Prepared to Answer Gordon Ferguson Pt. 6

The following entry is taken out of what was going to be a much longer entry dealing with Ferguson's last chapter directly dealing with Catholicism. But as I was writing, I realized the entry entry might take about ten pages, and that's not okay. This entry deals with the Apocrypha, which would have been about in the middle of the original entry, and so now, the next entry is going to be about two or three pages shorter. Yay. 

These seven books are commonly known as the Apocrypha, meaning “hidden”, but this term is not used to denotatively. The more precise term for Catholics is “Deuterocanonical.” Ferguson raises seven objections in the first appendix. First, he says that the Jews did not accept them as Canon. But their Canon wasn’t declared until 90 A.D (known as the Palestine Canon), with Christians already in existence, with most of the original apostles dead and most (if not all) of the New Testament already written. So their decision had no binding on Christianity whatsoever, and was nothing to be inherited either. Further, we can find motive for the Jews to discard these books, as they contain strong messianic prophecies, and so presented an apologetic problem for them when engaged with the Christians. 

The second objection is that none of them were quoted by Jesus or any of the New Testament writers. That is dubious. For example, it seems as though James 1:19 quotes Sirach 5:11. It can be argued that the New Testament employs the Apocrypha over two dozen times. Further, there places in the Old Testament that refer to characters found in the Apocrypha, like in Ezekiel 14:14 & 20, where they mention a different David, a David found in David 13-14. 

The third objection (though not a real objection) is that the Catholic Church did not define the Old Testament Canon until Trent, 1500 years after Christ. Okay, and? What follows? Yes, this was absolutely a move against Protestantism because Protestantism was trying to get rid of these books! Should we apologize for trying to defend and preserve scripture? No. But this is nothing controversial because as far as I know, this is the first Christian proclamation of the Old Testament Canon. Was there ever a declaration of Old Testament Canon prior to this? So, let the question be posed to Ferguson, When was your Protestant Canon decided? Not much earlier, if at all, I can guarantee you that. 

The fourth objection is circular. Ferguson says that because it teaches prayers for the dead, it is therefore not Christian, and so should not be included in the canon. And how does he know prayers for the dead is unbiblical? Because there’s nothing in scripture that teaches it. But, that’s exactly what we want to know, is this actually scripture? Ferguson has already excluded it to begin with. If 2nd Maccabees is scripture, then scripture does in fact teach prayers for the dead. 

The fifth objection is an ad ridiculum, an argument that is merely ridicule by calling the accounts of Bel and the dragon as fairy tale. But what about exposing Bel as a false god is a fairy tale? In fact, isn’t Daniel debunking fairy tales here? And what about the dragon is fairy tale as well? Are not dragons referenced throughout scripture, especially Revelation? Does Ferguson think that we mean dragons associated with the middle ages? If so, then Ferguson is simply being ungracious. Even unicorns are talked about in scripture, though we know that they were thinking of what we recognize today as a rhinoceros. The same applies with dragons. 

Now, as to the sixth objection, I’ll be honest, I don’t know much about. I haven’t looked into this issue at all. People have brought it up, but it’s never been pressed, so I’ve never given it much attention. But I suspect that Ferguson wouldn’t be satisfied with such a response. I have no internet when I write these, and I write them at home and only when I freeload off someone else’s wifi do I post this up, so I can’t look this up. No matter. Here are some things to take into consideration. Even if, for the time being, it looks like there does contain historical errors in the apocrypha, would this constitute a defeater against it? That would be dubious. For we have two things in conflict, that of the authority of the church, and that of empirical history. So, which do we throw out? It would seem like the more plausible candidate for elimination is the empirical evidence. First, the church has remained true to doctrine and has defeated dozens of heresies throughout her existence so it is unlikely she would err on anything else. Secondly, empirical evidence for the historicity of the Bible has changed and changes constantly. Why not think such evidence will change in the future, thus redeeming the claims of the Catholic Church? Has this not happened repeatedly for the New Testament? Historical data is more likely to change than the Church being wrong. So, this would not constitute a strong enough defeater. Because everything else has worked out fine, we assume that though we cannot at present solve this conundrum, there is still a solution that we simply cannot grasp at the moment. Thirdly, looking at the two examples Ferguson raises, I know of similar problems and their solutions for the New Testament, and so I suggest similar solutions for the Deuterocanonical books. Tobit is cited as having problems concerning his experience with Assyrians conquering Israel and his experience with the revolt against Judah. Apparently, he could not have lived long enough to have experienced both. No matter. Sometimes, books of the Bible aren’t entirely the work of history and the work of one person. For example, it is orthodox to believe that Moses wrote the first few books of the Bible, including the one describing his death. Now, clearly, that is humanly impossible. You cannot write about your own death, and so we infer that someone else carried on important information, and many Bible believing conservative Christians believe this, and they recognize it does nothing to the doctrine of inerrancy. Also, you can defer to fiction and still generally be considered within the genre of history. For example, many good conservative Christian scholars believe that in the introduction to Acts, Luke is not writing to a real person named Theophilus. So, there is some fiction there, but we still think of it as generally historical, and this would do nothing to the doctrine of inerrancy (personally, I do not subscribe to this view. Theophilus is referred to as “most excellent”, which seems to be a title of high status, implying a real person, not a generic John Doe). In the same way, Tobit may not be intending to be entirely historical, and that’s okay. 

Judith is cited as having problems with the location of Nebuchadnezzar, putting him in Nineveh instead of Babylon. But this is simply a false dichotomy. Again, this is just another example of Ferguson not being gracious. Babylon is both the name of the country and the capital. It’s like New York, New York. Nineveh is the capital of Assyria. So Nineveh is pretty important for political geography. When Judith says that Nebuchadnezzar ruled Assyria from Nineveh, we see that the two claims are not mutually exclusive. As Assyria is conquered territory, he must rule from a distance and must still recognize the ethnic and cultural difference. He ruled Assyria, newly conquered territory (like an empire may have colonies) from Nineveh, but ruled his general kingdom from Babylon. Political geography can be messy business, which can, and has, lead to much confusion (I mean, trying to follow the geopolitical disputes in that area today is itself a daunting task!). For example, did Jesus come into or out of Jericho after healing the blind man in Luke 18:35 and Mark 10:46? Well, considering political geography, we see the two are not mutually exclusive. So this problem presents us with a false dichotomy. 

Now, I think those are all good a priori considerations for the historical challenges Ferguson puts forth. Hopefully, this has watered down his challenge a lot. I push this strategy aggressively because I simply do not know much about political geography or ancient geographical history. That is simply not my forte, and so I won’t go any further than my knowledge will honestly take me. The only Biblical history I’m acquainted with and can converse about is that which deals with the resurrection of Jesus. Imagine what would happened if I actually looked for historical evidences for the apocrypha? I don’t doubt I’ll find something useful. In that case, I would simply be copy-pasting, and that’s not my style. This will have turned this into a “my sources versus your sources” match, and I’m not one to just throw stuff like that around lightly. Though I will say, Father Mitch Pacwa is a professor of Old Testament, and so I’m sure he has something to say about this, if I looked. But I won’t for now. We must press on. 

The seventh and final objection to the apocrypha is that it does not claim to be inspired. This is true. What follows? 3rd John doesn’t claim to be inspired. Does it follow that it is therefore not inspired? This objection is weak.