KFC POSTS:
I'm not taking the bait Lula.
End of quote
No bait, you are the one who first said:
This contradicts the 66 books of the bible.
End of quote
LULA POSTS:
You are mistaken. Machabees was always included in the inspired canon of Scripture. The 46 Books of the Old Testament contained in the present canon ever since 3 centuries before Christ
End of quote
KFC POSTS:
....Christ never once quoted from these books which were around 3 centuries before Christ.
End of quote
We know for certain that at the time of Christ both the Hebrew Palestinian Canon and the Greek Septuagint Canon were equally acknowledged by the Jews as authoritative. We find in the New Testament, written under Divine inspiration, of the 350 quotations from the OLd Testament, 300 were taken from the Septuagint. If the Septuagint was erroneous or those 7 books of its Canon false, then far from quoting it, the Apostles would have denounced it and warned Christians not to use it, but they did not do so.
The Church Doctors of the first 3 centuries, St.Clement of Rome, St.Irenaeus, Polycarp and others, quote or allude to them as well.
KFC POSTS:
Where in the OT do you find a command, suggestion, or prayer to the dead? If you don't want to go there....show me where Christ advocated such a thing.
End of quote
Please, there aren't any OT passages where we pray
TO the dead.
The duty to pray for the souls of the dead is inclucated in the OT and it is again taught in the NT. I've already mentioned 2Tim.1:18. Christ tells us we will not be liberated from the expiation of our sins until we have paid the "last farthing" St.Matt 5:26. Where do souls go to pay the last farthing...Catholics believe it's Purgatory.
The Catholic practice of praying
for the dead and the existence of Purgatory is part of the faith of Israelites. Jews have always prayed for departed souls, "that they may be loosed from their sins". That principle is clearly set forth in 2Machabees 12:46.
"It is a holy and wholesome thought to pray for the dead, that they may be loosed from sins."
We know that pray can never loose souls once they enter Hell. The place out of which souls may secure release by the help of our prayers for them the CC calls Purgatory. The common practice among Catholics to pray, to do acts of charity, have the Holy Mass offered for departed souls is the practice Judas Machabee followed when he collected money to sent to Jerusalem for the Jewish priestly sacrifice 12:43.
Before you remind me that you reject Machabees as not in the Jewish Canon, please remember that rejection was over 300 years after the Jews had recognized the Septuagint Old Testament as correct in every respect.
What does it tell you that those books were declared apocrypha after the advent of Christianity? The motive that prompted the Jews to reject the 7 Septuagint Books was hostility to Christianity. Remember too, that was after biblical Judaism, its priesthood and sacrifices, had been displaced by the Christian priesthood and Sacrifice. The OLd Testament canon of Scripture used by Protestants was not definitively determined by the Jews until they were no longer the keepers and interpreters of GOd's law. It bears worth repeating that the Septuagint, including the books of Machabees, was an integral part of the biblical canon of Christendom from the time of its official compilation in 397 until the appearance of Luther's Bible in 1534. Luther led Protestantism from the Christian canon to the canon made by the Jews of the diaspora, when the Chruch of the Jews was no longer the Chruch of GOd. Sorry about that, it's just the way it is. Pure and simple, Luther rejected the Second Book of Machabees becasue it taught the doctrine of Purgatory.
He rejected the Epistle of James, calling it an "epistle of straw" becasue it clashed with his ideas of justification by faith alone. Ever wonder why he rejected fragments of Esther 10:4, 16:24 and Daniel 3:24-90; 13 and 14?
Whether or not you accept these facts, there it stands never to be dislodged by refusal to accept them becasue the makers of the Protestant Bible rejected them.
Here's something more to think about: If the Septuagint version is invalid, then it is up to Protestants to explain why they give Greek Septuagint names instead of Hebrew names or their English equivalent names to the books of Moses. Why call those books the Pentateuch instead of the Torah or its English designation, Instruction? Why Genesis, Exodus, Leviticus, Numbers, (translation of the Greek Arithmoi) and Deuteronomy instead of the Palestanian Hebrew names, Bereshith, Shemoth, Vayikra, Bemidbar, and Debarim? or their English equivalents, the Beginning, Names, ANd He cCalled, In the Wilderness, and WOrds? Why call the book the "Bible" which is the Greek (Anglicized) name the Catholic Chruch gave the Septuagint in union with the New Testament?
It's interesting to note that Chanukah, the Feast of Lights, which the Jews celebrate for 8 consecutive days each year, centers in the story of the Machabees that appears in the last two books of the Septaguint version, which the Catholic Chruch preserved and declared to have been written under Divine inspiration of the Holy Spirit.
That's right...this feast was instituted by Judas Machabees as a memorial of the rededication of the sanctuary which was defiled by Antiochus Epiphanes. The thrilling story of the Machabees, glorious martrys for their religion, is read every year by the Jews as is the book of Esther during the Feast of Purim. Considering that Chanukah ranks higher than the Feast of Purim, no reason save hostility towards Christianity during the Talmud writing days can account for rejecting the 2 Books of Machabees as uncanonical and placing the Book of Esther that has not God in it into the Jewish canon.
As an aside, I heard on a radio talk show Mel Gibson say he's interested to produce a movie on the lines of the Passion of the Christ about the glorious story of the Machabees.
Finally, at this point you are morally obligated to make a futher investigation of them. You've passed the stage of "invincible ignorance" that excuses many people who do not know sound arguments that sustain the belief that the Catholic Bible containing 73 Books is the one and only complete Library of inspired writings.