GREAT UNCIAL CODICES To begin our review, recall that two Great Uncial Codices date after 400 and so were made during this period. Codex Alexandrinus included 1 and 2 Maccabees, Wisdom, Sirach, Baruch, Judith, Tobit, and Susanna. Codex Ephraemi Rescriptus included Wisdom and Sirach, but most of the Old Testament…

350 AD-450 AD Let’s consider the evidence for the Canon at the start of 350 AD. We, of course, have no formal declaration, so our standard is consensus. Susanna and Baruch are clearly still canon and have been unanimously so for more than three centuries—far longer than the United States…

SIDEBAR 8: 1 ENOCH 1 Enoch is not Apocrypha as defined for this book (because it is not accepted as Scripture by modern Catholics, and I do not have space to do it full justice), but it still relates to our inquiry, since it speaks to whether or not the…

2 MACCABEES The good news for those of us who are lazy (i.e., all of us) is that all the work we just did on 1 Maccabees is about to pay immediate bonus dividends: we have already compared the evidence for 1 Maccabees against 1 Chronicles, and 2 Maccabees is…

1 MACCABEES 1 Maccabees is a historical book telling the story of the Maccabean revolt. 1 Maccabees is only very rarely quoted or referenced by the Church Fathers in the era of early Christianity. … As 1 Maccabees has very little to say about the martyrs, it correspondingly was not…

SIRACH (ECCLESIASTICUS) There is always confusion about the Book of Sirach—Ecclesiasticus is the Latin name for it, which is, of course, easy to confuse with Ecclesiastes. On the other hand, the Book of Sirach is not infrequently called the Book of Wisdom, or even Solomon, which multiplies the confusion. And…

THE WISDOM OF SOLOMON The Book of Wisdom is, of course, oddly named. It is confused with the Book of Sirach, which is technically named the Book of the Wisdom of Jesus the Son of Sirach. And other books (such as Proverbs, as might be the case with Melito’s list)…

BARUCH I view Irenaeus as, by far, the most important piece of evidence for Baruch: “the commandments of God, and of the law which endureth for ever. All they that hold it fast (are appointed) to life: but such as leave it shall die… This, beloved, is the preaching of…

JUDITH The issues Irenaeus evinces for Baruch (and Susanna, etc.) are but a piece of the problem that the earliest Fathers present. Clement of Rome’s Epistle (1 Clement) is a letter addressed to the Christians in the city of Corinth and is one of the earliest, if not the earliest,…

TOBIT “Four Aramaic and one Hebrew fragment [of Tobit] were found among the Dead Sea Scrolls, indicating an authoritative status among some sects.”[1] Bear in mind that, to us, such a find is more than just an indication of the status of Tobit before 68 AD, interesting and relevant as…