver him from the hand of his adversaries. Let us test him with insult and torture, that we may find out how gentle he is, and make trial of his forbearance. Let us condemn him to a shameful death, for, according to what he says, he will be protected.” Thus they reasoned, but they were led astray, for their wickedness blinded them, and they did not know the secret purposes of God, nor hope for the wages of holiness, nor discern the prize for blameless souls…”
Wisdom 1:16, 2:1, 12–22
