Hi Susan, where were you able to have an Ethiopian Bible "on order?" Is it an English version? I didn't know it had become available. Thanks for letting us know.
Well, no, actually the Canon of Scripture left out the Apocrapha because elements of many of the books contradicted other well established Scripture. A few others, while not included in the Canon are still kept in a reserve status, but questions remain on authenticity and/or authorship. One book in particular - Enoch was well read and accepted by Christ, the Apostles, and the early church of the first 3 centuries. That one i think should be required reading. The "problem" with it, is it clearly validates the Premill position. That did not sit well with Augustine and his Amill position in the 4th century.
So all the "emotional" reaction you mention. Nope, careful and laborious conclusions after generations of careful study: aka a straw horse argument
Rocka, this piece trades almost entirely on insinuation. It gestures toward history, power, and fear, but it never actually engages the real theological distinction at the heart of the matter: the difference between canon and context. Until that distinction is faced honestly, everything that follows is misdiagnosis.
The Church has never claimed that the canon descended as a “thunderbolt from Sinai.” That is a straw man. The Church has always said the canon was received, discerned, and recognized within the life of the apostolic community over time. A process does not imply corruption. Revelation itself unfolded through process: prophets, covenants, Incarnation, apostolic preaching, and transmission. To say “it was a process” does not undermine authority unless one assumes that authority must be instantaneous to be divine. Christianity has never held that view.
What you describe as “fragility” is, in most cases, simply clarity about categories. Western Christianity does not recoil from Enoch or Jubilees because it fears “new data.” Scholars, seminarians, priests, and theologians have been reading these texts for centuries. They are taught in historical theology, Second Temple Judaism, and biblical studies precisely as extracanonical literature—useful, illuminating, and sometimes theologically rich, but not inspired Scripture. That is not panic; it is discernment.
The claim that “the system knows new data rewires the operating mind” smuggles in a modern epistemology that Scripture itself rejects. Truth is not validated by how much it destabilizes you. Novelty is not a criterion of revelation. The apostolic faith was not designed to be perpetually reconfigured by every recovered text. St. Paul explicitly warns against chasing “new teachings” that destabilize the deposit once delivered. Stability is not fear; it is fidelity.
Your appeal to Ethiopia continues to confuse difference with priority. The Ethiopian Orthodox canon is venerable and ancient, but age alone does not confer universal authority. Other ancient churches — Greek, Syriac, Armenian, Coptic — did not include Enoch in their canonical lists, despite equal antiquity and apostolic lineage. Ethiopia is not “the archive the West buried”; it is one local reception among several, preserved in geographic isolation with its own internal logic. That is historically interesting, not canonically decisive.
You repeatedly imply that resistance to canon expansion is about “protecting comfort.” Yet the Western canon contains texts far more destabilizing than Enoch: Christ commanding love of enemies, the Sermon on the Mount, the Cross as victory through apparent failure, the Eucharist as true presence, martyrdom as triumph. If comfort were the goal, those texts would have been the first to go. What the Church guarded was not comfort but normativity: which writings bind conscience universally and which may instruct without commanding.
The suggestion that “Genesis hints at worlds it doesn’t unpack” and that extracanonical literature therefore completes Scripture misunderstands how Scripture works. Scripture is not incomplete mythology awaiting supplements; it is sufficient revelation ordered toward salvation. Contextual literature can illuminate how ancient audiences thought, but illumination is not authorization. The Church never said, “Do not read these texts.” She said, “Do not confuse them with Scripture.” That is not silence as a “safety feature.” It is boundary-setting, which every coherent tradition requires.
Finally, the idea that “finished stories don’t grow” is deeply unbiblical. The Gospel is finished in the sense that nothing new will surpass or correct Christ. Growth in understanding happens through contemplation of the same deposit, not by reopening the canon indefinitely. The New Testament does not invite believers to keep expanding the archive; it calls them to remain in what they have received.
What is really at stake here is not fear of investigation but resistance to epistemic inflation—the modern habit of assuming that more texts automatically mean more truth. The Church rejected that long before Rome, long before councils, long before modern institutions. She did so because revelation is not an archive problem; it is a Christological one.
Read Enoch if you wish. Study Jubilees. Learn Second Temple literature deeply. The Church has never forbidden that. What she has refused—and rightly—is the claim that curiosity obligates canon revision, or that destabilization is a sign of divine upgrade rather than of category confusion.
Rocka, your argument here turns on several assumptions that collapse once you distinguish curiosity from canon, and historical development from the caricature of power politics you keep returning to. I want to speak to you respectfully and plainly, because the issues you raise deserve clarity rather than suspicion.
You frame resistance to Enoch or Jubilees as psychological fragility or institutional insecurity. But that framing simply bypasses the actual question: by what process did the Church discern which writings were inspired and which were not? You treat canon formation as a story of committees protecting turf, yet the historical record shows something far simpler and far more organic. The books that became canonical were the ones universally read in the liturgy across the churches founded by the apostles, received as bearing the voice of Christ. The ones that never achieved that universal reception, even if valued locally, remained outside. That is not fear. That is discernment exercised over centuries by communities willing to die for what they believed. If political consolidation had been the motive, the resulting canon would look very different from the one we actually inherited.
You imply that any hesitation toward extracanonical literature is a conditioned reflex, but that too ignores the reality. Catholics read Enoch, Jubilees, and much other Second Temple literature with interest and respect. We teach it in seminaries, reference it in biblical scholarship, and recognize its value for understanding Jewish context. What we do not do is collapse the difference between a historically useful witness and an inspired, normative text. That distinction existed in the early Church long before “Western institutionalism” even emerged. It is not fear of upgrading an “operating system.” It is fidelity to the sources that the apostles actually entrusted to the churches as Scripture.
Your appeal to the Ethiopian canon oversimplifies the situation. Yes, their canon is larger, and they have preserved venerable texts that deserve study. But difference in ancient local canons is not evidence of suppression elsewhere. The Ethiopian tradition developed in unique historical circumstances and does not function as a universal standard for all apostolic churches. The idea that the broader Christian world “dismisses” the Ethiopian canon out of cognitive dissonance rather than principled discernment has no historical footing. Every ancient church, including Ethiopia, Syria, Rome, and Alexandria, received the canon through its own liturgical life. None of them claimed a divine thunderbolt dictating the final shape; all recognized a providential process guided by the Holy Spirit. Calling this “man-made boundaries” misses the entire point. The Church believes God works through human history, not apart from it.
Your argument suggests that avoiding these texts “amputates context,” but the Church has never avoided them. What she avoids is confusing context with revelation. Enoch illuminates aspects of Second Temple thought. It does not carry the same authority as the Law, the Prophets, the Gospels, or the apostolic letters. The belief that everything ancient must be integrated into Scripture misunderstands what Scripture is: not an archive of all religious thought, but the authoritative witness God gave His people for the sake of salvation.
Finally, you frame the question as fear of destabilization. But instability is not inherently a sign of insight; sometimes it is simply the result of removing the distinctions that make genuine knowledge possible. Canon is not a cage around the mind. It is the stable ground on which the mind can inquire freely without dissolving into speculation. Curiosity is not a threat to truth. The Church encourages it. What she resists is the idea that the canon must expand or mutate every time someone discovers a new text or a new theory.
You are right about one thing: truth does not buckle under pressure. But clarity requires more than pressure; it requires the humility to recognize that not every ancient book belongs in the category that Christians call Scripture. Studying Enoch enriches understanding. Turning Enoch into a litmus test for courage or enlightenment does not.
A reasonable & thorough response Noel. 2 Tim 3:16 points out "All Scripture is inspired by God and is profitable for teaching, for reproof, for correction, and for instruction in righteousness, that the man of God may be complete, thoroughly equipped for every good work". Hence, there can be no further book that is the key to understanding bible truth.
Terry, thank you. I agree with the main point you are making from 2 Tim 3:16, but I think it actually strengthens, rather than settles against, what I was arguing.
When Paul writes that “all Scripture is inspired by God” and sufficient to equip the man of God, he is describing the nature and purpose of Scripture, not giving a list of which books qualify as Scripture or a rule that no other text can ever help us understand God’s word. In fact, when those words were first written, “the Scriptures” in view were primarily the Law, Prophets, and Writings of Israel, yet God still went on to inspire further writings we now call the New Testament. So 2 Tim 3:16, taken in isolation, cannot mean: “from this moment, no more inspired books will ever be recognized,” or the New Testament itself would be excluded.
The closure of the canon comes from somewhere else: from the finality of Christ’s revelation and the unique, unrepeatable authority of the apostles. Once public revelation is complete in Christ and His apostolic witness, and the Church, over time, discerns which writings truly share in that apostolic, inspired character, there are no “missing books” left to be found. On that, as a Catholic, I agree entirely: no later work — whether Enoch, Jubilees, or anything else — can now be added as Scripture or treated as a secret key without which the Bible remains incomplete.
What follows from that, though, is precisely the distinction I was trying to defend: extracanonical texts can still be read as historical and theological background without being treated as part of the inspired canon. They may illuminate the context in which God’s word was received, but they do not share the authority of the canon itself. So 2 Tim 3:16 safeguards the sufficiency of the Scriptures we have received; it does not forbid us from studying non-canonical texts, nor does it license us to promote any of them to the rank of Scripture.
Very valid points Noel. I appreciate your sharing them. I had not considered that. I have learned something of value there. And yes, extracanonical texts can still be of great interest & value. Enoch is particularly rich it appears in details not expanded upon in scripture. But are these really the actual writings of Enoch? Or do they include writings inspiration from another source?
Very impressed to come across a Catholic with such deep insight, understanding & spiritual hunger. Encouraging to see.
I am currently reading The Books of Enoch Deluxe Collection, plus I have the Ethiopian Bible on order. I like to read.
Hi Susan, where were you able to have an Ethiopian Bible "on order?" Is it an English version? I didn't know it had become available. Thanks for letting us know.
Donna, I found it on Amazon, it is in English print. You’re very welcome!
Thank you! 🌸
More of this please!
I’ve got to read Enoch! Thanks for your persistence.
Well, no, actually the Canon of Scripture left out the Apocrapha because elements of many of the books contradicted other well established Scripture. A few others, while not included in the Canon are still kept in a reserve status, but questions remain on authenticity and/or authorship. One book in particular - Enoch was well read and accepted by Christ, the Apostles, and the early church of the first 3 centuries. That one i think should be required reading. The "problem" with it, is it clearly validates the Premill position. That did not sit well with Augustine and his Amill position in the 4th century.
So all the "emotional" reaction you mention. Nope, careful and laborious conclusions after generations of careful study: aka a straw horse argument
Thanks for proving the point.
Rocka, this piece trades almost entirely on insinuation. It gestures toward history, power, and fear, but it never actually engages the real theological distinction at the heart of the matter: the difference between canon and context. Until that distinction is faced honestly, everything that follows is misdiagnosis.
The Church has never claimed that the canon descended as a “thunderbolt from Sinai.” That is a straw man. The Church has always said the canon was received, discerned, and recognized within the life of the apostolic community over time. A process does not imply corruption. Revelation itself unfolded through process: prophets, covenants, Incarnation, apostolic preaching, and transmission. To say “it was a process” does not undermine authority unless one assumes that authority must be instantaneous to be divine. Christianity has never held that view.
What you describe as “fragility” is, in most cases, simply clarity about categories. Western Christianity does not recoil from Enoch or Jubilees because it fears “new data.” Scholars, seminarians, priests, and theologians have been reading these texts for centuries. They are taught in historical theology, Second Temple Judaism, and biblical studies precisely as extracanonical literature—useful, illuminating, and sometimes theologically rich, but not inspired Scripture. That is not panic; it is discernment.
The claim that “the system knows new data rewires the operating mind” smuggles in a modern epistemology that Scripture itself rejects. Truth is not validated by how much it destabilizes you. Novelty is not a criterion of revelation. The apostolic faith was not designed to be perpetually reconfigured by every recovered text. St. Paul explicitly warns against chasing “new teachings” that destabilize the deposit once delivered. Stability is not fear; it is fidelity.
Your appeal to Ethiopia continues to confuse difference with priority. The Ethiopian Orthodox canon is venerable and ancient, but age alone does not confer universal authority. Other ancient churches — Greek, Syriac, Armenian, Coptic — did not include Enoch in their canonical lists, despite equal antiquity and apostolic lineage. Ethiopia is not “the archive the West buried”; it is one local reception among several, preserved in geographic isolation with its own internal logic. That is historically interesting, not canonically decisive.
You repeatedly imply that resistance to canon expansion is about “protecting comfort.” Yet the Western canon contains texts far more destabilizing than Enoch: Christ commanding love of enemies, the Sermon on the Mount, the Cross as victory through apparent failure, the Eucharist as true presence, martyrdom as triumph. If comfort were the goal, those texts would have been the first to go. What the Church guarded was not comfort but normativity: which writings bind conscience universally and which may instruct without commanding.
The suggestion that “Genesis hints at worlds it doesn’t unpack” and that extracanonical literature therefore completes Scripture misunderstands how Scripture works. Scripture is not incomplete mythology awaiting supplements; it is sufficient revelation ordered toward salvation. Contextual literature can illuminate how ancient audiences thought, but illumination is not authorization. The Church never said, “Do not read these texts.” She said, “Do not confuse them with Scripture.” That is not silence as a “safety feature.” It is boundary-setting, which every coherent tradition requires.
Finally, the idea that “finished stories don’t grow” is deeply unbiblical. The Gospel is finished in the sense that nothing new will surpass or correct Christ. Growth in understanding happens through contemplation of the same deposit, not by reopening the canon indefinitely. The New Testament does not invite believers to keep expanding the archive; it calls them to remain in what they have received.
What is really at stake here is not fear of investigation but resistance to epistemic inflation—the modern habit of assuming that more texts automatically mean more truth. The Church rejected that long before Rome, long before councils, long before modern institutions. She did so because revelation is not an archive problem; it is a Christological one.
Read Enoch if you wish. Study Jubilees. Learn Second Temple literature deeply. The Church has never forbidden that. What she has refused—and rightly—is the claim that curiosity obligates canon revision, or that destabilization is a sign of divine upgrade rather than of category confusion.
The archive was never locked.
The line was never fear.
It was discernment.
Rocka, your argument here turns on several assumptions that collapse once you distinguish curiosity from canon, and historical development from the caricature of power politics you keep returning to. I want to speak to you respectfully and plainly, because the issues you raise deserve clarity rather than suspicion.
You frame resistance to Enoch or Jubilees as psychological fragility or institutional insecurity. But that framing simply bypasses the actual question: by what process did the Church discern which writings were inspired and which were not? You treat canon formation as a story of committees protecting turf, yet the historical record shows something far simpler and far more organic. The books that became canonical were the ones universally read in the liturgy across the churches founded by the apostles, received as bearing the voice of Christ. The ones that never achieved that universal reception, even if valued locally, remained outside. That is not fear. That is discernment exercised over centuries by communities willing to die for what they believed. If political consolidation had been the motive, the resulting canon would look very different from the one we actually inherited.
You imply that any hesitation toward extracanonical literature is a conditioned reflex, but that too ignores the reality. Catholics read Enoch, Jubilees, and much other Second Temple literature with interest and respect. We teach it in seminaries, reference it in biblical scholarship, and recognize its value for understanding Jewish context. What we do not do is collapse the difference between a historically useful witness and an inspired, normative text. That distinction existed in the early Church long before “Western institutionalism” even emerged. It is not fear of upgrading an “operating system.” It is fidelity to the sources that the apostles actually entrusted to the churches as Scripture.
Your appeal to the Ethiopian canon oversimplifies the situation. Yes, their canon is larger, and they have preserved venerable texts that deserve study. But difference in ancient local canons is not evidence of suppression elsewhere. The Ethiopian tradition developed in unique historical circumstances and does not function as a universal standard for all apostolic churches. The idea that the broader Christian world “dismisses” the Ethiopian canon out of cognitive dissonance rather than principled discernment has no historical footing. Every ancient church, including Ethiopia, Syria, Rome, and Alexandria, received the canon through its own liturgical life. None of them claimed a divine thunderbolt dictating the final shape; all recognized a providential process guided by the Holy Spirit. Calling this “man-made boundaries” misses the entire point. The Church believes God works through human history, not apart from it.
Your argument suggests that avoiding these texts “amputates context,” but the Church has never avoided them. What she avoids is confusing context with revelation. Enoch illuminates aspects of Second Temple thought. It does not carry the same authority as the Law, the Prophets, the Gospels, or the apostolic letters. The belief that everything ancient must be integrated into Scripture misunderstands what Scripture is: not an archive of all religious thought, but the authoritative witness God gave His people for the sake of salvation.
Finally, you frame the question as fear of destabilization. But instability is not inherently a sign of insight; sometimes it is simply the result of removing the distinctions that make genuine knowledge possible. Canon is not a cage around the mind. It is the stable ground on which the mind can inquire freely without dissolving into speculation. Curiosity is not a threat to truth. The Church encourages it. What she resists is the idea that the canon must expand or mutate every time someone discovers a new text or a new theory.
You are right about one thing: truth does not buckle under pressure. But clarity requires more than pressure; it requires the humility to recognize that not every ancient book belongs in the category that Christians call Scripture. Studying Enoch enriches understanding. Turning Enoch into a litmus test for courage or enlightenment does not.
A reasonable & thorough response Noel. 2 Tim 3:16 points out "All Scripture is inspired by God and is profitable for teaching, for reproof, for correction, and for instruction in righteousness, that the man of God may be complete, thoroughly equipped for every good work". Hence, there can be no further book that is the key to understanding bible truth.
Terry, thank you. I agree with the main point you are making from 2 Tim 3:16, but I think it actually strengthens, rather than settles against, what I was arguing.
When Paul writes that “all Scripture is inspired by God” and sufficient to equip the man of God, he is describing the nature and purpose of Scripture, not giving a list of which books qualify as Scripture or a rule that no other text can ever help us understand God’s word. In fact, when those words were first written, “the Scriptures” in view were primarily the Law, Prophets, and Writings of Israel, yet God still went on to inspire further writings we now call the New Testament. So 2 Tim 3:16, taken in isolation, cannot mean: “from this moment, no more inspired books will ever be recognized,” or the New Testament itself would be excluded.
The closure of the canon comes from somewhere else: from the finality of Christ’s revelation and the unique, unrepeatable authority of the apostles. Once public revelation is complete in Christ and His apostolic witness, and the Church, over time, discerns which writings truly share in that apostolic, inspired character, there are no “missing books” left to be found. On that, as a Catholic, I agree entirely: no later work — whether Enoch, Jubilees, or anything else — can now be added as Scripture or treated as a secret key without which the Bible remains incomplete.
What follows from that, though, is precisely the distinction I was trying to defend: extracanonical texts can still be read as historical and theological background without being treated as part of the inspired canon. They may illuminate the context in which God’s word was received, but they do not share the authority of the canon itself. So 2 Tim 3:16 safeguards the sufficiency of the Scriptures we have received; it does not forbid us from studying non-canonical texts, nor does it license us to promote any of them to the rank of Scripture.
Very valid points Noel. I appreciate your sharing them. I had not considered that. I have learned something of value there. And yes, extracanonical texts can still be of great interest & value. Enoch is particularly rich it appears in details not expanded upon in scripture. But are these really the actual writings of Enoch? Or do they include writings inspiration from another source?
Very impressed to come across a Catholic with such deep insight, understanding & spiritual hunger. Encouraging to see.
I have just been exposed to "Little Season" - Rev. 20 eschatology. Mind blowing.
One thing the CONVID scam taught me was how easily and quickly THE WHOLE WORLD could be deceived. And maybe, just maybe it wasn't the first time 😔
When a book of doubtful authorship contradicts well established scripture...removing it from the Canon proves my point
The problem is, it doesn’t contradict Scripture. It does the opposite, it makes the complete story make way more sense. But I’ll let you do you.
Sorry. Shouldhave been straw man...still trying to drink coffee here
AI is the Tower of Babel
AI is just a tool they use to accelerate their tower.