25 November 2024 |
Related questions this week from different askers.
Dear Aunt Sevvy,
I just read that Jesus made several references to a book called Sirach. Is this true? Does this mean Jesus thought it was worth our study?
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Dear Aunt Sevvy,
I’ve heard that the Book of Enoch is quoted in the Bible. If the apostles quoted from it, why do we exclude it from our Bibles?
Dear Readers,
Many Christians, having been raised to believe that the Bible was handed down intact from heaven, are shocked when they learn that there are parts of the Bible that aren’t original. Revelation 22:18-19 notwithstanding, there has been editing, adding, subtracting, and compiling in this book. Furthermore, scholars have traced not just ideas, but in a few cases exact words, back to writings that aren’t in the canon of writings we now use.
Many scholars believe that the Torah—the first five books of the Bible—had at least four sources, each with a distinct writing style and theological perspective. Some have identified parallels in both the creation stories and the Ten Commandments to earlier pagan accounts.
In the New Testament, the first three gospels drew from a source that we don’t have anymore (scholars call it “Q”), and they also borrowed from one another. Paul, who had a broad education, alluded to sayings of secular writers Aratus, Menander, and Epimenides.
You may have heard of the Apocrypha, the intertestamental books that were included in all Bibles before the Victorian age. But those are only a few of the many, many Jewish and Christian books floating around back when the Bible was being composed. Some of the Bible’s authors read these books. It shouldn’t be a surprise that they made allusions to them.
Jude directly quotes Enoch 1:9, but there are at least five other possible references in Jesus’ teachings to the book of Enoch, and a half dozen more close parallels to Sirach. Some of the early church fathers regarded one or both of these books as inspired, though in the end they weren’t selected as being authoritative writings.
Many Adventists have gotten over Ellen White’s extensive plagiarism, so it shouldn’t be hard for us to accept that the Bible was derivative, too. As Ecclesiastes 1:9 says, “What has been will be again, what has been done will be done again; there is nothing new under the sun.”
Should you read these books? You can—but inasmuch as most Christians don’t regard them as inspired, you should be wary of proving theological points from them.
Aunt Sevvy
Aunt Sevvy has collected her answers into a book! You can get it from Amazon by clicking here.
You can write to Aunt Sevvy at [email protected]. Your real identity will never be revealed.
This post was originally published on here
