Free Why Catholic Bibles Are Bigger by Gary G. Michuta

and Judah the
Prince, two of Akiba’s disciples, completed their master’s work of
systematizing, collecting, and editing the oral tradition of the Jews. Their
work later became the Mishnah and Talmud. It is also during reign of Akiba (or
shortly afterwards) that the idea of a cessation of prophecy began to appear in
rabbinic literature. [99] These oral traditions of the Jews claim to have come from antiquity, but both
Protestant and Jewish scholars have admitted that they are merely devices used
to give the impression that the opinions of these late, rabbinical sages were
rooted in the prophetic tradition. The idea of a cessation of prophecy allowed
Jewish leaders to become the sole arbiters of Jewish oral tradition. [100] Protestant appeals,
therefore, to such late rabbinic literature as proof of a fixed pre-Christian
canon are entirely misplaced. The evidence for a closed canon before the end of
the first Christian century is, at best, weak and unconvincing. [101]
    Let us now investigate, by use of ancient writings, how
Christians of the second and third centuries regarded these books.
    Justin Martyr (ca. 100–163)
    Born to pagan parents, Justin grew up with a love for
philosophy. While walking on a beach one day, Justin met an old man who
explained Christianity to him. Justin became a Christian and an ardent defender
of the Faith.
    Though Justin made ample use of the Greek Septuagint when
quoting Scripture, he never, in any of his surviving books, makes any use of or
citation from the Deuterocanon. At first blush, this omission might appear to
speak strongly against early Christian acceptance of the books in question; a
closer look reveals the true explanation. Justin, like the other Christian
apologists of this era, used relatively little Scripture when defending the
Faith against pagans—for the simple reason that pagans did not accept Scripture
as authoritative. The only work of Justin’s addressed to a non-pagan readership
is his Dialogue with Trypho the Jew, composed (as most scholars believe)
during the years immediately following the Bar Cochba revolt. This being the
case, Justin deliberately refrained from using Deuterocanonical sources, since
Trypho, a Jew of the post-Akiba period, would not have recognized them as
authoritative. Such an explanation would have been easy to deduce, even if
Justin himself had not spelled it out in the pages of the Dialogue itself. [102] As a
matter of fact, one of Justin’s main points of attack in the debate with Trypho
is that his elders in the Synagogue had dared to alter, abridge, and otherwise
mutilate the very Word of God itself. [103]
    Melito of Sardis (d. 170)
    Little is known about Melito of Sardis other than that he
was a well-respected bishop of the church at Sardis (one of the seven churches
of the book of Revelation) who lived in the latter half of the second century.
Only fragments of his works have come down to us. One such fragment, relevant
to our current discussion, is preserved in Eusebius’s Church History :
    But in the Extracts made by him the same writer gives
at the beginning of the introduction a catalogue of the acknowledged books of
the Old Testament, which it is necessary to quote at this point. He writes as
follows: ‘Melito to his brother Onesimus, greeting: Since thou hast often, in
thy zeal for the word, expressed a wish to have extracts made from the Law and
the Prophets concerning the Saviour and concerning our entire faith, and hast
also desired to have an accurate statement of the ancient books, as regards
their number and their order, I have endeavored to perform the task, knowing
thy zeal for the faith, and thy desire to gain information in regard to the
word, and knowing that thou, in thy yearning after God, esteemest these things
above all else, struggling to attain eternal salvation. Accordingly when I went
East and came to the place where these things were preached and done, I learned
accurately the books of the Old Testament, and