Can someone please redpill me on why its not cool to apparently take the books of jasher, enoch etc seriously?
When I see that the current church curated bible consists of 66 books, and even references other books like enoch and jasher.. it really makes me think that we are not being told the full story, and these other books are vital reading.
Please, no youtube links, snarky comments, or memes. This is serious. Please answer in your own words if you could thank you.
Because they weren't part of the Hebrew Bible, nor were the Church Fathers guided by the Holy Spirit to include them in the OT for any Rite of the Church, and so they have no authoritative religious significance. Maybe historical significance, but not a religious one.
I will give you the shortest off-the-cuff answer I can: People are fools who don't study the issue and think things about the canon and the Bible that aren't true.
The canon is simly books meant to be read in the liturgy/mass on Sundays and other days, it is NOT a definitive list of the only books inspired by God in human history. What is in the canon is NOT what you are limited to reading, you can read whatever the hell you want, God probably inspired lots of Second-Temple literature, who knows, who cares. The canon is NOT what solely dictates theology either. When you begin to read these other books you'll see that because Christians think it does in general, they do not have the full picture of the world God made. For example: I know hardly a Christian who can tell the three fundamental things wrong with the world that Jesus and the Apostles sought to fix/reverse because they limit themselves to books meant to be read on Sunday basically.
Inspiration is not something we can mark out or contain and say "look here, God acted here and NO WHERE ELSE IN HISTORY, we have Him in a bottle," and it is a stupid thing to think that. The reason people don't take those books seriously is they think some of the following:
1) they aren't inspired because muh liturgy canon
2) they aren't inspired because it's weird and unfamiliar (you haven't read them or heard them of course they are)
3) they disagree with my favorite pet theologies about what is and isn't possible (ultimately limiting God, first Enoch is a great subject of this)
4) SUPPOSEDLY late.
The last one is my favorite, I love seeing fellow Christians disregard scholarship until it suits them, and thinking date really matters, as if God doesn't speak beyond a certain year, but also claiming that He does when they approve of the message. All of those reasons are BS clearly, and you should read for yourself. Read the books, not a commentary or an opinion of them, and ask for guidance from God and/or your spiritual director/father if you ever are unsure (knowng they also aren't infallible, but have their biases, I know my own directors biases and in many cases we agree to disagree, it's all fine).
These books are vital reading, those "three things" wrong with the world that Jesus was trying to fix you won't know unless you scrutinize the 66/73 books carefully, and see things you wouldn't think of, like why St. Paul wanted to go to Spain, and so on. Read and study, "study to show yourself approved unto the Lord" and then act righteously. God bless user.
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If you're not then you ought to be.
They State directly that scripture is the inspired word of God. They don't say that God doesn't inspire others. After all that's why we have Saints and record their writings and works. But none such writings, be they ancient or recent can be held as equal to the defined cannon of scripture. Likewise, they were left out for a reason, as stated prior. If they were mandatory for understanding scripture as you claim, they would be there. To say otherwise is to doubt the guidance of the Holy Spirit.
I'm not saying you can't check them out as morbid curiosity or study. I'm just questioning your assignment of authority to them. You hold up ancient scriptures above the church and god's guidance. Hence the prot assumption.
With Trent, or whichever council of the era the Western canon (which is the minimum works that are inspired, Eastern Churches have more they claim are) of 73 books is defined in, it is said that they are inspired, no more. In the Catechism the Church says that it guarantees the faithful the very necessary minimum for salvation. Sure, you can be saved without having read these books, or even the Gospel, I bet many were saved hearing of Christ and His mandates and living it without ever looking on a single scroll of Scripture back in the day. So it is not necessary in this sense, but it is necessary for going beyond and gaining a deep intellectual understanding of Scripture, it's purpose, goals, etc, which is usually left out because people generally don't care. You can "understand" Scripture enough to be saved as the Church guarantees it will give the faithful, but I assume OP wants to go far beyond that.
That is understand enough without these books like Enoch
Something I already acknowledged. Also, Eastern Rites, not eastern Churches,
If you want to go "beyond that" (as though there really is such a thing) read the Church fathers, or the Saints' writings, or the DOZENS of other actually christian texts granted imprimatur. They won't put you "beyond minimal salvation" whatever that's supposed to mean, but they will teach you far more about our faith than some apocryphal texts deemed unnecessary for the canon.
Beyond minimum salvation means going past just scraping into heaven after an aeon in purgatory, and busting open the gates with high degrees of glory. The Church can get you in barely, but the rest is on you and God. Saint writings are good and all, but so is scripture written by those ages before them, especially when it gives you a three-day view on God's plans and true desires, separating falsehoods and deceptions from truth, which these books surely do. Saint writings and stuff perfect you within the self-referentiAl realm of the Church as it has developed in time, scripture gives you access to the source. There is a major reason to read and understand these books.
Birds-eye* not three-day
That has nothing to do with studying apocryphal texts. that has to do with how you live your faith in prayer, study of the actual scriptures, and good works. To say that you need to study the Aporcypha to go beyond in your faith is to sugest that monks, priests, and saints who havent studied them "Scraped their way into heaven".
Lies
Broken clock's right twice a day I guess
You understand that while the church doesn't deny the potential inspiration of other texts, they don't affirm the inspiration of these texts. That's why they're apocryphal in the first place. Citing books even outside of the Eastern Canon as authoritative in any manner is contra to what the church stated.
Again, I would agree were your definition of scripture not blatantly errant.
Historicity of early Christianity and Judaism. That's it.
Forgot to mention how proud and vain that sounds.
There are 73 books in the Bible.
Anyway to answer the question Enoch was left out because the Holy Spirit did not guide anyone to put it in their canon including the Jews or Christians. However this is my interpretation it was preserved through Ethiopian traditions so we could study and read it today. As go Jasher no one knows where that book went no one has found it.
There are a myriad of reasons why books are excluded from the Canon: went missing, were not a part of tradition, heretical in part or in whole, etc. It is alright for you to read these books as long as you understand the canon is what is in the Bible and the other books are not canon but can give you a better understanding of canon and the faith.
Also Enoch just explains in-depth things from Genesis like how awful the world was that God needed to flood it and such. And the Jews didn’t even have it in their canon back before Christ. It’s not some super spicy conspiracy like some will have you believe.
Go look at it though if you are curious.
prove to me any decision of an ecumenical council that was based on a scripture not in the canon
uh, dude. jesus came into the world to 1) fulfill the mosaic law, 2) forgive humanity of its sin and 3) conquer hades. this is all in the canon.
This also Jesus told no one to right anything down. The Apostles didn't consider writing anything down because they spoke directly from the Holy Spirit. It wasn't until John and a few others were left that people started going maybe we should write this stuff down.
Remember though Christendom went 1000 years after establishment of Canon with the vast majority of the faithful unable to read the Bible. Even if it was translated into their own language it would still be unlikely they could read it.
So we somehow made it this far without the Lord directly intervening with the Holy Spirit saying "HEY YOU FORGOT ENOCH!"
What planet are you from where that sounds anything like "sola scriptura"?
I don't know about Enoch but Jasher was a blatant forgery. A book by that title is referenced in The Bible but the writing itself has been lost to the ages; the copy that is widely available is a 19th century forgery.
Amos 8:11-13, Micah 3:4-8 and Malachi 4:5-6 proves that there would be a time when God doesn't speak to His people. It happened from the death of Malachi to John the baptist. And when did your uninspired books were written? During the 400 years of silence.
Since uninspired books don't belong in the Christian bible, and your apocryphal books are uninspired, therefore, the apocryphal books don't belong in the Christian bible.
quite a claim, I'm listening. Where can I find evidence to back this?
Let me clarify this: Jasher at one point was a legitimate book of the Old Testament as mentioned in Joshua 10:13, but it's been lost to time. Psudeo-Jasher written in the 18th century by Jacob Ilive is a forgery.
en.wikipedia.org