What Faldo says is correct, about Hannukah (however it's spelt) and the various Christian feasts he mentions. Although there is some implied scriptural mandate for the celebration of Easter, if not for an annual date, at least for celebrating it every Sunday, the day Jesus rose - the early church met specially on that day from the start for that reason.
Regarding Luke's statement about the extra books of the Old Testament, it's not as simple as that. It was not Luther who "threw out" the seven inter-testamental writings (and additions to two other books) that had always been accepted as scripture up to that point. That's historically incorrect.
First, they were not always accepted by everyone. The Jews, at the council of Jamnia in ca 80AD failed to include them in their Canon of the Hebrew Scriptures. I don't believe any of them are among the books or portions of books found in the Dead Sea Scrolls either. In the 4th century, several prominent Church Fathers declared them non-Canonical and not authoritative, only to be read for edification. Augustine (Luther's favourite father!) accepted them, Jerome did not. Various figures throughout history up to the Reformation continued to express doubts about them. There were other books, too, such as 1 & 2 Esdras and the Prayer of Manasseh, that were not accepted by Rome but were accepted by parts of the Eastern Orthodox church (called the Anagignoskomena). And there are yet other ones that practically nobody accepts.
Second, these extra books (Wisdom, Ecclesiasticus, Baruch, Tobit, Judith, 1 & 2 Maccabees, and the additions to Daniel and Esther) were only finally definitively and officially accepted as scripture by the Roman Catholic Church at the Council of Trent in 1561, AFTER the Reformation. That is why they are sometimes referred to by Rome as the 'Deutero-Canonical' books, because they were part of a "second" canoning process by the Roman Church, having not been part of the canon prior to that.
So the idea that the "Protestant" Old Testament Canon (which is also the Jewish one!) is only 500 years old versus a Catholic Canon which is four times more ancient, is actually an historical fallacy. The Roman Canon is some 50 years later than Luther, not 1500 years earlier!
Last edited by The Pook; 01/10/09 04:12 AM.
