Trito-canonical texts

Christian Alexander
Christian Alexander Member Posts: 3,008 ✭✭✭
edited November 2024 in English Forum

I am trying to find all Trito-canonical texts accessible.Can Logos help me with this kind of search? I know the difference of Proto-canonical, Deutero-canonical and Trito-canonical texts and this is my definition. Texts that can be employed as a foundation for teaching and for instruction in worship environments are referred to as proto-canonical. Deutero-canonical texts: those that are suitable for teaching in religious contexts but not suitable for serving as the foundation for doctrinal claims. Trito-canonical texts are those that are good for individual reading but are not employed as a foundation for theology or as lessons in worship environments or classes. From the start of the Christian movement, protocanonical works were essentially recognized as canonical. These are the books that make up the Old Testament of the Protestant Bible and the current standard Hebrew Bible. The books of the second canon are the Deuterocanon. These works were included in various Hebrew Bibles of the time and were well-liked in the Early Church. They were left out, nonetheless, when the Hebrew Canon was finalized. 

Comments

  • MJ. Smith
    MJ. Smith MVP Posts: 55,148

    They were left out, nonetheless, when the Hebrew Canon was finalized. 

    This is a false statement if applied to the Christian Old Testament.  Note that the Jewish canon Christian Old Testament retains the sequence of the Christian Septuagint Old Testament but not the content. The Canon Comparison tool is as close to a list of trito-canonical works as Logos will provide. Note that the terms proto-canonical, deuterocanonical, and trito-canonical have meaning only within a specific tradition i.e. Russian Slavonic Eastern Orthodox and other Eastern Orthodox Churches have a difference in their official stance and a difference in their actual usage. (Note that a Logos update introduced a couple of errors into this tool regarding the Russian and Georgian Orthodox). Note that there are also oddities such as the Coptic use of 1 Clement that are not shown in the tool.

    You may find this Defining Parabiblical (upenn.edu) useful in dealing with related literature.

    EDIT for clarity in your post:

    Trito-canonical texts are those that are good for individual reading but are not employed as a foundation for theology or as lessons in worship environments or classes.

    They are often used in faith formation classes, as antiphons or responsories, etc. The only place they are not used are as lessons in services or sole basis of doctrine. Note that "lessons" is used here in the technical sense.

    These works were included in various Hebrew Bibles of the time

    They appear in the Greek (LXX) Bibles; a major factor in their not being in the Tanakh was the lack of them in Hebrew. We have since learned that the originals were not all in Greek as was thought at the time of the freezing of the Masoretic text.

    Orthodox Bishop Alfeyev: "To be a theologian means to have experience of a personal encounter with God through prayer and worship."; Orthodox proverb: "We know where the Church is, we do not know where it is not."

  • DMB
    DMB Member Posts: 14,465 ✭✭✭✭

    From the start of the Christian movement, protocanonical works were essentially recognized as canonical. These are the books that make up the Old Testament of the Protestant Bible and the current standard Hebrew Bible. The books of the second canon are the Deuterocanon. These works were included in various Hebrew Bibles of the time and were well-liked in the Early Church. They were left out, nonetheless, when the Hebrew Canon was finalized. 

    I can't imagine where your evidence is from. Thin air?

    "If myth is ideology in narrative form, then scholarship is myth with footnotes." B. Lincolm 1999.

  • Christian Alexander
    Christian Alexander Member Posts: 3,008 ✭✭✭

    That site was helpful MJ. 

    DMB said:

    I can't imagine where your evidence is from. Thin air?

    This was the way I was taught. In my class we read the following. 

    McDonald, Lee Martin, and James A. Sanders, eds. The canon debate. Grand Rapids: Baker Academic, 2001.

    Lienhard, Joseph T. The Bible, the Church, and Authority: The Canon of the Christian Bible in History and Theology. Liturgical Press, 1995.

    Knight, Douglas A. "Canon and the History of Tradition." Horizons in biblical theology 2, no. 1 (1980): 127-149.

    Peckham, John C. "The canon and biblical authority: A critical comparison of two models of canonicity." Trinity journal 28, no. 2 (2007): 229.

    Baehr, Peter. Founders, classics, canons: Modern disputes over the origins and appraisal of sociology's heritage. Routledge, 2017.

    Sanders, James A. From sacred story to sacred text: Canon as paradigm. Wipf and Stock Publishers, 2000.

    Lim, Timothy H. The formation of the Jewish canon. New Haven Yale University Press, 2013.

  • Christian Alexander
    Christian Alexander Member Posts: 3,008 ✭✭✭

    I want to look at only New Testament. Sorry for not being fully clarified. 

  • MJ. Smith
    MJ. Smith MVP Posts: 55,148

    This was the way I was taught. In my class we read the following. 

    What you are stating is not what those resources say nor what the historical record shows. Nor does the ~70% of Christians currently using the LXX canon validate the hypothesis. There are legitimate grounds to debate whether the Christian Old Testament should equal the Hebrew Tanakh or whether it should reflect its own canonical tradition (LXX). In your reading list Lienhard comes down firmly on the LXX side. McDonald, Sanders, and Lim are all reliable sources; note Lim's interest is the Jewish canon not the Christian "Old Testament" canon which may or may not be the same. None of the 4 authors I have mentioned take the view you expressed without significant redefinition of terms. You may wish to reread some of these works or expand by using my canon bibliography in Logos (which really only covers Western Christianity).

    [quote]

    • Sparks, Kenton L. Ancient Texts for the Study of the Hebrew Bible: A Guide to the Background Literature. Peabody, MA: Hendrickson Publishers, 2005.
    • Ridderbos, Herman. The Authority of the New Testament Scriptures. Translated by H. De Jongste. Grand Rapids, MI: The Baker Book House, 1963.
    • Flint, Peter W., and Tae Hun Kim, eds. The Bible at Qumran: Text, Shape, and Interpretation. Studies in the Dead Sea Scrolls and Related Literature. Grand Rapids, MI; Cambridge, U.K.: William B. Eerdmans Publishing Company, 2001.
    • McDonald, Lee Martin. The Biblical Canon: Its Origin, Transmission, and Authority. Grand Rapids, MI: Hendrickson Publishers, 2011.
    • Lyons, William John. Canon and Exegesis: Canonical Praxis and the Sodom Narrative. Vol. 352. Journal for the Study of the Old Testament Supplement Series. London; New York: Sheffield Academic Press, 2002.
    • Evans, Eli. Canon Comparison. Bellingham, WA: Faithlife, 2014.
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    • Alexander, Archibald. The Canon of the Old and New Testaments Ascertained, or the Bible Complete without the Apocrypha and Unwritten Traditions. Philadelphia: Presbyterian Board of Publication, 1851.
    • Peckham, John C. Canonical Theology: The Biblical Canon, Sola Scriptura, and Theological Method. Grand Rapids, MI: William B. Eerdmans Publishing Company, 2016.
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    • Hahneman, Geoffrey Mark. The Muratorian Fragment and the Development of the Canon. Oxford Theological Monographs. Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1992.
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    • Hengel, Martin, Roland Deines, and Mark E. Biddle. The Septuagint as Christian Scripture : Its Prehistory and the Problem of Its Canon. Edinburgh: T&T Clark, 2002.
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    Exported from Verbum, 1:55 PM June 2, 2024.

    Orthodox Bishop Alfeyev: "To be a theologian means to have experience of a personal encounter with God through prayer and worship."; Orthodox proverb: "We know where the Church is, we do not know where it is not."

  • Christian Alexander
    Christian Alexander Member Posts: 3,008 ✭✭✭

    This was a rabbit trail. I was missing some key points. Thank you for clarifying my position.