Well, I tried to sneak it past him, but Adam Gonnerman called my hand. I read an excellent article that he posted on his web site and that article got me to thinking about the canon. I’d been wanting to discuss that a bit, and now seems like a good time. His presentation is better written and much more scholarly, so I hope you’ll take a few minutes to look over it.
But let’s talk canon. For a long time, God’s people didn’t spend a lot of time identifying which books were inspired and which were not. The Jews honored the Torah (Genesis-Deuteronomy) above all other writings, including those that we typically accept as being of equal weight. They would not place Job, for example, alongside Leviticus. Both were seen as helpful, but one was The Law.
The concern with identifying the canon arose after the destruction of the temple in Jerusalem in A.D. 70. Much of what the Jews considered to be their identity was lost, and they struggled to define themselves in the light of what had occurred. Part of that struggle was to identify the writings that were truly “God breathed.”
It was a given that they would reject the Christian writings. They also rejected the “Second Canon,” the Deuterocanonical books like the books of Maccabees. There were two stated reasons for rejecting these books:
- The Pharisees taught that divine revelation ceased with Ezra; the Talmud identifies Malachi as the last prophet. Either of these dates (which basically coincide) would exclude the books known as the Apocrypha.
- It was also determined that the holy language of Scripture was Hebrew. Books that were not written principally in Hebrew were not accepted. (Daniel, Ezra and Jeremiah have sections in Aramaic, but were considered “Hebrew enough”).
There was another important reason, which tended to go unstated: these books were seen as teaching certain ideas which were used by Christians, like teachings about life after death.
Some scholars believe that there was a council of Jamnia at the end of the first century which established the Jewish canon. However, no concrete historical evidence has been found for the existence of such a council.
It’s worth noting that there was no uniformity among the Jews on the subject of the canon until well after the time of Christ. With Jews scattered across the known world, different groups would accept different books as being canonical.
I know some of you have studied this more than I. What other light would you shed on the formation of the Old Testament canon?
Aw shucks….
This also raises the issue of scripture’s authority. Today, nearly all protestant churches, following the doctrine of Sola Scriptura, appeal to scripture as the basis (or authority) for what they believe and practice. Yet in the second and third centuries, church leaders appealed to the Rule(s) of Faith and they did so being fully aware of the writings that came to be the NT Canon. The phrase “the Bible says so” would be somewhat foreign to them.
Grace and Peace,
Rex
I like to use a couple of terms that when presented with an idea that maybe foreign to my way of thinking are: “Saying it so, doesn’t make it so.” and the other is: “Your perception is YOUR reality.” A lot of information presented that is new,may be different from your past thoughts of how this book came to be. If you believe that it is “God breathed and it is infallable” as it is written today, then you have a problem with all the translations, all the different types of bibles available. Whether you believe it how it came to be, isn’t really the question. The question is do you believe the content of the book. Not who wrote it, but what it contains about the Word and the word became flesh and dwelt among us…..to me that is what is important….
There are a number of issues that are raised when we look at the canon of the “Old Testament” seriously.
1) Judaism(s) before AD 70 did not have a uniformly held view. Famously the Sadducees held to the Torah only, as did the Samaritans. Qumran (Essenes?) seems to have had a wider canon than what we would recognize today.
3) The destruction of the temple (and Qumran too) was a matter of world changing proportions. Christianity, it should be observed, emerged from the Pre-AD 70 Judaism not the post AD 70 Judaism. The Council of Jamnia is a myth completely deconstructed by Jack Lewis in the early 1960s.
4) All of the “Apocrypha” save the Wisdom of Solomon and 2 Esdras were written in either Hebrew or Aramaic. Several have been found among the Dead Sea Scrolls (like Tobit and Sirach). Interestingly enough Sirach is quoted as scripture in the Talmud.
It is a fascinating subject Tim. A big one too.
Thanks for the comment, Bobby. Your points are better than your numbering skills. :-)
I agree with the first two. I also agree with the third (#4), although my point was that the Jews didn’t accept any of the books that were written entirely in Aramaic. The Aramaic parts of the Old Testament were accepted because they were part of larger works written in Hebrew.
Grace and peace,
Tim Archer