Mark Shea's 5 Myths About 7 Books Summary

Throughout Mark Shea’s 5 Myths about 7 Books, he discusses five suspicions held by Protestants as to why the “Apocryphal” books should be included within the Church’s Bible. To preface, this stance will be of dynamic inspiration, which claims that God adapts himself to the original audience of the text, allowing human writers to write according to their own experiences. Though this article there appears to be a hindsight bias as to the position of the deuterocanonical books and although Shea makes a compelling case as to why these myths should be dispelled, the Apocrypha are not inspired. While the Apocrypha have been undoubtedly alluded to in the New Testament, this does not correlate with inspiration. The Apocrypha also have contradictions …show more content…
The first argument held by Protestants states that the deuterocanonical books were added after the Council of Trent. This is refuted by Shea and he establishes that “the Septuagint version of scripture, from which Christ quoted, includes the Deuterocanonical books” (Shea 3), proving that these books have been around since Jesus’ time on Earth. He then attempts to explain the fact that they are not quoted in by Christ and the Apostles. He creates a double negative which causes anything that is not quoted to be non-canonical and he also explains that the deuterocanonical books have been alluded to, such as passages of wisdom being alluded to in Matthew. He also dispels any ideas that inspired Scripture cannot contain errors by stating that the errors were not meant to be claimed as truths but as examples and that the moral errors such as Raphael’s lie is actually “revealing the deepest truth about who God is and why God sent him to Tobit” (Shea 7). Shea then defends the claim that the deuterocanonical books deny their own inspiration. He explains that the editor of 2 Maccabee is only exhibiting an expression of humility and that if this is to be taken as a sign of discouragement then St. Paul stating periods of his words should also be excluded from the Bible. Finally Shea refutes the claim …show more content…
The Apocrypha, however, suggests that humans have pre-existing souls which determine the body we have today. This comes from the Wisdom of Solomon in which the author explains that because he was good, the soul came into a body undefiled. This is a direct contradiction with the biblical view in Psalms that the human souls is formed at conception. Another contradiction within the Apocrypha is within the Maccabees. Concerning the death of Antiochus Epiphanies, 1 Maccabee states that he is cut to pieces by Nanaea’s priests while in 2 Maccabee states he ended his own life because of a sickness. The error of these two books demonstrate that such an important detail could not be mistaken if these two books were truly inspired. The Apocrypha’s most erroneous contradiction concerns the moral teachings of pride and violence. Through biblical teachings, we learn that God is the giver of life and that no one should take it upon themselves to take the life of others. However, in Judith, the murder of the men of Shechem are commended rather than condemned while being seen as an act of God. This demonstrate the lack of understanding who God attributing sin such as murder as good. This type of teaching does not correlate with the Bible’s overtone of forgiveness and love, demonstrating that this was not inspired by the Lord. These contradictions create doubt in whether the Apocrypha