It seems to me that there is no clear evidence proving that the current canon of the Hebrew Bible / Protestant Old Testament was finalised by the first century. All the evidence is open to diverse interpretation, but even within the pages of the New Testament we have evidence that at least one Jewish believer in Jesus treated Enoch as Scripture. The existence of a tripartite classification does not signal clarity about the books so classified, especially in the third section, and it is certainly possible to read the Talmud as evidencing a debate about these limits that continued sometime past the point where Christians and Jews moved to limited and mutually belligerent relationships.
So what I want to ask is this. Are those who insist that the Church (and possibly even Jesus) received a complete canon of Hebrew Scriptures motivated more by a doctrinal shibboleth about canon completion than by the historical evidence?
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The motivations are aplenty, and given that many still assume that the early Church only used the Hebrew Scriptures, as opposed to the LXX, there are reasons to continue in the belief.
Question about the Jude reference to Enoch: Does usage of the Enoch tradition imply that it was viewed as “Scripture”?
Pat: Jude’s quotation certainly treats the source text as giving a genuine “prophecy.”
Doug: Yes. Even using the word “canon” for the first century CE seems anachronistic to me, and maybe the word “scripture.” I think the historical evidence suggests incontrovertibly that all Jews of Jesus’ lifetime esteemed the Torah as “scripture,” and some esteemed the Nevi’im (in its form familiar to us) as “scripture,” and some esteemed some other books, especially the Psalms—but not yet the final list of Kethuvim—as “scripture.”
Joel, the “many” you refer to do not of themselves provide a reason.
Chris, thanks. I think you’ve answered Pat for me.
Pat, I would only add that I take this as evidence Jude viewed it as “scripture” (accepting Chris’s qualification to some extent), and expected those he was writing to to do the same. I don’t assume his view was universal.
Karel van der Toorn addresses this issue in his excellent Scribal Culture and the Making of the Hebrew Bible. Though I don’t always agree with all of his conclusions, I respect his scholarship, and in chapter 9 he argues that the canon was originally a reading list, and that it was in place by the 1st century AD.
As evidence he points to Josephus who, in the 1st century:
and to 2 Esdras, which:
Then Dr. van der Toorn concludes:
Van der Toorn also rejects the three-stage canonization theory:
So van der Toorn believes that there’s evidence for a 1st century list of books that were “the canon,” even though he doesn’t think the books were assembled into one master book they way they are now until later.
Doug,
I agree with Joel’s comment above. In addition, I believe that the meeting of the rabbis at Jabneh is important to be considered in this discussion. Although they did not establish a “canon,” they decided what books should have authority over the Jewish community.
The rabbis did not impose a list of books upon the community, they recognized that certain books “defiled the hand,” that is, they considered them to be sacred.
Claude Mariottini
@ Joel – I’m afraid I don’t know van der Toorn except by quotation from earlier work. He’s arguing against a majority view – as far as I can tell from the book blurb, very self-aware that he’s trying to demolish a view heading for a consensus. He may be right, but I don’t find the parts you cite terribly persuasive.
For the majority view underpinning my argument, see for example the collected essays of The Canon Debate, or Lee Martin McDonald’s magisterial The Biblical Canon, or Evans and Tov on Exploring the Origins of the Bible.
@Claude – I’m a Jabneh / Jamnia sceptic.(See Joel’s quote from van der Toorn above)
There seems to be some evidence that the canon was settled among certain Jewish groups whilst not among others. It seems there must have been a movement in proto-rabbinic circles for a shorter Ketuvim, which eventually became the normative in Judaism. And Ezra appears to be an important figure around whom an early concept of canonicity was established. To some, perhaps Josephus, this was authority enough for ‘canon’. However, the Old Greek version witnesses to an expanded canon remaining treasured by other Jewish groups. Michael Weitzman’s definitive study on Peshitta OT points to its composition within a Northern Mesopatamian non-rabbinic Jewish community. These ‘loose ends’ around the canon suggest to me that Judaism of this period is far more varied than we often imagine: we see the divergent nature of the Essenes/Qumran as the exception rather than the rule.
Van der Toorn is a methodical and well-read scholar. His Scribal Culture tries to to present a coherent picture of the scribes that (he believes) created the OT and the Canon. I think his main point regarding the Canon is that it was originally a reading list — not a compilation of actual books — and elsewhere in his book he provides considerable support for that thesis. (He also has some nice insights into how we view the notion of “book” differently now than people did in antiquity.)
It seems to me that the references to “22 books” and “24 books” are pretty convincing. If there was no Canon, what were those lists?
Er … I’m not arguing there was no canon, but no generally settled canon. That is, if, by canon, you mean some way in which some books were distinguished from others by listing them. I find your mention of Van der Toorn’s reading list a very interesting idea.
It seems to me at least as likely that references to “22 books” and “24 books” suggest that people agreed there was a list, but that they disagreed what was in the list.
I would like to thank Joel H very much for his links to Josephus and its implications for the canon of the Hebrew Bible. I wasn’t previously aware of Josephus’ statement here, or had overlooked its importance. I looked it up, just to make sure it was accurate. If Josephus says the canon of the Hebrew Bible had 22 books, and the other sources say 24, then for me that completely settles the matter – it is the same canon of the Hebrew Bible as we use today, already established in practice by the 1st century C.E.
I don’t follow that logic
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