Never Let Go - David Crowder Band

One of my contemporary favs ... it is my hope. Maybe it will be yours too.

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Turn the Page ...

Turn the Page ...

Well I am beginning a new decade of my life today. I have denied it all day long but there is no getting around it. If I revert to the old Julian calendar I might post pone it for a little while or if I calculate it out using the Mayan calendar I might even be older ... So I decided to take some stock in what is going on in my life. I did not want to go to deep you know so this is safely superficial!!

Well first of all I took in Star Wars: The Clone Wars this weekend with Rachael and Talya. Honestly it was much better than I thought it was going to be. Animated Star Wars just did not seem right but it was actually good! Last night I watched Ghost Rider with the girls too. Today I rode in the rain and enjoyed that (not really).

Tonight the girls and I went to Borders and bought Creed: Greatest Hits and The Best of 70s Supergroups. I find it interesting that the girls really dig The Styx and BTO.

I've been reading the current Newsweek with the cover story "The End of the South." I have been learning about my bike from the inside out with the 1997 Harley Davidson Dyna Service Manual. I finished reading Leonard Sweet's Post-Modern Pilgrims and taking in a page or two of Dana Hood's I Will Change Your Name: Messages from the Father to a Heart Broken by Divorce. And the book I am currently breezing through is Jon Meacham's recent bestseller. American Gospel: God, The Founding Fathers, and the Making of a Nation.

This week I got serious about writing a chapter for Michael Casey memorial volume (former Professor at Pepperdine University) edited by Thomas Olbricht and to be published by Wipf and Stock. The chapter will be on the evolution of Robertson L. Whiteside's theological move from pacifism to nationalism and how that mirrors the greater movement within the Churches of Christ non-denomination denomination.

My other study interests for the moment remain my book project on K. C. Moser, a book I hope to write on the New Heavens and New Earth, and the Song of Songs. Yes I am doing some serious indepth study of that short little collection of almost erotic literature. I finished reading Tremper Longman's new commentary in the NIC series on the book. Now I am reading some of Bernard's great sermons on the text too ...

Well in a nut shell that is what is going on as the page turns from 39 to 40 ... Enjoy the Beatles video.

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The Beatles - Birthday

Yes its true. On this day, August 25, 1968 I was born on Long Island New York. The journey from there to here has been a roller coaster worthy of Batman!! Been to Florida, to Alabama, back to Florida, to New Orleans, to Mississippi, to Milwaukee then to Tucson. What a ride ...

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Praying Romans & Manasseh

Praying with Romans and Manasseh

Greetings from the land of Saguaros, Scorpions, Javilena's and Heat. As I was praying with Paul in Romans this morning, through lectio divina, I was captivated by the notion of "bragging," "boasting" or spiritual arrogance in our relationship with God. As I ruminated on that picture generated by Paul my mind drifted to another spiritual text. One filled with the opposite attitude displayed before God.

My mind was taken to the Prayer of Manasseh. It is one of the most beautiful pieces ever composed, in my opinion. First I will give the text of Pr of M in its entirety from the NRSV and then make some comments upon the text.

"O Lord Almighty, God of our ancestors,
of Abraham and Isaac and Jacob and their righteous offspring;
you who made heaven and earth with all their order;
who shackled the sea by yor word of command, who confined the deep
and sealed it with your terrible and glorious name;
at whom all things shudder, and tremble before your power,
for your glorious splendor cannot be borne,
and the wrath of your threat to sinners is unendurable;
yet immeasurable and unsearchable is your promised mercy,
for you are the Lord Most High, of great compassion,
long-suffering and very merciful, and you relent at human suffering.

O Lord according to your great goodness you have promised repentance
and forgiveness to those who have sinned against you, and in the
multitude of your mercies you have appointed repentance for sinners,
so that they may be saved.

Therefore you, O Lord, God of the righteous, have not appointed
repentance for the righteous, for Abraham and Isaac and Jacob, who did
not sin against you, but you have appointed repentance for me,
who am a sinner.

For the sins I have committed are more in number than the sand of the sea;
my transgressions are multiplied, O Lord they are multiplied!
I am not worthy to look up and see the heights of heaven because of the
multitude of my iniquities.

I am weighted down with many an iron fetter,
so that I am rejected because of my sins,
and I have no relief; for I have provoked your wrath
and have done what is evil in your sight,
setting up abominations and multiplying offenses.

AND NOW I BEND THE KNEE OF MY HEART,
imploring you for your kindness. I have sinned,
O Lord, I have sinned, and I acknowledge my transgressions.
I earnestly implore you, forgive me, O Lord, forgive me!
Do not destroy me with my transgressions!

Do not be angry with me forever or store up evil for me;
do not condemn me to the depths of the earth.
For you, O Lord, are the God of those who repent,
and in me you will manifest your goodness;
for unworthy as I am,
you save me according to your great mercy,
and I will praise you continually all the days of my life.
For all the host of heaven sings your praise,
and yours is the glory forever.
Amen."

Now beloved that is a rich prayer. Its author is well aware of his (or her) lack of standing before God. Yet it expresses in moving language the full conviction of the infinite grace of God.

In the great Geneva Bible the Pr of M was included as an appendix at the end of 2 Chronicles. It was included in the LXX and the other ancient versions of the Hebrew Bible (Old Latin, Vulgate, Syriac, etc).

If one reads carefully there are some distinct echoes especially with Luke's writings. Luke consciously mined the Psalm and Prayer treasures of Judaism (as reflected in the LXX) in his writing style . . . and there are a number of echoes from this Prayer in Luke.

The high esteem of the Patriachs is reflected also in the Apostle Paul who argues that Israel is "loved on account of the Patriarchs" (cf. Romans 11.28).

That God is especially interested in the repentance of sinners is seen in a number of Luke's phrases: "I have not come to call the righteous but sinners to repentance" (5.32); Jesus refers to the 99 that do not "need to repent" (15.7)

In Luke's telling of the "sinner" in the temple in contrast to the arrogant self-righteousness of the religious man . . . there are a number of echoes from this magnificent prayer. Both v 8 and 9 have distinct verbal parallels in Luke's story. Luke writes:

"the tax collector stood at a distance. He would not even look up to heaven . . . and said, 'God, have mercy on me, a sinner."

These two phrases are used by "Manasseh." We read "you have appointed repentance for me, who am a sinner . . . I am not worthy to look up and see the height of heaven . . ."

It is indeed an interesting fact that these nearly identical phrases in the Greek text occur in such close proximity, and in the same relation, in both Manasseh and Luke.

The beautiful prayer, of which much more could be said, teaches like Luke's recording of the Prodigal Son . . . God is indeed the God of the penitant. His mercy is grand and breathtaking.

Is it any wonder that some folks saw fit to preserve this prayer. Luke, it seems to me, enjoyed some of its phrases . . . and its theology.

See what can happen when we pray with Paul :-)

Shalom,
Bobby Valentine

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The Mean Kitty Song

Found a funny video about Sparta ...

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New Faces of Christianity

The New Faces of Christianity: Believing the Bible in the Global South

Over the last few years Philip Jenkins, Professor of Religion at Penn State, has made a name as one of the best observers of global Christianity. In 2002 his The Next Christendom revealed to many for the first time that Christianity is changing radically. Not because of liberalism but because its center of influence is leaving the North Atlantic to Africa, South America and Asia. This was an eye opening read. In his follow up work, The New Faces of Christianity: Believing the Bible in the Global South, Jenkins investigates just how these Christians read and understand the Bible.

New Faces is a great book. It is valuable for many reasons. First it will introduce many to a world they never knew existed. Second it challenges us North American Christians to ask some serious soul searching questions like "Can I even 'hear' the Bible in an affluent and modern culture?" Musimbi Kanyoro, an African leader, says "Those cultures which are far removed from biblical culture risk reading the Bible as fiction." The issue of culture comes up repeatedly in this small volume (200 pages of text). Jenkins writes,

"For many such readers, the Bible is congenial because the world it describes is marked by such currently pressing social problems as famine and plague, poverty and exile, clientelism and corruption. A largely poor readership can readily identify with the New Testament society of peasants and small craftsman dominated by powerful landlords and imperial forces ... (p. 68)

Can the North American Christian learn something about how to read the Bible from a believer in Africa that has not been scared by Modernism or the Enlightenment? It is fascinating to see that for African Christians the "Old Testament" has such an important place. It is also interesting to see how salvation is seen to encompass so many more things than what many Evangelicals think. It is enlightening to see how seriously they take things like demon possession and other parts of the biblical story that seem to be dismissed by American Christians. It is eye opening to see how folks in a society intensely concerned about ritual purity hear the Gospels. It is, in the end, humbling to see how the Bible is read in places where Christianity is exploding.

There is no doubt that this book will challenge many. But it might help us be able to look at the biblical text afresh ... with "new eyes" and hear things we never heard before. And it is always good to wrestle with the question of how social location impacts our reading (i.e. hermeneutical approach) of the Bible.

I want to recommend this fascinating work to all my blog readers. It is well written and heavily researched ... and as I said well written. It is full of anecdotes from Africa and Central America that are anything but dry. I think Jenkins has done us an immense favor in both Next Christendom and New Faces by forcing American Christians to see that the world, even the Christian world, does not revolve around them. Interestingly enough he just may have given us a tool to help us see the Scripture with greater clarity than before. I think you will be blessed through reading this work and I think you will ask lots of hard questions. All good things.

Tolle lege,
Bobby Valentine

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For Jeanne

For Jeanne




Life Group was a blast ...

Bobby V

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Metallica - Unforgiven II

Unforgiven II by Metallica is a Great Song ... Lots of Metallica's music is sort of "dark" and captures the mood of many folks wandering aimlessly through this postmodern haze we are in. Sometimes the haze is from the crap of life and we are branded "unforgiven" and treated as such. I simply like this song ...

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Nickelback - Photograph

You know what sometimes you just have to say "Good-bye." Photographs bring up all kinds of memories. Good ones. Bad ones. In between ones. Sometimes there is absolutely nothing you can do ... nothing! Well you can cuss but folks don't like that. You can complain but that does not good. But as far as changing "it" there is NOTHING you can do. Except say "Good-bye" and move on. Sometimes you just have to do it. Great song by one of the few rock bands around.

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Knocking on Heaven's Door by Bob Dylan

What a great song. Dylan is one of the great poets of our age. There have been many covers of this but Dylan still has the best. And I am knocking on heaven's door ...

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Trembling Before the Word: The Act of Bible Reading

For those who have not read John Mark Hicks recent posts on "It Ain't that Complicated" I would like to recommend them to you.

I want to suggest that we can learn a lot about the proper reading of the biblical text from our Fathers and Mothers in the faith. Karl Barth once asked "Are we at liberty to ignore the past? Do the great teachers of the Church ... not possess a -- certainly not heavenly -- but, even so, earthly, human 'authority? We should not be too ready to say, No. To my mind the whole question of tradition falls under the Fifth Commandment: Honour {sic} father and mother! ..." I really like this perspective. Can we not learn from our fathers and mothers? Even if they are not canonical or inspired? Unfortunately those baptized into the Enlightenment and Modern world view the answer to Barth's question is often in the negative. Peter Gay in his Modernism: The Lure of Heresy insists that a cardinal trait of modernism is "aggressive self-liberation" from "ancestor worship" that is we are autonomous selves (cf my review of Peter Gay's Modernism). Yet it seems that there is vast wisdom in listening to ones elders. Even when we decide to ultimately disagree with them.

It may come as a surprise to most Evangelical Christians but the act of Bible reading for the average Christian is a distinctly modern (chronologically) ability. The average Christian in the first, second, third, fourth (and so on) centuries never owned a Bible. This is reflected in Revelation 1.3 where we read "Blessed is the one who reads the words ... and blessed are those who hear it ..." This text shows us that there is one reader and many listeners. Reading the Bible in the ancient world was a communal activity and it was heard as often as it was read.

Our Fathers and Mothers in the faith often suggested that the proper hearing (i.e. understanding or interpreting) of the Word was that of humility. You might say that the Fathers believed that trembling before the Word was the proper disposition to any approach to God's powerful word. Hearing the word took place best in the context of worship in and with the gathered people of God. Worship is, perhaps, the "womb" of theology and hearing God's word.

Worship is so important because in that context we embrace the truth that there is only one Lord, only one Teacher, one Sovereign. We recognize that God's powerful word first addresses us in our sin and my community. Hearing the word in worship nourishes the spirit and produces healthy Christians. You might say our Fathers taught that spiritually ill Christians produced sic theology.

Encountering the word is not first about besting anyone but in letting the Spirit of God use his instrument of healing on us. Alexander Campbell understood this fundamental point. In 1839 he published a series of "Short Sermons on Christian Practice." He begins his series by talking about prayer. After he addresses prayer he addresses "Bible Reading." The order here is important, I think. The proper approach is to tremble before the text. Here we approach God and the Spirit uses this tool to bring about sanctification. In that prayerful trembling we learn to "will what God wills, to love what he loves, and to hate what he hates" (On Bible Reading, No. I, Millennial Harbinger [August 1839], 343). It is improper to approach the text as a "disputant" or a "formalist" rather we come trembling before the text because "the soul pants for this reading as the thirsty roe pants for the brooks of water." We read the text because of the soul "pleasure" and "communion with God" that is mediated to us through an encounter with the word.

When we begin to hear the word from the perspective of people prostrate in worship before the Almighty King perhaps it will begin to sound somewhat different. We might hear it like Isaiah did (cf. Isaiah 6). He was profoundly and utterly confronted. His pretense of righteousness was completely destroyed. His sense of privilege was quietly removed without anyone even pointing it out. And he found his purpose in life.

So what is a "proper" read or "hearing" of the Word of God? What might it look like? When you hear it are you grateful for the grace God has shed on "us"? When you hear it do you love more than before? When you hear it are you moved to sacrifice self more? When you hear it do you volunteer for missional vocation in this world? When you hear it do you praise the One who has given it to you? If our hearing and reading are not producing affirmative responses to these kinds of questions then it is a legitimate concern to raise: Are We Hearing (Reading) the Word of God Properly? Should we not ask ourselves if we are trembling before the Word ... Isaiah did. Are healthy Christians emerging or are sick people leaving our Gatherings? Perhaps the Fathers and Mothers were onto something here. I think they were.

Blessings,
Bobby V

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Practicing the Presence of God

Practicing the Presence ... of God

There are times when we reduce Christian faith to the subtleties of doctrine or practice. It is interesting that one's eternal fate is often judged on the basis of the most esoteric point ... even when Scripture itself says very little (and sometimes nothing) about this or that. But the "big" things that are present in every section of Scripture are ironically devalued. Theology is important. But it is not important because having it correct saves us or looses us. Having good theology helps us experience the richness of life lived out before the Father and King of the Universe. One of the truly blessed things of the current upheaval in our culture and our churches is the recognition {or rediscovery} of the relationality of God, his Christ and our faith. We are not called to be monks. We are not called to be islands. We are called to be part of a group. We are part of a community. We are part of a family. If what I have said has any basis in the Story of God revealed in Scripture then let me suggest four brief ways in which we can practice being the presence of God in the world we live in ... These are things we can do everyday ...

1) Today I will will not have the answers. Yes I will even embrace the truth that I am borderline (if not outright) incompetent. Since December 16th I have read through the entire biblical text from Genesis to Revelation three times. I did the NIV, TEV and NRSV (with Apocrypha) and one thing that comes out all over the place is that living by faith often means accepting that I do NOT have the answers I want and even demand! Abraham wondered for years about the promise of God. I wonder why God had anything to do with Samson. The Psalmists are constantly complaining about the lack of answers and their own inadequacy. Qoheleth takes the cake ... seeming wise by claiming to have learned it all and then says he has learned nothing at all basically because God has not revealed it to humans. Habakkuk rebukes God. John the Baptist thinks he made a mistake. Jesus shouts into the darkness "WHY!!" Paul says I have not arrived but I press on. The folks in Revelation demand to know "how long." I think there is something to this ... Today if I walk by faith I will not have the answers. That is actually a fairly wonderful truth.

2) Today I will be fully present to the people in front of me and to God. How can I affirm the image of God in each person I see? How can I affirm my love for neighbor and God? By being present ... practicing the presence of God at this moment with this person in front of me. I am not thinking of Brett Favre or Alabama football or even where my girls are. I will engage this person because they are God's special creation and will fully endorse their worth by honoring them as the very image of the King of the Universe. The doctrine of the Bible finds its fulfillment in my relationship with them.

3) Today I will be the Christ. As one who has been incorporated into the very life of Jesus, indeed he is my life, I have his character traits. His voice is my voice. His love is my love. His heart is my heart. His anger is my anger. His suffering for the world is mine. His involvement with the outcast is mine. His emphasis on the weightier matters will be mine. His impatience with religious squabbles that hurt people will be implanted in my own heart. Today I will be Christ ... and I just might end up on a cross just like him.

4) Today I will see the Christ. On this day rather than seeing "sinners" and "unclean" folk I will see the world through what Ignatius called "grace healed eyes." Today I will see in the poor, and the downtrodden none other than the very image of the Son of God. This day I will see not a homeless and nameless person. Rather I see Jesus himself sitting on the corner. Today I see with my grace healed eyes I see the Son of Man in the AA circle. Today I will see Christ.

Perhaps if we adopt these four practices on a daily basis we will notice a lot more of the aroma of life wafting through the air rather than the stench of death. Perhaps we will see a flowering of truly sound doctrine among the assemblies of God across the globe ... especially in the USA. But in order to practice being the presence of God we have to become convinced that God is truly interested in humans and the world they live in.

Many Blessings,
Bobby Valentine

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Apocryphal Myths: Great is the Truth and Mighty above all Things

See also my post Book of Judith: God Saves Through a Woman and Susanna: Legendary Woman on the Family.  See also The Apocrypha: Reading Between the Testaments.

At the outset let it be stated that some will read this post and wish I had not written it. They will scratch their heads and perhaps wring their hands in frustration. Yet frustration at misinformation (perpetuated often for polemical reasons) and candor moves me to share a few things for the sake of truth. The above quote appears on the masthead of Alexander Campbell's Millennial Harbinger and did so for years. It is a direct quote from the book known as 1 Esdras 4.35 in the King James Version, "therefore great is the truth, and stronger than all things."  Interestingly AC never identifies it as such but I have no doubt he knew where it was from.

Using a bad argument ultimately undermines truth. Using it often does more harm than good, branding one as ignorant or as dishonest. I was referred to a Protestant apologist's speech on YouTube and did my own head shaking. Not because I necessarily agree with Roman Catholicism (and I don't) but because the information was distorted and incomplete at best. We as Christians are Children of Truth. As 1 Esdras correctly declares "Great is the truth and stronger than all things" (NRSV). A myth can be a great legendary and edifying story like the Gilgamesh Epic or a myth can be nothing short of the perpetuation of prejudicial lies when some one is more interested in winning an argument than in the pursuit of Truth. Sometimes truth, real Truth, is more complex than what debaters imagine it to be. Here are a few major Protestant Apocryphal Myths ...

1) That these are Roman Catholic books. It is almost to obvious to state but sometimes we must. These books were not written by an Roman Catholic all were written by Jews prior to the advent of Christianity (the possible exception to this is 2 Esdras). Click on the Apocrypha Time Line above to see how the dates of Apocryphal books overlap with the last books of the canonical Hebrew Bible. It should also be understood that the early Church did not add these books so much as inherit them.

2) The Apocrypha was not written in Hebrew. There is simply no basis for this charge. In fact all of the Apocryphal books were written either in Hebrew or Aramaic except Wisdom of Solomon and 2 Maccabees. And language does not prove or disprove anything here. Both Ezra and Daniel have Aramaic rather than Hebrew portions (with Daniel significant portions). Sirach for example since the 1890s has been found in Hebrew in Cairo, among the Dead Sea Scrolls and at Masada. Indeed Sirach 51.13-30, a poem to wisdom, is included in the Psalm Scroll. Its presence at Masada indicates that it was widely known and valued among Palestinian Jews in the time of Jesus. Tobit and the Epistle of Jeremiah are also among the Dead Sea Scrolls.

3) Jesus and NT writers do not ever refer to or quote from the Apocryphal books. Now assuming this is true (its not) this is a dangerous sword that cuts both ways. Does Jesus or the NT ever quote from the Song of Songs? Obadiah? Ecclesiastes? Zephaniah? Nahum? Ezra? Esther? Does the absence of a quotation from these writings imply that they were not valued by Jesus or the NT writers? But there are few NT scholars today that would argue the NT never refers to any of the Apocryphal books. Indeed the apologist I watched quoted Roger Beckwith as saying:

"the undeniable truth is that the New Testament, by contrast with the early Fathers, and by contrast with its own practice in relation to the books of the Hebrew Bible, never actually quotes from, or ascribes authority to any of the Apocrypha."

Though not identified as such by our apologist this quote comes from The Old Testament Canon of the New Testament Church page 387. Note that Beckwith does state something significant about the Church Fathers in the above quote. What our apologist did not tell his readers is that Beckwith greatly nuances this statement. He says,

"As regards the earliest Christians, we saw evidence in the New Testament of a knowledge, by different writers, of Wisdom, Ecclesiasticus {Sirach}, 2 Maccabees, the Assumption of Moses and 1 Enoch, and in other Christian literature up to the end of the first century evidence of a knowledge, not only of Wisdom and Ecclesiasticus, but also of Tobit and Judith" (p. 407)

Most scholarship today sees Paul (for example) often drawing on this literature in the same way he often does the traditional Hebrew Bible through allusions, vocabulary, and arguments. Paul's description of the gentile world in Romans for example sounds an awful lot like Wisdom and his description of the "panoplia of God" in Ephesians 6 sounds a lot like Wisdom 5.

But Beckwith complicates matters even further because he suggests at the very beginning of his work that the word "canon" is used in at least two senses. First the Apocryphal books were regarded as "canonical" because they "were generally read in the Church for purposes of edification, and in this sense the canon would always include more or less the Apocrypha" (p. 2). He suggests that "from the other point of view, the canon, the narrow one, consisting simply of the books of the Jewish Bible which scholars like Melito ... Athanasius ... Jerome took the trouble to distinguish from the rest as alone acknowledged ..."(ibid). So Beckwith actually suggests that canon is messier than what the debaters want to admit. Later Beckwith states "Whether or not we should regard the books just listed {the Apocrypha} as Scripture, there is no doubt that we should value them highly ... Some of the Apocrypha, moreover, have further claims to our attention. It is no accident that the church has traditionally given them some place in its lectionary" (p. 343).

When one reads Beckwith one comes to wonder if the debater also did or simply found a nice quote that had no context. The situation seems, upon actually reading Beckwith, is more muddy and complex. And you know what ... it is!

4) The Protestant apologist stated that "Philo and Josephus rejected the Apocrypha." I'm not a Philo expert but most of his writings focus on the Torah. I know a little more about Josephus. Josephus does give us a list of works that look a lot like the Hebrew Bible today. Yet that is not the end of the story. In his telling of the Antiquities of the Jews he draws on material that is found only in Apocryphal historical works. In telling the story of Ezra and Nehemiah Josephus draws on 1 Esdras and not Ezra-Nehemiah in Protestant Bibles and in telling the story of Esther the historian draws what are known as Additions B through E of the Greek Esther. So it seems that Josephus did in fact accept these parts of the Apocrypha.

The fact of the matter is, whether we like it or not, the limits of the canon of the "Old Testament" in the early church was not clearly delineated. As the very conservative church historian, Everett Ferguson, notes even such scholars as Athanasius where full of ambiguity on the issue ...

"Athansius's intermediate approach was typical of many. He listed as 'included in the canon' the books accepted by the Jews (except that he too omits Esther), but commended other books as useful for those who 'wish to be instructed in the word of true religion': Wisdom of Solomon, Sirach, Esther, Judith, and Tobit. In practice he quoted these books, especially the Wisdom of Solomon, without distinction from the canonical books." (Church History, Vol 1: From Christ to Pre-Reformation, p. 113)

Ferguson's statement that "No common agreement was reached on which of these books to count as canonical, and indeed it was not until the age of the Reformation ..."

Now my point in this has not been to be an apologist for Catholicism but to show that some arguments simply do not hold water. The Apocryphal books are not dangerous books and that is why Luther himself went through the trouble (and anyone who has translated an entire book from one language to another knows it is indeed trouble!) to translate all the Apocryphal books into German and kept them in his Bible. The Apocryphal books do not even teach Roman Catholic doctrine (even purgatory!) ...

When debating, if you choose to do it, don't use cheesy arguments. If the matters under debate are really worthy of debate recognize that the real truth of the matter just may be far more complex than the niceties of a syllogism! Remember "great is the truth and stronger than all things." Even if that is from the Apocrypha ... it is still true!

Blessings,
Bobby Valentine

P.S. Quick handy dandy resources: David deSilva's Introducing the Apocrypha (Baker Academic) is the best book available as a general introduction to these writings. Charlesworth's article "Old Testament Apocrypha" in Anchor Bible Dictionary vol 1, pp 292-294 is like a cliff notes version of current info. For the stout of heart Albert Sundberg's "The Protestant Old Testament Canon: Should it be Re-Examined?" in CBQ 28 (2001): 194-203 is worth digesting just to have a realistic look at the issue. Finally S. Meurer (ed.) The Apocrypha in Ecumenical Perspective is a most helpful resource.

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