# Eastern Orthodox Canon Issues



## tellville (Feb 22, 2006)

Intro: As this is my first post I just wanted to give a quick intro. I´ve been browsing the board for a while and just recently became a member of it. I´ve had a long journey in embracing the Doctrines of Grace as I attend an Arminian church, in an Arminian denomination (at least in Canada it is), and am just about finished completing a BA in Religion and Theology from a increasingly liberal Arminian Baptist university. I´m still a Baptist, and agree with 1689, but am beginning to read more on covenant theology and infant baptism. Any advice on that matter (CT/IB) I would appreciate from either side. 

Now to my question! (BTW, I apologize if this is not the right section for my post. I wasn´t sure as to what section "œEastern Orthodox Canon Issues" fit!)

I emailed the major Eastern Orthodox seminary in the United States (St. Vladimir's) to ask them a canon question. I was curious as to why the EO include 3 Maccabees in their canon given that up to my knowledge at the time I wasn´t aware of any council accepting that book. I have included my message and their response. My question is as follows:

What do you make of his response? Especially his comments about not using all of Scripture for teaching and preaching? 

XXXXX,

My name is Mark Maney and I currently attend a Baptist university in Canada called Taylor University College and Seminary. I have a question about the Eastern Orthodoxy.

I was wondering if you could help me find an answer to why 3 Maccabees is in the Eastern Orthodox canon? From my best understanding only the first two Maccabees were accepted by the fourth(?) Synod of Carthage, in the year 419 which reaffirmed the canon of its predecessor the third Synod of Carthage in 397 which had ratified the OT canon accepted previously at the Synod of Hippo (393) and which also agreed with the Council of Rome (382), but explicitly included the Book of Baruch, which may have been included in Jeremiah or Lamentations in the previous canon. This exact same canon was implicitly affirmed at the seventh ecumenical council in Nicea in 787, which approved the results, implicitly, of the 419 Council of Carthage.

Basically, if the Ecumenical councils are binding on Orthodoxy, why is 3 Maccabees included in the canon (which was not discussed in these synods)? Also, in Orthodoxy, is 4 Maccabees considered scripture or is it just to be included in an appendix? 

BTW, if I have erred in my historical information please correct me! I would imagine this problem is due more to my inability to find the pertinent information on 3 Maccabees then anything else.

Thank you again and God bless!

Mark Maney 

Dear Mark,

Thank you for your message. The question of the canon of Scripture is a complex one that cannot be fully dealt with in a brief email exchange. With my reply I'll be copying two of my colleagues (in XXXXX and in XXXXX) who may be able to offer further assistance.

You mention several historic moments in the development of the canon of Scripture (including II Nicaea, in 787 AD). Many more such moments could be mentioned. Basically II Nicaea ratified the contents of a canonical corpus which began to form in the late 4th century and reached substantially its present form with the Synod in Trullo (691-692 AD). This canonical corpus, which to this day is basic for the Orthodox Church, included several texts (or canons) dealing with the canon of Scripture - with a number of minor variants one to another: Laodicea 60, African Code (Carthage) 27 (24 in the Latin numbering), Apostolic Canons 85 (which includes III Maccabees), excerpt from Gregory of Nazianzen, and excerpt from Amphilochius of Seleucia.

One should not be surprised at such minor variations, which simply reflect the fact that the Trullan collection in fact is itself a collection of regional collections, as it were. These variations, however, point to the fact that the various books of the Bible do not all function in the same way within the life of the Church. Not all are read publicly, for example (cf. Revelation), or form the basis for the Church's preaching and teaching. All this cautions us again using Scripture as an arsenal of proof-texts and encourages us to read Scripture as a whole, in the light of the Gospel.

Wishing you all success in your studies,

XXXXX

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P.S.

His colleagues never got back to me. Also, I never responded back to him nor do I intend on doing so. One thing I did learn was that I need to do much more research into canon issues! I didn´t even know about the Synod of Trullo!


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## Contra_Mundum (Mar 1, 2006)

I think its nice that he was courteous enough to answer you.

I'll go out on a limb here, and say that his remarks about "different rules" for different parts of "Scripture" shows that EO's definition of Scripture is "broader" than our definition. Due to the intensely conservative and traditional nature of EO, they would rather _include_ something, too much, than exclude anything. At the same time, they possibly added a rule or canon that defined just how far a certain book's authority went.

I had a EO priest once tell me that the KJV Bible was the only really acceptable English version (probably because of the TR text behind it). Now, maybe they would rather that it had the Apocrypha regularly included, I don't know. But apparently the familiar 66 book structure is sufficient in some sense, being the core of the authoritative books.

The liturgy of the EO church is ancient. Novelty is anathema to them. They change their stuff even less than Rome. If Revelation has never been read for liturgy, it probably never will be.

The part about not looking for "proof-texts" and a "wholistic" approach to the Scriptures is (my take) really just a way of getting around straightforward directives to Christians. The authority of the Bible is mediated through the church to the people. They are almost exactly like Rome in this sense. They would say the church created the canon, not that the Bible was received by the church. Hence his statements about a canon "forming" beginning in the 4th century, and only "settled" by the 7th.

Well, those are a few thoughts...


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