The Apoc­ryphal Books of Eli­jah’ & Paul

In his First Epis­tle to the Corinthi­ans, Paul says that :

How­ev­er, as it is writ­ten : No eye has seen, no ear has heard, no mind has con­ceived what God has pre­pared for those who love him.’ ” (1 Corinthi­ans 2:9)

It is claimed that Paul had para­phrase the above cita­tion from Isaiah :

Since ancient times no one has heard, no ear has per­ceived, no eye has seen any God besides you, who acts on behalf of those who wait for him.” (Isa­iah 64:4)

This is actu­al­ly inac­cu­rate, as Paul had actu­al­ly quot­ed the above from the apoc­ryphal books of Eli­jah’ and not Isa­iah 64:4. Apos­tolic Chris­tians such as Ori­gen and Jerome had con­firmed the fol­low­ing about the source of Paul’s quote :

1 Cor 2:9
[But as it is writ­ten] This pas­sage is quot­ed from Isa 64:4. It is not quot­ed lit­er­al­ly ; but the sense only is giv­en. The words are found in the apoc­ryphal books of Eli­jah (Elias); and Ori­gen and Jerome sup­posed that Paul quot­ed from those books. But it is evi­dent that Paul had in his eye the pas­sage in Isa­iah ; and intend­ed to apply it to his present pur­pose.Albert Barnes, Notes On the New Tes­ta­ment, (Grand Rapids, 1955), Elec­tron­ic Data­base, Copy­right (c) 1997 by Biblesoft

The same com­men­tary can also be found at Robert­son’s Word Pic­tures of the New Tes­ta­ment.The afore­men­tioned com­men­tary can be found at this link.

It is claimed that the authors of the New Tes­ta­ment were inspired by God’ to write their books, yet we see the bor­row­ing of a quote from an extra-canon­i­cal source, an apoc­ryphal book that is not even in the Bible today ! The above expo­si­tion should be able to raise seri­ous doubts about the sources of the writ­ings which Chris­tians hold dear as the inspired” Word of God’. 

This apoc­ryphal work is dat­ed around the end of the fourth cen­tu­ry C.E. or the begin­ning of the fifth cen­tu­ry C.E. where­as 1 Corinthi­ans was writ­ten by Paul after 57 C.E.

apoc­ryphal books of Elijah

This edi­tion, based on P. Chester Beat­ty 2018, was edit­ed by Albert Pieters­ma and Susan Turn­er Com­stock. The doc­u­ment is dat­ed at the end of the fourth cen­tu­ry C.E. or the begin­ning of the fifth cen­tu­ry C.E. It is said to con­sti­tute a sep­a­rate, inde­pen­dent work. This par­tic­u­lar man­u­script pro­vides thir­ty-four lines of text which pre­vi­ous­ly were unknown. It appears that the orig­i­nal text was care­less­ly writ­ten because the copy­ist missed a num­ber of errors. Fac­sim­i­les of the man­u­script are includ­ed.Source

So it is clear that the quo­ta­tion in 1 Corinthi­ans 2:9 was not orig­i­nal­ly from the book of Isa­iah, and is cer­tain­ly not from Paul, as Paul had clear­ly stat­ed in his quote But as it is writ­ten” to clar­i­fy that the quo­ta­tion is not his. But the ques­tion aris­es, why did Paul quot­ed from some­thing which is not in the Bible ? The answer is sim­ple ; this is not the first time he was inspired’ to do that. For instance, in Titus 1:12 Paul was inspired’ to quote from Epi­menides, a Cre­tan poet of sixth cen­tu­ry B.C., which had a log­i­cal error in the state­ment. Also, in 1 Corinthi­ans 15:33 he again quot­ed from Menan­der’s Thais (frag­ment no. 218).

Con­clu­sion

It is clear that if any charge of bor­row­ing should be hurled at the New Tes­ta­ment, the verse in 1 Corinthi­ans 2:9 would be a good place to start. It is claimed that the authors of the New Tes­ta­ment were inspired by God’ to write their books, yet we see the bor­row­ing of a quote from an extra-canon­i­cal source, an apoc­ryphal book that is not even in the Bible today ! The above expo­si­tion should be able to raise seri­ous doubts about the sources of the writ­ings which Chris­tians hold dear as the inspired” Word of God’.Endmark


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One response to “The Apoc­ryphal Books of Eli­jah’ & Paul”

  1. psdcavscout Avatar
    psdcavscout

    I am unsure how you are able to see Paul’s words com­ing from a source that post-dates First Corinthi­ans by more than 300 years. Fur­ther­more, the fol­low­ing trans­la­tion of the Hebrew ver­sion Isa­iah 64:4 is per­mis­si­ble, and is even sup­port­ed by the 1985 Eng­lish trans­la­tion of the Tanakh put out by The Jew­ish Pub­li­ca­tion Society.

    and from of old, none of them heard, none of them lis­tened, eye had not seen, O God, except you, he does (or will do — Qal/imperfect)for those wait­ing for Him.”

    This is much clos­er to Paul’s under­stand­ing. Fur­ther­more, it is per­fect­ly accept­able that Paul is accu­rate­ly quot­ing the sense of the verse. Inerrancey does not require word for word quotations.

    I have know of and have met Bob Mor­rey, and I don’t in any­way endorse his tac­tics or approve of his false rea­son­ing. Nei­ther can I endorse your rea­son­ing, which is very like his just on the oppo­site side of the issue.

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