Restoring the Original Bible - by Ernest L. Martin

[Richard Amiel McGough]

Hey Ram,

I see you can't let go of ignoring the sources that show there were 22 books of the OT. So far you've knocked Jerome, who said there was, Eusebius, Josephus, and a bunch of others.

Hey there student,

Your statement is ridiculous. I have never "ignored" the 22 books. I've never "knocked" Jerome. What are you talking about?

I wondered how long it would be for you to bring up Judges, Ruth, etc.

Yep, another fact of history you have to ignore if you want to believe Martin's assertions.

I also noticed how you avoided the 22 books by saying neither you nor I could prove it. That is a blatant cop-out, for anyone who has done any studying knows the books were 22, and then expanded to 24 later. Although, that is not to say 2 new books were added, just that books already there were divided to give a count of 24.

Stating an obvious and incontrovertible fact is not "avoiding" and it's not a "cop out." Neither you nor I can prove that the 22 books were "original." Many scholars in this field note that the mystical significance of the 22 letters was strong motivation for the Jews to attempt to squeeze the ORIGINAL 24 books into a pattern of 22. Here is what I wrote about it in that article I'm pretty sure you have not read. You might find it interesting that it's title is "The 22 Books of the Jewish Canon" considering you have falsely asserted that I have "ignored" the 22 books! Go figure. Here's the quote:

In their efforts to force fit the Old Testament Canon into the alphabetic pattern, the Jews had to combine certain sets of books. This was very natural in most cases because some books, like First and Second Kings, were originally undivided. Likewise, the Twelve Minor Prophets, known since ancient times as the Book of the Twelve because they were written on a single scroll, could naturally be counted as one book. But when all such books were combined and the tally taken, the total came to twenty-four. To arrive at the desired set of twenty-two books, they had to combine two more pairs, which turned out to be Judges with Ruth, and Jeremiah with Lamentations according to Jerome in his Prologue to Samuel and Kings . The first pair made some sense because they treated the same time period (whihc is the reason given by Jerome), and the latter pair made some sense because they were written by the same prophet. But the combination just would not stick. McDonald, in his very thorough analysis called The Formation of the Christian Biblical Canon , explains the probable reason for its failure:

There are strong reasons to believe that the twenty-four-book list actually preceded the twenty-two-book list and that the latter was fashioned after the number of letters in the Hebrew alphabet. This appears to be more reasonable, since the twenty-four-book collection is more simple than the twenty-two-book collection's awkward and arbitrary combination of Ruth and Lamentations with Judges and Jeremiah. ... The practice of doubling up several books in the list in order to arrive at the number twenty-two suggests that the number, more than its precise contents, was what was considered most important. Perhaps ... the number twenty-two was a holy number and thus all of the scriptures had to fit within that number. Hence we have the doubling up of books that do not naturally belong together (for example, Judges and Ruth).

The failed effort to force fit the Jewish Bible into the alphabetic pattern bears eloquent witness to the incomparable grace and wisdom of God’s hidden hand that guided the long, complicated, and often confused historical process that culminated in what Scroggie called the "glorious superstructure" of the sixty-six book Christian Canon. And now the ancient intuition that the Hebrew alphabet should encompass God's Word as a symbol of the completeness of its Divine Wisdom is effortlessly realized by simply "rolling up the Bible like a scroll" (see Chapter 1 of the Bible Wheel book) to reveal the direct correlation of the Twenty-Two Letters with the Twenty-Two Spokes. This is the glory of God's Work in His design of Holy Scripture.

There's a lot of solid scholarship backing up my assertions.

And, Dr. Martin as you should have known if you read his book showed that the Byzantine Text still to this day has the order Dr. Martin mentions. I suppose they got it from Dr. Martin who must have created it out of whole cloth and then somehow sent it back in time a bunch of centuries. When you claim this is his order you are blatantly making a falsehood my friend. You seem to want to argue against Martin as a person. And, you saying you do that because he was a teacher you claim is wrong, and of course you are right, doesn't hold water. If Martin made it all up why is that Text in the order he presents, and if it is made up, how did the four you wish to ignore come up with it? Did they jump into the future and read Dr. Martin and then run back in time and present that? No, I don't think so. It is you at fault here.

How many times are you going to repeat that false statement? I NEVER SAID THAT MARTIN INVENTED THE ORDER HE PREFERED! Got it? Sheesh.

Now, Dr. Martin was an honest man. You say otherwise. I knew him for decades, you read his book rapidly. His research, like all research in this world of fighting Christians is not accepted by everyone. Nor, I suspect is your BibleWheel.

I grant that point. But there is one very significant difference. I have been presenting this information for years here on the internet. To date, not one person this little planet of ours has successfully demonstrated any fundamental flaw or systematic error in my presentation of the Bible Wheel. Furthermore, not one person has ever taken the Bible Wheel Challenge and proven that the Bible Wheel is not perfect.

Martin's work is different. It is riddled with fundamental errors.

I suppose that is enough for the moment. With the above in mind, and more to come, one begins to wonder then, why Jerome admitted the 22 books, and that the Hebrew text was superior, but went with 39 instead.

I don't know ... some folks like to speculate about such things. Others like to build doctrines from such unknowns.

But if I had to guess, I would guess it was divine insipiration.

Good to be chatting student. Maybe some day you will share you name and we can pretend to be friends until we really are.

Many blessings to you and yours,

Richard