Ancient Christian Witness

He says the Talmud in a few places calls the book of "Sirach" scripture. He also mentions that the D.C.'s were circulated among the Pharisees........as seen below from the website:

QUOTE:
"All these indications of the continued circulation of many Jewish apocryphal writings among rabbis strongly implies that this apocryphal literature also circulated among pre-70 C.E. Pharisees since it is commonly agreed that the rabbis were the successors of the Pharisees. Since the rabbis had this apocryphal literature, in all probability they received it from the Pharisees. If not from the Pharisees, then from whom? Thus, we are able to expand the Jewish groups known to have had and circulated the apocryphal literature: Pharisees, the Qumran sect (Essenes?), and Christians. We have no information from other groups and unaligned Jews. However, it is clear that this wider circulation including Pharisees is the storehouse from which early Christianity received its scriptures from Judaism, including the apocryphal books."



I disagree with him saying that we got our scripture from nonbelieving Pharisees.......such a thing is unnecessary when the Apostles carried their own scriptures.........so we got it from them. But if he means "early christianity" as in Jesus and the Apostles using the same scriptures as the pharisees........then he may have a point.

Below is the surrounding context of the quote above.

The link:
http://department.monm.edu/classics/Speel_Festschrift/sundbergJr.htm


QUOTE:
"In the Old Testament of the Early Church I over enthusiastically identified the larger source of apocryphal literature as that which circulated freely throughout first century Judaism (Sundberg 1964:82, 103 and 129). This clearly overlooked the restricted canonical usage of Samaritans, who regarded only the Law as canonical.32 Similarly, the Sadducees probably should be excluded from that wider use of apocryphal literature as well.33 Contrary to previous beliefs, however, it is possible to argue that the Pharisees probably participated in the circulation of the wider apocryphal literature of first century B.C.E./ first century C.E. Judaism. Pfeiffer was adamant that the "official Judaism" of the first century B.C.E. and C.E. had nothing to do with the Jewish apocryphal literature prior to the closing of the canon at Jamnia. "All these tendencies toward giving canonical standing to Jewish writings outside the Scriptures," Pfeiffer (1941:66) says, "were contemptuously ignored by the Jewish authorities, and never affected normative Judaism in the least.34 He says, "no true Jew ever entertained the slightest doubt concerning the exact bounds of the Law, the Prophets, and the Writings (Pfeiffer 1941:66). As we will see, Pfeiffers stance appears to be overstated. In what follows we are not concerned with canonicity, merely possession.

There are evidences of a continued use of this apocryphal literature in rabbinic literature of later times. Sirach is quoted three times in the Talmud as scripture. It is twice quoted with the introductory formula, "for so it is written in the Book of Ben Sira."35 Ben Sira is also sometimes quoted as "Writings" when the rabbis were proof-texting, e.g., "This matter is written in the Pentateuch as written. . . , repeated in the Prophets, as written. . . , mentioned a third time in the Hagiographa, as written, (here Sirach 12.15 is quoted), it was learned in the Mishnah, . . . ."36 Pfeiffer (1941:66) tells us that the Hebrew text of Sirach was still being copied as late as the twelfth century C.E. It is cited by name in Sanhedrin 100b (= Yeb. 63c), which quotes several verses. According to L. Israel (1905:390) single verses appear in: Yer. Ber. 11b; Yer. Hag. 77c; Yer. Ta'an. 66d; Hag. 13a; Niddah 16b; Gen. R. 8, 10, 73; Lev. R. 33; Tan. Wayishlah 8; Tan., Mikkez. 10; Tan. Hukkat. 1; etc.

Origen knew a Hebrew name for the books of Maccabees, "Sar beth Sabnai el."37 Jerome obtained Hebrew texts of Sirach, I Maccabees, Tobit and Judith in Aramaic ("Chaldee"), presumably from Jews, which he, with the help of a hired expert in Aramaic and Hebrew, translated into Latin.38 Marx (1921) noticed that Moses ben Nahaman (Nachmanides, ca. 1194 -1270 C.E.) knew and used an Aramaic (!) text of Wisdom, citing 7.5-8, 17-21 in the introduction and 1.7, 8, 11 on Deut. 20.14 in his Commentary on the Pentateuch; he also noted some acquaintance with the story of Bel and the Dragon and Judith by Jews in Spain in the twelfth and thirteenth centuries.

In a lecture dealing with Ecclesiastes delivered in Gerona in 1266 or 67, Nachmanides said of Wisdom,

We find another book called The Great Wisdom of Solomon which is written in difficult Aramaic and the Christians have translated it from that language. I believe that this book was not arranged by the Men of Hezekiah, the king of Judah, but that it went with the Jews to Babylon orally and there they fixed it in their language, for it only contains sayings of wisdom and has not been written by inspiration. (Marx 1921:60)

Nachmanides statement, therefore, suggests that Wisdom circulated in Judaism at least until the thirteenth century C.E. Jerome knew Jubilees in Hebrew.39

All these indications of the continued circulation of many Jewish apocryphal writings among rabbis strongly implies that this apocryphal literature also circulated among pre-70 C.E. Pharisees since it is commonly agreed that the rabbis were the successors of the Pharisees. Since the rabbis had this apocryphal literature, in all probability they received it from the Pharisees. If not from the Pharisees, then from whom? Thus, we are able to expand the Jewish groups known to have had and circulated the apocryphal literature: Pharisees, the Qumran sect (Essenes?), and Christians. We have no information from other groups and unaligned Jews. However, it is clear that this wider circulation including Pharisees is the storehouse from which early Christianity received its scriptures from Judaism, including the apocryphal books.

An important aspect of the apocryphal literature at Qumran is that some items are cited in the sectarian writings in ways that are indistinguishable from the ways in which canonical writings (Law and Prophets) are cited. B. J. Roberts (1953/54:84), noting abundant quotations from the apocryphal writings in the sectarian writings of Qumran, observed, "we can visualize the Biblical literature of the New Covenanters as covering a far wider range then either the Hebrew or the Alexandrian canon. And J. Carmignac (1956:234-260 and 375-390), studying quotations and allusions in the War of the Sons of Light Against the Sons of Darkness, concluded that one cannot differentiate between the use of the books of the Hebrew canon and the extra-canonical writings in this work. After reviewing the "Zadokite Work" (fragments found at Qumran, the Damascus Document), H. L. Ginzberg (1956:47) has remarked""











Jnorm888