I also thought Christie did a good job addressing Melito’s and Origen’s canons omitting Esther and the Minor Prophets. For example, he cited Beckwith and Webster who explained Esther may have either been included under a different prophet or the Jews of that era may have been familiar with the Essenes from antiquity who had a solar calendar that could not celebrate Purim on the Sabbath as reason for not including Esther. And that Origen omitting the Minor Prophets was most likely a mistake either by Eusebius who preserved Origen’s list, or even Origen himself since Origen comments on the Minor Prophets later as Scripture, and Hilary of Poitier comments on Origen’s list later with the exact same books, in the exact same order, but includes the Minor Prophets before Isaiah. That really shows the Protestant/Hebrew Bible list much earlier than the later Roman one.
Christie also pushed the smaller Sadducee canon wasn’t discussed in antiquity until at least the third century by Origen, which Horn’s response was “this is an accepted belief,” which again was avoidant. Trent could not demonstrate from antiquity that the Pharisees and Sadducees AS A WHOLE espoused to different canons. The best he could do is the possibility that individual Jews may have believed in different books, which is meaningless.
And Christie’s mention that the NAB states the three-fold division of Sirach include the same books in the present Hebrew Bible, which lists 17 of the 22 books (including most of the Writings), while other writings are included in other intertestamental books like 1 and 2 Maccabees.
Overall, Christie did present new information and expanded in more detail from his debate with Michuta, which Horn did not seem to know how to respond to, beyond his usual comments. And Horn’s rebuttals either ignored or overlooked some of the points in Christie’s opening statements, rebuttals, and closing statements. Horn also didn’t seem to know how to respond during the cross examination, while Christie did.
Lastly, Horn saying we must first determine a book is inspired first THEN we deal with the apparent errors was a bit circular, which Christie capitalized on, and explained this is something Protestants don’t do when approaching a particular text, whether it be Catholic, Protestant, or something else.
