PP526

Our claim is that wolves began leading people astray in the 300s. That’s over 250 years post Jesus’s resurrection. Look at how, in the Bible, God’s chosen people often went astray within a generation. To argue that people can’t go astray that quickly is to ignore history.

Mortal vs Venial Sins: What Do Roman Catholics Believe?

If you’re arguing that “the Septuagint” or “the Dead Sea Scrolls,” both included certain books, and on that basis we must have those books in our Bibles today, then you have a big problem. Both “the Septuagint” and “the Dead Sea Scrolls” are mini-libraries — they include documents considered both scriptural and non-scriptural in their day. 

For example, the Letter of Aristeas, 3rd and 4th Maccabees, the Ascension of Isaiah, the Testament of Job, the Life of Adam and Eve, the Psalms of Solomon, and the Assumption of Moses are all part of the Septuagint collections. The Testaments of the Twelve Patriarchs, The Community Rule, recordings of the last words of Joseph, Judah, Levi, Naphtali, and Amram (the father of Moses) were amongst the Dead Sea Scrolls. Few (if any) of these books are considered scripture today by modern Christian or Jewish groups.

Both the Septuagint and the Dead Sea Scrolls are representative of ancient library collections — collections that contained scripture but that were not themselves wholly considered scripture. We today group them in these convenient categories with these helpful titles, but it is a misunderstanding to think of them as, or necessarily representative of, a single thing.