What, precisely, is the evidence against the acceptance of Susanna as authentic Scripture by the early Church? Precisely nothing. Not a single Father wrote against it. The only evidences I found against Susanna are the letter from Africanus (asking for instruction) and the comments from Jerome (who does not argue…

CITATION EVIDENCE It is virtually impossible to avoid confusion when discussing the Apocrypha as a set. There is nothing that really unites them, except that they are the additional Books in Catholic Bibles that are either not in the Protestant Bible at all or separated out as a third category.…

The Codex Claromontanus The last of our lists before 350, and our first inarguably Christian canon list, is the Codex Claromontanus.[1] Gallagher and Meade tell us that scholars generally date it to the fourth century, or even earlier (with the inevitable disagreement noted), and they give it a date of…

Eusebius’ “Lists” The next “list” is Eusebius. However, he never gives his own Old Testament list. Instead, he copied lists he read from others. And unfortunately, Eusebius is not as reliable as moderns wish he had been. Far too much nonsense is written about Eusebius for several reasons. One, while…

Origen’s Jewish List The first is the list from Origen.[1] It is a Jewish list. On the face of it, it is merely telling us what the Books of the Hebrews are. Whether that meant (to Origen) that the list was also an exclusive list of the Books of the…

CANON LISTS One last thing before we start discussing citation evidence: a brief review of the three alleged lists in this 200-350 AD time frame.

THE GREAT UNCIAL CODICES But before we cover all that, let’s first begin with a different kind of “canon list”: entire manuscript copies of the Apocrypha, and specifically the manuscript copies that appear in the four “Great Uncial Codices.” These are the four Bibles of the fourth and fifth century…

200-350 AD This is the middle period of the early Church, for our purposes. By the end of this period, with the conversion of Constantine, and the Edict of Milan finally granting freedom from persecution, the early Church will enter a new phase, which will include the vast majority of…

SIDEBAR 7: REASONABLE STANDARDS OF PROOF, PART III As we start to move beyond Irenaeus, let us consider some advice from Kruger’s treatise regarding issues we will see in the remaining evidence: … overplaying of disagreements over canonical books also happens in other areas. Throughout early Patristic testimony about the…

Irenaeus Testifies that Baruch was Apostolic Preaching It is time to refocus on Baruch and the question we originally passed over: was Baruch wrongfully accepted in the period before the canon lists, or was it true teaching from the Apostles? Personally, I think Baruch is the key to everything, and…