THE FORMATION OF THE BIBLICAL CANON

Volume I
THE FORMATION OF THE BIBLICAL CANON

The Old Testament:

Its Authority and Canonicity

Volume I

By
Lee Martin McDonald

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 To Mary

With love, appreciation and gratitude for all that you are
and
for our brief 53 years of marriage!
 CONTENTS

FOREWORD TO THE FOURTH EDITION

CANON: THE MEASURING RULE FOR DISCERNING
GOD’S WORD
James Hamilton Charlesworth xiii
I. Introduction xiii
II. “Old Testament” Canon xv
III. If the Canon Were Open in the West, What Should Be Added? xvii
IV. What are the Advantages and Disadvantages of a Closed Canon? xviii
V. Conclusion xix

FOREWORD TO THE FIRST EDITION

Helmut Koester xxi

Abbreviations xxv
Preface xxxi

Part 1
INTRODUCTIONS AND DEFINITIONS

Chapter 1
INTRODUCTION 3
I. What is the Bible? 3
II. Some Important Questions 13
III. Recent Investigations of Canon Formation 22
IV. Assumptions of Canon Formation 25
V. An Adaptable Bible 29
VI. Emergence of an Old Testament
and New Testament 31
VII. The Processes of Canonization 34

E :
The “First” or “Old” Testament:
What to Call the First Christian Testament
by James A. Sanders 36
viii CONTENTS

Chapter 2
THE NOTION AND USE OF SCRIPTURE 39
I. Introduction 39
II. Scripture as “Defiling The Hands” 41
III. Oral and Written Sacred Traditions 44
IV. Scribes, Writing, and Scriptures in the Ancient World 45
V. The Emergence of Scriptures in Ancient Israel 49
VI. The Christians’ First Scriptures and Early Christian Scriptures 67

Chapter 3
THE NOTION, USE, AND ADAPTABILITY OF CANON 76
I. Introduction 76
II. The Term “Canon” 78
III. Canons in the Ancient World 81
IV. Biblical Canons in Early Christianity 94
V. Scripture and Canon in Antiquity 97
VI. Canon 1 and Canon 2 99
VII. Jewish Notions of Canon 108
VIII. Canon Characteristics: Adaptability and Life 111
IX. Summary 117

Part 2
FORMATION OF THE HEBREW BIBLE
AND THE OLD TESTAMENT CANON

Chapter 4
THE HEBREW SCRIPTURES 121
I. Introduction 121
II. Lost Scriptures in Ancient Israel 125
III. Apocryphal and Pseudepigraphal Writings:
Writings that Did Not Make the Cut 134
IV. Temporary Canonization or “Decanonization” 145
V. The Theory of a Three-Tiered Canon Formation
of the Hebrew Bible 148
VI. The Prophets as a Scripture Collection 156

Chapter 5
THE LAW, THE PROPHETS, AND THE CESSATION
OF PROPHECY 160
I. Introduction 160
II. The Wisdom of Jesus ben Sirach 163
III. The Prologue to Sirach 167
IV. 4QMMT 169
V. The Hasmonean Dynasty and the Cessation of Prophecy 175
CONTENTS ix

VI. Prophecy in the Dead Sea Scrolls, Philo, and Josephus 180
VII. The Holy Spirit in Rabbinic Tradition 183
VIII. Scriptures Placed in the Temple 186
IX. Books in the Sacred Collections 186
X. The Holy Spirit and Scriptural Canons 189

Chapter 6
GREEK INFLUENCE
AND THE FORMATION OF THE HEBREW BIBLE 190
I. Hellenism, the Greek Language, and Jewish Tradition 190
II. Aristeas and the Origin of the Greek Bible 200
III. Homer and Biblical Canons 209
IV. The Alexandrian Library, Catalogues, and Canons 214
V. The Septuagint in Rabbinic Judaism and Early Christianity 218
VI. The Greek Alphabet and a Twenty-Four Book Canon 223
VII. The Myth of an Alexandrian Canon 227
VIII. Summary and Conclusion 229

Chapter 7
SCRIPTURE AMONG ESSENES, SADDUCEES,
PHARISEES, AND SAMARITANS 232
I. Judaisms in the Late Second Temple Period 232
II. The Essenes and Qumran 233
III. The Sadducees and Their Scriptures 251
IV. Pharisees 258
V. The Samaritan Bible 264

Chapter 8
EMERGING JEWISH AND CHRISTIAN COLLECTIONS
OF SCRIPTURES 268
I. 2 Maccabees 2:13–15 268
II. The Therapeutae, their Scriptures, and Philo 273
III. Luke 24:44, Daniel, and a Tripartite Biblical Canon 277
IV. Luke 11:48–51 and Matthew 23:34–35 286
V. Order and Sequence of Biblical Canons 294
VI. Conclusion 295

Chapter 9
THE SCRIPTURES OF JESUS AND EARLY CHRISTIANITY 296
I. Scripture in Early Christianity 296
II. The Scriptures of Jesus 299
III. The New Testament’s Use of Scripture 310
IV. The Inviolability of Scripture 314
V. The Church Fathers and the Old Testament Canon 317
VI. The Authority of the Old Testament in Early Christianity 330
x CONTENTS

VII. Church Council Decisions and Canon Formation 333

VIII. Conclusion 335
IX. Supplement: Jesus’ Scripture References 336

Chapter 10
TEXTS REFLECTING AN EMERGING BIBLICAL CANON 341
I. Josephus and a Twenty-Two Book Canon 341
II. 4 Ezra 14:19–48 352
III. Jubilees 2:23–24 356
IV. The Bryennios Canon 358
V. 1 Enoch: A Challenging Exception 360
V. The Emerging Scriptural Canon 369

Chapter 11
SCRIPTURE IN THE RABBINIC TRADITION (90–550 CE) 372
I. Myth of the Council At Jamnia 374
II. The Writings and the Tripartite Hebrew Bible Canon 378
III. The Bible in the Rabbinic Tradition 390
IV. Rabbinic Writings 408
V. Conclusion 415

Chapter 12
ANCIENT ARTIFACTS AND THE STABILIZATION
OF THE JEWISH SCRIPTURES 419
I. Hebrew Bible and Old Testament Manuscripts:
What Is in Them? 419
II. The Masoretes and the Surviving Hebrew Bible Text 428
III. The Search for the Earliest Text 431
IV. The Text of the Hebrew Scriptures 433
V. Other Translations of Hebrew and Old Testament Scriptures 453
VI. Conclusion 458

Chapter 13
THE FORMATION OF THE HEBREW BIBLE
AND OLD TESTAMENT: A SUMMARY 462
I. The Hebrew Bible and Old Testament Canon 462
II. Concerns about an Ambiguous Biblical Canon 464
III. Criteria for Establishing a Hebrew Biblical Canon 467
IV. Issues of Canon, Christology, and Biblical Interpretation 475
V. A Twenty-Three-Book Biblical Canon 480
VI. Summary 483
CONTENTS xi

APPENDICES
Appendix A: Ancient Lists of Hebrew Bible
and Old Testament Scriptures 489
Appendix B: Current Lists of Hebrew Bible
and Christian Old Testament Scriptures 498

Index of References 500

Inxex of Authors 526
Index of Subjects xxx
 FOREWORD TO THE FOURTH EDITION

CANON:
THE MEASURING RULE FOR
DISCERNING GOD’S WORD

JAMES HAMILTON CHARLESWORTH

(George L. Collord Professor of New Testament Language

and Literature and Director of the Dead Sea Scrolls Project
at Princeton Theological Seminary)

“All our texts are human responses to a perceived revelation.”1

I. INTRODUCTION

Humans with any sense of spirituality would recoil with horror if they found out
that there is a God but they had not perceived the fact. Maybe more horrifying
to them would be the experience of knowing that there is a God but receiving no
revelation of what would be God’s will. The situation becomes intolerable when
disobeying God would demand condemnation and consignment to Hell. Thus, the
“canon” provides for all who accept the sanctity of Scripture not only evidence of
God but also a revelation of God’s will for all creation.

1. This thought was shared with an advanced Qumran Philology Class in Princeton on 12
November 2015. Those in the class stopped and had begun to listen attentively. They brought this
thought out of me. It pertains to texts like Isaiah, the Rule of the Community, Romans, the Gospel
of John, the Odes of Solomon, and Revelation. In some publications, I have urged scholars to leave
behind them the need to italicize books that are deeply spiritual and informative for Hillel, Jesus,
and their followers, but never “canonized.” All great theologians know that revelation was never
reserved only for those who wrote so-called canonical books.
xiv FOREWORD TO THE FOURTH EDITION

There is no doubt that the Bible, however defined, is heralded as revelatory and
definitive for belief and action by Jews and Christians, no matter how diverse.
The Bible contains evidence of God, God’s activities in history (Heilsgeschichte),
inspired thought (poetry), and guidance for morality and conceptuality. Most
importantly, all who revere any books collected into any Bible acknowledge
that they are informed of what God expects of them, his creations. “Torah” is
often translated “Law”; it means fundamentally “God’s Will.” Lost to too many
in Western society is the celebration of Simchat Torah: “Joy (or Rejoicing) in
the Torah.” This joyous day, each year, signifies the conclusion of the weekly
cycle of reading Torah (Gen 1 to Deut 34) in synagogues. The readings of
Scripture continue with a return to Gen 1 to begin a new cycle. The time for this
resetting of the cycle is immediately after Sukkot in Tishrei (sometime between
mid-September and early October according to our Gregorian calendar).
The Torah is not legislation. It is not a collection of laws or halakot (Jewish
prescriptions for right conduct). Some Jews during Jesus’ time, and during other
periods, may be judged to have lowered Torah into legality; but that is misleading
to faithful Jews from Hillel’s time to the present. Torah is the revelation of God’s
Will. We all rejoice at knowing God’s will, and God’s love, for us.
What is in the Torah or Bible (not necessarily the same collection) and how
do we know that? The Hebrew noun, kānéh (‫)קנה‬, means “reed” or “measuring
reed” (cf. Ezek 40:3 and 42:15–20). It was the measurement for many things,
including the length of a robe. The noun was subsequently expanded to denote
the rule by which we could discern the list of books that are sacred because they
contain God’s WORD; kānéh evolved to mean a “canon.” Greek kanōn (κανών;
Latin canna) and English “canon” are transliterations of the Hebrew; they are not
translations of the Hebrew noun. They eventually evolved to denote the “sacred
writings” in a collection.
In the late first century CE, the author of 4 Ezra 14:44–46 and Josephus (Ag.
Apion 1.37–43) are apparently the first ones to refer to the concept of a fixed
collection of “Sacred Scripture,” but neither Jew used the term “canon” or “Sacred
Scripture.” A list specifying the “canon” (not mentioned) appears in the sixth-
century Babylonian Talmud (b. Baba Batra 14b); but this text is a “baraita,”
(“Our Rabbis taught”) that may well originate in the late second century CE. The
list assumes the Pentateuch, presents the names of the prophetic books and then
the documents in the hagiographa.
Beginning in the second century CE, after the fateful two Jewish Revolts
(66–70 [74] and 132–35[6]), Jews realized the need to decide what books were in
the canon; that is, what constituted Sacred Scripture. They did not specify what
books were still sacred but on the fringes of the canon; so, for example, Sirach,
which was not included, continued to be definitive for Jewish spirituality.
No one in the second century CE, Jew or Christian, used the term “Bible” or
“canon” to denote a fixed or putative closed collection of Scriptures. Jerome
(c. 340 to 420) is the first to use the term ta biblia (plural of biblion, “book”) to
FOREWORD TO THE FOURTH EDITION xv

denote “holy books.” This concept denoted for him and many Roman Catholics
the documents in the “Holy Bible” or Vulgate. Apparently, the term “Holy Bible”
was not prevalent in the churches in the West (including Palestine) until the ninth
century.
The measuring rule, “canon,” allowed early Christians to decide what was in the
Bible and what was “the rule of faith” (regula fidei) or “the rule of truth” (regula
veratatis). Paul may adumbrate this concept in Rom 12:6; and he used kanōn to
denote “all who walk by this rule” in Gal 6:16. These terms were popularized by
the early scholars of the Church, notably Dionysius of Corinth, Irenaeus, Clement
of Alexandria, and Tertullian. In contrast to the influential Greek schools of
Socrates, Plato, and Aristotle, “truth” was not obtained by thought but was given
through revelation.
The Bible for Jews included only the Hebrew Scriptures (or Old Testament), but
the Babylonian Talmud was equally as important (and sometimes more important)
than the canon for many Jews throughout the world. The Bible for Protestant
Christians numbered 66 books, but the Roman Catholics and Ethiopians, for
example, included more books in the canon. Through common use but interpreted
differently, the Bible (so variously defined but with the same base text) came to
be recognized as the quintessential, and sometimes the only, book of revelation.
For Christians today in many countries, the Bible is a collection of compositions,
traditions, and books that were composed and edited from about 900 BCE to
150 CE. For all those who revere the Bible, it may be categorized as an ancient
library of sacred books.

II. “OLD TESTAMENT” CANON

What happened at Jamnia (Javneh)? Before the 1970s, professors (as well as
Rabbis) told students that the “Old Testament” canon had been defined at “the
Council of Jamnia” about 90 CE. This old view has largely been replaced by a
more perceptive one that is now regnant in universities and seminaries (but not in
Yeshivas). We have no “Proceedings” from Jamnia, a town on the western shores
of the Mediterranean and south of Tel Aviv-Jaffa. It was not a “Council” compa-
rable to Nicea in 325 CE (and no biblical canon was articulated at Nicea, despite
too many claims to the contrary). At Jamnia, no canon was defined or closed.
Discussions were focused intermittently on Ecclesiastes and the Song of Solomon.
In the same first century, Jesus is reported to have said, “It is written”
(Matt 4:6–11). Jesus is portrayed referring to writings that are “sacred scripture,”
since the parallel thought is “every word that proceeds from the mouth of God”
(Matt 4:4). Jesus knew no set or closed canon; all the books in the New Testament
had not yet been composed.
xvi FOREWORD TO THE FOURTH EDITION

Most scholars now contributing to canon research concur that the three
divisions of the Hebrew Bible (the Old Testament) were defined chronologically
and probably as follows:

Torah (the first five books, “Pentateuch”) sometime before 400 BCE;
the Prophets (sometime before 200 BCE);
the Writings (unclear; maybe in the late second century CE).
Too often the Septuagint (the authoritative Greek translation of the Hebrew Bible)
is dated to about 200 BCE; but some of the books found in it were composed after
200 BCE (including Sirach). These dates are the ones I prefer; in the following
two volumes, crowning the research carrier of Lee McDonald, the evidence and
discussion is presented judiciously and attractively.
Today, biblical experts try to overcome a European-American focus. Biblical
research in Western Culture has been blind to the various canons in World Culture.
As we seek to comprehend the definition and power of “canon,” we confront
complexities caused by a global perspective. Today, the Hebrew Bible or Old
Testament is considered closed by Jews and Christians; yet, what is included in
it is debated. Roman Catholics include the “Deuterocanonical Books” (what the
Protestants label “the Apocrypha”), which usually denotes the books added in the
Septuagint or Greek Version.
The issue is far more complicated, however, if we ask what is in the Bible.
Specifically, what books belong in the Christian Bible? In Syria and the East, the
issue was debated until the sixth century, and often the harmony of the gospels
called the Diatessaron trumped the power of the four canonical Gospels. All
27 books in the New Testament were deemed part of the Peshitta (the Syriac
Christian Bible) only in the sixth century; that is, the shape of the New Testament
in the East was finally established by Mar Aba between 525 and 533. Earlier,
for example, Rabulla of Edessa (411–435) did not have in his New Testament
the following books: 2 Peter, 2 John, 3 John, Jude, and Revelation. Most likely,
Eastern Christianity was influenced by Athanasius’s canon of 27 books in 367 and
the distribution of the Vulgate that was translated by Jerome (384–405).2
Some churches included other books in their canon. For example, the Armenian
Church placed 3 Corinthians (part of the Acts of Paul) in their canon. Thus,
Armenian Bibles once had 1–3 Corinthians in their canon. 3 Corinthians is not
now part of the Armenian Bible. In 1200, Revelation was added to the Armenian
canon and later, around 1290, additional documents were finally excluded; among
them are Advice of the Mother of God to the Apostles, the Books of Criapos, and
the Epistle of Barnabas. Sometimes, the Armenian Apostolic Church seems to
have included the Testaments of the Twelve Patriarchs in the “Old Testament.”

2
See the succinct and helpful discussion by Johan Ferreira in Early Chinese Christianity, Early
Christian Studies 17 (Strathfield, NSW: St. Paul’s Publications, 2014) on pp. 74–78.
FOREWORD TO THE FOURTH EDITION xvii

Moreover, in the Syriac Bible there are 155 Psalms in the Davidic Psalter. At
least three of these are very early and were found in the Qumran caves: 151A and
151B (11Psa 151), 154 (11QPsa 154), and 155 (11Psa 155).3 Psalm 151 preserves
the remains of two psalms; they are present in the Septuagint. In Ethiopia,
Jubilees and the Books of Enoch are included in the Bible. These books were once
considered medieval compositions; but manuscripts of them have been found in
the Qumran caves. The book that has not yet been identified among the Dead Sea
Scrolls, the Parables of Enoch or 1 Enoch 37–71, is judged to be both Jewish
and completed prior to Jesus. A symposium shared these new insights and was
published as The Parables of Enoch: A Paradigm Shift.4
The issues become complex when we ask what is the text of a book. It is
certain that before 70 CE, more than 12 text types of some biblical books were
known. Sometimes we find better readings than those that are revered by Jews
and Christians; a parade example is Deut 27:4 (as will be noted). More challenges
appear when we include the books of Jeremiah and 1 and 2 Samuel. The versions
known before 70 CE are profoundly different. Perhaps it would be best to include
in two columns the different readings; then, we would all know that we have what
is most reliable and sacred in our Bibles.
These forays into the byway of canon help us search for what is in the Bible
and what is the Bible. What is meant by Bible? The answer should not be reduced
to what books are in a list (and history indicates that there were different lists).
Any answer should include what is in each book. The problem is extreme when
we perceive, on the one hand, that some portions of our Bible were deliberately
altered, as for example Deut 27:4;5 and, on the other hand, that the books of
Jeremiah and 1–2 Samuel had two appreciably different contents during the time
of Hillel and Jesus.

III. IF THE CANON WERE OPEN IN THE WEST,

WHAT SHOULD BE ADDED?

Mormons adhere to an open canon. They and many other Christians often ask me:
“If the canon were open, what books would you add?” My answer would begin
with the widespread recognition that for us today the canon is set and closed. I

3
See the introduction and translation by Charlesworth and J. A. Sanders in OTP 2:609–24.
4
See the contributions to James H. Charlesworth and Darrell L. Bock, eds., Parables of Enoch: A
Paradigm Shift (London: T&T Clark, 2013).
5
See J. H. Charlesworth, “What Is a Variant? Announcing a Dead Sea Scrolls Fragment of Deuter-
onomy,” MAARAV 16, no. 2 (2009): 201–12, Plate IX and X, and idem, “An Unknown Dead Sea
Scroll and Speculations Focused on the Vorlage of Deuteronomy 27:4,” in Jesus, Paulus und die
Texte von Qumran [FS H.-W. Kuhn], ed. J. Frey and E. E. Popkes, WUNT 2/390 (Tübingen: Mohr
Siebeck, 2014), 393–414.
xviii FOREWORD TO THE FOURTH EDITION

do not want to lead a campaign to expand the canon with more books. Debating
what books should be added would initiate debates that would detract from the
salubrious force of a recognized canon of sacred books.
I would shift the question to the following one: What early sacred books are
fundamental in grasping the unparalleled importance of the books in the Christian
canon? Some of the books that reflect this include first, the Books of Enoch since it
is becoming clear to many biblical scholars that these books preserve exceedingly
important concepts and symbols that help us re-create early Jewish thought and
Jesus himself seems to have been influenced by the portrayal of the “Son of Man”
in the Parables of Enoch, and that many early “Christians,” notably the author
of Jude, considered the work prophetic and revelatory (and perhaps canonical).
Second, the Prayer of Manasseh deserves consideration since it records a Jew’s
confession of sin and need for God’s forgiveness and acceptance. Third, I add for
consideration the Gospel of Thomas because it contains some of Jesus’ parables
in an early version that are not shaped by the theologies of Matthew or Luke.
Fourth, I highlight the Odes of Solomon because it may well have been composed
within the community that gave us the Gospel of John and helps us understand
that marvelous text and the Logos Christology. Finally, the Protevangelium of
James (Gospel of Mary) deserves our attention since it is one of the earliest books
in the so-called New Testament Apocrypha and it may well contain sources from
the first century CE.

IV. WHAT ARE THE ADVANTAGES AND DISADVANTAGES

OF A CLOSED CANON?

A canon is required for all who wish to know God’s story and where God is
present in the past. It provides the means to ascertain God’s WORD transmitted
to us, even when edited and shaped and altered by thought and theology. A canon
is also necessary to provide for a society’s rules, regulations, cultural norms, and
dreams. A canon helps Christians comprehend the “rule of faith” by which they
should think and act.
A closed list of sacred scripture became necessary for three main reasons. First,
Jews and Christians needed guidance regarding what books contained God’s
WORD. The Jews’ Hebrew Scriptures is similar to the Christians’ Old Testament,
even though the name and order of books is different. Jews and Christians today
share similar translations of the Hebrew Bible (or Old Testament) and they convene
to work together to provide ecumenical and scholarly translations. Second, before
200 CE too many books within Judaism and especially within Christianity were
circulating with the claim to be authoritative and full of revelation. A limited list
was deemed wise and fundamental for society by leaders in the synagogue and
in the church. Third, sound revelatory beliefs needed to be distinguished from
excessive imaginations as in the claims in Antonius Diogenes’s Wonders Beyond
FOREWORD TO THE FOURTH EDITION xix

Thule (maybe of the second century CE) that in Spain some see at night but
are blind during the day, that horses can change colors, and that one journeying
northward might come close to the moon.6
What are some disadvantages of a closed canon? A closed canon may indicate
Deism; that is, God created the world and then left it to spin on its own without
any guidance. A closed book unfortunately has suggested to some that God’s
mouth has been muted for virtually 2,000 years. A closed canon may imply that
many books once considered inspired and revelatory are unimportant or threat-
ening because they were eventually not included in the canon. The phenomenon
of exclusion does not mean the early compositions on the “fringe of the Bible” are
discarded, irrelevant for historical and theological insights, or pseudepigraphical
(many books in the canon are pseudepigraphical; that is, David did not write all
the Davidic Psalms and Solomon did not write Proverbs).
The medieval list of canonical books and the list of apocryphal and pseudepi-
graphical compositions by the author of the Apostolic Constitutions, Nicephorus,
Mechithar, and the compiler of the Slavic lists indicate both the continuing fear
of “apocryphal works” and a fascination with them. In antiquity and today, some
who revere the Bible believe that Adam wrote the Books of Adam, Enoch wrote
the Books of Enoch, and Solomon wrote the Psalms of Solomon and the Odes of
Solomon. Attempts to disprove such authorship should be joined with the recog-
nition that the shared canon attributes incorrectly documents to Moses, David,
Solomon, Isaiah, Jesus, and Paul.
In summation, the canon gives us a means to measure God’s WORD in texts
and in living situations. For example, many rightly feel the call of God in Martin
Luther King’s message and in the life and words of Pope Francis and earlier
in Mother Teresa’s witness and words. Their message is not another canon; it
mirrors the continuing efficaciousness of the biblical witness. Through such living
witnesses, the message in the Bible continues to influence society and excite those
who strive to be obedient to the One and Only God.

V. CONCLUSION
Each homo religiosus (deeply spiritual person) knows the need to allow for God’s
continuing Voice. We may all ponder: “What did ‘thus saith the Lord’ mean origi-
nally and what does it mean now?” The vast amount of “sacred writings” related
to the canon found over the past two hundred years, from Didache and the Odes
of Solomon to the Hodayot and Self-Glorification Hymn, help us understand the
full range of sacra scriptura.7 God’s First is not God’s Final Word. By the words

6
See N. G. Wilson, trans., Photius: The Bibliotheca (London: Duckworth, 1994), 149–54.
7
See esp. the contributions to J. H. Charlesworth and L. M. McDonald, eds., “Non-Canonical”
Religious Texts in Early Judaism and Early Christianity, T&T Clark Jewish and Christian Texts
xx FOREWORD TO THE FOURTH EDITION

of sacra scriptura, a canon, we may measure how and in what ways God is now
speaking to each of us. No other scholar has contributed so much to our perception
of the origin, development, and meaning of canon as Lee McDonald. His two
volumes provide us with reflections that are not only erudite and historical but
perspicacious and theological.

in Contexts and Related Studies 14 (London: T&T Clark, 2012), and J. H. Charlesworth, L. M.
McDonald, and Blake A. Jurgens, Sacra Scriptura: How “Non-Canonical” Texts Functioned in
Early Judaism and Early Christianity, T&T Clark Jewish and Christian Texts in Contexts and
Related Studies 20 (London: Bloomsbury T&T Clark, 2014).
 FOREWORD TO THE FIRST EDITION

HELMUT KOESTER

(John H. Morison Professor of New Testament Studies

and Winn Professor of Ecclesiastical History
Harvard University, The Divinity School)

The Bible of the Christians’ religious tradition includes two books, the Old
Testament and the New Testament. The first of these two books has always been a
substantial part of the Christian scriptural authority. However, the exact definition
of the writings that should be a part of the Old Testament canon never played a
decisive role in the discussions about the Christian canon of Holy Scripture and
its authority. While the so-called Old Testament Apocrypha are an undisputed part
of the canon of the Greek Church and a smaller corpus of apocryphal writings is
included in the Bible of the Roman Catholic Church, most Protestant churches
have ascribed authority only to a smaller Old Testament canon, corresponding to
the Hebrew Bible, from which the Apocrypha are excluded. But these differences
are rarely considered to be divisive.
In contrast, the question of the exact extent of the New Testament canon has
often been hotly debated among Christians. In recent decades, this issue has taken
on new dimensions through the discovery of an increasing number of ancient
Christian gospels, epistles, and books of revelation under apostolic names such
as Peter, Thomas, Philip, and even Mary. At the same time, critical scholarship
has questioned the “apostolic” authorship of writings of the New Testament
canon itself. Matthew and John may not be the authors of the Gospels transmitted
under their names, the apostle Paul was not the author of all the letters of the
Pauline corpus, and both Epistles of Peter were probably written half a century
after Peter’s death. Should we, therefore, revise the canon of the New Testament?
Should we exclude the Second Epistle of Peter? Should we include the newly
discovered Gospel of Thomas?
It is understandable that many Christians are disturbed by critical questions
regarding the authority of writings of the New Testament canon, while others are
excited about the discovery of new and hitherto unknown gospels, which claim to
have been written by apostles. But what is happening to canonical authority, when
there are apostolic writings outside of the canon and when the apostolic authorship
of writings of the New Testament is questioned? The New Testament no longer
xxii FOREWORD TO THE FIRST EDITION

seems to be the one and only collection of inspired writings from the hands of
genuine apostles and disciples of Jesus. Its authority as Holy Scripture appears to
be seriously questioned.
If there is an answer to this question, it will not come through abstract
theological controversy but only through a reconsideration of the history that
once created the canon of the New Testament. What did the Christians who estab-
lished the canon mean when they spoke of “scripture,” “inspiration,” “tradition,”
and “apostolic authorship”? Why were these twenty-seven writings included and
others excluded? How did these writings function in nourishing and building
Christian communities, and why were other writings found lacking? What were
the competing forces in the formation of the early Christian churches, and what
roles did various writings claiming “apostolicity” play in these controversies?
Early Christianity appears to have been much less united and much more
diversified than we have thought. The writings of the New Testament were not
necessarily the only early Christian apostolic witnesses. Rather, from the beginning
they had to compete with other books, produced by other followers of Jesus who
were later considered to be heretics. The collection of the twenty-seven writings
now comprising the New Testament canon was a long and arduous process,
extending over many centuries. In order to understand this process, several gener-
ations of scholars have done most of the groundwork, have investigated the Greek
and Latin sources from early Christian times, have tested, approved, and rejected
various hypotheses, and have thus come to a much better understanding of the
process. The literature on this topic is immense, often very technical and learned,
and not always easily understood. But it is also very exciting, and it has opened
up a much better understanding of the story of the formation of the canon. Holy
books do not fall from heaven; rather, they are created in the historical experiences
of religious communities. Scholars have learned much about this in an intense
international debate.
But this story must also be told so that everyone can be informed by a better
understanding of the developments that took place in the early centuries of the
Christian communities. It is an exciting and enriching story, filled with the experi-
ences and thoughts of Christian believers from the time of the apostles to the
consolidation of the church three centuries later. The story must be told in terms
easily comprehended by every reader, the interested layperson as well as the student
in a theological school. The story must be told in such a way that everyone in the
divided Christian churches of our day may share it and learn from it, evangelical
Christians as well as those of a more liberal persuasion. The story must be told
without apology and without zeal so that all may enter into the discourse with the
history that created the foundations through which all Christians belong to the
one church universal and are bound to the same God whose word and witness are
preserved in the book we call the New Testament.
FOREWORD TO THE FIRST EDITION xxiii

I have spent countless hours with the author of this book, and I have been
deeply impressed by his scholarship, his learning, his faith, and his commitment
to Christian education. This book, the result of many years of research, has
accomplished what few have ever achieved: telling a difficult story well. There
are no shortcuts, no facile solutions, no easy reconciliations of problems. All
the materials are there. All the relevant texts are quoted and interpreted. Every
one is treated fairly and judiciously. All scholarly hypotheses are presented and
discussed. All that is required of the reader is the same fairness and the same
patience that are evident in the author’s effort of presenting both the ancient
sources and the modern scholarly debate.
 ABBREVIATIONS

I. Ancient Literature (non biblical) and Codexes

1 Apoc. Jas. First Apocalypse of James
1 En. 1 Enoch
1Q, 2Q, etc. Qumran caves numbered
1QapGen Genesis Apocryphon of Qumran Cave 1
1QpHab Pesher on Habakkuk from Qumran Cave 1
1QS Serek hayyahad (Rule of the Community, Manual of Discipline)
2 Esdr 2 Esdras
3Q15 Copper Scroll from Qumran Cave 3
4QFlor Florilegium (or Eschatological Midrashim) from Qumran Cave 4
4QMMT Miqsat Ma’seh ha-Torah from Cave 4
11QMelch Melchizedek text from Qumran Cave 11
A Codex Alexandrinus
Codex Sinaiticus
Acts Pil. Acts of Pilate
ActSS Acta Sanctorum
Adv. Haer. Irenaeus, Adversus Haereses (Against Heresy)
Adv. Marc. Tertullian, Adversus Marcionem (Against Marcion)
Adv. Prax. Tertullian, Adversus Praxsean (Against Praxeas)
Adv. Ap Josephus, Adversus Apionem (Against Apion =Contra Apionem)
Ant Josephus, Jewish Anitquities
Ap. Jas. Apocryphon of James
Ap. John Apocryphon of John
Apoc. Mos. Apocalypse of Moses
Apos. Con. Apostolic Constitutions and Canons
Apoc. Pet. Apocalypse of Peter
1 Apol. Justin Martyr, 1 Apology
As. Mos. Assumption of Moses
Ascen. Is. Ascension of Isaiah
b. (Talm.) Babylonian (Talmud) = Bavli or Babli
B Codex Vaticanus
B. Bat. Baba Bathra
Bar. Baraita
xxvi ABBREVIATIONS

Barn. Epistle of Barnabas

Ber. Berakot
C Codex Ephraemi
CD Cairo (Genizah), Damascus Document
1, 2 Clem. 1, 2 Clement
De Doct. chr. Augustine,
De men. De mensuris et ponderibus
Dp Codex Claramontanus
Praescript. Tertullian, De Praescriptione (The Prescriptions Against Heretics)
De Prin. Origen, De Principiis (On First Principles)
Did. Didache (The Teaching of the Twelve Apostles)
Diogn. Diognetus
Elench. Elenchus
Ep. Arist. Epistle of Aristeas
Ep. Pol. Epistles of Polycarp
Flacc Philo, In Flaccum
Gaium Philo, Legatio ad Gaium
Gos. Eb. Gospel of the Ebionites
Gos. Eg. Gospel of the Egyptians
Gos. Heb. Gospel of the Hebrews
Gos. Inf. Infancy Gospels
Gos. Naas. Gospel of the Naassenes
Gos. Pet. Gospel of Peter
Gos. Thom. Gospel of Thomas
Gos. Truth Gospel of Truth
Herm. Man. Mermas, Mandate(s)
Herm. Sim. Hermas, Similitude (s)
Herm. Vis. Hermas, Vision(s)
Hist. eccl. Eusebius, Historia ecclesia (Ecclesiastical History)
Ign. Eph. Ignatius, Letter to the Ephesians
Ign. Magn. Ignatius, Letter to the Magnesians
Ign. Phld. Ignatius, Letter to the Philadelphians
Ign. Pol. Ignatius, Letter to Polycarp
Ign. Rom. Igatius, Letter to the Romans
Ign. Smyrn. Ignatius, Letter to the Smyrneans
Ign. Trall. Ignatius, Letter to the Trallians
JW Josephus, Jewish War
Mart. Pol. Martyrdom of Polycarp
Ned. Nedarim
Pol. Ep. Polycarp to the Ephesians
Pol. Phil. Polycarp, Letter to the Philippians
Prob Philo, Probus
Prot. Jas. Protevangelium of James
Provid I-II Philo, De providentia I-II
Ps. Clem. Pseudo-Clementines
Pss. Sol. Psalms of Solomon
Quaes Ex I-II Philo, Quaestiones et solutiones in Genesin
ABBREVIATIONS xxvii

Quod Deus Philo, Quod deus immutabilis sit

Sec. Gos. Mark. Secret Gospel of Mark
Shep. Herm. Shepherd of Hermas
Sib Or. Sibylline Oracles
Strom. Clement of Alexandria, Stromata, or Miscellanies
T. Benj. Testament of Benjamin
T. Levi Testament of Levi
T. 12 Patr. Testaments of the Twelve Patriarchs
TR Textus Receptus
Trypho Justin Martyr, Dialogue with Trypho
Vita C Eusebius, Vita Constantini
Vita Cont. Philo, De vita contemplativa
Vita Mos I-II Philo, De vita Mosis I-II
y. (Talm) Jerusalem (Talmud) = Yerushalmi or J
Yad. Yadayim

II. Abbreviations of Classical and Resource Material

ABD Anchor Bible Dictionary

ANE A New Eusebius
ANF Ante-Nicene Fathers
APOT Apocrypha and Pseudepigra[ha of the Old Testament (ed., Charles)
BB Background Books
BibRev Bible Review
BJRL Bulletin of John Rylands Library
BTB Biblical Theology Bulletin
BEPES Bibliotheke Ellenion Pateron Kai Ekklesiastikon Syggrafeon (Athens)
CBQ Catholic Biblical Quarterly
CEBT Contributions to Biblical Exegesis and Theology
CHB The Cambridge History of the Bible
CR Critical Review of Books in Religion
CTM Concordia Theological Monthly
CurTM Currents in Theology and Mission
ECF Early Christian Fathers
EncJud Encyclopaedia Judaica (1971)
ExpTim Expository Times
FFNT Foundations and Facets: New Testament
GBS Guides to Biblical Studies
HBD Harper’s Bible Dictionary
HBT Horizons in Biblical Theology
HeyJ Heythrop Journal
HTR Harvard Theological Review
HTS Harvard Theological Studies
IB Interpreter’s Bible
IDB Interpreter’s Dictionary of the Bible
IDBSup Supplementary Volume to IDB
xxviii ABBREVIATIONS

Int Interpretation
JBC The Jerome Biblical Commentary
JBL Journal of Biblical Literature
JBR Journal of Bible and Religion
JETS Journal of the Evagelical Theological Society
JSNT Journal for the Study of the New Testament
JSOT Journal for the Study of the Old Testament
LCL Loeb Classical Library
McCQ McCormick Quarterly
NHLE Nag Hammadi Library in English
NHS Nag Hammadi Studies
NPNF Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers
NTS New Testament Studies
OAA Oxford Annotated Apocrypha, RSV Edition
OTP Old Testament Pseudepigrapha (Charlesworth)
PG J. Migne, Patrologia graeca
PL J. Migne, Patrologia latina
QR Quarterly Review
RelS Religious Studies
RGG Religion in Geschichte und Gegenwart
SBT Studies in Biblical Theology
SecCent Second Century
SECT Sources of Early Christian Thought
SJLA Studies in Judaism in Late Antiquity
SJT Scottish Journal of Theology
SNTSMS Society for New Testament Studies Monograph Series
SR Studies in Religion/Sciences religieuses
ST Studia theologica
StEv Studia Evangelica
TDNT Theological Dictionary of the New Testament
TS Theological Studies
TT Theology Today
USQR Union Seminary Quarterly Review
VC Vigiliae christianae
WDB Westminster Dictionary of the Bible

III. Other Abbreviations

BCE Before the Common Era

ca. around, approximately
CE In the Common Era
cf. confer, compare
ed. editor
f (ff.). following page(s)
fc. forthcoming
fl. floruit (flourished)
ABBREVIATIONS xxix

ibid. ibidem (in the same place)

LXX Septuagint
MF Muratorian Fragment
ms(s) manuscript(s)
MT Masoretic Text
NT New Testament
OL Old Latin
OT Old Testament
QL Qumran Literature
Q Qumran
“Q” Source (German, Quelle). Stands for passages in common in Matthew
and Luke, but not in Mark’s Gospel.
sec. section
Vg Vulgate
Vol.(s) Volume(s)

IV. Timelines for the Formation of the Biblical Canon

Most of the dates below are approximate, though some are more precise. Dating events in
antiquity is almost always approximate and subject to change, but the following are the
events and dates that I have argued for in the following examination of the formation of
the Bible.

A. Emergence of the Hebrew Bible and Old Testament Canons

Early stages of oral – memory – written Law traditions – ca. 1400–1200 BCE
Emergence of “lost books” and reference to them – ca. 1200–450 BCE
Emergence of early biblical texts (Royal Psalms, Judges, Job) – ca. 1000 BCE
Deuteronomistic History including Former Prophets – ca. 800–500 BCE
Latter Prophets written – ca. 750–400 BCE
Destruction of Tribes to the North – 721 BCE
Rediscovery of the Law/Torah (likely a form of Deuteronomy) and early renewal in Israel
– 621 BCE
Destruction of Judah and Jerusalem – 587–586 BCE
Renewed recognition of Law/Torah as Scripture – ca. 500 BCE
Renewal of Israel’s commitment to the Law and recognition of some prophets – 500–400
BCE
Recognition of “prophetic” writings as Scripture – 500–200 BCE
Emergence & acceptance of Apocryphal and Pseudepigraphal writings – ca. 300 BCE–
200 CE
Jewish/Christian rejection of some Apocryphal and Pseudepigraphal writings – ca. 100–
900 CE
Initial stages of closing the Hebrew Scriptures – ca. 90–200 CE
Rabbinic Biblical Canon recognized for Jews in the East – 180–400 CE
Some Christians identify Christian Scriptures as “OT” and “NT” – 170–180 CE
First Christian Catalogue of OT books by Melito – 170–180 CE
xxx ABBREVIATIONS

OT Canon closed for most Christians – ca. 330–500 CE

Widespread Identification of OT Books – 300–500 CE
Orthodox OT Canon widely adopted – seventh–ninth century CE
Roman Catholic Council of Trent reaffirms OT and Apocryphal (Deuterocanonical) books
and NT canon – 1546 CE
General Protestant rejection of OT Apocryphal books – 1525–1885 CE

B. Emergence and History of the New Testament Canon

Foundation: Life and Ministry of Jesus – 6–4 BCE to ca. 30 CE

NT writings produced – 49 CE to 110–130, and some possibly as late as 160 CE
Canonical Gospels written – 62–90/95 CE
Writing, delivery, and reading of Paul’s letters in churches – ca. 49–50 CE
Early recognition of New Testament books as Scripture – ca. 120–150 CE
Gospels read along side and often instead of OT writings in Christian worship – ca. 150
CE
Some NT writings functioning as Scripture – ca. 90–150 CE
Some NT writings called “Scripture” – ca. 130–180 CE
Translations of NT writings begin – ca. 175–200 CE
Rejection of OT and NT Pseudonymous writings begins in churches – ca. 170–500 CE
Processes of closing NT canon begins – 230–450 CE
Athanasius presents first complete list of NT writings – 367 CE
Councils of Hippo and Carthage affirm Athanasius’ list – 393, 397, 416 CE
Emergence of canon lists of NT Scriptures – third and fourth centuries CE
Widespread acceptance of the complete 27 book NT – 367–416 CE
Variations in the books and texts of NT Manuscripts– from 200 CE to invention of printing
press 1453
Trent: Catholic Council of Trent reaffirms the NT canon – 1546
Protestant reaffirmations of the current NT canon – 1525–1550
 PREFACE

Whatever we may know about the closing of the canon, it takes text-books hundreds of pages
to say how little we know about when the process of canonization began.

—Max Margolis, 19241

Margolis’ comment is relevant in many fields of inquiry, but especially so in

canon formation. As we begin this fourth edition it is important to acknowledge
that there are areas of canon formation that are unknown and most scholars who
inquire into this complex issue regularly use “perhaps,” “possibly,” “could be,”
“maybe,” “likely,” and other terms that reflect continuing uncertainty in this field
of inquiry. The reason for the uncertainties is that the ancient sources are often
vague or missing in areas of contemporary interest and that often leads to uncertain
conclusions and considerable guesswork. However, scholars have made a number
of advances in recent canon research and as a result we know more now than was
possible earlier, even a few years ago. Old conclusions and hypotheses have begun
to melt away and new ones are emerging that sometimes challenge older positions.
This has led to fresh examinations of the ancient primary literature that enables
scholars to posit sharper hypotheses that answer a number of questions that are
central to understanding the how the Bible came to be in its various forms today.
Because of many recent critical investigations of canon formation it is “likely”
that we able to get closer now to understanding the complex discipline that we call
canon formation than was possible earlier. Since there is greater focus now on the
significance of the Dead Sea Scrolls, ancient manuscripts including their text and
the books included in them, surviving canon catalogues or lists, the importance of
the codex, and a rethinking of the formation of various books and divisions that
comprise the surviving biblical canons, some earlier notions of canon are in need
of revision.
This study begins with a re-examination of some fundamental issues related to
canon formation and hopefully with greater clarity than was offered by this author
earlier. This study necessarily involves a basic examination of the designation
“Bible,” as well as several related designations that are often used anachronisti-
cally in canon inquiry and proceeds to the recognition of ancient religious texts as
sacred scripture and finally canon.

1
Cited from Shemaryahu Talmon, Text and Canon of the Hebrew Text (Winona Lake, IN: Eisen-
brauns, 2010), 419 from Margolis’ early publication, “How the Song of Songs Entered the Canon,”
in The Song of Songs: A Symposium, ed. W. H. Schoff (Philadelphia: Jewish Publication Society,
1924), 9–17.
xxxii PREFACE

Whenever a revision or new edition of a volume is published the question is

often and rightfully asked, “Why another edition?” In biblical scholarship, as
well as in other fields of critical scholarship, the answer is invariably that the
emergence of new data or revised arguments about them either strengthen earlier
conclusions or lead to their abandonment. Often the same data is reconsidered
from a different perspective than was possible earlier. In the introduction of one of
his volumes, John Collins rightly observes: “It is the nature of scholarship that the
firm conclusions of one generation are reexamined and overturned by the next.”2
Similarly, in a recent plenary paper at an annual SNTS meeting, J. Keith Elliott
advocated the importance of scholarly reconsiderations of earlier conclusions. He
writes:

Academics and scholars who move from previously held positions are, I hope, judged more
favorably [than politicians who do the same]. They may be praised for having developed
different thinking in light of new discoveries or for having been intellectually honest,
responding positively to criticisms by others as they reassess an earlier stance.3

Collins’ and Elliott’s comments are especially appropriate for this revision.
New assessments of ancient literature often lead scholars to revise or challenge
earlier “established” conclusions. Many articles, essays, and books have been
published since the second and third editions of this volume were published
and new assessments of the ancient literature that earlier led to inappropriate
conclusions are in need of revision. That is the case here. Three publishers have
welcomed the first three editions of this book and I have enjoyed my interactions
with them and learned much from each of them. It is time, however, to address
some of the same issues again in light of new research. A quick look at the bibli-
ography demonstrates that a massive amount of new publications related to canon
formation has emerged in recent years that challenge rightly some of my earlier
conclusions and have led me to reconsider whether some of them need restatment
and further analysis. Readers familiar with my earlier positions will find some of
them strengthened and a few abandoned in favor of more defensible arguments.
Because canon scholars know considerably more now than they did almost
thirty-five years ago when I began my research on this subject, there is need for
another appraisal and reassessment of the formation of the Bible. Several earlier
publications still contain valuable information (e.g., H. B. Swete, E. W. Reuss,
H. E. Ryle, Theodor Zahn, A. Souter, and T. Zahn, G. Wildeboer, Adolf von
Harnack, Hans von Campenhausen, Roger Beckwith, Brevard Childs, F. F.
Bruce, Bruce M. Metzger, and Earle Ellis), but again, we know more now than
we did earlier. Despite some of their views being outdated, they have nonetheless
contributed a considerable amount of helpful and related canon information and

2
J. J. Collins, Seers, Sibyls, and Sages in Hellenistic-Roman Judaism (Leiden: Brill, 2001), 3.
3
J. Keith Elliott’s paper was delivered in a plenary session at the annual SNTS meetings in
Szeged, Hungary, 2014.
PREFACE xxxiii

often many careful and astute comments related to canon formation. I have cited
all of them in what follows. Additional ancient texts have been appropriately
drawn into the discussion that were not sufficiently explored or considered earlier
that now lead to several revisions in my own work. It is appropriate for scholars
to change their minds when new investigations suggest better conclusions.
Hopefully I have learned to do that!
In the first year of my doctoral studies in the fall of 1970, Hugh Anderson, my
doktor vater, made a statement that contradicted something he had said earlier in
his book on Jesus.4 Like a typical zealous doctoral student, I lowered my academic
lance and charged him with the grave sin of inconsistency. When I asked him in
front of the class about this inconsistency, he simply asked me when the book was
written. When I told him, he politely responded: “Wasn’t that seven years ago
Mr. McDonald!” And then he continued on with his lecture! That day I learned an
important, albeit embarrassing, lesson about the willingness and even necessity of
careful scholars to grow in their understanding and to be willing to change what
needs to be changed when new information and new considerations of ancient
texts require it. It is obviously more convenient to hold on to previous positions
and ignore new evidence that suggests alternative conclusions, but such holding
on to consistency is often a result of laziness and sometimes dishonesty. When
emerging scholarship points to the weakness of previously held conclusions, it
is time to re-examine the ancient texts and often many of the previously held
conclusions.
This edition is larger than the previous ones and is not simply a correction of
a few items or an updating, but also an almost complete rewrite that includes
interaction with many important new articles and books on canon formation of
both the Hebrew Bible, Old Testament, and the New Testament. For example,
long ago most biblical scholars held to the “assured results” of a three-tiered
development of the Hebrew Bible (HB) canon argued convincingly at that time
by H. E. Ryle. He claimed that the Hebrew Bible or Old Testament developed in
three successive stages: the Law (roughly sixth to fifth century BCE5), then the
Prophets (roughly late third century BCE), and finally the Writings (ca. 90 CE).6
I previously held to that position, but now, like other scholars, I have abandoned
it. In the New Testament portion I have nuanced, modified, and strengthened my
previous positions on the date of the Muratorian Fragment (MF). I still do not
accept a second-century dating of that document, but I have revisited and nuanced

4
Hugh A. Anderson, Jesus and Christian Origins (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1963).
5
Because this study is designed for graduate students in multi-religious settings and in secular
as well as religious communities, I have decided to make use of the emerging and most common
designations for the division of history, namely instead of BC and AD, I use regularly BCE (before
the common era) and CE (in the common era). In church settings I regularly use the traditional BC
and AD.
6
H. E. Ryle, The Canon of the Old Testament: An Essay on the Gradual Growth and Formation
of the Hebrew Canon of Scripture, 2nd ed. (London: Macmillan, 1909).
xxxiv PREFACE

my earlier position on the matter. I have dubbed the MF the “Achiles heel” of
NT canon formation thinking and its dating and origin are important in canon
formation and in need of reconsideration. As we will see, many curent scholars
generally conclude that the MF was produced in the late second century. Others,
including this writer, conclude that it was more likely written in the middle to
late fourth century where there are more parallels. Those are discussed below,
but I share there that I am also open to a late third century date, though still more
comfortable with the fourth-century dating, and also with the possibility that it
was a late fourth-century fraudulent document. The arguments for a third-century
date of the MF are relatively recent but deserve consideration. I have added a new
and extended discussion of the MF, including interaction with those who continue
to hold to the late second-century position.
Further, some scholars continue to argue that the birth of the New Testament
canon was largely a response from second-century churches to heresies, namely
those of Marcion, the Gnostics, and the Montanists. Several have begun to
re-examine that position. Though some still claim that Marcion established the
first Christian biblical canon,7 many now think that is less likely than earlier
thought. I have argued for decades now that second-century heresies were not
answered with a biblical canon, but rather with a canon of faith (regula fidei)
that was passed on in the church’s traditions. This does not deny that the second-
century church fathers cited NT writings as well as the church’s traditions in
support of their arguments against ancient heresies.
The growing contributions of Dead Sea Scrolls scholarship have also added
significantly to our understanding of the time and formation of the Hebrew Bible
and the church’s Old/First8 Testament canon. Also, scholars are still divided
over their definitions of scripture and canon and when both were perceived or
functioned in antiquity. The debate continues and I will try again to rephrase my
reasons for distinguishing between them and be more consistent in how I use those
designations. Much of the confusion comes from emphasizing the root meaning of
canon, that is, authority or rule, and equating that with what lies at the end of the
process, namely a fixed collection of authoritative Scriptures for the church. I will
respond again to current discussions of those differences.

7
See for example Jason D. BeDuhn, The First New Testament: Marcion’s Scriptural Canon
(Salem, OR: Polebridge, 2013).
8
James A. Sanders has regularly suggested the use of “First Testament” instead of “Old Testa-
ment” since the former does not suggest that the first scriptures of the Jews and Christians are
outdated or superseded. In antiquity “Old” was not a derogatory designation, but added considerably
to the recognized reliability of the Christians’ first collection of sacred scriptures. Today “Old”
appears to be understood broadly as “outdated” or no longer relevant. That, of course, is not what
Christians mean today by that designation, though some have made that suggestion. I will generally
use “Old Testament” in what follows because of its familiarity, but I still have in mind Sanders’ less
offensive and more broadly acceptable “First Testament.” His discussion of this issue is attached to
the end of Chapter 1.
PREFACE xxxv

Some of the more than 40 reviews of the earlier editions of this volume have
also brought to my attention some inaccuracies or misstatements and I have tried
to correct them in this edition. I agree also with several reviewers who pointed
to some weaknesses in my arguments, but in some cases I do not and I have
tried to strengthen those positions and make them more clear. Some of the more
significant reviews and engagements with my work are listed in the Bibliography
(especially reviews or critiques by Stephen Chapman, Christopher Tuckett, Peter
Head, and Juan Carlos Ossandon), but there is not enough space in this volume to
address all of the reviewers, though I have tried to respond to the most important
critiques.
Among the several areas that need more attention in this edition is the role
of the early church fathers, the variety of biblical and ecclesiastical canons
including early creeds in the churches, and the importance of the ancient biblical
manuscripts and the books as well as texts in them. In previous editions I largely
ignored the role of the Spirit in canon formation, as others have rightly pointed
out, and this area deserves more attention than I previously gave it. Since this
has much to do with the church’s understanding of the role of the Spirit in both
Old Testament (OT) and New Testament (NT) canon formation, I have addressed
this matter in both the HB/OT and NT sections. Carl Holladay rightly raised this
matter with me recently and while I argue that inspiration was more of a “corollary
of canonicity” than a criterion, to borrow the words of F. F. Bruce (see Chapter
22 §II.F), I still maintain that view, but Holladay is correct in arguing that there
is more to that subject than what I gave to it earlier. Hopefully my revisiting that
question will be helpful.
Also, since an important Catholic reviewer indicated to me that my under-
standing of the church was unclear, I will state here that I believe that the church
is essentially the body or family of Christ and is the community of those who
acknowledge Jesus the Christ as Lord of their lives. Through him individuals
have received forgiveness of sins and hope for the life to come. In him their
lives are transformed through faith in him and the church offers praise to God
and participates in the mission that the risen Christ gave to the church. The One
Church notion in the New Testament transcends the many sectarian expressions
of it, whether Roman Catholic, Orthodox, Protestant, Coptic, or Ethiopian. This
doubtless sounds hopelessly Protestant, but I do not apologize for these essential
features in my understanding.
More interesting to me is that some of those with whom I am in most agreement
theologically have suggested that my views are out of step with the “assured
results” of “sound” biblical scholarship. Nothing, of course, could be further from
the truth. The broad interaction I have with some of the most important biblical
texts and the significant lists of biblical texts in the indices should mute that
criticism. I have consciously tried to offer a credible picture of the historical devel-
opment of both the Jews’ and the Christians’ biblical canons and re-examined the
primary biblical and non-biblical texts relevant to this discussion. I have also tried
xxxvi PREFACE

to examine them within their own faith contexts. While I personally have many
theological beliefs and commitments to the Christian faith, this is not the place to
display them. I regularly invite all who would like that conversation to join me in
church and we can discuss such matters there!
Still others have challenged my assertion that the Christians inherited their
Scriptures from their Jewish siblings along with Jewish methodologies of inter-
preting them, especially the pesher style of interpretation. They contend that I
should have focused more on the church’s eschatalogical interpretation of those
Scriptures, that is, the Christian prophecy-fulfillment motif with its heavy focus on
the future kingdom. I accept some of that criticism and hopefully have addressed
it more clearly now.
In several presentations that I have made on the formation of the Bible for lay
audiences in churches and undergraduate contexts, I have been asked whether the
ancient churches “got it right” when they affirmed the books that now comprise
the Bible. I regularly say, “Yes, of course!” And this is true whether I am speaking
in Catholic, Protestant, or Orthodox churches, but my affirmation does not mean
that the church has everything it wants to know in the biblical canons, but rather
what is in the various biblical canons today is sufficient for faith. The Bible never
answers all of our questions, but it does answer the most important questions about
the essence of faith and how faith responds. For example, while what we have in
the New Testament is sufficient for faith, it is not a complete story of everything
that happened in the story of Jesus or in the lives of his first followers. We would
all like to know more than what is eplicitly stated in Scripture and the author of
the Fourth Gospel, knowing this, says that there is far more to know, but what
we have is sufficient for faith (John 20:30–31). I will say later that it is helpful to
be informed by all of the ancient biblical and nonbiblical literature that informed
many Jews of late second Temple Judaism as well as many early Christians in their
journeys of faith. I am not an advocate of expanding or contracting the biblical
canon, though I have often been accused of trying to do that or even advocating
that. That is not now or ever was the case. I think that changes in the compo-
sition of the biblical canon are highly unlikely in any of the churches, but we can
learn much about the faith of the ancient Jews and Christians by exploring the
noncanonical literature, both Jewish and Christian.
In the earlier prefaces to this volume I noted that my initial interest in pursuing
canon formation began in a church setting when I was trying to respond to a young
university student who had taken a religion course at his university in Nebraska.
He asked me about some ancient books that were not included in the Bible and
wondered why some of the ones that were included were welcomed. I initially
thought that I knew the answer to his questions, but as I was responding to him I
began to think of exceptions to just about everything I was telling him! After that
I began reading more seriously on the topic. I told him I would get back to him in
a week, and that was over thirty-five years ago. My first informed investigation of
PREFACE xxxvii

canon formation began with a reading of Hans von Campenhausen’s standard

work on the subject. My first academic paper on canon formation issues began in
1983 in a term paper at Harvard that I later developed into a thesis under the super-
vision of Helmut Koester with considerable encouragement and help also from
George MacRae and Krister Stendahl. Koester graciously wrote the Foreword
to the first edition that no doubt helped me get it published with Abingdon Press
(1988). It was enlarged in both the second and third editions that were published
by Hendrickson Publishers (1995, 2006) with later corrections (2007).
The last printing of the third edition with some additions and corrections came
when Baker Academic publishers (2011) took over the publishing rights for the
book from Hendrickson Publishers. Now Bloomsbury T&T Clark have under-
taken with permission from Baker Academic publishers to revise and publish
this fourth edition that has increased in size considerably and hopefully is more
informed than in previous editions.
Among the most recent scholars who have made considerable contributions
to our understanding of the formation of the biblical canons, and from whom
I have learned much, I include most notably James A. Sanders, John Barton,
David M. Carr, Timothy H. Lim, John J. Collins, Edmon Gallagher, Armin
Lange, Stephen Chapman, Juha Pakkala, Shemaryahu Talmon, Emanuel Tov,
William M. Schneidewind, Robert Hull, Christopher Tuckett, Tomas Bokedal,
Einar Thomassen, Larry Hurtado, Joseph Verheyden, and Michael Kruger. While
I have significant differences with some of these scholars, as readers will see, I
have nevertheless learned much from each of them and they have all helped me
reform and strengthen much of my earlier thinking on canon formation. There
are also several excellent encyclopedic resources on canon formation that have
been published recently that deserve special attention here, especially The New
Cambridge History of the Bible (2011 and 2013), the Oxford Encyclopedia of the
Books of the Bible, many recent articles in the Oxford Handbooks on Biblical
Studies, Early Christian Studies, Dead Sea Scrolls, and the forthcoming Oxford
Handbook on Early Christian Biblical Interpretation. All of this literature brings
greater clarity to and understanding of the ancient texts and brings to light a
number of pivotal issues for understanding canonical processes.
I am also indebted to several scholars who took time from busy schedules to read
portions of this volume in its earlier manucript form. I have sent portions or all of
the manuscript in earlier draft form to James A. Sanders, Timothy Lim, Michael
Moore, Carl Holladay, Donn Morgan, Craig A. Evans, Craig Keener, and Geoffrey
Hahneman. I have received from most of them many valuable insights and sugges-
tions, including areas that needed correction or sources that I had overlooked. I am
grateful to these scholars for their helpful comments and suggestions.
xxxviii PREFACE

Of course, any mistakes, oversights, errors, or faulty judgment that remain are
my responsibility. Since the third edition came out, I have had the privilege of
addressing and interacting with a number of colleagues, faculties, and students
on various aspects of canon formation at a number of institutions, academic
associations, and churches. Some of the institutions include Acadia University
in Nova Scotia, Princeton Theological Seminary, Charles University in Prague,
Crandall University in Moncton in New Brunswick, the University of Athens in
Greece, Gustavus Adolphus University in Minnesota, the Pontifical University
in Rome (Pontificia Università della Santa Croce), York University in Toronto,
Arizona State University in Tempe, McMaster Divinity College in Hamilton
ON, Karoli Gaspar Reformatus University in Budapest, Chapman University in
Orange, California, George Fox University in Newberg, Oregon, and the Jesus
Seminar in Santa Maria in 1997 in Northern California and in Chicago during the
SBL meetings in 2013. I have also presented a variety of related canon papers at
the Society of Biblical Literature, Studiorum Novi Testamenti Societas (SNTS),
as well as in many churches in the USA and Canada. I have learned much from
colleagues and participants in each of these instituions or associations, including
from informed laity in churches. Colleagues, students, and the church’s laity have
often raised important issues and questions that I had not adequately considered.
This volume frequently reflects matters that I learned through these many
interactions.
Those familiar with the third edition will observe that several items in the
Appendices were not included in this edition. They were not deemed as relevant
for this edition. Those deletions will continue to remain in the third edition
published by Baker Academic publishers.. Although Baker Academic is not
publishing this fourth edition, the publishers there have cooperated and allowed
Bloomsbury T&T Clark to include some of the overlap in these two publications.
I want to thank the publishers at Baker Academic for allowing me to publish this
extended fourth edition of The Biblical Canon with a modification in its title and
with another publisher. All of my dealings with them over several years now
have been positive and helpful. I am also grateful to the Bloomsbury T&T Clark
publishers for accepting this manuscript for publication. I am especially grateful
to James Kinney at Baker Academic for his cooperation in allowing this fourth
edition to be published in another venue and to Dominic Mattos for bringing this
volume to his board for their consideration. I am hopeful that it will become an
even more useful resource for future canon formation inquiry and research. I
have also appreciated working with Miriam Cantwell at Bloomsbury, and also
Dr. Duncan Burns who has been quite helpful as the copy-editor.
Several new sections have been added and others have been significantly
revised, expanded, and hopefully strengthened. The extended Select Bibliography
is by no means exhaustive, but it includes what I believe are some of the more
important sources on canon formation. Some of the tables in the Appendices in
the third edition were eliminated and the canon lists in the third edition have
PREFACE xxxix

been retained, but also revised, corrected, and expanded. I have also included in
Chapter 1 James A. Sanders’ discussion of the terms used in identifying the Jewish
Scriptures and his “What to Call the First Christian Testament.” These and other
additions and revisions should make this a more useful resource of information
on canon formation.
I am indebted, of course, to Professor James H. Charlesworth for his gracious
willingness to provide an informed Foreword to this volume. He has been a long
time friend and we have cooperated on several earlier publications and academic
activities. I have learned much from him over many years and greatly appreciate
his willingness to offer a new Foreword to this fourth edition. He has brought
many issues to my attention that are relevant for understanding the processes of
canon formation that I would have otherwise missed, especially in regard to the
Dead Sea Scrolls, but also in other areas as well.
I have also included Helmut Koester’s gracious Foreword to the first edition.
As many readers know, Helmut passed away January 1 of 2016 as this revised
and expanded edition was just getting underway with the publishers. Before his
death, I was privileged to talk with Helmut, and instead of his focusing on his own
challenges, he wanted to discuss this edition of my canon work with me. He was
most encouraging despite his failing health. I decided to keep his initial Foreword
in this edition both as a tribute to him as well as something that allows readers to
see the progress made in the various publications. Professor Koester’s Foreword
and Introduction to the first edition is from a gifted professor who was happy to
help his student get his first book published! His comments are still quite useful in
understanding the processes that led to the formation of the Christian Bible and the
significance of the inquiry. I should also note that he contributed to a Festschrift
volume that was presented to me on my retirement.9 He has been most kind to
me over the years and I appreciate his letting us use this earlier Foreword once
again. He and the late George MacRae gave considerable oversight and guidance
in the initial stages of my exploration of canon formation during my studies at
Harvard Divinity School and both participated in examining me and my work at
my dissertation’s defense. Unfortunately, George MacRae died before the first
edition was published, but he had a manuscript copy of the first edition and knew
that the volume was going to be published. He was the first to share that news
with the doctoral students and New Testament faculty at HDS in our Wednesday
afternoon seminars. I am deeply indebted to Professors Koester and MacRae for
their mentoring, friendship, commitment to scholarship and to the one church that
we all love. I am grateful for their friendship and valued help in the early stages
of my journey into canon formation.

9
Helmut Koester, “Revelation 12:1–12: A Meditation,” in From Biblical Criticism to Biblical
Faith: Essays in Honor of Lee Martin McDonald, ed. Craig A. Evans and W. H. Brackney (Macon,
GA: Mercer University Press, 2007), 138–44. His article acknowledges our mutual commitments to
Christ and the church.
xl PREFACE

Finally, I once again dedicate this fourth edition to Mary, my life-time mate,
best friend, and lovely wife. By the time this fourth edition is published, we will
have been married a brief 53 years! She has always been most patient, helpful,
and supportive in my long journey in Christian ministry and academic inquiry.
Everything of significance and value in my adult life and journey of faith has come
as a result of her love, support, and encouragement. Thank you Mary!

Lee Martin McDonald

January, 2016
 PART 1

INTRODUCTIONS AND DEFINITIONS

 CHAPTER 1

INTRODUCTION

The following is an overview and summary of the formation and canonization

of the Hebrew Bible as well as the Old and New Testaments for Christians. This
overview will be seen in more detail in each of the major sections of this investi-
gation of canon formation. We begin with some foundational questions as well as
introductory issues for the whole scope of what will follow in considerably more
detail.

I. WHAT IS THE BIBLE?

As we begin our study of the formation of the Bible, it is helpful to ask what we
mean by “Bible.” A recent collection of essays explores how the term came to be
used of a collection of sacred literature and how its use varies in the communities
that make use of “Bible.”1 From an etymological perspective, the familiar term
“Bible” derives from the Greek plural noun biblia; the singular is biblion which
is regularly translated “book” (Luke 4:17) (or treatise). The plural form is found
in 2 Tim 4:13 and best translated there “books.” The term initially referred to a
collection of scrolls made of parchment or papyrus that were often sewn together
to form a small library of related texts or documents. “Bible” eventually was the
term that came to refer to the collection of sacred books that comprise Jewish and
Christian Scriptures. In the late fourth century, Jerome referred to the Christian
Scriptures as a bibliotheca, that is, a “library.” By the ninth century CE, biblia
(Bible) was widely and regularly used for the collection of Christian Scriptures,
both OT and NT. It is not possible to date precisely when the term Bible was used
as a reference for the church’s Scriptures, but at the latest we see it in the ninth
century. Christians call these writings “Holy Books” (Latin, biblia sacra), which
is similar to the Hebrew kitvei haqodesh (“the holy books”) and the root of the
current “Holy Bible.” The Latin and Hebrew terms observe that Christians have
Scriptures (plural) rather than a single book called the Bible.
Jewish teachers typically refer to the twenty-four books that comprise their
sacred scriptures as the Hebrew Bible or the Tanak. The latter is derived from
the first letter of each of the three divisions of the Jewish scriptures: T for Torah

1
Karin Finsterbusch and Armin Lange, eds., What Is Bible? CBET 67 (Leuven: Peeters, 2012).
4 THE FORMATION OF THE BIBLICAL CANON, VOLUME I

(Law), N for Nebi’im (Prophets), and K for Ketubim (Writings). Jews also use the
term Mikra (Heb., “to recite”) for their Holy Scriptures unless they are referring
to a specific scripture text. These books were initially counted as twenty-two
books, but later that number changed to twenty-four, the same number of books
in Homer’s Iliad and Odyssey.2 All Christians today recognize as sacred scripture
the books that comprise the Jewish scriptures or Hebrew Bible (HB),3 but, as
we will see, not completely in the first few centuries. Some church fathers, like
some rabbinic sages, doubted the scriptural status of Esther, Song of Songs, and
Ecclesiastes. Christians today also count the same books differently and have them
in a different order in their Old Testaments. The primary difference in counting
has to do with how the HB combines several books into one as in the cases of 1
and 2 Samuel, 1 and 2 Kings, 1 and 2 Chronicles, Ruth with Judges, Ezra with
Nehemiah, Jeremiah with Lamentations, and the largest combination is the book
of the “Twelve” or the twelve Minor Prophets as one book in the HB. They are
counted separately in Christian Bibles, hence the difference is either twenty-two
or twenty-four books vs. thirty-nine books in the Christian canons for the same
books, but they are in a different sequence and groupings or divisions. While the
number of books in the Christian OT Bibles varies, all now accept at least the books
that are in the HB though they are organized differently. Roman Catholics have
46 books in their OT, Orthodox Christians have 49, and Protestants 39. Roman
Catholic and Orthodox Christians accept the additional books that Protestants
call “apocryphal” and Roman Catholics call “Deuterocanonical” books. As we
will see in the New Testament volume, the Ethiopian Christians have the largest
Christian Bible containing some 81 books. In modern times, some Jewish writers
also employ the term Bible for their sacred scriptures.4

2
I will say more about the significance of this number in Chapter 6 §I, II, and VI.
3
Hebrew Bible (HB), Hebrew Scriptures, or Hebrew biblical canon are all familiar terms in
academic circles and I use them throughout this book because they communicate that we are talking
about the Scriptures of the Jews in antiquity and also the first scriptures of the early Christians that
eventually formed their Old Testament. The HB is not the same as the Christian Old Testament
(OT), though the books in them are the same as the Protestant Old Testament. The primary distinc-
tions come from the sequences of books and how the books are grouped together. These factors
constitute a hermeneutical distinction. See James A. Sanders’ discussion of these terms below
in the Excursus and his “ ‘Spinning’ the Bible,” Bible Review 14 (1998): 22–29, 44–45. The two
canons comprising the same books are not identical. In the case of the HB, it ends with the Ketubim
or Writings specifically with either Esther or Chronicles or Ezra–Nehemiah, but the Christian OT
canons regularly end with the Minor Prophets that lead into the NT canon in the focus on Elijah
(cf. Mal 4:5–6 and Matt 11:13–14 and 17:3–4, 9–13), which is more compatible with Christian
teaching.
4
See, for example, Sid Z. Leiman, “Josephus and the Canon of the Bible,” in Josephus, the Bible,
and History, ed. L. H. Feldman and G. Hata (Detroit: Wayne State University Press, 1989), 50–58;
and his edited volume The Canon and Masorah of the Hebrew Bible: An Introductory Reader (New
York: Ktav, 1974).
INTRODUCTION 5

The Jewish Bible (HB or Tanak) is tripartite, that is, it is divided into Law,
Prophets (both Former and Latter), and Writings, but the Christian OT is divided
into four parts, namely Pentateuch, History, Poetry and Wisdom, and Prophets.
The difference in the organization of the Christian OT may reflect its combination
with the New Testament writings into one volume and imply that the Christians
invented a different order for their OT books, but it may also suggest that the
Christians inherited this order from the LXX. This matter will be discussed below
in Chapter 11 §II. The Christian OT has the Prophets at the end pointing to the
future working of God initiated by Elijah (Mal 4:5–6), who is highlighted in the
next book in the Christian Bible, namely the Gospel of Matthew. Jesus claims
that Elijah has come in the person of John the Baptist (Matt 11:13–14) and in the
appearance story on the Mount of Transfiguration, both Moses and Elijah appear
(Matt 17:3). The books in the Hebrew Bible begin in a somewhat chronological
sequence, namely Pentateuch and Former Prophets (Joshua, Judges, Samuel,
and Kings), but the rest of the books (the Writings) are not in a chronological
pattern. Rather they are in groups of specific genres (poetic, wisdom, prophets,
and history). The third part of the HB is often referred to as something of a “catch
all” category since it includes history (Ruth, Esther, Chronicles, Ezra–Nehemiah),
prophecy (Daniel), and wisdom and poetry (Job, Song of Songs, Psalms, Proverbs,
Ecclesiastes, Lamentations). The order of the Writings was not stabilized until the
tenth or eleventh century for the Jews and later for the Christians.
The early Christians generally did not follow the current Jewish divisions
of the scriptures likely because the Christians had separated from their Jewish
siblings before those three divisions were accepted by some rabbinic sages after
the separation of the Christians perhaps from the late first to the middle to late
second century CE. As we will see in Chapter 11 §II, there is no solid evidence
that those three divisions existed before the middle to late second century CE and
even then many Jews continued to speak only of a bipartite biblical canon (Law
and Prophets). The Christians made use of the Greek translation of the Hebrew
Scriptures that is regularly referred to as the Septuagint (LXX)5 and the usual HB
tripartite divisions are not found in that collection of Jewish Scriptures.

5
The traditional name given to the Greek translation of the Jewish sacred Scriptures is the Septua-
gint (LXX), which technically was initially applied only to the Pentateuch and not to the rest of
the OT Scriptures, but it is commonly used now as a reference to the whole Greek OT. The term
supposedly derives from the tradition in the Letter of Aristeas that refers to seventy-two translators
who worked on the translation of the Pentateuch. E. Lohse, The New Testament Environment, trans.
J. E. Steely (Nashville: Abingdon, 1976), 129, suggests that the number seventy-two was simply
rounded off to seventy, but it is also quite possible that the number derives from the tradition of
the seventy elders (Exod 24:1, 9) who accompanied Moses to Mount Sinai when he received the
law from Yahweh on tablets of stone; see Koester, Introduction to the New Testament, 1:252;
J. W. Wevers, “Septuagint,” in Interpreter’s Dictionary of the Bible, ed. G. A. Buttrick (New
York; Abingdon, 1962), 4:273; and A. R. C. Leaney, The Jewish and Christian World (Cambridge:
6 THE FORMATION OF THE BIBLICAL CANON, VOLUME I

In regard to the Hebrew Bible, as we will see, some Jews expressed doubts for
centuries over whether to include several of the books in the Writings, namely
Esther, Song of Songs, Ezekiel, Ruth, and Ecclesiastes, but doubts were also
raised for a period of time over whether to recognize the Wisdom of Solomon
and the Wisdom of Jesus ben Sirach. The Christians also have never completely
agreed on the scope of their Old Testament Scriptures and the major questions
related to inclusion have focused mostly on the so-called apocryphal books, but,
as in the case of Luther, also the books of Hebrews, James, Jude, and Revelation.
The books now referred to as the Apocrypha did not have that designation initially
in antiquity.
The sequence of the New Testament books varied for centuries, especially
before the fourth century CE when codex technology advanced sufficiently
to enable all of the biblical books to be included in one large codex or book.
Although the Gospels as a collection regularly have the place of priority in the
surviving NT manuscripts, the sequence of those books and others in the NT
varied for centuries, especially with regard to the Catholic or General Epistles,
Acts, and the Epistles of Paul. The New Testament books in most Bibles are
now regularly placed in the following sequence: Gospels, Acts, Letters attributed
to Paul, Catholic Epistles, and Revelation. The Letters or Epistles of Paul were
generally listed in terms of their size rather than their chronological or historical
sequence although Hebrews, which in terms of size would follow Romans or
1 Corinthians, was placed at the end of the Pauline collection suggesting the early
church’s uncertainty about its authorship.
The authority and use of the four canonical Gospels and the writings of Paul
in the early churches was widely recognized among the early Christians both in
the first and second centuries, and these were the first Christian writings that were
generally identified as scripture by the end of the second century. The first known
writer to list Christian writings as scripture was Basilides in the early second
century and he mentions three of the Gospels and four letters of Paul as scripture.6
However, it took several centuries before all of the New Testament books were
widely acknowledged as Christian scripture. The most significant disputes were
over the inclusion of Hebrews, James, 2 Peter, 2 and 3 John, Jude, and Revelation
and eventually all of them were included in most collections by the end of the
fourth century. Debate continued on for some time after that in regard to Shepherd
of Hermas, Epistle of Barnabas, 1–2 Clement and others, but these and many
others were eventually excluded. The authenticity or authorship of the Pastoral
Epistles (1 and 2 Timothy and Titus) was in some dispute in the second and third

Cambridge University Press, 1984), 153. If this is the case, then the use of the term Septuagint could
well be an acknowledgment of the early belief in the divinely inspired status of the translation, that
is, it authentically and faithfully conveyed the full intent of the law given to Moses.
6
The source for this comes from Hippolytus, Refutation of Heresies 7.22.4; 7.25.25.3; 7.26.7.
For a discussion on this, see Robert M. Grant, The Formation of the New Testament (London:
Hutchinson University Library, 1965), 121–23.
INTRODUCTION 7

centuries, but by the fourth century those questions were largely settled and the
Pastorals appear in most of the manuscripts and catalogues of sacred books from
the fourth century onward. They are not listed in the writings of Marcion, in P46
(the late second or early third century), or in Codex Vaticanus (ca. 350 CE).7 The
earliest biblical manuscripts that include all of the books of the New Testament
and no others date from around the tenth century and thereafter. This reflects the
long history of the forming of the NT part of the Christian Bibles.8 The book of
Revelation was perhaps one of the most disputed NT books, especially in the
eastern churches.
In sum, the forming of the OT and NT books into what we now call a Bible was
a long process taking several centuries and the available evidence reflects uncer-
tainty and fluidity in the various scriptural collections for centuries. This fluidity
can be seen in occasional inclusions of noncanonical books or the exclusion of
biblical books in the uncial manuscripts of the fourth century and later.9 Some
variations continued well into the nineteen century as we will see below. While
the historic and most widely accepted biblical canons of Jews and Christians
(Orthodox, Roman Catholic, and Protestant) have been settled for a long time,
scholars continue to debate the dating, authenticity, and acceptance of several
biblical books and also the value of some of the books that were either included
in or excluded from the sacred collections.
Today the Bibles of Jews and Christians are taken for granted in communities
of faith and laity are often surprised to hear that biblical scholars continue to
raise questions about the origin of the biblical books and how they came to be
recognized as sacred Scripture. Historically there was little sustained interest in
the origin and development of the Bibles for either church or synagogue among
biblical scholars until the late eighteenth and nineteenth centuries. After the fifth
century, while interest in which books could be read in churches continued as
evidenced by surviving lists or catalogues of acceptable and rejected books for

7
Because Codex Vaticanus (ca. 350 CE) is a fragmented manuscript, certainty cannot be deter-
mined over the status of the Pastorals alone from that manuscript, but in what survives of it, it does
not contain the Pastorals and stops in the middle of Heb 9:24.
8
For a helpful discussion of the earliest manuscripts that contain all of the New Testament
writings and no others, including the role of the codex in helping to define the collection of Christian
scriptures, see Daryl D. Schmidt, “The Greek New Testament as a Codex,” in The Canon Debate,
ed. L. M. McDonald and J. A. Sanders (Peabody, MA: Hendrickson, 2002), 469–84.
9
The uncial or majuscule manuscripts are quite significant since in them we have for the first time
both Old and New Testament collections in one bound parchment volume. While there are variations
in their contents and orders, we can detect in them early church priorities, sequences, and which
books were widely recognized as sacred scripture. The papyrus manuscripts reflect recognition, but
only fourteen of the 128 (that number varies from year to year as more papyrus manuscripts are
discovered and published) manuscripts contain more than one book and none of them contain more
than a few books. For example, P45 includes fragmented portions of the four canonical Gospels and
Acts and P46 contains most of the letters attributed to Paul, but it had insufficient space to include
the Pastoral Epistles.
8 THE FORMATION OF THE BIBLICAL CANON, VOLUME I

reading in churches, little attention was given to the question of the formation
of the Bible for almost another thousand years. No doubt many thought that the
matter was settled and there was no need to discuss it, but in 1546 the Catholic
Church, to some extent in response to the Protestant Reformation, identified at the
Council of Trent the books that made up the Bible. After that several Protestant
churches also established the boundaries of the sacred books that comprised their
scriptures. The Eastern Orthodox churches, however, did not have a Council of
Trent and the full scope of their scriptures was settled even later.10
Although Christians and Jews have long claimed that God initiated and was
involved in the processes of canonization by inspiring various writers to produce
the literature that makes up their Scriptures, they are often surprised that the
process of recognizing the sacred books took centuries. The process of recognition
was not as obvious then as it is for some today. It is also surprising that little
attention or interest was given to the formation of the Bible for centuries. In
1913, Alexander Souter observed a surprising lack of interest in the origins of the
biblical canon in his generation, but also acknowledged the unlikelihood of any
successful changes in the contents of the Bible. His hope was that in the process
of examining the formation of the Bible that the Christ of the Bible would not be
forgotten.11 Similarly, the late professor Bruce Metzger, as late as 1986, expressed
considerable surprise that such an important topic as which books comprised the
Bible had received so little attention in antiquity and even in modern times. He
writes: “Although this [the Bible] was one of the most important developments in
the thought and practice of the early Church, history is virtually silent as to how,
when, and by whom it was brought about. Nothing is more amazing in the annals
of the Christian Church than the absence of detailed accounts of so significant a
process.” Similarly in his Preface he comments: “despite its [canon formation]
importance and intrinsic interest, [it] receives comparatively little attention. In
fact, few works in English consider both the historical development of the New
Testament canon and the persistent problems that pertain to its significance.”12
Much has changed since his significant contribution to this field of inquiry and,
likely because of his work, numerous other contributions have been made to
canon formation as the Select Bibliography at the end of this volume shows. My
first edition on this volume was already in the process of publication a couple
of months before Metzger’s work came out – too late to take advantage of his

10
For a discussion of the formation of the biblical canon for the Eastern Orthodox churches see
especially Vahan S. Hovhanessian, ed., The Canon of the Bible and the Apocrypha in the Churches
of the East, Bible in the Christian Orthodox Tradition 2 (New York: Lang, 2012); and more recently,
Eugen J. Pentiuc, The Old Testament in Eastern Orthodox Tradition (Oxford: Oxford University
Press, 2014).
11
Alexander Souter, The Text and Canon of the New Testament, Studies in Theology (London:
Duckworth, 1913; rev. C. S. C. Williams, 1954), 186–87.
12
Bruce M. Metzger, The Canon of the New Testament: Its Origin, Development, and Significance
(Oxford: Clarendon, 1987), 1 and p. v.
INTRODUCTION 9

excellent contribution. In subsequent editions, I have made considerable use of

Metzger’s well-informed work despite our disagreements on how to interpret
some of the related ancient texts. In the middle to late 1980s there were only a few
reliable sources to consult on canon formation, but now it is nearly impossible for
scholars to read all of the recent related publications on canon formation. In the
last few years, scholars have learned much about the origin of biblical books and
the processes that led to the formation of the Bible that was not known earlier and
more information is emerging all the time. No one presently suggests that the last
word on canon formation has been written and this volume will not pretend to fill
that void, but hopefully it will encourage others to pursue an even more fruitful
investigation of the ancient traditions and advance this important inquiry. The
considerable differences in approaches to and conclusions about canon formation
today reflect what Metzger noted earlier, namely that the ancient sources are not
clear on how the Bible was formed. When good and careful scholars disagree after
long, arduous, and careful investigations, we can only conclude that the ancient
sources are not as clear on the matter as we would like. Nevertheless, because
more is known now than before new approaches and methodologies are emerging
and leading scholars to ask new questions and pose new possibilities. Doubtless,
some reaffirm earlier conclusions with new arguments and others pose alternative
conclusions. As we proceed, several of these positions will be seen.
It is difficult to deny at least some of the recent interest in canon formation
has been prompted by the publication of Dan Brown’s sensational and fictional
Da Vinci Code or the plethora of other spin-off volumes or media presentations
that occur annually with considerable hype just before Christmas and Easter
such as Mel Gibson’s The Passion or the publication of Gospel of Judas. Often
these and other popular publications are shrouded in tantalizing promises of new
revelations of something the hurch does not want you to know because it could
or would somehow damage Christianity or even destroy the Church’s faith. I have
personally been contacted by a publisher – several times! – to ask if I would write
a book about what the church does not want you to know about the Bible! I have
declined and indicated to that publisher that I know of nothing that the church
wants to hide or even could hide about the formation of its Bible.
Although such publishers promote and sell a lot of sensational books they have
also brought considerable new interest to the formation of the Bible both in the
churches and likely also in the academy. This renewed interest does not take away
from the fact that for two thousand years the church still has not fully agreed on
the full scope of its Bible – even if there is wide agreement on most of it. As noted
above, today there are four different Old Testament canons current in Christian
churches, namely those in the Eastern Orthodox (both Greek and Russian),13

13
Besides the books of the Hebrew Bible, the Eastern Orthodox include in their OT 1 Esdras,
Judith, Tobit, Wisdom of Solomon, Ecclesiasticus (Sirach), Baruch, as well as the additions to
10 THE FORMATION OF THE BIBLICAL CANON, VOLUME I

Roman Catholic,14 Protestant,15 and Ethiopian churches.16 Likewise, there are

multiple collections of sacred books in antiquity that are often similar in content
to what we now have, but not completely. Most of these differences were present
before the fourth century, but some appear later. Then as now, the books that
one religious community calls apocryphal or even pseudepigraphal (and thereby
dismisses them), another religious community welcomes as scripture. Only the
names of the books in question have changed over time.
Today no one denies the considerable diversity in early Christianity, but how
widespread was what we now call “heresy” in the emerging churches of the
second and third centuries? In a highly influential and often controversial book,
Walter Bauer claimed that the heterodox churches actually outnumbered the
orthodox in the second century and that they even produced literature opposing the
“heretical” teachings of those churches that we now call orthodox!17 Bart Ehrman,
who agrees with Bauer, concludes that “orthodoxy” was more limited in influence
in the second century than was earlier thought – and he may be right in this, but
he is probably overstating his case when he claims that orthodoxy in the sense
of a “unified group advocating an apostolic doctrine accepted by the majority of
Christians everywhere, did not exist in the second and third centuries.”18 Neither
the church’s later wealth or later political power in Rome can account for all of

Daniel and Esther, 1, 2, and 3 Maccabees, and Ps 151 (or 49 books). Their NT has the same 27 books
that are common to the Roman Catholic and Protestant Bibles.
14
Their OT canon is similar to the Orthodox (they have 46 books) along with the additions to
Daniel and Esther but they do not have 3 Maccabees or Ps 151. Roman Catholics call their sacred
books that are not in the HB the “Deuterocanonical” books. Their NT contains the same books as
the Orthodox and the Protestant Bibles.
15
The Protestants accept only the books in the HB, but in a different order, and like the other major
Christian churches, they also accept only the twenty-seven books of the NT.
16
The church in Ethiopia adopted as its OT the books adopted by the Eastern Orthodox, but also
Jubilees, the Ethiopic Enoch, IV Esdras, and The Rest of the Words of Baruch. Their NT consists
not only of the twenty-seven books of the New Testament, but also four other lesser known books:
Sinodos, Book of Clement (not 1 or 2 Clement), Book of the Covenant, and Didascalia.
17
Orthodoxy and Heresy in Earliest Christianity, ed. and trans. R. Kraft and G. Krodel (Philadel-
phia: Fortress, 1972), translated from Rechtglaubigkeit und Ketzerei im altesten Christentum, BHT
10 (Tubingen: J. C. B. Mohr [Paul Siebeck], 1934).
18
Bart D. Ehrman, The Orthodox Corruption of Scripture: The Effect of Early Christological
Controversies on the Text of the New Testament (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1993), 7. There
certainly was considerable diversity in the churches during those two centuries and even later, and
it appears that an orthodox majority began to emerge at the end of the second century, even though
that did not mean that there was unanimity in theological thought at that time. The continuing
debates among various strands of early Christianity suggest this, but that does not deny to the
emerging orthodoxy a prominent role. It is not clear that orthodoxy only won out because of the
Roman churches’ power, wealth, and influence in the fourth century. That argument has not been
adequately demonstrated. The first-century documents to which early Christians appealed, especially
the Gospels and the traditions about Jesus passed on in the churches that we clearly see in the second
century (e.g., Irenaeus), surely weighed heavily in favor of orthodoxy.
INTRODUCTION 11

the factors that led to the so-called triumph of orthodoxy in the greater church in
antiquity. Ehrman does not give adequate weight to the antiquity of the orthodox
tradition in the churches that appeals to or cites the canonical Gospels, mostly
Matthew, and the letters of Paul. Those sources are among the earliest Christian
writings known and more widely cited in the early churches. Also, the force of
Irenaeus’ teaching about apostolic succession that emphasized the passing on of
the earliest traditions of the church about Jesus the Christ through the church’s
bishops cannot be ignored.19 The traditions about Jesus clearly functioned as
the primary authoritative guide for the churches well before the recognition of
Christian writings as sacred scripture in the churches.
Given the authority of Jesus and the traditions about him circulating in the
churches, as well as the circulation of the Gospels that reflect his actions and
teachings, diversity was nonetheless more present in early Christianity than what
existed after the fourth century following the Council of Nicea. However, at the end
of the second century a “proto-orthodoxy” appears largely though not completely
to have won much of the theological debates going on in churches in the second
century. By the end of the second century much of the theological differences had
been settled through the moves against what was perceived to be heresy. By that
time the summations of the orthodox tradition, as we see in the Apostles’ Creed
and in other doctrinal summaries in Irenaeus (we will examine these below), had
gained priority in the majority of churches. None of the noncanonical writings,
sometimes called gnostic and Christian apocrypha, can reasonably claim to have
first-century roots. Contrary to Ehrman, orthodoxy appears to have won the day
long before orthodox churches gained wealth or power in the Roman Empire.
In regard to the scriptures of the Jews, it has long been wrongly assumed that
the Jews in antiquity were of one mind on the scope and content of their Bible,
as if it were a fixed entity no later than the end of the first century CE or before.
Not only have recent studies of the Dead Sea Scrolls suggested otherwise,20 but
the seldom noticed differences between Jews in the east and those in the western

19
This does not take away from Ehrman’s point in his Orthodox Corruption of Scripture that
Christian orthodoxy variously and significantly influenced the transmission of the biblical text. That
appears incontrovertible; however, most of the intentional variants in the Christian manuscripts tend
toward orthodoxy, not heterodoxy. Robert F. Hull Jr., The Story of the New Testament Text: Movers,
Materials, Motives, Methods, and Models, Society of Biblical Literature 58 (Atlanta: Society of
Biblical Literature, 2010), makes this case well.
20
See especially the impressive three volume series of essays in James H. Charlesworth, ed.,
The Bible and the Dead Sea Scrolls in the Princeton Symposium on the Dead Sea Scrolls (Waco,
TX: Baylor University Press, 2006), but also Philip R. Davies, Scribes and Schools: The Canon-
ization of the Hebrew Scriptures (Louisville, KY: Westminster John Knox, 1998), 152–69; A. J.
Avery-Peck, Jacob Neusner, and B. Chilton, eds., Judaism in Late Antiquity, Part 5: The Judaism
of Qumran: A Systematic Reading of the Dead Sea Scrolls, Vol. 1: Theory of Israel (Leiden: Brill,
2001); plus Volume 2 in the same series, World View, Comparing Judaisms (Leiden: Brill, 2002);
and the useful introductory chapter of James C. VanderKam, From Revelation to Canon: Studies
12 THE FORMATION OF THE BIBLICAL CANON, VOLUME I

diaspora point to significant differences in surviving expressions of Judaism on

the matter of canon formation. More specifically, we have no evidence that the
rabbinic decisions of the east made a significant impact on the Jews in the west.
This appears to be the case whether in differences in their way of life, views
about scripture, or the contents of their sacred collections. Jews to the west, north,
and south of Palestine appear to have made use of the Septuagint rather than the
Hebrew scriptures and the Septuagint included a broader collection of scriptures
than the later HB canon. Recently two scholars have argued that Jews in the
western diaspora continued for several centuries after the emergence of rabbinic
Judaism to use the Septuagint in their religious devotion, including the apocryphal
and pseudepigraphal books in it. Because for the most part they could not speak or
read Hebrew or Aramaic, they were largely unaffected by the rabbinic decisions
in the east and the literature that they produced (Mishnah, Tosefta, and the two
Talmudim).21 Was there only one Jewish understanding of scripture and canon in
the time of Jesus? That notion should have been laid to rest long ago, but some
scholars continue to advocate the notion of unity in Judaism on the scope of the
scriptures before, during, and after the second century CE This is a misunder-
standing of Judaism of the late second temple period.22 Well into the middle ages
there were various Jewish sects still debating the scope of their scriptures. As we
will see later, the Karaites, like the Samaritans, chided Rabbinic Jews over their
use of the Prophets and for having more texts than the Law of Moses for their
scriptural authority.23 How representative were decisions of various Rabbinic Jews
in the second and later centuries and were they uniform in what they had to say
about the scope of the Jewish scriptures? I suggest that a considerable time elapsed

in the Hebrew Bible and Second Temple Literature (Boston: Brill, 2002). These significant works
represent only a small amount of the literature published in this field in recent years and much more
is on the way!
21
The case for this diversity between the Jews in the east and those to the west of the Land of Israel
is reasonably argued by Arye Edrei and Doron Mendels, “A Split Jewish Diaspora: Its Dramatic
Consequences,” JSP 16, no. 2 (2007): 91–137.
22
The popular designation “Second Temple Judaism” usually refers to the time between the
rebuilding of Zerubbabel’s temple and the destruction of the Second Temple of Herod in 70 CE.
Technically, “late Second Temple Judaism” often refers to the temple of Herod the Great, begun in
37 BCE and destroyed by the Romans in 70 CE. The First Temple was destroyed in 587/586 BCE
(2 Kgs 25:8–17), and following the decree of Cyrus (538 BCE) that allowed Jews to return to their
homeland and rebuild their temple, Zerubbabel attempted to rebuild the temple between ca. 521 and
516 BCE (Ezra 1:1–4; 5:2–6:18; see also Hag 1:1–4, 12; 2:1–4; Zech 4:9; 6:15). Local opposition
prevented him from rebuilding anything on the scale of the former temple built by Solomon. The
rebuilding begun by Zerubbabel experienced many additions and changes and was finally replaced
by Herod the Great beginning in 37 BCE. The term has gradually replaced the now dated and less
precise term “Intertestamental period.”
23
Abraham Wasserstein and David J. Wasserstein, The Legend of the Septuagint: From Classical
Antiquity to Today (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2006), 217–37, describe the differ-
ences between the Karaites, Samaritans, and Rabbanite Jews over their sacred scriptures.
INTRODUCTION 13

before there was a general agreement among the Jews over the “fringe” areas of
their HB biblical canon and there never was a time when a recognized council of
Rabbinic Jews, like the Council of Trent, made such a decision.
As I begin this study, I acknowledge the importance of memory and the
challenge it brings to the stability and fluidity of the HB biblical texts in the
early stages of their formation. It is most likely that the early tradition about the
Exodus, wilderness wanderings, entrance into Canaan, and the giving of the Law
at Sinai were all communicated initially by memory and oral tradition before
being written down. This use and function of memory in transmitting the Jewish
sacred story continues to be a major challenge for canon formation scholarship.24
Until the invention of the printing press, there was little stability or fixation of
the text of the Hebrew Bible despite several attempts toward textual stabilization
among rabbis. After the fourth century when some churches were able to employ
professional scribes, there was some stability in the transmission of the biblical
text. Even after that changes were regularly made in the biblical texts, and these
changes (accidental or deliberate) are reflected in current revisions of the biblical
text of the Hebrew Bible and the Greek New Testament. The fluidity that charac-
terized the transmission of the HB and Christian OT manuscripts can be seen in
the rewritten scriptures of both Judaism and early Christianity and in the copying
of the biblical manuscripts throughout their history. I will discuss “rewritten scrip-
tures” below in the section on Qumran and the Dead Sea Scrolls (Chapter 7 §II.B).
While the notion of not touching or modifying sacred scriptural texts was a means
of declaring their sacred status (Deut 4:2; Rev 22:18–19), in practice all ancient
texts were modified in transmission whether Jewish or Christian.

II. SOME IMPORTANT QUESTIONS

Without question the Bible is one of the most important resources for understanding
and interpreting Judaism and Christianity without which both communities of
faith would be unable to discern the identity of the God they worship, how they are
to live, and their mission in the world. The formation and function of the sacred
texts that comprise the Bible and inform the faith of both communities lies at the
heart of several fundamental questions such as when the books were written, how
they functioned in communities of faith, when they were acknowledged as sacred
scripture, and when and why they were brought together to form a fixed collection

24
David M. Carr has addressed this issue carefully in Writing on the Tablet of the Heart: Origins
of Scripture and Literature (New York: Oxford University Press, 2005), 3–14, and in regard to
the subsequent textual transmission, see also 111–73; and in his subsequent The Formation of the
Hebrew Bible: A New Reconstruction (New York: Oxford University Press, 2011), 3–36, but also
102–49.
14 THE FORMATION OF THE BIBLICAL CANON, VOLUME I

of religious texts. The following questions and issues are a summation of what will
be dealt with in more detail throughout these volumes.
Scholars know that both Jews and Christians produced many more books than
those that were finally included in the Bible. Why were the biblical books selected
and what criteria were employed in making those selections? Would the faith
of either Jews or Christians be significantly different today if some or all of the
forgotten or lost books were included in the Bible? What if the time comes, as it
did in antiquity, when some of those books no longer have appeal or perceived
significance in various communities of faith? Would those neglected books no
longer have a place in the Bible? Readers are surely aware of the interests of
the Jesus Seminar in ridding the apocalyptic emphasis from the NT. In both the
Hebrew scriptures and the Old and New Testaments there was a core of books that
were widely accepted, but other books that were excluded continued to be popular
among some Jews for several centuries (e.g., Sirach and Wisdom of Solomon)
and also remained in the sacred collections of scriptural texts of many churches
for several centuries (e.g., 1 Enoch, Shepherd of Hermas, Epistle of Barnabas,
Didache, 1–2 Clement, Letters of Ignatius).
Canon questions are not simply academic matters, but also highly significant
issues for faith communities that order their worship, instruction, and mission
by their sacred scriptures. The available ancient resources for examining canon
questions that have survived antiquity are both sketchy and inferential and seldom
allow for firm conclusions. This is especially obvious when Bible scholars with
impeccable academic and ecclesiastical credentials examine the same ancient
artifacts and draw different conclusions from them.
All copies of the Scriptures were prepared and transmitted by hand for centuries
until the invention of moveable type and the printing press. The ancient churches,
with a few exceptions, generally made use of literate amateurs in producing copies
of their sacred scriptures. By the fourth century, as the churches grew and became
more financially able, they employed professional scribes to make individual
copies of their sacred Scriptures, but still, until the invention of the printing
press, no two biblical manuscripts were exactly alike. Nevertheless, despite the
numerous variations in the texts of the surviving manuscripts (whether deliberate
or accidental), all copies functioned as sacred scripture in the communities for
which the sacred texts were copied and preserved.
No known original texts have been preserved, but rather copies of copies of
ancient manuscripts. However, given the recent revisions in scholarly thinking
about the durability of ancient manuscripts, it may be that some copies of biblical
texts that have survived were produced from some original autographs.25 There are
significant new scholarly developments that may affect our understanding of the
dating and life expectancy of the ancient papyrus manuscripts and that could have

25
See Craig A. Evans, “How Long Were Late Antique Books in Use? Possible Implications for
New Testament Textual Criticism,” BBR 25, no. 1 (2015): 23–37.
INTRODUCTION 15

an effect on some aspects of canon formation. Earlier the life of a manuscript with
normal use was considered twenty to thirty years, but now some scholars suggest
that they may well have lasted in use some 100–300 years. Evans explains:

[George W.] Houston finds that literary manuscripts were in use anywhere from 75 to 500 years,
with the average of about 150 years. Almost all of these libraries and collections were multi-
generational, being handed down to descendants or in some cases purchased in their entirety
by a new family or collector. Accordingly, a manuscript commissioned, say, in the first century
BCE would have been read, studied, annotated, corrected, and copied over a period of two or
more centuries and then would have been retired in the third century CE. Perhaps this should
not be surprising. After all, books were expensive and precious and so not quickly discarded,
and those made of papyrus that circulated in Egypt could survive a long, long time, as the
ancient papyri uncovered at Oxyrhynchus and elsewhere testify.26

This line of reasoning points to greater durability of the earliest NT texts that
could extend well into the third and possibly fourth centuries CE and, if correct,
will lead some text critical scholars to new positions on the stability of the NT
text and a longer life for the original manuscripts of the NT, and perhaps also the
possibility that some manuscripts from the second and third century were copies
of the autographs.
A cautionary note should be added here that is reflected in the second-century
postscript to the Martyrdom of Polycarp (ca. 155–160 CE), which was written
shortly after the death of Polycarp most likely by a contemporary eyewitnesses
of his death.27 Pionius was martyred either shortly after Polycarp or even later
during the Decian persecutions of the mid third century (see Eusebius, Hist. eccl.
4.15.47). At the end of the accounting of Polycarp’s martyrdom, Pionius says
regarding the manuscript telling the story of Polycarp’s death that “I gathered
it together when it was nearly worn out by age” (Martyrdom of Polycarp 22:3,
Holmes trans.). If written shortly after Polycarp’s death, that would suggest that
manuscripts that were regularly used might not have lasted as long as others
that were not read or used as frequently, but if written in the fourth century and
reported by Eusebius it might well point to a much longer life and use. Likewise,
most of the oldest known biblical manuscripts were discovered in dry arid places

26
C. A. Evans, “How Long Were Late Antique Books in Use?” He also cites several key papyrol-
ogists, including George W. Houston, who argue for a lengthy period of use of ancient texts in part
because of their high expense to produce. Evans argues the case for the longer use of ancient papyrus
manuscripts than was believed earlier. Houston elaborates on this in his Inside Roman Libraries:
Book Collections and Their Management in Antiquity, Studies in the History of Greece and Rome
(Chapel Hill, NC: The University of North Carolina Press, 2014).
27
This date is in Michael W. Holmes, “The Martyrdom of Polycarp and the New Testament
Passion Narrative,” in Trajectories Through the New Testament and the Apostolic Fathers, ed.
Andrew Gregory and Christopher Tuckett, The New Testament and the Apostolic Fathers (Oxford:
Oxford University Press, 2005), 2:407–32. See also his introduction to this text in his The Apostolic
Fathers: Greek Texts and English Translations, 3rd ed. (Grand Rapids: Baker Academic, 2007),
298–303.
16 THE FORMATION OF THE BIBLICAL CANON, VOLUME I

(especially Egypt and the Jordan Valley). It may be correct that some manuscripts
(original or copies of copies) lasted much longer in warm and dryer communities
than the twenty or thirty years of duration previously suggested by scholars if the
manuscript was properly cared for and stored in a dry location.
An important consequence of multiple variants in the biblical texts was the
birth of the later and highly significant craft that we now call “textual criticism”
whose primary aim historically has been to produce the earliest and most reliable
text of the Bible. One of the earliest church textual critics was Origen, an
early church father (185–254) who was well aware of the many variants in the
church’s scriptural manuscripts. He wanted to highlight and correct the variants
and made the earliest known informed attempts at correcting the transmission
of the church’s OT scriptures. This can be seen in his Hexapla, a six-column
comparison of the Hebrew and Greek texts of the HB/OT circulating among the
Jews and Christians. His work is still available today and can also be downloaded
from the Internet. Origen’s remarkable Hexapla has served scholars of the Bible
for many centuries.
This leads us to ask what is the appropriate canonical text of Scripture for the
synagogue and church today? Brevard Childs rightly asks whether it is the text in
its earliest known form or in its later form that is canonical (authoritative) for the
churches. All scholars acknowledge that the church’s Scriptures incurred many
textual additions or changes over several centuries, some of which were intentional
but most were accidental. So, again, the question is which text is the canonical or
authoritative text of the church, namely, the original form of Philippians or the
one that currently exists in our NT – the earliest recoverable text or the one most
commonly acknowledged in modern times?28 Does it make a difference if the two
parts of Philippians are read separately for study, teaching, and preaching? Is the
Gospel of John best read as it was written, namely, as a single gospel, or as the
Fourth Gospel? In this case, it does make a difference. Is the final form of Isaiah
the authoritative base for preaching and teaching or should we consider accepting
an earlier Isaiah that was followed by one or two other additions regularly called
2 and 3 Isaiah? If that is the case, how do we understand 2–3 Isaiah from different
authors? Are they equally authoritative even if not written by the original author of
1 Isaiah? Should we retain in our biblical canon Mark 16:9–20, John 7:53–8:11 the
whole of John 21, Acts 8:37, 1 John 5:7–8, or other texts with questionable textual
support? Most scholars agree that these texts were later additions to the biblical
texts in which they are found. The early churches sought to root their theology
in the earliest witnesses from the apostolic community. Is that still true today or
should we accept the later rewritten texts as scripture for the churches?

28
It is likely that the Letter to the Philippians is a composite of Paul’s writings from at least two
separate occasions, namely, 1:1–3:1 and 3:2–4:23.
INTRODUCTION 17

The rewriting of sacred scripture is not unique to the Christian community. As

many scholars know from the Qumran manuscripts and some examples from the
HB/OT, there were many “re-written scriptures” in antiquity. The scribal practice
of copying the sacred scriptures often involved a rewriting of those same texts
for a subsequent generation of readers who were often facing different circum-
stances. This was true in the transmission of some biblical texts, as for example,
Deuteronomy, the Chronicles, and perhaps also the Gospels of Matthew and Luke
that used and considerably expanded Mark.
Until recently most text-critical scholars focused primarily on establishing the
original wording of biblical texts, the autographs. Their labor has shed considerable
light on the production of biblical texts and brought us closer to the original texts
of scripture, but more recently they have also advanced our understanding of the
social and historical contexts of the ancient religious communities that prepared,
transmitted, and read the sacred manuscripts.29 As we will see later in both HB/OT
and NT text inquiry, textual critics compare thousands of manuscripts to arrive at
the most reliable text of the Scriptures, but now only a few of them would claim
that they have either recovered the original text or even that it is possible unless
some major new finds are discovered. Textual scholars continue to debate the
precise criteria for uncovering the original text in the surviving manuscripts,30 and
some have abandoned that pursuit altogether and focus instead on establishing the
social contexts in which the surviving manuscripts were produced. The surviving
manuscripts often tell us much about the history of early Judaism and Christianity.
Students of biblical Hebrew and New Testament Greek soon learn from their
study of both languages that the original wording of some passages in the Bible
is still uncertain, and questions continue to be raised over the precise wording in
some ancient biblical manuscripts. Most of the variants in the manuscripts were
by far accidental and unintended, but some were intentional and those often shed
light on important issues facing various Jewish or Christian communities at the
time the changes were made. Editorial changes were not made once for all at a
given point in the history of the transmission of the biblical literature, but rather
they were regularly made throughout the history of the transmission of that liter-
ature until the invention of the printing press.

29
There are ongoing debates among many of leading textual critics of both the HB and NT canons
and they have produced many advances in our understanding of the transmission of the Hebrew
text of the HB. For example, see Emanuel Tov, Textual Criticism of the Hebrew Bible, 3rd ed.
(Minneapolis, MN: Augsburg Fortress, 2012); and for the New Testament text in Bart D. Ehrman and
Michael W. Holmes, eds., The Text of the New Testament in Contemporary Research: Essays on the
Status Quaestionis, 2nd ed., New Testament Tools, Studies and Documents 42 (Leiden: Brill, 2013).
30
Schnabel, “Textual Criticism: Recent Developments,” in The Face of New Testament Studies: A
Survey of Recent Research, ed. S. McKnight and G. R. Osborne; Grand Rapids: Baker, 2004), 73–75,
observes that, because of the many variables in the history of the transmission of the text and the oral
history that lies behind much of it, many (not all) textual critics have given up on finding the original
wording of the biblical text, even if that continues to be the underlying aim of textual critics.
18 THE FORMATION OF THE BIBLICAL CANON, VOLUME I

The work of text critical scholars is foundational for all biblical inquiry and
for modern translations of the Bible. The ongoing discoveries of ancient biblical
manuscripts and fragments of ancient texts continues to raise additional questions
about which ancient text of the Bible is most appropriate for producing a modern
translation of the Bible. The church has not universally adopted any particular
text of the Bible, even though text-critical scholars today agree on most of it.
Establishing the best texts of the HB/OT and NT is still a work in progress.
Similarly, of the almost 2000 translations of the Bible that have been prepared
over the centuries,31 and perhaps the English language has the most translations
of the biblical texts, church members today who read their scriptures faithfully
frequently ask which translation is most appropriate today. Because no two Bible
translations are the same, the question of translation is not irrelevant for churches
today and has much to do with the question of canon in its original sense of
authority and rule. Why does it matter? Translators read the same text-critical
data differently and regularly select different words to translate the same biblical
terms. Since many Christians not infrequently hinge interpretations of their faith
on specific words, phrases, and sentences of the biblical text, text and translation
issues can never be unimportant for faith communities. We might well also ask
whether the ancient churches’ beliefs and practices would have looked like ours
had they possessed all the Scriptures used in churches or synagogues today or
possessed the translations available to modern readers? So far as we can tell,
most Jewish or Christian faith communities did not have a complete copy of all
of the books included in their scriptural canons. With few exceptions most of the
questions about canon formation focus on the biblical books, but issues related to
text and translation are also very important questions for the church and academy
today.
Some of us were taught in church and later in the seminary that the early
followers of Jesus received from him a closed biblical canon that is the same as the
present Protestant OT and that later the Roman Catholic and Orthodox Christians
expanded their scriptures to include noncanonical (and thereby uninspired)
apocryphal writings. In regard to the HB/OT, it was often taught that since Jesus
cited or referred to passages in all three of the major divisions of the HB, namely
the Law, Prophets, and Writings, then the OT canon was closed before the time of
Jesus and he passed on to his disciples a closed biblical canon. In other words, the
church simply adopted the biblical canon of Jesus who accepted the widely approved
biblical canon in his day. In regard to the NT writings, many of us were also taught
that the early churches and their councils simply recognized (as opposed to deter-
mined) the church’s inspired NT Scriptures. In regard to the NT books, we were

31
According to Metzger, as of 2000, the complete Bible was available in 371 languages, and
portions of it were translated into 1,862 other languages and dialects. See his The Bible in Transla-
tion: Ancient and English Versions (Grand Rapids: Baker, 2001), 9.
INTRODUCTION 19

taught that the NT books were either written by or authorized by an apostle within
the general proximity of the time of Jesus, that is, all NT books were written in
the first century CE. We also understood that the NT writings were unified in their
teaching (i.e., they were “orthodox”) and they were never in conflict with each
other. It was claimed that all of the NT writings were early on acknowledged by
the majority of the churches to be inspired by God and those books constituted
the church’s second testament of scriptures. Several such traditional assumptions
have been slowly eroding over the years, largely as a result of recent investigations
into the formation of the biblical canon. New understandings of relevant ancient
sources have led some scholars to reconsider several earlier assumptions about
the formation of the Bible. Until recently most (but not all) introductions to both
the OT and NT literature devoted only a few pages to a discussion of canon. Such
questions, it was assumed, were settled long ago and they did not warrant further
investigation. While some biblical scholars continue to affirm such positions,
recent scholarship has challenged many of the earlier conclusions and raised
important questions that continue to stimulate canon research.
Long after the writing and editing of the biblical books, considerable debate
emerged over which books to include in the sacred collection that we now call
the Bible and which text of those books is authoritative for the church. Early
evidence for fluidity in these areas can be seen in the variety of books and texts in
the Samaritan Pentateuch, Septuagint, the Dead Sea Scrolls, and the Christian OT
Scriptures, as well as in their order in various council decisions, catalogues, and
the surviving biblical manuscripts. Besides all of this, as we will see in the next
two chapters, there remains considerable debate over the definition and meaning
of scripture and canon. As a result, dating the formation of the Bible continues to
be a challenge. I will not be focusing on the origin and dating of the individual
biblical books since much of that can be gleaned from the standard HB/OT and
NT introductions. I will instead focus more attention on the evidence that allows
us to make more informed decisions about the formation of the HB/OT and NT
canons.
Besides the above canon issues, other important questions need asking about the
formation of the Bible. These include, but are not limited to the following:

1. Why were discussions about the sacredness of several of the books of the
OT still going on in the early churches well into the fourth through the sixth
centuries (and even later) if the matter had been largely settled well before
the time of Jesus?
2. Why did it take the church three to four centuries to establish its twenty-seven-
book NT canon if all of the books were recognized as Scripture in the first
and second century?
3. What is a biblical canon and what evidence is there that this question was of
any concern before the third and fourth centuries CE?
20 THE FORMATION OF THE BIBLICAL CANON, VOLUME I

4. Should a cited text be considered a part of an ancient writer’s biblical

canon?32 More recently, one rabbinic scholar rightly questions whether the
issue of a closed biblical canon was ever discussed among rabbinic sages of
Late Antiquity.33
5. Do other ancient sources accurately reflect the earliest strands of Christian
faith? Some scholars today are considering other ancient sources that they
believe faithfully relate some early Jesus traditions, some of which they
suggest may be more reliable than some of those traditions we find in the
canonical Gospels. In current scholarly discussions it is not unusual to
hear debates about enlarging the traditional database of knowledge about
the historical Jesus to include, for example, the Gospel of Thomas, the
“Unknown Gospel” discovered in the Egerton Papyri, the Gospel of Mary,
and several other noncanonical writings. For instance, at a recent conference
on the Christian apocryphal texts held at York University in Toronto, some
of the focus was on whether those texts have something to offer that may be
significant in identifying the historical Jesus. Interestingly, a prominent New
Testament scholar participating indicated that he preferred the “apocryphal
Jesus” reflected in the Christian apocrypha over the NT Jesus displayed
in the canonical Gospels. While there is much that we can learn from this

32
R. T. Beckwith, “Formation of the Hebrew Bible,” in Mikra: Text, Translation, Reading, and
Interpretation of the Hebrew Bible in Ancient Judaism and Early Christianity, ed. M. J. Mulder,
Compendia rerum iudaicarum ad Novum Testamentum 2/1 (Minneapolis: Fortress, 1990), 46,
48–49, suggests this without explicitly stating it when he simply compiles the references a writer
made to earlier sources and calls that collection of references or citations that writer’s biblical canon.
Interestingly, however, when he deals with Jude 14’s citing of 1 En. 1:9, he asks more of Jude than
of other NT writers when they cite or quote sacred texts. The very criteria he uses with other texts
to establish a canon, namely, citing it in an authoritative manner, is rejected for the NT writers when
they appear to cite texts other than the OT literature. Beckwith acknowledges that the later author
of the Epistle of Barnabas cited 1 Enoch as Scripture (Barn. 4.3; 16.5), but he claims that such cita-
tions had no effect on Jude’s conclusions about 1 Enoch. See also his Old Testament Canon, 401–3,
where he claims that Jude is referring to 1 Enoch and the Assumption of Moses only because they
were edifying literature but not canonical! VanderKam, in his Revelation to Canon, 17–28, observes
Beckwith’s inconsistencies in this example and elsewhere and argues cogently that 1 Enoch was
more highly regarded among Jews and Christians in the first century than Beckwith is willing to
concede. Despite this, such references often provide little evidence for the notion of a biblical canon
in the first century CE unless they are cited in an authoritative manner to support an important point.
We may ask whether there was any notion of an unclosed biblical canon in the first century, even
though the early church did not yet have a term available to describe it.
33
J. Neusner, Judaism and Christianity in the Age of Constantine: History, Messiah, Israel, and the
Initial Confrontation (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1987), 128–45. In the formative years
of Judaism, Neusner claims, the notion of Torah was eventually expanded to include the Mishnah,
Tosefta, the two Talmuds, and the various Midrashim. A canon was constructed by defining Torah in
a new way that encompassed all the literature that followed it. It was tied together through exegesis.
See also his Midrash in Context: Exegesis in Formative Judaism (Philadelphia: Fortress, 1983),
1–22.
INTRODUCTION 21

literature, few scholars today agree that the apocryphal literature presents
a more credible picture of Jesus than the Jesus we find in the canonical
Gospels. I have discussed this question at length elsewhere.34
6. What of the so-called agrapha, that is, the sayings of Jesus not found in the
canonical Gospels, but elsewhere in the NT, in other early Christian liter-
ature, and in some surviving manuscripts? Various scholars have posited that
the some of the agrapha Jesus sayings are authentic and should be added
to the database of information about the historical Jesus. This is not a new
proposal, of course, and it continues to surface periodically.35 It is likely that
the agrapha served as authoritative scriptural texts for those Christians who
cited them. If we can with some assurance determine which of the more
than two hundred such sayings attributed to Jesus are authentic, should they
be added to the church’s or scholars’ database of information about Jesus,
or even added to the church’s Scriptures and used in worship, catechetical
studies, and the church’s mission?36 These sayings circulated in some early
churches apart from the Gospels, some in other late biblical texts, e.g., Mark
16:9–20, and some agrapha continued to function scripturally in antiquity
and even later.37

34
Lee Martin McDonald, The Story of Jesus in History and Faith: An Introduction (Grand Rapids:
Baker Academic, 2013), 127–35.
35
Metzger, Canon of the New Testament, 272 n. 11, notes just such a proposal from E. Platzhoff-Le-
jeune as long ago as 1949.
36
J. Jeremias, The Unknown Sayings of Jesus, 2nd ed. (London: SPCK, 1964), claims that of the
266 extant agrapha only 18 are likely genuine (some recent scholars conclude that only about 8 or
9 are authentic) and none of them significantly affects our understanding of Jesus presented in the
canonical Gospels. However, if they are authentic, should churches cite them in a scriptural fashion
in their worship and catechetical teachings? W. D. Stroker, Extracanonical Sayings of Jesus, Society
of Biblical Literature Resources for Biblical Study 18 (Atlanta: Scholars Press, 1989), translates
and lists these sayings but without sufficient evaluation of their contents or authenticity. They are
discussed in more detail in O. Hofius, “Isolated Sayings of Jesus,” in New Testament Apocrypha, ed.
W. Schneemelcher, trans. R. M. Wilson, rev. ed. (Louisville: Westminster John Knox, 1992),
1:88–91. The agrapha are also conveniently listed and discussed in Charlesworth and Evans, “Jesus
in the Agrapha and Apocryphal Gospels,” where they contend that there is essentially nothing new
in the agrapha that causes concern or alters the understanding of Jesus in the canonical Gospels.
37
Eusebius (Hist. eccl. 3.25.7) emphasizes both “apostolic style” and “orthodoxy” as criteria for
genuine writings. Even the Muratorian Fragment, lines 73–80 (see Chapter 21 §IV), excluded a work
from consideration (Shepherd of Hermas) because it did not come from the time of the apostolic
community. The emergence of NT pseudepigrapha in ancient churches demonstrates the desire to
ground theology in the witness of the apostolic community. The early church anchored its life and
faith in God’s activity in Jesus. Those writings believed to be closer in time to Jesus (namely, from
the apostles or their associates) and to reflect early traditions about him were passed on in some
churches. I will discuss this in more detail below.
22 THE FORMATION OF THE BIBLICAL CANON, VOLUME I

These and other questions have given rise to the recent interest in canon formation
and we are now likely on the threshold of even more advances in canonical
studies. Though the current shape of the biblical canon will probably not change
much for most churches in the ensuing years, scholars will no doubt continue
to examine the criteria for establishing the current biblical canons, their scope,
and many of the related fields of inquiry noted above. Some will likely continue
to find ways to marginalize portions of the biblical canon that they no longer
believe are relevant or that offend their modern sensibilities.38 Because all of these
questions, and others as well, are essential for understanding the broader scope of
canon formation, it is encouraging to see several examinations of canon including
increasing numbers of references to noncanonical Jewish and Christian literature
in contemporary biblical scholarship, and the recent attention to canonical lists or
catalogues from antiquity.39 This is an important step toward more balanced and
informed conclusions.

III. RECENT INVESTIGATIONS OF CANON FORMATION

As noted in the preface, a long held position has been replaced, namely that
the Torah, or Pentateuch, was “canonized” or firmly fixed in the time of Ezra
and Nehemiah following the return of the Jewish exiles to their homeland from
Babylon in the sixth and fifth centuries BCE, the Prophets were canonized by
the early second century BCE, and the Writings were fairly well settled either
during the time of the Maccabees (ca. 164–160 BCE, or later) or by the end of the
first century CE during a so-called Council of Jamnia (ca. 90 CE). Most biblical
scholars no longer hold this view and the arguments that were most often cited to
support it have been successfully challenged. It is now more commonly held that
both the Law and the Prophetic tradition were widely held as sacred authorities

38
It is unfortunate what some will do to make an awkward or even embarrassing text say something
different from what is obvious in the text, whether it is about women’s roles in the church or home (1
Cor 11:7–10; Eph 5:22–33; 1 Tim 2:9–15), the immediacy of the return of Jesus (1 Thess 4:13–17;
Rev 3:20), justification for killing innocent victims in the OT (1 Sam 15:3), praying for the demise
of one’s enemies (Pss 58, 109, etc.), or early Christianity’s apparent acceptance of the practice of
slavery and the submission of wives to husbands (1 Cor 7:21–24; Eph 6:5–9; Col 3:22–4:1; 1 Cor
14:33b–36; Eph 5:22–31).
39
I note in this regard C. E. Arnold, ed., Zondervan Illustrated Bible Background Commentary,
4 vols. (Grand Rapids: Zondervan, 2002) and C. A. Evans, The Bible Knowledge Background
Commentary, 3 vols. (Colorado Springs: Victor/Cook, 2003–2004). Both of these works show that
evangelical scholarship has also acquired considerable interest in the value of noncanonical writings
for assisting in our interpretation of the biblical text. Craig S. Keener, Acts: An Exegetical Commen-
tary, 4 vols.(Grand Rapids: Baker Academic, 2012–14), provides an excellent example of how much
knowledge of the Greco-Roman world adds to our understanding of the biblical text. He regularly
highlights the considerable overlap between the biblical and Greco-Roman cultures, activities, and
history.
INTRODUCTION 23

among the Jews at an earlier date, though the Torah or Pentateuch held the place
of priority among all of Israel’s scriptures especially in the post-exilic Jewish
community. The prophetic tradition, however, is not the same as the Prophets that
now comprise the second part of the HB Bible, though they were included in it.
The prophetic corpus as we now have it was not completely settled until much
later, namely the end of the first century CE. That tradition of prophetic texts also
included several books that were later placed among the Writings (Ketubim), and
likely also others that were not finally included in the HB biblical canon.
The formation of the HB/OT began with a process that antedates the time when
the book of Deuteronomy was discovered in the Temple in Jerusalem (621 BCE),
but that is the time when most references to the influence of sacred texts in Israel
are seen. Many of the stories and traditions that came to comprise the Pentateuch
certainly existed before the seventh or sixth centuries BCE, but those traditions
were not as influential in the nation as they werefollowing the return of the Jews
from their exile in Babylon. As we will see below, not only the Law but also
several of the Prophets functioned as authoritative religious documents in Israel
prior to, during, and after the Exile. This happened despite the negative and often
inconvenient message of the prophets who repeated Israel’s need to obey the laws
and teachings of God as well as the “words” or commands of the prophets.
While we cannot say precisely what comprised the recognized “prophets” in
the seventh and sixth centuries BCE, some of the earlier prophets are identified by
name in Jer 26:16–18 that cites in a scriptural manner the earlier Mic 3:12 (cf. also
Jer 26:4–6). Also Ezra–Nehemiah specifically mentions the prophets Haggai and
Zechariah (Ezra 5:1). Several of Israel’s scriptures were written well before the
fall of the nation in 587–586 BCE (e.g., Isaiah, Amos, Hosea, Micah, Joel), but a
significant influence of the earlier prophets among the Jews is difficult to establish
before the exilic period. The author of 2 Kgs 17:13, written after the fall of
Jerusalem, indicates that the laws of Moses were known and the “the Lord warned
Israel and Judah by every prophet and seer” but the people would not listen.
Some of the prophetic writings were clearly remembered later and cited and
expanded in the post-exilic period, but this does not take away from the fact that in
the post-exilic period the laws of Moses, or laws attributed to Moses, were always
at the heart of the recognized sacred scriptures of the Jews. By the time of Josiah
in 621 BCE, Deuteronomy and possibly other prophets had gained a scriptural-
like or authoritative recognition as well.40 The oral tradition and perhaps written
text of the Law, nevertheless, was known earlier than the current text of the Law
as we will see in what follows.

40
S. Chapman argues convincingly that scriptural recognition referred not only to the Pentateuchal
writings, but to other writings as well. See his “Second Temple Jewish Hermeneutics: How Canon
is Not an Anachronism,” in Invention, Rewriting, Usurpation: Discursive Fights Over Religious
Traditions in Antiquity, ed. Jörg Ulrich, Anders-Christian Jacobsen, and David Brakke (Frankfurt
am Main: Lang, 2011), 281–96.
24 THE FORMATION OF THE BIBLICAL CANON, VOLUME I

When the scriptures of the Jews were first translated into Greek in Alexandria
(ca. 280–281 BCE), there is no evidence that more than the Pentateuch was trans-
lated. The rest of the HB/OT books were likely translated into Greek no later than
130–120 BCE, but it is difficult to be precise here. If the rest of the HB books had
been considered scripture among the Jews earlier in Alexandria, it is remarkable
that they were not included in this initial translation. My point here is that when
the translation initially took place there was no equal recognition of a prophetic
tradition with the Mosaic tradition and the latter always had priority.
However, it is not as if the Prophets suddenly appeared as a fixed collection and
thrust themselves on the survivors of the destruction of the nation in 587 BCE.
Sanders notes that the prominence of the prophets among the Jews likely came
after the fall of the nation and during its deportation when religious leaders began
to say among themselves that what the prophets had said earlier actually came to
pass and their prominence in the nation was accentuated more after the exile than
before. Earlier prophets had proclaimed to the nation that divine judgment would
come to them if they continued to ignore the laws and statutes of God, serve other
gods, and make unholy alliances with pagan nations.41 As the reflections about the
various kings in Samuel and Kings show, the prophetic warnings, oral and written,
were generally not heeded and the nation was judged for this (2 Kgs 17:13; Jer
26:4–6).
The story of Israel’s failure and the prophetic warnings that went unheeded again
and again is seen in the Deuteronomic History of Israel (roughly Deuteronomy to
2 Kings). Consequently destruction came to the House of Israel in the north in 721
BCE and to the House of Judah in the south in 587 BCE. While several prophetic
texts existed before the sixth century BCE, such as Amos, Hosea, and Joel, several
did not (Haggai, Zechariah, Malachi), but this does not suggest that prophetic
literature had no affect on the earlier pious Jews. Some of that Deuteronomic
tradition dates perhaps as early as the tenth century in written form and perhaps
earlier in oral tradition.42
To account for the presence of the so-called apocryphal books in Christian Bibles
earlier scholars postulated a broader Alexandrian canon adopted by Jews in the
Diaspora and also subsequently adopted by the early Christians. As we will see,
however, Albert Sundberg has successfully discredited that view. More recently,
scholars have suggested that the Pharisees established a canon of Scriptures that
is essentially the same as the canon that obtained later among Rabbinic Jews and
formed the HB. However, some of them suggest that this took place before the
time of the separation of Jews and Christians but others argue that it was after the
separation that the mostly Pharisaic Jews established such a collection. It is also
suggested that both Josephus and a contemporary Jewish writer reflect this canon

41
James A. Sanders, From Sacred Story to Sacred Text (Philadelphia: Fortress, 1987).
42
For more complete examples of this, such as Judges, 1 Samuel, Job, the Royal Psalms, and
others, see Carr, Formation of the Hebrew Bible.
INTRODUCTION 25

(Josephus, Ag. Apion 1.37–43 and 4 Ezra 14:44–47). As we will see below, it has
also been argued that the Apostle Paul welcomed this collection. The clear promi-
nence of the Pharisees following the destruction of the Temple in 70 CE added
to their influence in shaping the HB by the middle of the second century when
the books that comprise the HB canon are first identified (b. Baba Bathra 14b).
This does not suggest that all Jews everywhere agreed with that assessment, but
eventually after several centuries that became the dominant view of the rabbinic
sages and it also held sway eventually among most Jews even in the Diaspora.
The early Christians adopted the books that were deemed sacred by their Jewish
(and most likely Pharisaic) siblings before their separation from them (ca. 62–135
CE). This collection included other books as well, including 1 Enoch and most
of the so-called Apocrypha or Deuterocanonical writings. As we will see below,
the second-century church fathers often acknowledged several of these so-called
apocryphal and pseudepigraphal writings as scripture along with most of the
books in the later HB canon.

IV. ASSUMPTIONS OF CANON FORMATION

Not all current discussions of the formation of the Bible are equally valuable since
some simply repeat previously unsubstantiated assumptions, such as: (1) if ancient
authors cited a written text, that text must have been considered sacred Scripture;
(2) if one author called a text “scripture,” then everyone in that writer’s time and
provenance did the same; (3) the absence of scriptural formulae such as “as it is
written” or “as the scriptures say” and such like mean that a text was not viewed as
sacred scripture; and (4) a collection of all of the citations, quotations, or allusions
to written texts by an ancient author constitutes that writer’s biblical canon. These
assumptions should have been laid to rest long ago, but they continue to persist as
unfounded assumptions of canon inquiry.
In recent years several significant scholarly advances in our understanding of
the formation of the biblical canon have appeared, some of which come from an
apologetic concern to defend the current biblical canon, but also from others who
simply want to know how the Bible was formed. Although the biblical canon
received some scholarly attention in the eighteenth, nineteenth, and twentieth
centuries,43 the current interest in its formation is even greater now than earlier
and there are many more publications on the horizon. Recent scholarship often

43
Much of this interest began with the research of Johan S. Semler, Heinrich H. Graetz, H. E.
Ryle, Alexander Souter, Moses Stuart, Edward Reuss, Theodore Zahn, and Caspar R. Gregory and
has been carried on more recently by Kurt Aland, Hans von Campenhausen, James A. Sanders,
Brevard Childs, Harry Gamble, Robert Grant, Bruce M. Metzger, Sid Leiman, Albert Sundberg,
F. F. Bruce, Roger Beckwith, E. Earle Ellis, John Barton, J. Trebolle Barrera, Eugene Ulrich, and
James VanderKam. See the Select Bibliography for a list of works by these scholars.
26 THE FORMATION OF THE BIBLICAL CANON, VOLUME I

challenges some of the most widely held views on the origins and formation of the
Bible, including but not limited to: (1) that, as noted above, the Hebrew Scriptures
reached their canonical acceptance among the Jews in a three-stage development
beginning around 500–400 BCE for the Pentateuch, around 200 BCE for the
Prophets, and around 90–100 CE for the Writings; (2) that the early Christians
received from Jesus a closed or fixed collection of OT Scriptures; (3) that most
collections of NT Scriptures were fixed by the end of the second century CE; and
(4) that evidence of the latter is provided by a late second-century canonical list
called the Muratorian Fragment. There is currently no scholarly consensus on any
of these positions and they continue to change. I will address these and many other
questions about the origins, stabilization, canonization, and authority of the Bible.
With little or no focus on canon formation for hundreds of years, modern
scholars are now seriously addressing many questions related to the formation of
the Bible. Some of them advocate modifying or even ignoring various parts of
its content. Kurt Aland, for example, raises the question of reducing the biblical
canon by taking out those portions that he believes are an embarrassment to
the majority of Christians with the hope that their removal will promote greater
church unity.44 Similarly, Ernst Käsemann asks about the possibility of recog-
nizing a “canon within the canon” – in essence, a selective use of the Bible – in
order to alleviate the concern over the diversity within the Bible.45 Such selectivity
is quite common today and few if any church lectionaries include all of the books
of the biblical canon even over several years. Interestingly, my wife and I attended
a Protestant worship service in which three scripture lessons were read before the
sermon. When it was time for reading the last text, a Gospel reading, all stood
and sang a song of praise before it was read and then also sang another song after
it was read. We were then we invited to be seated for the sermon. The Gospel
text was dramatically singled out for higher honor than the other two passages
from a Prophet and a Psalm. This, of course, is not unusual and some pastors
simply ignore vast portions of the biblical canon in their preaching and teaching.
Proclaiming the Gospel today appears at times to be something like proclaiming
a “canon within the canon.”
Some members of the well-known and often controversial Jesus Seminar have
likewise suggested both a reduction of the current biblical canon (eliminating
especially Revelation and other apocalyptic literature in the Bible such as Mark
13, Matt 24, etc.) and an expansion of it to include the Gospel of Thomas, the

44
Kurt Aland, The Problem of the New Testament Canon (Oxford: A. R. Mowbray & Co., 1962),
28–33.
45
E. Käsemann, “The Canon of the New Testament and the Unity of the Church,” in Essays on
New Testament Themes (London: SCM, 1968), 95–107. Dunn, Living Word, 141–42, 161–74, also
discusses the notion of a canon within the canon, albeit in a different sense, and, after describing four
levels of canonical activity or four ways to view the canon, he asks what is the most important level
of authority for exegesis and faith. He answers that it is the level of “final composition” (172).
INTRODUCTION 27

Gospel of Mary, and the “Unknown Gospel” of the Egerton Papyri and others.46
One can only imagine the response of dispensational and Adventist Christians to
a proposed rejection of the book of Revelation!
I agree with Professor Bruce Metzger, who contends that although the biblical
canon may in principle be changed, in all practicality that can no longer be
done.47 The Bible is complete and finished, but that does not mean that there are
not important issues to be resolved about its contents, origins, formation, or its
future in religious communities. This does not suggest that there is nothing of
value to be learned from examining noncanonical writings. I am aware, however,
that any changes – additions or subtractions – in the present Christian Bibles will
undoubtedly have adverse effects in various segments of the Christian community.
Such changes will doubtless cause more divisions and disputes than is wise or
practical. Although some scholars have suggested that changing the shape of the
biblical canon was a part of my original aim, in the three previous editions of this
book I have stated that this was never my intention nor have I ever suggested
adding noncanonical writings to the Bible or excluding any writings from the
Bible.48
However, it is fair to say that I do think the church would be better served if it
were informed by or acquainted with the same literature that informed the earliest
Christians. That literature included several apocryphal and pseudepigraphal books
and, as we will see, the early church fathers often indicated that some of that liter-
ature could and should be read in private for personal edification and knowledge.49
Several scholars have shown that an awareness of some of the noncanonical

46
On two occasions I have been invited to give major papers and interact with Jesus Seminar
scholars during their annual meetings on the formation and scope of the New Testament canon. I
was received well by them on both occasions in 1997 in Northern California and in 2012 during the
Society of Biblical Literature meetings in Chicago. I appreciated the interaction despite the several
differences we have in our approaches to biblical inquiry and in the implications we draw from an
examination of the relevant ancient literature related to canon formation. While we did not agree
on many items, such as the resurrection of Jesus and aspects of the activity of God in history, the
exchange was cordial and respectful. Many of their members are competent scholars and I have
enjoyed cordial interaction and friendship with several of them over the years, including Karen King
at Harvard University who was responsible for my first invitation to address the Jesus Seminar on
canon issues. Robert Funk, founder and former director of the Jesus Seminar and its related organi-
zations, the Westar Institute and Polebridge Press, was also very kind to me despite our differences
in several areas of canon formation and biblical interpretation. In my second visit to the seminar, I
again focused on canon issues and appreciated the opportunity to interact with the current members
of the Seminar. They again treated me with respect and our interaction was cordial. I have been
invited to engage in a dialogue with one of their scholars and that dialogue will be published soon
in the journal, The Fourth R. It is well known that some their members have initiated a “Canon
Seminar” to discuss creating what some members have called a “Scholars’ Canon.”
47
Metzger, Canon of the New Testament, 275.
48
See, for example, W. W. Klein, C. L. Blomberg, and R. L. Hubbard, Introduction to Biblical
Interpretation (Dallas: Word, 1993).
49
Examples of this are in Part 3 of this work, Chapter 16 §§I–V.
28 THE FORMATION OF THE BIBLICAL CANON, VOLUME I

literature can be fruitful in aiding our understanding of several biblical texts

and the context of late second Temple Judaism and early Christianity. Several
parallels to noncanonical writings can be seen in the NT itself (e.g., Matt 11:2–6
and 4Q521 which adds clarity to Jesus’ self-understanding as messiah). Some
early church fathers saw considerable value in reading noncanonical literature and
employed a special term for it in Christian collections of sacred writings, namely
“Ecclesiastical” writings.50
The story of the formation of the Bible began with an ancient religious commu-
nity’s belief that God is interested in the human condition and has acted in
significant redemptive ways that address humanity’s past, present, and future. That
belief acknowledges that God revealed a message through prophetic figures who
not only proclaimed it, but often also put it in writing. What the prophets wrote
eventually was referred to as sacred Scripture both for Jews and subsequently
for Christians. This prophetic word is at the heart of biblical faith and lies at the
root of the notion of scripture. As we will see, this word also influenced the limits
placed on the scope of those scriptures by Jews and Christians. The NT writers,
for example, tell the story about what God has done in the life, ministry, death,
and resurrection of Jesus that has great significance for those who believe in him.
This story about Jesus gave identity to a “new Israel,” the church, and its transfor-
mative power gave rise to the call to be faithful witnesses of Jesus as the Christ.
During Jesus’ ministry this story of God’s activity in him began to be shared orally
among the Jews in Palestine and subsequently portions of it were written down,
perhaps even before the death of Jesus, and it was later included in the canonical
Gospels.51 Soon after his death the story of Jesus’ ministry and teaching as well
as his death and resurrection formed the core of early Christian preaching and
became central in the collection of writings that formed the New Testament, much
as the Law is at the heart of the HB or OT. This story was used in Christian procla-
mation, instruction, and apologetics throughout the Greco-Roman world. What
was written down initially was likely not transcribed in formal or literary writings,
but likely transmitted rather on ancient notepads (codices), and later passed on in
more formal transmissions (e.g., P46 and P75). In time, more formal literary trans-
missions of the same biblical story began to use better literary structures and some
sacred name abbreviations. As we will see, the transmission of the biblical story in
writing is an important part of the larger puzzle of canonization.

50
This is discussed in Edmon L. Gallagher, Hebrew Scripture in Patristic Biblical Theory: Canon,
Language, Text, VCSup 114 (Leiden: Brill, 2012), 53–60.
51
I follow here James D. G. Dunn, Jesus Remembered, Christianity in the Making 1 (Grand
Rapids: Eerdmans, 2003), who argues that many of the stories about Jesus were likely written down
even before his death, given his popularity among his followers. See my work, Story of Jesus in
History and Faith.
INTRODUCTION 29

V. AN ADAPTABLE BIBLE

James Sanders contends that the Jews were able to adapt their authoritative
Scriptures to their ever new and changing circumstances, and the very adaptability
of those Scriptures allowed them to continue to serve as authoritative texts within
the Jewish community.52 Over many centuries of use and transmission, the biblical
writings proved to be adaptable to the changing circumstances of Jewish and
subsequently also Christian communities. As the texts became more established
in those communities of faith and when the social circumstances of each changed,
hermeneutical processes were introduced that continued to show the relevance of
those sacred texts to the ongoing communities of faith.
As the Jewish community developed, the sacred written collections expanded
when that community recognized the value of new written religious texts and
they were welcomed alongside the Law of Moses. That is, they also welcomed
a collection of prophetic writings that helped the nation understand their current
circumstances. This collection eventually not only included books now identified
as the Prophets, but also other works that were believed to be written by those in
the prophetic community. For example, Job, Psalms, Proverbs, Chronicles, Daniel,
and other books that were later placed in a separate collection subsequently called
Writings (Ketubim). Initially they were all placed in a prophetic collection that
was circulating among the Jews. Although there is clearly an emerging fixed
collection of Jewish sacred scriptures by the end of the first century CE (Josephus
and 4 Ezra) as we saw above, the separate divisions of those scriptures (Law,
Prophets, and Writings) does not appear before the middle of the second century
and was not recognized by all rabbinic Jews for at least two more centuries. This
separation of the Writings from the Prophets began in the middle of the second
century CE and was not recognized by all Jews at that time. The ancient collec-
tions of sacred writings changed initially by expansion, but at the end of the
process by reduction. For example, the rabbinic Jews did not finally accept the
popular Sirach (Ecclesiasticus) or Jewish pseudepigrapha, some of which circu-
lated among the Jews in late second Temple Judaism, but some did initially as we
will see. Christians also chose to eliminate books that had earlier been welcomed
as sacred Scripture (Shepherd of Hermas, 1 Clement, Gospel of Hebrews, and
others), but which they finally rejected.
From the beginning, the followers of Jesus accepted the scriptures of their
Jewish siblings as their sacred scriptures and they also accepted the words of Jesus
and the stories about him as normative for their faith and conduct (1 Tim 5:18; cf.
Luke 7:10 and Matt 28:19; 1 Cor 7:10 and 9:14; 11:23–25). As the church grew
in membership and in various locations in the Roman Empire the value of the
written Gospels for the emerging churches was obvious for aiding the churches in
their witness and teaching ministries. Their value appears to have been recognized

52
J. A. Sanders, From Sacred Story, 9–39, especially 23–30.
30 THE FORMATION OF THE BIBLICAL CANON, VOLUME I

almost as soon as they were written and began circulating in churches. Soon there-
after, because of their theological and practical orientation, the Letters of Paul
were also circulating in churches and welcomed as beneficial to the ongoing life of
the Christian community. The Gospels and Paul’s letters generally were not called
“scripture” before the end of the second century, but they were used as scripture
long before they received that designation. A few references to their scriptural
standing do appear earlier as we will see, but again, not generally before the end
of the second century.
Other writings were added to this growing collection of Christian texts, but later
some of those writings that were initially included in the sacred collections ceased
to be relevant to the religious needs of the Christian communities and were finally
excluded. Neglect of those texts eventually led to their disappearance in churches
and no further copies of them were made. In time most of them disappeared. Later
when fixed collections were established in churches, the books that no longer were
relevant to the ongoing life of the churches were not included in their final scrip-
tural collections (e.g., Shepherd of Hermas and Apocalypse of Peter). Of course,
not everyone agreed on what was relevant and useful and differences on these
matters appear in the various surviving catalogues of sacred writings and these
differences continued in subsequent centuries. Like in rabbinic Judaism, some OT
books were also deemed less relevant to some early Christians (e.g., Esther, Song
of Songs, Ecclesiastes) and they were “marginalized” within some sacred collec-
tions or interpreted in allegorical fashion (Song of Songs). Paul, for example,
“decanonized”53 much of the OT’s emphasis on the law, especially its focus on
clean and unclean foods and ritualistic cleansings, because such regulations were
no longer deemed relevant to his understanding of the Christian faith. This change
in the church’s understanding of the continuing relevance of several aspects of the
Law is recognizable in Paul’s writings (Rom 4–8; Gal 3–4). As we will see, in the
second century, Justin Martyr was the first teacher in the church after Paul to argue
that Christians need not observe some of the laws of Moses, especially circum-
cision, purification, and various ceremonial laws. Dunn makes the point that the
OT can never function as canon for Christians in the same way that it does for the
Jews. For the church, the NT functions to some extent as a clarification of the OT
canon and in the same way as a canon within the biblical canon.54
This precedent also leads to the question of the continuing viability and
integrity of the current biblical canon today. Are all of the books in the Bible of
contemporary relevance for believing communities? Can there be theological

53
Dunn, Living Word, 156, uses “decanonize,” and a variation of it appears in the title of an
important volume that focuses on the origins and function of biblical canons, namely, Kooij and
Toorn’s Canonization and Decanonization. It is also used among literary critics as well; see for
example, J. Guillory, “Canon,” in Critical Terms for Literary Study, ed. F. Lentricchia and T.
McLaughlin (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1990), 246.
54
Dunn, Living Word, 156.
INTRODUCTION 31

and historical integrity to the Bible in light of recent historical-critical inquiry

into its origins and formation? Carr asks a similar question that stems from his
examination of the history of use of the Song of Songs. After observing the lack
of knowledge on how that book was produced, its author’s original intent, and
its variety of interpretations, Carr concludes that the Song of Songs “is merely a
clear example of the extent to which the triumph of a critical approach can divest
a text of its canonical function”!55 He shows how a careful understanding of the
origins of a text may cause doubts about its continued use in a manner that is
foreign to its original intent. Does it thereby follow that a critical analysis of the
biblical literature ultimately leads to its “decanonization?” That, of course, is not
a certainty, but traditional interpretations of some biblical books are occasionally
at odds with what historical-critical scholarship has concluded about them.
Because of their roots in Second Temple Judaism, the early Christians were
accustomed to recognizing the authority of specific written documents as Scripture.
They did not doubt the notion of authority residing in books that later comprised
their OT, even though, as we saw in Paul and Justin, some early Christians
questioned the normative status of the law in those Scriptures (Heb 8:5–8a). The
Jewish recognition of the divinely inspired (and therefore authoritative) status of
their sacred writings became the model followed by the early churches as they
recognized the inspired status of some of their own literature as scripture. That is,
some of their writings were eventually accepted as prophetic and inspired scripture
that functioned as guidelines for faith and conduct. As we observed earlier, the
specific factors that led to this recognition are often obscure and unclear in the
surviving ancient texts.

VI. EMERGENCE OF AN OLD TESTAMENT

AND NEW TESTAMENT

The terms “Old Testament” and “New Testament” were not originally identical
to the OT and NT biblical canons that form the Christian Bible, but rather
they focused more on the notion of “old covenant” and subsequently the “new
covenant” and both notions are referred to in the HB/OT (Jer 31:31; cf. Ezek
37:26, “everlasting covenant”) and in the NT (Luke 22:20; 1 Cor 11:25; Heb 8:8,
13; 9:15; 12:24) and the “first” or “old covenant” (Heb 9:1). “Old Testament” as
a reference to the Scriptures of the Jews and of the early church is a thoroughly
Christian classification not found either in the Jewish or Christian Scriptures
themselves or in the rabbinic writings of the second century CE and following.
The origin of these terms may be rooted in Paul’s writings when he speaks of those

55
D. M. Carr, “The Song of Songs as a Microcosm of the Canonization and Decanonization
Process,” in Canonization and Decanonization, ed. A. van der Kooij and K. van der Toorn, Studies
in the History of Religion 82 (Leiden: Brill, 1998), 186.
32 THE FORMATION OF THE BIBLICAL CANON, VOLUME I

Jews who “hear the reading of the old covenant” but cannot grasp its meaning
(2 Cor 3:14). He clarifies that this is in regard to the reading of “Moses” (3:15).
The NT authors themselves do not use the term New Testament (or covenant)
to refer to writings, but rather the new covenant as that agreement between God
and his people that has roots in Jer 31:31–34 and deals with God’s forgiveness
of sin rooted in the death of Jesus (see 1 Cor 11:25; 2 Cor 3:6; also Matt 26:28;
Mark 14:24; Luke 22:20). The Jewish notion of covenant or testament (Heb. ‫)ברית‬
may reflect an early use of the term to denote a sacred book, as in Exod 24:7: “He
[Moses] took the book of the covenant, and read it in the hearing of the people”
(see also 2 Kgs 23:2, 21). The “book of the covenant” (Heb. ‫ )ספר הברית‬may have
been an extension of God’s written law. Early on, Jeremiah used the terms torah
(“law”) and covenant interchangeably (Jer 31:31–32; cf. 2 Kgs 22:8, 10; 23:2,
21). Later, Sirach used “book of the covenant” (Gk. = βίβλος διαθήκης) to speak
of the Torah (Gk. νόμος) or “law of Moses” (Sir 24:23). This is also found later in
1 Macc 1:56–57: “The books of the law that they [the Seleucids] found they tore
to pieces and burned with fire. Anyone found possessing the book of the covenant,
or anyone who adhered to the law, was condemned to death by decree of the king
[Antiochus Epiphanes].” Here the notion of testament or covenant is restricted to
the Law of Moses but it is also associated with a “book.”
Perhaps the designation was simply expanded to include the whole of the Jewish
Scriptures and “new” was attached to the Christian texts that were beginning to be
classified as sacred scripture in the latter part of the second century when we first
find “Old Testament” and “New Testament” mentioned in reference to Christian
scriptures. Because the terms law and covenant were often interchanged well
before the time of Jesus, we can understand how “old” and “new” covenant were
eventually applied to the Christian Scriptures. As close as can be determined, the
terms Old Testament and New Testament were introduced into some churches
in the last decades of the second century CE to refer to the two bodies of sacred
literature that comprised the Christians’ scriptures, but they were not regularly
used in the church for a body of sacred Scriptures until well into the fourth century
CE to distinguish the Jewish writings that we now call the OT from the more
recent Christian NT. These designations Old Testament and New Testament are
first found in the writings of Irenaeus (ca. 170–180), but it is not certain that either
of them invented these categories. Irenaeus writes:

Inasmuch, then, as in both Testaments there is the same righteousness of God [displayed] when
God takes vengeance, in the one case indeed typically, temporarily, and more moderately; but
in the other, really, enduringly, and more rigidly…

For as, in the New Testament, that faith of men [to be placed] in God has been increased,
receiving in addition [to what was already revealed] the Son of God, that man too might be a
partaker of God. (Haer. 4.28.1–2, ANF)
INTRODUCTION 33

At roughly the same time, Melito of Sardis (ca. 170–175) speaks of “the books
of the old covenant [testament]” [τὰ τῆς παλαιᾶς διαθήκης βιβλία] in a quotation
preserved by Eusebius around 325–330 (Hist. eccl. 4.26.14). We do not know if
Melito was the first to use these terms, but he is the first to identify the specific
books that comprise his “Old Testament” (see the full quotation in Chapter 9
§IV.A.1). We also find similar references in Clement of Alexandria (ca. 170;
Strom. 15.5.85). Later, Tertullian (ca. 200) similarly writes:

If I fail in resolving this article (of our faith) by passages which may admit of dispute out of the
Old Testament, I will take out of the New Testament a confirmation of our view, that you may
not straightway attribute to the Father every possible (relation and condition) which I ascribe
to the Son. (Prax. 15, ANF)

Around 220 CE in Alexandria, Origen, criticizing the gnostic Christians, wrote:

It appears to me, therefore, to be necessary that one who is able to represent in a genuine manner
the doctrine of the Church, and to refute those dealers in knowledge, falsely so-called, should
take his stand against historical fictions, and oppose to them the true and lofty evangelical
message in which the agreement of the doctrines, found both in the so-called Old Testament and
in the so-called New, appears so plainly and fully. (Commentary on John 5.4, ANF, emphasis
added; see also 10.28 and Princ. 4.11)

Origen’s use of “so-called” suggests his readers’ lack of familiarity with these
terms. Likewise, even later in the fourth century, Eusebius described Josephus’s
canon of Scripture as follows: “In the first of these he gives the number of the
canonical scriptures of the so-called Old Testament, and showed as follows which
are undisputed among the Hebrews as belonging to ancient tradition” (Hist. eccl.
3.9.5, LCL, emphasis added). Later, however, while speaking of the NT writings
he says, “At this point it seems reasonable to summarize the writings of the New
Testament which have been quoted” (Hist. eccl. 3.25.1, LCL). From this, we may
conclude that while these terms originated in the second century CE, they were
still not widely used in churches until the fourth century.
In any case, what comprised the collections of Scriptures designated by these
terms was not the same in all churches for several centuries (see Appendices A and
B). In canon 59 of the Synod or Council of Laodicea (ca. 360 CE), for instance, we
read, “[It is decreed] that private psalms should not be read in the church, neither
uncanonized books, but only the canonical [books] of the New and Old Testament
[oude akononista biblia, alla mona ta kanonika tēs kainēs kai palaias].”56 It is
not clear then what comprised those collections, but a later hand added canon 60
and listed them. For the New Testament it was all of the books in our current NT
except the book of Revelation. It is interesting that here the NT is listed before
the OT and obviously there is an acknowledgment that other books besides these

56
Daniel J. Theron, Evidence of Tradition (Grand Rapids: Baker, 1980), 125, emphasis added.
34 THE FORMATION OF THE BIBLICAL CANON, VOLUME I

were being read in the churches, much to the disfavor of the council at Laodicea!
This kind of ordering of the biblical books led to some Jewish criticism that since
the Christians had abandoned the law, it was no longer a priority in their Bibles.
Schwarz, for instance, writes concerning the order and collections of books in the
Christian OT:

This generic grouping fails to keep the Torah in a class by itself and identifies prophecy as
the climax of the Bible. These two features may account for the acceptance of this division
[i.e., “historical books” that include Genesis through Chronicles, Ezra–Nehemiah, and Esther]
in the Christian world, since Christianity abrogated Torah law and saw its own gospel as the
fulfillment of Old Testament messianic prophecies.57

For Christians, the God of the OT was indeed the God of the NT, and the conti-
nuity between these two Testaments was only occasionally questioned in the
church. When that happened, as in the case of Marcion in the second century who
had abandoned use of the OT altogether and spoke against it, the church quickly
condemned his attempt to sever its relations with its inherited past in the Jewish
Scriptures and excommunicated Marcion from the church.
Rabbinic Jews (second to the sixth centuries CE) not only acknowledged a
fixed collection of their Scriptures, but eventually also a fixed text because of
their methods of interpretation (known as “midrash”) in which special laws and
teachings were derived from the textual details of their biblical books. A fixed
text aided in their interpretation and application. Later, vowel points and musical
notations were added to the text to preserve textual integrity and authenticity of the
biblical books. The production of the Masoretic Text (MT) of the HB containing
vowel points became the standard text for most translations of the HB for most
Jews and subsequently also for Christians today. The MT had an antecedent that
is often designated as the “Proto-MT.” Except for Origen and Jerome, few of the
early church fathers had any interest in a fixed or stabilized text of the Christian
scriptures and there was little attempt to produce such a text until much later in
church history.

VII. THE PROCESSES OF CANONIZATION

An examination of the origins and development of the Bible for both Judaism
and Christianity is essentially about the processes that led to the stabilization
of several collections of writings that undergird and inform the core beliefs and
religious practices of Jewish and Christian communities of faith. The corollary to
canon formation is the belief that the writings that make up those collections have
their origin in God, that is, that they are “inspired” by God and were produced by

57
B. J. Schwartz, “Bible,” in The Oxford Dictionary of the Jewish Religion, ed. R. J. Z. Werblowsky
and G. Wigoder (New York: Oxford University Press, 1997), 121.
INTRODUCTION 35

inspired or prophetic individuals. They are therefore sacred and authoritative texts
for worship, instruction in core beliefs, mission activity, and religious conduct.
As we will observe in the next chapter, while the definition of a biblical canon
today has more to do with the end of a process, that is, with a fixed list of sacred
Scriptures that comprise the Bible, the authority or “canonical function” attributed
to those writings was recognized much earlier. The biblical books and their texts
were initially in a fluid state often for centuries and those that were finally included
in the biblical canon were those that were adaptable to meet the emerging needs of
the religious community. Many factors played a role in the complex history of the
formation of the Bible and the processes took several centuries.
There is little agreement among scholars on when canonical activity began
or when it ended. By all appearances, canonization was an unconscious process
throughout most of its development. For the church, it began with the production
of literature that was read in churches and aided in the catechetical and missional
needs of churches. Soon, as in the case of the Gospels, authority was attached
to those writings and subsequently (decades later?) they were called “scripture”
on par with the church’s Old Testament Scriptures. Eventually collections of NT
writings were circulating together such as the Gospels and Acts (P45) or just the
letters of Paul (P46) or Acts and the Catholic Epistles (a frequent combination
for centuries). Eventually all of the sacred writings were brought together into a
whole collection that functioned as the NT Scriptures of the church. When that
happened, notions of a biblical canon emerged that set the parameters of the books
that could be read in churches. There is no evidence from the time of Jesus or
before or after for several centuries that there was any interest in the notion of a
closed collection of sacred Scriptures.
In summary of what follows, Part 1 deals with the difficulty scholars have in
defining and distinguishing the terms “scripture” and “canon.” It is often surprising
to students to find out that biblical scholars are not agreed on such designations
or that scholars often use them inconsistently, an accusation also noted of this
writer that has some merit!58 Part 2 is an examination of the factors leading to the
formation of the HB Scriptures as a tripartite collection of sacred books among the
Jews with a subsequent focus on the stabilization of the Christian OT Scriptures.
Volume 2 extends this examination to the origin and stabilization of the Christian
New Testament including the various factors that influenced the formation of the
Christian Bible. The Appendices A and B in Volume 1 and C and D in Volume 2
include catalogues or canonical lists of biblical books for Jews and Christians, and
finally, a select and updated Bibliography.

58
Ulrich, “Notion and Definition of Canon,” in McDonald and Sanders, eds., The Canon Debate,
has brought my own inconsistency in this matter to my attention, and hopefully what follows will
reflect that this has now been corrected.
36 THE FORMATION OF THE BIBLICAL CANON, VOLUME I

EXCURSUS:
THE “FIRST” OR “OLD” TESTAMENT:
WHAT TO CALL THE FIRST CHRISTIAN TESTAMENT59

by
James A. Sanders

Christians have for centuries called the first of their two-testament Bible “The
Old Testament.” After the Second World War and the horrors of the Holocaust a
sensitivity arose among many Christians in the West about the appropriateness of
that time-honored title. To call the first three-fourths of their Bible “old” seemed to
indicate that it was somehow past or passé, expressing an attitude toward Judaism
itself. On the contrary, Judaism, after centuries of Christian disdain and perse-
cution, was being rediscovered and rehabilitated in Christian circles. In order to
address the problem, two possibilities, among others, then emerged: either to call
it the Hebrew Bible, or to call it the First Testament.
Both of the new appellatives have problems. First Testament seems to indicate
that there might not just be a second testament (the New Testament) but that the
door would then be opened for a third testament, or more. While this appeared
to delight a few who had wanted to add “non-canonical” literature it disturbed
many students of the Bible who for whatever reason resisted calling it the First
Testament but opted instead to call it the Hebrew Bible.
I have been rather consistent in calling it the First Testament for the simple
reason that the Christian First Testament is not, repeat, not the Hebrew Bible.
The “Old Testament” for Christians until well into the Middle Ages was based on
the Septuagint, until Roman Catholics finally decided that Jerome’s Vulgata was
the best translation to use for study and worship (displacing the Vetus Latina).
But the order of the books in the Hebrew Bible and the First Testament is quite
different and very important. The order of books of a Bible indicates the herme-
neutic by which it is expected to be read and understood. The Hebrew Bible or
Tanak is tripartite, that is, has three sections, Torah, Prophets, and Writings, but
the Christian First Testament is quadripartite, that is, has four sections, Pentateuch,
Historical Books, Wisdom and Poetic Books, and finally the Prophets.

59
The following comments are from Professor James A. Sanders, Professor Emeritus at Claremont
School of Theology and Claremont Graduate University and President Emeritus of the Ancient
Biblical Manuscript Center in Claremont, California. He has written significantly for many years
on the distinction between the Hebrew Bible or Tanak and the Christian Old Testament that he
calls First Testament. I invited him to clarify some important distinctions in his thinking about the
designations he makes in the Jewish and Christian biblical canons and he has graciously accepted
my invitation. The following is his explanation of the importance of these distinguishing factors.
INTRODUCTION 37

There are minor differences and two crucial differences between the two. The
placement in the Jewish canon of the Major Prophets immediately after the Torah
and Early Prophets (Genesis through Kings) is crucial to understanding how God
had allowed the old kingdoms of Israel and Judah to be destroyed and obliterated
by Assyria and Babylonia. It was crucial to the rise of Early Judaism out of the
ashes of the Exile; without explaining what had happened to the promises and
their failure in the old kingdoms of Israel and Judah, there could have been no rise
of the first New Israel or Early Judaism in the early Persian Period.60 It surpassed
even the extensive use of genealogies in Chronicles and Ezra/Nehemiah to bolster
the argument of Early Judaism that it was the true heir to the Patriarchal promises.
The fifteen prophetic books follow immediately upon the tragic epic, that ends
with 2 Kings, in order to explain how God was just as sovereign in their defeat as
God had been in the glorious fulfillment of the promises so triumphantly narrated
in 1 Kgs 10 at the height of Solomon’s reign. The Deuteronomic history with
its Deuteronomistic editing poignantly demonstrated the four-point summary of
prophetic theology narrated in Deut 29–31: (a) it was not God who failed us;
(b) on the contrary, we had failed God in our persistent idolatry of loving God’s
gifts rather than loving God the Giver of all gifts; (c) but if we take to heart the
lessons, learned in the disaster, of God’s sovereignty in both success and defeat
(cf. Deut 32:39; 1 Sam 2:6–7; Luke 1:51–53); (d) it will be God’s pleasure to
restore and re-create the covenant people. Those four points are precisely what the
fifteen case histories, found in the fifteen prophets that follow immediately upon
the recounting of the failed epic story narrated in Genesis to Kings, affirm. The
prophets, almost unanimously, interpreted the adversity of affliction by Assyria
and Babylonia as both judgment and God’s effort to transform the covenant people
in hope for a new Israel (Hos 2:14–15; 6:1; 14:1–2; Mic 6:8; Isa 11–15; 6:13;
28:16; 31:4–9; Jer 30:10–11; 31:2–6, 18–19, 31–34; Ezek 33:10–11; 36:24–27;
Isa 40:1–11 et passim).
In contrast, the Christian First Testament places those fifteen prophetic books
last or fourth in its quadripartite canon. Why? Because of the belief of the early
church that the prophets foretold Christ. It thus destroyed the lesson conveyed in
the Jewish canon of the Tanak, and substituted for it the conviction that the value
of the prophets had been in their foretelling of the Christ event.
The second major difference between the First Testament and the Hebrew Bible
or Tanak is in its creating an Historical (or second) Section that runs from Joshua
through Esther in the Protestant Old Testament. But that section in those forms of
a canon of the First Testament truncated by the Hebraica Veritas principle fails
to convey the hermeneutic principle seen more clearly in the older Greek (and
thus Catholic and Orthodox) canons of the First Testament where the “biblical
history” runs down through to Maccabean times. Because those older canons

60
James A. Sanders, The Monotheizing Process: Its Origins and Development (Eugene OR:
Cascade, 2014), 28–46.
38 THE FORMATION OF THE BIBLICAL CANON, VOLUME I

support the idea of God’s continuing work from Creation almost down to the first
century CE, those adhering to those canons could claim that the Gospels and Acts
rightly continued that story as it evolved in the Christ events and the origins of
the Church. It permitted Christians to add the Gospels, Acts, and apostolic letters
onto the First Testament because they continued God’s story from Creation to
the Christ event. And it argued that the Church was right to claim that it was the
True Israel. We today, again out of just regard for Jewish sensibilities, are perhaps
not unhappy that that older canonical claim has been botched. But that is not the
point. The point is that the shape and order of books in a canon convey the herme-
neutic by which it was and is to be read in study and worship. These points have
almost totally been lost in the discussion of what now to call the First Christian
Testament.61
Martin Luther, in 1519, when he began his translation project of the Old
Testament, found major differences in the manuscripts of the Tanak that he
gathered from synagogues and other sources near Erfurt. To address the problem
he devised his hermeneutic of res et argumentum, that is choosing whatever
reading could be found that would point to the Gospel of Jesus Christ.62 He also
made the crucial decision to follow Jerome’s principle of Hebraica Veritas and
thus opted in essence to include only the books that are found in the Tanak and to
relegate those not in it to deutero-canonical status, that are called the Apocrypha.
He was not aware, as most still are not aware, that Jerome when he devised his
principle of Hebraica Veritas had misunderstood Origen’s use of the obelisk
and the asterisk, borrowed from contemporary editions of Homer, in the latter’s
compilation of the Hexapla. Nor, apparently, was he aware that Augustine, who
had well understood the work of Origen, disagreed with his old friend Jerome by
proclaiming that both the Septuagint and the Hebrew text of the First Testament
were equally inspired and should be treated as such in both study and worship.63
In sum, if one wants to refer to the Jewish canon or the Tanak one should rightly
use “Hebrew Bible.” But if one wants to refer to the Christian First Testament one
might well still use the term Old Testament, but some of us still find that offensive.
In any case, one should not use the term “Hebrew Bible” if one wants to refer to
the first of the two testaments in the Christian Bible. While the text may (or may
not) be the same, they are canonically quite different and should not be confused.
I, for one, shall continue to use the term “First Testament” when referring to the
first of the Christian double-testament Bible.

61
James A. Sanders, “The Task of Text Criticism,” in Problems in Biblical Theology: Essays in
Honor of Rolf Knierim, ed. Henry T. C. Sun et al. (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1997), 315–27; and his
“ ‘Spinning’ the Bible.”
62
James A. Sanders, “Hermeneutics of Text Criticism,” Textus: Studies of the Hebrew University
Bible Project 18 (1995): 1–26.
63
James A. Sanders, “Origen and the First Christian Testament,” in Studies in the Hebrew Bible,
Qumran, and the Septuagint Presented to Eugene Ulrich, ed. Peter W. Flint, Emanuel Rob, and
James C. VanderKam (Leiden: Brill, 2006), 134–42.
 CHAPTER 2

THE NOTION AND USE OF SCRIPTURE

I. INTRODUCTION

The Scriptures are authoritative religious texts that religious people believe have
their origin in God and identify God and the will of God, including the identity
of the people of God and what they are to believe and live. Remarkably, while
there is broad agreement on what scripture is, there is significant disagreement on
how scripture and canon formation are related. They are clearly related, but also
distinct. The latter assumes the former, but not the other way around. I will explore
that issue more in the next chapter, but I start here with the meaning and function
of scripture in Judaism and early Christianity.
Among the world’s religions, Judaism, Christianity, and Islam have defined
themselves largely in terms of sacred writings that identify the scope of their faith.
The notion of scripture in these traditions appears to have come from a much
earlier belief in a “heavenly book” that contains divine wisdom and knowledge
as well as divine decrees by which adherents order their lives. The divine books
include wisdom, destinies (or laws), a book of works, and a book of life – a notion
that has earlier parallels in ancient Mesopotamia and Egypt, where a heavenly
book not only indicated the future plans of God, but also the destinies of human
beings.1 Armin Lange suggests that several ancient antecedents to divinely written
prophetic oracles show how both oral and written prophecies were common in the
Middle East as early as the ninth century BCE, but also later among the Greeks,
especially in the prophetic oracles that took place at Delphi.2

1
W. A. Graham, Beyond the Written Word: Oral Aspects of Scripture in the History of Religion
(Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1987), 49–50.
2
See his discussion of this practice in Armin Lange, “Oral Collection and Canon: A Comparison
between Judah and Greece in Persian Times,” in Jewish and Christian Scripture as Artifact and
Canon, ed. C. A. Evans and H. D. Zacharias, LSTS 13 (London: T&T Clark, 2009), 9–47; also in
the same volume, see Dorina Miller Parmenter, “The Bible as Icon: Myths of the Divine Origins
of Scripture,” 298–309, for parallels of such notions in Mesopotamia. She depends in part on Geo
Widengren, The Ascension of the Apostle and the Heavenly Book (Uppsala: Uppsala University
Press, 1950).
40 THE FORMATION OF THE BIBLICAL CANON, VOLUME I

This notion of a heavenly book is also found in the HB/OT where we see Moses
pleading with God to forgive the Israelites for their sin and offers himself on their
behalf: “ ‘But now, if you will only forgive their sin – but if not, blot me out of the
book that you have written.’ But the LORD said to Moses, ‘Whoever has sinned
against me I will blot out of my book’ ” (Exod 32:32–33). Likewise, the psalmist
writes about the future plans of God:

My frame was not hidden from you,

when I was being made in secret,
intricately woven in the depths of the earth.
Your eyes beheld my unformed substance.
In your book were written
all the days that were formed for me,
when none of them as yet existed. (Ps 139:15–16)

In the NT, this notion of a heavenly book continues as we see in the reference to
God having a “book of life” (Phil 4:3), where Paul speaks of Clement and the rest
of his colleagues in ministry “whose names are in the book of life.” The notion
of both judgment and promise based upon this book of life are also found in the
last book of the NT. See for example the author’s description of the opening of
a heavenly book in Rev 5:1, 3; 6:1–17 (see also 8:1–10:11). See also at the end
of the ages all people will stand before “a great white throne” and the visionary
author says:

And I saw the dead, great and small, standing before the throne, and books were opened. Also
another book was opened, the book of life. And the dead were judged according to their works,
as recorded in the books…and anyone whose name was not found written in the book of life
was thrown into the lake of fire. (Rev 20:12, 15)

In these texts, the notion of a divine book is present and in Revelation a divine
prophecy is given to the visionary and acknowledgement of divine books is
present throughout, including the unraveling of a divine scroll or volume (e.g.,
1:19; chs. 5–6, 8 and 10; and 22:18–19).
Such passages reflect the relationships between the heavenly divine volumes
and divinely inspired prophecy in books in the sacred traditions of both Judaism
and early Christianity. According to Graham, belief in a divine book or books gave
rise to the notion that the repository of divine knowledge and heavenly decrees
is symbolized in written Scriptures.3 Interestingly, the Qur’an also speaks of a
divine book of destinies in which “no misfortune strikes on earth or in yourselves
without its being [written] in a Book before we cause it to be” (Surah 57.22).4
Among the ancient Israelites, long before the notion of a Bible existed, normative
law was believed to have come directly from God. The Israelites believed Moses

3
Graham, Beyond the Written Word, 50–51.
4
Ibid.
THE NOTION AND USE OF SCRIPTURE 41

proclaimed the words and ordinances of God (Exod 24:3) and that he was commis-
sioned by God to write them down (Exod 34:4, 27). They believed that God
himself was the writer of the Decalogue, or Ten Commandments (Exod 34:1;
Deut 4:13; 10:4). In time they came to believe that the laws and will of God were
written and preserved in sacred writings by inspired prophetic figures.
The identity of the lost sacred writings is not always clear since there are
a number of references in the HB/OT that refer to other writings that are not
included in the biblical canon (these are listed in Chapter 4 §II below). However,
several of these writings are attributed to prophets and are viewed in an authori-
tative manner. Although those writings have all been lost, at one time they likely
functioned as written authoritative religious texts (scripture?) for some ancient
Israelites as the several references to them suggests. While it may be argued that
some of those writings appear only to be histories or “annals” of the people of
Israel and not prophetic texts, the parallels to the histories of Samuels, Kings, and
Chronicles that are viewed as sacred prophetic histories or annals should not be
ignored. Those “histories” were included as prophetic texts (Former Prophets) in
the HB scriptures and their status as histories or annals does not diminish their
prophetic significance. As we will see below, authoritative religious texts were
present and influential long before formal terms for such writings were employed
to describe them, namely, the Hebrew ketub (‫ )כתב‬or plural ketubim (‫)כתבם‬, and
the Greek γραφή and γραφαί or later Hagiographa, “sacred writings.”5

II. SCRIPTURE AS “DEFILING THE HANDS”

Jews in the late first century CE began identifying their sacred scriptures by
using the designation “defiling the hands.” Sacred books defiled the hands and
non-sacred books did not. This expression is commonly used in the Mishnah,
Tosefta, and later Talmudic literature to identify sacred scripture inspired by God.
According to Lewis, the first person known to use these words as a designation
for sacred scriptural books was Rabbi Johanan ben Zakkai (fl. ca. 40–80 CE),
who escaped Jerusalem during its siege in 70 CE and, with permission from the
Romans, established an academy and the Jewish Sanhedrin at Jamnia (Yavneh).6

5
S. Talmon, Text and Canon of the Hebrew Bible: Collected Essays (Winona Lake, IN: Eisen-
brauns, 2010), 427 n. 36, has observed in rabbinic literature that ‫כתב‬, the root of ketubim (“writings),
“is used in a variety of connotations, and covers practically all of the activities pertaining to the
making of a book: original conception, composition, committing to writing, editing, text correction,
and even “canonization” (see b. Yoma 29a; b. Meg. 7a. See also Sop 1:8; y. Meg.1:8, 71b–72a; b.
Meg. 9a’ Mek. d’Rabbi Ishmael, Bo’, 14).
6
J. P. Lewis, “Some Aspects of the Problem of Inclusion of the Apocrypha,” in The Apocrypha
in Ecumenical Perspective: The Place of the Late Writings of the Old Testament Among the Biblical
Writings and Their Significance in the Eastern and Western Church Traditions, ed. S. Meurer, trans.
P. Ellingworth, United Bible Societies Monograph Series 6 (New York: United Bible Societies,
42 THE FORMATION OF THE BIBLICAL CANON, VOLUME I

Around 50 CE this famous rabbi apparently used the phrase in a debate with the
Sadducees over whether certain revered texts “defile the hands,” but the phrase
did not become standard terminology in Judaism to distinguish its sacred literature
until later in the second century CE. An important Mishnaic text from that time
addresses the meaning of this phrase:

The Sadducees say: We have a quarrel to pick with you, O Pharisees, for according to you the
Holy Scriptures defile the hands whereas the writings of Homer would not defile the hands.
Rabban Johanan ben Zakkai (40–80) replied: Have we naught against the Pharisees save this:
According to them the bones of an ass are clean while the bones of Johanan the High Priest are
unclean? They answered him: Their uncleanness corresponds to their preciousness, so that no
man would make spoons out of the bones of his father and mother. He said to them: So too the
Holy Scriptures, their uncleanness corresponds to their preciousness. The writings of Homer,
which are not precious, do not defile the hands. (m. Yadayim 4.6, Leiman, Canonization, 107–8,
emphasis added)

Later, in the Tosefta we read: “Said to them Rabban Yohanan b. Zakkai, ‘The
preciousness of Holy Scriptures accounts for their uncleanness, so that a man
should not make them into bedding for his cattle’ ” (t. Yadayim 2:19, Neusner,
Tosefta, 1909). Another explanation for the origin of the phrase comes from
Babylon around 350–375 CE asking the following:

And why did the rabbis impose uncleanness upon a Book? Said R. Mesharshiya: Because origi-
nally food of terumah was stored near the Scroll of the Law, with the argument, “This is holy
and that is holy.” But when it was seen that they [the holy books] came to harm, the Rabbis
imposed uncleanness on them. “And the hands”? Because hands are fidgety. It was taught: Also
hands which came into contact with a Book [of Scripture] disqualify terumah (b. Sanhedrin
100a, Talmud, Soncino trans.)

It seems that the Jews were following the ancient practice of storing sacred
writings in the temple with the heave offerings to the Lord (the terumah), and
both were considered holy items. When they did this, however, mice ate not only
the terumah, but also the holy writings. As a result, the sages declared that these
writings made the hands unclean, with perhaps the hope that this conclusion
would make Jews change the place where they stored them, i.e., away from the
terumah, and the writings would thus be saved from destruction.
While the origins and thoughts behind the designation, “defile the hands,” are
vague, the above texts show that it was used to distinguish Jewish sacred literature
from other religious or non-religious texts. Some rabbis in the late first and early
second centuries CE began using “defile the hands” for their sacred books, as we
saw above in m. Yadayim 3:5: ‫“( כל כתבי הקודש מטמאין את הידים‬all holy scriptures
defile the hands”). This refers to rendering the person handling the sacred texts

1991), 170, 172–76; idem, “What Do We Mean by Jabneh?,” Journal of Bible and Religion 32
(1964): 125–32; idem, “Jamnia Revisited,” in McDonald and Sanders, eds., The Canon Debate,
146–62.
THE NOTION AND USE OF SCRIPTURE 43

ritually unclean. Lim suggests that the designation likely comes from the story
of David transporting the Ark when Uzzah touched it and died (2 Sam 6:2–8;
cf. 1 Chr 13:9–10). In this case, the defilement was of the whole person (Uzzah
died), not just the hand or hands. He concludes that “defile the hands” in m.
Yadayim 3:5 (see text below) must have meant that the effect of the Ark’s holiness
on the unsanctified is comparable to the defiling of the whole body. He explains
that since only the priest was eligible to handle Holy Scriptures in the precincts
of the Temple, all others handling them became ritually defiled or unclean.7 He
explains that in this sense, the rabbinic disputes over the sacredness of some HB
books (m. Yad. 3:5) reflect whether certain books (in this case, Song of Songs and
Qohelet or Ecclesiastes) defile an unauthorized person who comes in contact with
them. He explains: “If the book is holy, then it will make him unclean. He would
need a ritual washing to remove the uncleanness.”8 It appears that the touching of
the Ark by those unqualified to do so adversely affects them and so does touching
sacred scripture by the unqualified.
Rabbinic sages regularly employed the words “defile the hands” from the
second century CE on as a designation for their sacred scriptures.9 In m. Yadayim
3:2–5, the author uses these words to describe the holiness of a text and informs
readers about a debate over whether Song of Songs and Ecclesiastes were inspired
scriptures. The whole text is useful in understanding the meaning of the notion of
“defiling the hands” and imparting uncleanness. The text is as follows:

All the Holy Scriptures defile the hands. The Song of Songs and Ecclesiastes defile the hands.
R. Judah (135–70) says: The Song of Songs defiles the hands but there is a dispute concerning
Ecclesiastes. R. Jose (135–170) says: Ecclesiastes does not defile the hands but there is a
dispute concerning the Song of Songs. R. Simeon (135–170) says: Ecclesiastes is among the
lenient decisions of the School of Shammai and among the stringent decisions of the School of
Hillel. R. Simeon b. Azzai (110–135) said: I have heard a tradition from the seventy-two elders
on the day that R. Eleazar ben Azariah (110–135) was appointed head of the academy, that the
Song of Songs and Ecclesiastes defile the hands. R. Akiba (110–135) said: God forbid: No man
in Israel ever disputed the status of the Song of Songs saying that it does not defile the hands,
for the whole world is not worth the day on which the Song of Songs was given to Israel; for

7
See Timothy H. Lim, “The Defilement of the Hands as a Principle Determining the Holiness of
Scriptures,” JTS 61, no. 2 (2010): 501–15. He concludes on 514: “Throughout the biblical period,
both holiness and impurity were thought to have properties of contamination. In the rabbinic period,
however, the concept of sancta contagion was no longer available, and the rabbis could only express
the canonical principle in the language of impurity.”
8
Ibid., 513.
9
Rabbinic texts that use these words in reference to the Scriptures of the Jews are b. Shabbat
14a–b; b. Yoma 29a; b. Megillah 7a; b. Sanhedrin 100a; m. Eduyyot 5.3; m. Kelim 15.6; m. Yadayim
3.2–5; 4.6; t. Kelim Bava Metzi’a 5.8; t. Yadayim 2.14, 19. For Rabbinic literature that discusses
the status of noncanonical literature see m. Yadayim 4.5; t. Yadayim 2.12–13; y. Sotah 18a. These
rabbinic texts and others are listed, discussed, and translated in Sid V. Leiman, The Canonization
of the Hebrew Scripture: The Talmudic and Midrashic Evidence (Hamden, CN: Archon, 1976),
104–20, and several of them are discussed in Chapter 11 §III.C below.
44 THE FORMATION OF THE BIBLICAL CANON, VOLUME I

all the writings are holy, the Song of Songs is the holiest of the holy. If there was a dispute, it
concerned Ecclesiastes. R. Johanan (135–170) b. Joshua, the son of R. Akiba’s father-in-law,
said: Ben Azzai’s version of what they disputed and decided is the correct one. (m. Yadayim 3:5,
trans. by Leiman, Canonization, 103–4)

The relationship between holiness and defilement (i.e., the contagious nature of
holiness) probably lies behind the notion of “defiling the hands,” and this idea
likely relies on a rabbinic understanding of several HB texts, especially Hag
2:11–13 which states: “Thus says the LORD of hosts: Ask the priests for a ruling:
If one carries consecrated meat in the fold of one’s garment, and with the fold
touches bread, or stew, or wine, or oil, or any kind of food, does it become holy?
The priests answered, ‘No.’ Then Haggai said, ‘If one who is unclean by contact
with a dead body touches any of these, does it become unclean?’ The priests
answered, ‘Yes, it becomes unclean’ ” (see similar notions in Lev 6:20–30; Deut
22:9; Isa 65:5; and Ezek 44:19).
The defilement or holiness comes from touching the sacred altar and may
also lie behind the notion in later Judaism (Exod 29:37; 30:29). Later rabbinic
literature cites several of these passages to explain the holiness or defilement
transferred from what is holy to the hands. This notion of defilement from the
holy, as we saw in Lim’s argument above, likely has its roots in the famous story
of David bringing the sacred ark of God to Jerusalem from Philistia when Uzzah
reached out his hand to steady the ark when the cart stumbled and he was struck
dead, perhaps because he was not ritually clean and touched the holy object
(2 Sam 6:6–15; cf. 1 Sam 5:1–12).

III. ORAL AND WRITTEN SACRED TRADITIONS

William Schniedewind has observed that the books in the HB usually do not name
their authors since they are mostly about individuals rather than by individuals and
the key figures are usually spoken about in the third person, not the first person
unless the text is quoting a biblical figure.10 He concludes that the Bible “shows a
distressing disinterest in who wrote it,” especially distressing to later Jews living
in the Hellenistic period when the authority of a book was tied to its authorship.
In addition, he claims that the “sacred power” of a biblical book derives its power
from the presumption that Moses or Isaiah or some biblical person wrote it.11
Sirach or Ecclesiasticus is the first written text whose author is clearly identified
in the grandson’s Prologue and that may be the reason it was later rejected by
the rabbis as sacred scripture. Jewish religious texts often reflect groups and
scribes, who were not authors. The “laws of Moses” and Jeremiah, for example

10
William M. Schniedewind, How the Bible Became a Book (Cambridge: Cambridge University
Press, 2004), 7–11.
11
Ibid., 9.
THE NOTION AND USE OF SCRIPTURE 45

are clearly attributed to specific authors, but Isaiah is about what the Lord said
to him (in the third person). Perhaps the absence of names on the Gospels, Acts,
and Hebrews reflects this tradition and only later were the names of the supposed
authors attached to them. The pseudepigraphal books include names of well-
known biblical figures since they were penned later (begun late fourth century
BCE) when the Hellenistic value of authorship was introduced into literature and
subsequently it became a prominent feature in Hellenistic writings and subsequent
Jewish writings.12 This influence may also be seen in the well-known b. Baba
Bathra 14b text that for the first time identifies the authors of the Jewish scriptural
books (see this text in Chapter 11 §III.A).
It appears that Israel had a sacred oral tradition initially that was eventually put
in writing. Since Israel was largely an oral culture with very few able to read or
write, Schniedewind raises the question of why Israel’s sacred traditions were put
in writing at all and asks why the Bible became a book when only a few could
read. Orality was a prominent feature of the ancient Isrealite culture (see Ps 105:1–
2).13 Schniedewind also suggests that the writing of the commandments attributed
to God is a later insertion of writing into Exod 24:9–31:18 since once God dwells
in the tabernacle built for him, he would speak “Torah” directly to the people and
not through a written text (Exod 25:22).14 This appears corrected in Deuteronomy
and Deuteronomistic History when the text of the Law was read to the people and
was unchangeable (Deut 4:2; cf 12:32 or 13:1 in Hebrew).15

IV. SCRIBES, WRITING, AND SCRIPTURES

IN THE ANCIENT WORLD

In antiquity, scribes (Heb. ‫ )ספרים‬were highly esteemed and widely acknow-

ledged as having a divine role, especially in the Jewish community. Whatever
they wrote – much of which was simply copying what others had said – was
considered important, but did not have a sacred or scriptural importance unless

12
For a helpful discussion of the development of authorship and authority in antiquity, see Jed
Wyrick, The Ascension of Authorship: Attribution and Canon Formation in Jewish, Hellenistic, and
Christian Traditions (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 2004).
13
Schniedewind, How the Bible Became a Book, 11–12.
14
Ibid., 130–31. He says that Deuteronomy assumes that this was written, but Exodus only
mentions that God spoke the Ten Commandments (Exod 20:1–17) and the Covenant Code (Exod
20:22–23:33).
15
Ibid., 7–17. See also his “Writing and Book Production in the Ancient Near East,” in The New
Cambridge History of The Bible: Vol. 1, From the Beginnings to 600, ed. J. C. Paget and J. Schaper
(Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2013), 46–62; on the oral-written transmission of Israelite
literature, see Carr, Writing on the Tablet of the Heart, 3–14. For an in-depth and careful discussion
of the topic of the emergence and focus on authorship in the classical and Jewish contexts, see
Wyrick, The Ascension of Authorship.
46 THE FORMATION OF THE BIBLICAL CANON, VOLUME I

what was written was a religious text that was believed to have a divine authority
attached to it.16 Special virtue was attached to almost anything that was written
because it was finally “fixed”; however, although literary writings were highly
valued, when the words “it is written” were attached to them, this often reflected
divine authority. The sanctity of religious writings is noted in the Mishnah among
the ten things that were created on the “eve of the Sabbath” reflecting the sanctity
of the creation. Among the listing is included “the letters and the writing, and
the Tables [of stone]” (m. Aboth 5.6, Danby trans.). This is not unlike the scribal
role in ancient Mesopotamia when Nabu, the eldest son of Marduk who was “the
king of the gods,” was praised for his scribal activity. He was the patron deity of
Babylon and honored by the Assyrians and later Persians. Nabu was the record
keeper of the heavenly council and custodian of the Tablets of Destiny. He was
known to the ancient Jews as Nebo (Isa 46:1). Schniedewind draws attention to
the fact that Moses died at Mt. Nebo and asks whether this was coincidental that
the scribe of the Law died at a place named after Nabu (Nebo) the scribal god and
whether because of this the name was later changed to Pisgah (Deut 3:27; 34:1) to
disassociate Moses from the Mesopotamian god.17 Could the notion of the Tablets
of Destiny overseen by Nebu be an equivalent to the biblical “book of life”? That
is difficult to prove, but some parallels are interesting.
The importance of writing things down can be seen in Rev 1:19, in which
solemn words were often inscribed or written in books (see also Rev 2:17;
14:13; 19:16). The Scriptures were considered sacred because they revealed
the very word of God, and consequently they were preserved and revered both
among Jews and later among Christians. For example, when the Jews objected
to the inscription that was placed over Jesus’ cross indicating the charge against
him, namely, “King of the Jews,” Pilate responded, “What I have written I have
written” (John 19:22).18
According to Farley, the basic properties of scripture for both ancient Judaism
and early Christianity include at least four essential ingredients: (1) they are
written, (2) have divine origin, (3) communicate the will and truth of God, and
(4) function as an enduring source of regulations for the corporate and individual
life of the people.19 Layton adds that when a group of Christians recognized that
a particular writing contained the presence of inspired authority it was elevated to
the status of Scripture.20 He observes, however, the limited agreement in the early
church on inspired authority and finds only sporadic affirmation of the scriptural

16
Bar-Ilan, “Writing in Ancient Israel and Early Judaism: Scribes and Books in the Late Second
Commonwealth and Rabbinic Period,” in Mulder, ed., Mikra, 21–37.
17
Schniedewind, “Writing and Book Production in the Ancient Near East,” 49–50.
18
P. R. Davies, “The Jewish Scriptural Canon in Cultural Perspective,” in McDonald and Sanders,
eds., The Canon Debate, 42–44.
19
See E. Farley, Ecclesial Reflection (Philadelphia: Fortress, 1982), 58; and also D. H. Kelsey, The
Uses of Scripture in Recent Theology (Philadelphia: Fortress, 1975), 89–94, for a similar definition.
20
B. Layton, The Gnostic Scriptures (Garden City, NY: Doubleday 1987), xviii.
THE NOTION AND USE OF SCRIPTURE 47

status of Christian writings in the first three centuries. For him, scripture is about
a body of written religious literature that members of a religious group consider
authoritative in matters of belief, conduct, rhetoric, or the running of practical
affairs.21 (For a more in depth discussion of inspiration and the role of the Spirit,
see Chapter 5 §§VII–X, as well as Chapter 22 §II.F.)
The above descriptions of the notion of scripture are only part of the early
church’s perspective on scripture. For many early Christians, scripture at its core
was both christological and eschatological, that is, they believed that the Jewish
Scriptures had their primary fulfillment in Jesus (e.g., Matt 2:5, 17, 23; 3:3; 4:14;
Mark 14:49; 15:28; Luke 4:21; Acts 1:16; John 17:12; 19:24, 28). Paul acknowl-
edges this fulfillment motif in the Christian community (see Rom 4:23; 15:4;
16:26; 1 Cor 9:10; 10:11), but also acknowledges Jesus as the primary norm for
interpreting the Scriptures in the early churches (see especially 2 Cor 3:12–16).
This does not negate the church’s acceptance of the unimpeachable authority of
the OT Scriptures in themselves (John 10:35; Matt 5:18), but as Schrenk observes,
for primitive Christianity Scripture is “the authoritative declaration of the divine
will,” but it is “not valid apart from the ‘I say unto you’ [of Jesus],” – that is, it
had a christological fulfillment.22
Childs astutely observes that the early Christians, following their encounter with
Jesus, understood Scripture in a theologically different way than did their fellow
Jews. The church adopted its notion of Scripture as an authoritative collection
of sacred writings from the Jews, along with a largely undefined collection of
scriptures circulating among the Jews when Christianity separated from Judaism.
Childs’ claim that Christology shaped Christianity’s basic stance toward its sacred
scriptures is correct, along with his conclusion that for the early church “the Old
Testament functioned as Christian Scripture because it bore witness to Christ.
The Scriptures of the Old and New Testament were authoritative in so far as they
pointed to God’s redemptive intervention for the world in Jesus Christ.”23 This
does not mean, of course, that the early Christians failed to recognize the authority
of their inherited scriptures before their contact with Jesus, but only that after

21
Ibid. Layton’s understanding of canon, however, is not as clear because he suggests the presence
of several closed canons of Christian literature before 200 (xix–xxi). If, however, we can speak at
all of a completed biblical canon before 200 CE, it was only in rabbinic Judaism, but there is no
evidence that such notions were present among Christians then. As we will see in Chapter 9 §§ III
and V.A.1, Melito’s canon or list of sacred Old Testament Scriptures may have been derived from
his contact with Jews on his famous visit to Palestine ca. 180 CE. Besides that, only Irenaeus’
fourfold fixed gospel canon is known from that time. Whether Marcion (ca. 140–150) had a biblical
canon as such is highly debatable (see discussion of Marcion in Chapter 18 §II). Layton provides no
evidence for the existence of multiple Scripture canons before 200 CE.
22
G. Schrenk, “γραφή,” TDNT 1:759–61. See also James Barr, Holy Scripture: Canon, Authority,
Criticism (Philadelphia: Westminster, 1983), 14–15; and Werner George Kümmel, Introduction to
the New Testament, trans, H.C. Kee, rev. ed. (Nashville: Abingdon, 1975), 335.
23
Childs, Biblical Theology, 64.
48 THE FORMATION OF THE BIBLICAL CANON, VOLUME I

their encounter with Jesus they read them in an altogether different light because
of the impression that Jesus made on them. This Christological approach to their
Scriptures began with an encounter with Jesus and subsequently was introduced
into the early Christians’ interpretation of their scriptures. It was precisely because
they recognized the authority of their scriptures in all matters related to life and
faith before their encounter with Jesus that they sought diligently to situate his
story within their scriptures. Jesus’ early followers recognized him as Lord and
Christ but this recognition did not begin with an exegesis of their scriptures, but
rather, and again, with their personal encounter with him (John 9:1–12).
The early Christians’ recognition of the authority of the scriptures led them
to seek through midrashic (or pesher) exegesis, a popular Jewish methodology
of interpreting the Scriptures that focused on their own generation and present
circumstances. This hermeneutical methodology presented to the Christians
a means whereby they could proclaim Jesus as their Messiah who was also a
fulfillment of their scriptures. This reflects the authority and normativity of those
scriptures among the Jews in the first century CE and how closely connected the
earliest followers of Jesus were to their Jewish siblings, their shared scriptures,
and current interpretive methodologies. As we have seen, it is difficult today to
discern all that Jesus did or said or understand his fate from a careful exegesis or
interpretation of those inherited scriptures. The earliest followers of Jesus began
their journey of faith through an encounter with him and subsequently found
support for him, his life, teachings, and fate in their interpretations of selected
scriptures (see for example, Matt 2:13–15; 1 Cor 15:3–5).
Chapman’s view, if I understand him and his opposition to my position, appears
to say that one could not confess Jesus as the Christ apart from an exegesis of the
biblical texts. This appears to put the cart (exegesis) before the horse (an encounter
with Jesus).24 As we will see, confusion results from an imprecise definition of
canon. This does not suggest that the church’s biblical canon is “somehow in
competition with the church’s commitment to Jesus.”25 Indeed, the opposite is
true. The early church’s proclamation was never in competition with the church’s
scriptures, but neither did the church come to any firm conclusions about Jesus,
rooted in the OT scriptures, apart from first having come in contact with Jesus.
This is a question, not of either or, but only which came first. Both are essential
features of early Christianity. That interpretation of Jesus was not the interpre-
tation of the scribes and religious leaders of that day, but rather one that came
from the followers of Jesus after their encounter with him. Jesus was an observant
Jew and regularly cited the HB scriptures in regard to his ministry. At the close of
his earthly ministry Jesus explained his ministry to his followers from the Jewish

24
S. B. Chapman, “The Canon Debate: What It Is and Why It Matters,” Journal of Theological
Interpretation 4, no. 2 (2010): 273–94, here 288–94.
25
S. B. Chapman, “What Are We Reading? Canonicity and the Old Testament,” Word & World
29, no. 4 (2009): 334–47, here 346.
THE NOTION AND USE OF SCRIPTURE 49

scriptures (Luke 24:25–27 and 44). Could or would late Second Temple Jews
have figured everything out about Jesus from their scriptures without having met
or encountered him? There is no evidence for that, but having met him, for many
it all came together and using the interpretive or hermeneutical tools available to
them at that time that they had acquired from their Jewish siblings, they chris-
tologically and eschatologically interpreted anew their sacred Jewish Scriptures.
The book of Acts claims that the community life of the early church focused
on “the apostles’ teaching” (Acts 2:42) and we can see from Acts how the early
Christians viewed and proclaimed the story about Jesus within a scriptural
perspective. While the regular daily activities do not appear at first to have focused
much on the OT Scriptures (2:46–47), the book of Acts is nevertheless sprinkled
throughout with OT references that were employed as sacred texts for preaching
about Jesus (e.g., 2:17–21, 25–28, 34–35; 4:25–26; 8:32–33; passim). One does
not find any particular devotion to an interpretation of the OT Scriptures in most of
the NT and the frequent citations of the OT texts do not reflect an extended inves-
tigation or exegesis of them, though there is some evidence of this in the book of
Hebrews. Second Timothy 2:15 and 3:14–17 may not be reflective of the earliest
practices of the early church, but they certainly were soon thereafter.

V. THE EMERGENCE OF SCRIPTURES IN ANCIENT ISRAEL

Several OT texts have an admonition from a prophet about keeping the Law of
Moses, or simply “the Law,” but most of them are toward the end of the OT era,
namely, after the time of the reforms of Josiah (2 Kgs 17:13; 23:1–3; cf. 2 Chr
34:1–7). Before those reforms, there are, as noted above, references to observing
the law of God (Hos 4:6; Amos 2:4) or an awareness of stories in the Pentateuch
(e.g., Hos 12:2–6), but it appears that the laws of God given through Moses
were largely ignored or unfamiliar to the people of Israel. For example, there
are numerous places where a prophet spoke a word of admonition to ancient
Israel from the Lord, but he could have strengthened his case considerably by
citing a text from the Law. Amos, for instance, could easily have enlisted specific
texts from the Law to support his accusations against Israel (see Amos 2:6–16;
5:1–6:14; 7:1–9:15) had they been circulating in some canonical (authoritative)
fashion in the eighth century BCE, but he did not. Although Hosea warns the
people of Israel that they had “forgotten the law of your God” (Hos 4:6; cf.
Amos 2:4 and 6), in several locations he could have cited specific texts from the
Decalogue about having no other gods before the Lord their God (Exod 20:3–6)
and thus considerably strengthened his case. While this may be assumed given
Israel’s pursuit of other gods and the example of Gomer and the parallels to the
nation, it is not stated with reference to specific laws that were violated. Was the
“law” that was forgotten an oral tradition behind the Pentateuch or the Decalogue
known by some prophetic figures and a few others, or a large collection of laws
50 THE FORMATION OF THE BIBLICAL CANON, VOLUME I

in Exodus and Leviticus circulating among the Jews and kept in the Temple?
Hosea (perhaps 721–720 BCE) referred to Israel’s unfaithfulness to Yahweh (Hos
2:11–13 and 4:1–11) and this implies a failure to keep the first commandment. In
Hos 6:7 and 8:1 an “agreement” is mentioned, but is this the same as an acceptance
of the Decalogue in Exod 20? Amos 2:4 may be more focused on statutes of the
Law of Moses and the reference in Amos 2:12 appears to be aware of the Nazirite
laws in Num 6:1–3. Amos may have been written sometime between 788 and 747
BCE and his prophecy was followed by the devastation of the Northern Kingdom
in 721 BCE. Both Amos and Hosea had later Judean edits and additions to their
text and for the most part those are discernible in the texts reflecting admonitions
to individuals as well as nations. The additions to those texts likely reflect post-
exilic times when the terrible consequences of rebellion came to the nation and
also when hope was renewed to the people.26
The lack of widespread awareness of the Law can be seen in the story of Nathan
the prophet who could also have strengthened his case against David’s adultery
and murder by charging him with violating “you shall not kill” and “you shall not
commit adultery” from the Decalogue (2 Sam 12:1–15; cf. Exod 20:13–14), but
he does not. He does say that David has broken (“despised”) the word of the Lord
(12:9) and “utterly scorned the Lord” (12:14), but he does not say what “word of
the Lord” was scorned. Was this Nathan’s own perceived understanding of the
will of God? It is difficult to read into this passage any reference to a codified
law that prohibited such conduct, but it appears that even if it did stand behind
the prophet’s message, the specific citing of a specific well-recognized violation
of a sacred Scripture or code would have added significantly to the impact of his
message to David and later readers who would tell this story. Joshua appeals to
the keeping of the “book of the law,” or “law of Moses,” or “covenant” (Josh
1:8; 23:6, 16; 24:25–27), but this kind of reference is rare and reflects the later
Deuteronomistic History perspective.
This focus on the Law is not as obvious in Judg 6:8–10 that refers to a
prophet without any clear recollection of a particular sacred text. There is one
text in Judges that reflects on the commandments given through Moses. After
commenting on the nations that Israel had to overcome in order to occupy their
land, the author says those nations were there “for the testing of Israel, to know
whether Israel would obey the commandments of the Lord, which he commanded
their ancestors by Moses” (Judg 3:4). In 1 Sam 12:14–16, the Israelites are
warned not to rebel against the “command of the Lord,” but it is not clear what
this command specifically is, though the context favors the first commandment
and that can be seen in the admonition of Samuel to “fear the Lord and serve him
faithfully” (12:24; cf. also 13:13 and 15:24). There are no other references to the
Law of Moses or divine commandments in Judges, Ruth, or the two Samuels,

26
John J. Collins, Introduction to the Hebrew Bible (Minneapolis: Fortress, 2014), 307–23,
discusses both of these prophets and the additions to them by the Judeans at a later date.
THE NOTION AND USE OF SCRIPTURE 51

and Job. Psalm 19:7–14 and Book V of the Psalter (Pss 107–150) show signs
of a post-exilic origin with references to the Law. So also especially in Ps 119,
Deuteronomy, Proverbs, Job, Jeremiah, Ezekiel, and Isa 40–55, but there are few
references to the Law in the earlier Former Prophets (Joshua–2 Samuel) apart from
the opening introduction to Joshua (1:1–9) and 8:30–35 (cf. also 17:4; 22:5; and a
vague reference in 24:26). There are only vague references to the “commandment
of the Lord” in Judg 2:17; 3:4 (similarly 1 Sam 12:14–15; 13:13–14; 15:24, but
it is not clear if these are references to the Decalogue, laws, or commands of
Moses). In the pre-exilic period of Israel’s history the temple and the monarchy
were symbols of the divine presence, but after they were destroyed in 586 BCE,
the chief symbol for the post-exilic period was Torah, the laws and teachings
attributed to Moses.27 Proverbs, like the Psalms, is a composite of several collec-
tions of wisdom sayings. It appears that most of the Proverbs are pre-exilic, but
some (Prov 1–9 and possibly also Prov 28–29) are more likely post-exilic.
Whatever inferences may reasonably be drawn from the few citations of the
Law or the prophets in the pre-exilic era, especially during the time of the Judges,
Samuels, and 1 Kings, it appears that scriptural authority was not an important
matter for the people of Israel until the time of Josiah briefly and later Ezra. If
the Torah had been formed in its present Pentateuchal condition before Josiah’s
reforms and circulated among the Israelites, the laws themselves apparently did
not have much of an impact on the movers and shapers of Israel’s pre-exilic tradi-
tions as they did after the exile. If the Law had been received and functioned as
canon or absolute authority in Israel earlier, why does it not function as canon
more prominently before the reforms of Josiah in 621 BCE (2 Kgs 22:3–23:25 //
2 Chr 34:14–35:27)?28 At the end of the First Temple period it appears that there
was a concerted effort to show the relevance of the laws of Moses to the people
and the importance of observing those laws (Ezra 10:2–3; Neh 8:1–8). With the
reforms of Ezra there is a clear call to obey and observe the laws of Moses, but
even here scholars have been uncertain whether the “law of Moses” in Neh 8:1–8
refers to the Pentateuch, the book of Deuteronomy, or simply the laws themselves.
As we will see below, it would hardly have been possible to read the whole of the
Pentateuch to the people in the amount of time mentioned in Neh 8:3. However,
the references to the law in Neh 8–10 suggest more than simply Deuteronomy or
the specific laws were known, but how much more is uncertain.

27
Willem S. Prinsloo, “The Psalms,” in Eerdmans Commentary on the Bible, ed. James D. G. Dunn
and John W. Rogerson (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 2003), 364–436, here 421–23.
28
Barr, Holy Scripture, 6–8, contends that in the earlier stages of Israel its religion was not yet
the scriptural religion that it later became. It is likely that only the Deuteronomic code is behind the
reforms of Josiah, as many Old Testament scholars suggest. Only in the later stages of the religion
of Israel do we find a concern for the interpretation of former prophetic writings, as in the case of
Dan 9:2 focusing on the meaning of the seventy weeks of Jer 29:10.
52 THE FORMATION OF THE BIBLICAL CANON, VOLUME I

Ezra and Nehemiah (perhaps ca. 458 BCE if written during the reign of
Artaxerxes I, or 398 BCE if during the reign of Artaxerxes II) reflect this new
emphasis on the laws of Moses. When the Jews returned from Babylon they
reportedly renewed their commitment to the “law of Moses” (or “laws” – though
they may not be the same as the Pentateuch) as we see mentioned in the books of
Ezra (3:2; 6:18; 7:6, 10, 12, 21, 25, 26; 10:2–3) and Nehemiah (8:1–9, 13–14, 18;
9:3, 13, 14, 29; 10:28, 29, 34, 36; 12:44; 13:3).
Ezra also mentions specific names of writing prophets, Haggai and Zechariah
(5:1–2; 6:14), and refers to an even broader group of prophets who delivered
the commandments of God: “For we have forsaken your commandments, which
you commanded by your servants the prophets…” (Ezra 9:10–11). Nehemiah
mentions false prophets in 6:7, 14 and the prophets of God in 9:26, 30, and 32. As
one can see, the “law of Moses” is given highest priority (Neh 8:1–8) though all
of the Pentateuch was not likely read to the people on the one morning,29 but as
we see in Ezra 5:1 and Neh 9:26, doubtless other prophets were also considered
important through whom the Lord commanded his people to a life of faithfulness
and obedience. We should note that in Ezra and Neh 8–10 there are references that
reflect awareness of the first six books of the HB (the Hexateuch), namely, Genesis
(Neh 9:6, 7–8), Exodus (Neh 9:9–11, 12–21), Leviticus (Ezra 3:4; 6:19–22; Neh
8:14–17; 10:32; 13:15–22), Numbers (Neh 9:12–22), Deuteronomy (Ezra 3:4;
6:19–22; Neh 10:32; 13:1–2; 13:25), and Joshua (Neh 9:23–25; cf. 9:26–37).30
Similarly, the Edict of Artaxerxes (Ezra 7:11–26) may be less plausible than
earlier assumed (this is discussed in Chapter 4 §V). Since Neh 9 shows knowledge
of Joshua as well as the Pentateuch (cf. Neh 9:23 with Josh 1:7–9) and Ezra 6:18
seems familiar with 1 Chr 24:3 and also 1 Chr 23–27,31 it is safe to say that Ezra–
Nehemiah were familiar with several non-Pentateuchal books. The point here is
that the scriptures in their day appear to have included more than the Pentateuch
and the Torah was broader in scope than the Pentateuch. While there was an
awareness of some of the writings of the prophets, priority was nevertheless given
to the “law(s) of Moses.”32

29
As many scholars already know, this passage, as commonly understood, is clearly overstated
since it would be difficult indeed to read to the people the whole Pentateuch in one sitting from dawn
to noon. Lim observes this difficulty by noting that if the whole Pentateuch was read from early
morning to mid-day, Ezra would have had to read 974 verses for each of the six hours assumed by
the text, that is 16 verses per minute – a fast read for anyone to speak let alone to hear! See Timothy
H. Lim, The Formation of the Jewish Canon (New Haven: Yale University Press, 2013), 64.
30
These are listed in Timothy H. Lim, “A Theory of the Majority Canon,” Expository Times 124,
no. 7 (2013): 1–9, here 4.
31
These references are listed in Lim, ibid. 69. He concludes this list by saying that other passages
could be added to the list, but these reflect Ezra–Nehemiah’s familiarity with several non-Penta-
teuchal biblical books.
32
For a more complete discussion of Ezra–Nehemiah in current scholarly discussion, see Lim,
Formation of the Jewish Canon, especially Chapter 4.
THE NOTION AND USE OF SCRIPTURE 53

Most, if not all, of the Former Prophets were probably also a recognized
authority in the time of Ezra, especially when the people of Israel believed that
God had judged them because they had failed to listen to the prophets who
witnessed to or proclaimed the message of the Law (Ezra 9:10–15).33 In the
time of Ezra, however, it appears that only the Mosaic codes were given a fixed
canon-like recognition, and the prophets themselves were not yet brought into that
arena as a collection, even though they were mentioned occasionally. References
to the prophets in the postexilic writings of Ezra–Nehemiah have to do with
the prophets’ public proclamation and to their work on the temple, but little is
said about their literary productions (Ezra 5:1–2 [Haggai and Zechariah]; 9:11;
Neh 6:7, 14; 9:26, 30, 32). Had the Prophets existed as a complete collection of
sacred writings in the time of Ezra, it would follow that it would have been an
appropriate time to introduce them to the people as such. The books (or laws) of
Moses were mentioned far more frequently in Ezra and Nehemiah and clearly had
priority in both writings. Either earlier than Ezra–Nehemiah or approximately the
same time the author of 2 Kgs 17:13 reflects an awareness of the “commandments
and my statutes” of God that were given through God’s “servants, the prophets.”
Similarly, there are a number of references in 2 Kings to the “law of Moses” as
noted above and to various statutes of God. The date of the composition of 2 Kings
is likely sometime after Evil-merodach – the last monarch mentioned in 2 Kings,
who ruled ca. 562 BCE (2 Kgs 25:27–30) – and it appears to have been inspired by
the book of Deuteronomy. 1 Kings was likely written earlier following the death
of Josiah (ca. 620 BCE) and has only one reference to the “law of Moses” (1 Kgs
2:2–3). There are several more examples of this in 2 Kings that was completed
after the fall of Jerusalem (ca. 562–530). Throughout Judges, the Samuels, and 1
Kings there are few references to the law of Moses or the commands of the Lord
(if they are understood to be the same as the law of Moses).
More problematic for canon purposes is that although by the second century
BCE many of the books later identified as the Prophets were recognized as scrip-
tural texts, the texts of those books were not yet stable. In the Qumran community,
for instance, it was not uncommon during Hellenistic and Roman times for scribes
to make changes in spelling and orthography and even delete sentences from the
Torah and other scrolls found at Qumran. The Law, Prophets, and Psalms carried
considerable scriptural authority in the pre-rabbinic times, but even if they had
graduated to the rank of Scripture sometime in the second century BCE their text
was not inviolable.34 For example, even though the Psalter was widely accepted as

33
The prophets witnessed to or reminded the people of the Law of Moses in regard to intermarriage
(cf. Exod 34:15–16; Deut 7:1–5). The judgment came as a result of the nation’s failure to listen to the
message from Moses, which was viewed as inviolable, but it is not clear what other writings were
so viewed at this time.
34
D. J. Silver, The Story of Scripture: From Oral Tradition to the Written Word (New York: Basic,
1990), 141.
54 THE FORMATION OF THE BIBLICAL CANON, VOLUME I

Scripture long before the first centuries BCE and CE, the scribes at Qumran felt
free to make significant additions to the Psalter’s text, provide elaborations of it,
and even revise it.35 This suggests that for those at Qumran the Jewish Scriptures,
including the Torah, had not yet become textually fixed or inviolable. The apparent
inviolability of Scripture that we see in Matt 5:18 is not found in practice among
the scribes at Qumran, or at the least, they did not share the later rabbinic position
that rejected any textual changes to the Scriptures.
Evidence that the Prophets had not yet been placed in a fixed sacred collection
by the early third century BCE can be seen in the initial translation of the Hebrew
Scriptures into Greek in the Septuagint (LXX, ca. 280–250 BCE), which included
only the Law or Pentateuch. Had the other OT scriptures been recognized as
a sacred scriptural collection among the Jews in Alexandria at that time, they
would likely have been included in that initial translation project. The Prophets
were eventually translated by ca. 130 BCE and were included among the scrip-
tural collections already circulating among the Jews in Palestine as the Prologue
to Sirach suggests. Several of the books later called Writings (Heb. ‫ )כתובים‬that
comprised the third part of the HB, were also circulating among the Jews no later
than the second century BCE and were translated into Greek and also added to
the LXX. These additional texts were initially also referred to as “prophets” and
included in the prophetic collection of scriptures well into the end of the first and
beginning of the second centuries CE.
Since no complete copies of the LXX exist from the turn of the Common Era,
we cannot know precisely what books were included in the LXX at that time. We
do know, however, that after it’s beginning in the early third century BCE the
LXX eventually expanded to include not only books that were later identified as
the Prophets and the Writings, but also several apocryphal and pseudepigraphal
books. In more than 90% of the citations of the Jewish scriptures in the NT, the
authors made use of the LXX. They also cited books that were later included in
all three parts of the HB (Law, Prophets, and Writings), but this does not suggest,
as some contend, that the three part HB canon existed at that time. There is no
suggestion of a tripartite biblical canon of the Jewish scriptures in the NT. The
later tripartite divisions of the HB Scriptures were unknown to the NT writers
who were informed by most of the books in the HB but also by other sacred texts
as well (e.g., Heb 1:2–3; Jude 14, etc.). With one exception, Luke 24:44, the rest
of the references to the Jewish Scriptures in the NT are of the Law or the Law
and the Prophets. As we will see in the discussion below (Chapter 8 §III), some
scholars suggest that Luke 24:44 implies that the third division of the HB (namely,
“psalms” is equivalent to all the Writings or Ketubim) was known during the first
century CE. However, as we will see below, that verse should be understood in
light of Luke 24:25–27 and while the 24:44 text may reflect an early stage of an

35
James A. Sanders, “Cave 11 Surprises and the Question of Canon,” McCormick Quarterly 21
(1968): 284–317.
THE NOTION AND USE OF SCRIPTURE 55

emerging third category of Jewish scriptures, the majority of Jewish and Christian
writers at that time knew only the two well-known divisions of the HB Scriptures,
namely Law and Prophets. Further, it is not clear what comprised the second
division, the Prophets, at that time. It is quite possible that all of the books that
comprised what we now call the HB were viewed as scripture in the time of Jesus
and before and identified among the prophets, but so were other books by some of
the Jews, as we will see presently. Those scriptures that were later included in the
third category called the Writings (‫ )כתובים‬were initially identified as “prophets.”
The canonical categories in the HB were not complete or distinct at the time of
the writing of Luke. The first time we see an itemized listing of the HB books in
the three divisions of books that now comprise the HB is in the middle to late
second-century rabbinic text b. Baba Bathra 14b. The categories of writings in
Josephus (Ag. Apion 1.37–43; see Chapter 10 §I) do not easily fit with the later
three divisions seen in the b. Baba Bathra 14b text that may have originated in
Babylon, although that is disputed.
The authority attributed to the LXX in antiquity is obvious from the propa-
gandistic description of the translation in the legendary Letter of Aristeas (ca.
150–130 BCE). This sensational description continued in the writings of Philo,
Josephus, and several early church fathers. For the author of this letter, the Law of
Moses was unquestionably accepted as inviolable Scripture. The translation was
likely based on a standard Hebrew text from Jerusalem, but notions of a fixed text,
though popular in the writings of Josephus (Ag. Apion 1.42), are more hyperbole
than reality. In theory at least, but never in reality, the notion of an immutable text
was present also in the first century CE (Matt 5:18).36
The Letter of Aristeas clearly reflects the high priority attributed to the
Pentateuch in the formation of the HB. Had the Prophets and Writings already
obtained the same scriptural status attributed to the Law when the LXX translation
was produced, it is puzzling why they were not also mentioned in the Letter of
Aristeas or included in the initial LXX translation in Alexandria. Timothy Lim has
recently questioned the common assumptions that the translation was of the whole
Pentateuch since Genesis is largely ignored in this so-called Letter and it may
have only been a translation of Exodus, Leviticus, Numbers, and Deuteronomy, a
different Tetrateuch (which usually refers to Genesis to Numbers). Since the word
“Pentateuch” does not occur in the letter and the meaning of “law” is not precise,
Lim asks whether the Pentateuch as we now have it was in view.37 If Lim is
correct, the question follows about what can be gleaned from the Letter of Aristeas
and the scope of the Jewish Scriptures in the last two centuries BCE. On the other
hand, Timothy Law contends that the Letter of Aristeas does refer specifically to

36
F. M. Cross discusses this and the implications that the discovery of the Dead Sea Scrolls now
have on this topic in his From Epic to Canon: History and Literature in Ancient Israel (Baltimore
and London: Johns Hopkins University Press, 1998), 205–12.
37
Lim, Formation of the Jewish Canon, 88–89.
56 THE FORMATION OF THE BIBLICAL CANON, VOLUME I

the Pentateuch.38 The evidence for the Letter focusing only on the translation of
books in the Pentateuch can be found in several texts with references throughout
the Letter;39 however, Lim’s comments about the possible lack of Genesis should
not be ignored. The attractive and meticulous form in which the Law is brought
from Jerusalem (§§176–77) reflects the priority regularly given to the Law in all
Jewish tradition since the time of Ezra. When combined with the special number
seventy-two (§51) that may refer to the seventy that Moses took with him to
Sinai along with Joshua (= seventy-two total, cf. Exod 24:9–14), and the time
that it took to do the translation (supposedly seventy-two days, §307), which is
hardly sufficient for translating all of the books in the HB, did the Aristeas Letter
intend more than the Pentateuch? Lim observes that passages from Exodus to
Deuteronomy appear in the Letter of Aristeas and notes a possible allusion in
§277 to Gen 2:7.40
Finally, most scholars agree that the most likely place where the Letter of
Aristeas was written was Alexandria. This is also the home of Philo who refers
to the remarkable translation of the Hebrew Scriptures without specifically
mentioning the Aristeas letter (Mos. 2.25–44), but the remarkable tradition of the
Letter is clearly in view despite several differences in detail.41 Philo remarkably
almost restricts his citations of the Jewish scriptures to the Torah or Pentateuch.
Of the more than 1100 citations, only about 50 are from books outside of the
Pentateuch. I will say more about that later. Almost everything in the Letter fits
with the books in the Pentateuch. Again, my point is that if the Prophets, as a
collection, had been identified as a major part of Israel’s Scriptures when the trans-
lation was made (ca. 280–250 BCE), why were they not included in the Greek
translation? Given the propagandist flavor of the Letter, it would be remarkable if
the Prophets had achieved the status of a fixed sacred collection of sacred scrip-
tures and were not even mentioned in the Letter.
From the fifth century BCE, if not sooner, it appears that a higher priority was
regularly given to reading and interpreting the laws of Moses (Pentateuch) over
other sacred books. Further, the actual handling of the sacred scrolls themselves
reflects this special place of Torah among the Jews. Scribes were not allowed

38
Timothy M. Law, When God Spoke Greek: The Septuagint and the Making of the Christian Bible
(Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2013), 35–39.
39
For example, “divine Law” (§3), “the sacred/holy Law” (§5), “law books of the Jews (§10),
“the laws” (§15), “laws of the Jews,” “Scrolls of the Law of the Jews” (§30), “these books” (§31),
“your Law” (§38), “the Law” (§§122, 176, 313), “laws” (§127), “lawgiver” (§131 = Moses), “the
legislator” (§139) compare with “Moses enacted this legislation” (§144), “the books” (§176), “the
rolls/scrolls” (§179). The only HB scriptures reflected in the document are from the Pentateuch
and the references to Moses as the legislator or the Law noted above all point to the Pentateuch
alone. See Lim, Formation of the Jewish Canon, 88, who helpfully includes the Greek text of these
designations.
40
Ibid., 89.
41
Ibid., 74–89. Lim also has a careful discussion of the date, authorship, and interpretation of this
document, including several historical blunders in it.
THE NOTION AND USE OF SCRIPTURE 57

to divide or separate the Torah scrolls that were given a special and separate
storing place in synagogues (the tevah). Whatever the scriptural status of the
Prophets and the Writings were, the priority of the Torah was indisputable, and it
has remained in the place of priority historically. Initially only the books of the
Law were read annually as an essential part of the Jewish Sabbath liturgy, but
eventually the Megilloth (Ruth, Lamentations, Song of Songs, Ecclesiastes, and
Esther) were also included and read on special festive or memorial occasions.
Equal priority was never given to all of the literature that now comprises the later
Tanak. Again, this does not suggest that the other books in the HB did not receive
a scriptural recognition among the Jews until the later categories for identifying
them were established. For example, prophetic books are cited and referred to in
Sirach before they are later seen in a category called “prophets” in the Prologue
to Sirach (ca. 130–120 BCE). As we will see in several chapters in Part 2, some
non-Pentateuchal books were likely welcomed as scriptural texts early in the
pre-exilic period (Chapters 4 §§II–III).
Interestingly, Michael Satlow suggests that the regular citing of authoritative
scriptural texts among the Jews began with the Sadducees in the late second
century BCE in the reign of John Hyrcanus. This was a period when Jews were
debating the legitimacy of the line of priests holding the chief priest’s office who
also oversaw the Temple in Jerusalem. Satlow points to the challenges to the
Hasmonean dynasty and priesthood along with its control of the Temple as the
primary context in which the Scriptures became authoritative in the lives of most
Jews. The Sadducees challenged the appointment of an inappropriate high priest
who controlled the Temple and religious affairs of the Jews.42 He also contends
that the institution that drew attention to the primacy of the authority of Scripture
was the synagogue.43
Satlow’s view should probably be qualified somewhat in view of the careful
attention given to the reading of the Law of Moses to the people (Neh 8:5–8),
probably the first time when scriptures were read regularly to the people. Earlier
Jeremiah’s contention over the right interpretation of the law by the wisdom
teachers in Jerusalem (Jer 8:8–9) suggests that some attention was given to inter-
preting Scripture earlier, but Satlow may be correct if he intends to say that this
practice was not as widespread as we find in the later Hasmonean period and
thereafter in synagogues. Jeremiah does not suggest that the wisdom teachers in
Jerusalem were ignorant of the law of God, but rather that they had forsaken it
and instead boasted in their own wisdom (Jer 9:13–14, 23). That notwithstanding,
Satlow’s point has merit if we are talking about the widespread recognition of the
authority of Scripture among the Jews from the second century BCE onward.

42
See Michael L. Satlow, How the Bible Became Holy (New Haven: Yale University Press, 2014),
176–87, where he sets forth arguments for this position and also notes the parallels between the
Sadducees and the Essenes who were committed to “rules” that governed their community and their
interpretations of the Hebrew Scriptures.
43
Ibid., 188.
58 THE FORMATION OF THE BIBLICAL CANON, VOLUME I

Some canon scholars regularly interpret anachronistically pre-Christian Jewish

texts such as the Prologue to Sirach, Philo’s Contemplative Life, 4QMMT, and
other pre-Christian Jewish writings as evidence for the three-part biblical canon
in the second and first century BCE. They often claim that the late second-century
CE baraita,44 b. Baba Bathra 14b,45 is evidence for this earlier widespread under-
standing of the state of the biblical canon in the land of Israel, but that is clearly an
overstatement as we will see in our discussion of those texts in Chapters 4, 5, and
11 below. In Part 2, I we will see that were other collections of Jewish Scriptures
circulating in Palestine no later than the second century BCE and well into the
second century CE with considerable overlap in content, but also with variants not
only in the specific books included but also in their sequence. I will argue later
that b. Baba Bathra 14b was not included in the Mishnah in the early third century
because it likely does not represent widespread second-century Jewish notions on
the scope and divisions of the Jewish scriptures.
Some of the Israel’s scriptures began as repeated traditions that included mostly
oral stories and some widespread institutions or practices repeated again and again
in the ever-changing situations of the people. Those traditions that eventually
became sacred scripture for ancient Israel also empowered that community for
life, gave hope often in hopeless situations (the exile), and brought life to the
remnant of the nation of Israel. The story preserved in Israel’s scriptures tells the
rise and fall of a chosen people and their survival after terrible destruction. This
story, essentially Genesis to 2 Kings, is the most stable part of the Jewish scrip-
tures and the prophetic books largely forewarn the destruction, or explain why the
nation experienced divine judgment at the hands of their enemies, and tell how
hope can be recovered for the nation. Some of the unflattering stories became
more compelling to the nation after the people realized that what was prophesied
earlier in them had actually come to pass.

44
A baraita (Heb., “external”) is a tradition from the Tannaitic teachers (roughly 10–210 CE) that
was not included in the Mishnah, but was subsequently looked upon as a religiously authoritative
text for the Jews. Since b. Baba Bathra 14b was not included in the Mishnah, this suggests that it was
not a widely accepted or a well-known tradition when the Mishnah in its current form was compiled
in the late second and early third centuries CE.
45
For further discussion of this text, see also Part 2, Chapter 11 §III.A below. Also for a helpful
discussion of the significance of this important text, see Lim, Formation of the Jewish Canon,
51–53 and 180–81; and Philip S. Alexander, “Criteria for Recognizing Canonical Texts: A Survey
and Critique,” paper delivered at the Qumran and Canon Seminar of the SNTS, Vienna, August
5, 2009; and his “The Formation of the Biblical Canon in Judaism in Rabbinic Judaism,” in The
Canon of Scripture in Jewish and Christian Tradition. Le canon des Ecritures dans les traditions
juive et chretienne, ed. Philip S. Alexander and Jean-Daniel Kristi (Lausanne: Zebre, 2007), 57–80.
I owe this last source to Timothy Lim, though I also attended Philip Alexander’s lecture in Vienna
and interacted with him about his conclusions during the seminar session. I agree with many of his
comments in the published paper, especially in his questioning of a formal closing of the rabbinic
biblical canon, but not on other substantial issues.
THE NOTION AND USE OF SCRIPTURE 59

The essence of these scriptural texts had to do with their repetition of the core
traditions that formed the identity of the nation and, after repeated oral transmis-
sions, they were written down and read to the people. For centuries there was little
stability in the text of those traditions and every new copy included not only the
retelling of the story, but also some revision to assure its continuing relevance.46
The survivability, or endurance, of the ancient writings had much to do with
their ability to be interpreted afresh to new communities in new circumstances.
This adaptive retelling of those traditions was a process of reinterpretation (herme-
neutics) that allowed the treasured texts to be reinterpreted in ever-changing
circumstances. The new interpretations were often beyond the intent of the
original author and were the product of a hermeneutical process that searched
for the relevance and meaning of this literature in the new and changing circum-
stances. The adaptability and survivability of ancient texts ultimately led to their
recognition as scripture and eventually to their fixity in the collection of Jewish
scriptures. Adaptability is a primary characteristic of scriptural writings. While
stabilization of the biblical text and the biblical canon was a later development in
the canonical processes, the church as a whole has never officially opted for any
particular text of the biblical Scriptures and it has never fully agreed on the scope
of its OT scriptures, though this does not suggest that within Christianity there
was no agreement within the three leading expressions of Christian faith. Today
Catholics, Orthodox, and Protestants have all agreed on most of their OT books,
and completely on the scope of their NT scriptures.47
The HB Scriptures (whose parameters were not precisely defined in the time of
Jesus) were viewed as authoritative sacred texts in the early Christian churches
(e.g., Matt 21:42; 22:29; 26:56; Luke 24:32, 44; John 5:39; 1 Cor 15:3–4), but
precisely when the NT literature began to be given equal scriptural status with
the HB Scriptures is difficult to determine and is the subject of our discussion
in Part 3 below. We can say in advance that when the early churches began to
place Christian writings alongside the OT Scriptures as authoritative religious
documents of the church and read in their worship services, their status as
scripture was recognized even before those texts were identified as scripture in
the churches. This recognition had already taken place in some churches known
to Justin in the middle of the second century when the “memoirs of the Apostles”
(Gospels, see his 1 Apology 64–67) were read alongside the “prophets.” With the
reading of Christian writings in Christian worship (Col 4:16), the move toward
a recognized Christian scripture had begun, though Christian writings were not
generally called scripture before the middle to end of the second century.

46
The process that led to a recognition of scripture and canon in ancient Israel is carefully described
in James A. Sanders, “The Scrolls and the Canonical Process,” in The Dead Sea Scrolls After Fifty
Years: A Comprehensive Assessment, ed. P. W. Flint and J. C. VanderKam (Leiden: Brill, 1999),
2:1–23, here 7–16.
47
Ibid.
60 THE FORMATION OF THE BIBLICAL CANON, VOLUME I

When the words “fulfill,” “fulfilled,” or “as it is fulfilled” are used of Jewish or
Christian religious texts, this implies recognition of their authority and sacredness.
All ancient religious texts that were believed to be divinely inspired and revelatory
were given special consideration in various communities of faith in antiquity.
Since the prophets spoke about a revealed word from God, they came to be under-
stood as the very word and will of God. If a prophet wrote down a prophecy, it
took on divine significance in various religious communities. If one believed that
a prophecy given earlier had been fulfilled in subsequent events, the divine origin
of the prophecy was validated and affirmed. Prophecy-fulfillment motifs appear
frequently in biblical literature and were received as authoritative sacred writings
among Jews and Christians. In the NT, as well as in the early Christian commu-
nities, various designations were used to emphasize the sacredness of the body
of literature that we now call the Old Testament. The most common designations
are: “it is written,” “the scriptures say,” “the scripture says,” or “as the scripture
says.”48 As we will see below, not infrequently some religious texts were accorded
scriptural status without using any of the above designations, e.g., scriptural texts
cited in Hebrews.
When a religious text was acknowledged by churches to be true and authori-
tative for life and faith, it was often elevated to the status of scripture in practice
and acknowledged as divinely inspired, even if the writing was not yet called
“scripture,” and even if that status was only temporary. For example, the nonca-
nonical writings Eldad and Modad,49 Epistle of Barnabas, Shepherd of Hermas,
1 Clement, and the letters of Ignatius were all for a time given this status in
some early churches, but over time that ceased. For centuries there was limited
agreement in the early churches on all of the sacred texts that informed their faith,
and although there appears to have been considerable recognition of the Gospels,
especially Matthew, and several letters of Paul by the end of the second century,
still complete agreement on the scope of the OT or NT scriptures is not found. The
same is true in the rabbinic period as we see in the various debates about several
books in the Writings (see Chapter 11 §II).
It is less clear when the term “scripture” was actually transferred to a body
of sacred scriptures. The earliest known source that uses the term “writing” or
“writings” (Heb. ‫כתב‬, ‫ ;כתובים‬Gk. γραφή, γραφαί; Latin, scriptura) in its absolute
sense, that is, as a reference to sacred Scripture, appears to be in the legendary
Letter of Aristeas (ca. 130 BCE).50 It states: “We are exhorted through scripture

48
Schrenk, TDNT 1:742–61.
49
The ancient source Eldad and Modad is an apocryphal fictional book forged in the names of the
prophets mentioned in Num 11:26–30 and cited as inspired literature in the second century in Herm.
Vis. 2.3 and possibly also in 1 Clem. 23.3–4 and 2 Clem. 11.2–4. The name Modad is sometimes
spelled Medad or Modat.
50
It is difficult to establish the date of the Letter of Aristeas with any precision, but it is likely to
have been written sometime around or shortly after 130 BCE. The termination date is 35 CE, since
Philo’s Moses 2.26–44 clearly depends on it.
THE NOTION AND USE OF SCRIPTURE 61

also by the one who says thus, ‘Thou shalt remember the Lord, who did great
and wonderful deeds in thee’ ” (Let. Aris. 155, OTP 2:23, emphasis added). The
author later clarifies the importance of the “law of God” (likely the Pentateuch),
claiming that all of the laws have been made with righteousness in view and
“that no ordinances have been made in scripture without purpose or fancifully,
but to the intent that through the whole of our lives we may also practice justice
to all mankind in our acts, remembering the all-sovereign God” (Let. Aris. 168,
OTP 2:24, emphasis added). These two examples do not try to defend the term
“scripture,” but simply use it and the author assumes that the readers will under-
stand it in its absolute sense of sacred and inspired writing. This, of course,
suggests that the term had obtained currency prior to the writing of the Letter of
Aristeas. Writing something down was sometimes viewed as a mark of revelation,
as in the case when God wrote the law (Exod 24:12; 31:18; 32:15, 32; 34:1; Deut
4:13; 9:10). Moses wrote down the commandments of God (Exod 24:4; 34:27),
and later the king of the nation was instructed to preserve the law by having it
copied or reproduced (Deut 17:18). The act of writing down or copying the law of
God was viewed as an act that declares the will of God.
The origin of the notion of Scripture among the Jews can be traced to the biblical
writers who spoke of the divine status of the words of God that were to be read and
etched on doorposts (Deut 6:6–9). There are no references to the technical term
“Scriptures” (Heb. ‫ ;כתובים‬Gk. γραφαί) in the HB/OT, even though the notion of
sacred writings certainly existed no later than the writing of Deuteronomy (Deut
4:2–8).51
Paul shares the view that the Jewish Scriptures were written for our benefit.
Citing the story of Abraham’s faith and God’s promise, he writes: “Therefore his
[Abraham’s] faith ‘was reckoned to him as righteousness.’ Now the words, ‘it was
reckoned to him,’ were written not for his sake alone, but for ours also” (Rom
4:22–24a). He adds: “whatever was written in former days was written for our
instruction” (15:4). After citing Deut 25:4, Paul claims that “it was indeed written
for our sake, for whoever plows should plow in hope and whoever threshes should
thresh in hope of a share in the crop” (1 Cor 9:10). Finally, after citing the fate of

51
Although the notion of sacred scripture is infrequent before the reforms of Josiah in 621 BCE,
subsequent literature frequently cites the failure of the Jews to keep the law of Moses or the law
of God or it speaks of books in a scriptural or authoritative manner: 1 Kgs 2:3; 2 Kgs 10:31; 14:6;
17:13; 21:8; 22:3–13, 23:24–25; 1 Chr 16:40; 22:12; 2 Chr 6:16; 12:1; 23:18; 30:16; 35:26; Ezra 3:2;
7:6; Neh 8:1; Jer 2:8; 5:4–5; 44:10; Dan 9:11, 13. Before then, however, there are a few references
to observing the law of God (Hos 4:6; Amos 2:4). Other prophetic texts surely existed before the
emphasis on Deuteronomy, the Pentateuch, and the time of Josiah’s reign, as we will see in listing
the so-called lost books in the Bible in Chapter 4 §II below. It is likely that other HB/OT books were
written and circulated among the Jews before the Pentateuch books were produced in their current
form. For a careful discussion of this, see Carr, Formation of the Hebrew Bible. It appears that a
greater focus on the Law of Moses emerges as the dominant sacred writings near the end of the first
Temple period (600 BCE) and especially from the time of the post-Exilic period (500–450 BCE).
62 THE FORMATION OF THE BIBLICAL CANON, VOLUME I

those mentioned in Scripture who grumbled and were destroyed, he writes: “These
things happened to them to serve as an example, and they were written down to
instruct us, on whom the ends of the ages have come” (10:11). In these examples,
Paul assumes that the Scriptures were not only written for past generations, but
for the current and future ones as well. For him, the Scriptures are relevant and
authoritative without respect of time.
The closest parallel to a collection of sacred writings outside of the Scriptures
of late Second Temple Judaism is Homer’s Iliad and Odyssey. For instance, an
otherwise unknown Heraclitus, a likely Stoic philosopher of the first century
CE, observes that children were trained in the writings of Homer and that they
were intended to occupy their life to the end of their days (Allegorae: Questiones
Homericae 1.2).
The rabbis of the second century CE and following assume that Scripture is
not only authoritative and permanent, but also “holy” and given by God. The
notion of “holy Scripture” or “holy Scriptures” (Heb. ‫ ;כתבי הקודש‬Gk. αἱ ἱεραι
γραφαί) is widespread in the rabbinic writings from the third century CE onward.
For example, in the Tosefta (mid-third century CE) we read, “Even though they
have said, ‘They do not read in Holy Scriptures [on the Sabbath]’ they do review
[what they have read] in them, and they do expound [what is in them]” (t. Shabbat
13.1.A–B, Neusner, Tosefta, 404). The roots of this notion, however, are earlier
and may come from Philo (early first century CE), who frequently speaks of “holy
Scriptures” (Gk. αἱ ἱεραι γραφαί).52 The Maccabean writer (ca. 135 BCE), who
originally wrote in Hebrew, but whose text remains only in Greek, spoke of “the
holy books [τὰ βίβλια τὰ ἁγία] that are in our hands” (1 Macc 12:9). Similarly, the
later author of 2 Macc 8:23 (likely ca. 104–63 BCE) spoke of Judas Maccabeus
appointing Eleazar “to read aloud from the holy book [ἱεράν βίβλιον].”
The NT writers seldom speak of “holy” Scripture, though the message that the
disciples preached is called “holy” (τὸ ἁγίον, Matt 7:6). In Rom 1:2, Paul uses the
word holy in reference to the Scriptures, but here he uses ἅγιος instead of the more
usual ἱερός. In Rom 7:12, Paul says that the law is holy (ἅγιος). In 2 Tim 3:15 the
Scriptures are called “sacred writings” (Gk. ἱεραί γράμματα). The notion of “holy
Scripture” is found more frequently in the early Apostolic Fathers (late first and
early second century). Clement of Rome, for instance, tells his readers in Corinth
that “you have gazed into the holy and true Scriptures that were given through
the Holy Spirit” (1 Clem. 45.2, LCL) and later “you know the sacred Scriptures”
(53.1, LCL). The scriptural references in 1 Clement are from the LXX Scriptures,
but this description of the HB/LXX Scriptures is largely absent in the NT, though
not an awareness of the sacredness of those Scriptures.

52
For example, see On the Life of Abraham 61; On the Preliminary Studies 34; 90; On the Deca-
logue 8; 37; and On the Special Laws 1.214; 2.104, 134.
THE NOTION AND USE OF SCRIPTURE 63

The use of the term “holy Scripture” appears to have emerged among some Jews
before the first century CE, but in time Christians also adopted it. However, the
notion of reverence for things that are written down and believed to have come
from God is rooted earlier in the HB itself as we saw in those texts that speak of
God or Moses writing down God’s laws (especially Exod 24:3–4, 12).
Occasionally, the Scriptures are personified as God speaking. In Jas 2:23, “the
Scripture” is a personification of God speaking through the Scriptures (see also Gal
3:8, 22), and sometimes the word Scripture refers to a single passage (Gal 4:30;
Rom 4:3; 9:17; 10:11; 11:2). Christians believed that the Scriptures expressed
the will of God and that the divine Spirit spoke through them (Matt 22:43;
Mark 12:36; Acts 1:16; Heb 3:7; 9:8; 10:15). The early Christians believed the
Scriptures had their fulfillment in Jesus (Luke 24:27, 32, 45) and that the gospel
of and about him was revealed in the Scriptures (Rom 16:26). The Scriptures were
also considered “prophetic writings,” which is another way of saying that they are
inspired by God and reveal the will of God. Such views of the Scriptures were also
common to Jews in Palestine and in the Diaspora in the first century.
The terms for Scripture vary in antiquity, but there are some common themes.
One of the early titles given to the sacred writings of the Jews was simply “the
books” (Heb. ‫)הספרים‬. Daniel uses this designation in reference to the writing
prophets of Israel (Dan 9:2; cf. Jer 25:11–12; 29:10). This is not unlike the
way that Tannaitic literature refers to books (see m. Megillah 1:8; m. Mo’ed
Qatan 3:4; m. Gittin 4:6; m. Kelim 15:6).53 Greek-speaking Jews, following the
Hebrew and Aramaic practice, called sacred scriptures simply “the books” (Gk.
τὰ βιβλία). By the Middle Ages, Jews were regularly referring to their sacred
books as “the holy books” (‫)ספרי הקודש‬, but earlier, as we see in Josephus, the
scriptures of the Jews were called “holy books” (Ant. 20.261) and at roughly the
same time some Christians began calling the same scriptures “holy books” (Gk.
ἱεραῖς βίβλοις, 1 Clem. 43.1). In early rabbinic writings “holy writings” (Heb.
‫ )כתבי הקודש‬referred to the Jewish Scriptures (m. Shabbat 16:1; m. Eruvin 10:3;
m. Yadayim 3:2, 5; 4:6; m. Baba Bathra 1:6; m. Parah 10:3). The Hebrew word
‫“( כתב‬writing”) in the plural is ‫“( כתובים‬writings”) and is similar to Greek γραφή
(“writing”) or γραφαί (“writings”). The Greek term was translated into Latin as
scriptura or scriptum, and in English Bibles the terms are most often transliterated
from the Latin as “Scripture” or “Scriptures.”

53
Tannaitic literature is Jewish rabbinic literature written following the times of Hillel and
Shammai (30 BCE–10 CE), namely between 10 CE and 220 CE. The term comes from the Aramaic
tanna, meaning “one who studies/teaches/repeats” traditions. Some of the best-known Tannaim
(rabbinic teachers) of this period lived after the destruction of Jerusalem in 70 CE. The last of them,
Rabbi Judah the Prince, collected the rabbinic oral teachings of this period and placed them in the
sixty-three tractates known as the Mishnah.
64 THE FORMATION OF THE BIBLICAL CANON, VOLUME I

The Greek noun γραφή (“writing”) is used some forty-nine times in the NT
in reference to sacred Scriptures.54 The Greek verb γράφω (“I write”) is often
used of the simple act of writing with no special connotations, but it is also used
in the absolute sense of sacred writings. In the passive voice, the Greek verb
γέγραπται (“it is written”) is used some sixty-five times in the NT to refer to
sacred scripture (e.g., Matt 4:4–10; Luke 4:8; 19:46; 1 Cor 9:9). This practice
underscores the belief that God speaks through the words of Scripture. Commonly,
but not always, “it is written” (or “for it is written” [Gk. γάρ γέγραπται] or just
“as it is written” [Gk. καθὼς γέγραπται]) precedes the quoting of a Scripture.55
While it is not always clear which Scriptures are in view, there is little question
that the Scriptures were believed to have divine origins and were authoritative in
the synagogues and subsequently in churches. Sometimes unknown Scriptures are
cited as in John 7:38 and Jas 4:5 (see also 1 Cor 2:9; 9:10; Eph 5:14; and Luke
11:49), which likely reflect the uncertainty in the first century about the scope of
the collection of Scriptures.
Among the Jews, the word Torah (‫תורה‬, “teaching,” or “instruction”) was
widely used of teachings (Gen 26:5; Prov 3:1; 6:20) and came to be equated with
the teaching in the five books of the Pentateuch and, by the time of Josiah (621
BCE), the Torah, was often equated with the “law of Moses” or “the Law.” It was
later often seen simply as the teaching of God through the prophets (1 Chr 16:40;
2 Chr 15:3).56 While Torah is regularly used in reference to the Pentateuch, it was
occasionally also a designation for all of the Scriptures of the Bible – regardless
of their place in the sacred collection. For example, b. Mo’ed Qatan 5a calls Ezek
39:15 torah, and b. Sanhedrin 91b calls Ps 82:6 torah (cf. John 10:34; cf. also
1 Cor 14:21 that refers to Isa 28:11 as the “law”). Torah became equal to the
statutes and commands of the Lord, whether in the Pentateuch or the Prophets, or
Psalms.57 Ezra’s confession that the Jewish nation had forsaken God’s command-
ments given through the prophets was, by the sixth to the fifth century BCE,
widely acknowledged among the remnant nation (Ezra 9:10–15).

54
The singular γραφή (“writing” or “Scripture”) occurs in Mark 12:10; Luke 4:21; John 2:22;
7:38; 7:42; 10:35; 13:18; 17:12; 19:24, 28, 36, 37; 20:9; Acts 1:16; 8:32, 35; Rom 4:3; 9:17; 10:11;
11:2; Gal 3:8, 22; 4:30; 1 Tim 5:18; 2 Tim 3:16; Jas 2:8, 23; 4:5; 1 Pet 2:6; 2 Pet 1:20. The plural
“Scriptures” (γραφαί) is found in Matt 21:42; 22:29; 26:54, 56; Mark 12:24; 14:49; Luke 24:27, 32,
45; John 5:39; Acts 17:2, 11; 18:24, 28; Rom 1:2; 15:4; 1 Cor 15:3, 4; 2 Pet 3:16.
55
For example, Mark 1:2 (cf. 2 Chr 32:32); Luke 2:23; Acts 7:42; and 15:15. The phrase “just as
it is written” occurs some sixteen times in Romans alone (1:17; 2:24; 3:4, 10; 4:17; 8:36; 9:13, 33;
10:15; 11:8, 26; 12:19; 14:11; 15:3, 9, 21). Whether “it is written” or “just as it is written” is used,
both refer to the sacred Scriptures recognized by Israel and by the early church.
56
For a helpful and brief discussion of the meaning and use of torah in antiquity, see Schnied-
ewind, How the Bible Became a Book, 119–21.
57
Chapman, “Second Temple Jewish Hermeneutics,” 290–94, offers a helpful summary of the use
of torah in the HB scriptures.
THE NOTION AND USE OF SCRIPTURE 65

In rabbinic literature, eventually Torah included not only all of the written
Scriptures, but also the oral traditions that interpreted those Scriptures, namely,
the Mishnah, Tosefta, and the two Talmuds (Talmudim); among the rabbinic Jews
these traditions had become known as “oral Torah.” The emergence of this oral
Torah can be seen in several rabbinic texts: “The Torah in writing is made up of
general rules; the Torah by word of mouth is made up of specific details”;58 “thy
cheeks are comely with circlets (‫ – )תורים‬with two Torahs, the one in writing and
the one by word of mouth.”59 The following is even more explicit:

The Holy One foresaw that the nations of the world would get to translate the Torah and,
reading it in Greek, would declare, “We are Israel.” And to this day the scales appear to be
evenly balanced between both claims. But then the Holy One will say to the nations of the
world, “You claim you are My children? I have no way of knowing other than that My children
are those who possess My secret lore.” What secret lore? Mishnah, which was given by word
of mouth.

“And the Lord said to Moses: ‘Write thou these words’ ” [Exod 34:27]. When the Holy one
came to give the Torah to Israel, he uttered it to Moses in its order, Scripture and Mishnah,
Talmud and Aggadah,60 as is said, “the Lord spoke all these words” [Exod 20:1]. Even what a
faithful student was someday to ask his teacher, the Holy One uttered to Moses at that time…
Therefore give them Scripture in writing and Mishnah by word of mouth. “Write thou these
words” – Scripture. Then: “By these words uttered with the mouth I have made a covenant with
thee” – these words being Mishnah and Talmud, which make it possible to tell Israel and the
nations of the world apart. (Tanhuma B, Ki Tissa, §17, Tanhuma, Ki Tissa §60; Exod Rab. 47:1,
Bialik and Ravnitzky, Book of Legends, 441).

For rabbinic Judaism, eventually the whole of their oral tradition became Torah
and all of it was written down and treated as sacred texts, even if the written
Scriptures were given priority. In specific regard to the HB books themselves,
the Torah always appears to have had priority over the Prophets and Writings,
and in the rabbinic tradition, the written Torah had priority over the oral Torah,

58
Tanhuma, Noah 3, H. N. Bialik and Y. H. Ravnitzky, The Book of Legends, Sefer Ha-Aggadah:
Legends from the Talmud and Midrash, trans. W. G. Braude (New York: Schocken, 1992), 442.
59
Song Rabbah 1.10 §1, Bialik and Ravnitzky, Book of Legends, 442.
60
The Hebrew word haggadah or Aggadah (“narrative” or “telling”) has to do with pre-rabbinic
and rabbinic interpretation of the HB in narrative form. The writers of haggadah interpret sacred
texts by telling a story that makes the point about a text’s interpretation. This kind of story is also
found in the New Testament when Matthew tells the story of Jesus’ infancy in a way that mirrors
the antagonism between Moses and Pharaoh (cf. Matt 2:20 and Exod 4:19; Matt 2:15 and Hos 11:1).
On the other hand, the term halakah (“to go”) refers to the legal aspects of Judaism. Halakoth (the
plural of halakah) are legal prescriptions and proscriptions, such as the tractates that make up the
Mishnah. There is very little haggadah in the Mishnah, but almost a third of the Jerusalem Talmud
and a fourth of the Babylonian Talmud are made up of haggadah, narrative stories that illustrate the
meaning of the sacred text.
66 THE FORMATION OF THE BIBLICAL CANON, VOLUME I

even though both are sacred to the Jews and in practice Talmudic law became as
important as biblical law.61
Miqra (“reading,” or “that which is read aloud”) is another common Hebrew
designation for the Jewish Scriptures that dates from the rabbinic period. It
emphasizes that the Scriptures were not only written, but also that they were read
aloud in synagogues in Jewish worship and in schools (yeshivot). The term is first
found in the Tannaitic literature of the Mishnah (m. Nedarim 4:3; m. Avot 5:21;
see m. Ta’anit 4:2, 68a) and regularly translated into English as “Scripture.” Mikra
became a common designation for the HB books among Jews in the Middle Ages.
Barr observes that generally in the OT “the writers do not reckon with a written
‘Scripture’ as a totally dominant, known, and acknowledged factor and force in
the life of Israel.”62 He goes on to say that even the prophets who proclaim, “Thus
says the Lord,” are not speaking on the basis of an already existing text. As noted
above, there are very few references to sacred scripture from Judges through
most of 1 Kings. Most of the references to sacred scripture date from the time
of Josiah and especially from Ezra–Nehemiah.63 Indeed, David, Solomon, and
Hezekiah do not speak of sacred books current and normative in the life of Israel.
Rather, as Barr notes, the OT individuals in the Former Prophets related to God
more through persons (priests, prophets) and institutions (tabernacle, temple) than
through sacred writings.64 This does not suggest that Israel was without any oral
or written traditions that functioned in an authoritative manner among its people,
but those sacred texts or traditions are not as evident in the earlier portions of the
Hebrew Scriptures. This changes considerably following the reforms of Josiah
and during the return of the Jews from Babylon under the leadership of Ezra and
Nehemiah. No Jewish or Christian community existed without sacred traditions
(or rules, practices, and perspectives), whether they were expressed in oral tradi-
tions, creeds, liturgies, or written Scriptures.
There are several early hints that some in the community of Israel were aware
of the laws of God given earlier in Israel’s history (Hos 4:6; Amos 2:4, as noted
above), and there are several references to the laws and commandments or statutes
of God following the reforms of Josiah; but again, little attention is given to the

61
Interestingly, in an interview, Elie Wiesel noted that even today this equal priority given to the
Talmudic law is still quite common among the Jews. See Shanks, “Contrasting Insights of Biblical
Giants,” Biblical Archaeology Review 30, no. 4 (2004): 32–33.
62
Barr, Holy Scripture, 5.
63
Some of the Psalms, e.g., 2, 18 (cf. 2 Sam 22), 20, 21, 45, 72, 110, 132, 144 and 2 Sam 23:1–7 are
most likely from the tenth to ninth centuries. But Ps 9 and also 119, which focus on the meditation
on the word, law, precepts, and statutes of God, are likely post-exilic in origin. Many (most?) of the
psalms do not date before the discovery of the book of the Law (probably Deuteronomy) by Hilkiah
in the Temple around 622–621 BCE (compare 2 Kgs 18:20a with 22:3–13) that led to subsequent
reforms. For a more complete discussion of this see Carr, Formation of the Hebrew Bible, 386–402.
He also points to the Proverbs’ lack of reference to the Law as evidence of its earlier dating.
64
Barr, Holy Scripture, 5.
THE NOTION AND USE OF SCRIPTURE 67

law of God or the laws of Moses or the prophetic literature before the seventh
century BCE. In fact, judgment comes from ignoring the law and commands of
God as we see in the Hosea and Amos texts. Barr’s point, however, is well taken.
Prophetic words against Israel can be seen in several prophets including warnings
of judgment, but again, there are some, even though few, references to Israel’s
scriptures before the Exile. The influence of the Law and other prophetic writings
was apparently insignificant to most religious leaders and kings in the North and
South of Israel before the reforms of Josiah (621 BCE). Although Amos and
Hosea appear to assume an awareness of some aspects of the first five books of
the HB, there is little reference to its commands as sacred literature until much
later. Adherence to the priority of the Law, probably Deuteronomy, and some of
prophets are seen in the reforms of Josiah and no later than the reforms of Ezra
(Ezra 5:1; Neh 8:1–8; 9:1–3; see also 2 Kgs 17:13). The Deuteronomic History
of Israel in the eighth and seventh centuries BCE no doubt played a major role
in instituting that change, especially in its admonition to obey the command-
ments of Yahweh and not to add to them or take away from them (Deut 4:2). The
importance of the Law and the prophets before, during, and after the exile played
a major role in the widespread recognition of the Law and some prophets, in the
sixth and fifth centuries. When the written sacred texts were explained to the
people and their normative value in the life of their community was assumed (Neh
8:8–12), the notion of Scripture was clearly present in Judaism (Ezra 9:10–15; cf.
Exod 34:11–16; Deut 7:1–5).

VI. THE CHRISTIANS’ FIRST SCRIPTURES

AND EARLY CHRISTIAN SCRIPTURES

Although the acceptance of and belief in divinely inspired writings was widespread
in the land of Israel in Second Temple Judaism and in Late Antiquity, as well
as in early Christianity, what each community acknowledged as Scripture in
their early stages of development is not always clear. While citations of sacred
literature can often be helpful in identifying the scriptures of some individuals,
but what an ancient writer cited does not necessarily mean that the writer viewed
it as sacred Scripture, or that the cited texts included all the texts that the writer
deemed scriptural. Also, texts cited must be considered individually in their own
context to determine how the author used them and also how ancient commu-
nities received them. Just because a text was cited by a well-known church father,
one cannot assume, as noted above, that the writing was part of a biblical canon
acknowledged everywhere at that time. For example, Paul is reported to have
cited several non-biblical sources in his speaking and writing (Epimenides and
Aratus in Acts 17:28; Epimenides in Titus 1:12), but one cannot conclude from
this that he cited them as sacred Scripture. Also, even though Irenaeus argued for
a fourfold gospel collection, those four and no more, after him Bishop Serapion
68 THE FORMATION OF THE BIBLICAL CANON, VOLUME I

of Antioch initially allowed the Gospel of Peter to be read in his churches, but
after examining its theological contents he later reversed his view on the matter.
The bishop’s reversal was not because he discovered that the book was not a part
of a widely accepted fixed collection of gospels or other sacred Scriptures, but
rather because he believed its contents did not cohere with the sacred traditions
about Jesus that were handed on in the churches (Eusebius, Hist. eccl. 6.12.3–6,
cited below in Part 3). He believed that the book reflected the Docetic heresy that
was common in the late first and second centuries. He also opposed pseudon-
ymous works and perceived that the Gospel of Peter was such a production. It is
important here to recognize that he rejected it not because the biblical canon was
closed, but because he found its contents objectionable. As late as the mid-fourth
century, when Athanasius published his twenty-seven-book list of NT scriptures
in his Thirty-Ninth Festal Letter, his list was not universally accepted in the rest
of the Roman Empire or even in his homeland in Egypt in his lifetime. Universal
approval of that list took much longer.
The Scriptures of the early churches were the same as the religious texts circu-
lating among various Jewish sects in late second Temple Judaism before Jews
and Christians separated. Generally speaking, many if not most of those religious
texts were acknowledged as Scripture not only among the Christians, but also by
other religious Jews of that period. Those religious texts undoubtedly included
most if not all of the books that later formed the HB for the Jews and the OT for
Protestant Christians, but these sacred collections initially included not only the
books that comprise the HB and OT Scriptures, but other writings as well that later
were excluded from Jewish and Christian Scriptures, e.g., 1 Enoch, including also
several apocryphal (Deuterocanonical) and pseudepigraphal writings. Some of
the early Christians in the second century and following cited several apocryphal
and some pseudepigraphal writings as scripture with the typical scriptural intro-
ductions (“it is written,” “the scripture says,” etc.). Some Jews also continued to
cite the Wisdom of Sirach as Scripture for more than a century after that. Some of
these non-scriptural writings also appeared in a number of the surviving biblical
manuscripts and canonical lists for several centuries. (See Appendixes A and C
for examples of this.) Some diversity in churches over the scope of their sacred
scriptures continued for many centuries, both in their Old and New Testament
collections and some of that diversity remains. Had Jesus himself received and
passed on to his disciples a fixed collection of Scriptures that was the same as the
HB collection, it is unthinkable that the early churches would have produced a
different collection that contained books Jesus had rejected. Even more unimagi-
nable is the view that once they had received a closed collection of Scriptures from
Jesus, the disciples somehow lost it. That view continues in some Old Testament
canon books!65

65
For example, E. E. Ellis, The Old Testament in Early Christianity: Canon and Interpretation in
the Light of Modern Research (Grand Rapids: Baker, 1992).
THE NOTION AND USE OF SCRIPTURE 69

All ancient Christian communities shared the Jewish belief that the revelation
and will of God were preserved in written prophetic (HB) scriptures, but they also
believed that God had acted decisively in the life, death, and resurrection of Jesus
and that this activity had been foretold as a revelation from God in the Jewish
Scriptures. This proclamation of and about Jesus was at first passed on orally,
but later those traditions were put in writings, some of which were eventually
called gospels or “memoirs of the Apostles” by the mid-second century. The four
NT Gospels were quite popular among the churches even in the first century and
later when they are listed no other gospels are included. Because these tradi-
tions focused on the life and fate of Jesus, the Lord of the church, they obviously
had a normative value in the life of Christian congregations that had them right
from the start. From the first third to the middle of the second century, some of
these writings were called scripture, but not generally before around 170–180
CE. At that time several writings, especially the Gospels and Paul, were called
“Scripture,” though as noted they were used in a scriptural fashion earlier. While
these and perhaps a few others functioned in that capacity of Scripture earlier,
that is they were accepted as authoritative writings for the church and read
alongside their OT scriptures, they still were not generally called “Scripture” by
large segments of the church before the end of the second century. Along with the
Gospels, the letters of Paul, Acts, 1 Peter and 1 John were also quite popular in
churches, but others less popular were also circulating in some churches. Many
of these writings followed the genre of gospel, letter, Acts, and apocalypse, and
are regularly identified as Apocryphal New Testament writings and circulated in
churches for several centuries, as in the case of 3 Corinthians.
Most of the traditions about Jesus were eventually written down after his
death, though as we will see, some of the stories about Jesus and his teachings
were written down before his death and later included in the NT Gospels. These
traditions circulated in the early churches both orally and in writing and the latter
were eventually identified as the church’s Scriptures. It is a temptation for some
canon scholars to assume that writings acknowledged as inspired in the early
churches were also accepted as sacred scripture even in the first century,66 but that
is difficult to demonstrate as we will see in Part 3.
Pretty much everything that was believed to be true in the early Christian
churches was also believed to be inspired. When Paul, for instance, admonishes
the Corinthians, he claims to have the Spirit (1 Cor 7:40). This is not unlike others
in the early church, such as Clement of Rome, Ignatius, and Irenaeus who also
claimed inspiration. For example, Clement of Rome asserts that Paul wrote with
“true inspiration” (1 Clem. 47.3), but later claims that he also wrote his letter
“through the Holy Spirit” (1 Clem. 63:2). Ignatius of Antioch claims that he too

66
For example, see M. J. Kruger, The Question of Canon: Challenging the Status Quo in the New
Testament Debate (Downers Grove, IL: InterVarsity, 2013). And his earlier Canon Revisited: Estab-
lishing the Origins and Authority of the New Testament Books (Wheaton, IL: Crossway, 2012).
70 THE FORMATION OF THE BIBLICAL CANON, VOLUME I

was speaking through the Spirit (Phld. 7.1b–2). The term “inspired” was not used
exclusively of scripture in the early church, but was reflected in the whole church
as we see also the fourth-century Abercius who speaks of a church council’s
decision as “inspired judgment” (Vita Abercii 76). As I will show in Part 3, many
of the records of church councils begin with an acknowledgement of the Spirit’s
inspiration and leading in the decisions they made. Such claims make it clear that
inspiration was not relegated only to written Scripture.
Michael Kruger claims that the NT writers were not only aware of their
authority when writing, but also of the scriptural status of their writings.67 He
confuses spiritual “authority” with the notion of “Scripture,” including distin-
guishing the affirmation of being led by or filled with the Holy Spirit from one
who is writing Scripture. If Paul were writing inspired Scripture, equal to that of
the earlier recognized scriptures of Judaism and the early church, why would he
need to appeal to them for authorization of his theological points? Why does he
distinguish between what he says and the words of Jesus in 1 Cor 7:10–12? Kruger
misses the point that Paul, like all other early Christians, elevated the teaching of
Jesus above his own.68 He argues instead that Paul was simply trying to distinguish
what he had to say from what Jesus had to say and since Paul was led by the Spirit
(1 Cor 7:40), which for Kruger indicates that Paul was writing scripture, Paul
asserted his authority alongside that of Jesus and was simply trying to distinguish
what he is saying from the commands of Jesus.69 That, of course, does not square
either with the context. Paul often cited dominical sayings when he had them, but
he distinguished what he had to say as his opinion (1 Cor 7:25) from what Jesus
had said. Also, his affirmation that he also has the Spirit in what he is saying is
less “I know” but rather “I think” (1 Cor 7:40).
Speaking about this distinction, Gerhardsson focuses of the awkwardness of
those who do not see it, noting that such passages are “embarrassing evidence
against the common opinion that in the early church no distinction was made
between what was said ‘by the Lord [himself]’ and what was said by someone
else ‘in the Lord.’”70 Indeed, Paul was trying to distinguish his advice (“opinion”
as in 7:25) from Jesus’ commands, but does that not imply that Jesus’ words were
more significant in the early church than his own (7:10)? Collins is certainly
more accurate here when he concludes that Paul, in citing the words of Jesus,
“moves the level of his paraenesis to a higher level” noting that Paul’s use of
the verb παραγγέλλω (“I command”) is used only twice in Paul’s writings (here

67
Kruger, The Question of Canon, 119–54.
68
Kruger, Canon Revisited, 187 n. 127.
69
Kruger, The Question of Canon, 127 n. 36.
70
Birger Gerhardsson, The Reliability of the Gospel Tradition (Peabody, MA: Hendrickson, 2001),
20. I owe this quote to David deSilva, The Jewish Teachers of Jesus, James, and Jude: What Earliest
Christianity Learned from the Apocrypha and Pseudepigrapha (Oxford: Oxford University Press,
2014), 27.
THE NOTION AND USE OF SCRIPTURE 71

and in 11:17). In both passages, “the Lord” (“the risen Christ”) is the authority
that is higher than Paul’s counsel and is the authority to whom the Corinthian
Christians owe their allegiance.71 Why would Paul distinguish himself from Jesus
if he believed that he was writing sacred scripture on an equal footing?
Kruger correctly notes that the closest we can come to Paul’s awareness of
speaking by inspiration comes at the end of this chapter in 1 Cor 7:40, but there
Paul concludes that he “thinks” that he has the Spirit of God. That text begins with
Paul offering his opinion or judgment and concludes with the statement that “he
thinks” (Greek = δόκω from δοκέω) he has the Spirit in the matter. This does not
sound like one who is fully aware or absolutely certain that he is writing authori-
tative scripture! The word from the Lord is certain (7:10), but, while Paul believes
that the Spirit led him in his advice and opinion, his advice is not without merit but
not on the same level as the words “of the Lord”. Paul is aware that his advice on
marriage is not as certain as the command from the Lord on the matter and shows
awareness of the command of Jesus reflected in Matt 5:32; Mark 10:11–12, and
Luke 16:18 without citing the words of Jesus in those passages.72 Similarly, while
Romans is a very well written letter with better grammar than Galatians but with
essentially the same message, why would Paul produce a text, as in Galatians,
with unfinished sentences and written in obvious haste and anger with crude
expressions if he knew he was writing sacred scripture for all time (e.g., 5:12!)?
In 1 Corinthians, Paul is clearly frustrated with the Corinthian believers who are
divided and immature. So Paul writes that he is thankful that he baptized none of
them except Crispus and Gaius (1:14), but then two verses later reconsiders and
says that he did remember baptizing the household of Stephanus, but does not
remember if he baptized any others (1:16). Was v. 14 of the Spirit, which was not
accurately stated? What of his lack of memory about baptizing any others beyond
the household of Stephanus? None of this sounds like a person consciously aware
that he is writing Scripture, so much as one who is frustrated by the divisions in
the church he founded and is admonishing his converts in strong language.
Surprisingly Kruger apparently does not see the clear distinction Paul makes
between his own teaching and that of the Lord (Jesus). Why else would Paul make
the distinction if the Corinthians viewed the sayings of Jesus on the same level as
Paul’s? Paul returned to a saying of Jesus to make his point and reinforce it with
words from the Lord of the church in the matter of abuse of the Lord’s Table (1
Cor 11:23–25), and then adds his own commentary on what he believed the Lord
intended on the matter (11:26–34). Paul seldom cites the words of Jesus on any
matter, but when he does, he is emphasizing their importance in what he is saying
and he is clearly raising the level of authority higher. Paul regularly emphasized

71
Raymond F. Collins, First Corinthians. Sacra Pagina 7 (Collegeville, MN: Liturgical Press,
1999), 269–70.
72
Ibid.
72 THE FORMATION OF THE BIBLICAL CANON, VOLUME I

his apostolic status and authority in resolving disputes in the churches that he
founded (e.g., 1 Cor 4:14–5:5; 7:12–16; 2 Cor 13:10), but again, he does not call
his writings “Scripture.”
Had the Gospels been recognized as sacred scripture in the first century,
one might well expect that the later NT books would have referred to them as
scripture, but apart from 2 Pet 3:16 (ca. 120–130 CE), that is not the case. Also the
questionable status of 2 Peter in early Christianity and the lack of early references
to it as scripture suggest that it is a later text. Its considerable use of Jude points
to it being a pseudonymous text rather one from Peter himself. That matter will be
discussed further in Chapter 20 §VI.E.3 and 6.
What makes it difficult to believe that the Gospels were initially acknowledged
or received as Scripture is the liberty that the Evangelists took in changing or
adapting their sources to fit their own aims. As noted, Matthew and Luke freely
adapted, changed, and smoothed out the Gospel of Mark73 including the so-called
Q source,74 which both Matthew and Luke used and adapted in their own way.
Since the wording of Q is not always the same in both Gospels, some adaptation
appears likely. Matthew and Luke made use of Mark, but neither refers to Mark
as scripture. They simply use it variously in their presentations and occasionally
correct or modify its text. Jesus’ words, however, are placed on par with the sacred
scriptures. For instance, the author of 1 Tim 5:18 cites Deut 25:4 and Matt 10:10
(// Luke 10:7), with the words: “for the scripture says, ‘You shall not muzzle an
ox while it is treading out the grain,’ and ‘The laborer deserves to be paid’.” The
author of 2 Peter is aware of some Gospel stories (2 Pet 1:16–18, cf. Mark 9:2–7;
and // in Matt 17:1–5; Luke 9:28–35; and 2 Pet 3:10 cf. Matt 24:43), but does not
call the Gospels “scripture.” Rather, it was the words of Jesus and the stories about
him that functioned initially as sacred tradition in the churches rather than the
books that told that story. As these words and stories were shared over and over
in the churches, they functioned like authoritative sacred texts, even though they
were not generally called “scripture” until the latter part of the second century CE.
At any rate, the warning against modifying a sacred text (Deut 4:2; Rev
22:18–19) is not followed by Matthew and Luke who made use of Mark and both
modified and changed its text. Did they acknowledge Mark as “scripture”? As late
as the last half of the second century, Tatian, the disciple of Justin, was evidently
concerned enough with the differences in the Gospels to try to harmonize them
into one unified gospel text commonly called the Diatessaron (“through four” or,

73
For example, both Matt 3:3 and Luke 3:4 drop the first part of the quotation in Mark 1:2, which
was attributed to Isaiah but originated instead with Mal 3:1. The subject changes are also quite
striking; for example, compare Matt 3:16 to Mark 1:10 and Matt 14:1 to Mark 6:14, where Matthew
changes the more embarrassing title of Antipas.
74
Q is an abbreviation for the German word Quelle meaning “source.” This is a convenient way to
designate a source containing sayings of Jesus common to both Matthew and Luke and not found in
Mark.
THE NOTION AND USE OF SCRIPTURE 73

The Gospel of the Changed [or “mixed”]). Would he have taken such liberties if
the Gospels he harmonized were deemed inviolable Scripture? Christian writings
existed almost from the beginning of the church,75 and possibly earlier since it is
possible that some Gospel traditions were penned before the death of Jesus.76 They
doubtless functioned as authoritative guides about Jesus in the early churches
because they told the story of Jesus and the implications of his life, teachings,
death, and resurrection. Since Jesus was believed to be the Lord of the Church
and because the Gospels told his story, why would Christians not read them in
churches? But when did they call them Scripture?
While the Apostolic Fathers, with few exceptions, cited the Gospels and Paul,
they did not seem to have an interest in recognizing new Scriptures on par with the
Scriptures (OT) that they adopted from their Jewish siblings. Von Campenhausen
rightly concludes that early Christianity was at that time not yet a “religion of the
Book,” but rather “the religion of the Spirit and the living Christ.”77 The church
had an oral tradition concerning Jesus that was taught and proclaimed in the early
communities of faith that also functioned authoritatively like scripture in those
communities (Acts 2:42; 4:33; 6:4), but initially the Christian writings were not
yet called scripture in the same way as their inherited Jewish scriptures. They
heard the stories of Jesus circulating orally in their communities and they sought
diligently to anchor or support all that Jesus did and said in their Jewish scrip-
tures. Their anchoring this story in their OT sacred texts allowed them to find a
prophetic/scriptural (eschatological) witness to the event of Jesus that they had
experienced. A. R. C. Leaney correctly observes that the early Christians were
concerned to find a Scripture “to fit a fact, and were far from inventing a fact to
fit the Scripture.”78
Kruger, I suggest, confuses the authority of Spirit-led proclamation with the
notion of sacred Scripture – in the first century. Paul never refers to his own
writings as sacred scripture, though he regularly cites the Jewish scriptures in
support of his views. While the church has always affirmed spirit-led preaching
and teaching, it long ago ceased affirming new Scriptures. Kruger contends that
apostolic authority was equivalent to the notion of sacred scripture and wants
readers to conclude that if the NT writers believed they were spirit-led when they
wrote to churches that they must also have known that they were writing sacred
Scripture.79 Not a few scholars disagree with Kruger’s argument, as he acknowl-
edges. He appears to place a later church notion of the recognition of scripture and
apostolic authority anachronistically on the minds of the earlier NT writers during

75
For example, Q, but see also Luke 1:1–4.
76
For examples of this, see Dunn, Jesus Remembered, 881–93.
77
Von Campenhausen, Formation of the Christian Bible, 62–66. A similar stance could be argued
for the ancient Jewish community of faith, as Barr, Holy Scripture, 2–7, shows.
78
A. R. C. Leaney, “Theophany, Resurrection, and History,” StEv 103, no. 5 (1968): 112.
79
Kruger, The Question of Canon, 127.
74 THE FORMATION OF THE BIBLICAL CANON, VOLUME I

their ministry. Interestingly, if he is correct about those who believed that they
were Spirit led, then, as we saw earlier, many other noncanonical writings will
need to be added to the NT scriptures since several noncanonical authors make
similar claims of inspiration or being led by the Spirit. However, in those cases
and in all but one instance in the NT, there is no claim that the authors believed
they were writing Scripture – with only one exception, namely, Rev 22:18–19.80
Since later churches did not canonize the writings that their authors believed were
inspired by the Spirit, how do we distinguish them from those books in the New
Testament if consciousness of being led by the Spirit was a criterion for canon-
icity? I will address this matter again in Chapter 22 §F.
The eventual recognition of Christian writings as sacred Scripture and equal in
authority to the church’s inherited OT Scriptures can only be described as a long
and slow process that was neither universal nor simultaneous in all of the ancient
churches. I do not see that there was a common conscious effort to write Christian
scriptures by the authors of the NT save the author of Revelation. Aside from
that author, who claims that he was in the Spirit (1:10) and received an angelic
vision that he was to communicate to the seven churches (1:11), which does, in
fact, suggest that he was consciously writing scripture (Rev 22:18–19), no other
NT writer calls his writings “scripture.” It is difficult to date with precision how
soon the early churches recognized the scriptural status of some or all of the NT
literature – and no other writings, but with the possible exception of Revelation,
no part of that body of literature was recognized as sacred scripture in the first
century. Interestingly, Revelation was among the most disputed books in early
Christianity when canon formation issues were deliberated.
Why did the earliest churches not call the NT writings scripture if their scrip-
tural status was as apparent to everyone as Kruger supposes? Why did it take
centuries for the matter to be settled in the churches? The early churches did not
initially accept as Scripture several NT books (Hebrews, James, 2 Peter, 2 and
3 John, Jude, Revelation, and perhaps also in some cases the Pastoral Epistles),
though there was widespread agreement on many of the NT books (Gospels and
several letters of Paul, Acts, 1 Peter, and 1 John).
Michael Kruger and Tomas Bokedal81 appear to start with what they want to
find – an early conscious awareness of Christian scripture – and they subse-
quently find it everywhere. I will say more about this later, but for now, there is
little evidence that substantiates their position and their desire to equate being
led by the Spirit with writing scripture is a big leap that does not explain how the
early churches understood the Spirit. If the NT writers were consciously writing
scripture, why do they not call their own writings “scripture”? And if everyone
was aware of his or her own scriptural status, why do they not say it? Why do they

80
See Deut 4:2 and cf. Rev 1:3, 10–11; 22:7–9.
81
The Formation and Significance of the Christian Biblical Canon: A Study in Text, Ritual and
Interpretation (London: Bloomsbury T&T Clark, 2014).
THE NOTION AND USE OF SCRIPTURE 75

not introduce what they have to say with the familiar scriptural formulae? As I will
show below, that does not likely begin until ca. 120–150 CE at the earliest. Those
who contend that being led by the Spirit is equal to writing scripture and who also
equate scripture with canon invariably find an early canonization of the NT in the
first century, but the available surviving evidence, as I will show later in Part 3,
does not support that notion.
Stendahl correctly observes that Revelation is the only book in the NT that
specifically claims to be a revelation from God.82 The author of 2 Pet 3:15–16
(written ca. 120–150 CE) apparently recognized some of Paul’s letters as
“Scripture,” though we are not sure which letters he intended. Paul, who is fully
aware of his apostolic status, often defends himself against his opponents, but
never says that he is the author of scripture. Even the Gospels, which tell the
story of Jesus, do not in themselves claim final authority. At that time, such divine
authority appears to be reserved for Jesus alone (Matt 28:19–20), and the many
citations and allusions of the OT texts in the Gospels also show evidence of the
authoritative status of the OT scriptures. The writers of the NT regularly show that
they believed those scriptures point to the authority of Jesus, the Christ, in the life
and ministry of the early Christian communities.
We will now turn to the challenge of defining canon in antiquity.

82
K. Stendahl, “The Apocalypse of John and the Epistles of Paul in the Muratorian Fragment,” in
Current Issues in New Testament Interpretation: Essays in Honor of Otto A. Piper, ed. W. Klassen
and G. F. Snyder (London: SCM, 1962), 240.
 CHAPTER 3

THE NOTION, USE, AND

ADAPTABILITY OF CANON

I. INTRODUCTION1

Students are often confused when reading about scripture and canon in current
publications, especially when they discover that scholars do not agree on the
meaning of these basic terms and that each is loaded with significant historical
and theological implications. In this chapter, I hope to aid readers in understanding
the various nuances of the meaning of canon in antiquity and how it has come to
be understood in canon inquiry today. “Canon,” of course, is the term that later
Christian and eventually Jewish communities use to describe the collection of
literature included in their Bibles. The language we use now was not used in the
earlier processes that led to the formation of the Jewish and Christian Bibles, but
“canon” is now commonly used to identify the final stage of the formation of the
Bible and “canonical processes” for the various factors that led to the formation
of the Bible. Scripture and canon are often and confusingly used interchangeably,
but I will try to show how important it is to keep them separate.
As noted earlier, several of the well-known designations for the religious
literature of antiquity today are anachronisms that often prejudice current under-
standing of that literature in its own context. The most common of these include:
“canon,” “canonical,” “non-canonical,” “biblical,” “non-biblical,” apocryphal,”
“pseudepigraphal,” “Hebrew Bible,” “Old Testament,” and “New Testament.” As
we saw above, Hebrew Bible (HB) is a modern construct for the Scriptures that
comprise the Jewish Bible, and Jews regularly also call it the “Mikra” (Miqra)
or “Tanak,” and sometimes “Bible.” The following discussion will include focus
on the meaning and validity of the above designations as they pertain to canon
formation.

1
Because scholars are divided over the meaning of canon and when the notion functioned among
the Jews and Christians, I have extended the following discussion and interacted with several
contemporary scholars who continue to disagree over this issue.
THE NOTION, USE, AND ADAPTABILITY OF CANON 77

Initially much of the literature that we now call nonbiblical or noncanonical,

or even apocryphal and pseudepigraphal, likely functioned as sacred texts in
some ancient Jewish and Christian communities. What do we call that literature
now? Bart Ehrman correctly acknowledges that “scholars have never devised
an adequate term for their ‘Lost Scriptures.’”2 Because of widespread confusion
on this matter, I will make yet another attempt at clarifying the terminology
involved in examining canon formation. There are many examples of writings that
functioned in a religiously authoritative (scriptural) manner in early Judaism and/
or in early Christianity that were not included in Jewish or Christian Bibles.3 Much
of the excluded or rejected literature has not survived antiquity though scholars
have occasionally found fragments of excluded texts in excavated Egyptian trash
collections or in cartons and trunks of uncatalogued manuscripts in European
museums and libraries. Among the goals of those who discover this literature is
the necessity of identifying it and how it functioned in antiquity.
In regard to the notion of canon itself, there are currently two commonly used
understandings of canon that scholars employ in their investigations and this
often leads to confusion. Along with others, I have identified these two primary
definitions as function and shape and I use the designations “Canon 1” and “Canon
2” to explain them. It may be better to distinguish them by “temporary scripture”
(or temporary canonicity) and “permanent scripture,” but no such distinctions
are without baggage. Canon 1 reflects the reality that some writings functioned
initially in a scriptural manner, but for only a brief or limited time. A related
question has to do with how long a book was viewed as scripture before it was
excluded or included in the final fixed collection of sacred books. Some excluded
writings continued in canon lists and biblical citations in the church fathers
for centuries, but were eventually rejected. Some rabbis included Sirach in the

2
Barth Ehrman, Lost Scriptures: Books That Did Not Make It into the New Testament (Oxford:
Oxford University Press, 2003), 4.
3
I have addressed this issue several times earlier, but evidently without adequate clarity. See, for
example, Ulrich, “Notion and Definition of Canon”; and more recently Stephen B. Chapman, “How
the Biblical Canon Began: Working Models and Open Questions,” in Homer, the Bible, and Beyond:
Literary and Religious Canons in the Ancient World, ed. M. Finkelberg and G. G. Stroumsa (Leiden:
Brill, 2003), 35 n. 20. Chapman addresses what he considers my inconsistent use of the term canon
and he may be right in some of his assessment, but a part of the problem lies in the doubts that
scholars have regarding religious texts that at one time functioned as authoritative religious texts
in some communities and later were not included in canonical lists or were specifically excluded
from the Bible. Timothy Stone’s dissertation, The Compilational History of the Megilloth: Canon,
Contoured Intertextuality and Meaning in the Writings, FAT 59 [Tübingen: Mohr Siebeck, 2013]),
rightly associates my definition of “canon” with that of Ulrich and Barton, but argues that I have
more interest in the final “official catalogues” than in the “canonical process.” Hopefully this chapter
and the rest of the volume will quickly dispel such comments. I have regularly shown concern for the
processes of canonization, how they started, and how (or whether) they ever concluded. However, if
careful scholars have misunderstood what I have attempted in these definitions, I will try once again
to be more clear.
78 THE FORMATION OF THE BIBLICAL CANON, VOLUME I

Jewish collection of scriptures for more than two centuries, but eventually it was
excluded. Some of those writings ceased having a canonical status in Protestant
churches, but they continued in Catholic and Orthodox churches to this day. The
other side of canon, namely shape or final fixing of the books that comprise the
church’s Scriptures, begins to emerge in the third century CE with Origen and
becomes more popular in the middle to late fourth century and thereafter. At that
time, there is little difference between shape and function since shape is about the
listing of writings that function as sacred Scripture. We will see that the definitions
overlap and are not mutually exclusive.

II. THE TERM “CANON”

The Greek term “canon” (κανών) is regularly used in literary scholarship to

speak of models, guides to follow, authorities, and the “classics” or the classical
standards of literary productions that became models for subsequent writers.
Biblical scholars regularly use “canon” to refer to a fixed collection or catalogue
of Scriptures that comprise the Bible. They also use “canonical” and “canoni-
zation” to describe the process(es) that led to the final formation of the Bible.
The roots of the term canon are obscure, but it is likely that it came from
a Semitic language of Sumerian origin and may have some parallels with the
Babylonian/Assyrian word kannu.4 The word commonly used comes from a
form of the Greek word κανών and is derived from κανή, a loan word that likely
has roots in the Semitic term kaneh. It initially referred to a “measuring rod” or
“measuring stick” (see both the Hebrew and Greek texts of Ezek 40:5–8). Among
the Greeks, the word came to refer to a standard or norm by which all things
are judged or evaluated, whether the perfect form to follow in architecture or
sculpture or the infallible criterion (κριτήριον) by which things are to be measured.
The notion of canon appears in music, where the monochord was the canon that
controls all other tonal relationships and also in the classics to identify guides or
models of writing (poets) and philosophy to follow.5 I will discuss some of these
models below.

4
Hermann Wolfgang Beyer, “Κανών,” TDNT 3:596. See also R. W. Funk, Parables and Presence
(Philadelphia: Fortress, 1982), 151–53. Achtemeier, Inspiration of Scripture, 118–23, offers a brief
but useful theological and historical description of the use of the term. Metzger, Canon of the New
Testament, 289–93, has a more detailed discussion of the origin and use of the term.
5
I have listed several examples of this in Lee Martin McDonald, “Hellenism and the Biblical
Canons: Is There a Connection?,” in Christian Origins and Hellenistic Judaism: Social and Literary
Contexts for the New Testament, ed. S. E. Porter and A. W. Pitts, TENT 10 (Leiden: Brill, 2013),
13–49, here 16–24. I have also used some of that material in what follows here, although revised
with important additions.
THE NOTION, USE, AND ADAPTABILITY OF CANON 79

Knowing the origin and development of the term helps explain how it came to
be used of biblical literature and clarifies a great deal of the debate among canon
scholars today. It is rare among scholars to find a definition of the biblical canon
that deals adequately both with the surviving ancient artifacts and the biblical text
itself.6 Much of the controversy surrounding canon formation, as we will see, has
to do with the lack of agreement on the meaning of canon or when there are signs
of it in ancient Israel and early Christianity.
As noted earlier, the term canon began to be applied to a fixed list or catalogue
of the church’s sacred and authoritative scriptures by no later than 367 CE in
Athanasius’ famous 39th Festal Letter. In that Letter Athanasius identified not
only the date for the celebration of Easter, but also the writings that could be
read in the churches. Athanasius was the first known church father to identify a
fixed list or catalogue of Christian scriptures that is the same as the standard NT
canons in most churches today and he referred to them as a “canon.” Below I will
quote the full passage that includes his list of sacred books, but for now I want to
acknowledge that he identified a list or catalogue of Christian scriptures. In this
sense, the notion of canon as authority and list (function and shape) were never at
odds and notions of function or shape (fixed lists) were never mutually exclusive.
While function always preceded shape and lists were never possible before
widespread recognition of the authority of a collection of sacred texts, shape also
has become subsequently an important feature that identifies the sacred texts that
the churches call scripture.7 That recognition of a fixed collection of scriptures
began in the second century for rabbinic Jews and in the third and fourth centuries
for the churches in regard to their NT canon.
Before Athanasius, “canon” was generally used in reference to a standard or
measurement or model to follow and also for the “rule of faith” or regula fidei
in the churches. This rule, authority, or “canon” included those beliefs and tradi-
tions that identified Christian faith and its mission. In the New Testament, canon
(κανών) is used four times – the first three describe Paul’s description of the limits
or sphere of his mission and his aim not to build on the work of others (2 Cor
10:13, 15, 16), and the final use is in regard to the rule of faith (the essence of the
cross) to be followed in the churches (Gal 6:16). In its popular use in religious
circles today, scholars regularly speak of canon in reference to a closed collection
of sacred Scriptures that comprise the modern Bibles of Jews and Christians. The
books in the Jewish and Christian Bibles differ in terms of the books included and
their sequence or order with considerable overlap. The collection of sacred books
that comprise these Bibles is what is commonly referred to as a biblical canon.

6
More recently, Tomas Bokedal makes an attempt at this in his The Formation and Significance
of the Christian Biblical Canon: A Study in Text, Ritual and Interpretation (London: Bloomsbury
T&T Clark, 2014).
7
In the Chapter 16 §V, I will suggest that Origen used a similar Latin designation of canon for
Christian scriptures and that the origin of the term for a collection of Christian scriptures may have
originated with him in the early to mid-third century.
80 THE FORMATION OF THE BIBLICAL CANON, VOLUME I

Ulrich recognizes how confusing it is to use the word “canon” for writings that
were used authoritatively (as Scripture) in Israel, but were not placed into the
Jews’ final collection of sacred texts. As we will see in Chapter 7 §II, authori-
tative scriptures were discovered at Qumran, but it is difficult to determine from
the Dead Sea Scrolls that there was any notion of a fixed collection of Scriptures,
that is, a biblical canon. To identify a biblical canon with any level of certainty,
according to Ulrich, requires several kinds of evidence: (1) the clear mention of
the title of a canon or its individual parts, such as a list of books that make up a
biblical canon; (2) multiple copies of the books, which indicate the popularity of
the text or book in a religious community; (3) formulas such as “it is written” or
“the Scripture says” used to introduce quotations of Scripture, as well as books
specifically quoted as Scripture; (4) commentaries produced on biblical books; and
(5) books translated into the vernacular languages whether in Greek or Aramaic.8
Regardless of whether all of these criteria are operative, the very act of copying
and preserving ancient documents, as scribes did at Qumran, suggests their
significance and usefulness to some segments at least of a religious community
such as the one that the Essenes formed at Qumran. The problem with the Qumran
example, as we will see, is that we do not know the full extent of the collection
that the Jews of Qumran tried to preserve. Eleven caves have been discovered, but
no one can be sure whether yet another cave or caves awaits discovery. Likewise,
had there been fewer worms in some of the caves, much more might have been
discovered in and around Qumran!9
Smith notes how translating a book, or even copying it into the same language,
was quite tedious and time consuming and such activity would not have taken
place unless the document in question was viewed as an important if not sacred
and authoritative text. As a result, he contends that neither activity, namely trans-
lation or copying, would have been carried out without some strong motivation
regarding the value of the document. The same is true for those who took the
time to produce, edit, and correct the various documents discovered in and
around Qumran.10 Using the criteria listed above, Ulrich agrees that the Qumran
community recognized many books as the word of God, that is, divine Scripture,
and that at times this literature was also referred to as “Torah and Prophets,”
but he cautiously and rightly concludes that no available evidence enables the
interpreter to determine precisely which books were part of those authoritative

8
E. Ulrich, “Qumran and the Canon of the Old Testament,” in The Biblical Canons, ed. J.-M.
Auwers and H. J. de Jonge, BETL 163 (Leuven: Louvain University Press, 2003), 66–75.
9
Cross, From Epic to Canon, 225, in his discussion of the absence of Esther at Qumran, under-
scores that this may only be due to chance since the book of Chronicles only exists there in a small
fragment “despite its larger size; an additional hungry worm, and Chronicles too, would have been
missing.”
10
M. Smith, Palestinian Parties and Politics That Shaped the Old Testament (New York:
Columbia University Press, 1971), 7.
THE NOTION, USE, AND ADAPTABILITY OF CANON 81

collections.11 It is unlikely that all of the literature discovered at Qumran in the

various caves qualifies as sacred scripture in the Essene community and it is also
quite possible that complete books from their collection are missing. In a similar
word of caution, Sanders notes, “we simply do not know if we have everything
they [the residents at Qumran] had in their library, probably indeed not.”12 We
will return later to the important issues raised by the discovery of the Dead Sea
Scrolls.
Barton, who employs canon to identify the collection of scriptures that makes
up the Bible, nevertheless acknowledges the challenge and difficulty of using this
term to identify the biblical books. If canon refers to books that were recognized
in some authoritative manner, then we have to acknowledge also that all of the
books that were initially so recognized were not eventually included in the Jewish
or Christian Bibles.13 What lies behind these sacred collections is that God has
spoken through prophetic inspired persons who wrote the books that comprise
Jewish and Christian Scriptures.

III. CANONS IN THE ANCIENT WORLD

Because of important recent advances in our understanding of late Second

Temple Judaism and early Christianity, there is renewed interest in the impact
of Hellenistic thought and culture on the religious traditions of both Jews and
Christians. Hellenistic influences in Palestine and throughout the Greco-Roman
world were widespread and many of the structures, art, and roads from this period
can still be seen throughout the Mediterranean region. The Greek language and
culture were still known in aristocratic and military circles of Judaism long after
Greek domination had ended. Martin Hengel observes that the use of the Greek
language was widespread among the Jews even before the accession of Antiochus
IV in 175 BC and that it was not suppressed after the Maccabean victories over the

11
Ulrich, “Qumran and the Canon,” 77. In a paper delivered at the 2003 annual convention of the
Society of Biblical Literature in Atlanta, Georgia, entitled “Canon,” Ulrich concluded, based on the
criteria listed above, that we might now know the parameters of the biblical canon at Qumran. He
had difficulty, however, when asked to account for the noncanonical literature discovered there that
apparently functioned as scripture, or canonically, for the Essenes, especially the Temple Scroll. He
later clarified his comments saying that “there is strong evidence to demonstrate that the writings in
the library at Qumran – just as the NT and the majority of Judaism – recognized a number of books
as containing the word of God, thus as authoritative Scripture, and that they were at times referred
to as the Torah and the Prophets.” He is right to conclude, however, that the exact contents of a
canonical collection at Qumran cannot presently be determined. He lists 1 Enoch, Jubilees, Tobit,
Sirach, and the Epistle of Jeremiah as candidates, but ignores several other possible candidates such
as 4QMMT and the Temple Scroll.
12
J. A. Sanders, “Canon: Hebrew Bible,” ABD 1:842.
13
J. Barton, Oracles of God: Perceptions of Ancient Prophecy in Israel After the Exile (Oxford:
Oxford University Press, 1986; rev. 2007), 80–82.
82 THE FORMATION OF THE BIBLICAL CANON, VOLUME I

Seleucids in the Land of Israel.14 I will offer examples below of Greek influence
both among Jews and the early Christians that suggest a possible contributing
influence for both Jews and Christians in their establishing fixed biblical canons.
More than two hundred years ago Friedrich August Wolf, in his Prolegomena
ad Homerum (1795), suggested that there were parallels between Jewish and
Christian biblical canons of sacred literature and Hellenistic literary canons that
were both natural and obvious parallels, but not much research on these parallels
has taken place since. Wolf observed that the text of the Jewish sacred scriptures
was viewed and treated in similar ways as the Homeric poems and that the two
canons, biblical and literary, were viewed from a canonical perspective.15
The ancient world was filled with canons (guides, models, regulations) for
almost every sphere of art or activity. The Egyptians had canons of art by which
the artisans were guided in their craft. The cartouche, for example, a rectangular
closed circle containing a pharaoh’s name in hieroglyphics, is uniform in almost
all paintings and statuary of the ancient dynasties in Egypt. Other canons of art
from the Egyptian Old Kingdom (ca. 2700–2160 BCE)16 and the Middle Kingdom
(2106–1786 BCE) include the uniform shape of human figures, skin color (women
were uniformly given a lighter skin color than men), and arms crossed over the
chest to indicate the death of the person portrayed. Besides that, a foot extended
forward with the hands at the side or extended indicated that the person portrayed
by the painter or sculptor was still alive, and symbols of the cobra and/or the
falcon-god Horus (a deity that became associated with kingship) on the headdress
of the pharaoh or within the design of art objects related to kingship.17
The same conformity to a canon of art appears on grave stelae18 from ancient
Greece. These stelae, from around 600 BCE to roughly 300 BCE, are quite
uniform in style, with the only difference being a gradual progression from stelae
bearing etchings, to bearing bas reliefs, to being sculpted in the round. The same
figures are represented on the stone carvings, and the stelae are often topped first
by a sphinx and eventually by a palmette finial,19 with widespread uniform relief
decoration on the shaft.

14
Martin Hengel, Judaism and Hellenism: Studies in Their Encounter in Palestine During the
Early Hellenistic Period (Philadelphia: Fortress, 1974), 1:103.
15
For a concise discussion of this, see Margalit Finkelberg, “Introduction: Before the Western
Canon,” in Finkelberg and Stroumsa, eds., Homer, the Bible, and Beyond, 2–3.
16
The dates here are taken from ABD 2:328.
17
In the New Kingdom (1550 BCE and following) there was a temporary loosening of some of
the more rigid patterns of art to allow for more realistic depictions of the torsos of the pharaohs with
larger stomachs and weaker or even odd-looking torsos.
18
A stela (Greek, pl., stelae) is an ancient upright stone slab often having a commemorative
inscription on it as in the case of grave stelae.
19
The palmette finial is an ornament with divisions resembling a palm leaf. This symbol completes
the artwork and appears on the apex, top, or corner of the stela.
THE NOTION, USE, AND ADAPTABILITY OF CANON 83

Many other examples of standards or canons are found in antiquity. Along

with those just mentioned, there were also canons for writing that were followed
in philosophy, poetry, and prose that became models for others to follow. For
example, the notion of a standard was also employed in philosophy as the criterion
or canon by which one discovers what is true and false. Beyer shows that Epicurus
himself argued that logic and method in thought stemmed from a canon (κανών)
or basis by which one could know what was true or false and thus whether it was
worth investigating.20 Epicurean philosopher Diogenes Laertius (200–250 CE)
identifies one of the writings of Epicurus (341–270 BCE) as “Of the Standard, a
Work Entitled Canon” (Περὶ κριτηρίου καὶ Κανών), calling it “canonic” (κανονικὸν)
for living (Lives of Eminent Philosophers 10.27, 30; see also 31, where he adds
“Now in the Canon Epicurus affirms…the standard of truth…” [ἐν τοίνυν τῶ Κανόνι
λέγων ἐστὶν ὁ Ἐπίκουρος κριτήρια τῆς ἀληθείας]). In the same text, he explains the
substance of this work: “Now in The Canon Epicurus affirms that our sensations
and preconceptions and our feelings are the standards of truth; the Epicureans
generally make perceptions of mental presentations to be also standards” (10.31,
LCL).21 This use is similar to the way that the term canon came to be used as the
standard of truth, or regula fidei, for early Christian faith. Epictetus (ca. 50–130
CE) similarly argued that the goal of philosophy is to determine a “standard
of judgment” and that whatever subject needs to be investigated, one needs to
“subject it to the standard” (ὕπαγη αὖτην τῶ κανόνι) (Dissertationes 2.11.13, 20;
cf. 2.23.21). Aeschines of Athens (ca. 397–322 BCE) says essentially the same
thing:

In carpentry, when we want to know whether something is straight, we use a ruler [kanōn]
designed for the purpose. So also in the case of indictments for illegal proposals, the guide
[kanōn] for justice is this public posting of the proposal with accompanying statement of the
laws that it violates. (Against Ctesiphon 199–200, quoted in Danker, II Corinthians, 160)

Both Homer and Hesiod were widely revered among the Greeks and used as
standards or models for literary writings. Alexander the Great, under the influence
of Aristotle, actually founded a cult in Homer’s name at Alexandria.22 The
gods mentioned in Homer’s Iliad and Odyssey are the ones that became canon
for the Greeks, that is, they were the recognized and honored deities. Homer’s
writings functioned as a supreme authority among the Greeks and in a very real
sense became canon par excellence for them. This included a special religious
significance. Unlike other ancient Greek writings, both of Homer’s works were
divided into twenty-four parts (books or chapters), and a letter of the Greek
alphabet identified each part, a factor that set Homer’s works apart from all other
writings.

20
Beyer, TDNT 3:596–98.
21
For similar examples, see also Seneca, Epistles 89.11–12.
22
Graham, Beyond the Written Word, 52.
84 THE FORMATION OF THE BIBLICAL CANON, VOLUME I

The use of the alphabet as a sign of divine origin and importance, whether
writings or persons or admonitions, is helpful for understanding the New Testament
references to God and Jesus as “Alpha and Omega,” the first and last letters of the
Greek alphabet (Rev 1:8; 21:6; 22:13), and perhaps also, the “twenty-four elders”
(Rev 4:4, 10; 5:8; 11:16; 19:4). More specifically, and in regard to the twenty-four
elders of Revelation, Victorinus (ca. 280 CE), in his commentary on the book of
Revelation at 4:7–10, writes: “The twenty-four elders are the twenty-four books
of the law and the Prophets, which give testimonies of the Judgment… The books
of the Old Testament that are received are twenty-four, which you will find in
the epitomes of Theodore” (Comm. Apocalypse 4:7–10, ANF, 7:348). Earlier he
suggests that the number “twenty-four” is the sum of the Twelve Sons of Israel
and the Twelve Apostles (4.3). Aune points out that “elder” (Gk. presbuteros)
was often used in reference to a leadership role in the NT and early Christianity,
e.g., Acts 11:30; 14:23; 20:17; 1 Tim 5:1, 17, passim, Ign., Magn. 2:1; 3:1; 6:1;
7:1; Hermas, Vis. 2.4.2, 3 and several others. He goes on to list some seven possi-
bilities for their meaning in Revelation, but none are without problems.23 Perhaps
the reference to twenty-four in Revelation, similar to the significance of twenty-
four in Homer, has to do with divine leadership before the throne of God. In the
early fifth century CE, Jerome compared the twenty-four books of the Hebrew
Scriptures with the twenty-four elders of the book of Revelation (Prologus in
Libro Regum [= Prologus Galeatus]).24
Some Christians, who acknowledged the sacredness of the twenty-two book
Hebrew canon of scriptures, also found a way to accommodate the rabbinic
acceptance of the twenty-four-book canon adopted by the Jews. For example, the
author of the Gospel of Thomas (ca. 100–140 CE, and perhaps later25) says that
“Twenty-four prophets spoke in Israel, and they have all spoken of you [Jesus]”
(Gosp. Th. 52, NT Apo 125). This passage may also refer to the OT books acknowl-
edged as Scripture among early Christians, which if so would make it the earliest
known Christian document to identify a specific number of books in the Christian
OT. Interestingly, Hilary of Poitiers (d. 367 CE) mentions the twenty-two books of
the OT in accordance with the Hebrew alphabet, but then added Judith and Tobit
because the Greek alphabet has twenty-four letters!26

23
David E. Aune, Revelation 1–5, Word Biblical Commentary 52A (Waco: Word, 1995), 287–92.
24
See M. Hengel, The Septuagint as Christian Scripture: Its Prehistory and the Problem of Its
Canon, trans. M. E. Biddle (Edinburgh: T. &. T. Clark, 2002), 57–74, for other examples.
25
For arguments for a significantly later date for the origin of the Gospel of Thomas, see N.
Perrin, Thomas and Tatian: The Relationship Between the Gospel of Thomas and the Diatessaron,
Academia Biblica 5 (Leiden: Brill, 2002).
26
Hengel, The Septuagint as Christian Scripture, 62 n. 13, makes this observation and cites Hilary
of Poitiers’ commentary on the Psalms (Instructio Psalmorum 15).
THE NOTION, USE, AND ADAPTABILITY OF CANON 85

The Jewish practice of dividing some psalms into twenty-two verses following
the letters in the Hebrew alphabet (e.g., Pss 25, 34) can also be seen in divisions
of a text into twenty-two sections (e.g., Ps 119) on the basis of the twenty-two-
letter Hebrew alphabet where each verse or section begins with a successive letter
of the Hebrew alphabet.27 Like those who revered Homer and his introduction of
each chapter or book with a successive letter of the Greek alphabet in the Iliad
and Odyssey, the Jews also introduced some of their literature with letters of the
Hebrew alphabet. They identified the number of books in their sacred collection
with the number of letters in the Hebrew alphabet (twenty-two), but later
adopted the number of their books by configuring the list of books to conform
to the twenty-four letter Greek alphabet to identify the number of books in their
Scriptures. In neither case do the numbers equate exactly with the books in the
HB, but the books are combined in ways that make the same number of books
come out to either twenty-two or twenty-four (see the later discussion of Josephus
and the author of 4 Ezra). Did the use of the Greek alphabet influence Jewish and
later Christian writers? It appears so. We will explore those possibilities in Chapter
6 (especially §VI).
By around 25 BCE, many Roman grammarians were following the literary
and grammatical models of Vergil’s Aeneid, Cicero, and Sallust. Even Tacitus
(78–115 CE), perhaps “the most individualistic and most psychological of
ancient historians,”28 was still guided by the model of Vergil’s Aeneid. Among the
Greeks, Plato especially and later also Aristotle provided the canons or models
for subsequent philosophers. Latin grammarians, in the tradition of the Greeks,
deemed it very important to follow certain models in their writing. According to
Suetonius, they were also actively involved in training the rhetoricians of the day
in the best principles of grammar. The common observance and strict adherence
to these rules of grammar can be illustrated in the following three examples from
Suetonius’s Lives of Illustrious Men. Suetonius mentions one ancient writer who
was evidently more interested in his Epicurean sect than in giving special attention
to matters of grammar in his literary productions. The resulting criticism of his
work by Roman colleagues, however, greatly embarrassed him and forced him to
leave Rome. Suetonius writes:

Marcus Pompilius Andronicus, a native of Syria, …was considered somewhat indolent in his
work as a grammarian and not qualified to conduct a school. Therefore, realizing that he was
held in less esteem at Rome, not only than Antonius Gnipho, but than others of even less ability,
he moved to Cumae, where he led a quiet life and wrote many books. (Lives of Illustrious Men:
On Grammarians 8, LCL)

27
See, for example, Pss 25 and 34 that are acrostics; and Pss 37, 111, 112, 119, 145, Lam 1–4 and
Prov 31:10–31.
28
C. Moore, trans., Tacitus: The Histories, 2 vols., LCL (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University
Press, 1931–37), 2:xiii.
86 THE FORMATION OF THE BIBLICAL CANON, VOLUME I

Similarly, reflecting one of the worst insults of the day, namely being accused of
ignorance of proper grammar, Lenaeus, a freedman of Pompey, criticized Sallust
(who had criticized Pompey) with biting satire and several debasing adjectives. He
concluded with this final salvo: “And who was besides an ignorant pilferer of the
language of the ancients” (Suetonius, Lives of Illustrious Men: On Grammarians
15, LCL)!
The significant authority attributed to the canons or standards of grammar
around the time of the birth of Jesus can be seen in the well-known account of
Marcellus’s attack on the grammar of leading Roman officials, including his attack
on Caesar Tiberius:

Marcus Pomponius Marcellus, a most pedantic critic of the Latin language, in one of his cases
(for he sometimes acted as an advocate) was so persistent in criticizing an error in diction made
by his opponent, that Cassius Severus appealed to the judges and asked for a postponement, to
enable his client to employ a grammarian in his stead: “For,” said he, “he thinks that the contest
with his opponent will not be on points of law, but of diction.” When this same Marcellus had
criticized a word in one of Tiberius’s speeches, and Ateius Capito declared that it was good
Latin, or if not, that it would surely be so from that time on, Marcellus answered: “Capito lies;
for you, Caesar, can confer citizenship upon men, but not upon a word.” (Suetonius, Lives of
Illustrious Men: On Grammarians 22, LCL)

Literate Alexandrians in Egypt also acknowledged written canons that were

practiced in reference to grammar and the literary models that subsequent
writers were advised to follow. They did not use the term “canon” to describe
this activity, or for the collection of models to follow, but rather they employed
the Greek term πινακές (“tables” or “lists”).29 However, the very selectivity they
used in compiling the famous lists of authoritative or “classic” works included in
the Alexandrian library reflected the high standards employed in the selectivity.
The grammarians serving at the great library of Alexandria sought to preserve an
accurate and faithful text of the classics in literature and thus produced a collection
of writers whose Greek and style of writing were models to follow. Among the
most commonly recognized ancient classics were the works of Homer, Euripides,
Menander, Demosthenes, Hesiod, Pindar, Sappho, Aeschylus, Sophocles, Plato,
Aristotle, Aristophanes, Herodotus, Thucydides, and Aesop. In antiquity, those

29
Pinax (plural pinakes) originally referred to a board, plank, or tablet, often used to create a list,
catalogue, or index. Eventually, the term was widely used in reference to lists or catalogues. Pinakes
is similar in meaning to Cicero’s Latin term classici (“classes”) and Quintilian’s Latin ordo (“series,
order”). Indeed, the very word classic, when applied to the ancient writers, suggests that these
writers were among those who had reached certain standards of excellence and thought that others
should and who subsequently did imitate (see Rudolf Pfeiffer, History of Classical Scholarship:
From the Beginnings to the End of the Hellenistic Age [Oxford: Clarendon, 1968], 206–7). While
the Greek κανών did not originally have the sense of a finished or complete collection, as the word
pinakes sometimes did, in several instances it has that meaning. I will discuss these terms more in
Chapter 6.
THE NOTION, USE, AND ADAPTABILITY OF CANON 87

who wrote literary works did not move far from these models in subject matter,
style, or grammar. Those who departed from these standards were often criticized
for doing so or ignored.
These classic writers (and some others) became the standards in the Alexandrian
library. Not everything written in the ancient world was selected and placed in
those collections, but those that were included were copied with considerable
care by people trained to preserve the accuracy of their texts and to order them
for identification and location. For example, the list of poets among the old
Greek classics is undeniably selective. The Greek grammarians at Alexandria
selected Homer’s Iliad and Odyssey, along with Hesiod’s Theogony and Erga, as
the standards of epic poetry. Likewise, Pindar, Bacchylides, Sappho, Anacreon,
Stesichorus, Simonides, Ibycus, Alcaeus, and Alcman became the nine standard
lyric poets and were sometimes referred to as “the Nine.” Although the order
differs in the various epigrams that list these works, the names were all the same;
it was a standard list. These names, as well as those of the ten great orators, circu-
lated widely not only in Alexandria, but also in Pergamum, Rhodes, Athens, and
Rome, the other important learning centers and locations of major libraries in the
ancient Greco-Roman world. After listing the orators and writers with the best
skills, Quintilian (born ca. 35 CE) explains the value of imitating them:

It is from these and other authors worth reading that we must draw our stock of words, the
variety of our Figures, and our system of composition, and also guide our minds by the patterns
they provide of all the virtues. It cannot be doubted that a large part of art consists of imitation.
Invention of course came first and it is the main thing, and good inventions are profitable to
follow. Moreover, it is a principle of life in general that we want to do for ourselves what we
approve in others. Children follow the outlines of letters so as to become accustomed to writing.
Singers find their model in their teacher’s voice, painters in the works of their predecessors,
and farmers in methods of cultivation which have been tested by experience. In a word, we see
the rudiments of every branch of learning shaped by standards prescribed for it. We obviously
cannot help being either like the good or unlike them. Nature rarely makes us like them;
imitation often does. (Orator’s Education 10.2.1–3, LCL, emphasis added)

In other Greco-Roman literature, κανών was employed as a means of deter-

mining the quality of something, that is, whether it “measured up.”30 This is
similar to the notion of “canon of faith” (Lat., regula fidei), which refers to the
religious beliefs that were the standards of faith in the early church. Unlike the
Christian and Jewish understanding of their biblical canons, however, Quintilian
urges caution when reading the best authors. He acknowledges that they were
merely human and could make mistakes and this should be held in mind when
reading the best orators and writers:

30
For example, see Euripides, Hecuba 602; Demosthenes 18.18, 296; Aeschines, Against
Ctesiphon 88; Sextus Empiricus, Pros Logikous 2.3; Epictetus, Discourses 1.28.28.
88 THE FORMATION OF THE BIBLICAL CANON, VOLUME I

The reader must not let himself be automatically convinced that everything which the best
authors said is necessarily perfect. They do sometimes slip, stagger under the load, and indulge
in the pleasures of their own ingenuity. They do not always concentrate, and they get tired
from time to time. Cicero thinks Demosthenes sometimes drops off to sleep, and Horace thinks
the same even of Homer. Great men they are, but they are only human, and it can happen that
people who make everything they find in them into a law of oratory come to imitate their less
good features (which is easier) and fancy themselves sufficiently like them if they attain to the
great men’s faults. However, we should be modest and circumspect in pronouncing judgment
on men of such stature, and avoid the common mistake of condemning what we do not under-
stand. If we must err on one side or the other, I should prefer readers to approve of everything
in the masters than to find many things to disapprove. (Orator’s Education 10.1.24–26, LCL)

On the other hand, those who followed a biblical canon believed that their writings
came from God and they did not criticize them or stand in judgment over them.
Upon request from Alexander the Great, supposedly31 Aristotle set forth standard
“rules” or guidelines for the practice of rhetoric. Aristotle’s “Art” of Rhetoric in
three volumes was followed by a subsequent author, writing in Aristotle’s name
(sometimes called Pseudo-Aristotle) purporting to lecture Alexander on the
benefits of careful rhetoric. He called his enterprise on rhetoric “principles of
political oratory” and endeavored to present in Aristotle’s name to Alexander a
treatise on this subject “with a degree of accuracy that has not yet been attained
by any other of the authors dealing with it” (Ps.-Aristotle, Rhetoric to Alexander,
1420a, LCL 16:267).
Alexandrian grammarians, who set forth a canon of writers whose Greek was
used as a model, may well have influenced both Jewish and Christian notions
of a biblical canon when they identified the books that established the standard
guidelines of their faith and practice. The gathering together of an authoritative
collection of classical writings in the great library at Alexandria, Egypt has some
parallels with the notion of canon as a collection of literary models or guides to
be followed by both Jews and Christians.32 John Van Seters argues more force-
fully that the act of gathering and copying the classical texts in the library at
Alexandria was the direct ancestor of the biblical canons of both Judaism and
early Christianity. He writes:

The scholarly tradition of the Alexandrian library was likewise concerned with the listing and
classification of its works. In this regard it established tables, i.e. lists (pinakes) of writers
and classical works from the past, and excluded spurious works whose creation was very
common in the Hellenistic period. These tables are the ancestors of the “canons of writers”
that one encounters in the Roman and Byzantine periods. I think it is obvious that the concern
to establish a canon of scripture in Judaism and Christianity draws directly upon this scholarly
tradition.33

31
Many scholars are not convinced that Aristotle himself actually wrote the Rhetoric guidelines.
32
VanderKam, Revelation to Canon, 29–30, also suggests this influence.
33
Quoted by VanderKam, ibid., 30.
THE NOTION, USE, AND ADAPTABILITY OF CANON 89

Perhaps here I should emphasize that the first person to identify the collection
of Christian sacred scriptures with the word “canon,” Athanasius, was also from
Alexandria where literary canons were well known.
The legendary story about the origins of the Greek translation of the Law
(Pentateuch) presented in the Letter of Aristeas (discussed in the previous chapter)
is in harmony with this theory. Its author gives a legendary account of how the
Alexandrian library began and how the Jewish Scriptures were translated into
Greek and included in it. While most scholars today recognize that there is a
considerable amount of myth and legend in this account, they also recognize
that some elements of reality are couched in the legend. In the early part of the
so-called legendary “letter” we read:

On his appointment as keeper of the king’s [Ptolemy II Philadelphus, 285–247 BCE] library,
Demetrius of Phalerum undertook many different negotiations aimed at collecting, if possible,
all the books in the world. By purchase and translation he brought to successful conclusion,
as far as lay in his power, the king’s plan. We were present when the question was put to him,
“How many thousand books are there (in the royal library)?” His reply was, “Over two hundred
thousand, O King. I shall take urgent steps to increase in a short time the total to five hundred
thousand. Information has reached me that the lawbooks of the Jews are worth translation and
inclusion in your royal library.” (Let. Aris. 9–10, OTP 2:12)

The Letter of Aristeas, though generally acknowledged as Jewish fictional propa-

ganda, nonetheless likely reflects some reliable traditions in it such as its claim
that individuals connected to the Alexandrian library sought to collect important
literary productions.34 It is also likely the case, as the Letter of Aristeas states,
that the translators of the Law of Moses from Hebrew into Greek were Jews who
came from Jerusalem to Egypt with Hebrew texts of the Jewish scriptures, the
Pentateuch, to produce a reliable Greek translation of them. This seems to assume
that a standard text of Jewish Scriptures existed in Jerusalem as the Vorlage
(antecedent) to this translation (Septuagint or LXX) and it was used for the trans-
lation, and it also assumes some relationship between the Jews in the land of Israel
and those in Alexandria.
The notion that this tradition of collecting the standard or classical writings in
one library was a model for Jews is enhanced by the comment in the Letter of
Aristeas that the Jewish “law books” were considered worthy of translation and
inclusion in the royal library. Accordingly, not everything written was considered
worthy of inclusion in the Alexandrian library nor viewed as models to follow, but
the selectivity on the part of the librarians at the Alexandrian library, witnessed
to by the Letter of Aristeas, may well give the context or background necessary

34
Rudolf Pfeiffer, History of Classical Scholarship, 99–104, discusses the importance of the
Letter of Aristeas with its other ancient parallel, Tzetzes’ Prolegomena to Aristophanes, and while
acknowledging the fictitious nature of the former, he nevertheless accepts many of its features as
reflective of the origins and development of the library at Alexandria.
90 THE FORMATION OF THE BIBLICAL CANON, VOLUME I

for understanding why both Jews and Christians adopted the notion of a selected
standard of religious texts from among many other religious texts produced both
by Jews and later by the Christians.
Those connected with the famous Alexandrian library commissioned the
famous writer Callimachus35 to compile a catalogue or list of ancient authors and
works housed in the library at Alexandria. Again, it is possible that both Jews and
Christians derived their understanding of the notion of a biblical canon as a fixed
collection of authoritative writings from this example.36 They both knew of the
Greek translation of the Jewish scriptures, as we will see in Chapter 6 below, and
there were certainly large numbers of Jews in Alexandria before and during the
time when the Hebrew Scriptures were translated into Greek. The diaspora Jews
at that time may well have gained their understanding of a fixed biblical canon
from the closest model at hand, namely, the canon of literary texts in the library
at Alexandria. Likewise, many Christians were living in Alexandria in the latter
part of the first century CE and thereafter, and well before the time when anyone
discussed the formation of a biblical canon.
Again, did the Alexandrian literary canon influence the Christian notion of a
biblical canon? It is not yet possible to draw clear lines of dependence and no
one in antiquity states this dependence, but both the proximity and influence of
Alexandria on the land of Israel in the third century BCE and following suggests
that possibility. Indeed, the Egyptian Ptolemies controlled the land of Israel until
the battle at Paneas (called Caesarea Philippi in the New Testament and more
recently Banias) in 198 BCE. As we will see later in Chapter 16 §VI, Origen
may have been one of the earliest Christians to produce a list of Christian scrip-
tures, and he also lived for years in Alexandria, Egypt. Similarly, as noted earlier,
Athanasius, also of Alexandria, was the first church father to produce a NT canon
like the one that currently exists in Christian Bibles and he used the term canon
to identify it. It may be significant that there is no record of a fixed or stabilized
collection of Scriptures in Judaism before the translation of the Pentateuch

35
Callimachus was born in Cyrene around 300 BCE and was educated in Athens. After teaching
for a while near Alexandria, he was commissioned to produce catalogues or lists of the library,
with notes on all of its estimated 500,000 volumes in order to make them more accessible. A poet
and a prolific writer (supposedly producing more than 800 volumes) – but never head librarian
at Alexandria – Callimachus’ most valuable contribution is his 120-volume catalogue, which
he entitled Pinakes. See A. Lesky, A History of Greek Literature (New York: Crowell, 1966),
5, 700–717; Rudolf Pfeiffer, History of Classical Scholarship, 123–51; and J. E. G. Zetzel,
“Re-creating the Canon: Augustan Poetry and the Alexandrian Past,” in Canons, ed. R. von
Hallberg (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1984), 122–25; and P. W. Pirie, “Callimachus,” in
The Oxford Classical Dictionary, ed. Simon Hornblower and Antony Spawforth, 3rd ed. (Oxford:
Oxford University Press, 1996), 276–78.
36
Davies, Scribes and Schools, 6–8, 15–36, offers a helpful discussion of how the term kanōn
was used in antiquity and he also suggests that the Christians only later adopted a well-used term in
the Greco-Roman world for their own biblical canon. See also VanderKam, Revelation to Canon,
29–30.
THE NOTION, USE, AND ADAPTABILITY OF CANON 91

into Greek at Alexandria. It is not a great leap in logic to see how librarians at
Alexandria might have influenced the Jews, especially since their sacred writings
were translated, given to the king, and placed in the Alexandrian library, and
especially also because later they show considerable awareness of Homer and the
classics (e.g., Josephus, Ag. Apion 1.9–46) as we will see in Chapter 6.
Widespread literary canons in the Greco-Roman world existed long before Jews
and Christians began to talk about a recognized collection of sacred Scriptures
and the Alexandrian example may have had an influence (been a model?) on
Jewish and Christian formations of their biblical canons. However, what appears
to be unique to Judaism, and subsequently early Christianity, is the notion of a
fixed collection of sacred books that defines the will of God and is considered
inviolable (Deut 4:2; Rev 22:18–19). Nothing else quite parallels this focus in
antiquity, although the Greeks’ recognition of the special religious significance
to Homer has some parallels. Generally, if subsequent writers rose to the level of
their antecedent models, they could be included in the classics as well.
It is not yet possible to draw clear lines of Jewish or Christian dependence on
these Hellenistic models, but both the proximity and influence of Alexandria in the
land of Israel from the fourth century BCE and following suggests the possibility.
Indeed, the Ptolemies from Egypt controlled the land of Israel during the time the
LXX translation was produced and later, until they lost control of it during the
battle at Pan (Paneas), noted above. The introduction of the pinakes or catalogues
of model literature took place in Alexandria during the time of Callimachus (third
century BCE, see discussion in Chapter 6 §II). It may be significant that there is
no record of a fixed or stabilized collection of Scriptures in Judaism before the
existence of the pinakes in Alexandria.37 The development and production of
standards for a variety of human activities, including standard lists or collections
of writings both at Alexandria and elsewhere in the Hellenistic world, is not far
from what is implied in the Christian use of the term canon when applied to a
collection of sacred books. The influence of the librarians at Alexandria might
well have been felt not only among the Alexandrian Jews but also among those
in the Land of Israel (Palestine). If the Letter of Aristeas is correct in its view that
the sacred Jewish writings (the Pentateuch) were translated, given to the king,
and placed in his royal library at Alexandria, then Jewish awareness of canons or
models that define their faith are not likely far removed.
The processes of canonization have striking parallels in the Greco-Roman
world and in modern times, including the selective “decanonization” that biblical
canons undergo when the times, culture, and a religious community’s needs
change. For example, over time formal literary styles of language that were once
dominant in one culture inevitably change and the former standards of literary

37
As we will observe below in the discussion of the criteria for the selection of books and closing
of the period of canonization for the HB, the notion of the cessation of prophecy in Israel does not
appear before the time of the Hasmonean Dynasty in the second century BCE.
92 THE FORMATION OF THE BIBLICAL CANON, VOLUME I

activity are no longer the same as those in the emerging culture. Canons change
over time generally. It is not unusual today to see former standards disappear, as
in the practice of not ending a sentence with a preposition, splitting infinitives,
or changing possessive words from ’s to s’s, and in Jesus’ to Jesus’s. Such
changes take time and in times of change and transition, educational institutions
and publishers, and leading authors often become the primary custodians of the
classical literature of the past and its grammatical standards. Through a variety of
interpretive measures that regularly introduce the previous “standard” styles to
contemporary cultures, educational institutions seek ways of enabling the classical
literature to remain relevant to the emerging communities, including making
modifications of it to make it relevant.38
In the case of Judaism and Christianity, the “institutions” are the synagogue
and the church respectively and they use a variety of hermeneutical skills to bring
the past into the present and show the relevance of the “standards” of earlier
synagogues and churches for the contemporary communities of faith. Historically,
the oldest skill that sought to bridge the gap between contemporary and earlier
sacred standards was hermeneutics.39 Both Judaism and early Christianity utilized
allegory to reflect the continuing relevance of their scriptures. Just as the ancient
literary canons often spoke differently than the educators of a later period, the
educators contemporized classical literature so those canons could continue to
address the people of their day. Periodically, however, the canons of one gener-
ation ceased being relevant to the needs of the next and occasionally some earlier
“canonized” literature became “decanonized.” Some texts that initially functioned
in an authoritative manner, later no longer did.
By the fifth century BCE, the notion of the Olympian gods expressing human
behavior was problematic to a growing number of philosophers. Xenophanes
of Colophon, for example, challenged whether the gods were capable of human
jealousy, wrath, lust, and anger. Such behavior, they argued, was not appropriate to
the propriety (theoprepes) and dignity of the gods (dignum deo). Human affections
and emotions, it was believed, were unjustly ascribed to the gods in the mythical
tales of Homer and Hesiod. Euripides claimed that it was unseemly for the gods
to be like mortals in matters like fits of anger (Bacchae 1348).40 Sextus Empiricus
also concluded that it has been established by all philosophers that the gods cannot

38
Guillory offers a useful summary of how literary canons emerged in the ancient world and how
they were maintained both in antiquity and in the modern world in his “Canon,” 233–49.
39
James A. Sanders in his Monotheizing Process, 2–3, discusses this process when he speaks of
the “hermeneutical triangle” that addresses the text under consideration, the sociological context in
which the text arose, and the hermeneutics employed by the interpreters of the text. The reinterpreta-
tion of the ancient texts in new situations involves this significant hermeneutical process. In antiquity
it often involved allegory.
40
For further expansion of this point, see Pieter W. Van Der Horst, Jews and Christians in Their
Greco-Roman Context, WUNT 196 (Tübingen: Mohr Siebeck, 2006), 129–30.
THE NOTION, USE, AND ADAPTABILITY OF CANON 93

be subject to emotions or passions. They are “apathetic” (apathes) as we see in his

Pyrrhoneiai Hypotposeis (1.162).
Another feature that has parallels with the works of Homer and the biblical
literature is the construction of commentaries on these works that were generated
by the Greeks as well as the Jews and Christians. It appears that commentaries on
sacred books began with Aristarchus of Samothrace (216–144 BCE), also known
as the “most scholarly scholar” (grammatikotatos) and sometimes even called
“the Prophet” (ho mantis), who is reputed to have written the first commentaries
(called hupomnemata) on classical works beginning with Homer and Hesiod, then
Aeschylus, Euripides, and other classical books. He discussed the meaning of
words, style, form, and meter and also made comparisons with other literature in
his commentaries. His well-known rule of interpreting a writer by use of his own
words and context is essentially “interpreting Homer with Homer” (Homeron ex
Homerou saphenizein = “explain Homer from Homer”). Rabbinic Jews regularly
used this interpretive style as we see in the seven hermeneutical rules attributed
to Hillel summarized as “like something similar in another passage” (ke-yotze bo
be-maqom aher).41 Historically, Jewish and Christian commentaries follow the
commentaries of Aristarchus. Some of the earliest known Jewish commentaries
are the pesharim (commentaries) from Qumran42 and closer in geographical
distance are the commentaries of Philo (of Alexandria).43 Similarly, the production
of commentaries on early Christian writings, such as the four canonical Gospels
and letters of Paul, show the value of commentary literature among the early
Christians. The best-known ancient commentator of New Testament writings is,
of course, Origen (ca. 185–254), who produced more commentaries than any of
his contemporaries. Demetrius, bishop of Alexandria, regularly implored him to
pursue this activity.
These overlaps in the production of commentaries on sacred writings cannot
be inconsequential for a study of canon formation, despite the differences
between ancient literary canons and biblical canons. As this view took root in
the synagogue and church, decanonization was harder to accomplish, and more
creative hermeneutics were introduced to make the biblical literature relevant
to contemporary generations. The similarities between Jewish and Christian
commentaries on sacred literature and the ancient literary canons are the subject
of several significant works on literary canons, and future advances in canon

41
This comparison was brought to my attention by J. F. A. Sawyer, Sacred Languages and Sacred
Texts, Religion in the First Christian Centuries (London: Routledge, 1999), 147–49.
42
Namely, commentaries on Habakkuk, 1QpHab; on Micah, 1QpMic; on Isaiah, 4QpIsaa, 4QIsab,
and 4QpIsac, 4QIsae; on Hosea, 4QpHosb; on Nahum, 4QpNah; on the Psalms, 4QpPsa, 4QpPsb.
43
See for example his commentary on the days of creation of the world (De Opificio Mundi) and
his Allegorical Interpretation of Genesis 2,3 (Legum Allegoria), as well as his commentaries on the
Decalogue (De Decalogo) and Special Laws (De Specialibus Legibus).
94 THE FORMATION OF THE BIBLICAL CANON, VOLUME I

formation will of necessity need to be informed by them.44 The extent to which

changing cultural influences had an effect on the decisions Jews and Christians
made regarding the scope of their own biblical canons requires further explora-
tion.45 As we will see in Part 3, the push for unity and conformity in the Empire
was a hallmark of Roman emperors, and this call for conformity in the Empire was
especially prominent during the reign of Constantine in the fourth century when
various Christian teachers began to produce lists of Scriptures that they could read
in synagogues and churches.

IV. BIBLICAL CANONS IN EARLY CHRISTIANITY

As noted earlier, the early churches used the term canon at first in reference to
a rule or guide in the sense of a “canon of faith” (regula fidei) as we saw above
in Gal 6:16 when Paul was speaking about the church’s tradition of the cross
and resurrection of Jesus the Christ. This rule or guide formed the essence of
Christian belief and was at the heart of its traditions. I have argued earlier that
Scripture is included in the notion of a biblical canon, namely, it is something
sacred written down that became normative for a believing community. Writings
were acknowledged as Scripture before they became part of a fixed collection of
Scriptures that we call a biblical canon. Some scholars use the terms scripture
and canon interchangeably, but they are distinguishable, and it is important to
keep them that way.46 There can be no doubt that the individual documents that
comprise a biblical canon functioned authoritatively as inspired sacred scripture
within a believing community before they were incorporated into a fixed corpus of
canonized scriptures.47 This is the sense of function rather than shape, or “canon

44
For a more thorough examination of the social context of literary canons, see Guillory’s Cultural
Capital and Von Hallberg’s Canons, a collection of essays on the wide range of canon formation,
including the formation of the HB. A standard and still relevant discussion that deals with the origin
and perpetuation of literary canons is L. A. Fiedler and H. A. Baker Jr., eds., English Literature:
Opening up the Canon (Baltimore: The Johns Hopkins University Press, 1981).
45
It is disappointing that almost every significant investigation of biblical canons today omits
discussion of the Greco-Roman influence on the notion of canon in the ancient Christian commu-
nity. While there are significant differences between literary and biblical canons, there is also some
overlap in concept that may reflect what influenced the church at various junctures in the processes
of canonization. Dieter Georgi’s The Opponents of Paul in Second Corinthians (Philadelphia:
Fortress, 1986), 427–45, includes a most welcomed epilogue on the question of canon in the ancient
Greco-Roman world. He raises questions, makes observations about the social context of canon
formation, and offers a helpful bibliography and footnotes to pursue the question.
46
For further discussion of this topic, see Ulrich, “Notion and Definition of Canon” and also
Law, When God Spoke Greek, who contends that for the sake of clarity it is essential to distinguish
between scripture and canon.
47
This distinction is also urged by N. M. Sarna, “Canon, Text, and Editions,” EnjJud 1:822.
Whatever else we call the writings that were appealed to as divinely inspired and authoritative texts
THE NOTION, USE, AND ADAPTABILITY OF CANON 95

1” that comes before “canon 2.” If a biblical canon is a fixed list of Scriptures,
what do we call a book or piece of literature that functioned authoritatively as a
sacred writing before it became part of a fixed list of sacred Scriptures? We call it
“Scripture” and it may have functioned that way only temporarily as in the cases
of 1 Enoch and Shepherd of Hermas.
While some Jewish scholars use the term “canon” in reference to their collection
of sacred scriptures, historically Greek speaking Jews used canon not in reference
to a fixed collection of sacred Scriptures, but rather in reference to a model or
standard to follow. For example, Josephus (ca. 90 CE), referring to Josiah’s
ascension to the throne (2 Kgs 22:1; 2 Chr 34:1), says that King David was a
model “whom he [Josiah] made the pattern and rule [κανόνι] of his whole manner
of life” (Ant. 10.49, LCL).48
Canon is used sparingly in the NT (only in Paul as noted earlier), and later
in Clement of Rome (ca. 90 CE) who used “canon” in reference to the church’s
revealed truth when he encourages the Christians at Corinth to “put aside empty
and vain cares, and let us come to the glorious and venerable rule of our tradition
[τῆς παραδόσεως ἡμῶν κανόνα]” (1 Clem. 7.2, LCL).49 In second-century church
fathers, κανών was used in the church to describe a “rule of faith” (Latin regula
fidei; Gk. ὁ κανών τῆς πίστεως) or a “rule of truth” (Latin regula veritatis; Gk. ὁ
κανών τῆς ἀλήθειας). It designated a core of beliefs that identified the Christian
community, its understanding of the will of God, and its mission.50
At the end of the second century CE, Irenaeus used “canon” in reference to the
rule of faith that governed Roman Christianity’s beliefs. He also used it to refer
to the essence or core of Christian doctrine, saying that a true believer retains
“unchangeable in his heart the rule of the truth which he received by means of
baptism” (Haer. 1.9.4, ANF). This usage is similar to the Latin norma (“standard”).
Eusebius (ca. 320–330) says that Clement of Alexandria (ca. 170–180) spoke of an
“ecclesiastical canon” or “body of truth” (Gk. Κανὼν ἐκκλησιαστικὸς) (Hist. eccl.
6.13.3). Later church fathers used the term for books that could be read in private,
but not in Christian worship. Clement of Alexandria also spoke of the “rule” (κανών)
of faith that was the truth of the church, even though he did not apply the term

before they were included in a biblical canon, because they functioned canonically or authoritatively
as sacred literature, there needs to be some means of identifying them as such. This identity of
ancient Israelite religious and historical texts as authoritative sacred scripture early on lets us know,
as we see below in Chapter 4 §II, in a listing of “lost books” mentioned in Joshua to 1–2 Chronicles,
that a number of earlier scriptures were lost and are presently not recoverable and do not form part
of any biblical canon.
48
See other examples in Josephus, Ag. Apion 2.174; and also in Philo’s Allegorical Interpretation
3.233; Testament of Naphtali 2:3; 4 Macc. 7:21; and Let. Aris. 2.
49
The precise meaning of this phrase is admittedly difficult to discern. It could refer to the Christian
message and its implications that were passed on in the church, to a common code of church ethics,
or to the Christian use of the Old Testament Scriptures. Probably the first of these is intended.
50
Metzger, Canon of the New Testament, 251–52.
96 THE FORMATION OF THE BIBLICAL CANON, VOLUME I

specifically to the biblical literature.51 From approximately the middle of the fourth
century CE, κανών began to be used for the collection of sacred writings of both the
Old and New Testaments.52 Here is where canon as function and shape merge.
Eusebius is sometimes credited as the first person to use κανών in reference to a
collection of Christian Scriptures (see Hist. eccl. 6.25.3), but a careful study of his
references to the Scriptures of the church indicates that his favorite terms for this
literature was ὁμολογουμένα (homologoumenon = “recognized”) and ἐνδιαθήκους
(“covenanted,” or more accurately “encovenanted”; see Hist. eccl. 3.25.3 and
3.25.6 respectively; see also 3.24.2).53 His usual term for describing a list of sacred
Scriptures is κατάλογον (“catalogue”; Hist. eccl. 3.25.6; 4.26.12). When he used
κανών, he was generally referring to the church’s traditions or its rule of faith. Of
the ten times Eusebius uses the term, only two are possible (but unlikely) candi-
dates for an exclusive list of sacred Scriptures (Hist. eccl. 5.28.13 and 6.25.3).
Although Eusebius may have provided the first datable list of the church’s New
Testament books (Hist. eccl. 3.25.1–7),54 he does not use the term κανών to identify
it. He apparently used κανόνα in reference to a list of the four Gospels (Hist. eccl.
6.25.3), but may have depended on Origen for this as well as his use of ἐνδιαθήκος.55
Setting forth what he claimed to be Origen’s list of Christian Scriptures, Eusebius
writes: “In the first of his [commentaries] on the Gospel according to Matthew,
defending the canon of the Church [τὸν ἐκκλησιατικὸν φυλάττων κανόνα], he
gives his testimony that he knows only four Gospels” (Hist. eccl. 6.25.3, LCL,
emphasis added). The question here is whether “canon of the church” refers to the
rule of faith or to a body of sacred Christian literature, that is, a list or catalogue
of Scriptures. It is possibly the latter since Eusebius is clearly speaking about the
rule of faith presented in a collection of sacred writings while he is speaking of
the Gospels, but he may be referring to the tradition about Jesus in the canonical
Gospels (see also Hist. eccl. 6.25.1, where he refers to Origen’s “encovenanted
books” [ἐνδιαθήκους βίβλους]).
In an annual Easter letter of 367 CE, commonly referred to as his 39th Festal
Letter, Athanasius made use of the verbal form of canon (κανονιζομένων =
“canonized”) in reference to a collection of sacred literature that he wanted to

51
See Clement of Alexandria, Strom. 6.15.125, where kanōn is the harmony between the Law and
the Prophets on the one side and the covenant instituted by the incarnation of the Lord on the other.
52
Several scholars make this point. See, for example, Beyer, TDNT 3:600–601; W. Schneemelcher,
“General Introduction,” trans. G. Ogg, in E. Hennecke, New Testament Apocrypha, ed. W.
Schneemelcher, English trans. ed. R. M. Wilson (Philadelphia: Westminster, 1963), 1:22–24; and
G. W. H. Lampe, “The Early Church,” in Scripture and Tradition, ed. F. W. Dillistone (London:
Lutterworth, 1995), 24–26.
53
Metzger, Canon of the New Testament, 292, translates endiathekos as “contained in the
covenant” (i.e., not apocryphal).
54
Later I will suggest that this may have begun with Origen in the third century and repeated by
Victorinus of Pettau toward the end of the third century or early fourth century CE.
55
For a careful study of these two terms in Origen, who was followed both by Eusebius and later
Jerome, see Gallagher, Hebrew Scripture in Patristic Biblical Theory, especially 30–84.
THE NOTION, USE, AND ADAPTABILITY OF CANON 97

distinguish from a collection of apocryphal writings commonly read in the churches

in Egypt and elsewhere (see the text in Chapter 21 §I.E). This is the earliest known
use of κανών for a fixed collection or listing of the church’s Scriptures.

V. SCRIPTURE AND CANON IN ANTIQUITY

Was there a distinction between Scripture and canon in antiquity? At the beginning
of the processes that led to the formation of the Christian Bible, one can only
speak of canon consciousness anachronistically. It is difficult to find any appro-
priate term to identify and describe the processes of canonization since the ancient
religious communities showed little interest in forming a closed collection of
sacred Scriptures until well into the fourth century CE. They used the term canon
generally in reference to the church’s sacred tradition passed on in the churches,
but not in reference to a collection of the church’s scriptures until well into the
fourth century and later. While it is currently common to speak of canon in
reference to an early recognition of the authority and value of religious texts, that
use of the term did not exist in the first or second centuries.
Canon consciousness as a list of sacred books emerges at the earliest in the third
century with Origen, and subsequently in the fourth century with Athanasius. It
is more accurate to speak of a “canonical process” or even “canonical processes”
than a biblical canon at these early stages that began in the first century with
the recognition of the value of the Christian writings. In the second century, the
practice of calling some Christian writings “scripture” began, but this is not the
same as canon formation. No one at that time was focused on a fixed collection of
Christian scriptures. In the second century, we are still without precise language
to describe the formative stages of the biblical canon.
Sacred writings initially circulated alone in various churches, but were eventually
collected and placed into larger collections and those collections were eventually
brought together to form a biblical canon. The gathering of such writings in the
first place suggests a respect for and recognition of their authority in the religious
communities that possessed and copied them. In some cases, recognition of their
value took place almost from the time they were produced, as in the case of the
Gospels. One of the earliest references to Paul’s writings as sacred scripture is in
2 Pet 3:15–16.
Speaking of the HB/OT canon, Davies argues that canonizing biblical literature
involved the stages of composing, editing, archiving (= combining two or more
writings on a single scroll), and then collecting and placing those writings into
larger scrolls.56 Among these processes, none of them would have happened had
not the value of the writings become apparent to those involved in their early and
later preservation and circulation.

56
Davies, Scribes and Schools, 57–58.
98 THE FORMATION OF THE BIBLICAL CANON, VOLUME I

The eventual end of the canonization process is a stabilized collection of sacred

books and lastly also a fixed text, but that was never the goal in the initial stages
of canonical formation. The primary interest in the early Christian writings had to
do with their value for worship, catechetical instruction, apologetics, and mission.
The end result of the process that began with recognizing the value of this liter-
ature for the churches was the recognition of the scriptural status of those writings
and the emergence of a biblical canon. The processes that led to its formation are
often unclear since the steps taken in getting from the recognition of the value
and authority of Christian texts to their scriptural status and eventually to a fixed
biblical collection are remarkably absent in the history of early Christianity.
Moreover, the processes that led to canonization are not uniform for each book
since some books that seemed to be heading for canonization initially were not
finally included in the fixed canon of the Jews (Sirach and Wisdom of Solomon)
or the Christians (1 Enoch, 1 Clement, Barnabas, Didache).
“Canon” is not equal to “Scripture” even though there is considerable overlap
in the authority of both. As we saw earlier, Scripture has to do with the divine
status (inspiration) of a written document that is accepted as authoritative in the
life of the church. Scripture is believed to have its origins in God and expresses
the will of God for the people. Canon, though initially used in reference to rule or
model, came to refer primarily to a fixed standard or collection of acknowledged
Scriptures that defines the faith and identity of a particular religious community and
functions authoritatively in the church or synagogue. In this sense, all Scripture is
canon (authoritative, canon 1), but a biblical canon is a fixed or selected collection
of Scriptures that comprise the authoritative Scriptures for a religious community
(shape and authority, canon 2). The two designations are not opposed to each
other since both are authoritative in the churches, but it is quite possible to have
an early recognition of the authority (function, norma normans, canon 1) of a text
without any awareness of a standard or fixed collection of sacred texts (shape,
norma normata, canon 2). I agree with Michael Holmes’ clarification of these
distinctions when he concludes: “[I]t is clear that ‘canon’ presumes the existence
of ‘scripture’, but ‘scripture’ does not require a ‘canon’. There can be scripture
without a canon, but no canon without scripture – no ‘list’ or ‘catalogue’, because
there would be nothing to put on the list. Canonicity is a matter of list-making, not
scriptural status.”57 See more discussion of these terms in §VI below.
In the historical climate of the developing churches of the second and later
centuries, the church’s many interactions with so-called heretical teachers and
their teachings led it to propose a standard by which it could define authentic
Christianity. This standard was called a “rule of faith” or “canon of faith” (regula
fidei) and it embodied the largely oral traditions about Jesus and traditional

57
Michael Holmes, “The Biblical Canon,” in The Oxford Handbook of Early Christian Studies,
ed. Susan Ashbrook Harvey and David G. Hunter (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2008), 406–26,
here 406–7.
THE NOTION, USE, AND ADAPTABILITY OF CANON 99

apostolic teaching. This canon of faith also included the writings that cohered
with that tradition and which reflected that oral tradition that was present from the
beginning. Only in this sense was a collection of writings enlisted to address the
theological and practical concerns of the church that later developed into a biblical
canon mostly emerging from the middle third to early fifth centuries. This does not
mean that the church created a biblical canon in order to address the theological
controversies and heresies of that day (second century).
The notion of a standard or rule of faith eventually led the churches to form a
closed collection of Scriptures that Sundberg contends was unique for the church
since it had not received a closed canon of Scriptures from Judaism.58 The church
inherited from Judaism the notion of sacred Scripture, but not a closed or fixed
collection of Scriptures. That notion was present among the rabbinic sages only
after the Christians separated from Judaism and the synagogue.
In reference to the eventual canonization of the Prophets, Sanders has observed
that this involved reviewing the earlier prophetic messages and traditions and
“adapting them to new situations started earlier.” He says that the prophets adapted
the old traditions about the exodus from Egypt, the wilderness wanderings, and
Israel’s entrance into Canaan that gave authority to their messages of divine
judgment against his people. He concludes that the “universal human tendency
to recapitulate old truths in order to transcend new crises lies at the heart of the
canonical process. What is interesting is what was chosen to repeat and adapt, for
it was in that selective process that a canon would take shape.”59

VI. CANON 1 AND CANON 2

Several factors led the churches to establish a collection of sacred scriptures and
there are generally two distinct ways of describing this “canonical” processes. A
major part of what complicates inquiries into the origins of the biblical canon is
the lack of agreement among scholars on what constitutes a biblical canon. Do
biblical canons exist whenever an ancient book is cited authoritatively in another
source? Should we infer that cited religious texts comprised an ancient writer’s
“biblical canon,” as Beckwith, Childs, Seitz, Chapman, and Kruger suggest (see
their works in the Bibliography)? Neusner rightly questions whether the notion
of a closed biblical canon was ever discussed among the rabbinic sages of Late
Antiquity.60 The fixing of the scriptures into a collection to which nothing could

58
A. C. Sundberg, Jr., “The Making of the New Testament Canon,” in The Interpreter’s One-
Volume Commentary on the Bible, ed. Charles M. Laymon (New York: Abingdon, 1971), 1216.
59
J. A. Sanders, “The Scrolls and the Canonical Process,” 11–12. See also his Monotheizing
Process, 12–27, for a recent discussion of the exodus-wanderings-entrance motif in several HB/OT
writings. Several examples of it are listed on pp. 13–19.
60
Neusner, Judaism and Christianity in the Age of Constantine, 128–45; idem, Midrash in Context,
1–22.
100 THE FORMATION OF THE BIBLICAL CANON, VOLUME I

be added or taken away is clearly a late development among both Jews and
Christians, but that does not preclude the fact that some books circulated as a
collection quite early in the process of canonization, namely the Law, the Twelve,
perhaps the Former Prophets that have a historical sequence in them, but there
were variables in the orders of the Major Prophets (Isaiah, Jeremiah, Ezekiel)
and in the Writings. The formation of the Megilloth comes in various orders and
is most likely post-rabbinic in the time in which it surfaces as a collection that
celebrates and commemorates epoch’s in Israel’s history. This does not suggest
that these books were not recognized as sacred texts or scriptural texts earlier than
their current order in the HB. I will show below by illustration that there are a
variety of places for Job in the collection of the Writings.
As noted earlier, Sanders recognizes two realities of canon formation among
Jews and Christians and offers two terms to identify these realities. He calls them
norma normans (literally, “norms that are norming”), and norma normata (i.e.,
sacred texts with a fixed and unchangeable shape).61 Norma normans deals with
the recognition and function of an authoritative voice or oral form that was first
spoken and subsequently written and read to the people and that also was believed
to have the authority of God attached to it. The second reality, norma normata,
reflects both a listing and closed collection of sacred authoritative texts.62 Both of
these realities are essential to an understanding of canon formation. There could
be no final listing (norma normata) without first an earlier text that functioned
in an authoritative manner. Many scholars today refer to these two realities as
“function” and “shape.”
Sheppard has described something similar to Sanders’ distinctions using the
terms “Canon 1” and “Canon 2.”63 This is similar to but not exactly like the two
kinds of canon argued earlier by Sanders.64 I adopted Sheppard’s terminology
to speak of the two realities, but with a different focus than what Sheppard
presented. These designations are helpful because they clarify both the original
intent of the term canon (rule, guide, or authority) and its subsequent church usage
and modern understanding of a biblical canon (a fixed or closed authoritative
Scripture collection). The focus on the shape of the collection of authoritative
writings (canon 2) is clearly a later development, but not antithetical to the earlier
authoritative function of the sacred texts. Chapman has correctly noted that I use

61
J. A. Sanders, “Canon: Hebrew Bible,” 1:847. See also idem, “Scrolls and the Canonical
Process”; “The Stabilization of the Tanak,” in A History of Biblical Interpretation: The Ancient
Period, ed. A. J. Hauser and D. F. Watson (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 2003), 225–53; and “From
Prophecy to Testament: An Epilogue,” in From Prophecy to Testament: The Function of the Old
Testament in the New, ed. C. A. Evans (Peabody, MA: Hendrickson, 2004), 252–58.
62
J. A. Sanders, “Canon: Hebrew Bible,” 1:839 and 847–51.
63
G. T. Sheppard, “Canon,” The Encyclopedia of Religion, ed. M. Eliade (New York: Macmillan,
1987), 3:64–67, cites many examples of both kinds of canon.
64
James A. Sanders, Torah and Canon (Philadelphia: Fortress, 1972), 1–9.
THE NOTION, USE, AND ADAPTABILITY OF CANON 101

Sheppard’s terms but not in the ways he intended,65 but my use of them is clearly
stated and in line with the views of many current canon scholars (Barton, Collins,
Lim, Satlow, Sundberg). I make no apologies for using these designations since
they add clarity to understanding the formation of the Bible and allow for the
original and subsequent understandings of canon in the churches. Others also
have also used the designations “canon 1,” “canon 2,” and even “canon 3” but in
different ways.66 Those who do not distinguish between the two realities of canon
and equate Scripture and canon often misunderstand and confuse my distinc-
tions between canon 1 and canon 2, and have difficulty appreciating the fact that
some texts were earlier called “Scripture,” but later were not placed in the HB
or NT canons.67 Although Chapman acknowledges the imprecise boundaries of a
collection of Jewish scriptures in late Second Temple Judaism, he seems not to
recognize the distinctions I make between canon 1 and canon 2 texts. However,
my use of those designations does not detract from the sometimes-temporary
authority of canon 1 texts when they are recognized in a religiously authoritative
manner in Jewish and early Christian communities. Many of the texts that were
later rejected functioned authoritatively earlier among some Jews and among
some early Christians and subsequently were included in writings that formed
their sacred collections of scripture. The early churches acknowledged from
their beginning the authority of Jesus, and the Gospels were welcomed as sacred
authority since they told his story, but that is not necessarily the case for all of
the literature that now makes up the HB or the OT and the NT. Many books were
included in the churches’ final collection of sacred scriptures, but many were not.
Canon 2 distinguishes books that were included from those that were excluded.
All canon 2 texts initially functioned as canon 1 texts and eventually were
collected and formed the fixed collection of the church’s Scriptures. Some canon
1 texts were not included in the church’s final collection of scriptures. Chapman
acknowledges the ambiguities in the reception or rejection of some books as late
as the end of the first century CE, but he is not clear on how he distinguishes
those realities. That part is confusing in his approach, though he acknowledges
what he calls the “fuzziness” around the edges of canon formation. Some scholars
speak of “temporary canonization” and others use the term “decanonization,” but

65
Chapman, “Second Temple Jewish Hermeneutics,” 282–86.
66
Barr, Holy Scripture, 75–79, for example, describes three forms of canon that he designates
“canon 1,” “canon 2,” and “canon 3,” but in a quite different sense than what we find in Sanders or
Sheppard. For Barr, canon 1 refers to the list of books that comprise the biblical Scriptures; canon 2
has to do with the final stages of each book as opposed to the original form of the book; and canon
3 is “the principle of attraction, value, and satisfaction that makes everything about canons and
canonicity beautiful” (76–77).
67
Julius Steinberg and Timothy J. Stone, “The Historical Formation of the Writings in Antiquity,”
in The Shape of the Writings, ed. Julius Steinberg and Timothy J. Stone, Siphrut 16 (Winona Lake:
Eisenbrauns, 2015), 5–8.
102 THE FORMATION OF THE BIBLICAL CANON, VOLUME I

I prefer canon 1 and canon 2 because the former does not assume the latter. It
often took centuries, as we saw, before there was widespread (never universal)
recognition of some HB/OT books (Esther and Ecclesiastes) and also NT books
(Hebrews, James, 2 Peter, 2–3 John Jude, and Revelation). We will see further
discussion of this below.
The Jews of late Second Temple Judaism, like the early Christians, had authori-
tative scriptures before they had a Bible! This does not diminish the authority
of those texts, but all canon scholars acknowledge that there came a time when
nothing more was added and the books that were included in the HB and later in
the NT were finally fixed or closed, even if they disagreed on the scope of the OT
books. Chapman agrees that the HB was eventually closed and we both agree that
it was not determined by a council on the order of some of the church councils, but
rather it came through the practice of reading and re-reading those scriptural texts
in ever new and changing circumstances.68 He apparently thinks it is inappropriate
to ask or discuss when this took place and how those decisions were made, but
acknowledges that there was an end to the process. There came a time when some
books that were earlier considered normative were no longer accepted as part of
the Jewish sacred Scriptures or the Christian sacred Scriptures (1 Enoch, Shepherd
of Hermas and many others).
When did this happen? We can be fairly certain that this happened when most
of the rejected books were no longer considered scripture by the majority of
churches, though some rejected books continued to appear in catalogues or lists
of sacred Scriptures for centuries and have survived in several ancient biblical
manuscripts. The primary exception for the Hebrew Bible, or rabbinic Scriptures,
is Sirach that was acknowledged as scripture initially by the rabbis, but eventually
was rejected (see discussion of this in Chapter 11 §III.D). This highlights the
two kinds of canon, namely one that is temporary (canon 1) and the other that
is permanent (canon 2), but both functioned authoritatively in various commu-
nities of faith initially and in some cases for centuries. In both instances the text
functioned as a divinely inspired text, but not all such texts were finally included
in the HB and OT biblical canons.
The original notion of canon 1 as rule, measurement, and model is true in both
cases, but canon 2 focuses on the end of the canonization processes. The canoni-
zation processes, of course, always precede the conclusion about what goes into
the biblical canon. While churches have never fully agreed on the scope of their
OT canon, there came a time when the vast majority of Christians agreed on all
of the books now included in the HB canon, but like several early church fathers,
the Orthodox and Roman Catholic churches also included in their OT collections
several additional books commonly referred to as Deuterocanonical or Apocryphal
books. All three major Christian churches accept all of the books in the NT.

68
Chapman, “Second Temple Jewish Hermeneutics,” 294–96.
THE NOTION, USE, AND ADAPTABILITY OF CANON 103

We will note later that the Ethiopian Christians have the largest biblical canon. It
is important to repeat here that all major groups of Christians accept at the least
all of the HB books, though in a different order. That cannot be insignificant even
if there are differences on the so-called Deuterocanonical books.
Chapman rightly sees the Bible as sacred scripture for communities of the
faithful and that it developed intertextually within such communities.69 I fully
agree with that assessment, but this does not preclude an investigation of the
historical development of the Bible or the criteria employed in its formation.
Jewish and Christian perspectives on the inspired status of their Scriptures are not
diminished by that inquiry. Chapman also rightly makes the point that a collection
of prophetic writings existed before and alongside the Pentateuchal writings even
before the Exile. We do not know what comprised a collection of prophets at that
time, but it could not have been equal to the Prophets that form the second part
of the HB since not all of the Latter prophets had been written before the Exile.
He is also aware that sometimes the “words” of the prophets are intermingled
with the Law of Moses as standards and prescriptions for the people of Israel.70 I
will address that issue more in the next chapter. We do not know what was in the
collection of prophets before or even shortly after the Exile, but no doubt several
of the canonical Prophets were among them. Since several of the “lost books” are
mentioned in the Former Prophets and 1–2 Chronicles (see the list of them below
in Chapter 4 §II), and since some of them were cited as prophetic writings, that
is writings by seers or prophets or listed as a “vision,” it is possible that some
of those books that we now call noncanonical books were included in earlier
prophetic collections at that time.71
Sanders claims that in the processes leading to closure of the HB and OT both
realities of fluidity and stability were present. In the first instance, Israel certainly
had a sacred scripture tradition, perhaps an initial oral tradition that gave them

69
Ibid., 290–94. See also his “Canon, Old Testament,” in The Oxford Encyclopedia of the Books of
the Bible, ed. Michael D. Coogan (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2011), 1:96–109; “The Canon
Debate”; and “What Are We Reading?”
70
Chapman, “Canon, Old Testament.”
71
For a discussion of these now lost books, see Lee Martin McDonald, “Lost Books,” in Coogan,
ed., The Oxford Encyclopedia of the Books of the Bible, 1:581–87. The following documents were
reportedly written by or attributed to a seer or prophetic figure: Records of the seer Samuel (1 Chr
29:29), Records of the seer Gad (1 Chr 29:29), Records of the seer Nathan (1 Chr 29:29), History of
the Prophet Nathan (2 Chr 9:29), Prophecy of Ahijah the Shilonite (2 Chr 9:29), Visions of the seer
Iddo (2 Chr 9:29), Records of the Prophet Shemaiah and the seer Iddo (2 Chr 12:15), Annals of Jehu
the son of Hanani (“which are recorded in the Book of the Kings of Israel”; 2 Chr 20:34), Records of
the seers (2 Chr 33:19), Story of the prophet Iddo (2 Chr 13:22), A book written by the prophet Isaiah
son of Amoz containing the history of Uzziah (2 Chr 26:22), and A vision of the prophet Isaiah son
of Amoz in the Book of Kings of Judah and Israel (2 Chr 32:32; cf. Isa 1:1). Perhaps also Book of
the Wars of the Lord (Num 21:14), and the Book of Jashar (Josh 10:12–13; 2 Sam 1:18–27; 1 Kgs
8:12–13 in LXX).
104 THE FORMATION OF THE BIBLICAL CANON, VOLUME I

their identity,72 but by no later than the Exile the tradition about Moses receiving
the Torah on Sinai was central in the Jewish community. However, that sacred
tradition continued along with the focus on the Law of Moses. Whatever else
functioned in the post-exilic community as an authoritative guide or standard
to follow was essentially “canon” in the sense of “canon 1.” At that time there
was no fixed canon except perhaps the Torah or Pentateuch. For example, Hosea
(ca. 750–722 BCE) cites stories that are in Genesis to describe the long history
of the nation’s rebellion against God and how it has forgotten the “law of God”
(Hos 4:6; 12:2–6; cf. Amos 2:4). What that “law” was is not clear; namely was
it the laws of Moses, or the precepts that God had given to the prophets, or the
Ten Commandments, or all of the above? Sanders’ point is that Jacob’s wayward
behavior and wrestling with God are now reflected in the Northern Kingdom
and divine judgment will follow. A widespread knowledge and acceptance of the
Genesis story can be assumed or else Hosea’s point would make little sense to his
readers (hearers). On the other hand, this “canon” (canon 1) eventually came to
be a perpetual fixation or standardization, namely, when the books of the Bible
were fixed or stabilized (“canon 2”) this tradition was always a part of it. There
could be no “canon 2” list (shape) without “canon 1” (function) sacred texts, but,
as we have seen in the “lost books,” it is possible for canon 1 texts to exist without
finally being included in “canon 2” catalogs.
Sanders shows how “canon as function antedates canon as shape,” but function
texts do not necessarily end up as shape or included in a recognized collection of
sacred scriptures, HB or OT.73 For example, Eusebius called 1 Clement a “recog-
nized” (ὁμολογουμένη) letter (Hist. eccl. 3.16.1), but it was not included in the final
stabilized canon of the church. It is found in the fifth-century scriptural manuscript
Codex Alexandrinus (A). Similarly 2 Clement, Psalms of Solomon, and portions of
the Odes of Solomon are also present in some ancient scriptural manuscripts, as we
will see in Part 3, but eventually they were excluded from the church’s NT canon.
Writings such as 1 Enoch and The Assumption of Moses were initially part of an
authoritative scriptural collection (canon 1) for some early churches, as we see
in Jude 14–15, but by the fourth century they were not included in the churches’
collection of sacred scriptures – what I call “canon 2” or the finished collection.
As noted above, rabbinic sages often cited the Wisdom of Jesus ben Sira (Sirach or
Ecclesiasticus) as scripture well into the rabbinic period and it continued in some
Christian Bibles, but eventually it was excluded from the books that comprise the
HB and the Protestant OT canon.

72
J. A. Sanders, Monotheizing Process, 22–24, speaks of the likely antecedent of the giving of
the Law at Sinai, namely a tradition that focused on the Exodus, wilderness wanderings, and the
entrance into the Land of Canaan (e.g. 1 Sam 12:8). He cites many examples of this and suggests
that since there is almost no reference to the stop at Sinai that it may have been added to this story
as it was later expanded. He claims that until the Exile (Neh 9:6–31), the recitals of this story did
not include a stop at Sinai.
73
J. A. Sanders, “Canon: Hebrew Bible,” 1:843.
THE NOTION, USE, AND ADAPTABILITY OF CANON 105

Because of the fluidity of the processes of recognition of the scriptural status

of various ancient religious texts, Sanders has stressed the need to make the
distinction between function and shape in canon formation. He writes:

Keeping in mind the two meanings of the word canon, authority and invariability, one should
be careful to distinguish between the near stability of the Genesis-to-Kings complex at the end
of the sixth century B.C. and the dynamic character of a nascent collection of prophets. A canon
begins to take shape first and foremost because a question of identity or authority has arisen,
and a canon begins to become unchangeable or invariable somewhat later, after the question of
identity has for the most part been settled.74

Biblical canons are by their nature a human response to what was believed to be
a revelation of God. The fluidity in canons is evident at Qumran where we see
among the Dead Sea Scrolls that the Essenes had a broader collection of religious
texts that informed their faith and conduct and no suggestion that the collection
was closed. As noted above, this can also be seen in Christian communities that
initially adopted a broader collection of sacred writings as their scriptures, but
eventually they narrowed that collection to the books we presently have. There are
more than eighty books that we know were excluded from the HB and about that
many from inclusion in the NT canon. In regard to the text of the HB scriptures,
why did the residents of Qumran feel free to change the wording of the biblical
texts, even texts in the Law of Moses (cf. Deut 4:2), and why was there so much
discussion among rabbis of the second and third centuries CE about whether
books like Ezekiel, Ruth, Esther, Ecclesiastes, and Sirach “defile the hands”? Was
it because the Second Temple scriptures had not yet reached their final canonical
status (canon 2) for all teachers in the rabbinic tradition at that time?
While many Jews, especially in the Hasmonean Period, agreed that prophecy
had ceased sometime during the Persian period, some did not. Hence, other Jewish
religious books emerged during the Hellenistic-Roman periods that are now called
apocryphal or pseudepigraphal books. Some Jews recognized some of those
“external” writings as sacred Scripture well into the first century CE. The author of
4 Ezra 14:44–47 (ca. 90 CE), for instance, recognized some seventy other sacred
texts besides the twenty-four (likely the same as the twenty-four in the later HB
canon) and some early Christians likely also recognized some of those same books
in their OT canons, as we will see below in Chapter 9 §V.
In the broadest understanding of canon, neither Israel nor the church were ever
without a canon or authoritative guide in their formative years, whether oral or
written; that is to say, they always had a story that enabled them to establish their
understanding of God and the will of God. This story identified for them the
will of God and their own identity and mission, even though they did not as yet
have a stabilized text or collection of Scriptures telling that story in their earliest

74
J. A. Sanders, Torah and Canon, 91. This notion is also in Dunn, Living Word, 145–53, who
largely agrees with Sanders’ main theses.
106 THE FORMATION OF THE BIBLICAL CANON, VOLUME I

development. The Israelites knew that God delivered them from Egypt and led
them through the wilderness when they were a poor and despised people, and into
their promised land. Later Amos reminds them that they had forgotten this story
and that they had wrongly done to the poor among them as had been done to them
in Egypt.
While I am inclined to follow Ulrich’s decision not to use the term canon
until there is a final fixing of scope of the biblical canon,75 it is difficult not to
acknowledge at least the functional authority of some stories and texts that had an
authority among the Israelites, and also the church in its beginning before there
were any Jewish or Christian scriptures. Jews and Christians had an authoritative
tradition (story) before they had a written Scripture. Jeremiah 26:18 cites in a
scriptural-like manner the earlier Mic 3:8. Zechariah chides the nation because
they had not listened to the “law and the word the Lord of hosts had sent by his
spirit through the former prophets” (Zech 7:12). The appropriate response to the
sacred story and later to sacred Scripture was always the same, namely, obedience
to the will or call of God expressed in it.
Some scholars use “canon” only to describe the reality of authority and rule that
it suggests including the processes involved. Clearly some parts of the HB were
widely recognized as a functional scriptural canon earlier than others, as in the
case of the Law or Pentateuch and subsequently also a fluid prophetic collection
of sacred texts that changed in scope over time, but eventually it became a more
sharply focused collection called the Prophets. The Prophets initially included
the Former Prophets, the Latter Prophets, and all of the books that were later
separated from the prophetic collection and identified as the Writings or ‫כתובים‬
and included in the third part of the tripartite HB canon. By around the middle
of the second century CE a number of sacred texts that had been included among
the Prophets were placed in a separate collection and called the ‫( כתובים‬Writings
or Hagiographa). Some rabbis disputed a few of those writings (Esther, Song
of Songs, Ecclesiastes, Ruth, and Sirach), but all except Sirach were eventually
retained in the HB Scriptures. While most of the Writings are later than most of the
books in the Prophets (Former and Latter), some or some portions of the Psalms
and Proverbs, as we saw earlier, are likely earlier than the final formation of the
Law and several of the Prophets.
In terms of the HB and OT, scholars acknowledge that many Jews and early
Christians generally accepted the scriptures that were recognized and circulating in
late Second Temple Judaism. They read these texts in their worship and catechetical
instruction. There is little difference of opinion on this issue, but the primary debate
is over when this literature took on the status of scripture and when those scriptures

75
See E. Ulrich, “The Canonical Process, Textual Criticism, and Latter Stages in the Composi-
tion of the Bible,” in Sha’arei Talmon: Studies in the Bible, Qumran, and the Ancient Near East
Presented to Shemaryahu Talmon, ed. M. Fishbane and E. Tov (Winona Lake, IN: Eisenbrauns,
1992), 272. See also idem, The Dead Sea Scrolls and the Origins of the Bible, Studies in the Dead
Sea Scrolls and Related Literature (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1999), 51–61, 73–78.
THE NOTION, USE, AND ADAPTABILITY OF CANON 107

formed a fixed collection of sacred scripture. When a text was cited in a religiously
authoritative manner, was it added to an existing sacred collection?
Again, the notion of scripture always precedes the notion of canon. Craig Allert,
like Michael Holmes mentioned above, is certainly correct when he acknowledges
that “the concept of canon presupposes scripture, but the concept of scripture
does not necessarily entail the notion of canon.”76 He, of course, is speaking of a
fixed biblical canon here. The difficulty appears to be what to call the “finished
product” and whether to distinguish it from the product “on the way.” Is there
a difference in the two collections of sacred texts? Clearly there is. Religious
texts function as authoritative religious literature before they are actually called
scripture, and what is called “scripture” does not always appear in the later fixed
collection of sacred scriptures. There was “scripture” before there was a “canon”
of scriptures. The prophets often begin as the “word of the Lord” to a prophetic
person who shares it with the people. The Gospels, for example, almost certainly
were welcomed and read as authoritative books in churches soon after they were
written because they all focused on the words and deeds of Jesus, the Lord of the
church, whose word and model was final authority in the churches (Matt 28:19).
Does this mean that all of the scriptures were written as scripture from the start?
Not likely, or at least we cannot prove that they were so recognized from their
beginning. I will deal with this issue in more detail in the NT part of this study
where some claim that the writers of the NT were consciously aware of writing
scripture when they wrote. Their arguments, as I will argue, are unconvincing.
There are examples where the recognition of the text as sacred writing appears to
be the case, especially in Deuteronomy and Revelation, but in others this is not
as clear as we see in the cases of Ruth, Judges, the Samuels, Kings, Chronicles,
Ezra–Nehemiah, Song of Songs, Ecclesiastes, and Esther. It is also not clear from
the NT that all of the letters were written as scripture.77 I will address that issue in
more detail in Chapter 22 §II.F.
I continue to refer to canon 1 and canon 2 throughout this volume because those
designations identify the two realities surrounding the origin and formation of
the sacred and authoritative writings of Jewish and Christian faith.78 There is no
question that the function of a Christian scripture is present in the second century
CE and even possibly in the late first century, but the notion of a fixed biblical
canon is simply not there. No one is discussing a fixed biblical canon. If by canon
we are referring to authoritative teachings and traditions that were circulating in
the churches, then there was certainly a canon, but it was not a fixed collection

76
Craig D. Allert, Revelation, Truth, Canon and Interpretation, Supplements to Vigiliae Christi-
anae 64 (Leiden: Brill, 2002), 214.
77
Kruger, The Question of Canon, 119–54, contends that the NT writers were aware that they were
writing scripture, but, as noted earlier, that argument cannot go unchallenged.
78
My use of Sheppard’s terms, and also those employed by Folkert, “ ‘Canons’ of Scripture,” are
noted and discussed in J. Z. Smith, “Canons, Catalogues, and Classics,” in van der Kooij and van
der Toorn, eds., Canonization and Decanonization, 300–307.
108 THE FORMATION OF THE BIBLICAL CANON, VOLUME I

of Christian scriptures until much later. It is unclear whether many of the books
that now comprise the New Testament were even known by all or most church
leaders well into the second and third centuries since most of the church fathers
do not cite all of the NT writings and no early collections of NT writings or early
translations of the Christian Scriptures before the fourth century contain all of the
NT books and none of them before ca. 1000 CE contain all of the books of the NT
and only those books.
Ulrich contends that canon was not a reality or fact until there was a fixed
collection of books and that, prior to the end of the first century CE, there were
no fixed biblical canons in either Judaism or early Christianity.79 He is certainly
correct in the latter part of that assertion since we have no record of any focus on
which books belong in the Christians’ first canon of scriptures until the late second
century (Melito of Sardis) and the mid-third century (Origen), and more commonly
in the fourth century (Eusebius, Athanasius, and Augustine). The two realities of
canon discussed above are at the heart of the controversy among scholars today:
(a) a canon that is not fixed but in the process of being fixed or deleted, and (b) a
canon that is fixed and can no longer be changed. It is not uncommon for scholars
to talk past one another on this matter by saying one thing and in the thinking of
others meaning another. For this reason, Ulrich prefers to speak of “canonical
process” rather than “canon” when describing the reality of books being “on the
way” and concludes, rightly I think, that fixed or closed collections of sacred
writings are a much later development in the believing communities.
During a long and complex process Jewish and Christian communities acknowl-
edged certain sacred writings that defined for them the will of God and their
own identity and their mission. This recognition is an essential feature of canon
formation that highlights written authority in believing communities. Such tradi-
tions or texts were quite fluid for a long period of time and were often modified
or adapted to meet the needs of communities of faith in subsequent generations,
whether in the oral transmission of those stories or texts, or in the copying and
rewriting of those traditions or texts.80

VII. JEWISH NOTIONS OF CANON

We have already discussed earlier rabbinic descriptions of scripture, namely that

which “defiles the hands,” but how did they understand canon or did they under-
stand it and promote it at all? Jewish leaders or sages of Late Antiquity did not
use the term “canon” to speak of their sacred literature and there were no known

79
Ulrich, Dead Sea Scrolls, 53–61; idem, “Notion and Definition of Canon.”
80
An example of this modification may be seen in the use of Ps 68:18 in Eph 4:8, where the
original text is changed from “received” to “gave” gifts. The text was already long received as a
scriptural text, but clearly was adapted to address a different situation. I will discuss other examples
of rewritten Scripture in Chapter 7 §II.B.
THE NOTION, USE, AND ADAPTABILITY OF CANON 109

rabbinic councils that determined the scope of the HB. We can acknowledge the
challenge that canon terminology presents. Sid Leiman, for example, acknowl-
edges the variability in the rabbinic tradition about the writings that were
acknowledged as sacred Scripture and concludes that some Jewish religious texts
were considered canonical but not inspired.81 In his attempt to make sense of the
variable rabbinic positions on the sacredness of the biblical books, he introduces
the following rather strange distinction:

By definition, then, a canonical book need not be inspired; an inspired book need not be
canonical; and a book can be at once canonical and inspired. In tannaitic times, all books
considered inspired were canonical, but not all canonical books were considered inspired.
Megillath Taanith was treated as a canonical but uninspired book; similarly, we have seen that
even those who denied its inspired status considered Ecclesiastes canonical. It is therefore
crucial to trace the history of the notion of canonicity (as opposed to the notion of inspiration),
and to determine the dates when all uninspired books (such as Ben Sira and Megillath Taanith)
attained canonical status. For when a book attained canonical status it became an authoritative
guide for religious practice and doctrine, and was expounded publicly and privately. Is not this
precisely what the historian of the canon is after?82

This novel view is, of course, widely recognized as confusing and Leiman could
likely have been clearer had he followed the distinctions between canon 1 and
canon 2. Kraemer agrees that Leiman’s position on the distinction between canon
and inspiration is troublesome and “at least in the context of the community that
finally defined that canon – not tenable.”83 He goes on to show from the Tannaitic
literature and also from Leiman’s comments that the final definition of the biblical
canon was not yet made for all Jews in the first three centuries CE.84 Conversely,
Kraemer concludes:

While it may be so that early rabbinic documents were considered both uninspired and
canonical (= authoritative to a certain degree), the community apparently found this status to be
intolerable. In a society where canon/authority was equated with Torah, the claim had finally to
be made that all religiously authoritative works were Torah, and therefore inspired.85

Kraemer also observes that as later rabbinic writings were gradually received into
the authoritative base of Judaism, the boundaries of the earlier canons became
less secure. Ultimately, he says, all rabbinic teachings became Torah and “the
canons that were once closed were forced to admit a wealth of new traditions and
documents.”86 In practice, the oral traditions of the Jews from the Tannaitic period,

81
Leiman, Canonization, 127.
82
Ibid. Clearly Leiman’s definition of canon is more focused on function than fixed text here.
83
D. Kraemer, “The Formation of Rabbinic Canon: Authority and Boundaries,” JBL 110 (1991):
616.
84
Ibid., 628.
85
Ibid., 628–29.
86
Ibid., 629.
110 THE FORMATION OF THE BIBLICAL CANON, VOLUME I

namely the Mishnah and its later interpretations (gemara) in the two Talmudim,
along with the Tosefta and various midrashim, were all given in practice canonical
standing. Kraemer is correct in his assessment, even if some difficulties remain
unsolved by his explanation.
The distinction between two kinds of canon existing side by side in both the
Jewish and Christian communities helps explain the recognition of the authority of
certain writings (e.g., Sirach) that received something of a scriptural status (canon
1), but which were not included in the later fixed HB canon (canon 2) of Judaism,
though it did survive as canon 2 in some Christian churches. In Judaism in
practice the biblical books as well as the Mishnah and subsequent Jewish writings
(two Talmudim and various midrashim) eventually also functioned as canon in
the surviving Jewish communities. Similarly, in the early church fathers some
writings had attained a canon 1 status early on, but were not included in the later
fixed canonical traditions. Tertullian, for example, cites 1 Enoch (8:1) and calls it
Scripture (On the Apparel of Women 1.3), and later in defending his arguments he
made reference to the authority of the Sibylline Oracles (200 BCE–250 CE), both
Jewish and Christian.87
Leiman’s distinction between uninspired canonical literature and inspired liter-
ature is unconvincing and difficult to sustain from either an appeal to late Second
Temple Jewish literature or the rabbinic tradition. A better solution is to recognize
that a Jewish biblical canon only began to emerge at the end of the first century
CE and its full contents were not determined for some Jews before the middle to
end of the second century CE (see discussion of b. Baba Bathra 14b in Chapter
11 §III.A below), but not for all Jews in the West until well into the eighth or
ninth centuries. It appears that unlike in church history, there never was a rabbinic
council to make a final decision about the scope of their scriptures, but rather the
scope of the rabbinic scripture canon was fixed by the end of the second century
for some rabbinic Jews in the East and that took longer for Jews in the West.
Rabbinic Judaism’s conflicting comments about which books are sacred
continued for centuries, but most rabbis no doubt still accepted most of the
HB books as sacred scripture. The long-standing traditions about the closure
of the Jewish biblical canon and the problems related to limiting the number of
Scriptures that made up the HB88 may be illustrated by a Talmudic tradition that
expresses some doubt regarding the book of Esther:

87
I owe this observation to F. F. Bruce, Canon of Scripture, 85–86.
88
For further reading on this subject, see S. Friedman, “The Holy Scriptures Defile the Hands:
The Transformation of a Biblical Concept in Rabbinic Theology,” in Biblical and Other Studies
Presented to Nahum M. Sarna in Honor of His 70th Birthday, ed. M. Brettler and M. Fishbane,
JSOTSup 154 (Sheffield: Sheffield Academic, 1993), 115–32; and M. J. Broyde, “Defilement of
the Hands, Canonization of the Bible, and the Special Status of Esther, Ecclesiastes, and the Song
of Songs,” Judaism 44 (1995): 65–79. See Chapter 11 §III for more examples of rabbinic disputes
about the status of biblical books.
THE NOTION, USE, AND ADAPTABILITY OF CANON 111

Levi ben Samuel and R. Huna ben Hiyya were repairing the mantles of the scrolls of R. Judah’s
college. On coming to the Scroll of Esther, they remarked, “O, this Scroll of Esther does
not require a mantle.”89 Thereupon he reproved them, “This too smacks of irreverence.” (b.
Sanhedrin 100a, Soncino trans.)

In the Babylonian Talmud (Bavli), when the sacred status of Esther was challenged,
the following rabbi responded:

R. Assi said: Why was Esther compared to the dawn? To tell you that just as the dawn is the end
of the whole night, so is the story of Esther the end of all the miracles. But there is Hanukkah?
– We refer to those included in Scripture. That will be right according to the opinion that Esther
was meant to be written, but what can be said according to him who held that it was not meant
to be written? (b. Yoma 29a, Soncino trans.)90

While “canon” was not a term used by the Rabbinic Jews in antiquity to describe
their sacred collection, the notion of canon is clearly present in their understanding
of a limited number of sacred books (twenty-four) that “defile the hands.” There
is not much difference between Jewish and Christian notions of sacred inspired
scripture with the exceptions noted in the previous chapter, nor eventually in the
notion of both faith communities that scripture was a limited collection of books.
The rabbis also did not use “noncanonical” in reference to rejected writings, but
their expression was “external books” (Heb. ‫ )ספרים חיצונים‬and this reflected the
same idea. “External books” is translated from the Mishnah as “heretical books.”
After asking who are those who will have no share in the world to come, several
kinds of persons are identified, but Rabbi Akiba says: “he that reads the heretical
books” (m. Sanhedrin 10:1; Danby, Mishnah, 397).91

VIII. CANON CHARACTERISTICS:

ADAPTABILITY AND LIFE

For more than a hundred years scholars have seriously examined the scope of the
biblical canon in its final stages, but James Sanders, to my knowledge, is the first
to focus on its prehistory in ancient Israel. In a perceptive essay, he asks several
penetrating and enduring questions about the nature and chief characteristics of
the notion of canon that have been foundational for all subsequent canon inquiry.92
He contends that the nature of canon has much to do with its repetition in believing

89
The point is that its sanctity is of a lower grade, so it would not defile the hands; cf. b. Shabbat
14a.
90
Whether Esther “defiles the hands” is the subject of debate also in b. Megillah 7a.
91
I will discuss this topic more in Chapter 11 §III.F.
92
J. A. Sanders, “Adaptable for Life: The Nature and Function of Canon,” in Magnalia Dei: The
Mighty Acts of God: Essays on the Bible and Archaeology in Memory of G. Ernest Wright, ed. F. M.
Cross, W. E. Lemke, and P. D. Miller Jr. (New York: Doubleday, 1976), 531–60.
112 THE FORMATION OF THE BIBLICAL CANON, VOLUME I

communities and their ability to change or modify the text or its meaning in order
to meet the variable circumstances of the community of faith (adaptability). The
primary function of canon, he observes, is to aid the community of faith in its
own self-definition (who we are) and to offer guidelines for living (what we are to
do). He knows that adaptability alone, however, is not sufficient for a writing to
be recognized as canon and contends that those traditions that eventually became
canon for ancient Israel also had to empower that community for life, that is, they
had to give hope even in hopeless situations (the exile) and bring life to the nation.
The literature that spoke to the needs of one generation that could not be
re-interpreted or adapted to meet the needs of later generations, simply did not
survive either in Judaism or later in Christianity. The survivability or endurance of
sacred literature has to do with its ability to be interpreted afresh for new commu-
nities in new circumstances. That the biblical writings have had the ability to be
reinterpreted and applied to new circumstances underscores their adaptability
and ultimately their canonicity. Sanders claims that: “the major characteristic of
canonical material is its adaptability – not its rigidity.”93 He acknowledges the
eventual stabilization of the biblical text, but also observes that the need for such
a fixed tradition in the believing community comes much later in the canonical
process.94
This is similar to Burns’ contention that the distinction between canonical and
noncanonical is not the same as the distinction between authentic and inauthentic
or between true and false, but rather, “it is the distinction between texts that are
forceful in a given situation and those which are not. From a hermeneutical stand-
point, in which the relation of a text to a situation is always of primary interest, the
theme of canonization is power.”95 He adds that the canonization or significance of
the Law lies “not only in what it contains or means but also in its power over those
who stand within its jurisdiction. It is precisely within such a textual jurisdiction
that the true meaning of canonicity begins to emerge.”96 The power of a text is not
intrinsic to it, but rather it draws its power from the situation in which it makes
its “unexpected appearance” and speaks to the situation at hand.97 Burns contends
that the authority of a text is related directly to the circumstances that the people
who hear it and obey it are facing. Canon in antiquity was always a relevant issue
in which the force or power of a given text was released in specific contexts. In
this sense, canonization has much to do with hermeneutics, that is, the ability of a
text to be reinterpreted in ever new and changing circumstances.
As we saw earlier, Sanders claims that at the heart of the earliest Scripture canon
of the Jews was a story (or mythos) about a people who migrated from Egypt to

93
J. A. Sanders, From Sacred Story, 22; see also idem, “Stabilization of the Tanak.”
94
J. A. Sanders, From Sacred Story, 22.
95
G. L. Burns, “Canon and Power in the Hebrew Scriptures,” in von Hallberg, ed., Canons, 65.
96
Ibid., 67.
97
Ibid., 69.
THE NOTION, USE, AND ADAPTABILITY OF CANON 113

Canaan under the guidance and protection of Yahweh, even though other elements
were later added to the beginning and the ending of that story, for example, the
Genesis story of beginnings, the prophetic tradition, and the history of the fall of
the nation. The earliest development of the story, he contends, did not include a
Decalogue or other lists of divine commandments. Rather, it consisted of telling
about God’s calling of a people to a hope and promise in a new land and the
preservation of those people through divine mighty acts. The response of the
people to these acts of preservation or salvation was the monotheizing move to
recognize the one true God and to obey God’s call. There are many examples of
this story in the Old Testament Scriptures, especially in the Prophets.98
In the New Testament that same story is also preserved, e.g., Acts 7:2–53; 1 Cor
10:1–11; Heb 3:5–19. The story was clearly expandable, and after the exile of
Israel to Babylon the Jews reconsidered their circumstances from the perspective
of the classic prophets whose witness to God’s activity among them gave them
life and hope. In the message from Ezekiel, for example, the people could through
their faithfulness to Yahweh and Yahweh’s faithfulness to them look forward to the
resurrection of the nation following its death (Ezek 36–37). In the exilic sojourn,
Ezekiel began to echo the vision of Jeremiah who also spoke of the reforming of
the nation (Jer 18:1–11).99
After Israel experienced destruction of its nation in 586 BCE, including its loss
of leadership, temple, and cultus, what was it that enabled the Jewish people to
continue their identity as a separate people? Why not like many other nations
before and after them simply merge with other nations that overpowered them and
become extinct as a people and adopt a different religious faith? A merger with and
assimilation into another nation and culture, with the consequent loss of a separate
national identity, would have been the most natural course of action and that has
many ancient parallels, but instead the nation of Israel was reborn. What was it
that kept them alive as a nation when all of the things that identified them as a
nation had been taken away – their land, sovereignty/rulership, temple, cultus, and
language? Sanders contends that only something indestructible, readily available,
adaptable, and portable could keep this people from extinction. The only thing that
fits this description, he claims, was a story that could be transported to Babylon
and adapted to the new circumstances that the nation faced in its captivity.100 He
adds that during the exile a remnant remembered the witness of the prophets who
had predicted accurately what would happen to the nation. As these individuals
realized that the prophets had told the truth regarding the fate and story of Israel,

98
J. A. Sanders, From Sacred Story, 18–19. See some examples of this story about God’s people
in Amos 2:9–11; 3:1–2; 4:10–11; 5:25; 9:7, 11. Other early summations of the story are Deut 26:5–9
and Josh 24. See Sanders’ recent brief but significant contribution to this topic in his Monotheizing
Process.
99
From Sacred Story, 15–29.
100
Ibid., 18–19.
114 THE FORMATION OF THE BIBLICAL CANON, VOLUME I

they realized that the message of the judgmental prophets before the exile also had
a story that could offer them hope and allow them to survive the terrible judgments
currently inflicted upon them.
Unlike other nations that saw in their defeat in battle also the defeat of their
gods, the Jews accepted the message of the prophets and took responsibility for
their failure as a nation and accepted their captivity and destruction as a judgment
from Yahweh for their own misdeeds. It was in this context that the prophets were
remembered and their story repeated. When the prophets had earlier proclaimed
this story, warning the people of the consequences of their behavior, they were
accused of being “madmen, unpatriotic, blasphemous, seditious, and traitorous”
(Jer 29:26), but now they were remembered precisely because what they had
said actually came to pass.101 The exiles concluded that the core of the prophetic
message was also a story that was reflected and contained in the Torah. This notion
was eventually expanded to include the Former Prophets, then the Latter Prophets,
and finally the Writings though some of them had already functioned that way
earlier than some of the Latter Prophets. The Law, however, was the core of the
story that gave life (John 5:39) and identity to the nation. As the Jews returned
from Babylon, the canon (canon 1) of the community of Israel – that which gave
the nation an identity and purpose with guidelines to follow – was the laws of
Moses, but this does not suggest that only the Law of Moses was of importance
or sacred to those returning from Babylon; it was also important to a growing
collection of prophets.
In the repetition of this story (repetition is a feature of canon), the remnant of
the Jewish people found life and hope. The fluidity of the transmission of this
story continued well into the time of Jesus, when the lack of a fixed or stabilized
tradition was a contributing factor to the existence of the variety of Jewish sects
(or “Judaisms”) that flourished in the first century CE, namely, the Sadducees,
Pharisees, Essenes, Samaritans, and Christians. After the destruction of the
second temple and its cultus in 70 CE, and following the failure of the messianic
movement in the Bar Kokhba rebellion of 132–135 CE, the two major expressions
of Judaism that survived these traumatic events were rabbinic Judaism which was
born largely but not exclusively out of the remnants of the first-century Pharisees,
and early Christianity. The HB and the First Christian Testament thus developed
over a long period, beginning with a fluid and adaptable story in pre-exilic times
that became fixed in the second to fourth centuries CE for most Jews and for many
Christians.
A similar story can also be told about the emergence of the New Testament
canon. What first gathered the Christian community together and gave it its
identity and reason for being (i.e., its mission) was a story about God’s activity
in Jesus of Nazareth. The story was first told in preaching (Acts 2:17–36) and

101
Ibid., 28.
THE NOTION, USE, AND ADAPTABILITY OF CANON 115

teaching (Acts 2:42; 1 Cor 15:3–8). In time, the story of God’s activity in Jesus,
along with its implications for humanity, was expanded and expressed in a variety
of literary forms (gospel, history, letters, sermon, and apocalypse). The movement
toward stabilizing these writings began in the second century, but was not finalized
until the fourth and fifth centuries, that is, after the canonical (i.e., stabilized or
fixed) status of the NT writings was widely accepted.
Almost at the same time, the First Testament or OT was also moving toward its
final stages of stabilization in the Christian community. The adaptability of these
Jewish Scriptures to new circumstances was due in part to the creative genius of
the surviving community that reinterpreted and applied this story of Yahweh’s
activity to the new circumstances in which the people found themselves. This
genius is what Sanders calls the employed hermeneutics that grew out of a need
“to keep a stabilized tradition adaptable”102 and the ability to see in that literature
something that was adaptable and highly relevant and useful for the emerging
community of faith.
Since canons are by their nature adaptable to the ever-changing life circum-
stances of a believing community, the continuing usefulness of the current
biblical canon gives witness to its ability to be relevant in specific and changing
circumstances of the synagogue and the church. Canons often change, however,
initially by expansion, but at a given point when there is wide acceptance of a
collection of sacred texts, also by reduction. That means that some texts that were
relevant to some religious communities, and were welcomed as scripture by those
communities, over time ceased to have a continuing relevance among a majority
of those communities and eventually ceased to have a scriptural function. For
example, the Shepherd of Hermas and the Letter of Barnabas eventually dropped
away from the church’s sacred Scriptures after having been included by some
Christians for centuries. Codex Sinaiticus (‫)א‬, which dates from the last half of
the fourth century, included these two books in its collection. Even later, Codex
Claromontanus (D) included Barnabas, Shepherd, Acts of Paul, and Revelation
of Peter, but strangely it is missing Philippians, 1–2 Thessalonians, and probably
Hebrews. In the church, the early followers of Jesus accepted the words of and
about Jesus as their final normative guide, even though they also acknowledged
the authority of the Old Testament Scriptures that they believed gave witness
to him. The early church made use of the OT writings primarily as a predictive
witness to Jesus the Christ, but also as an authority for Christian conduct, as seen
in 1 Clement’s generous collection of OT references. Early on in the early church
the written Gospels and the Letters of Paul especially proved advantageous to its
ongoing life, ministry, and mission.

102
Ibid., 25.
116 THE FORMATION OF THE BIBLICAL CANON, VOLUME I

Interestingly, Paul appears to have “decanonized”103 much of the OT emphasis

on the rituals attached to the Law, especially its focus on clean and unclean foods,
ritual cleansings, and Sabbath laws because such things were deemed by him to be
no longer relevant to the faith he had adopted. Dunn makes the point that the Old
Testament can never function as canon for Christians in the same way that it does
for the Jews. For Christians, the New Testament always functions to some extent
as the canon within the biblical canon.104 Paul (Gal 3:15–22) and later Justin (Dial.
16.2; 27.2–4; 46.5) were the first to deal with the problem that Gentile Christians
had in accepting the Mosaic Law as a part of their sacred Scriptures, but at the
same time rejecting its prescriptions for conduct (see Chapter 16 §I). For Paul,
promise and faith preceded the law, and Justin argued that the regulations of the
law were given because of the hardness of heart and rebellion of the Jews and that
such prescriptions are no longer needed by the church.
For many early Christians the solution to the problem of recognizing the Law
as scripture and how to keep or not keep its prescriptions and proscriptions was
settled later in their adoption of an allegorical hermeneutic or spiritual interpre-
tation of the law. Marcion (ca. 140 CE) rejected this spiritual interpretation and
subsequently rejected not only the Law but also the other books of the OT. The
church condemned Marcion’s option and taught that the OT revealed the truth and
will of God and was also the church’s First Scriptures.
The literature that survived in the biblical canon was precisely that which was
perceived to have continuing viability for Judaism and later also for the Church.
The Torah’s/Law’s ability to be adapted and reinterpreted in changing times and
in new circumstances gave to it a canonical identity. The remnant of Jews in the
Diaspora defined their identity in terms of the Law and other Jewish religious texts
that they regularly adapted to their needs. This allowed them to survive assimi-
lation into neighboring cultures and societies. As the Mosaic Law or Torah was
adapted to the new life of the Jews following their captivity (Neh 8:1–8), it also
brought new life and hope to them.
The viability of the current biblical canon has much to do with its power to
address the needs and hopes of modern communities of faith, and this ability
is regularly aided through the genius of its contemporary interpreters. Scripture
interpretation and application continues unimpeded in both Jewish and Christian
communities, and, as the production of many new commentary series demon-
strates, there is no sign of ending the adaptation of the ancient Scriptures to new
circumstances.

103
As noted earlier, this is Dunn’s expression in Living Word, 156. See also Kooij and van der
Toorn, eds., Canonization and Decanonization, who discuss this phenomenon in the development
of the biblical canon.
104
Dunn, Living Word, 156.
THE NOTION, USE, AND ADAPTABILITY OF CANON 117

IX. SUMMARY

In antiquity, Jews and Christians regularly made use of terms that identified their
sacred scriptures, but it is not always clear which books they had in mind when
they used those designations. There is no doubt that the Law and the Prophets
from the fifth to the third century BCE formed the heart of Jewish Scriptures
widely accepted by Jews and later by Christians in their OT collections. The
early churches had few questions about the scope of their sacred scriptures until
the latter part of the second century at the earliest as we see in Melito’s famous
journey to the east (Chapter 9, §V.A.1), but determining precisely the final shape
of their OT biblical canon took centuries, though the churches never fully agreed
on the scope of their Old Testament. Unfortunately the evidence that survives is
often unclear and generally of an inferential nature. By the end of the first century
CE, there was widespread recognition of the notion of Scripture with abundant
citations of it in first-century Jewish and Christian writings, but the Jews were
only beginning to focus on the parameters of their scriptural canon and that
discussion was even later for the Christians.
Sanders’ reexamination of the origins of the biblical canon has yielded valuable
results, including a better understanding of the nature of canon and its chief
components and characteristics. Because of this, the origins of the biblical canon
and the move toward its stabilization are more understandable than before. He
correctly concludes “we cannot deal adequately with the question of the structure
of canon, or what is in and what is out, until we have explored seriously and exten-
sively the question of the function of canon. It is time to attempt to write a history
of the early canonical process.”105 I agree. The remainder of this book will focus
on the processes that led to the formation of the HB/OT canon and subsequently
also the NT canon.

105
J. A. Sanders, From Sacred Story, 11.
 PART 2

FORMATION OF THE HEBREW BIBLE

AND THE OLD TESTAMENT CANON
 CHAPTER 4

THE HEBREW SCRIPTURES

I. INTRODUCTION

The current Hebrew Bible (HB) is divided into three basic parts, Law (Torah),
Prophets (Nebi’im), and Writings (Ketubim), and these three divisions are not
completely arranged chronologically or always in logical sequences or groupings.
There is some historical sequence in Genesis to 2 Kings, and some with logical
connections as in the Latter Prophets though not with precise chronological connec-
tions. The Writings are difficult to categorize and appear to be like something of
a “catch-all” collection of several genres of literature (Law, history, wisdom and
poetry, and prophecy). The Pentateuch,1 or the first five biblical books, is logically
in first place in both Jewish and Christian Bibles and this speaks not only to the
place of the priority given to the Law (Heb. ‫“ = תורה‬instruction” or “teaching”)
and to its logical place because of its focus on the beginning of humanity and the
unfolding Israel’s emergence in that story – their call into existence, preservation
in Egypt, exodus from Egypt, wanderings including Sinai and the giving of the
Law, and promise of their re-entrance into the promised land. The Pentateuch
logically and historically takes first place in the HB and forms the foundation for
understanding the Former and Latter Prophets that offer stories of the nation’s rise
to power, downfall, and hope for recovery (Deuteronomy).
Although the whole collection of HB texts at times appears more like an
anthology of various literary genres, it is much more than that and it tells the
story of the beginning of creation to the selection of a people through whom the
purposes of God will be carried out. The story also describes a nation’s failure,
destruction, and reconstitution or revival. Despite the variety of theologies and

1
The term “Pentateuch,” from the Greek penta (“five” = πέντα) and teuchos (vessel, body, or
even “book” = τευχος) forming πεντάτευχος, referring to the “five books” in the Bible, is attributed
to Moses though in its current form is highly unlikely. In the third century CE, Tertullian and Origen
adopted the term to refer to the first five books of the Christian scriptures. The Jews adopted the
term Torah for this collection, but sometimes referred to it as the khamash (‫)חמש‬, which is one of
the terms for “five.” Torah is regularly rendered in the Greek translation of the HB (the Septuagint
or LXX) as nomos (νόμος), and in English as “law,” but Torah is much more than law, as we saw
earlier and law or nomos does not catch its full significance.
122 THE FORMATION OF THE BIBLICAL CANON, VOLUME I

perspectives in the collection of HB books, the various parts form a story with
implications that its readers/hearers are responsible for living in obedience to
the monotheistic God, Yahweh. Remarkably, this sacred collection continues to
enrich, inspire, and encourage both Jews and Christians. Because Christianity
began as a religious sect within Judaism, its first collection of sacred scriptures
was the same as that embraced by many of their contemporary Jewish siblings,
but in a different sequence and in different groupings. Also, the early Christians,
like many of their contemporaries, accepted several other religious Jewish texts in
their OT collections that were circulating in Palestine in the first century CE that
eventually were not included in the HB. For most rabbinic Jews, their collection
of sacred books reached its initial final shape around the middle to late second
century. The early Christians, who parted ways with their siblings before any
stabilization of the parameters of the HB had occurred, adopted all of the HB
books that were included in the Jewish sacred collections, though not generally in
the same sequence, but also other books as well.
The differences in grouping and sequence of books in the HB and Christian OT
reflect something of an anthology with an apparent overall purpose that often gets
lost in the details.2 The sequence of books varies in the different traditions and in
various periods, which suggests the changing culture and circumstances being the
primary influences on the order of the books. This variation may be a result of the
lengthy period of formation and also how the various texts included were trans-
mitted, namely in oral and written traditions, with some dependence on memory
rather than an antecedent (Vorlage) text. Portions of the Law or Pentateuch
doubtless had both an oral and memory transmission history prior to its written
text, and its current text is likely a product of the sixth or fifth century BCE.3 This
is the period that others have called the origin of “early Judaism” beginning after
the devastation of the kingdoms of Israel in the North (722–721 BCE) and in the
South (586 BCE). Sanders has recently summarized this time as follows:

Israel in the north was totally annihilated because of Assyrian foreign policy that forced
peoples to migrate around the 8th to 7th c. BCE [Assyrian] empire and integrate, thus losing
their Israelite identity. But some Israelites escaped south to Jerusalem and Judah and were able
to keep their basic identity through integration with their Judahite cousins there. This caused
amalgams of the epics and traditions of north and south which are identified in the Pentateuch

2
For a helpful summary of the forming of the HB and Christian OT canons, see Michael D.
Coogan, The Old Testament: A Historical and Literary Introduction to the Hebrew Scriptures, 3rd
ed. (New York: Oxford University Press, 2014), 4–12.
3
Carr, Formation of the Hebrew Bible, especially 102–79 and 252–303, describes the history of
the formation of the HB in which his discussion of aspects of the Documentary Hypothesis (JEDP)
is presented and challenged at various places, especially JE or EJ. See also Jaqueline S. du Toit,
Textual Memory: Ancient Archives, Libraries and the Hebrew Bible (Sheffield: Sheffield Phoenix,
2010), who draws parallels between oral tradition and memory with other ancient libraries and
suggests patterns of archival practices of the great libraries of Ashurbanipal and Alexandria were
models that influenced the formation of the Hebrew Bible.
THE HEBREW SCRIPTURES 123

as a southern source J, and a northern source E (= JE), Deuteronomy, and the basic “histories”
that are found in Joshua–Judges and in Samuel–Kings. They tell a story of God’s rule over his
chosen people, first through patriarchs, then judges, prophets, and kings, up to the exile.4

The so-called Deuteronomistic History (essentially Joshua to 2 Kings, though

some scholars include Deuteronomy in it) has significantly affected the tradi-
tional understanding of the formation of the Pentateuch and subsequently the
development of the HB/OT itself. Since Julius Wellhausen in his History of Israel
(1878) introduced the Documentary Hypothesis to explain the origin and sources
of the Pentateuch, he identified what he thought were the major sources that
comprise the Pentateuch with the terms J E D P, that is sources identified by the
name of Yahweh (J), Elohim or (E), or reflected the Deuteronomistic history (D),
and finally Priestly traditions (P). In short, these sources are believed to reflect the
origin and development not only of the Pentateuch, but also other writings that
comprise the HB.
Recently significant questions have been raised about the existence of an E
source since it appears only in fragmentary sections, but there are also challenges
against its reflection of the northern tribes’ designation for God. Recently much
of the Wellhausen hypothesis has come under considerable doubt and re-exami-
nations and new proposals are emerging that reflect different understandings of
the sources and formation of the Pentateuchal and Deuteronomical History.5 It
is not yet clear what new formation theories will emerge to take the place of the
Wellhausen interpretations, but there are still popular views of JEDP reflected in
current HB/OT scholars. The notion of a Deuteronomistic History has for genera-
tions now been seen as a settled feature of the HB/OT, but some contemporary
scholars are now challenging this notion.6

4
J. A. Sanders, “Early Judaism: 580 BCE to 70 CE,” Judaism (forthcoming 2017), in an as yet
unpublished essay on the history of Judaism, describes this process from its inception in the sixth
century BCE to the present. He has a helpful summary of the complex history of Israel from the
inception of Early Judaism to the present. Sanders recently sent to me a copy of this essay that
explains a very complex history.
5
See, for instance, the newly released book by Jeffrey Stackert, Prophet Like Moses: Prophecy,
Law, and Israelite Religion (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2014) in which the author challenges
the use of the Documentary Hypothesis for understanding the religion of ancient Israel. In a more
radical fashion, Ernest W. Nicholson, Deuteronomy and the Judaean Diaspora (Oxford: Oxford
University Press, 2014) suggests that the book of Deuteronomy was not what was found in the
Temple in Jerusalem during the days of Josiah’s reign (2 Kgs 22–23). Rather, Deuteronomy was
written, he claims, by Judaean exiles in Babylon in the sixth century BCE. He contends that this
Deuteronomistic school saw itself as scripture and the history of Joshua to 2 Kings as theodicy rather
than history.
6
Julius Wellhausen presented his theory in 1889 in his Die Composition des Hexateuchs und der
Historischen Büchern des Alten Testaments, and in recent years after many decades, Old Testament
scholars have begun challenging this theory and revised many of the previously “assured results” of
the earlier generations. For a discussion of this, see Carr, Formation of the Hebrew Bible, 256–303
and 337–38. See also Coogan, Old Testament, 49–58.
124 THE FORMATION OF THE BIBLICAL CANON, VOLUME I

The postulated JEDP sources likely have unrecoverable oral and even written
antecedents, but there are nonetheless likely antecedent sources that influenced
the Deuteronomistic History story that was initially repeated from memory and
subsequently in written sources. Despite recent challenges to Wellhausen’s theory,
Coogan concludes that the Documentary Hypothesis continues to provide “the
best explanation of the data that careful analysis uncovers, data that include repeti-
tions, similarities, inconsistencies, and contradictions.”7
While there are a number of other important issues related to the sources
that impact the origin of the books that form the Hebrew Bible (HB) and their
antecedents, they are not the primary focus of this volume. Rather, I will focus
here on the function and stabilization of the books that form the HB, including
the rewriting of those scriptures during their transmission. This includes recog-
nition of the authority of those writings in a religious context that eventually led
to their collection and circulation in ancient Israel and subsequently in the early
churches as their sacred scripture. This recognition is equal or similar to the notion
of scripture. The origin of the individual biblical and non-biblical books will not
be discussed here, except in passing, since they are more helpfully discussed in
contemporary OT introductions.
Several scholars have observed that before the Jewish scriptures were written,
much of what was in them circulated among the Jews in oral traditions and were
passed on for centuries through memory. Carr, for instance, claims that Israel’s
ancient stories and their implications were transmitted initially through memory
and oral tradition rather than from copied antecedent texts. He illustrates his point
about oral and memory transmissions from parallels in Homeric writings and the
HB books, but also with examples of texts from the Proverbs. He concludes that
texts copied from written texts usually have more consistency in sequence and
verbal parallels with other texts than those transmitted in writing from memory.
The former have fewer errors in them and fewer summaries. Those texts based on
oral tradition, while at times quite carefully transmitted with poetic and musical

7
Coogan, Old Testament, 51. See his more complete and helpful summary of J E D P in 49–55
and especially his more complete discussion of the Priestly Source (P) and the Exilic edition of
the Deuteronomistic history (404–13), and discussion of 1–2 Chronicles, Ezra–Nehemiah, Psalms,
Proverbs, and other texts (444–71). See also John J. Collins, Introduction to the Hebrew Bible
(Minneapolis: Fortress, 2004), 47–64, 159–78, 427–42, and also the same sections in his 2nd edition
(2014), 49–67, 177–81, who offers not only a lucid clarification of the Documentary Hypothesis set
forth by Wellhausen, but also a critique of it with implications for future developments. Also helpful
and engaging is Erhard S. Gerstenberger, Israel in the Persian Period: The Fifth and Fourth Centu-
ries BCE (Atlanta: Society of Biblical Literature, 2011), who examines the post-exilic literature
(Ezra–Nehemiah, Haggai–Zechariah, Malachi, as well as the continued shaping of Deuteronomy
and the Psalms), and offers a coherent description of the often-elusive history of the Achaemenid
period. On this see also Gale A. Yee, Hugh R. Page Jr., and Matthew J. M. Coomber, eds., Fortress
Commentary on the Bible: The Old Testament and Apocrypha (Minneapolis: Augsburg Fortress,
2014). Finally, see also Chapman’s summary and critique of the Documentary Hypothesis in his
“What Are We Reading?” 335–37.
THE HEBREW SCRIPTURES 125

aids, and with familiar and consistent openings, have less consistency in longer
texts and their sequence is seldom consistent. He claims that some texts can be
dated based on their transmissional distinctives. Earlier texts based on memory
and oral transmission are generally less consistent in words and word order than
those based on written texts.8 Carr’s focus is not the primary emphasis of the
following study, but it is important to state here its importance in aiding our under-
standing of how the ancient biblical texts were initially transmitted by memory
and orally and what lies behind them. The element of orality and memory in the
transmission of the Jewish scriptures, however, is an important factor in the early
process of the stabilization of the text of the HB.

II. LOST SCRIPTURES IN ANCIENT ISRAEL

Biblical scholars generally acknowledge that Israel accepted the authority and
sacredness of some religious texts no later than the time of the Josiah reforms
(621 BCE) following the discovery of the “book of the law” (possibly Deuteronomy)
in the Temple and it was subsequently was read to the people (2 Kgs 22:8–13).
They also acknowledge the existence of a number of books now lost that date
sometime before the seventh century BCE. While there is a paucity of specific
references to the sacred story or the Law or sacred texts in the early Monarchical
period of Israel’s history, these other now lost texts do draw attention to activities
and statutes or commandments of God that influenced the authors of the Former
Prophets.
The summary in 1 Sam 12:8 shows an awareness of the Pentateuch story
(settling in Egypt, exodus from Egypt under Moses’ leadership, and entrance into
the promised land). Similarly, as we saw earlier, Amos 2:10 reflects an awareness
of this sacred story and it has implications for the nation. Amos 2:4 assumes
an awareness of divine laws and commands that the people rejected. Although
some scholars acknowledge the existence of the Law (Torah) well before the
time of Josiah, perhaps in oral or memory transmission, and that parts of it may
have preceded Moses,9 it is not certain how much Torah was the moving force
behind the religion of Israel in the early Monarchical Period. The references to
the “law” or “law of Moses” are not as clear or frequent in the books of Judges

8
Carr, Formation of the Hebrew Bible, 3–36. The first four chapters set the stage for understanding
the rest of the volume and in them Carr makes a case for how ancient texts were transmitted from
both memory and oral tradition along with written antecedent texts. Scholars have usually focused
only on the textual transmission of the HB and not its oral-written history that Carr explores. He
adds an important focus that was either largely unknown or ignored by previous HB scholars. See
also his earlier Writings on the Tablet of the Heart, 3–14.
9
Barr, Holy Scripture, 6–7. See also Davies, Scribes and Schools, 89–106, on the origins of the
Mosaic canon.
126 THE FORMATION OF THE BIBLICAL CANON, VOLUME I

through 1 Kings, but they become more common thereafter in 2 Kings (written in
the post-exilic period) and following.10 However, it is clear that the story of the
Exodus – the redemptive event of Israel that gave the nation its identity and hope –
was known whether in text or oral tradition (probably the latter) long before the
discovery of the Law (likely Deuteronomy) in the days of Josiah.11
Sanders has shown that the Exodus was a significant theme in Amos’ message
(ca. 750 BCE) to the House of Israel in the north and how he used this well-known
story, that Israel saw as its security among the nations, but turned their under-
standing of it on its head to say that they were taking a false security (see Amos
1:3–3:1–2; cf. 2:9–11).12 Similarly, it is obvious that Hosea was familiar with the
Genesis story of Jacob’s wrestling with the angel (Hos 12:2–4; cf. Gen 32:24–26).
It is not clear whether the form of this story known to Hosea was oral or written,
but it is clear that he was familiar with the story as an important piece of Israel’s
history.
Regarding the other books that informed ancient Israel’s faith, Carr discusses
several other HB books that circulated in Israel before the Law was put in its
present form in the sixth century BCE, such as several of the Proverbs, the
Royal Psalms, Job, Judges, portions of 1–2 Samuel and 1 Kings, Hosea, Amos,
Micah, and possibly others.13 He adds that often the “oral-written” traditions were
antecedents to the documents that were finally included in the HB concluding
that the “early documents again seem to have been subjected to extensive, largely
unreconstructible modification in the process of centuries of later oral-written
transmission.”14 Like James Sanders before him, he concludes that the emphasis
on the Law, or Law of Moses, appears mostly in the later Deuteronomistic period
of Israel’s history completed in its current form in the post-Exilic period (see Neh
9:6–31, esp. 13–15) (ca. 458–450 BCE).15 Acknowledging the fluidity in the text

10
Stephen B. Chapman has a useful summary of how torah (or law) sometimes refers to prophetic
writings. See his “Second Temple Jewish Hermeneutics,” 290–94.
11
For a lengthy and helpful listing of the recitals of the Exodus story in both early and later biblical
texts, see J. A. Sanders, The Monotheizing Process, 13–19.
12
J. A. Sanders, “The Scrolls and the Canonical Process,” 2:12–13.
13
Carr, Formation of the Hebrew Bible, 336–43. These “Royal Psalms” are psalms that reflect a
kingship or dynasty in which the central speaker or figure in the psalm is a king, as in Pss 2, 18, 20,
21, 72, 89, 110, 144. For a short explanation of these and other psalms and their context, see Coogan,
Old Testament, 280 and 452–61.
14
Carr, Formation of the Hebrew Bible, 339–492, quote from 488. Carr’s arguments here appear
reasonable.
15
Generally speaking, the Deuteronomistic Period was formed by the Deuteronomistic Historians
and covers Israel’s time in the land of Canaan from their entrance under the leadership of Joshua to
the downfall of Jerusalem in 587 BCE. It includes the books of Joshua, Judges, Samuels, and Kings.
Some include Deuteronomy in it. These writings focus especially on the essentialness of the worship
of Yahweh, the place of worship, and Yahweh’s covenant with the dynasty of David. These books
offer a rationale for the apostasy of Israel in the Promised Land. For a discussion of this, see Coogan,
The Old Testament, 196–98. Also, Chronicles’ relation to this period and the literature reflected
THE HEBREW SCRIPTURES 127

of the books in the HB collection, Carr works backwards, beginning with the
Hasmonean period in which he argues from 1–2 Maccabees and the Prologue
to Sirach the emergence of the finalization of the scriptures in the HB. He posits
that in this period “an emergent standardization of the Hebrew Bible, both in
scope and (textual) form, was underway amidst this documented fluidity.”16 From
this period, Carr proceeds backwards through each layer of Israelite history to
around the tenth century BCE and sets forth the developments of written texts that
later added to the formation of the HB. While Carr is more optimistic that I am
about how stable the HB books were during the Hasmonean Dynasty, he makes
several important points regarding the origin of those books from their initial oral
traditions.
Bruce makes an important observation regarding this tradition from its start,
namely, that when Moses read the commandments of God to the people (Exod
24:3–7), he was most certainly reading to them what he understood to be the very
word of God, and when “the law-code of Deuteronomy was put ‘beside the ark of
the covenant of Yahweh’ (Deut 31:26), this was to be a token of its sanctity and a
reminder to the people of the solemnity of their obligation to continue in the way
which God had commanded them.”17
All biblical scholars agree that the people of Israel were significantly influenced
by sacred writings, but exactly when those writings functioned as scripture among
the people and what texts were involved is not clear. In the early Monarchical
Period, there is very little reference to the Law or prophets in the history of Israel,
though, as we saw earlier, there are many references to seers and prophetic figures
in that period. Later, there are many references to law(s), statutes, and command-
ments mostly in 2 Kings and 1–2 Chronicles,18 but these books in their current
form were either written or edited in the late pre-exilic, exilic, and post-exilic
periods and before the Hellenistic period of domination over the land of Israel. A
question that cannot be answered here has to do with when the “Law” or “Torah”
became equal to the first five books of the HB. Some scholars suggest that the
formation of the Pentateuch as it is now took place in the fourth century BCE and

in it is discussed on 444–46. Students unfamiliar with this language should consult discussions of
former and present understandings of J E D P or Documentary Hypothesis as narrative sources in
the Pentateuch. These are regularly discussed at length in standard Old Testament introductions,
such as Bernhard W. Anderson, with Steven Bishop and Judith H. Newman, Understanding the
Old Testament, 5th ed. (Upper Saddle River, NJ: Prentice Hall, 2007); Collins, Introduction to the
Hebrew Bible, 2nd ed.; Coogan, Old Testament, 49–52. See also Carr, Formation of the Hebrew
Bible, 487–90 for a brief summary, but for a more detailed discussion of how these sources impacted
the formation of the HB scriptures, see also 214–24, and 252–303.
16
Carr, Formation of the Hebrew Bible, 153.
17
F. F. Bruce, The Canon of Scripture (Downer’s Grove, IL: InterVarsity, 1988), 36–37.
18
See especially 2 Kgs 10:31; 14:6; 17:13; 26, 27, 34, 37; 21:8; 22:8, 11; 23:24, 25; 1 Chr 16:40,
Pss 1; 19:7–14; 119, as well as in Josh 1:7–8; 8:31, 32–34. Only one clear reference can be found in
1 Kings (1 Kgs 2:3).
128 THE FORMATION OF THE BIBLICAL CANON, VOLUME I

that from that time forward the Law took priority over all the sacred scriptures
of the people of Israel. Others suggest the sixth century BCE. The fourth century
BCE appears to be too late, however, given the many references to the Law of
Moses with several reflections of Pentateuch books in Ezra and Nehemiah.
According to Barr, the Deuteronomistic movement, which began in the eighth to
seventh centuries BCE, initiated “something like a ‘scripture’” that had a central
role in the life of the nation of Israel.19 He argues that only with this movement
and the reforms of Josiah did the religion of Israel begin to be built around a book
(or sacred Scripture).
Besides the Law, it appears that several other religious texts also informed the
faith and life of early Israelite history both before and during this time, but they do
not appear to have much influence after the fifth century BCE. These other texts,
for example, include several lost religious texts circulating in Israel well before,
during, and after the time of Josiah’s reforms in 621 BCE and they apparently had
some affect as religious texts on the Jewish people until around the fifth to fourth
centuries. These lost books include:

A. In the Law or Torah: Book of the Wars of the Lord (Num 21:14)
B. In Joshua, Judges, and 1–2 Samuel, 1–2 Kings:
1. Book of Jashar (Josh 10:12–13; 2 Sam 1:18–27; 1 Kgs 8:12–13 in LXX)
2. Book of the Annals of the Kings of Judah (1 Kgs 14:29; 15:7, 23; 22:45; 2 Kgs 8:23;
12:18; 14:18; 15:6, 36; 16:19; 20:20; 21:17, 25; 23:28; 24:5)
3. Book of the Annals of the Kings of Israel (1 Kgs 14:19; 15:31; 16:5, 14, 20, 27; 22:39;
2 Kgs 1:18; 10:34; 13:8, 12; 14:15, 28; 15:11, 15, 21, 26, 31)
4. Book of Acts of Solomon (1 Kgs 11:41)
C. In Chronicles, Ezra, and Nehemiah:
1. Book of the Kings of Israel (1 Chr 9:21; 2 Chr 20:34)
2. Book of the Kings of Judah and Israel (2 Chr 16:11)
3. Book of Kings of Israel and Judah (2 Chr 27:7)
4. Annals of the Kings of Israel (2 Chr 33:18)
5. Records of the seer Samuel (1 Chr 29:29)
6. Records of the seer Gad (1 Chr 29:29)
7. Records of the seer Nathan (1 Chr 29:29)
8. History of the Prophet Nathan (2 Chr 9:29)
9. Prophecy of Ahijah the Shilonite (2 Chr 9:29)
10. Visions of the seer Iddo (2 Chr 9:29)
11. Records of the Prophet Shemaiah and the seer Iddo (2 Chr 12:15)
12. Annals of Jehu the son of Hanani (“which are recorded in the Book of the Kings of
Israel”; 2 Chr 20:34)
13. Records of the seers (2 Chr 33:19)
14. Story of the prophet Iddo (2 Chr 13:22)
15. Commentary on the Book of the Kings (2 Chr 24:27)
16. A book written by the prophet Isaiah son of Amoz containing the history of Uzziah (2
Chr 26:22)

19
Barr, Holy Scripture, 7.
THE HEBREW SCRIPTURES 129

17. A vision of the prophet Isaiah son of Amoz in the Book of Kings of Judah and Israel
(2 Chr 32:32; cf. Isa 1:1)
18. Annals of King David (1 Chr 27:24)
19. Annals of your ancestors (Ezra 4:15)
20. Book of the Annals (Neh 12:23)
21. Additional book: “Laments” in 2 Chr 35:25 is not a reference to Lamentations, but
rather to a book evidently produced by or for Josiah that is now lost.20

Most of these references come after the Josiah reforms and the exile, but some
are earlier and show that various unknown religious and historical texts played
an influential role in the life of ancient Israel before, during, and after Josiah.
None of those listed were included in the HB, with a possible exception of Isaiah
(numbers C. 16 and 17 above), but we do not have that book. In the list there are
several books attributed to a “prophet” or a “seer,” as in the case of “Records
of the seer Samuel” (1 Chr 29:29; cf. 1 Sam 9:9, 11, 11,18, 19; 1 Chr 17:1;
26:28). Similarly, a second source for the account of the activities of David is the
“Records of the prophet Nathan” (1 Chr 29:29; 2 Chr 9:29; 29:25); we also see
books by the prophet Iddo who saw the end of Solomon’s reign (2 Chr 13:22), the
Prophet Shemaiah and the seer Iddo (2 Chr 12:15). Also Iddo is mentioned again
saying that the acts of Abijah are written in the “story of the prophet Iddo” (2 Chr
13:22), and the acts of Manasseh, along with the “words of the seers” recorded in
the “Annals of the Kings of Israel” (2 Chr 33:19), and “Records of the seer Gad”
(1 Chr 29:29; cf. 1 Chr 21:9 and 2 Sam 24:11). These books are all now lost, but
they were evidently authoritative books in ancient Israel. It appears that these
informed the authoritative collection of written texts before, during, and after the
reforms of Josiah. It is difficult to draw any conclusions about these lost books
since we do not know what was in them, though we have some broad indication
from the citations of the book of Jashur, but more importantly the references to
prophets and seers are about those who were perceived to receive from God and
communicate to the people the will and word of God. Likewise, while it is possible
that the records or annals may only refer to histories, we must remember that such
writings eventually were welcomed as sacred scripture and called “prophets” in
the Hebrew Bible (e.g., Joshua, Judges, 1–2 Samuel, 1–2 Kings). What one makes
of these unknown writings is difficult to say since we do not know for the most
part what was in them, but the context in which several of them appear suggests

20
The references to the “Book of the Acts of Solomon” and the “Book of the Annals of the Kings
of Israel” as well as the “Annals of the Kings of Judah” likely existed in the courts of Samaria and
Jerusalem. The authors and editors of the Kings doubtless used independent sources that circu-
lated during the Deuteronomistic period of Israel’s history. See my discussion of these sources in
McDonald, “Lost Books,” 1:581–84. See also James R. Davila, “Quotations from Lost Books in
the Hebrew Bible: A New Translation and Introduction, with an Excursus on Quotations from Lost
Books in the New Testament,” in Old Testament Pseudepigrapha: More Noncanonical Scriptures,
ed. Richard Bauckham, James R. Davila, and Alexander Panayotov (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans,
2013), 1:673–98.
130 THE FORMATION OF THE BIBLICAL CANON, VOLUME I

that some of them at least functioned in an authoritative manner in a religious

community. That function lies at the heart of the notion of scripture. Is it possible
that some ancient Scriptures have been lost?21
The above listing of lost books did not make it into the HB canon, but they
likely functioned authoritatively or even scripturally for a time in the Jewish
community and they are referred to in the HB/OT at a fairly early stage in the
development of the notion of Scripture. Because they are now all lost and largely
unknown to modern scholarship and because the references to them are often
vague, it is difficult to tell the extent to which the ancient Israelite community
accepted them as scriptural writings. Besides those writings, many others have
survived antiquity and likely functioned either as scripture or as trusted sources
for the faith and life of various Jewish sects before the second century CE. These
texts are what we anachronistically call Jewish Apocrypha and Pseudepigrapha,
but generally they were not considered extraneous or noncanonical texts when
they were cited in antiquity.
The references in biblical and nonbiblical texts to the writings that did not
survive the canonization processes suggest at least some level of importance in
the nation of Israel, or at least in some segments or sects of Judaism in Second
Temple Judaism. Some of these lost books were important enough to require
written commentary, as seen in the reference to “the Commentary on the Book
of the Kings” (2 Chr 24:27). That a commentary was written on a now-lost book
suggests the book’s sacredness, or at least its high significance and influence.
Like today, commentaries were made only on the most significant writings. The
“Laments” mentioned in 2 Chr 35:25 is not a reference to the biblical book of
Lamentations, but rather to a book produced by or for Josiah. Undoubtedly other
ancient texts that we know nothing about have been lost, and it is impossible to
determine how much authority the ancient communities attributed to them. Since
at one time the “book of the law” (Deuteronomy?) was for a time lost (2 Kgs
22–23), it is also likely that other sacred books either mentioned or not mentioned
in the Bible were also lost. When they no longer functioned authoritatively in a
religious community, their “decanonization” or marginalization was set in motion.
Chapman does not deal with these lost books, but correctly notes that other texts
besides the Law of Moses were cited in a scriptural manner, that is, as religiously
authoritative texts. However, we cannot ignore the list of books mentioned
above or fail to ask how they functioned in ancient Israel. He observes that not
only the law, but also the “prophets” formed a “twin criteria of right belief” and
cites as evidence 2 Kgs 17:13 and Jer 26:16–18 in which Micah’s prophecy to
King Hezekiah is cited from Mic 3:12. See also Jer 26:3–4 in which Jeremiah
admonishes the people to “heed the words of my servants the prophets.” It is not
always certain which prophets are in view in Chapman’s texts, but they clearly

21
See a brief discussion of these books in McDonald, “Lost Books,” 1:581–87.
THE HEBREW SCRIPTURES 131

reflect a broader collection of sacred texts than simply the Pentateuch. He also
cites Zech 7:12 that refers to the “former prophets” who prophesied in Israel,
and Ezra 9:9–12 in which commands from Exod 34:11 and Deut 7:1–5 are cited.
The prayer of Daniel (Dan 9:5–10) also reflects the nations’ failure to heed to the
Lord’s commandments and the laws “set before us by his servants the prophets.”22
I would add to this Ezra’s reference to the prophecies of Haggai and Zechariah to
the Jews regarding the restoration of the Temple (Ezra 5:1–2).
Lim has shown that not only the Law of Moses is cited in Ezra–Nehemiah,
but the books also show considerable awareness of each of the books in the
Pentateuch and Joshua.23 These references show that Joshua, several prophets,
and the Law of Moses formed scriptural authorities for the Jews in the post-
exilic period. It is not possible at this time to identify all of those acknowledged
as seers or prophets at that time, but clearly others also revealed the will of God
for the people as in the seers and prophets listed above whose work is now lost.
There is no question about the prominence given to the Law of Moses, but this
does not suggest that there was no role for several of the prophets at that time.
Other prophetic voices than the Law of Moses informed the Jews at this time,
but it is not always clear which prophets are in view until there is a listing of
prophets much later. In the Chronicles, the law is often viewed as essentially
complete and generally standing alone except for a reference to the prophets in
2 Kgs 17:13. Clearly in the post-exilic period, the Law of Moses was the primary
authority in the nation (1 Chr 16:40; 2 Chr 23:18; 31:3; 35:12), but the prophets
are those who transmit the word of the Lord by voice or in writing (cf. Jer 45:1–5
and Dan 9:2). See also the reference to Jer 25:11 and 29:10 in Ezra 1:1, though it
is not often clear which prophets are in view as in the cases of 2 Chr 26:22, 29:25,
and 32:32. See, for example, 1 Chr 29:29 where we see “The commandment was
from the Lord through his prophets.” Some of the later Psalms also reflect on the

22
Chapman, “Canon, Old Testament,” 103. He also refers to several of the now lost books listed
above to support his view that both law and other prophetic texts served as sacred authoritative texts
among the people of Israel both before and during the exilic period.
23
Lim, Formation of the Jewish Canon, 54–72, especially 62–68; and also in his earlier article “A
Theory of the Majority Canon,” Lim lists the parallels in Ezra not only to the Pentateuch, but also to
Joshua and he concludes that for “Ezra–Nehemiah, therefore, ‘Torah’ refers to both the Pentateuch
and the Hexateuch (on the use of Joshua, see Neh 9:23–25; cf. 9:26–37), to laws and narratives”
(4). He is also aware of the reference to the writing prophets Haggai and Zechariah (Ezra 5:1–2). It
is the biblical citations embedded in Neh 8–10 that reflect familiarity not only with the Law in its
narrow sense (the Ten Commandments and other commandments), but also the whole of the Penta-
teuch and Joshua. Lim lists the following parallels in Neh 8–10: “Neh 9 cites passages from the first
six books of the traditional canon: Genesis (Neh 9:6, 7–8), Exodus (Neh 9:9–11, 12–21), Leviticus
(Ezra 3:4; 6:19–22; Neh 8:14–17; 10:32; 13:15–22), Numbers (Neh 9:12–22), Deuteronomy (Ezra
3:4; 6:19–22; Neh 10:32; 13:1–2; 13:25), and Joshua (Neh 9:23–25; cf. 9:26–37)” (4). He adds,
however, that it is not likely that Ezra read the whole of the Pentateuch or Hexateuch in one setting
“from morning until midday” since it would take far longer than the time mentioned in Neh 8:1–8
to read the whole Pentateuch. It is more likely that Deuteronomy alone was read on that occasion.
132 THE FORMATION OF THE BIBLICAL CANON, VOLUME I

authority of the Law (see Ps 51:18–19 and Ps 78 that show familiarity with Exod
15, and especially Ps 1:2; 19:7–14; and Ps 119), but nothing is said there about
the prophets. Psalm 105:15 does refer to protection of the Lord’s prophets, but no
specific prophets are mentioned. The author of that psalm does show familiarity
with the books of Genesis and Exodus and knows of Abraham and his covenant,
Jacob, Moses, and Aaron, and the exodus from Egypt.
Again, is it possible that some of the prophets intended in these passages were
not later included in the HB as in the case of the lost books noted above? It may
be that what the prophets wrote was also viewed as Law, a summarizing term
for all of Israel’s scriptures. That is possible, but not definitive. The category of
“prophets” was widely recognized in the late Deuteronomic period in the exilic
and post-exilic periods and although some of those prophets are identified by
name, many are not. Until the early second century BCE when Sirach writes
in praise of the nation’s famous ancestors and heroes, he mentions not only
Moses but also several prophets that were later included in the HB (Isaiah in
Sir 48:23–25; Ezekiel, Job, and the Twelve in Sir 49:8–10), but others as well.
Several of those mentioned were not authors of prophetic books, including Josiah
(49:1), Zerubbabel and Jozadak (49:11–12), and Nehemiah (49:13), and others
(see 44:16–50:21). Sirach was clearly familiar with several of the books that tell
the stories of Israel’s famous ancestors and speaks favorably of those authorities
who devoted themselves to “the study of the law of the Most High” and who “seek
out the wisdom of all the ancients” and is “concerned with prophecies” as well as
“proverbs” and “parables” (39:1–3). The specific books Sirach refers to here are
not mentioned, but rather the categories of writings with which devoted persons in
his time would have some familiarity. Sirach was no doubt aware of several of the
books that are now included in the HB, but again, the specific identities of those
books or the boundaries of the collection available to him are not known.
Following the return of the Jews from exile in Babylon, after the decrees of
Cyrus (2 Chr 36:23; Ezra 1:2–4) and Artaxerxes (Ezra 7:12–26), a significant
religious reform movement was begun by Ezra and Nehemiah who recognized
and adopted a body of scriptures, especially the laws of Moses. From this time on,
the laws of Moses, probably at this time the Pentateuch, was chief among them.
The term “scripture” (Hebrew, ‫כתוב‬, pl., ‫ )כתובים‬as a term for divine writings is a
later designation and not used in Ezra and Nehemiah or in the Kings, Chronicles,
and Psalms where the law is mentioned. However, the notion of authoritative and
divinely acknowledged sacred texts is nevertheless clearly present, as we saw
above. The earlier reforms of Josiah (ca. 621 BCE) resulted from the discovery of
the scroll of the Law in the Temple, but the more significant and lasting reforms
took place during the time of Ezra and Nehemiah (roughly 450–400 BCE).24 The

24
I am inclined to agree with J. J. Collins who concludes that Ezra–Nehemiah likely dates around
400 BCE, primarily because they reflect three important events that date in the first century after
the Jews returned from exile. These include both the initial return of the Jews and the rebuilding of
THE HEBREW SCRIPTURES 133

laws of Moses were not the only books recognized as sacred writings at that time,
but they held the highest place of priority from that time on in second Temple
Judaism and beyond.
While the whole Pentateuch appears to have been recognized as sacred
Scripture in Israel no later than the time of Ezra and Nehemiah, portions of it
(Deuteronomy) were recognized as sacred scripture earlier in the reforms of Josiah
(2 Kgs 22–23) and even before. The Law, or “law of Moses,” contained references
to the beginnings of the history of Israel in Genesis, the sojourn of Israel in Egypt,
the Israelites’ wanderings in the wilderness to the land of Canaan, the giving of
the Law, and their entrance into the promised land. In the days of Josiah or later
Ezra and Nehemiah, there was no mention of a closed canon or fixed collection
of Scriptures, but the Law (Torah) clearly took priority over other religious texts
circulating at that time. In the post-exilic period, other books that were later
included in the HB had gained some recognition, as we saw in Ezra–Nehemiah
above,25 but others may be implied in 2 Kgs 17:13.
There is considerable uncertainty over when the other HB books were identified
as scripture, but it is obvious that some books were accepted sooner than others
whose recognition and acceptance developed in various stages over time. From
the late seventh century (ca. 621 BCE) through the sixth and even fifth centuries,
it appears that the Pentateuch and Joshua received their final major editing.26
From that time, it was common to speak of the “book of the law,” “the books
of Moses,” or simply the “law they would not obey” (Isa 42:24). Jeremiah also
spoke of the “law” and condemned the nation for failing to observe the “law of
the Lord” (2:8; 5:4–5; 8:8; 9:13; 16:11; 26:4; 31:31–33; 32:23; 44:10, 23). Ezekiel
also speaks of the “ordinances” of the temple plans and “all its laws” (43:11–12).
Later the Chronicler invokes the “law of Moses” during the reign of Jehoiada (2
Chr 23:18), and in the reign of Amaziah he speaks of the “book of Moses” (2 Chr
25:4). In the reign of Josiah, the high priest Hilkiah reports to the king that he has
found the “book of the law” in the temple (2 Kgs 22:8). We also see that Josiah
“established the words of the law that were written in the book that the priest
Hilkiah had found” (2 Kgs 23:24; cf. 2 Chr 34:14–16, 24). Notice that “book” is
in the singular. What was found in the temple and functioned as sacred Scripture
for the Jews in Josiah’s day is generally thought by most scholars to be the book of
Deuteronomy. Davies brings to our attention that Deuteronomy is the only book of
the Law that calls itself a “torah book” (e.g., Deut 4:1–2; cf. 6:1–9; 8:1, 11; 10:13;

the Temple, the career of Ezra, and finally the career of Nehemiah. See Collins, Introduction to the
Hebrew Bible, 427–29 and 429–43.
25
Lim, Formation of the Jewish Canon, 72–73, shows that in Ezra–Nehemiah torah not only had to
do with prescriptive laws, but with the story of creation and Abram’s journey to the Land of Canaan.
He shows that torah refers not only to laws, but also to narratives.
26
I will note with examples below that all of the biblical writings have received editing and various
changes throughout the history of their transmission.
134 THE FORMATION OF THE BIBLICAL CANON, VOLUME I

11:1, 8, 13; 12:1).27 Some scholars contend that Deuteronomy was the original
“book of the Law” and that the other books of the Law were included later in the
sacred collection.28 Again, this does not suggest that the story of the beginning
of the nation and the Exodus was unknown at the time of its writing. As we saw,
earlier texts show familiarity with that story (exodus-wanderings-entrance) theme.

III. APOCRYPHAL AND PSEUDEPIGRAPHAL WRITINGS:

WRITINGS THAT DID NOT MAKE THE CUT

In mid-to-late Second Temple Judaism and in the rabbinic period (Judaism of Late
Antiquity), several religious texts were produced that were later excluded from the
Jewish sacred scriptures and some of them that played a role in early Christianity
were accepted by some early church fathers as sacred Scripture. Eventually many
of those writings were also excluded from the Christian scriptural collections.
These rejected writings are often called apocryphal and pseudepigraphal writings,
though initially they did not have those designations and were often welcomed
as sacred texts by various Jewish and later Christian communities. Both designa-
tions, Apocrypha and Pseudepigrapha, are later anachronistic designations for
writings that were not accepted into all Bibles, though some of those writings
remain in Roman Catholic, Orthodox, and Ethiopian Bibles. The authorship of
most of the books in these collections of literature is often attributed to earlier
well-known figures, such as leaders, prophets, and heroes, who are well attested
in earlier Jewish scriptures. Because there was a widespread and growing belief in
Palestine that prophecy had ceased in the Jewish nation sometime after the time of
Ezra and Nehemiah or Haggai and Zechariah, those who sensed the need to write
a prophetic word from God regularly ascribed their texts to previously famous
prophetic and prominent individuals such as those listed in Sirach’s celebration of
Famous Men (Sir 44–49).
The term “Old Testament Apocrypha” (Gk. ἀπόκρυφα, “hidden”) refers to a
collection of Jewish writings dating from roughly 300 BCE to 70–90 CE, some of
which are incorporated into the Roman Catholic and Orthodox Old Testaments.
The dates for these writings are disputed among scholars, but not that they served
for a period of time as religious authoritative texts for some Jewish and subse-
quently Christian communities of faith. These writings are generally referred
to in the Roman Catholic community as “Deuterocanonical” literature (“second
canon”) and they include some fifteen writings or portions of writings, namely,
Tobit, Judith, Additions to the Book of Esther, Wisdom of Solomon, Sirach

27
Davies, Scribes and Schools, 99.
28
Ibid. 93; and Jack N. Lightstone, Society, The Sacred, and Scripture in Ancient Judaism: A
Sociology of Knowledge, Studies in Christianity and Judaism 3 (Waterloo, ON: Wilfrid Laurier
University Press, 1988), 21–43.
THE HEBREW SCRIPTURES 135

(Ecclesiasticus), Baruch, Epistle of Jeremiah, Prayer of Azariah and the Song

of the Three Jews, Susanna, Bel and the Dragon, 1–2 Maccabees, 1–2 Esdras,
3 Esdras, and for some Prayer of Manasseh, Ps 151, and 3 and 4 Maccabees.
Sometimes these books are scattered among the other OT books in Roman
Catholic and Orthodox Bibles, and when included they are grouped together
in some Protestant Bibles between the Old and New Testaments. Their order
in antiquity and even presently, however, is seldom consistent. Several of these
so-called Apocryphal books are in the LXX version of the Christian OT. The term
Apocrypha is also applied later to many Christian writings that were rejected in
the majority of churches, and these are collectively and commonly referred to as
“New Testament Apocrypha.”29 There is a question among scholars of this field of
inquiry over whether it should include the Christian gnostic writings as well or if
those constitute a separate field of inquiry.
Sirach was one of the more popular Jewish wisdom writings discussed in the
later rabbinic literature. It was initially accepted as scripture by some rabbinic
sages, and quoted as such, but eventually it was rejected. Sarna indicates that the
need of the rabbis to emphasize that this book did not “defile the hands,” that is,
it was not canonical, shows that the Ketubim, the third part of the HB Scriptures,
was still fluid in the second century CE and the books debated by them were from
this collection. He acknowledges that Sirach had already acquired a “measure of
sanctity in the popular conscience” and adds that even after its ban by the rabbis
(t. Yadayim 2:13), some of the Amora’im continued to quote it as scripture.30
The term “apocrypha” came to refer to Jewish writings that were not to be
read in public in Jewish or in some Christian worship services, but rather could
be read in private by the more mature believers (see, for instance, 2 Esdras =
4 Ezra 14:45–46). Oepke concludes that the Greek term ἀπόκρυφος (“hidden”) is
essentially a translation of the Hebrew verb gnz31 (the participial form is ‫)גנוזים‬,
though he acknowledges that in time the term took on various meanings, including
a reference to rejected books not included in the biblical canon.32 In the Avot of
Rabbi Nathan 1:3, Proverbs, the Song of Songs, and Ecclesiastes are “hidden”
(‫ )גנוזים‬because of the fictitious and symbolic language in them. The preservation
of the so-called apocryphal books was not the work of the rabbinic sages who
eventually came to reject them altogether, but rather the church fathers who

29
See, for example, the standard translation of many of these texts in J. K. Elliott, ed., The Apocry-
phal New Testament: A Collection of Apocryphal Christian Literature in an English Translation
Based on M. R. James (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1993).
30
Sarna, “Canon, Text, and Editions,” 1:826. See, for example, y. Sanhedrin 28a and m. Sanhedrin
10:1. He adds that a third-generation amora cited Sirach and placed it in the Writings (b. Bava
Qamma 92b).
31
A genizah is an Aramaic loan word for a storeroom in which sacred texts were stored. The term
itself simply means to hide or store up and it came to refer to a place of hiding or storing old sacred
texts in a synagogue. The most famous of these is the Cairo Genizah that we will discuss below.
32
A. Oepke, “κρύπτω,” TDNT 3:997–1000.
136 THE FORMATION OF THE BIBLICAL CANON, VOLUME I

preserved them in some cases with considerable modifications to the text, as in

the case of 4 Ezra.33
The term “pseudepigrapha” (Gk. = ψευδής [“false”] plus ἐπιγραφή [“super-
scription”], yielding “false superscription”) refers to an undetermined number of
books34 not included in the Jewish or Christian Bibles, with the exception of the
Ethiopian Bible that has some pseudepigraphal books (most notably 1 Enoch).
The Old Testament Pseudepigrapha is a collection of pseudonymous Jewish
noncanonical writings dating from roughly 300 BCE to approximately 200 CE
and, in the case of Christian pseudepigraphal writings, even as late as 300 to 325
CE. These religious documents are generally written in the name of well-known
biblical personalities, for example, Enoch, Abraham, Moses, the sons of Jacob,
or others, hence “Pseudepigrapha,” “pseudepigraphal,” and “pseudonymous”
designations. At times, there is very little distinction between the apocryphal
and pseudepigraphal writings in terms of their pseudonymous authorship. For
example, Wisdom of Solomon is clearly a pseudonymous work, but it is regularly
listed among the apocryphal writings and incorporated into the Catholic and
Orthodox Old Testament Scriptures as Deuterocanonical scripture.
For a time some of the pseudepigraphal literature was received as sacred liter-
ature in some elements of Judaism and early Christianity. For example, the now
lost book called Eldad and Modad is cited as scripture in Shepherd of Hermas,
Vis. 7.4 (2.3.4) and the Greek translation of Eldad and Modad may also be cited
as scripture in Jas 4:5, a scriptural citation that is not found in any OT text.35 Some
of the apocryphal literature was discovered in the Cairo Genizah, among the Dead
Sea Scrolls at Qumran, and in some early church copies of scriptures and transla-
tions. Much of this literature is preserved in the Christian translations in Ethiopic,
Syriac, Armenian, Slavonic, and Greek.36
Many important texts in pseudepigraphal literature aid our understanding of the
so-called intertestamental period, but also our understanding of several NT texts.
By the fourth century CE, several of these writings that had earlier been welcomed

33
Ibid., 3:995.
34
The standard collection of these is in James H. Charlesworth’s OTP. A newly published collec-
tion of ancient pseudepigraphal books is now emerging that compliments Charlesworth’s OTP. See
Richard Bauckham, James R. Davila, and Alexander Panayotov, eds., Old Testament Pseudepi-
grapha: More Noncanonical Scriptures, vol. 1 (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 2013). The first of two
substantial volumes of this literature has already been published and the second is in process.
35
This case is suggested in Richard Bauckham, “Eldad and Modad,” in Bauckham, Davila, and
Panayotov, eds., Old Testament Pseudepigrapha, 1:255–56; and also in Davila in “Quotations from
Lost Books,” 1:686, who suggests that the otherwise unknown reference likely comes from a Greek
translation of this Hebrew book.
36
See a discussion of this in G. Vermes, The Dead Sea Scrolls: Qumran in Perspective (Phil-
adelphia: Fortress, 1977), 209–11; and G. W. Anderson, “Canonical and Non-canonical,” in The
Cambridge History of the Bible, Vol. 1: From the Beginnings to Jerome, ed. P. R. Ackroyd and C.
F. Evans (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1970), 155–59.
THE HEBREW SCRIPTURES 137

as scripture in various churches were rejected as spurious or even heretical.

Consequently, there was widespread neglect of this literature for centuries when
it was no longer copied or passed along in churches. However, in modern times
there has been a resurgence of interest in these ancient writings because they often
enable better interpretations of difficult biblical texts and illuminate previously
poorly understood contexts of Second Temple Judaism and early Christianity.
They also aid considerably in our understanding of the notions of Scripture and
canon in antiquity.37
At some point, and often for unclear reasons, the Jewish apocryphal and pseude-
pigraphal writings fell into disrepute in Jewish and some Christian communities,38
and it appears that the rabbinic sages quickly rejected most of these writings by
the end of the second century CE. The one exception was Sirach that had received
earlier widespread approval and consequently took longer to reject. The text of
these writings was more fluid in Christian collections of sacred texts in the second
through fifth centuries than in rabbinic Judaism, but the fluidity in terms of which
books were considered sacred scripture by some Christians continued for centuries
longer than in Judaism.
After the acceptance of the biblical books was largely settled in the churches,
as noted in the previous chapter, hermeneutics were employed to adapt the
interpretation of that collection to the ever-changing circumstances of Jewish
and Christian communities. In terms of the canonical writings, the well-known
Commentary on Habakkuk discovered at Qumran is a primary example of how
earlier sacred texts were reinterpreted later in light of contemporary circumstances
of various religious communities. Some uncertainty continued about the scope
of the Jewish Scriptures in rabbinic Judaism as we see in some Amoraim39 texts
where the sages were discussing the authenticity and authority of Sirach well
into the fourth and fifth centuries CE. Since the reading of a text in worship and
teaching it in a religious community implies its recognition as sacred scripture
and an authoritative text for a believing community, the act of forbidding a

37
See D. W. Suter, “Apocrypha, Old Testament,” in Harper’s Bible Dictionary, ed. P. J. Achte-
meier et al. (San Francisco: Harper & Row, 1985), 36–38; B. M. Metzger, An Introduction to the
Apocrypha (New York: Oxford University Press, 1957); and H. C. Kee, ed., Cambridge Annotated
Study Apocrypha: New Revised Standard Version (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1994).
38
Adler, “The Pseudepigrapha in the Early Church,” in McDonald and Sanders, eds., The
Canon Debate, 211–28, has a helpful discussion of the mixed reception of this literature in early
Christianity.
39
Amora’im is the plural noun from the Aramaic “amora” meaning “speaker” or “interpreter,” and
the name is given to the rabbinic interpreters of the Mishnah, the collection of tannaitic traditions
of the Tannaim from roughly from 220 CE through the rabbinic period. The Tannaim comes from
the plural noun from the Aramaic “tanna,” meaning “one who teaches” or “repeats traditions.” This
community began with Hillel and Shamm’ai (ca. 50 BCE–30 CE) and possibly earlier and the last
of the Tannaim is Judah ha Nasi in the early third century CE.
138 THE FORMATION OF THE BIBLICAL CANON, VOLUME I

congregation to read a document in public worship conversely suggests that it was

not or no longer viewed as Scripture. As noted earlier, initially some Jews toward
the end of the first century CE were reading “twenty-four” sacred books publicly
in worship,40 but, according to 4 Ezra 14:45–46, “seventy” other books were read
privately by the spiritually wise. Some of the books were eventually received as
a part of the HB, but were either not initially read publicly by all rabbinic sages,
or their sacredness was questioned by some as we see, for example in Song of
Songs (b. Megillah 7a), Ecclesiastes (m. Yadayim 3.5; b. Shabbat 100a;41 Ruth (b.
Megillah 7a), Esther (b. Sanhedrin 100a;42 b. Megillah 7a), Proverbs (b. Shabbat
30b43), and Ezekiel (b. Shabbat 13b;44 b. Hagigah 13a; b. Menahot 45a).
Charlesworth wisely cautions that not all of the pseudepigraphal literature is cut
from the same piece of cloth because it does not originate from the same sources
or have the same motives (i.e., deception). He identifies five loosely defined
categories of pseudepigraphal writings:45

1. Apocalyptic literature and related works

1 (Ethiopic Apocalypse of) Enoch (Jewish, ca. 200 BCE–50 CE)
2 (Slavonic Apocalypse of) Enoch (Jewish, ca. 75–100 CE)
3 (Hebrew Apocalypse of) Enoch (Jewish, present form ca. fifth–sixth century CE)
Sibylline Oracles (Jewish and Christian, second century BCE–seventh century CE)
Treatise of Shem (ca. end of first century BCE)
Apocryphon of Ezekiel (mostly lost, original form ca. late first century BCE)
Apocalypse of Zephaniah (mostly lost, original form ca. late first century BCE)
4 Ezra (Jewish, after 70 CE, with final Christian additions later)

40
Also, as noted earlier, that number is not precise, but depends on how various combinations of
books were made to arrive at that number. This is why with other combinations of books like Sirach
could have been added without changing the sacred number of the Jewish scripture collection.
41
The text reads in part: “Rab Judah son of R. Samuel b. Shilath said in Rab’s name: The Sages
wished to hide the Book of Ecclesiastes, because its words are self-contradictory; yet why did they
not hide it?” (Soncino trans.).
42
The text reflects that mantles were prepared for sacred books. It reads in part: “Levi b. Samuel
and R. Huna b. Hiyya were repairing the mantles of the Scrolls of R. Judah’s college. On coming to
the Scroll of Esther, they remarked, ‘O, this Scroll of Esther does not require a mantle.’ (5) There-
upon he reproved them, ‘This too savours of irreverence’ ” (Soncino trans.).
43
The text reads in part: “The Book of Proverbs too they desired to hide, because its statements
are self-contradictory. Yet why did they not hide it? They said, ‘Did we not examine the Book of
Ecclesiastes and find a reconciliation?’ ” (Soncino trans.)
44
The text reads in part: “Rab Judah son of R. Samuel b. Shilath said in Rab’s name: The Sages
wished to hide the Book of Ecclesiastes, because its words are self-contradictory…” (Soncino trans.)
45
J. H. Charlesworth, “Pseudepigrapha,” in Achtemeier et al., eds., Harper’s Bible Dictionary,
836–40. Again, Bauckham, Davila, and Panayotov have thus far complimented Charlesworth’s
OTP with 39 more ancient texts. Charlesworth has written an insightful Foreword to this collection
noting his longstanding view that his own collection (OTP) needed considerable expansion. He
also offers an important clarification on what in fact constitutes a place among the pseudepigrapha.
Bauckham, Davila, and Panayotov project a forthcoming vol. 2 that has an additional 40 more
selections in it!
THE HEBREW SCRIPTURES 139

Greek Apocalypse of Ezra (present form is Christian, ca. ninth century CE, with Jewish
and Christian sources)
Vision of Ezra (Christian, fourth–seventh century CE)
Questions of Ezra (Christian, date imprecise)
Revelation of Ezra (Christian, sometime before ninth century CE)
Apocalypse of Sedrach (present form is Christian, ca. fifth century CE, with earlier
sources)
2 (Syriac Apocalypse of) Baruch (Jewish, ca. 100 CE)
3 (Greek Apocalypse of) Baruch (Christian, ca. first–second century CE, with Jewish
sources)
Apocalypse of Abraham (primarily Jewish, ca. 70–150 CE)
Apocalypse of Adam (gnostic, ca. first century CE, with Jewish sources)
Apocalypse of Elijah (Jewish and Christian, ca. 150–275 CE)
Apocalypse of Daniel (present form ca. ninth century CE, with Jewish sources from ca.
fourth century CE)
2. Testaments
Testaments of the Twelve Patriarchs (present form is Christian, ca. 150–200 CE, but Levi,
Judah, and Naphtali draw on Jewish sources before 70 CE and probably second–first
century BCE)
Testament of Job (Jewish, ca. late first century BCE)
Testaments of the Three Patriarchs (Jewish versions of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, ca. 100
CE, linked with Christian versions of Isaac and Jacob)
Testament of Moses (Jewish, ca. early first century CE)
Testament of Solomon (Jewish, present form ca. third century CE, but earliest form ca. 100
CE)
Testament of Adam (present form is Christian, ca. late third century CE, with Jewish
sources from ca. 150–200 CE)
3. Expansions of biblical and other legends
Letter of Aristeas (Jewish, ca. 200–150 BCE)
Jubilees (Jewish, ca. 130–100 CE)
Martyrdom and Ascension of Isaiah (first section is Jewish from ca. 100 BCE; second
section is Christian from ca. second century CE; and third section, the Testament of
Hezekiah, is Christian from ca. 90–100 CE)
Joseph and Asenath (Jewish, ca. 100 CE)
Life of Adam and Eve (Jewish, ca. early to middle first century CE)
Pseudo-Philo (Jewish, ca. 66–135 CE)
Lives of the Prophets (Jewish, ca. early first century CE, with later Christian additions)
Ladder of Jacob (Jewish, late first century CE; one chapter is Christian)
4 Baruch (Jewish original edited by a Christian, ca. 100–110 CE)
Jannes and Jambres (present form is Christian, ca. first century BCE, with Jewish sources)
History of the Rechabites (present form is Christian, ca. sixth century CE, with some
pre-100 CE Jewish sources)
Eldad and Modad (first century, now lost; quoted in Shepherd of Hermas, ca. 140 CE)
History of Joseph (Jewish, too difficult to date)
4. Wisdom and philosophical literature
Ahiqar (Jewish, late seventh or six century BCE; quoted in Tobit)
3 Maccabees (Jewish, ca. first century BCE)
4 Maccabees (Jewish, ca. before 70 CE)
Pseudo-Phocylides (Jewish maxims attributed to sixth-century BCE Ionic poet, ca. 50
BCE–100 CE)
Sentences of the Syriac Menander (Jewish, ca. third century CE)
140 THE FORMATION OF THE BIBLICAL CANON, VOLUME I

5. Prayers, psalms, and odes

More Psalms of David (Jewish, ca. third century BCE–100 CE)
Prayer of Manasseh (Jewish, ca. early first century CE; sometimes listed in Apocrypha)
Psalms of Solomon (Jewish, ca. 55–50 BCE)
Hellenistic Synagogal Prayers (Jewish, ca. second–third century CE)
Prayer of Joseph (Jewish, ca. 70–135 CE)
Prayer of Jacob (Jewish, mostly lost, ca. fourth century CE)
Odes of Solomon (Christian, ca. 100–125 CE, influenced by Judaism)

Craig Evans conveniently lists the Jewish apocryphal and pseudepigraphal books
as follows:

The First or Old Testament Apocrypha

1 Esdras
2 Esdras
Tobit
Judith
Additions to Esther
Wisdom of Solomon
Ecclesiasticus
Baruch
Letter of Jeremiah
Prayer of Azariah and the Song of the Three Children
Susanna
Bel and the Dragon
Prayer of Manasseh
1 Maccabees
2 Maccabees
3 Maccabees (see Pseudepigrapha)
4 Maccabees (see Pseudepigrapha)
Psalm 151 (see Pseudepigrapha)

Early Jewish Pseudepigrapha

1 Enoch Lives of the Prophets

2 Enoch Ladder of Jacob
3 Enoch 4 Baruch [= Omissions of Jeremiah]
Sibylline Oracles Jannes and Jambres
Treatise of Shem History of the Rechabites
Apocryphon of Ezekiel Eldad and Modad
Apocalypse of Zephaniah History of Joseph
Fourth Book of Ezra (=2 Esdras 3–14) Ahiqar
Greek Apocalypse of Ezra 3 Maccabees
Vision of Ezra 4 Maccabees
Questions of Ezra Pseudo-Phocylides
Revelation of Ezra The Sentences of the Syriac Menander
Apocalypse of Sedrach More Psalms of David
2 Baruch Psalm 151 (see Apocrypha)
3 Baruch Psalm 152
THE HEBREW SCRIPTURES 141

Apocalypse of Abraham Psalm 153

Apocalypse of Adam (see NHC) Psalm 154
Apocalypse of Elijah Psalm 155
Apocalypse of Daniel Prayer of Manasseh (see Apocrypha)
Testaments of the Twelve Patriarchs Psalms of Solomon
Testament of Reuben Hellenistic Synagogal Prayers
Testament of Simeon Prayer of Joseph
Testament of Levi Prayer of Jacob
Testament of Judah Odes of Solomon
Testament of Issachar Philo the Epic Poet
Testament of Zebulon Theodotus
Testament of Dan Orphica
Testament of Naphtali Ezekiel the Tragedian
Testament of Gad Fragments of Pseudo-Greek Poets
Testament of Asher Pseudo-Hesiod
Testament of Joseph Pseudo-Pythagoras
Testament of Benjamin Pseudo-Aeschylus
Testament of Job Pseudo-Sophocles
Testaments of the Three Patriarchs Pseudo-Euripides
Testament of Abraham Pseudo-Philemon
Testament of Isaac Pseudo-Diphilus
Testament of Jacob Pseudo-Menander
Testament (Assumption) of Moses Aristobulus
Testament of Solomon Demetrius the Chronographer
Testament of Adam Aristeas the Exegete
Letter of Aristeas Eupolemus
Jubilees Pseudo-Eupolemus
Martyrdom and Ascension of Isaiah Cleodemus Malchus
[3:13–4:22 = Testament of Hezekiah] Artapanus
Joseph and Aseneth Pseudo-Hecataeus
Life of Adam and Eve 5 Maccabees46
Pseudo-Philo, Biblical Antiquities

Some of this literature influenced early Christianity, and there are several
instances that reflect Christian editing or additions after which in some cases
it was also acknowledged as Scripture (e.g., 4 Ezra and the Sibylline Oracles).
Whether or not one acknowledges this literature as sacred Scripture, it is important
that Jesus and his earliest followers, including the early churches, had an under-
standing and knowledge of some of it and it is sometimes cited as scripture in the
early centuries (e.g., 1 Enoch).47 Besides that literature witnessing frequently to
the authority of the HB books, their use also indicates the early church’s interest
in the major biblical figures (e.g., Adam, Enoch, Moses, and Elijah) and also the

46
Craig A. Evans, Ancient Texts for New Testament Studies: A Guide to the Background Literature
(Peabody, MA: Hendrickson, 2005), 9 and 26–27.
47
A recent and excellent discussion of the influence and importance that the so-called noncanonical
literature had in Jesus’ teaching and the NT writers is in deSilva, Jewish Teachers of Jesus. Parallels
to this literature in the NT are discussed in Chapter 9 §§I–III.
142 THE FORMATION OF THE BIBLICAL CANON, VOLUME I

continuity of faith between the two Testaments. De Jonge concludes from this that
“because Christians were convinced of the continuity in God’s revelation through
the great figures of the ‘Old Testament’ and through Jesus Christ and his apostles,
the distinction between ‘Jewish’ and ‘Christian’ was for them only of relative
importance.”48
The most popular books among these ancient texts that were not included in the
rabbinic Scriptures were included in the biblical canons of the Roman Catholic and
Eastern Orthodox Churches.49 Other ancient texts less known and less frequently
cited have mostly vanished and only a few survive in fragments. Often they survive
largely only by name in other documents as in the case of Eldad and Modad. They
evidently served a purpose for a time, but fell into disfavor and were rejected or
discarded and understandably no further copies of them were made. Many of these
books were developed around the names and stories of famous biblical characters
such as Adam, Enoch, Moses, Melchizedek, and the Patriarchs. Some of these
writings are included in the three well-known ancient catalogues below, but the lists
are not exhaustive of what was circulating in antiquity, only what was known or
circulating in particular communities. Some of these writings are listed, along with
the manuscripts in which they are found, in Joseph van Haelst’s standard work with
the subsequent additions to his work now posted on the Web.50
In the well-known catalogue commonly called the Stichometry51of Nicephoris52
(ca. 806–815 CE), the author lists the following titles of Old Testament “apocryphal”
books along with the lines of text in each book:53

48
M. de Jonge, “The Old Testament in the Pseudepigrapha,” in Auwers and de Jonge, eds., The
Biblical Canons, 478.
49
These include Tobit, Judith, the six additions to Esther, 1–2 Maccabees (Orthodox include
3 Maccabees and Ps 151), Wisdom of Solomon, Wisdom of Sirach/Ecclesiasticus, the Prayer of
Azariah, Song of the Three Young Men, Susanna, and Bel and the Dragon, Baruch plus the Epistle of
Jeremiah. The Eastern Orthodox Christians made the final decision about the scope of their biblical
canon at the Council of Jerusalem in 1672, which is slightly longer than that of the Roman Catholics.
They earlier had accepted essentially the books of the Roman Catholic Old Testament, but added the
books mentioned above. For a brief summary of the development of the Greek Version, see S. A.
Nigosian, From Ancient Writings to Sacred Texts: The Old Testament and Apocrypha (Baltimore:
The Johns Hopkins University Press, 2004), 19–23. See also his lists of Jewish and Christian Scrip-
tures (28–29).
50
See Joseph van Haelst, Catalogue des Papyrus Litteraires Juifs et Chretiens (Paris: Publications
de la Sorbonne, 1976), especially 96–119 and 199–205. The website with updates from Cornelia
Römer is <http:www.ucl.ac.uk/GrandLat/research/christianpapyri.htm>.
51
Stichometry is an ancient method of calculating the number of lines in a manuscript that were
used as a basis for payment to a scribe or copier for services rendered. The term comes from the
Greek stichos (pl. = stichoi), referring to a line in a manuscript that normally had 16 syllables or
some 36 letters.
52
This list was attributed to Nicephoris, but more likely dates well after him to around 850.
53
The following lists come from the dated but still very useful limited descriptions of these ancient
texts in Montague Rhodes James, The Lost Apocrypha of the Old Testament: Their Titles and Frag-
ments (London: Society for Promoting Christian Knowledge; New York: Macmillan, 1920), xii–xiv.
THE HEBREW SCRIPTURES 143

Enoch 4800
Patriarchs 5100
Prayer of Joseph 1100
Testament of Moses 1100
Assumption of Moses 1400
Abraham 300
Eldad and Modad 400
Of Elias the Prophet 316
Of Sophonias the Prophet 600
Of Zacharias the father of John 500
Pseudepigrapha of Baruch, Ambacum (Habakkuk), Ezekiel, and Daniel (no lines indicated
here)

Besides this, in the Sixty Books,54 which refers to the canonical books, the author
lists several apocryphal and pseudepigraphal books without the stichoi (or lines)
as follows:

Adam
Enoch
Lamech
Patriarchs
Prayer of Joseph
Eldad and Modad
Testament of Moses
Psalms of Solomon
Apocalypse of Elias (Elijah)
Vision of Esaias (Isaiah)
Apocalypse of Sophonias
Apocalypse of Zacharias
Apocalypse of Esdras

Along with these two lists of ancient apocryphal and pseudepigraphal books, the
Latin list that is best known as the Gelasian Decree (or Decretum Gelasianum, ca.
492–96) identifies sacred books as those received and not received (Latin = De
libris recipiendis et non recipiendis). It is attributed to Pope Gelasius’ decree on
which books are approved for reading in the churches and which are not. It omits
mentioning Enoch, but adds several other uncommon names as follows:

The book, concerning the daughters of Adam, of Leptogenesis

The book, which is called the Penitence of Adam
The book concerning the Giant Ogias who is stated by the heretics to have fought with a dragon
after the Flood
The book which is called the Testament of Job
The book which is called the Penitence of Jannes and Mambres
The writing, which is called the Interdiction (or Contradiction) of Solomon

54
This list is found in some of the manuscripts of the Quaestiones (or Questions and Answers) of
Anastasius (d. ca. 700 CE), abbot of the St. Catherine’s monastery in the Sinai Peninsula.
144 THE FORMATION OF THE BIBLICAL CANON, VOLUME I

Besides these three collections of rejected apocryphal books, the Armenian lists
collected by Theodor Zahn in 1893 have three other shorter collections:

A. Samuel of Ani (ca. 1179) speaks of books brought to Armenia around 591 CE by
Nestorian missionaries that include: The Penitence of Adam and The Testament
(probably of Moses or Adam).

B. Mechithar of Airivank (ca. 1290 CE) lists writings similar to those in Greek and under
the title of Secret Books of the Jews as follows:
Book of Adam
Book of Enoch
Book of the Sybil
The Twelve Patriarchs (= testaments of the Twelve sons of Jacob)
The Prayers of Joseph
The Ascension of Moses
Eldad and Modad (or Medad)
The Psalms of Solomon
The Mysteries of Elias
The Seventh Vision of Daniel55

C. Another list under the same writer’s name, dated 1085 CE, mixes some of the following
apocryphal books in the canon of the OT in the Roman Catholic and Orthodox churches
as follows:
The Vision of Enoch
The Testaments of the Patriarchs
The Prayers of Asenath (takes the place of the Prayer of Joseph)
Tobit, Judith, and Esther
Esdras Salathiel (= 4 Ezra) = Job, etc.
The Paralipomena concerning Jeremiah Babylon (= the Rest of the Words of Baruch)
Deaths of the Prophets (a version of the Pseudo-Epiphanian, Lives of the Prophets)
Jesus son of Sirach

Besides the above, other writings have occurred in later lists under the pseudon-
ymous names of Moses, Eve, Seth, Noah, Ham, Melchizedek, Hezekiah, and the
ancient Persian King Hystaspes.56 Along with the ancient books that we know
about through various ancient sources, including the early church fathers through
the fourth century, there were doubtless many other religious books written of
which we are unaware that were produced and functioned as sacred literature in
some Jewish and Christian communities.
The reason many of these books did not survive antiquity is rather simple:
they no longer met the worship, catechetical and, missional needs of Jews and/

55
This is similar to the list in the Sixty Books above, but Sibyl is substituted for Lamech, Testament
of Moses is omitted, and the last four items are replaced by the Seventh Vision of Daniel.
56
These and a number of unnamed apocryphal or pseudepigraphal writings are discussed in M.
R. James, Lost Apocrypha, 87–95. He lists many of the ancient texts that are either cited or quoted.
See also the OTP volumes by Charlesworth and the recent edition by Richard Bauckham, James R.
Davila, and Alexander Panayotov noted above.
THE HEBREW SCRIPTURES 145

or Christians and so they were simply discarded and no longer copied. Over time
when copies of texts wore out they were stored (Jews) or discarded (Christians)
and in both cases those books were not replaced. In the case of worn out or retired
Jewish sacred texts, many were placed in sacred storage places such as those
discovered in the Cairo Genizah. For Christians, worn out sacred texts were often
discarded and some of them were found in a garbage dump in Egypt.57 Some
were misplaced or ignored over the centuries. After the church had determined
the broad outlines of its theology by the fourth century, many of the writings that
had once informed its faith eventually no longer did. Because of the considerable
expense in making copies of this literature, it is reasonable to expect that in time
there would be fewer and fewer copies available of writings no longer deemed
sacred or useful to the church in its self-understanding and in fulfilling its mission.
A considerable number of manuscripts or fragments of manuscripts have survived
(over 9000 HB manuscripts have survived and some 5740 NT manuscripts have
survived antiquity).58 These manuscripts often give us a glimpse into the faith and
social contexts of the Jews or Christians who made use of them.

IV. TEMPORARY CANONIZATION

OR “DECANONIZATION”59

Many books considered in the canonization processes had earlier been recog-
nized as scripture or cited authoritatively in churches but were later rejected
either formally or more commonly by gradual lack of use in Jewish and Christian
communities. Not everything that was written in the early history of the Jewish

57
See AnnaMarie Luijendijke, “Sacred Scriptures as Trash: Biblical Papyri from Oxyrhynchus,”
VC 64 (2010): 217–54. She reflects a different pattern in Christian churches from their Jewish
siblings that did not discard sacred texts but stored them in a genizah. When texts wore out, Chris-
tians simply discarded them, an action that points perhaps to a different understanding of sacred
texts. It was the message, not the particular text, that took priority initially in the churches and that
may explain both the Christians’ use of the codex and their later discarding those texts. For a discus-
sion of this, see Satlow’s How the Bible Became Holy, 248–56.
58
The number of ancient manuscripts seems to grow almost annually as heretofore unknown
ancient texts are published, some from Qumran that were hidden for years in vaults in Zurich or
some in trunks and boxes in museums and libraries in Europe that have not yet been catalogued or
examined. Several of these documents have been published in recent years and more are surely going
to be.
59
I acknowledge the awkwardness of using the term “decanonization.” In the early stages of the
church, no such term was used. Some scholars use this term in an anachronistic fashion. I mention
it here only to refer to books that once had a significant impact (authority) in the religious life of
the Jews and subsequently some Christians, but later lost their influence and relevance. The term
suggests wrongly that a biblical canon had already been constructed and some books were excluded
from it. Most designations for this literature have problems in consistency. I prefer “canon 1”
described earlier to refer to writings initially welcomed, but later rejected.
146 THE FORMATION OF THE BIBLICAL CANON, VOLUME I

nation, including lost books earlier noted as possible sacred scriptures, survived
in the scriptures of the Jews or Christians. Besides the recognition and use of
a number of books that reflected the faith, identity, and mission of Jews and
Christians, a process of “decanonization” was also taking place in those commu-
nities. For example, as we saw above, the so-called lost books mentioned in the
HB or OT obviously had little or no significance in late Second Temple Judaism
or in Judaism of Late Antiquity and as a result they were not included in the final
canonization processes of the Jews. Many of those books are not mentioned in
either the NT or contemporary Jewish writings (Philo, Dead Sea Scrolls, and
Josephus), and so we have no idea about their contents other than what we can
ascertain from their titles or a few short references to them. Because some of these
writings were mentioned in several HB/OT passages, obviously at some point, as
noted earlier, they had some influence in an earlier history of the Jewish people,
but for whatever reason(s) they did not continue that way and were not included
in the sacred scriptures of ancient Israel.
What do we make of books that once functioned in the religious community of
Israel but no longer do? Not much is said about them in most canonical studies, and
yet their origin and significance raises important questions that cannot be ignored.
When writings no longer served the life and worship needs of a community of
faith, they were neglected, no longer transmitted in synagogues and churches,
and eventually no longer copied or even mentioned or cited in communities of
faith. Although scholars attribute high value to such books that help them in their
historical understanding of the growth and development of the Jewish religion,
seldom do they emphasize that they initially played a role in the history of the
canonization processes. Speaking of these lost religious writings Sarna offers
several explanations for the disproportionate number of literary productions in the
ancient world and the few that remain. He explains why they eventually vanished.

The absence of mass literacy, the labor of hand copying, and the perishability of writing
materials in an inhospitable climate all combined to limit circulation, restrict availability, and
reduce the chances of a work becoming standard. In addition, the land of Israel was more
frequently plundered and more thoroughly devastated than any other in the ancient Near East…
The change in script that occurred in the course of Persian hegemony doubtless drove out of
circulation many books, while the mere existence of canonized corpora almost inevitably
consigned excluded compositions to oblivion.60

There was, of course, not only book fluidity, but also linguistic and textual
fluidity among Jewish scribes and later among rabbinic sages. The many dupli-
cates in the HB also suggest textual fluidity prior to its stabilization. Some of the
duplicates in the Hebrew Bible include the following:

60
Sarna, “Canon, Text, and Editions,” 817.
THE HEBREW SCRIPTURES 147

2 Sam 22 = Ps 18
2 Kgs 18:13–20:19 = Isa 36–39
2 Kgs 24:18–25:30 = Jer 52
Isa 2:2–4 = Mic 4:1–3
Ps 14 = Ps 53
Ps 40:13–17 = Ps 70
Ps 57:7–11 = Ps 108:1–5
Ps 60:6–12 = Ps 108:7–13
Ps 96:1–13a = 1 Chr 16:23–33
Ps 105:1–15 = 1 Chr 16:8–22
Ps 106:1, 47–48 = 1 Chr 16:34–3661

Sarna claims that the very notion of canonicity carries with it an expectation
of reverence for the text and care in handling the text, but the above examples
suggest to him that canonicity was not yet in view in Jewish thought when the now
designated “noncanonical” writings were circulating in Israel.
The NT also mentions books that we no longer have and somehow were not
preserved in the churches: for example, a letter that Paul wrote to the Laodiceans
(Col 4:16), or perhaps the “first” letter that Paul wrote to the Corinthians
(1 Cor 5:9), that is, the one that he wrote prior to writing what is now called
1 Corinthians.62 In addition, Luke refers to other books on Jesus (Luke 1:1–4)
at the beginning of his Gospel referring to the “many have undertaken to set
down an orderly account” attempts to tell the story of Jesus. He may have in
mind Mark and perhaps a document now called Q, or perhaps other writings that
formed the special or unique parts of his Gospel (L) or Matthew’s (M), but that
does not appear to be equivalent to “many.” All scholars would appreciate having
access to this lost written material, and perhaps it will one day show up in another
archaeological excavation or in some as yet uncatalogued collection of ancient
manuscripts in some trunk or box in a European or Middle Eastern library. This,
of course, is not at all uncommon and, with more ancient manuscripts coming
to light almost yearly, it will likely continue. In the meantime, we know that
many currently unknown writings were once useful in religious communities and
enabled them to establish their identity and practice their religious activities for a
period of time but then no longer. In other words, however we identify those texts,
whether “decanonized,” or “temporary canonical,” or “canon 1,” they all address a
phenomenon that needs to be considered in canon formation inquiry, namely some
texts did not make the final cut.

61
Besides these, there are many parallels between 1–2 Samuels–1–2 Kings and 1–2 Chronicles,
even if there are many textual variances. For more on this, see ibid., 832.
62
Some have suggested that this “first letter” may have been the latter part of 2 Cor 10–13, but
this is uncertain and cannot as yet be demonstrated despite the shift in the tone in 2 Corinthians. It is
more likely that 2 Corinthians is a compilation of at least two of Paul’s writings written on separate
occasions.
148 THE FORMATION OF THE BIBLICAL CANON, VOLUME I

V. THE THEORY OF A THREE-TIERED

CANON FORMATION OF THE HEBREW BIBLE

In his early influential Canon of the Old Testament (1909), Ryle argued that the
HB developed in a three-tiered fashion. This roughly approximated the recog-
nition of the Law (Heb. ‫ )תורה‬by no later than 400 BCE, the Prophets (Heb.
‫ )נביאים‬possibly by the late third or early second century BCE, and the Writings
(Heb. ‫ ;כתובים‬Hagiographa = Gk. ἅγιος + γραφή = “holy writing”) that in Ryle’s
view were included in the rest of the sacred writings in the HB by no later than
the Council of Jamnia in 90 CE. He claimed that the third part of the HB canon
was highly influential for decades before this final inclusion. His view is now
considered both hypothetical and unsubstantiated and not based on solid evidence.
It is now more common to acknowledge that there is little substantial evidence
for the canonization of the Prophets in their current shape in the late third century
BCE nor that the third part of the HB was closed at a supposed “council” at Jamnia
(Yavneh) at the end of the first century CE (this so-called council will be discussed
in Chapter 11 §I below).
In Second Temple Judaism, if the number of references to the Law of Moses
from the fifth centuries BCE on in the surviving Jewish literature (Ezra–Nehemiah,
Philo, 1–2 Maccabees, Dead Sea Scrolls, and Josephus), including the NT, is any
indication, it is clear that the Pentateuch took priority of place among all Jewish
religious texts. This is supported by the early to middle third-century BCE trans-
lation of the Jewish scriptures into Greek that included only the Pentateuch noted
in the Letter of Aristeas (a more detailed discussion of this important text is in the
next two chapters). It is clear that the Law held a place of priority among the Jews
throughout late Second Temple Judaism. The later practice of keeping the Law in
a separate special place apart from the Prophets and Writings in synagogues is also
suggestive of the priority of the Law among Jews in Judaism of Late Antiquity.
While it is likely that a collection of prophetic writings was also recognized as
scriptural authorities as early as the fifth century BCE, it is not clear what comprised
that collection. The books that comprised the Prophets are not identified until the
second century CE (b. Baba Bathra 14b, see full text in Chapter 11 §III.A). The
Jews do not appear to have formed a stabilized collection of prophetic literature
before the Prologue to Sirach (130 BCE), but that collection is not identified until
much later and after considerable changes. As we see from the list of famous
Israelite personalities in Sirach 44–49, there was recognition of a growing number
of recognized prophetic scriptures in the late third or early second century BCE.
As we will see, it is not clear how to distinguish the “prophets” from the “others”
in the Prologue to Sirach. I will discuss the “others” in more detail in a discussion
of the Prologue in the next chapter, however, we cannot at this point say that the
“prophets” were as yet anything more than all of the other non-Torah sacred texts
scriptures circulating among the Jews at that time. We have no record of what
comprised the prophets until much later. In the first century CE, the Prophets
THE HEBREW SCRIPTURES 149

and Writings are not distinguished as separate collections of Jewish Scriptures,

though some scholars have tried to make that argument based on Luke 24:44 that
identifies three parts of the Jewish Scriptures (“law of Moses, the prophets, and the
psalms”; cf. also 24:27 that only mentions two parts of all the Jewish Scriptures).
Throughout the NT writings, however, all other references to the Jewish scriptures
mention only the “law of Moses” or “law and the prophets.” Despite our current
inability to identify the prophetic literature at that time, some of the Writings
themselves do identify some of the books that comprised that collection. For
example, the voice of the prophets was not silent during the pre-exilic and post-
exilic periods, as we saw earlier in Jeremiah’s reference to Micah’s and Ezra’s
reference to Haggai and Zechariah. As we will see, the NT writers also identify
several of the prophets by name (e.g., Isaiah, Jeremiah, Daniel). In the early
second century BCE and well into the New Testament era, the “prophets” likely
contained most if not all of the books that are now recognized as the Prophets but
also many if not most of the books that later comprised the Writings in the HB and
possibly Sirach and others as we will see below (Chapter 11 §II).
While some canon scholars have tried to find clear distinctions between the
Prophets and the Writings in the early second century BCE assuming that the
“others” in the Prologue to Sirach is a designation of that third part of the HB,
there is no clear evidence that a third division or section of the HB existed like
what we see in the middle to late second century CE in the b. Baba Bathra 14b text.
This does not suggest, of course, that the books in the Writings were all produced
later than the Law and the Prophets or had no influence among the Jews. On the
contrary, as we saw earlier there is considerable evidence that several of these
books existed earlier than some of the Prophets and likely influenced ancient Israel
prior to the final shaping of the Pentateuch. Nevertheless, there is no evidence that
the Baba Bathra14b text was widely acknowledged or highly influential among all
or a majority of rabbinic Jews in the second century CE since the majority of all of
the early rabbinic references to the HB scriptures in the second and third centuries
CE refer only to the Law and the Prophets. That practice is also true in the NT
writings. Nonetheless, many if not all of the Writings (Ketubim or Hagiographa)
were welcomed as sacred scripture among the Jews well before a third division of
the HB was formed and they were initially acknowledged as a part of the Jewish
prophetic corpus.
The traditional development of the HB in three distinct stages is now widely
abandoned and unsupportable,63 but the gradual expansion of a scriptural collection
that eventuated first into a twbut the gradual expansion of a scriptural collection that

63
See, for instance, Leiman, Canonization, 120–24; J. N. Lightstone, “The Formation of the
Biblical Canon in Judaism of Late Antiquity: Prolegomenon to a General Reassessment,” Studies
in Religion 8 (1979): 135–42; compare E. E. Ellis, The Old Testament in Early Christianity: Canon
and Interpretation in the Light of Modern Research (Grand Rapids: Baker, 1992), 125–26; R. T.
Beckwith, The Old Testament Canon of the New Testament Church and Its Background in Early
Judaism (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1985), 276–77; F. F. Bruce, Canon of Scripture, 34–36; and
150 THE FORMATION OF THE BIBLICAL CANON, VOLUME I

eventuated first into a two-part collection of Jewish scriptures (law and prophets)
was later divided into the current Law, Prophets and Writings and combined they
comprise the three-part scriptural collection of the Jews (Tanak). In light of the
evidence available, this is not unreasonable though the boundaries in the tripartite
HB canon are not precise until the middle to late second century at the earliest.
(More extensive evidence for this argument is presented in Chapter 11 §II.)
It is interesting that Abraham is praised because he “obeyed my voice and kept
my charge, my commandments, my statutes, and my laws” (Gen 26:5). While it
is not completely clear what commandments, statutes, or laws are in view there,
even the law in the time of Moses likely had antecedents and some of those may
be what is in mind. On the other hand, it is likely that the final editor of Genesis
claims that some laws in the Mosaic laws were known before the giving of the
Mosaic laws. According to Carr, the Gen 26:5 passage, and indeed all of Gen
12–50, is a “post-D insertion [in]to non-P material.”64 Did these oral traditions
function as laws among the Jews before they were written down? If this passage
was later inserted into Gen 12–50, as seems likely, apart from the Pentateuch,
references to the Law or Laws are only elsewhere in Joshua and there is one
reference in 1 Kgs 2:3. The rest of them are scattered throughout 2 Kings, the
Chronicles, Ezra, Nehemiah, the later Psalms, some Proverbs (28–29), and in a
few of the Latter Prophets, especially Second Isaiah (42:24), Jeremiah (throughout
as noted above), Ezekiel (43:11–12; 44:5, 24) and in the Book of the Twelve
(Hos 4:6; 8:1; Amos 2:4; Hab 1:4; Zeph 3:4; Zech 7:12). See examples also in
Daniel, the latest book in its current form admitted to the HB (6:5, 8, 12, 15; 7:25;
9:10–11, 13). Remarkably, there are no references to the Law of Moses in Judges,
1 or 2 Samuel, Esther, or Job, though in 2 Samuel when David is caught in murder
and adultery, Nathan accused him of despising “the word of the Lord” (2 Sam
12:9), but there is no particular reference to a specific law or commandment that
was violated such as we see in Exod 20:13, 14, 17.
In large measure, 1–2 Kings and later the Chronicles offer a rationale for the
judgment of God on the Houses of Israel and Judah because of their failure to
obey the law of God. The judgment on the House of Israel was its destruction in
721–720 BCE and the destruction of Jerusalem and its Temple in 587 BCE for
the House of Judah. As David was about to die he charged Solomon to “keep the
charge of the Lord your God, walking in his ways and keeping his statutes, his
commandments, his ordinances, and his testimonies, as it is written in the law of
Moses, so that you may prosper in all that you do and wherever you turn” (1 Kgs
2:1–3, emphasis added). This is the last time that the “law of Moses” is mentioned
in 1 Kings. However, in 2 Kings, Jehu is accused of not following the “law of the

more recently, Carr, Formation of the Hebrew Bible, 3–9; Lim, Formation of the Jewish Canon,
18–25; J. J. Collins, Seers, Sybils and Sages in Hellenistic-Roman Judaism (Boston: Brill, 2001),
3–21; and Chapman, “Canon, Old Testament,” 101–3.
64
Carr, Formation of the Hebrew Bible, 259; see also his explanation on 257–8 n. 11, and 286. For
a discussion of J E D P, see section 1 above.
THE HEBREW SCRIPTURES 151

Lord God” (10:31), and thereafter, the author(s) of 2 Kings attempt to clarify the
basis for God allowing the destruction of their nation (see especially 14:6; 17:13,
26–27, 34–40; 21:8). The discovery of the law in the Temple that had been lost
(22:8–20; 23:24–27) reflects a lack of attention given to the Law earlier, though
the story of God’s preservation of Israel was known and proclaimed earlier (1 Sam
12:7–8). This text shows that there was an awareness in the nation of its origins,
bondage, release, and entrance into the promised land as an act of Yahweh, but this
may not have been based on a written law so much as an oral tradition passed on
from memory or perhaps partially also in a pre-exilic written form until the Law
or Pentateuch was put or expanded into its final form in the Exilic and post-exilic
periods. The reference to the law of Moses and laws of God in 1 Kgs 2:1–3 and
later in 2 Kings and 1–2 Chronicles show in their authors an awareness of other
books that tell or summarize the story of the nation and the rationale for the fall of
Israel and God’s judgment upon both Israel and Judah.65
By the middle to end of the second century CE, some, not all, Jews had begun
to identify their scriptures as the Law, Prophets, and Writings. At that time the
Writings as a collection began for the first time to be distinguished from the
Prophets. There was no clearly defined third part of the HB before then, but the
books that were included in that third part were already in large part recognized
as Scripture in the first century CE if not before. As we will see in the next
chapter, some scholars have seen possible antecedents to a third division of the
HB Scriptures in Philo (On the Contemplative Life 25–29), Josephus (Ag. Apion
1.37–43), Luke 24:44, and 4 Ezra 14:44–47, which suggest the possibility of
multiple collections of Jewish scriptures in the first century CE, but as we will
see, there is no specificity in what comprised those collections until later in the
second century CE.
Most if not all of the books now called Prophets and Writings were welcomed
as sacred texts among many Jews before the first century CE, but there are no
specific texts that identify the books in the Jewish Scriptures at that time. Hence
some caution is needed before assuming that the later understanding of a tripartite
canon was present in the first century CE or before. In Late Second Temple
Judaism, the NT, the early church fathers, and in most of the early rabbinic
traditions the primary designations for the Jewish Scriptures was “Law and the
Prophets” and those texts reflected fluidity in the scope of those scriptures well
into the second century CE. It is also likely that in the first centuries BCE and CE,
as we will see in the Dead Sea Scrolls and in the NT (Chapters 7, 8, 9), other books
were also acknowledged as sacred scripture by some Jews and subsequently by
some Christians that were not eventually included in the later HB, especially the
Wisdom of Solomon, Wisdom of ben Sirach (or Sira), and 1 Enoch.

65
Walter Brueggemann, An Introduction to the Old Testament: The Canon and Christian Imagi-
nation (Louisville: Westminster John Knox, 2003), 145–58, offers three prominent interpretations
of the message of 1–2 Kings. I have selected the second one he discusses that was earlier presented
by Hans W. Wolff (1982).
152 THE FORMATION OF THE BIBLICAL CANON, VOLUME I

As we saw earlier, before the separation of the church from the synagogue, some
Jews read or were informed by books that we now call apocryphal or pseude-
pigraphal writings. The Christians likely recognized the same books that many of
their contemporary Jewish siblings acknowledged as sacred scripture, but it took
the Christians longer to determine the scope of their OT Scriptures. Also, as we
will see in Chapter 11 §II below, they generally placed them in four divisions and
in a different sequence than the later tripartite structure in the present HB canon.
The Christians’ quadripartite OT canon (Pentateuch, History, Poetry-Wisdom, and
Prophets) may well precede the tripartite divisions in the HB Scriptures, which is
only found after the separation of the Christians from the Jewish synagogues (ca.
66–135 CE). I will note later that it would be strange if the Christians accepted
all of the books in the HB canon but not the divisions in which they are found if
those divisions were present when Jews and Christians separated in the first and
second centuries (between 62 and 135 CE).
Jerome appears to be the primary exception to the usual Christian way of
separating their OT scriptures in four divisions and it is well known that he was
influenced by local rabbis who evidently taught him Hebrew, the basis for his
translation of the OT in the Vulgate. He listed the Christian OT books similar
to, but not exactly like, the Jewish divisions without actually listing the books
under the categories of Law, Prophets, and Writings (On Weights and Measures
22–23; ca. 374–77, Salamis, Cyprus). When Christians began to identify their
Old Testament books,66 they included some books that are now classified as
apocryphal or deuterocanonical literature and generally put them in the four part
divisions, but without explanation. We will examine in Chapter 11 (§II) whether
the Christians inherited that order or invented it.
Sundberg explains why the early churches’ collection of Scriptures was more
extensive than the one eventually adopted by the rabbinic sages and concludes
that Christians simply adopted the sacred writings in use within Pharisaic Judaism
prior to their separation from the Jews.67 Lightstone, however, rightly cautions,
“one may not assume that books known and respected in one circle will have soon
come even to the attention of other groups – let alone to be revered.”68 The earlier
notion of a “normative Judaism” in the first century CE held by scholars has
long been abandoned and scholars are well aware now that all of the first-century
Jewish sects are unlikely to have accepted the same scriptural collections.
Sundberg’s position assumes that near the end of the first century CE a so-called
Council of Jamnia made a decision about which books were or were not sacred.
Although this view can no longer be reasonably defended, his main point is

66
Melito of Sardis (ca. 170 CE) is the first known church father to identify the books in the Chris-
tian OT, but his listing of them is not the same as the collection that finally obtained in Judaism and
comprised the HB or the Christian OT.
67
Sundberg, Old Testament of the Early Church.
68
Lightstone, “Formation of the Biblical Canon,” 141.
THE HEBREW SCRIPTURES 153

nonetheless valid, namely, that the early Christians acknowledged as sacred and
authoritative the same literature acknowledged as such by some sects of Judaism
in pre-70 CE Palestine before their separation from the Jews. In addition, he also
concluded that the collection of Scriptures adopted by Christians at the end of the
first century CE was still in a fluid state and not yet fixed like we find in the later
HB and OT Scriptures.
Ellis disagrees with Sundberg claiming that both the Pentateuch and the
Prophets were a part of the biblical canon of the Jews in the early postexilic
times,69 but his position is difficult to prove from the available data without unwar-
ranted assumptions. If the Prophets as they are now had been accepted as part of
the HB canon in the time of Ezra, why are only a few prophets mentioned in Ezra
or Nehemiah (Haggai, Zechariah, and Jeremiah) or in 2 Kings and the Chronicles,
and why was only the Law of Moses read to the people in Nehemiah? Ezra–
Nehemiah refers primarily to the Law of Moses citing particular admonitions
found in the Pentateuch (see Ezra 3:2; 7:6, 10, 12; 9:10; 10:3; Neh 1:5–9; 8:9–15,
18; 9:3, 13–14, 16, 29, 34; 10:28–29, 34; 12:44; 13:1). The “law of Moses” in
Ezra–Nehemiah is all but certainly a reference to the whole of the Pentateuch.70
As noted above, in Ezra, three writing prophets in particular are mentioned
(Haggai, Zechariah, and Jeremiah), but not all of the prophets. Although prophets
are mentioned in Nehemiah (9:26, 30), this is in reference to warnings that God
gave through the prophets to the people and not to a specific complete collection
of prophetic scriptures.
The evidence below (Chapters 5 and 7) suggests that the scriptural support
for the reforms of Josiah and Ezra–Nehemiah were rooted primarily in the Law,
but with support from various prophets (Ezra 9:10–11; cf. also Joshua in Neh
9:23–25). There is, however, no reference to a study or interpretation of the
prophets such as we see advocated for the Law in Ezra 7:10 or Neh 8:5–8, nor are
other books given the same prominence attributed to the laws of Moses at that time
or later. The identity of the Prophets as sacred literature and as a fixed collection of
writings is not in view in Ezra–Nehemiah, despite references to and parallels with
some prophetic literature. It may be that the Former (or Early) Prophets (Joshua,
Judges, 1–2 Samuel, and 1–2 Kings) were collected and circulated among the
Jews in the late sixth century to early fifth century BCE, but they did not have the

69
Ellis, Old Testament in Early Christianity, 37–38, especially n. 115.
70
Lim, Formation of the Jewish Canon, 69, advocates this view and cites in support Lester L.
Grabbe, A History of the Jews and Judaism in the Second Temple Period (London: T&T Clark,
2004), 337, that the whole of the Pentateuch was in view. Grabbe lists the parallels in content
between Ezra–Nehemiah, including Joshua in his “Law of Moses in Ezra Tradition: More Virtual
Than Real?,” in Persia and Torah: The Theory of Imperial Authorization of the Pentateuch, ed.
J. W. Watts (Atlanta: SBL, 2001), 91–114. Lim lists as examples the following: Genesis (Neh
9:6–8), Exodus (Neh 9:9–11, 12–21), Leviticus (Ezra 3:4; 6:19–22; Neh 8:14–17; 10:32; 13:15–22),
Numbers (Neh 9:12–22), and Deuteronomy (Ezra 3:4; 6:19–22; Neh 10:32; 13:1–2, 25).
154 THE FORMATION OF THE BIBLICAL CANON, VOLUME I

same recognition as the law of Moses.71 No ancient source suggests that such a
collection had parity with the Law of Moses at that time.
Sanders calls on scholars to distinguish on the one hand between the stability
of the “Genesis to Kings complex,” which was most likely circulating among the
Jewish people by the end of the sixth century BCE, and the “dynamic character
of a nascent collection of prophets.”72 In the case of the former collection, he
concludes that the Law and the Former Prophets began to acquire a primitive form
of canonical authority, or canonization, for the Jews who survived the traumatic
experience of exile in Babylon.73 The literature of the Torah, which was shaped
(or re-shaped) in a context of exile, was the primary scriptural authority for the
Jews who survived the exile. Sanders adds that the language of the Latter Prophets
was remembered after the exile and during the rebuilding of the nation precisely
because those prophets who had once spoken a message to them now seemed all
the more credible and relevant because what they warned about actually came to
pass. The scenario for such acceptance of that literature and its eventual canoni-
zation, according to Sanders, is as follows:

Little by little some of us [the Jews following the exile] began to recall that back in the old
country from time to time there had been loners we had called madmen who had precisely said
that this is what would happen. Where were they now? Ezekiel, by all means. But did we not
see around here just the other day that fellow who was always talking about Amos? A disciple,
he called himself. Let us get him to recite all that Amos said and listen to it for what it says to us
now. And there was one called Hosea, others called Micah, Isaiah, Jeremiah, and so on. Perhaps
they were right and all the rest of us wrong. Let’s hear now what they said.74

In this kind of a context, an early prophetic collection likely began to take some
shape and develop within a post-exilic nation that had need of hope, stability, and
an authoritative guide in very troubled times. Since what the Prophets had said
actually came true, that was a significant motivation to listen to them anew in
light of the exile. The final collection of fixed prophetic books that formed the HB
canon, however, was still in process for centuries.
One final point here has to do with the authorization of the authority of the Law
of Moses by the imperial court of Persia. The letter from Artaxerxes to Ezra is as
follows:

71
Interestingly, Davies, Scribes and Schools, 102–4, cites Hecataeus of Abdera (ca. 300 BCE)
who, writing about the Jews of Palestine, shows awareness only of the Law of Moses, but not the
Former Prophets. His works survive only in fragments and his comments likely come from his book
called On Egypt. Hecataeus is also mentioned in Josephus, Ag. Apion 1.183–204, but this book may
be by another person of the same name, or it may be a pseudo-Hecataeus.
72
J. A. Sanders, Torah and Canon, 91.
73
Ibid.
74
Ibid., 93.
THE HEBREW SCRIPTURES 155

And you, Ezra, according to the God-given wisdom you possess, appoint magistrates and
judges who may judge all the people in the province Beyond the River who know the laws of
your God; and you shall teach those who do not know them. All who will not obey the law of
your God and the law of the king, let judgment be strictly executed on them, whether for dead
or for banishment or for confiscation of their goods or for imprisonment. (Ezra 7:25–26)

Scholars have “spilled much ink” over the historicity of this passage since it
implies that the imperial court of Persia had a role in the canonization of the
Torah. Kyong-Jin Lee has described the popular interpretations of this passage
and the whole extended section in Ezra 7:11–28. These interpretations range from
the text being a total fabrication, including the very existence of Ezra, that came
primarily from the hand of the Chronicler (C. C. Torrey), to the canonization of the
Torah by the Persian Court (Peter Frei), to acknowledgment that some elements
of it may be historical, but its historical plausibility is rejected claiming that it
came by way of many editorial hands (Lester Grabbe and Juha Pakkala),75 and
even more. After assessing the evidence for each of these positions, Lee acknowl-
edges that there were likely several hands involved in the production of Ezra, but
concludes “the basic layer of the current decree was likely an original Persian
Aramaic document.”76 He adds that, given the widespread geographical limits of
the Persian Achaemenid Dynasty and its limited resources for governing all of
the states under its control, as well as the often considerable distance and lack of
regular contact with subunits in their kingdom, the kings sending Ezra to a subunit
representing the king of Persia (Artaxerxes) was quite plausible. He adds that the
recognition of foreign gods was common among the Achaemenid kings as the
famous Persepolis Tablets confirm.77
But did the Persian king impose something on the Jewish people that was
foreign to them? Lim suggests that before this letter or decree from the Persian
court arrived the Torah was already a traditional authority since judges were
appointed because of their knowledge of the Law. But whether the Persian court
in fact played a role in elevating the authority of the Torah is uncertain. However
Lim, noting the addition of the law of the Persian king (7:26) and the practice of
the Persians toward their conquered nations in recognizing their gods and religious
practices, suggests that this was simply a political move on the king’s part and that
his ruling lent his authority to local legislation.78

75
See Juha Pakkala, Ezra the Scribe: The Development of Ezra 7–10 and Nehemiah 8, BZAW 347
(Berlin: de Gruyter, 2004).
76
Kyong-Jin Lee, The Authority and Authorization of the Torah in the Persian Period, CBET 64
(Leuven: Peeters, 2011), 213–35 and 223 for the reference to “Much ink has been spilled in attempts
to uncover Ezra’s persona…” See also 235.
77
Ibid., 239, and 249–53.
78
Lim, Formation of the Jewish Canon, 59–61. He also cites here in support of his position Lee,
Authority and Authorization of Torah, 251–52, and 265.
156 THE FORMATION OF THE BIBLICAL CANON, VOLUME I

This, of course, points to recognition of the authority of the Law of Moses among
the Jews no later than the time of Ezra–Nehemiah, but probably much sooner. This
“authorization” has some parallels with the edict of Cyrus (Ezra 1:1–4) in which
Cyrus acknowledges that “the Lord, the God of heaven” called him to “build him
a house at Jerusalem in Judah” in response to the “word of the Lord by the mouth
of Jeremiah.” Lim posits that this decree was edited in keeping with the “priestly
theology” from a priestly editor who is presumably reflected in the omission of
taxation of the priests and those connected with the temple activities (Ezra 7:24).79
This decree does not say specifically what books were “authorized,” but, again,
the possible edit is in keeping with Persian practice in the ancient world and it
probably also reflects a later priestly propaganda supporting its final editors.

VI. THE PROPHETS AS A SCRIPTURE COLLECTION

I have argued to this point that from the second century BCE to the first century
CE, the term “prophets” appears to include all non-Torah books, and that there
are no references to an identifiable collection of prophets prior to the second
century CE. Most references to prophets in the early Deuteronomic period are
to speaking and acting prophets such as Elijah and Elisha, but generally not to
writing prophets. For example, the short book of Malachi,80 possibly the last book
written in the HB prophetic collection and placed last in the Minor Prophets,81
says nothing specifically about a collection of prophetic writings in its closing
admonitions. Instead it admonishes the readers to “remember the teaching of my
servant Moses, the statutes and ordinances that I commanded him at Horeb for all
Israel” (4:4). Had the Prophets as a collection, or any portion of them, acquired
the status along the lines of sacred scripture and similar to the priority given to
the Law of Moses at that time, it is remarkable that nothing is said about them
in Malachi’s closing admonitions. Chapman’s reference to Elijah as representing
such a collection is special pleading for two distinct collections of the Law and the
Prophets, especially since Elijah left no prophetic text behind.82
We have no evidence that the Prophets in the HB were recognized as a fixed
collection in the post-exilic community of Ezra or Nehemiah, despite, as we saw

79
Lim, Formation of the Jewish Canon, 59–62.
80
The name of the book means simply “my messenger” (see 3:1). It is a reference to the one who is
coming: “I am sending my messenger to prepare the way before me.” It is unlikely that its otherwise
unknown author had that name.
81
Because there is no reference to a Jewish king in the land, but rather a governor in 1:8, this likely
reflects a post-exilic period after 515 BCE, and more likely in the time of Ezra–Nehemiah (mid-fifth
century BCE) since both deal with problems relating to tithing (Mal 3:8–12; cf. Neh 13:10–14).
There are also parallels between Malachi and Zech 9–14 (“2 Zechariah”), the setting of which is
likely in the fifth century BCE.
82
Chapman, “Second Temple Jewish Hermeneutics,” 292–93.
THE HEBREW SCRIPTURES 157

above, evidence that several writing prophets were known and cited in the sixth
and fifth centuries (e.g., Jer 26:18 cf. Mic 3:12; cf. also see also Jer 26:4–5).
Jeremiah is also mentioned in the opening verse of Ezra (1:1). Later, Neh 9:30
appears to refer to writing prophets, but that is not certain. In Ezra 5:1–2, there is
a reference to Haggai and Zechariah and also to other prophets who may or may
not be writing prophets in 9:10–11. Jeremiah is mentioned among the officials
(mostly priests and Levites of Judah) in the official lists of those who signed the
covenant to keep the laws of Moses (Neh 10:2), but Nehemiah has no specific
reference to Jeremiah’s prophecy (Neh 12:1, 12, 34). Prophets who warned and
admonished the keeping of the statutes and commandments of God are mentioned
in 2 Kgs 17:13, but it is not clear if writing prophets in particular are in view or
those who prophesied orally or both. The passage reads: “Yet the Lord warned
Israel and Judah and every seer saying ‘Turn from your evil ways and keep my
commandments and my statutes, in accordance with all the law that I commanded
your ancestors and that I sent to you by my servants the prophets’.”
As we saw earlier in several texts, some writing prophets are mentioned in
various Deuteronomistic history texts, a fact that indicates an acknowledgment of
their influence in that period. However, at no time do they take precedence over the
Law, nor does their influence appear equal to the Law. Later Sirach (ca. 180 BCE)
refers specifically to several writing prophets by name and to the Minor Prophets
as a fixed collection in his praise of the great men of the faith (Sir 49:9–10; see
also Dan 9:2 referring to Jeremiah and 2 Chr 32:32 referring to Isaiah’s prophecy).
However, while there is recognition of several of the writing prophets, there is no
indication that the prophetic collection was closed.
In the fifth century BCE, there were obviously prophetic individuals, some of
whom were writing prophets, who warned the nation to keep the laws of Moses
and their covenant with Yahweh. They were never seen as competitors with Moses
or as equal to Moses, but rather the prophets referred to provided warnings to
those who rejected or ignored the laws of Moses. Scholars regularly make guesses
about the scope of that prophetic collection, but at that time it was apparently still
quite fluid. The Prophets that now form the second part of the HB were most likely
all written before 400 BCE or at the latest 350 BCE, but there is no certainty on
what comprised a prophetic corpus before the second century CE. Prophetic texts
were often cited in a scriptural manner, that is, authoritatively before they were
called Scripture.83

83
As noted in Chapter 1, sacred texts function as Scripture before they are actually called Scripture.
References to biblical writings as “Scripture” are a rather late development. While the Greek terms
for “scripture” (γραφή) and “scriptures” (γραφαί) are commonly used in the NT in reference to OT
writings, those designations are not used in the Septuagint, which typically uses the terms decree,
word, statute, precept, testimony, way, ordinance, commandment, and law, to identify the HB/OT
writings. See, for example, the variety of terms used in Ps 19:7–10 and Ps 119. These terms are
synonymous with scripture at that time, even if the biblical books were not yet designated by the
name “Scripture” (Heb. ‫)בותכ‬.
158 THE FORMATION OF THE BIBLICAL CANON, VOLUME I

Some of the latest writings in the book of the Twelve (the so-called Minor
Prophets),84 namely, Haggai, Zechariah, and Malachi, had not yet been written
when the earlier prophetic writings were already gaining influence in the pre-exilic
and exilic periods. Pfeiffer contends that the Former Prophets and some of the
Latter Prophets were included in Israel’s sacred scriptures not only because of
growing public interest in them, but also because of their recognized value “for
enhancing the national pride and the hopes for a better future.”85 I add to this three
more reasons why the prophetic writings were welcomed: (1) they extended and
interpreted Israel’s story of God’s activity among the Jews; (2) they were recog-
nized as having intrinsic worth in the worship and religious instruction of the
Jewish people; and (3) they gave to Israel an identity and knowledge of the will
of God that enabled them to renew themselves as a people of God and to rebuild
their nation.
While we cannot be precise about when the prophetic writings began to function
as sacred scripture in the nation, some of them apparently functioned in a scrip-
tural manner from the time of the exile and most likely functioned that way by the
beginning of the second century BCE. This does not mean that the Jews viewed
the Law and the Prophets and no other books as scripture, but only that the Law
and several prophetic books functioned as scripture quite early. There is no talk
about a closed collection of scriptures at this time. The earliest specific refer-
ences to the designation “Law and the Prophets” is in the Prologue to Sirach (ca.
130–120 BCE) and in the reference to Judas Maccabeus, during his battle with the
forces of Nicanor, who exhorts his troops not to fear any attack from the Gentiles.
He began “encouraging them from the law and the prophets, and reminding them
also of the struggles they had won” (2 Macc 15:9, ca. early first century BCE,
emphasis added).
According to Blenkinsopp, involving the prophets in communicating history
was a way of commending the prophets, and he notes that most of the specific
sources cited by the Chronicler were seers and prophets whose works have been
lost.86 Interestingly, Josephus (ca. 95–100 CE) argued that only prophets could
write the history of Israel since they alone had access to information through
divine inspiration: “From the death of Moses until Artaxerxes, who succeeded
Xerxes as king of Persia, the prophets subsequent to Moses wrote the history of
the events of their own times in thirteen books” (Ag. Apion 1.40, LCL).

84
They are called Minor Prophets because of their shorter length, not because their message was
less important. Most often in antiquity these writings are referred to as the “Twelve.” For a helpful
discussion of their formation as a single collection, see B. A. Jones, The Formation of the Book of
the Twelve: A Study in Text and Canon, SBLDS 149 (Atlanta: Scholars Press, 1995).
85
Robert Pfeiffer, “Canon of the Old Testament,” IDB 1:507.
86
J. Blenkinsopp, Prophecy and Canon: A Contribution to the Study of Jewish Origins (Notre
Dame: University of Notre Dame Press, 1977), 98.
THE HEBREW SCRIPTURES 159

Freedman contends that the prophetic collection was recognized as Scripture in

the sixth century BCE,87 but we cannot substantiate from any ancient sources that
the prophetic writings as a fixed collection were acknowledged as sacred Scripture
at that time. Freedman’s conclusions are based both on an arbitrary early dating of
most of the prophetic corpus and a rather early addition of the post-exilic prophets
to that collection. On the other hand, although Blenkinsopp agrees that the Former
Prophets (Joshua, Judges, Samuel, and Kings) were collected early on, possibly
in the sixth century BCE, he concludes that this process took considerably longer
for the Latter Prophets.88 For example, the book of Isaiah undoubtedly went
through a long period of revision in which the “Apocalypse of Isaiah” (Isa 24–27)
and the additional writings of chs. 40–66 were edited and connected with the
original text of Isaiah (probably chs. 1–33, with the subsequent addition of chs.
34–39). There is also considerable debate over the dating of Zech 9–14, since the
two supplementary oracles of Zech 9–11 and Zech 12–14 (sometimes called “2
Zechariah”) were likely connected later to the original text, Zech 1–8. Presently,
there is no available evidence that allows us to conclude that the Prophets as a
fixed collection existed at or before the time of Ben Sirach (200–180 BCE). In the
Prologue of Sirach all we have is an imprecise collection of prophets by around
130 BCE, but the works included in that prophetic collection are not identified
until much later and likely after several revisions. I will explore this matter more
in the next chapter along with various second- and first-century texts that mention
collections of sacred texts circulating in the Land of Israel before and during the
first century CE.
I will now turn specifically to the recognition of the Law and Prophets as
scripture and the origin of the notion of the cessation of prophecy that established
a date as a criterion for the acceptance of the HB books.

87
D. N. Freedman, “The Symmetry of the Hebrew Bible,” Studia Theologica 46 (1992): 102–5.
88
Blenkinsopp, Prophecy and Canon, 99–101.
 CHAPTER 5

THE LAW, THE PROPHETS, AND THE

CESSATION OF PROPHECY

I. INTRODUCTION

Although the Pentateuch was recognized as the most prominent scriptural

authority among the Jews returning to the Land of Israel after the exile, other
writings were also recognized as sacred texts though not on the same level as the
Law. Additional religious texts generally identified as “prophets” and believed to
have been penned by seers or prophets in Israel began to be recognized as part of
a prophetic corpus by the second century BCE. This broad unidentified collection
of prophetic texts that eventually formed the second and third parts of the Jewish
scriptures was emerging in the second century BCE, but many of its writings had
been circulating independently among the Jewish people much sooner. Some of
those writings are identified by name in Sir 44–49, but there is nothing at that time
that specifically identifies the books or texts that formed that collection. In the
Prologue to Sirach (ca. 130–120 BCE), this broad collection was called “prophets”
and was placed after the Law, but there is no specific identity of the books in it. In
what follows I will explore early references to this collection of sacred texts and
also when production of “prophetic” literature appears to have ceased.
Along with a collection of prophetic literature, or perhaps even within that
collection of prophetic literature, other religious texts were also circulating among
the Jews in the third and second centuries BCE. Some may have been written
earlier than some of the prophets, but several texts initially included among the
Prophets were later placed in a distinct category called “the Writings” (Heb.
‫כתובים‬1) that appear to be something of a “catch all” collection of several genres
of literature (prophets, apocalyptic writing, wisdom literature, poetry, and history).
Some religious texts were not eventually included in the HB scriptures but were
for a time acknowledged as scripture by some Jews and subsequently by some
early Christians, especially 1 Enoch, Wisdom of Solomon and the Wisdom of
Jesus ben Sirach, but also several other texts.

1
The plural Hebrew term Ketubim (“things written down”) is regularly translated “Writings” or
“Hagiographa” (= “holy writings”). “Ketubim” is translated in Latin as “Scriptures,” and “Holy Scrip-
tures,” which became the most common reference among Christians for all of their sacred writings.
THE LAW, THE PROPHETS, AND THE CESSATION OF PROPHECY 161

The latest book to be included in the HB was Daniel, which in its current form
dates to between 167 and 164 BCE. In its earlier chapters (1–6), it tells the story of
Daniel, a counselor and dream interpreter for the Babylonian, Median, and Persian
kings in the sixth and early fifth centuries BCE. This story has parallels to the story
of Joseph in Gen 37–50. Later these and other writings circulating among the Jews
in Palestine were translated from Hebrew into Greek – probably by the time of
Sirach’s grandson – not only for the Jews in Egypt, but eventually also for other
Jews in the Diaspora. In the second century CE, the name “Writings” was applied
to some of these books. Daniel, a prophetic-apocalyptic book, was generally, but
not always, placed in the Ketubim between the historical books of Esther and
Ezra–Nehemiah (b. Meg. 3a; b. Sanh. 94a).
For years the argument has been made that since Daniel is a prophetic book
with a strong emphasis on apocalyptic eschatology, and since it was not included
among the collection of Prophets in the HB, the Prophets must have been a fixed
collection before the time Daniel was written.2 The difficulty with this argument is
that other writings not later counted among the Prophets of the HB were identified
as prophets before the third category of Writings was formed in the second century
CE. It is only later that Daniel appears among the Writings, but this was not the
case initially or until the second century CE. Throughout the New Testament the
reference to the Jewish scriptures is regularly identified as “Law and the Prophets”
and only one time is “psalms” listed separately, namely in Luke 24:44, but in
24:27 the same collection (“Moses and all the prophets”) is identified but without
reference to “psalms.” This passage may reflect the emergence of a third category
in the Jewish scriptures, but 24:44 suggests that a third grouping of the Hebrew
scriptures may have been emerging in the last half of the first century CE, but it
was not regularly distinguished from a prophetic corpus until the middle to late
second century CE, and even later for many rabbis.
Josephus himself viewed Daniel as a prophet (Josephus, Ant. 10.245–46, 249)
and even greater than all other prophets (Ant. 10.266) and as the author of several
books (10.267, possibly a reference to the later additions added on to Daniel).
In the NT, Daniel is specifically called a prophet by Jesus and Jesus cites his
prophecy (Matt 24:15; cf. Dan 11:31 and 12:11; cf. Mark 14:62 and Dan 7:13).
Even in the second century CE, Daniel is called a prophet by the author of the
Epistle of Barnabas (4:4), and at Qumran the phrase “as it is written in the book
of the prophet Daniel” appears multiple times.3 Even later in the rabbinic tradition
Daniel was cited among the prophets Haggai, Zechariah, and Malachi (Megillah
3a and 15a and b. Sanhedrin 94a).4 At the time when Daniel and the Psalms were

2
So argues Barton, Oracles of God, 25, 35–40.
3
This is noted by G. A. Anderson, “Canonical and Non-Canonical,” 151. He is citing here
J. T. Milik, Ten Years of Discovery in the Wilderness of Judaea (London: SCM, 1959), 41. See also
Barton, Oracles of God, 35–37, 40–42.
4
I owe these references, earlier overlooked, to Barton, Oracles of God, 36.
162 THE FORMATION OF THE BIBLICAL CANON, VOLUME I

placed among the Writings (Ketubim or Hagiographa), some rabbis still counted
them among the “prophets.” Leiman observes that in the rabbinic tradition both
Daniel and David (Psalms) “are frequently considered into the Amoraic period, the
third ‫[ נביאים‬prophets] in rabbinic literature.”5 Well into the Amoraic period, the
third part of the HB scriptures was not yet identified as Ketubim or Hagiographa
by many rabbis, but rather Daniel and the Psalms were included among the
Prophets as sacred scripture.
From its beginning Daniel was always recognized as prophetic literature and is
cited as prophetic literature in the NT (Matt 24:15 and Mark 13:14), but Daniel
was not eventually included in the Prophetic collection in the HB. Was this
because the Prophets had already been closed when Daniel was written and so it
was placed among the Writings? If so, why would the Christians later regularly
include Daniel in the Prophets of their OT scriptures? The argument assumes
that if prophecy had already ceased after the death of Malachi,6 then nothing else
could be added to it, not even Daniel. Thus, according to this tradition, Daniel was
placed in the Hebrew Writings. Several scholars draw this conclusion, including
Wildeboer who long ago argued that the lateness of Daniel makes its inclusion
in the Prophets impossible.7 John Collins agrees that the Psalms and Daniel were
both viewed as prophetic literature in the Qumran pesharim (commentaries), and
apart from the Psalms and Daniel, none of the other Ketubim had pesharim written
to interpret them.8 Peter Flint has also shown how both Daniel and Psalms were
viewed as prophetic literature at Qumran. Daniel was introduced as scripture in
4Q174 2:3 with the words: “As it is written in the book of Daniel the Prophet.”
Flint also cites 11QPsa 27:2–11 that, after referencing David’s composition of
3600 psalms, concludes “All these he composed through prophecy which was
given him from before the Most High.”9

5
Leiman, Canonization, 59 and 168 n. 288. He cites Megillah 15a for Daniel and Sotah 48a for
Psalms or David as prophetic literature. See for example where David is placed among the prophets:
“when the former prophets died, the urim and thummim ceased. When [the second] temple was
destroyed, the Shamir and Nopheth Zufim ceased, and men of faith disappeared from Israel; as it
is said, help, Lord, for the godly man ceaseth…” (see Ps 19:11 and 12:2, Soncino trans.). Leiman
cites several references to the Law and the Prophets without reference to the Writings (Ketubim or
Hagiographa) well into the Amoraic period (pp. 58–60), as well as later when Law, Prophets, and
Writings are mentioned (pp. 60–67).
6
According to b. Sotah 48b, we read: “But, said R. Nahman: Who are the former prophets? [The
term ‘former’] excludes Haggai, Zechariah, and Malachi who are the latter [prophets]. For our
Rabbis have taught: When Haggai, Zechariah and Malachi died, the Holy Spirit departed from Israel;
nevertheless they made use of the Bath Kol” (Soncino trans.).
7
G. Wildeboer, The Origin of the Canon of the Old Testament (London: Luzac & Co., 1895),
4. He adds that Daniel in its present form was not excluded “because its principal character was a
well-known figure of the Exile (Ezek. 14,14. 20 and 28,3).” Ibid., 99.
8
Collins, Seers, Sybils and Sages, 14.
9
“Noncanonical Writings in the Dead Sea Scrolls: Apocrypha, Other Previously Known Writings,
Pseudepigrapha,” in The Bible at Qumran: Text, Shape, and Interpretation, ed. P. W. Flint (Grand
Rapids: Eerdmans, 2001), 80–123, here 116–17.
THE LAW, THE PROPHETS, AND THE CESSATION OF PROPHECY 163

While later rabbis challenged the sacredness of some of the books in the
Writings, none of the books acknowledged as Prophets, including Daniel and the
Psalms, were ever challenged. Luke 24:44 is the only first-century exception that
supposedly reflects an early stage of an emerging tripartite biblical canon. Some
scholars have ventured to say that “psalms” in Luke 24:44 refers to the whole of
the third of the part of the HB Writings. That, however, is special pleading, as I
will show in Chapter 8 §III.
Some scholars have argued for an established or widely recognized three-part
HB collection of scriptures before the time of Jesus, but this is quite premature
since “the Law” or “the Law and the Prophets” are the most common designa-
tions for the Jewish scriptures well beyond the second century CE and Luke 24:44
is the only reference in the NT missing to a third part (“psalms”) of the Jewish
scriptures. Why should this one verse be a referendum on what all of the rest of
the NT authors thought when none of them say it? In what follows I will examine
below several of the ancient Jewish and Christian texts that help identify the
scriptures of the Jewish people dating from the second and first centuries BCE
and the first century CE.
As noted earlier, the HB canon was not clearly defined until sometime in the
middle to late second century CE and certainly not at a supposed Jamnia Council
at the end of the first century CE.10 The Writings later became a more precisely
defined and ordered canon of authoritative Scriptures for the surviving elements
of Judaism (primarily Pharisaic Jews) in the second century CE. Sarna agrees
and contends that the name Writings (Ketubim) was indeterminate initially and
its contents were not made clear until the second century CE. Before that time,
he rightly, in my view, contends that all of the sacred writings of the Jews were
regularly referred to as the Law and the Prophets.11 We will now examine the
primary evidence for exploring the growth and development of the HB.

II. THE WISDOM OF JESUS BEN SIRACH

The book of Sirach (also known as Ecclesiasticus, Wisdom of Jesus ben Sira, or
simply Sira) was written in the early decades of the second century BCE (ca. 180
BCE). As we have already seen, likely from the sixth to the fifth century several

10
Barr, Holy Scripture, 56–57, does not believe that an actual council at Jamnia empowered Jewish
leaders to determine which books would be included in the third part of the Jewish canon of Scrip-
tures. Most scholars now agree with the conclusions of Jack P. Lewis against that supposed council
in his “What Do We Mean by Jabneh?” See also Lightstone, “Formation of the Biblical Canon,”
who argues similarly and calls into question whether much of anything was really settled at Jamnia
regarding the Jewish canon. The growing consensus among scholars that no such council decisions
were made about a biblical canon at Jamnia in the latter part of the first century CE is fairly well
settled now. I will return to that matter in Chapter 11 §I.
11
Sarna, “Canon, Text, and Editions,” 824.
164 THE FORMATION OF THE BIBLICAL CANON, VOLUME I

collections of religious texts were circulating in Second Temple Judaism including

the Law of Moses or Pentateuch and an undefined collection of prophetic writings
and traditions (2 Kgs 17:13). This collection included a collection of “prophets”
mentioned in the Prologue to Sirach in the late second century BCE. Sirach’s list
of several famous persons and their activities in chs. 44–50 includes names of
some prophetic books that were later included in the HB, including the appar-
ently fixed collection of smaller prophetic writings called “the Twelve” or later
“Minor Prophets” (49:9–10). Sirach’s awareness of well-known prophetic figures
occasionally reflects some knowledge of their prophetic writings, but there is
no specifically identified collection of prophetic books at that time. Along with
those who wrote books, he also mentions those who did not write any known
books (chs. 44–50). Based on his investigation of Sir 38:34–39:1 and 44:1–50:24,
Hengel believes that Sirach was aware of all of the HB books except Ruth,
Canticles, Esther, and Daniel, but he adds that the “others” listed in the Prologue
to Sirach betray an uncertainty about a third division of the Jewish scriptures that
“was by no means definitely delimited even in the grandson’s time.”12 At least by
the time of the grandson (ca. 130 BCE) the category of “prophets” may, for the
first time, suggest a well-known collection, but its parameters are still undefined
and likely still fluid.13 Ulrich is likely correct when he concludes that the Prologue
to Sirach does not have three distinct categories for the Scriptures of the Jews, but
only two and a loose collection of other texts, namely “the Law and the Prophets
and the nonauthoritative ‘others’.”14 Some of those “others” could well be some of
the so-called lost books mentioned above or some of the additional books found at
Qumran among the Dead Sea Scrolls or among the apocryphal or pseudepigraphal
books listed earlier, and even Sirach itself.
It appears from the NT that the sacred books that were not called Torah or the
Law were simply called “prophets.” Had there been a separate collection known
as “others” in the Prologue to Sirach, one would expect to see a third category
regularly used in first century CE Judaism and early Christianity, but that is not
the case. As we saw earlier, only Luke 24:44 refers to a third scriptural category
“psalms” which cannot reasonably be identified with the later broader collection
of eleven books that comprise the Writings (see further discussion of this text
below). In the Mishnah, only the Law and the Prophets are mentioned as the
Jewish Scriptures and no reference is made to the Hagiographa or Ketubim as a
separate collection.

12
Hengel, Septuagint as Christian Scripture, 96–97.
13
For a brief but helpful survey of the origin of “prophets” in the ancient world both in and outside
of Palestine, see Martti Nissinen with C. L. Seow and Robert K. Ritner, Prophets and Prophecy in
the Ancient Near East, Writings from the Ancient World 12 (Atlanta: Society of Biblical Literature,
2003), 1–11.
14
Eugene C. Ulrich, “The Non-attestation of a Tripartite Canon in 4QMMT,” CBQ 65 (2003):
202–14.
THE LAW, THE PROPHETS, AND THE CESSATION OF PROPHECY 165

From several passages in Sirach it seems obvious that a wider body of literature
than simply the Pentateuch informed the faith of the Jews of his day. Some
scholars regularly cite the later Prologue to Sirach as evidence that the HB canon
was largely settled in the second century BCE, namely the Law, Prophets, and
“others that followed them.” The book of Sirach itself speaks of those who seek
wisdom and instruction, saying: “I will again pour out teaching like prophecy, and
leave it to all future generations” (24:33). Later he reflects on “the law of the Most
High” in a scripture-like manner, that is, as religiously authoritative writings, and
identifies several genres in that collection:

How different the one who devotes himself

to the study of the law of the Most High!
He seeks out the wisdom of all the ancients,
and is concerned with prophecies;
he preserves the sayings of the famous
and penetrates the subtleties of parables;
he seeks out the hidden meanings of proverbs
and is at home with the obscurities of parables. (Sir 38:34b–39:3, emphasis added)

Sirach also says that he himself has poured forth wisdom out of his heart (50:27)
and that he himself is filled with the “spirit of understanding” (39:6).15 Sirach’s
grandson apparently agrees with this assessment and translated Sirach’s work into
Greek concluding that his grandfather’s work was also inspired and worthy of
being placed alongside the other sacred books among the Jews. He writes:

So my grandfather Jesus, who had devoted himself especially to the reading of the Law and
the Prophets and the other books of our ancestors, and had acquired considerable proficiency
in them, was himself also led to write something pertaining to instruction and wisdom, so that
by becoming familiar also with his book those who love learning might make even greater
progress in living according to the law. (Sirach Prologue, NRSV, emphasis added)

The instruction and wisdom that he attributes to his grandfather are also attributed
to the “Law and the Prophets and the others,” and he brings his grandfather’s work
together with these writings when he acknowledges the difficulty in translating
them into Greek: “Not only this book, but even the Law itself, the Prophecies,
and the rest of the books differ not a little when read in the original.” I will return
to the Prologue later in Chapter 11 §III.E, but it is sufficient here to observe that
many Jews accepted Sirach’s book as scriptural wisdom before the final definition
of their Scriptures. Sirach was the most popular writing discussed in the rabbinic
literature that was not included later in the HB. Sarna indicates that the need of
the rabbis to emphasize that this book did not “defile the hands,” that is, it was
not canonical, shows that the Ketubim collection was still fluid in the second
century and that Sirach had already acquired a “measure of sanctity in the popular

15
VanderKam, Revelation to Canon, 21, makes this observation.
166 THE FORMATION OF THE BIBLICAL CANON, VOLUME I

conscience.” He further notes that even after its ban by the rabbis (t. Yadayim
2:13), some of the Amoraim continued to quote it as scripture.16 Although Sirach
was eventually not included in the HB, it was nevertheless welcomed in several
Jewish communities for centuries.17 Sirach was a popular book not only among the
Jews, but subsequently also among Christians. Barton observes that in antiquity
Christians cited both Sirach and the Wisdom of Solomon more frequently than the
books of Samuel and Kings.18
In the well-known Sir 49:8–10 text, Sirach shows familiarity with several
prophetic writings and specifically mentions the exilic prophet Ezekiel, Job, and
the “Twelve Prophets” as if the latter were already circulating as a fixed collection:

It was Ezekiel who saw the vision of glory,

which God showed him above the chariot of the cherubim.
For God also mentioned Job
who held fast to all the ways of justice.
May the bones of the Twelve Prophets
send forth new life from where they lie,
for they comforted the people of Jacob
and delivered them with confident hope. (Sir 49:8–10, emphasis added)

This passage, in Sirach’s celebrated “history of famous men,” shows significant

familiarity with the Law and several of the Prophets. In this section, Sirach shows
an awareness of the books of Joshua (46:1–6), Samuel (46:13–47:11), and Kings
(47:12–49:3), as well as several other well-known names in the HB/OT, including
Isaiah (48:20–25), Jeremiah (49:6–7), Ezekiel (49:8), and the “Twelve Prophets”
as a whole (49:10). His reference to the “Twelve Prophets” suggests that when
Sirach wrote, the collection of Minor Prophets was already circulating in one
scroll.19

16
Sarna, “Canon, Text, and Editions,” 826. See, for example, y. Sanhedrin 28a and m. Sanhedrin
10:1. He adds that a third-generation amora cited Sirach and placed it in the Writings (b. Bava
Qamma 92b).
17
Some Amoraim, for example, were discussing the authority of Sirach and the Wisdom of
Solomon well into the fourth and fifth centuries CE. Since reading a text in worship and teaching it in
a religious community implies recognition of its sacredness and authority by a believing community,
forbidding a congregation to read a document in public worship conversely suggests that it was not
yet or no longer viewed as Scripture. The exception to this may be 4 Ezra 14:43–47, where readers
are permitted to read twenty-four books in public, but seventy other books are to be read only by the
spiritually wise. Some books that were eventually received as a part of the HB that apparently were
excluded earlier by some rabbis from public reading include: Song of Songs (m. Yadayim 3.5; b.
Megillah 7a), Ecclesiastes (m. Yadayim 3.5; b. Shabbat 100a; see also Jerome on Eccl 12:14), Ruth
(b. Megillah 7a), Esther (b. Sanhedrin 100a; b. Megillah 7a), Proverbs (b. Shabbat 30b), and Ezekiel
(b. Shabbat 13b; b. Hagigah 13a; b. Menahot 45a).
18
J. Barton, Holy Writings, Sacred Text: The Canon in Early Christianity (Louisville: Westminster
John Knox, 1997), 146.
19
Sirach’s reference to Mal 4:5–6 in Sir 48:10 suggests the completion of the Twelve took place
sometime earlier, perhaps around 250 BCE. For more information on this, see Jones, Formation
THE LAW, THE PROPHETS, AND THE CESSATION OF PROPHECY 167

This entire section (Sir 44–50) shows that Sirach was familiar with many of
the heroes in several biblical texts, but also he focuses especially on famous
persons who did not write books. He is obviously familiar, however, with the
books that tell their story as in the case of Elijah (2 Kgs 1:1–16 and 2:11). He
also is aware of the final reference Mal 4:4–6 (48:10) about turning the hearts
of the parents to their children and the hearts of children to their parents. Sirach
assumes his readers’ knowledge of these characters and does not introduce them
as new persons. This suggests widespread familiarity with the texts in which the
stories are found. He makes no attempt to identify the texts that tell the stories of
his heroes, but simply reminds readers of stories that he assumes were familiar
to them. We have seen that Sirach shows awareness of many writings that later
formed the HB and it is likely that those books functioned as scripture for many
Jews at that time.

III. THE PROLOGUE TO SIRACH

The grandson of Sirach, who translated his grandfather’s work into Greek, added
a very important prologue to this work, possibly as early as 130 BCE, but possibly
as late as 117–110 BCE.20 This short prologue is the first clear reference to specific
collections of authoritative Jewish scriptures,21 though it is not in the sense of a
fixed biblical canon. The grandson speaks of three categories of writings and the
first two appear to be more definite, namely Law and Prophets,22 but the third
category is quite vaguely identified as “the others that followed them,” “the other
books of our ancestors,” and “the rest of the books.” Because this is the first time

of the Book of the Twelve, 7–42; and more recently the collection by Rainer Albertz, James D.
Nogalski, and Jakob Wöhrle, eds., Perspectives on the Formation of the Book of the Twelve:
Methodological Foundations – Redactional Processes – Historical Insights, BZAW 433 (Berlin:
de Gruyter, 2012), and for our purposes, see especially Roy E. Garton, “Rattling the Bones of the
Twelve: Wilderness Reflections in the Formation of the Book of the Twelve,” 237–51, in which he
compares the reference in Ezek 37:7–8 to Sir 49:10; Mark Leuchter, “The Book of the Twelve and
‘The Great Assembly’,” 337–52; and finally Russell Fuller’s discussion of the stabilization of the
sequence and text of the Twelve (ca. mid-second century to early first century BCE) in his “The
Sequence of Malachi 3:22–24 in the Greek and Hebrew Textual Traditions,” 371–79.
20
So argues P. E. Kahle, The Cairo Geniza, 2nd ed. (Oxford: Blackwell, 1959), 216. Not all
scholars agree that the prologue to Sirach is genuine, that is, that it was written by the grandson,
since it is not found in the Old Latin translation of the OT writings, and it is missing in several Greek
cursive manuscripts. Also, a different prologue is found in some Greek manuscripts. If Sirach’s
grandson did not write the prologue – and it is by no means certain that he did – there may be, as
Kahle argues, no clear examples of a three-part division of the Hebrew Scriptures before 70 CE. G.
Kilpatrick denies that the grandson of Sirach wrote this introduction and Kahle, Cairo Geniza, 217,
cites his arguments. I will argue later that even 70 CE is too early for a tripartite HB canon.
21
Collins, Seers, Sibyls and Sages, 8.
22
I am using the lower case “prophets” here because the collection appears to be indefinite and
appears to apply to all non-Torah sacred writings.
168 THE FORMATION OF THE BIBLICAL CANON, VOLUME I

the two well-known distinct categories “Law and Prophets” are combined, and
because this text is such a pivotal text in the canonization processes of the HB, I
include the whole Prologue here to show their context. It emphasizes the purpose
of Sirach but also its relationship to other sacred writings:

Many great teachings have been given to us through the Law and the Prophets and the others
that followed them, and for these we should praise Israel for instruction and wisdom. Now,
those who read the scriptures must not only themselves understand them, but must also as
lovers of learning be able through the spoken and written word to help the outsiders. So my
grandfather Jesus, who had devoted himself especially to the reading of the Law and the
Prophets and the other books of our ancestors, and had acquired considerable proficiency in
them, was himself also led to write something pertaining to instruction and wisdom, so that
by becoming familiar also with his book those who love learning might make even greater
progress in living according to the law.
You are invited therefore to read it with goodwill and attention, and to be indulgent in cases
where, despite our diligent labor in translating, we may seem to have rendered some phrases
imperfectly. For what was originally expressed in Hebrew does not have exactly the same
sense when translated into another language. Not only this book, but even the Law itself, the
Prophecies, and the rest of the books differ not a little when read in the original.
When I came to Egypt in the thirty-eighth year of the reign of Euergetes and stayed for some
time, I found opportunity for no little instruction. It seemed highly necessary that I should
myself devote some diligence and labor to the translation of this book. During that time I
have applied my skill day and night to complete and publish the book for those living abroad
who wished to gain learning and are disposed to live according to the law. (Sirach Prologue,
emphasis added)

The grandson appears to view his grandfather’s work as on par with the “other
books,” that is, he probably included Sirach perhaps among the “other books” or
possibly even among the “Prophets” themselves. Starting from the obvious, the
book was valued enough to be translated into Greek for religious or pious use
in the Jewish community of Alexandria. For example, the grandson wrote: “By
becoming familiar also with his book [Sirach] those who love learning might
make even greater progress in living according to the law.” Those who read this
book, the grandson contends, will be more “disposed to live according to the law.”
He translated Sirach’s work so that it would be used for edifying reading, and like
his grandfather, he posits that the writing, as we see in the opening sentence of
Sirach as wisdom is “from the Lord.” Sirach begins with the line: “All wisdom is
from the Lord, and with him it remains forever” (Sir 1:1), which is likely evidence
to the grandson that it was worthy of being welcomed as inspired scripture. Sirach
wrote wisdom as if he believed that it came from God. The book was used in a
canonical fashion and cited as “Scripture” for several hundred years in Jewish
writings and more permanently in the early church fathers and later and it remains
Scripture among Catholic and Orthodox Christians.
According to the Babylonian Talmud, Sirach was capable of being cited for the
good teachings that it contained, but it was not considered inspired by a growing
number of rabbis even if it was widely cited by other rabbis. For example: “R.
Akiba said: Also he who reads uncanonical books, etc. A. Tanna taught: [This
THE LAW, THE PROPHETS, AND THE CESSATION OF PROPHECY 169

means], the books of the Sadducees. R. Joseph said: it is also forbidden to read the
book of Ben Sira” (t. Sanhedrin 100b, Epstein, trans.). On the other hand, several
texts, even in the same tractate, cite Sirach with approval as in the following: “R.
Joseph said: [Yet] we may expound to them the good things it [Sirach] contains,
e.g., ‘a good woman is a precious gift, who shall be given to the God-fearing
man’.” Likewise in the same passage, “All the days of the poor are evil. Ben Sira
said: His nights too. The lowest roof is his roof, and on the highest mountain
is his vineyard. The rain of [other] roofs [drip] on to his, whilst the earth of his
vineyard is [borne] on [to other] vineyards.” The popularity of Sirach among the
rabbis is illustrated by several references where passages in Sirach are cited with
approval, for example, in b. Aboth 4:4; b. Pesahim (or b. Pesachim) 113b; b. Bava
Metzi’a 112a; Tanhuma, Mikketz 10; Exodus Rabbah 21:7; Tanhuma, Va-Yishlah
8; Genesis Rabbah 73:12; b. Baba Bathra 98b and Tanhuma, Hukkath 1.23
Sirach was occasionally introduced with scriptural introductions (e.g., “as it is
written”) to support positions or argue points, but the book had a mixed tradition
in the Talmudic literature. On the one hand, Rabbi Akiba especially in the later
first century CE rejected it as a part of the Jewish scriptures (b. Sanhedrin 100b
and t. Yadayim 2:13.), but still it was sometimes cited as Scripture in other later
texts, as in b. Bava Qamma 92b.24 After the writing of the two Talmudim (Bavli
and Yerushalmi), it appears that the common use and citation of Sirach ceased in
rabbinic Judaism, but it remained in the church’s scriptures.

IV. 4QMMT

4QMMT, a fragmented text (4Q394–99) discovered among the Dead Sea Scrolls
at Qumran, is frequently cited as evidence for a three-tiered biblical canon in the
second century BCE. Some scholars date this now well-known text as early as
150 BCE. It is also called the 4QHalakic Letter, “A Sectarian Manifesto,” Miqsat
Ma’aseh ha-Torah (“some works of the law”), or more fully, “The Second Letter
on Works Reckoned as Righteousness.” The primary subject matter of this text
appears to come from the famed “Teacher of Righteousness” (or “Righteous
Teacher”) who led the Qumran community. This is especially important because
4QMMT is one of three ancient documents that speaks about works-righteousness
(Paul’s letters to the Galatians and Romans are the other two), but secondly, and
for our purpose, because the text refers to multiple collections of sacred texts. This
surviving text is significantly fragmented and our knowledge of it depends largely

23
Sid Leiman has supplied these references in his Canonization of Hebrew Scripture, 93–97. See
also his footnotes 442–52 on p. 185.
24
The text reads: “mentioned a third time in the Hagiographa, as written: Every fowl dwells near
its kind and man near his equal” and it appears to be citing Sir 13:15, and this was included in the
“Writings” (Ketubim).
170 THE FORMATION OF THE BIBLICAL CANON, VOLUME I

on a heavily reconstructed text that is in several places educated guesswork. The

variety of translations of this text underscores the difficulty in drawing strong
conclusions about it. Here are some examples:25

[Indeed,] we [have written] to you so that you might understand the book of Moses, the book[s
of the Pr]ophets, and Davi[d…] […all] the generations. In the book of Moses it is written[…]
not [to] you and days of old[…] It is also written that you [“will turn] from the pa[t]h and evil
will befall you” (Deut 31:29). And it is writ[ten] “that when [al]l these thing[s happ]en to you
in the Last Days, the blessing [and] the curse, [that you call them] to m[ind] and return to Him
with all your heart and with [al]l [your] soul” (Deut 31:1–2,[…] at the end of [the age,] they
[you] shall l[ive…]

[It is also written in the book of] Moses and in the [books of the prophet]s that [the blessings
and curses] shall come [upon you…some of ] [the bles]sin[gs] came on[… and] in the days
of Solomon the son of David. (4QMMT 86–103, Wise, Abegg, and Cook, Dead Sea Scrolls,
363–64)

García Martínez acknowledges the difficulty of making sense of this text in the
translation of the same passage and offers the following translation based on his
reconstructed text:26

[…and further] to you we have wr[itten] that you must understand the book of Moses [and the
words of the] prophets and of David [and the annals] [of eac]h generation. And in the book it
is written[…] … […not to][…]… And further it is written that [you shall stray] from the path
and you will undergo [evil. And it is written that a]ll [these] things [shall happen to you at the
e]nd of days, [the blessing] [and the curse…and you shall ass]ent in your heart [and will turn
to me with all your… (4QMMT 86–103, García Martínez, Dead Sea Scrolls Translated, 84)

If Martínez’s reconstructed text is correct and specific collections are in view, then
the author has in mind four parts to the sacred scriptures, namely Moses, prophets,
psalms, and annals. Not only is that unique at this time, but it is also a quadripartite
collection that is unlike any other order of sacred texts.

25
The brackets and ellipses in these translations show the many gaps or blurred words in the
original text and also illustrate how difficult it is to translate the text accurately. The translators have
filled the gaps in the original text with words of the same approximate length that appear to fit the
context of the passage. The supplied material is consistent in both translations, but the words are not
the same and several supplied texts are merely educated guesses.
26
García Martínez’s translation is based on E. Qimron and J. Strugnell, Qumran Cave 4.V: Miqsat
Ma’ase ha-Torah, Discoveries in the Judaean Desert 10 (Oxford: Clarendon, 1994). Other English
translations include B. W. W. Dombrowski, An Annotated Translation of Miqsat Ma’aseh haTorah
(4QMMT) (Krakow-Weenzen, Poland: Enigma, 1993), 14–15; and R. Eisenman and M. Wise,
The Dead Sea Scrolls Uncovered: The First Complete Translation and Interpretation of Fifty Key
Documents Withheld for Over Thirty-five Years (Rockport, MA.: Element, 1992), 196–200. For an
evaluation of these translations, see D. J. Harrington and J. Strugnell, “Qumran Cave 4 Texts: A New
Publication,” JBL 112 (1993): 494–96.
THE LAW, THE PROPHETS, AND THE CESSATION OF PROPHECY 171

Scholars claim that this text refers to a threefold, or even fourfold, division of
the Hebrew collection of Scriptures, as we see in Schiffman’s confidence that this
is an “explicit reference to the tripartite canon.”27 His conclusion about the text
appears to be overly optimistic. The focus of the passage is rather on looking at
the biblical history for a proper understanding of the error of one’s ways,28 and
more importantly, it emphasizes the consequences of one’s obedience to the Law
of Moses. Obedience to the Law of Moses is at the heart of the whole letter.
Consequently, obedience brings joy and hope, but failure to observe the Law of
Moses is the basis for God’s judgment. Deuteronomy is cited twice in the larger
passage and only occasionally are the “prophets” mentioned elsewhere in the
entire letter (e.g., 4QMMT 103), but no specific prophetic texts are cited. Citations
of or allusions to Scripture in 4QMMT are to passages from Leviticus, Numbers,
and Deuteronomy, and no one is called to obey other HB Scriptures. No blessings
or curses are related to any other part of the HB Scriptures except the Law.
The mention of David is generally thought to be a reference to his psalms, but
also a reference to the whole of the Ketubim supposedly not unlike the reference
to “psalms” in Luke 24:44. Although the author had a high regard for David
(he is mentioned in 4QMMT 95, 104, 111), elsewhere (like in Luke 24:27) only
Moses and the Prophets (4QMMT 103) or Moses alone (4QMMT 91, 107) are
mentioned. David, according to 11QPsa (col. 27 or 11Q5) wrote under inspiration
and through prophecy. That text in part reads:

And David, son of Jesse, was wise, and a light like the light of the sun, /and/learned, …
and discerning, and perfect in all his paths before God and men. And…YHWH gave him a
discerning and enlightened spirit. And he wrote psalms: three thousand six hundred; and songs
to be sung before the altar over the perpetual offering of every day, for all the days of the year:
[lines 6–10 omitted here describe David’s number of songs and the occasions for their use]

All these he spoke through (the spirit of) prophecy which had been given to him from the most
High… [line 11]29

That connection of David’s writings with prophecy can also be seen in the Qumran
pesharim (commentaries) written on the psalms of David (1QpPs, 4QpPsa,
4QpPsb). Whether this connecting of the production of psalmic writings with
prophetic texts stems from 1 Chr 25:1–3 is difficult to establish, but that passage
clearly relates the gift of prophecy to the activity of David and musical activity.
It reads:

27
L. Schiffman, “The Place of 4QMMT in the Corpus of Qumran MSS,” in Reading 4QMMT: New
Perspectives on Qumran Law and History, ed. J. Kampen and M. J. Bernstein (Atlanta: Scholars
Press, 1996), 95.
28
Bernstein, “The Employment and Interpretation of Scripture,” in Kampen and Bernstein, eds.,
Reading 4QMMT, 49.
29
Translation by Florentino Garcia Martinez and Eibert J. C. Tigchelaar, The Dead Sea Scrolls:
Study Edition, 2 vols. (Leiden: Brill; Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1997), 2:1179.
172 THE FORMATION OF THE BIBLICAL CANON, VOLUME I

David and the officers of the army also set apart for the service the sons of Asaph, and of
Heman, and Jeduthun, who should prophecy with lyres, harps, and cymbals. The list of those
who did the work and of their duties was: Of the sons of Asaph: Zaccur, Joseph, Nethaniah, and
Asarelah, sons of Asaph who prophesied under the direction of the king. Of Jeduthun, the sons
of Jeduthun…who prophesied with the lyre in thanksgiving and praise to the Lord. (emphasis
added)

Lim, pointing to these texts, concludes that the production of David’s psalms was
viewed in antiquity as inspired prophecy because of their connection to David,
a prophetic figure. He adds that although David is never specifically called a
prophet, it nevertheless appears that “some form” of prophetic inspiration was
attributed to him.30
While 4QMMT has often been cited as a reference to the threefold division in
the Hebrew Scriptures in their initial stages, it is not at all clear here that a tripartite
biblical canon can be discerned from this text. The canon had not yet reached its
final form by the time of this writing and the categories in 4QMMT are not equal
to those in the HB. Evans has a useful discussion of this text and acknowledges the
parallels with Luke 24:44 suggesting that it may reflect an emerging third part of
the HB scriptures, but observes that “in all of the writings from Qumran, with the
possible exception of 4QMMT, we have references only to the first two divisions
of the canon of Scripture.”31 He is cautious about jumping quickly on this text as
evidence for a fixed three-part biblical canon this early and reminds us that there
was no fixity at this time in terms of the books that are included in this passage.
Also, as we see in Lim’s arguments below, it is uncertain if “David” even refers
to a collection of writings. While Luke 24:44 itself may suggest an initial stage in
the forming of a third part of the HB scriptures, namely “psalms,” in NT times,
the Psalms were also viewed as prophetic literature (see Acts 1:16, 20; 2:30; 4:25
where David is viewed as participating in the prophetic tradition). Luke 24:27,
from the same context as 24:44, appears to suggest that the Psalms were part of the
prophetic tradition at the time of the writing of Luke since it is not mentioned in
24:27, but is in 24:44. I will return to this text below. The same is true at Qumran
and later in the rabbinic tradition (b. Baba Bathra 13b).32 At Qumran some 36
scrolls of the Psalms were found along with four others partially included in other

30
Timothy H. Lim, “ ‘All These He Composed Through Prophecy’,” in Prophecy After the
Prophets: The Contribution of the Dead Sea Scrolls to the Understanding of Biblical and Extra-Bib-
lical Prophecy, ed. Kristin De Troyer and Armin Lange, with the assistance of Lucas L. Schulte,
CBET 52 (Leuven: Peeters, 2009), 61–73.
31
C. A. Evans, “The Dead Sea Scrolls and the Canon of Scripture in the Time of Jesus,” in Flint,
ed., The Bible at Qumran, 67–79, here 73. He also suggests that “David” may refer only to Psalms
and not to the rest of the books in the later third division of the Hebrew Scriptures (72), but “Psalms”
may not be in view at all as we see below in Lim’s understanding of this passage.
32
Peter Flint, The Dead Sea Psalms Scrolls and the Book of Psalms (Leiden: Brill, 1997), 219; and
C. A. Evans, “The Scriptures of Jesus and His Earliest Followers,” in McDonald and Sanders, eds.,
The Canon Debate, 185–95, here 191.
THE LAW, THE PROPHETS, AND THE CESSATION OF PROPHECY 173

manuscripts. At Qumran there were more scrolls discovered of the Psalms than
of any other religious texts in the eleven caves. Among the largest Psalms scrolls,
11QPsaa, 11QPsab, and 11QPsae constitute the “11QPsa-Psalter.” Psalms 1–89 at
Qumran are very much like the traditional Pss 1–89 in the HB and OT, but after
that the Qumran Psalter varies considerably. There is no Ps 90 and starting in 91,
there is considerable fluctuation.33
Only in a very broad sense are the people asked to remember the history of the
kings of Israel (4QMMT 109–111), and the whole focus of this letter is on keeping
the Law. The history of Israel preserved in the Former Prophets (lines 109–113) is
mentioned, but only in regard to whether the Jews kept the Law:

Remember the kings of Israel and reflect on their deeds, how whoever of them who respected
[the Torah] was freed from his afflictions; those who sought the Torah…[were forgiven] their
sins. Remember David, one of the “pious” and he, too, was freed from his many afflictions and
was forgiven. And also we have written to you some of the works of the Torah which we think
are good for you and for your people, for [we saw] in you intellect and knowledge of Torah.
(4QMMT 109–114, García Martínez, Dead Sea Scrolls Translated, 84)

It is clear throughout this passage that the Law of Moses is central to the life of the
community and must be kept. Only in this isolated text is there a possibility that
more books than the Law and the Prophets are mentioned and in 4QMMT there
is no clear reference to the Writings or Ketubim that later formed the HB (e.g.,
Esther, Ezra–Nehemiah, Song of Songs, etc.). That suggestion is drawn from an
argument of silence from a fragmented text, but it is not clear from the text itself,
and even if so, blessing or discipline came only from keeping or failing to keep
the Law of Moses (Torah). Also, one cannot argue from this reference that “law”
or Torah refers to all of the Scriptures of the later HB, since every specific biblical
citation in 4QMMT is from the Pentateuch.
The usual interpretation of “David” as a collection of psalms, or even a reference
to the third part of the HB canon, is commonly rooted in what is believed to be
its parallel in Luke 24:44 (“law of Moses, the prophets, and the psalms”), namely,
it is believed that in “psalms” there is an equivalent to “David” here. However,
Lim raises reasonable questions about this parallel and claims that the reference
to David in the above text in question is not like those to Moses and the prophets.
He contends that in 4QMMT be-david is not a reference to the “psalms” or to a
tripartite biblical canon, but it points instead to the grammatical difference to the
previous other two items of the book of Moses and the books of the prophets. He

33
For a discussion of the Psalms scrolls at Qumran along with their order and similarities and
differences from the traditional Psalms, see Martin Abegg, Jr., Peter Flint, and Eugene Ulrich, The
Dead Sea Scrolls Bible: The Oldest Known Bible Translated for the First Time into English (San
Francisco: HarperSanFrancisco, 1999), 505–11. Also see the still quite valued study by James A.
Sanders, The Psalms Scroll of Qumran Cave 11, DJD IV (Oxford: Clarendon, 1965); and his “Cave
11 Surprises.”
174 THE FORMATION OF THE BIBLICAL CANON, VOLUME I

explains that the first two include a reference to sepher and siphrey for ‘book of
Moses’ and ‘books of the prophets’, but the last is simply be-david (David) and not
be-sepher david (book, or books, of David). He contends that the be- is a prepo-
sition required by the verb, so it should simply be translated as “David.” Unlike
Schwartz, who contends that the three are of the same kind, namely referring to
three collections of books,34 Lim maintains that the text in question refers to the
book of Moses, the books of the prophets, and the “deeds of David” paralleled
in the phrase “the deeds of the kings” (CT C. 28).35 Lim adds that in 4QMMT
David is mentioned several times and concludes that there is no distinctive use of
the psalms here and the text in question should rather be understood as “We have
written to you so that you may carefully consider the book of Moses and the books
of the Prophets and the example of David.”36 Lim’s argument is that we should not
use Luke 24:44 to interpret 4QMMT. Rather the notice should be understood in
its context, noting that in 4QMMT David and Solomon are held up as exemplary
kings. David here, he concludes, cannot be used in reference to a third part of the
HB canon.37
Apart from the absence of several letters and words in 4QMMT, that make any
conclusions from it tenuous, even if the reconstruction of the text refers to three
or four parts of a biblical canon, the text still lacks clarity on the scope of the
categories in the Hebrew Scriptures. At best, and in the context of the whole letter,
the text is ambiguous and not as clear as the testimony of Luke 24:44 where we
clearly see “the law of Moses, the prophets, and the psalms.” Ellis acknowledges
that there is no identification of the specific books that make up the categories
mentioned in 4QMMT, but he attributes this lack of precision to a conjecture
that everyone already knew the contents of these categories when 4QMMT was
written and that only in the second century CE, “when uncertainty existed about
their number or order, are the books of the OT listed by name.”38 That is, of course,
mere speculation based on an argument from silence and it does not take into
account the context of 4QMMT. Although certainty over the dating of 4QMMT is
not possible, the majority opinion seems to date it between 150 and 100 BCE at
the latest. (See further discussion of these texts in Chapter 11 §II.)
At Qumran the most cited scriptures are from the Pentateuch, and that is
followed by citations of the Psalms, Isaiah, and the 12 Minor Prophets. The
significant number of citations of various Psalms also demonstrates the importance

34
D. R. Schwartz, “Special People or Special Books? On Qumran and New Testament Notions of
Canon,” in Ruth A. Clements and Daniel R. Schwartz, Text, Thought, and Practice in Qumran and
Early Christianity (Leiden: Brill, 2009), 49–62.
35
Lim, Formation of the Jewish Canon, 127–28.
36
Ibid., 128, emphasis added.
37
Ibid. I have also been in personal communication with Professor Lim on this matter and appre-
ciate his corrections of my earlier views on this Qumran text.
38
Ellis, Old Testament in Early Christianity, 10.
THE LAW, THE PROPHETS, AND THE CESSATION OF PROPHECY 175

of this literature at Qumran39 and this closely parallels what we find in the New
Testament. Jesus himself also favored the Psalms, Isaiah, and Deuteronomy, but
also Daniel and Zechariah. Examples of the Scriptures Jesus cited most are listed
in Chapter 9 §§IX and X.

V. THE HASMONEAN DYNASTY

AND THE CESSATION OF PROPHECY

After the expulsion of the Seleucids from their land, the family of the Maccabees,
the Hasmonean Dynasty, established both their independence and a kingdom that
lasted until the Romans took control of the land in 63 BCE. During the Ptolemaic
rule of Palestine from Alexandria, Egypt (323–198 BCE), there was a time of
considerable peace between Jews and the Greeks who controlled their land. After
Antiochus III’s defeat of Ptolemy V at Pan (or Banias and Caesarea-Philippi in
the NT times) in 198 BCE, the Seleucids took control of Palestine and for a short
period there was peace in the land, but when Antiochus IV “Epiphanes” came to
power in 175–164 BCE, and after a failed battle against the Romans in Alexandria
(169 BCE), he came to Jerusalem, plundered and robbed the Temple, sacrificed a
pig on its altar to Zeus, then he began a campaign to force all Jews under threat of
death to offer pagan sacrifices, recognize pagan cults, and not to observe Sabbath
keeping. At the same time, Antiochus ordered the destruction of the Jewish
Scriptures (1 Macc 1:20–62).
In 167 BCE, Mattathias, a non-Aaronic priest from Modein accompanied by his
sons, began a rebellion against the Seleucid Dynasty and by 164 BCE they took
control of Jerusalem (1 Macc 4) and exacted heavy penalties against the Greeks
who occupied their land. After restoring (cleansing) the Temple Judas Maccabees,
the son of Mattathias, sent a letter to the Jews in Egypt requesting that they honor
the days set aside to celebrate the cleansing or purification of the temple following
its recapture (2 Macc 2:16–18). Earlier in that same passage (2:13–15), he referred
to his collecting books that had been lost during Antiochus IV’s earlier attempts to
destroy the Jewish religion (169 BCE, cf. 1 Macc 1:56). Judas offered copies of
those scriptures to the Jews in Egypt if they had need of them (2 Macc 2:13–15,

39
For a listing of these references, see “Index of Passages in the Biblical Scrolls,” in Flint and
VanderKam, eds., Dead Sea Scrolls After Fifty Years, 2:649–65. The listing of biblical books cited
or referred to shows that the Psalms have the most citations (ca. 239), Isaiah (183), Deuteronomy
(163), Exodus (121), Leviticus (73), Genesis (66), and Numbers (59), and the Minor Prophets,
cumulatively (157). Clearly, the Psalms, Deuteronomy, and Isaiah are the most cited individual
books and cumulatively the Pentateuch, Psalms, Isaiah, and the Minor Prophets were the most
popular scriptures at Qumran. The numbers above, while specific, may vary depending on which
texts and how often they are cited in the same Qumran source. 1 Chronicles, Esther, and Nehemiah
are not represented.
176 THE FORMATION OF THE BIBLICAL CANON, VOLUME I

see discussion of this passage below). After the defeat of the Greeks, Simon
Maccabees ruled (143–135), followed by John Hyrcanus who ruled 135–104 and
established the Hasmonean40 Dynasty (134 to 63, and thereafter the Hasmonean
Dynasty was under the rule of Rome and ruled with Rome’s approval until ca.
36 BCE).
Carr argues that the finalization of the HB took place in the second century BCE
during the Hasmonean Dynasty’s rule because no other entity could have had the
authority or influence to make decisions on the scope of the HB before or after that
time. He reasons that the “Hasmoneans were the last to have a chance to adjust the
contents of the Hebrew-Torah-Prophets corpus they promoted.”41 The argument
for the closing or fixing of the Prophets before the writing of Daniel as the reason
for placing that book among the Writings is quite popular and rests upon the belief
that prophecy had ceased in Israel, but as we saw above, Daniel was nevertheless
viewed as a prophet and the book attributed to him was regularly understood as a
prophetic book well into the Common Era and in the HB.
The notion that prophecy had ended at the end of the Persian-period control over
Palestine (ca. 336 BCE) began to circulate later during the Hasmonean period and
gained increasing popularity thereafter. This led to a greater focus on a limited
collection of sacred scriptures, but not yet with precise definition.42 This notion
probably also contributed to the production of pseudonymous writings in the name
of famous previous prophetic figures before the cessation of prophecy. During the
Hasmonean rulership over Palestine, Jewish teachers began to say openly that the
“spirit of prophecy” that came from God through the working of the Holy Spirit
in prophetic figures who wrote the nations’ sacred books, was no longer present in
their nation. During the Seleucid domination over Israel, Hasmonean Jews began
to teach that the activity of the Spirit and prophetic activity was no longer present
among them and that all prophetic writings inspired by the Spirit were in the past –
and they believed also that they would return in the future. The earliest known
references that acknowledge this cessation of prophecy are in 1 Macc 4:45b–
46; 9:27; 14:41 and all three are Hasmonean texts. It is not altogether clear why
this belief emerged, but Carr suggests that it may be because of a Hellenistic
influence.

40
The name Hasmonean comes from the family name of Mattathias’ grandfather, Asamon/
Asamonaios (or Hashmon) a priest and son of Joarib, a native of Jerusalem (see Josephus, Ant.
12.265; cf. 1 Chr 24:7). For a helpful summary of the Hasmonean Dynasty, see Larry R. Helyer,
“The Hasmoneans and the Hasmonean Era,” in The World of the New Testament: Cultural, Social,
and Historical Contexts, ed. J. B. Green and L. M. McDonald (Grand Rapids: Baker Academic,
2013), 38–53.
41
Carr, Formation of the Hebrew Bible, 166. He adds that even the book of Daniel, written about
two decades before the Torah-Prophets corpus was closed, “was not updated to contain a correct
prophecy of the death of Antiochus or anticipate the Hasmonean monarchy.” Ibid.
42
For a discussion of this, see ibid., 153–64; and Lim, Formation of the Jewish Canon, 183–84.
THE LAW, THE PROPHETS, AND THE CESSATION OF PROPHECY 177

The Hellenists, who had considerable influence on the Jews from the time of
Alexander, gave higher priority to their past ancient sources than to contem-
porary ones and subsequently Jewish leaders adopted this Hellenistic model
of emphasizing prior prophetic texts “as a way of giving priority to their own
ancient traditions.” This, according to Carr, allowed the Jews to claim in part
that their traditions antedated the esteemed Homer and other Greek writers who
were therefore inferior to the earlier scriptural prophets.43 The later rabbinic sages
also rejected any books in their biblical canon that had been written in Greek (I
will discuss this in Chapter 11 §§II and IV). Hebrew and Aramaic were the only
languages included in the later Hebrew biblical canon, but that may stem from the
fact that those were the only two languages spoken when the perceived cessation
of prophecy began (at the end of the Persian domination of Palestine).
A problem that came after the decision that prophecy had ceased was to decide
when it ceased. Was it at the destruction of the Temple (see Ezek 36:26–27 that
may presuppose the absence of the Spirit in the nation; cf. also Joel 2:28–29, likely
a pre-exilic book that also presupposes the absence of the Spirit with a future
hope for its outpouring)? Was it at the deaths of the final three prophets (Haggai,
Zechariah, and Malachi), or at the end of the Persian domination over Palestine
(Josephus, Ag. Apion 1.40–41)? Or finally, as some Christians supposed, was it
even later with the death of John the Baptist (some church fathers, see below),
or with the advent or death of Jesus as other Christians supposed? There were
advocates for each period, but there was no agreement among the Jews on when
the Spirit had ceased its activity among them.
There also may have been another factor involved during the Hasmonean
era that aided Hasmonean power over the Jewish people and contributed to the
formation of the Law and Prophets as a sacred scripture corpus. I am referring
here to a socio-political perspective that refocused priority on the earlier written
traditions and also the priestly functions of the earlier Monarchical period. That
change involved a revision of earlier prophetic books that included more emphasis
on the priestly functions that led to greater Hasmonean control in Palestine.44 The
evidence for this is not conclusive, but only suggestive.
David Carr’s argument may have some merit that the Hasmonean Dynasty
developed the notion of the cessation of prophecy as a reaction to the influence
of Hellenistic notions of the supremacy of antiquity and their earlier historical
Hellenistic literary canons such as Homer, Plato, and others. If this is so, according
to Carr, the Hasmonean scribes may have influenced the rewriting or editing of
the Deuteronomistic History from Deuteronomy to 2 Kings that manifested itself
in the proto-Masoretic text, the antecedent to the later Masoretic text from which

43
Carr, Formation of the Hebrew Bible, 159–61 and 191–94.
44
See ibid., 195–200, for a discussion of this issue.
178 THE FORMATION OF THE BIBLICAL CANON, VOLUME I

all subsequent translations of the HB emerged.45 As we will see below, there are
several problems with this view, but it is suggestive of the significant role of the
Hasmoneans in shaping the nation’s scriptural collection.
With possible exceptions, the LXX translation (beginning in 281–280 BCE)
antedates much of the Hasmonean proto-Masoretic texts. The upshot of this
textual activity was the claim that only those books produced before the emergence
of Hellenism, that is, before the cessation of prophecy, could be included in the
sacred scripture corpus.46 As we will see, not all Jews within the later second
Temple Judaism agreed with the Hasmonean collection of sacred books or with
the belief that prophecy had ceased, especially the Essenes at Qumran and the
Sadducees.
Interestingly, Satlow argues that the regular practice of citing authoritative
scriptural texts began with the Sadducees in the late second century BCE in
the reign of John Hyrcanus during a period of debate among the Jews over the
legitimate line of priests to hold the chief of priests’ office and oversee the Temple
in Jerusalem. Satlow points to debates among religious Jews over the legitimacy
of the Hasmonean Dynasty’s control over the priesthood, along with its control of
the Temple, as the primary context in which the Scriptures became authoritative
in the lives of most Jews and cited with regularity. More specifically, the issue had
to do with the Sadducees’ argument that the appointment of an inappropriate high
priest who controlled the Temple and religious affairs of the Jews was contrary
to Scripture.47 Satlow also notes that the synagogue was the institution that drew
attention to the primacy of the authority of Scripture for Jews in Second Temple
Judaism.48
Satlow’s view should be moderated somewhat in view of the careful attention
given to Josiah’s having the Law read to the people (2 Kgs 23:1–3) and subse-
quently the reading with interpretation of the Law to the people in the post-exilic
period (Neh 8:5–8). This was probably the first time the Jewish Scriptures
were regularly read to the people. Earlier Jeremiah’s contention over the right

45
Useful discussions of the role of prophecy in ancient Israel, especially in the Deuteronomistic
History period, are in Mignon R. Jacobs and Raymond F. Person Jr., eds., Israelite Prophecy and
the Deuteronomistic History: Portrait, Reality, and the Formation of a History, Ancient Israel and
Its Literature 14 (Atlanta: Society of Biblical Literature, 2013), particularly articles by Marvin
Sweeney, Martti Nissinen, and Thomas C. Römer.
46
Carr goes into considerable detail to support this theory of early canon formation among the
Hasmoneans in his Formation of the Hebrew Bible, 153–203. He cites a number of examples of what
he believes are evidence of Hasmonean scribal textual editing of the Deuteronomistic History books,
reflecting harmonization of Chronicles with Samuel and Kings, then the proto-Masoretic additions to
books in what we now call the Writings, but eventually he deals with the additions to or corrections
in the other prophetic books as well.
47
Satlow, How the Bible Became Holy, 176–87. Here he sets forth arguments for this position and
also observes the parallels between the Sadducees and the Essenes who were committed to “rules”
that governed that community and their interpretations of the Hebrew Scriptures.
48
Ibid., 188.
THE LAW, THE PROPHETS, AND THE CESSATION OF PROPHECY 179

interpretation of the law with the wisdom teachers in Jerusalem (Jer 8:8–9) also
suggests some attention was given to interpreting Scripture earlier, but this admit-
tedly was not as widespread as what we find later in the Hasmonean period and
thereafter in the synagogues. Jeremiah does not suggest that the wisdom teachers
in Jerusalem were ignorant of the law of God, but rather that they had forsaken it
and instead boasted in their own wisdom (Jer 9:13–14, 23).
Some early Christians believed that the Spirit had been absent until the baptism,
temptation, and ministry of Jesus (3:21–22; 4:1, 14–15). Jesus appears to assume
the absence of the Spirit among the people when, according to John, he announces
a future coming of the Spirit (John 7:39; 14:15–26; 15:26; 16:7–14; Acts 1:8;
2:4–36), but he also spoke of the prophetic ministry of John the Baptist (Matt
11:13). Was Jesus convinced that the Holy Spirit and prophetic activity among the
Jews were no longer present perhaps following the death of John the Baptist? It
appears that according to Luke and John, Jesus taught that the Spirit would return
and come in greater measure in his glorification, resurrection, and ascension (cf.
Acts 1:8; cf. John 7:39; 20:17–22)? The issue here is far more complex than is
usually understood. As we will see, the Jews at Qumran did not believe that the
Spirit was absent from them and neither did the early Christians from Pentecost
on (Acts 2:1–36).
Following the Hasmonean belief about the cessation of prophecy and the
departure of the Spirit, many Jews believed that the age of prophecy and the
production of inspired literature had ceased in Israel sometime after Ezra, but
this was not a universal view.49 For example, after Judas Maccabeus had retaken
the temple from the Seleucids who had defiled it, the author of 1 Maccabees (ca.
100 BCE) says that the Jews “tore down the altar [of the temple], and stored the
stones in a convenient place on the temple hill until a prophet should come to
tell what to do with them” (1 Macc 4:45–46, emphasis added). Speaking about
the chaos caused by the Syrian military in Israel, he says, “So there was great
distress in Israel, such as had not been since the time that the prophets ceased to
appear among them” (1 Macc 9:27). And he later describes the election of Simon
Maccabeus as ruler and high priest this way: “The Jews and their priests have
resolved that Simon should be their leader and high priest forever, until a trust-
worthy prophet should arise” (14:41, emphasis added).
For the author of these paragraphs, prophets were absent from Israel at least
temporarily, but there was anticipation that divine prophetic ministry would
return. It is not known how or why this view that a future time of prophecy and

49
In addition to the biblical and rabbinic references noted in this and the next three paragraphs,
see also 2 Bar. 85.3; Seder Olam Rabbah 30; and b. Sotah 11a–b; 48b. For a more complete discus-
sion and listing of texts that mention the cessation of prophecy in Israel, see R. Meyer, “προφήτης,”
TDNT 6:812–19. Also, see L. Stephen Cook, On the Question of the “Cessation of Prophecy” in
Ancient Judaism, Prophecy Texts and Studies in Ancient Judaism 145 (Tübingen: Mohr Siebeck,
2011).
180 THE FORMATION OF THE BIBLICAL CANON, VOLUME I

prophetic activity would emerge, but Joel 2:28–29; Ezek 13:9; 36:26–27; 37:14;
39:29; Ps 74:9; Zech 13:2–6; and Dan 9:24–2750 likely played a role in the devel-
opment of this view and it probably emerged during difficult times in the nation’s
history. Much later, near the end of the first century CE, Josephus echoes similar
sentiments: “From Artaxerxes to our own time the complete history has been
written, but has not been deemed worthy of equal credit with the earlier records,
because of the failure of the exact succession of the prophets” (Ag. Apion 1.41,
LCL). This could mean, as some argue, that the production of inspired and author-
itative literature by the prophets also ceased.51 However, despite these and other
later Jewish writings that claim that the prophetic movement had ceased in Israel
following the time of Ezra,52 some literature continued to show that some Jews
believed that writings by the inspiration of the Holy Spirit continued long after this
time and their works were highly regarded in Israel both before and after the time
of Josephus and among many early Christians. When any religious movement
considers that the authentic voice of divine authority (i.e., a prophetic voice) is no
longer present, then the writings produced in that community, when such religious
authority was believed to be present, are given special prominence as sacred
texts. This could be one of the reasons why the notion of a closed collection of
Scriptures emerged quite late in Israel’s history and why the notion of a Christian
biblical canon did not begin to develop until the middle to late second century CE.
In the Hasmonean period, perhaps because of a perceived belief in the abuse of the
high priest’s office, the role of prophetic ministry diminished and there emerged a
greater dependence on authoritative voices of the past.53

VI. PROPHECY IN THE DEAD SEA SCROLLS,

PHILO, AND JOSEPHUS

For some Essene Jews during and after the Hasmonean Dynasty, the Spirit
continued to be active in their community at Qumran, though perhaps in an inferior
way. There is evidence that some Qumran residents thought that in some measure
the Holy Spirit and prophetic activity was no longer present in full measure like
in the ancient prophetic traditions. For example, the “men of holiness” (those of
the Community) were to be ruled “by the first directives which the men of the

50
Daniel 9:24–27 suggests that more divine activity was coming after the seventy weeks.
51
J. Blenkinsopp, “The Formation of the Hebrew Bible Canon: Isaiah as a Test Case,” in
McDonald and Sanders, eds., The Canon Debate, 54 n. 3, notes two alternative rabbinic views for
the date of the cessation of prophecy in Israel: the destruction of Solomon’s Temple (b. Baba Batra
12a; b. Yoma 21b; b. Sotah 48a) and the death of the last biblical prophet (b. Yoma 9b; b. Sanhedrin
11a).
52
Sundberg draws attention to other post-70 CE references to the cessation of prophecy, Old Testa-
ment of the Early Church, 113–19.
53
For further comment on this, see Jeffery, “The Canon of the Old Testament,” IB 1:33.
THE LAW, THE PROPHETS, AND THE CESSATION OF PROPHECY 181

Community began to be taught until the prophet comes, and the Messiahs of
Aaron and Israel…” (1QS 9:10–11).54 This text is sometimes cited to support a
belief among the Essenes that the Spirit was no longer inspiring prophetic figures
to write or speak. However, the pesharim or commentaries on prophetic texts
at Qumran55 reflect a belief that the Spirit was present in the teachings of their
Righteous Teacher, who claimed for himself the Spirit’s inspiration in his inter-
pretation of Scripture. For instance, “And I, the instructor [Righteous teacher or
Teacher of Righteousness?] have known you, my God, through the spirit which
you gave to me, and I have listened loyally to your wonderful secret through your
holy spirit” (1QHa 20:11–12).56 Another text that reflects the Community’s belief
in the continuing activity of the Spirit is:

For it is by the spirit of the true counsel of God that are atoned the paths of man… And it is by
the holy spirit of the community, in its truth, that he is cleansed of all his iniquities. And by the
spirit of uprightness and of humility his sin is atoned. (1QS 3:6–8, Martinez and Tigchelaar,
trans., p. 75)

Some among the Essenes believed that the Spirit was present in the life of the
Righteous Teacher, who is mentioned 19 times as one who gave inspired inter-
pretations of the community’s scriptures.57 However, George Brooke suggests
that caution is needed here observing that the Teacher of Righteousness was
specifically called a prophet and his role as a priest may – or may not – have
precluded his role in communicating prophecy. Bowley concludes that since ‫נביא‬
(prophet) is never applied to the Teacher of Righteousness at Qumran and he never
called himself a prophet in the existing Qumran texts that caution should be taken
before making such suggestions.58 However, since it is clear that the residents
at Qumran were concerned about prophecy and making sure the voices of false
prophets were silenced (4Q339; 11QTS 54:8–18 citing Deut 13:2–6; and 11QTS
60:21–61:5 citing Deut 18:20–22), there was obviously considerable interest in
the continuing prophetic activity among them. Bowley also cites another Qumran
text in support for contemporary prophetic activity among them, namely, the
“Sapiential Work” (4Q410 1 7–9). It reads: “And now, I, with [the help of the

54
Martinez and Tigchelaar, The Dead Sea Scrolls: Study Edition, 1:93, emphasis added.
55
According to Nissinen, the practice of pesharim, which is similar to allegorical and typological
interpretations, essentially implies that a text means something beyond what it actually says. He
explains: “the outer appearance of the text (like that of an omen) is obvious to anyone, but its actual
meaning is not evident before it is properly interpreted.” See Martti Nissinen, “Pesharim as Divina-
tion: Qumran Exegesis, Omen Interpretation and Literary Prophecy,” in De Troyer and Lange, eds.,
Prophecy After the Prophets, 43–60, here 53.
56
Martinez and Tigchelaar, The Dead Sea Scrolls: Study Edition, 1:193.
57
James H. Charlesworth, The Pesharim and Qumran History: Chaos or Consensus? (Grand
Rapids: Eerdmans, 2002), 83–91.
58
James E. Bowley, “Prophets and Prophecy at Qumran,” in Flint and VanderKam, eds., The Dead
Sea Scrolls After Fifty Years, 2:354–78, here 374–75.
182 THE FORMATION OF THE BIBLICAL CANON, VOLUME I

Lord] in the spirit [‫ ]…[ ]ברוח‬he will not lie […] The oracle [‫ ]החזון‬concerns […],
the vision is about the house of […], for I have seen.” From this he concludes: “A
text could hardly be more prophetic in form than this.”59 George Brooke agrees
with Bowley and says that one must offer a “qualified no” to the question of
whether the Teacher of Righteousness was considered a prophet. Then he adds,
however, that one could also offer a “qualified yes” to the same question saying
that the community may have avoided the title as a “deliberate stratagem” perhaps
as a way to include those within their movement who would have had difficulty
in identifying their leader as a prophet. He continues that this does not mean that
an avoidance of the term prevented the Teacher from acting in prophetic ways or
from those after him seeing him in that way as we see in the Pesher Habakkuk that
appears to have attributed to the Teacher a prophetic message. He concludes that
the Teacher’s priesthood was exercised with a prophetic character functioning as
an inspired interpreter of the Law and the Prophets.60
Philo affirmed that the Holy Spirit inspired the Jewish Scriptures (On the life
of Moses 1.277; 2.191; On the Virtues 217–19), but he also claimed prophetic
skills for himself. He relates how, at a time of leisure when he made the spirit of
the universe his own, he was possessed “by some God-sent inspiration” (Spec.
Leg. 3.1.1; see the longer text 3.1.1–6 that prepares him to be an interpreter of the
Commandments; see also De migr. Abr. 35; De cher. 27).
While Josephus argued that the era of prophecy was over with Artaxerxes
(ca. 465 BCE, cf. Ag. Apion 1.40–41), he still recognized that the Holy Spirit
empowered prophetic speech and that there was a way of knowing when it was
false (Ant. 8.408). While recognizing the inspiration of the Jewish prophetic
scriptures, he thought that he too was “inspired” (War 3.351–53). He claims this
in his ability to prophesy Vespasian’s ascent to become Roman Emperor (War
3.399–408). Although believing that the prophetic voice was largely gone in
Israel, Josephus shows awareness that occasionally some still claimed prophetic
status, as in the case of Theudas who apparently believed that he was a prophet
and led some 400 Jews to the Jordan River, but he and his followers were killed by
the Roman soldiers (see Josephus, Ant. 20:97–98a; cf. Acts 5:34–37; See also War
6.286). While Josephus never claims that he is a prophet, he does claim prophetic-
like actions for himself (see War 3.400–402), and refers to a divine “voice” that
gave clarity and vision to one named Jesus who proclaimed a voice predicting the
destruction of Jerusalem (War 6.300–309).61

59
Ibid., 2:376.
60
George J. Brooke, “Was the Teacher of Righteousness Considered to be a Prophet?,” in
De Troyer and Lange, eds., Prophecy After the Prophets, 77–97, here 94–97.
61
For further discussion of the continuing role of prophecy well into the first and later centuries
AD, see David E. Aune, Prophecy in Early Christianity and the Ancient Mediterranean World
(Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1983), 125–52.
THE LAW, THE PROPHETS, AND THE CESSATION OF PROPHECY 183

VII. THE HOLY SPIRIT IN RABBINIC TRADITION

The rabbinic tradition agreed with the Hasmonean tradition that the Spirit had
departed Israel and that prophetic activity ceased after the deaths of Haggai,
Zechariah, and Malachi (t. Sotah 13:2–3; b. Bat. 14a; b. Yoma 21b; b. Sanhedrin
65b). In other rabbinic tradition, however, a belief persisted that divine activity
still came to them through the bat qol (“daughter of voice” referring to a “divine
voice”) in “an echo” (t. Sotah 13.3; y. Sotah 9:13, 24b). Although acknowledging
that the Holy Spirit had departed Israel, they were still able to hear from the bat qol
(b. Sanh. 11a; b. Sotah 48b; b. Yoma 9b).62 Rabbinic teaching did not completely
deny the presence of the Spirit on special occasions since subsequent revelation
came to their community through a bat qol, although this was an apparent inferior
manifestation of God’s revelation.
The above examples and others led Levison to conclude that there was no
departure of the Holy Spirit from Israel with the death of classical prophets.63
Aune similarly challenges just how widespread in antiquity was the belief in the
cessation of prophecy and offers evidence from the Tosefta that divine oracles
spiritually informed later Jews as well. The text reads:

When the first Temple was destroyed, the kingship was removed from the House of David…
When the latter prophets died, that is Haggai, Zechariah, and Malachi, the Holy Spirit came to
an end in Israel. But even so, they made them hear [Heavenly messages] through an echo…
Sages gathered together in the upper room of the house of Guria in Jericho, and a heavenly echo
came forth and said to them, “There is a man among you who is worthy to receive the Holy
Spirit, but his generation is unworthy of such an honor.” They all set their eyes upon Hillel the
elder… Then another time they were in session in Yabneh [Jamnia] and heard an echo saying,
“There is among you a man who is worthy to receive the Holy Spirit, but the generation is
unworthy of such an honor. They all set their eyes upon Samuel the Small… (t. Sotah 13:2–4;
ca. 300 CE, Neusner trans.)

Aune cites several such examples from the first century BCE and the first century
CE that indicate a strong belief that prophecy and the presence of the Spirit had
not ceased in Israel.64
Leiman, on the other hand, maintains that all of the primary Jewish literature of
antiquity claims a cessation of prophecy in Israel by the close of the fifth century
BCE.65 Strangely, as noted earlier, he argues that writings produced after the time
of the cessation of prophecy were viewed as canonical, but not inspired. However,
if such a view were prevalent in Israel before the first century CE, as Leiman

62
For further examples and discussions of this, see L. S. Cook, On the Question of the “Cessation
of Prophecy”.
63
John R. Levison, “Spirit, Holy,” in The Eerdmans Dictionary of Early Judaism, ed. J. J. Collins
and D. C. Harlow (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 2010), 1252–55.
64
Aune, Prophecy in Early Christianity, 103–54.
65
Leiman, Canonization of the Hebrew Scripture, 130.
184 THE FORMATION OF THE BIBLICAL CANON, VOLUME I

contends, then a closed canon of scriptures might well have prevailed among
the people of the land of Israel at that time, but there is no evidence of such a
notion.
Aune offers three reasons why the evidence set forth by Leiman and others
should be received with caution and not as reflective of the actual state of affairs
in Israel: (1) many texts describing the cessation of prophecy do not antedate the
second century CE; (2) early Judaism had a greater variety of opinion about such
matters than many scholars previously thought; and (3) not all of the texts listed
above claim that prophecy had actually ceased in Israel.66 Aune concludes that
the rabbinic sages of the second century and later did not consider themselves
to be inspired, but rather traditionalists, and therefore they promoted the notion
of the cessation of prophecy as a means of legitimating their own positions as
the successors of the prophetic tradition.67 In support of this, he cites Samuel
Sandmel’s conclusion: “Outside the circle of the Rabbinic Sages the view that
prophecy had ended simply did not exist.”68 The belief that prophecy had not
ceased also finds support at Qumran,69 in Christian writings (1 Cor 12:4–11, 28;
Rom 12:6; Eph 4:11), in Philo (Moses 2.187), and even Josephus (Ant. 3.311–13;
J.W. 6.286, 300–309).70 In addition, the book of Sirach, obviously written long
after the time of Ezra, was accepted by some Jews well into the second century
CE as inspired Scripture and deemed worthy to be read by both the Hebrew
and Greek-speaking Jews. Sirach wrote with “instruction and wisdom,” and his
grandson, as we saw above, did not hesitate to commend his grandfather’s written
work along with that of the Law and the Prophets (Sir Prologue).
The Jewish biblical canon was not fixed with the emergence of the notion
that prophecy had ceased in Israel in the fourth, third, or second century BCE.
That notion implies that writings produced during the time when the Spirit was
present were “scriptural” and those written after that time were not. However, the
inclusion of writings in Israel’s sacred Scriptures may not have had as much to do
with the cessation of prophecy as with Israel’s use of such literature in its liturgy,
instruction, and community over a long period of time. There is little question
that rabbinic decisions about the sacredness of this literature played an important
part in the Jewish community’s acceptance of it, but long use also played a role.

66
Aune, Prophecy in Early Christianity, 103.
67
Ibid., 104–6.
68
S. Sandmel, Judaism and Christian Beginnings (New York: Oxford University Press, 1959),
174.
69
Ellis, Old Testament in Early Christianity, 50.
70
Aune, Prophecy in Early Christianity, 106–52, offers other examples of the various types of
prophecy known and practiced within the sects of Judaism during the first century BCE and first
century CE that show a strong belief that prophecy and the presence of the Spirit were still active in
Israel.
THE LAW, THE PROPHETS, AND THE CESSATION OF PROPHECY 185

There is no evidence that Jews throughout the empire were of one mind regarding
the books they acknowledged as Scripture. Barton concludes that if by prophecy
one means the “phenomenon of inspiration such as existed in the 8th century,”
then there is little evidence that it ever died out in post-exilic Israel, even though
the forms of expression changed and the prophets then expressed their oracles
as additions to existing collections of prophetic writings.71 The popularity of the
notion that prophecy had ceased likely led to the production of pseudonymous
writings in the names of earlier prophetic figures by those who believed that
that prophecy had in fact not ceased, but a widespread belief in the cessation of
prophecy led them to adopt an earlier prophetic figure’s name mentioned in the
Jewish Scriptures.
The Essene Jews and later the early Christians did not agree with a limited
prophetic corpus of writings, though it appears that all of the books in the HB
collection, with the possible exception of Esther, were welcomed as scripture by
the Qumran residents along with other writings that did not achieve HB recog-
nition. But, as we will see, other writings were acknowledged in the same way at
Qumran. For those Essenes, the spirit of prophecy had not ceased at the end of the
Persian period of domination.
In an interesting reference in the Gospel of Thomas when Jesus’ disciples spoke
to him of the “twenty-four prophets” who “have spoken in Israel, and all (of them)
have spoken through you,” Jesus responded to them: “You have pushed away the
Living One from you, and you have begun to speak of the dead” (52).72 As I will
show in Chapter 9 §V.A.9, this text has been used to argue for the completion of
the HB by the time this text was written (late first or even late second century CE).
This same tradition is similar to the Apocryphon of James (6.22–7.1; ca. second
century CE) in which Jesus says to his disciples who are asking about their ability
to prophecy that prophecy was removed or ceased with the death of John the
Baptist, the last prophet of Israel, and after John prophecy is no longer necessary.
As Plisch observes, this tradition has some parallel in Origen (Comm. John
2.34.199–201) who argues against those who “take pains to disprove the testimo-
nials of the prophets about Jesus, maintaining that the Son of God does not need
any testimony since he himself – so that one can believe in him – provides enough
reason… They think that it is unnecessary to believe that the prophets foretold
him.” Plisch adds that at the beginning of the fifth century, Augustine provides
an almost verbatim quote of the second sentence in the Gospel of Thomas that he
likely took from the work of a Marcionite whom he opposed, in which he focuses
on the debate about the meaning of Old Testament prophecy. The text reads:

71
J. Barton, “Prophecy (Post-exilic Hebrew),” ABD 5:495.
72
I am using here the translation of Uwe-Karsten Plisch, The Gospel of Thomas: Original Text with
Commentary, trans. from German by Gesine S. Robinson (Stuttgart: Deutsche Bibelgesellschaft,
2008), 133.
186 THE FORMATION OF THE BIBLICAL CANON, VOLUME I

But when, he said, the apostles asked what to think of the prophets of the Jews who, as was
assumed, announced something about his coming regarding the past (?), our Lord answered,
moved that they still considered such (issues) now, “you (pl.) have pushed away the Living One
who is before you, and you speak of the dead.” (Augustine, Contra Adv. Leg. 2.4.14)73

Plisch concludes that “Gos. Thom. 52 belongs to the early Christian context of
the debate about the meaning of…Jewish Scripture for Christian theology and
Christian faith. Hence the logion is not authentic, because for Jesus of Nazareth,
the Torah and the Prophets were the natural foundation of his own proclamation.”74
The appeal to Gospel of Thomas 52 to suggest that early Christianity believed
that its OT was complete and that prophecy had ceased is an anachronism that
develops first among the Jews and later continued among some of the early church
fathers (see a list of those church fathers in Chapter 9 §V.A,B,C).

VIII. SCRIPTURES PLACED IN THE TEMPLE

It is likely that copies of the Jewish Scriptures were kept in the Temple in Jerusalem.
Josephus, for instance, while speaking of the destruction of the Temple and the
spoils taken from it by the Romans (70 CE), mentions not only the furnishings of
the Temple, but also “a copy of the Jewish Law” (War 7.148–50). He subsequently
mentions that he had requested from Titus that he spare his brother and fifty of his
friends, but he also asked for the favor of “a gift of sacred books” from the Temple
that was granted to him (Life 419). An earlier tradition that copies of the Jewish
Scriptures were kept in the Temple can be seen in the story of Hilkiah finding a
copy of the Law in the Temple (2 Kgs 22:3–8). Likewise, the Letter of Aristeas
refers to the high priest in Jerusalem approving copies of the Jewish scriptures
likely in the Temple since the high priest gave approval to take exemplar copies
to Egypt for translation purposes. The Hasmonean scribes evidently made copies
of the Jewish Scriptures and placed them in the Temple. These Scriptures may
reasonably be identified as the “proto-Masoretic” texts of the Scriptures that have
parallels with a number of the scriptural manuscripts at Qumran, but as we see
in the copies of the Dead Sea Scrolls (Chapter 12 §§III–IV), several other textual
types were also present in Palestine besides those likely stored in the Temple.

IX. BOOKS IN THE SACRED COLLECTIONS

The Qumran collection of sacred texts shows that there was a variety of opinion
among first-century Jews over what constituted sacred scripture. Unfortunately
there is little surviving evidence that clarifies precisely which texts were
specifically viewed as sacred scripture at Qumran or elsewhere in Late Second

73
Ibid., 134.
74
Ibid., 134–35.
THE LAW, THE PROPHETS, AND THE CESSATION OF PROPHECY 187

Temple Judaism. It is not clear either how they were used in Jewish worship at
that time. The reading of Scripture in the synagogues, as we saw in the example of
Jesus being asked to read from the scroll of Isaiah in Luke 4:16–20, was likely a
typical practice in the first-century synagogues. The following examples from the
rabbinic tradition (second century CE) clarify which scriptures had to be read in
the synagogues at that time, but not necessarily for Jews in the first centuries BCE
and CE. In m. Rosh HaShannah 4:6 we read: “He begins with [verses from] the
Torah and ends with [verses from] the Prophets. R. Jose (ca. 135–170 CE) says: If
a man ended with [verses from] the Torah he has fulfilled his obligation.” There is
no reference here to the Writings, nor is there in m. Megillah 4:1: “On Mondays
and Thursdays and on Sabbath afternoons three people read the Torah, no more
and no less. They do not close with a reading from the Prophets.” But in the later
Tosefta text t. Rosh HaShannah 2.12G, the Writings (or Hagiographa) are added to
what is read: “The reciter opens with verses from the Torah, and closes with verses
from the Torah, and recites from the Prophets and Hagiographa in between.”
Leiman acknowledges that the earlier m. Megillah 4:1 and 4:4 do not mention the
Writings as a part of the Hebrew sacred collection, but again shows that the later
t. Rosh HaShannah 2:12G text includes the Prophets and the Writings after and
before a final reading of the Torah. This suggests, of course, the development of
the role of the Writings as a separate collection of Jewish scriptures somewhere
between the second and third centuries CE and that the Writings had earlier been
viewed as a part of the Prophets. This emergence of the third part of the HB, in
which several writings that were earlier acknowledged as Prophets were placed
may have begun in the second century BCE beginning with the Psalms, the most
popular scriptures among the Jews at that time. Its full development, however, is
seen in the b. Baba Bathra 14b text (150–180 CE), but a tripartite biblical canon
was not widely known among Jews in the first or even second century CE. Leiman
contends that the expansion of the Jewish scriptures into a three-part HB is based
on a liturgical expansion rather than a canonical one,75 but it is difficult to distin-
guish the authority attributed to the Jewish Scriptures in a canonical context from
those writings used in a liturgical context. Both function as scripture.
With the one exception of Luke 24:44, only the Law and the Prophets, or just
the Law, are mentioned in the NT in reference to the Jewish Scriptures (e.g., Matt
5:17; 7:12; Luke 24:27; and Acts 28:23, where “the law and the prophets” appear
to comprise all of the Jewish sacred Scriptures). Luke 24:44 must be understood
in the context of 24:27: “And beginning with Moses and all the prophets, he
interpreted to them in all the scriptures the things concerning himself” (emphasis
added). For Luke, both texts refer to all of the scriptures and there is no doubt
that this also included the “psalms.” Why he distinguished the “psalms” as a
third category in 24:44 is not clear, but it may reflect an emerging trend toward a
three-part canon, but not a third part that included at that time all of the books that

75
Leiman, Canonization of the Hebrew Scripture, 63–64.
188 THE FORMATION OF THE BIBLICAL CANON, VOLUME I

would later be placed in the Writings (Ketubim). They were more likely included
among the Prophets throughout the first century CE. Lim correctly understands
that both references (Luke 24:27 and 44) refer to all of the Jewish scriptures at the
time of the production of this Gospel, likely mid- to late 60s CE.76 Sometimes the
whole of the sacred writings is simply referred to as “law” (e.g., John 10:34 cites
Ps 82:6 as “law,” and 1 Cor 14:21 introduces Isa 28:11–12 with “in the law it is
written”). Other designations for the Jewish Scriptures include “scripture” (John
13:18; Gal 3:8), “old covenant” (2 Cor 3:14), and “Moses and all the prophets”
(Luke 24:27; John 1:45).77 Barr concludes from these and other NT references
that perhaps the Prophets as a collection were much wider in scope than we have
previously thought. He concludes that all authoritative sacred writings, not just
the Former Prophets and Latter Prophets, were called “prophets.” Even these
terms (Former and Latter) are a late development in Judaism and found nowhere
in the early church before the second century CE. Barr correctly argues that the
presence of such references “strongly suggests that the category of ‘Prophet’ was
not a closed one: any non-Torah book that was holy Scripture was a ‘Prophet’.”78
This is further supported by Melito’s reference to the Jewish Scriptures as late as
170–180 CE simply as “the Law and the Prophets” in which he includes books
later assigned to the Writings (Eusebius, Hist. eccl. 4.26.13–14; see Appendix
A.2). Melito lists most of the books that were later placed in the Writings or
Hagiographa, but he does not have three categories. His list concludes with
Daniel, Ezekiel, and Ezra. In Melito, the books that later comprised the Writings
were included in his collection and were intermingled with the Former Prophets
and Latter Prophets,79 similar to the historic order of the Christian OT. We note
here that he also includes the Wisdom of Solomon in his list of books. Barr agrees
that the Law was a separate and distinct part of the Jewish canon, but correctly
maintains that the boundaries between the Prophets and the Writings were still
imprecise in the first century CE.80 This imprecision is reflected not only in early
rabbinic Judaism, but also in early Christian collections of OT Scriptures.

76
For further discussion of the importance of this text, see Lim, Formation of the Jewish Canon,
157, and especially 162–65, who acknowledges, following Barton, the “overwhelmingly bipartite
reference to the Law and the Prophets in the New Testament” (163). See further discussion of the
Luke 24 text in Chapter 8 §III.
77
These terms are discussed in Ellis, Old Testament in Early Christianity, 3.
78
Barr, Holy Scripture, 55.
79
The designations “Former Prophets” and “Latter Prophets” do not exist before the writings of
the eighth-century CE Masoretic scribes. While Zech 1:4 and 7:7 do mention former prophets, this
only refers to the earlier prophets, not to a specific collection by that name (Joshua–2 Kings).
80
Barr, Holy Scripture, 55–56.
THE LAW, THE PROPHETS, AND THE CESSATION OF PROPHECY 189

X. THE HOLY SPIRIT AND SCRIPTURAL CANONS

In regard to canon formation, the classic definition of prophetic activity among

ancient Jews is found in 2 Kgs 22:14 when Micaiah the prophet said, “Whatever
the Lord says to me, that I will speak.” The primary role of a prophet was to speak
(or write) the Word of the Lord. The remnant nation came to believe that God had
sent his Spirit into the “former prophets” who prophesied the word of the Lord
(Neh 9:30; Zech 7:12). This view persisted thereafter in Judaism and later in the
NT and early church fathers. Not everything done or said in the name of the Spirit
of God was from God, so there was a need to distinguish between true and false
prophecy (Deut 18:20–22).81
In antiquity both Jews and Christians universally believed that their collections
of sacred Scriptures were inspired by God through the Holy Spirit and transmitted
through prophetic figures. Christians inherited their notion of scripture from
their Jewish siblings and the major dividing issue between Jews and Christians
and between Christians and other Christians was on which books comprised the
inspired scriptural collections circulating in churches in antiquity. Fluidity on the
scope of scripture collections continued for centuries with disagreement on the
inspired status of some of the books circulating among Jews and Christians. By
the mid-third century there was widespread, though not complete, agreement on
most of the books that eventually comprised the church’s OT Scriptures and the
HB canon of Scriptures.

81
A true prophet, it was believed, proclaimed the truth that was passed on in the church’s tradition
and this did not violate other expected practices of prophets (cf. 1 Thess. 5:21; Gal 1:6–9; cf. Did.
11:7–12).
 CHAPTER 6

GREEK INFLUENCE AND THE

FORMATION OF THE HEBREW BIBLE*

I. HELLENISM, THE GREEK LANGUAGE,

AND JEWISH TRADITION

Because of many recent important advances in our understanding of late Second

Temple Judaism within its Greco-Roman context, there is renewed interest in the
impact of Hellenistic thought and culture on the context and religious traditions of
both Jews and Christians. These influences in Palestine and throughout the Greco-
Roman world included but were not limited to the widespread use of the Greek
language and culture not only in aristocratic and military circles of Judaism as
early as 260–250 BCE, but also throughout Palestine. After noting the widespread
use of the Greek language among Jews before the accession of Antiochus IV in
175 BCE, Martin Hengel observes that the influence of the language was not
suppressed even after the Maccabean victories over the Seleucids in the Land
of Israel.1 Generally speaking, the relationship between the Jewish nation and
their Greek occupiers was friendly until the time of the Seleucid ruler Antiochus
IV Epiphanes. This can be seen in the many Greek names adopted by Jews well
into the first century CE, some of which are on the Jewish ossuaries (bone boxes)
recovered in and around Jerusalem long after the Seleucids were forced out of
Palestine, as well as in the many Greek inscriptions and mosaics found at various
archaeological sites in Palestine dating well into the second century CE. The
following is a collection of examples of Greek influences among Jews and later
Christians that may point to Hellenistic influences on the formation of the biblical
canons of both Jews and Christians.2

* Portions of this chapter are a revision and updating of my article “Hellenism and the Biblical
Canons: Is There a Connection?,” 2:13–49.
1
Martin Hengel, Judaism and Hellenism: Studies in Their Encounter in Palestine During the Early
Hellenistic Period (Philadelphia: Fortress, 1974), 1:103.
2
Several important articles that focus on the influence of the Septuagint on Diaspora Judaism and
early Christianity are in David J. A. Clines and J. Cheryl Exum, eds., The Reception of the Hebrew
Bible in the Septuagint and the New Testament, HBM 55 (Sheffield: Sheffield Phoenix, 2013). See
GREEK INFLUENCE AND THE FORMATION OF THE HEBREW BIBLE 191

Following the decree of King Cyrus of Persia, Jews who had been taken captive
to Babylon in 587–586 BCE were allowed to return and resettle in their homeland
(Ezra 1:1–4). Some chose to return to their homeland in Israel, but most did not.
Some were too old to make such a journey and much of their homeland was in
ruins. The task of rebuilding it was formidable. It would not have been easy for
any who returned to destroyed towns and a destroyed Temple to imagine hope
in the midst of rubble. A large number of Jews chose to remain in Babylon, no
doubt some of them because of age and the difficulty of making such a long
and challenging trip, but others chose to resettle in major cities around the
Mediterranean world, e.g., Italy, Greece, Asia Minor, Cyprus, and elsewhere. As
the book of Acts readily shows (Acts 2:5–11), Jews were living in major cities and
regions throughout the Greco-Roman world. Jews who made their homes outside
Palestine were referred to as “Diaspora Jews,” or “Jews of the Dispersion” (e.g.,
Jas 1:1; 1 Pet 1:1). After taking up residence in the Diaspora communities, in time
most of these Jews had forgotten their native Hebrew or Aramaic tongue and could
only communicate in the languages of the lands, where they had migrated.
In the fourth century BCE, when Alexander the Great came to power, his aim
was to create a universal empire dominated by Greek language and culture. His
plan was remarkably successful and influential and it had an important impact upon
the future of the Jews living not only in the Diaspora but also in their homeland.
This influence continued well into the Common Era not only for Jews, but also for
the early Christians and even among the Romans long after their victories over the
surviving Greek dynasties. Following his conquest of a people, Alexander immedi-
ately instituted reforms that made the Greek language and culture a major part of
the life of the nations he conquered. The author of 1 Maccabees provides a succinct
history of this period of time and the impact that Alexander and his generals made
on conquered nations:

After Alexander son of Philip, the Macedonian, who came from the land of Kittim, had defeated
King Darius of the Persians and the Medes, he succeeded him as king. (He had previously
become king of Greece.) He fought many battles, conquered strongholds, and put to death the
kings of the earth. He advanced to the ends of the earth, and plundered many nations. When
the earth became quiet before him, he was exalted, and his heart was lifted up. He gathered a
very strong army and ruled over countries, nations, and princes, and they became tributary to
him. (1 Macc 1:1–4)

Hellenization of the ancient world was quite successful despite considerable

resistance from some Jews in the land of Israel and others in different parts of the
Greek empire. Alexander’s Hellenization program included learning the Greek

especially the essays by George J. Brooke, “The Influence of the Dead Sea Scrolls on Modern Inter-
pretations of Jewish Traditions in the New Testament,” 32–48; Kristin De Troyer, “The Septuagint
and the New Testament: Another Look at the Samuel–Kings Quotations and Allusions in the New
Testament,” 49–55; and John Jarick, “Imagining a qohelet as an ekklesiastes,” 83–96.
192 THE FORMATION OF THE BIBLICAL CANON, VOLUME I

language, but also the Hellenistic religion, literature, art, architecture, government,
and administration. This was accomplished chiefly through the use of the ancient
gymnasiums, the Hellenistic centers for physical exercise and the dissemination
of the language and culture. Generally speaking, the literate and influential in the
conquered nations throughout the Mediterranean world, including many of the
religious and political leaders in the land of Israel, learned both the language and
the culture of the Greeks. Although this process began during Alexander’s lifetime
and was carried on with various degrees of intensity and success by his generals,
the Diadochi (“successors”) who ruled after him, there was opposition to it in
various places and the process took time. Hellenization was such a complex notion
that it took several generations before it became the dominant socialization and
cultural program in the Mediterranean world and later the Greco-Roman world.
However, after it took hold it continued to be highly influential for centuries, long
after the demise of the Greek empire. Both Jewish and later Christian scriptures
circulated throughout the Mediterranean world in Greek, including in Palestine
itself.
Hellenization was an amalgamation of Greek culture, language, and religious
heritage with other languages and cultures that eventually led to a universal
language and shared culture throughout the Mediterranean world and beyond.
This facilitated communication, travel, and commerce that became considerably
more common and less complex than before. Although many Jews resisted this
Hellenization activity, some freely embraced it. In the second century BCE when
Antiochus Epiphanes came to power, he tried to rid the Jewish nation of its
religious heritage forcing many Jews to offer sacrifice to Zeus and, as we saw
earlier, he even offered a pig on the altar of the Temple in Jerusalem. The authors
of 1 and 2 Maccabees tell how this plan was imposed in the land of Israel and how
many Jews resisted it, even to their deaths. Eventually, because of greater threats
elsewhere and the growing resistance of the Maccabees, the Greek Seleucid
Dynasty was forced to withdraw from the Jewish homeland and the Jewish
Hasmonean Dynasty began its rule in Palestine. The departure of the Greeks,
however, did not mean that the Greek language was no longer spoken in Palestine.
To the contrary, Hellenization continued to impact the whole of the Mediterranean
East, including Palestine, for centuries, even during Roman control of the land.
When the early Christians began to compose the literature that eventually became
their New Testament, it was composed in Greek well over 100 years after the
Romans were the dominant power in the Mediterranean world, and for the most
part their scriptures were the LXX scriptures.
Diaspora Jews were generally receptive to Hellenistic influences, but most
remained loyal to their Jewish religious heritage. Philo (ca. 15 BCE–45 CE), for
example, was a Hellenistic Jew who spoke and wrote in Greek and embraced much
of the Hellenistic culture, but he also tried to influence the Hellenistic community
of Alexandria by arguing for the relevance and superiority of the Law of Moses
over other philosophies. Like the Greeks before him who interpreted allegorically
GREEK INFLUENCE AND THE FORMATION OF THE HEBREW BIBLE 193

their own sacred literature (especially Homer), Philo also interpreted the Jewish
Scriptures allegorically and sought through this interpretive process to make the
Jewish Scriptures relevant not only to the local Jewish community in Alexandria,
but also to contemporary Hellenistic communities as well.
In the late first century CE, Josephus, a Jewish general during the 66–70 CE
rebellion against Rome, moved to Rome and wrote numerous volumes in Greek
on the history of the Jews and their wars, but also on his own life, with an
apology defending the Jews in a document titled Against Apion that focused on
the Alexandrian opposition to the Jews. The more educated Jews in Palestine
generally spoke Greek in the first centuries BCE and CE, but it was also the
language of trade and commerce so those who sold their wares to Gentiles often
did so employing the Greek language. It is now considered possible, if not even
likely, that Jesus of Nazareth also could communicate in Greek. Because Gentile
contemporaries considered Jewish circumcision barbaric, some Jews undertook
a painful procedure called epispasm to remove the marks of their circumcision.
As the early followers of Jesus began proclaiming their good news about him
outside of Palestine, they did so in the Greek language, and all of their Christian
Scriptures that later formed the New Testament were written in Greek. Alexander’s
Hellenizing program continued with his successors, having considerable impact
on the Jews of the Diaspora, the Jews in Palestine, and later also on the early
Christians.
Long ago in his Prolegomena ad Homerum, Friedrich August Wolf (1795)
suggested that the parallels between Jewish and Christian scripture canons on
the one hand and the Hellenistic literary canons on the other were both natural
and obvious, but very little research subsequently focused on these parallels until
recently. Wolf observed that the text of the Jewish sacred scriptures was viewed
and treated in similar ways as the Homeric poems and that the two canons, literary
and biblical, were viewed from a canonical perspective.3 Several comparative
studies of Jewish and Christian scriptures with the Hellenistic literary canons have
appeared in recent years. Because many Jews learned the common Greek language
(koine) and adopted several aspects of Hellenistic culture, it should not be thought
unusual that Hellenistic literary canons may also have influenced the notion of
biblical canons among scribal Jews and subsequently among Christians.
It is often overlooked that the Jews did not usually perceive the Hellenistic
influences negatively except in religious matters. The challenging events Jews
experienced during the Seleucid Dynasty’s control of Palestine with its attempt
to abolish their religion no doubt led to pejorative attitudes toward the Greeks.
However, during the earlier Ptolemic rule from Egypt over their homeland (that
ended in 198 BCE) most Jews appeared to do quite well and their experience was
generally positive. The Letter of Aristeas, most likely written in Egypt somewhere

3
For a brief discussion of this, see Finkelberg, “Introduction,” 2–3.
194 THE FORMATION OF THE BIBLICAL CANON, VOLUME I

between 130 and 100 BCE, reflects the favorable hospitality and freedom of
religious practices extended to Jews living there. While the influence of Hellenistic
culture on later Jewish and Christian notions of canon is not completely clear,
there are interesting parallels between the lists of literary canons in Alexandria
and elsewhere in the Hellenistic world and the scripture canons of Jews and
Christians. It is doubtful whether the later second-century CE rabbis ever read the
Alexandrian commentaries on Homer, but there are a number of hermeneutical
and terminological similarities between Homeric scribes and the later rabbinic
writings.4
This Hellenistic influence was apparently generally positive for most Diaspora
Jews, especially those west of Palestine who were regularly exposed to Greek
culture and ideas.5 The best-known Hellenistic literary influence was, of course,
Homer’s Iliad and Odyssey that is sometimes described as an equivalent to the
“Bible of the Greeks” in the ancient world.6 The question here is whether the
activity surrounding the gathering of materials, editing, and producing a recension
of Homer was a model for Judaism and early Christianity in forming their biblical
canons, such as we see especially in the rabbinic sages adopting a twenty-four book
scripture corpus.7 As we will see below, the number twenty-four is the number of

4
These are described in detail in Yakir Paz, “Re-Scripturalizing Traditions: Designating Depen-
dence in Rabbinic Halakhic and Homeric Scholarship,” in Homer and the Bible in the Eyes of
Ancient Interpreters, ed. Maren R. Niehoff (Leiden: Brill, 2012), 269–98. By “re-scripturalizing”
Paz refers to the efforts of the commentator or editor “to show that a certain word, verse or passage in
the Scripture is the source of a later self-understanding tradition (whether oral or written). This could
be seen as an attempt to ‘return’ the tradition to the Scripture in order to reaffirm its centrality and
primacy” (271). Some of these parallels or similarities were noted long ago in the works of David
Daube, “Rabbinic Methods of Interpretation and Hellenistic Rhetoric,” Hebrew Union College
Annual 22 (1949): 239–64; and also subsequently in Daube’s “Alexandrian Methods of Interpre-
tation and the Rabbis,” in Festschrift Hans Lewald (Basel: Helbing & Lichtenhahn, 1953), 27–44.
This was followed shortly thereafter by the substantial work of S. Lieberman, Hellenism in Jewish
Palestine (New York: Jewish Theological Seminary, 1950, 1962).
5
A recent careful assessment of the evidence for the influence of the editing of the Homeric corpus
on the formation of the HB can be seen in Guy Darshan, “The Twenty-Four Books of the Hebrew
Bible and Alexandrian Scribal Methods,” in Niehoff, ed., Homer and the Bible, 221–44.
6
This conclusion is drawn by Margalit Finkelberg, “Homer as a Foundation Text,” in Finkelberg
and Stoumsa, eds., Homer, the Bible, and Beyond, 75–96, here 91. See also the more recent, Maren
R. Niehoff, ed., Homer and the Bible in the Eyes of Ancient Interpreters, JSRC 16 (Leiden: Brill,
2012). For our purposes here, see especially Maren R. Niehoff, “Why Compare Homer’s Readers
to Biblical Readers?,” 3–14; Cyril Aslanov, “Homer within the Bible: Homerisms in the Graecus
Venetus,” 199–220; and Paz, “Re-Scripturizing Traditions,” 269–98.
7
An excellent discussion of this is Darshan, “The Twenty-Four Books of the Hebrew Bible and
Alexandrian Scribal Methods,” 221–44. While he does not fully subscribe to Rabbinic dependence
on Homeric writings for establishing their biblical canon, he contends that the number twenty-four
was clearly adopted by the rabbis from Alexandrian Homeric scribes in their fixing the number of
their sacred books. This, of course, reflects the use of the alphabet in introducing each of the twen-
ty-four chapters or books in both the Iliad and the Odyssey.
GREEK INFLUENCE AND THE FORMATION OF THE HEBREW BIBLE 195

letters in the Greek alphabet that was used to identify each of the chapters or books
in Homer’s Iliad and Odyssey.8 This, of course, raises the question about whether
Greek literary classics influenced Jewish and Christian communities in how they
formed their scripture collections. That is our focus below.
Niehoff raises questions about the comparisons between these two literary
collections, including the tendency among scholars toward “parallelomania”
(the temptation to find parallels between biblical and nonbiblical texts every-
where, and perhaps even where they are not), but contends that there are parallels
worth exploring since the Greek Bible, first translated in Alexandria, appears to
have similarities with scribal methods employed in the Alexandrian library.9 It
is worth noting that Origen, a resident of Alexandria, made considerable use of
Alexandrian scribal practices in his Hexapla, six-parallel columns of contem-
porary Greek and Hebrew texts of the Jewish scriptures. Likewise, Athanasius,
also from Alexandria, was the first to employ the term “canon” to describe a fixed
collection or listing of Christian scriptures. Some of the parallels, as we will see,
cannot be ignored even if comparisons between Alexandrian and Judeo-Christian
canons are not exact.10
Since both Jewish and Christian writers of Late Antiquity show considerable
familiarity with Hellenistic literature and several scribal practices, NT scholars
have refocused attention on a number of the parallels between biblical and
Hellenistic literature. Some scholars think Dennis R. MacDonald’s suggestion
that several NT books were written as Christian imitations of Homer goes too far
in its comparisons,11 but there is nonetheless merit in several of his arguments.

8
I will return to the importance of this number and its influence on the formation of the HB
below. For a fuller treatment of this, see the helpful work of Tessa Rajak, Translation and Survival:
The Greek Bible of the Ancient Jewish Diaspora (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2009). Rajak
focuses, not only on its origin and influence among Diaspora Jews and the Homeric influence on the
rabbinic tradition (239–54), but also among non-Jews and non-Christians in antiquity (264–77).
9
Niehoff, “Why Compare Homer’s Readers to Biblical Readers?” 3–5.
10
A helpful and accessible resource on many of these parallels is Evans, ed., Bible Knowledge
Background Commentary. For citations of and parallels with Hellenistic influences in NT writings
and examples of Hellenistic influence in early Christianity, see in that volume Lee M. McDonald,
“Acts,” 2:19–194; “1 Corinthians,” 2:245–366; “2 Corinthians,” 2:367–457; and “Galatians,”
2:459–538; including other works throughout these three volumes. Also helpful in this regard is
M. Eugene Boring, Klaus Berger, and Carsten Colpe, eds., Hellenistic Commentary to the New
Testament (Nashville: Abingdon, 1995); and Arnold, ed., Zondervan Illustrated Bible Background
Commentary. These resources show numerous parallels between early Christianity and its sacred
writings with the ancient Hellenistic literary sources.
11
See his The Homeric Epics and the Gospel of Mark (New Haven, CN: Yale University Press,
2000), in which he claims that Mark imitated Homeric epic to depict Jesus as superior to Homer;
see also his Christianizing Homer: “The Odyssey,” Plato, and “The Acts of Andrew” (New York:
Oxford University Press, 1994), that shows how early Christian writers made use of the models in
Homer. More recently, see his Does the New Testament Imitate Homer? Four Cases from the Acts of
the Apostles (New York: Yale University Press, 2003), in which he argues that Acts of the Apostles
imitates four famous passages in Homer, namely the visions of Cornelius and Peter (Iliad 2), Paul’s
196 THE FORMATION OF THE BIBLICAL CANON, VOLUME I

The later rabbinic sages show that Homer was quite familiar among the Jews
since they often compared their sacred scriptures with the writings of Homer. For
example, in the Mishnah we read:

The Sadducees say, “We cry out against you, O ye Pharisees,” for ye say, “the Holy Scriptures
render the hands unclean,” [and] “The writings of Hamiram [Homer] do not render the hands
unclean… Even so the Holy Scriptures: as is our love for them so is their uncleanness;
[whereas] the writings of Hamiram [Homer] which are held in no account do not render the
hands unclean. (m. Yad. 4:6, Danby)12

Josephus’ familiarity with the writings of Homer can be seen in his reference to
an earlier edition of Homer and other Greek writers in his defense of the Jews
(Against Apion). With a touch of sarcasm Josephus argues for the superiority of
the Jewish writings over Homeric writings as well as over other Greek writers in
terms of the accuracy and specificity of books involved.13 He refers to the poor
quality of the editing and preservation of Homeric writings, and even shows an
awareness of the legend of the Peisistratus recension of Homer14 (ca. 550–525
BCE) that reportedly attempted to correct and produce an accurate edition of
the Homeric texts. Josephus emphasized the poor quality of the surviving text of
Homer as follows:

The land of Greece, on the contrary, has experienced countless catastrophes, which have oblit-
erated the memory of the past; and as one civilization succeeded another the men of each epoch
believed that the world began with them. They were late in learning the alphabet and found
the lesson difficult; for those who would assign the earliest date to its use pride themselves on
having learned it from the Phoenicians and Cadmus. Even of that date, no record, preserved
either in temples or on public monuments, could now be produced; seeing that it is a highly
controversial and disputed question whether even those who took part in the Trojan campaign
so many years later made use of letters, and the true and prevalent view is rather that they were

farewell at Miletus (Iliad 6), the selection of Matthias (Iliad 7), and Peter’s escape from prison (Iliad
24). While many will disagree with some of MacDonald’s conclusions, he has nevertheless demon-
strated awareness of Homeric traditions in biblical literature.
12
For a discussion of the rabbinic attitudes toward the Septuagint and its use among Diaspora Jews,
see Timothy M. Law and Alison Salvesen, Greek Scripture and the Rabbis, CBET 66 (Leuven:
Peeters, 2012). See also Law’s more recent book, When God Spoke Greek, in which Law speaks not
only of the influence of the Septuagint on Christians, but also among Diaspora Jews and even the
rabbis.
13
See Josephus’ discussion of Homer later in his Ag. Apion 1.37–46. This whole pivotal passage
is below in Chapter 10 §I.
14
Peisistratus – or Pisistratus (Greek = Peisistratos), frequently called the “tyrant of Athens,” is
reportedly the first to bring the various uncollected texts from Homer’s writings together to form
an early edition of the Iliad and Odyssey. He supposedly employed grammarians to edit those texts
and produce a standard text of the Iliad and Odyssey. The stories of this recension are clouded with
propaganda and care is needed to discern any historical facts related to it. It appears, however, that
Peisistratus was anxious to produce a standardized text of Homer’s works and to make them avail-
able in a public library. The relevance of this is discussed more in the next section.
GREEK INFLUENCE AND THE FORMATION OF THE HEBREW BIBLE 197

ignorant of the present-day mode of writing. Throughout the whole range of Greek literature no
undisputed work is found more ancient than the poetry of Homer. His date, however, is clearly
later than the Trojan war; and even he, they say, did not leave his poems in writing. At first
transmitted by memory, the scattered songs were not united until later; to which circumstance
the numerous inconsistencies of the work are attributable.” (Ag. Apion 1.12–13, LCL, emphasis
added)

Josephus argues for the superiority of the Jewish scriptures over their literary
rivals, the Greeks, and especially Homer (see also Ag. Apion 1.19 and later in
37–43). Earlier we saw that Carr spoke of Hasmonean attempts to show that the
Jewish sacred writings antedated the Hellenistic treasured writings, reflecting their
superiority.15
The Greco-Roman models or standards (canons) noted earlier that were
reflected in standard collections of lyric and epic poets could well have served as
a model or guide for forming the collections of Jewish and Christian Scriptures.
While many of the Alexandrian literary collections that functioned as literary
models were somewhat fixed, they could be expanded if subsequent excellent
literary contributions emerged. When the later Jewish and Christian biblical
canons were fixed, however, nothing else could be added to them. Biblical canons
that often took centuries to establish, including a time of expansion and subse-
quently contraction, were finally fixed standard authoritative sacred texts that
offered guidelines for belief and practices to follow. Like subsequent authors who
followed closely these established literary patterns and models in their writing,
Jews and Christians also followed the “standards” of their sacred traditions in their
selection of sacred scriptures. For the Jews, the core tradition, as James Sanders
showed above, includes the exodus, wilderness journey, and entrance into the land
of Canaan. For the Christians, it included the traditions about Jesus’ life, ministry,
teachings, death, and resurrection. Although the Hellenistic literary canons could
be expanded with subsequent perceived high quality writings, that was not the
case for Jewish and Christian biblical canons that tended toward reduction rather
than expansion when discussions of canon emerged in both communities. Their
sacred core traditions, however, did expand the Exodus, wilderness wanderings,
and entrance traditions with the additions of the book of Genesis and the giving of
the Law at Sinai. Again, as noted earlier in Chapter 3 §III, the possible influence
of the Alexandrian catalogues, or pinakes (Gk. πινακίς or πινακές), on the notion
of sacred catalogues or lists of inspired sacred books in the Jewish and Christian
collections of sacred scriptures have some significant parallels.16
Despite Athanasius’ use of the term “canon” for a collection of sacred Christian
Scriptures, the designation was not regularly used in reference to a closed
collection of writings until David Ruhnken used it this way in 1768. In his treatise
entitled Historia critica oratorum Graecorum, he employed “canon” for a select

15
Carr, Formation of the Hebrew Bible.
16
See also a more complete discussion of this in McDonald, “Hellenism and the Biblical Canons.”
198 THE FORMATION OF THE BIBLICAL CANON, VOLUME I

list of literary writings. According to Pfeiffer, “his coinage met with worldwide
and lasting success, as the term was found to be so convenient.” He adds that this
unusual use of canon or kanon for a Scripture collection comes from the biblical
traditions rather than from the ancients, who did not use it in reference to a standard
list.17 Pfeiffer suggests that Ruhnken likely discovered this use in the biblical
tradition and not in antiquity and notes that pinakes is more commonly used of
catalogues or lists than canon. Pfeiffer concedes that while he usually avoids using
“canon” in his work, it is nevertheless appropriate to speak of an “Alexandrian
canon” of the nine lyric poets, concluding: “the expression is sanctioned by its age
and convenience, and will, I am afraid, never disappear. But if one calls such lists
‘canons,’ one should be aware that this is not the proper significance of the Greek
κανών but a modern catachresis that originated in the eighteenth century.”18 He is
correct in this and this confusion on the use of the term probably accounts for the
different definitions of canon employed by biblical scholars today. Some focus on
the original meaning of the term, namely function or rule or authority, while others
focus on the final shape of the Jewish and Christian scriptures that led to its derived
meaning of authoritative catalogue of sacred scriptures. However, lists (pinakes,
Gk. πινακίς or πινακές) of model and authoritative literary writers are not far from
lists of authoritative scriptural texts. While it is tempting to think that what has
become commonplace in modern religious jargon was also true in antiquity, that
is simply not the case.19 The ancient use of the term pinakes was not equal to the
term canon, but generally both were eventually used to identify standard authori-
tative writings of antiquity, and in the case of Christian Scriptures that eventually
formed a Bible, the lists were of authoritative collections of Scriptures. The notion
of catalogues or lists of authoritative sacred books as canons (rules or models) that
identify Christian faith are present, with the possible exception of Origen in the
third century, only starting in the fourth century.
Some scholars object to any connections between pinakes and the way that kanōn
eventually came to be used. They sometimes appeal to the Alexandrian library
pinakes, the famous 120-volume catalogue of books compiled by Callimachus in
the third century BCE. Callimachus’ Pinakes generally dealt with literary and not
sacred texts, but in the case of Homer a clear exception was made. The parallels
with the Jewish and Christian interest in collections of sacred texts may not be
exact, but they also may not be negligible. Jed Wyrick asserts that “the Greek
poetic contest is not the model by which the drawing up of definitive lists of

17
Pfeiffer, History of Classical Scholarship, 207.
18
Ibid.
19
For a helpful discussion of the background on the use of the term kanōn for a collection of Scrip-
tures, see Robbins, “Eusebius’ Lexicon of ‘Canonicity,’ ” who claims that Eusebius never used the
word canon as it is currently employed in modern times in reference to a fixed collection of sacred
Scriptures. He also suggests that the list of Origen’s OT canon is Eusebius’ invention. That may not
be the case, as I will show in Chapter 16 §§V and VI, but Origen did speak of the number twenty-two
only in reference to the books of the Jewish Scriptures, and not his own collection of OT scriptures.
GREEK INFLUENCE AND THE FORMATION OF THE HEBREW BIBLE 199

scriptures can be analyzed,”20 but the notion of model is not far removed from
what is involved in reading a sacred text or establishing a collection of such texts.
Callimachus not only listed the authors and their subjects, but also included
comments about the authors and their work, including the quality of their work.
Aristarchus later criticized Callimachus for placing Cassandra among the paeans,21
which suggests that Callimachus also analyzed and classified the writings in the
library. He may well have made use of Aristotle’s earlier listing of plays at the
Athenian festivals of the City of Dionysia and Lenaea (Didaskaliai) and earlier
Aristotle may have depended on the historian Hellanikos of Lesbos (ca. 450–400
BCE). Hellanikos made a list of the victors in the Karneian (Karneonikai) games
at Sparta that were devoted to Apollo and included not only athletic games, but
also contests in poetry and music. Hellanikos also produced a catalogue of the
mythical and historical priestesses of Hera in Argos (Hiereiai tes Heras Hai En
Argei).22 While Callimachus produced a complete listing of the holdings in the
library and entitled his work Pinakes, this does not contradict the fact that the
library housed standard literary texts of the ancient world that were also included
in the pinakes. Since others used pinakes for a collection of literary writers who
followed acceptable standards, this may not be far removed from how canon
came to be used. Archilochus was the iambic poet, Homer the epic writer, and
Pindar the standard for lyric poets. As Pfeiffer cautions, to deny the existence
of selective lists alongside the complete Pinakes produced by Callimachus is to
miss the importance of a select number of books that did exist as standards. He
claims that this list of the nine poets “became authoritative in the same way as
his [Aristophanes’] terminology, classification, and colometry.23 The order might
differ, but the actual names were the same in all the Hellenistic epigrams and prose
lists until the latest Byzantine times.”24
At the end of the canonical processes, the writings included in scriptural
collections were looked upon as inviolable and were called the churches’ “Holy
Scriptures.” In the early more fluid stages of canon development, however,
some of the writings that were used in the churches’ worship and mission were
discarded when churches and synagogues were no longer used and they were no
longer copied or kept in sacred collections. The books that still had favor among
the believing communities, even if for a short time, nevertheless impacted the life,

20
Wyrick, Ascension of Authorship, 353.
21
A paean was a Greek hymn of praise or thanksgiving in honor of Apollo or other divine beings.
22
See a discussion of this in Gregory Nagy, “The Library of Pergamon as a Classical Model,” in
Pergamon: Citadel of the Gods, ed. H. Koester, HTS 46 (Harrisburg, PA: Trinity Press International,
1998), 185–232. For a discussion of these earlier lists, see also Wyrick, Ascension of Authorship,
285–91.
23
Colometry was the ancient arrangement of texts in terms of a single clause of nine to sixteen
syllables. Manuscripts were often written this way to facilitate public readings. Codex Bezae (D)
was written in colometry.
24
Pfeiffer, History of Classical Scholarship, 205.
200 THE FORMATION OF THE BIBLICAL CANON, VOLUME I

worship, conduct, dogma, and mission of these communities. By the middle to

late second century CE, some Jews began to arrange their Scriptures in a tripartite
collection, namely, Law, Prophets, and Writings, but later Christians, perhaps
depending on the arrangement of the LXX Scriptures, classified the same books
in four parts, namely, Law, History, Poetry and Wisdom, and Prophets (for a
discussion of these divisions, see Chapter 8 §V and Chapter 11 §II).

II. ARISTEAS AND THE ORIGIN OF THE GREEK BIBLE

Since the act of translation highlights the significant value of the books that are
translated, the Greek translation of the Jewish Scriptures is important for under-
standing the development of the biblical canon. Most diaspora Jews could not
speak Hebrew and it was eventually decided that a translation of their sacred
scriptures would be especially helpful for their worship and instruction. The books
that were initially translated (the Pentateuch) allow us to view the development
of the Jewish scriptures at an early stage (ca. 281–280 BCE) and also see the
high value the translators placed on the Pentateuch. The earliest Greek translation
initially included only the Pentateuch, but eventually the rest of Jewish Scriptures
including some of the later designated “apocryphal” writings were also included.
This translation significantly influenced not only Diaspora Jews living outside of
Palestine, but also Hellenistic Jews who migrated back to Palestine and were more
comfortable using the Greek language (Acts 6:1–3) than Hebrew or Aramaic.
This first translation of the Hebrew Scriptures reportedly came at the insti-
gation of Ptolemy II of Alexandria.25 Demetrius of Phalerum, his chief librarian,
compiled the largest library in the ancient world with estimates of up to 500,000
volumes. While most scholars acknowledge the legendary and apologetic nature
of the Letter of Aristeas, some scholars also acknowledge that some elements in
the letter reflect some authenticity. For instance, the author of that letter claims
that Demetrius requested that the king include in his library a copy of the Jewish
Scriptures, but noted that they would need to be translated by competent persons
before being placed in the sacred “Museum” (or royal library) in Alexandria. It
may be that the Jews themselves initiated this translation,26 and Diaspora Jews
subsequently made considerable use of it in synagogues in the Mediterranean
world. As noted earlier, the initial translation of the Jewish Scriptures was only
of the Law or Pentateuch, but in time it was expanded to include other sacred

25
It is, of course, likely that some translation from Hebrew to Aramaic took place earlier when the
returning remnant of Jews from Babylon heard the scriptures (the Law of Moses) from Ezra (Neh
8:8).
26
See Nina Collins, The Library in Alexandria and the Bible in Greek (Leiden: Brill, 2000),
117–37, who argues this point convincingly and describes the Greek translation of the Law that was
placed in the Alexandrian library.
GREEK INFLUENCE AND THE FORMATION OF THE HEBREW BIBLE 201

writings of the Jews, some of which (apocryphal and pseudepigraphal books) did
not eventually make it into the final corpus that comprised the Hebrew Bible and
the Protestant Old Testament. The initial translation is generally known as the
“Septuagint” and is regularly abbreviated “LXX.”27 Later, this designation was
applied to all of the literature in the Old Greek Bible.
The Scriptures of most of the early Christians and the LXX varied both in
content and order or sequence from the HB and included a larger collection of
books than those included in the later HB. Some scholars have argued that the early
Christians simply adopted a longer Alexandrian biblical canon that included some
of the apocryphal and pseudepigraphal writings. As we will see below, that view
and most of its arguments have been sufficiently dismantled by Albert Sundberg
who showed conclusively that the Bible at Alexandria was probably smaller than
the one adopted by the Jews in the land of Israel and that the so-called Alexandrian
canon actually never existed.28 If Philo’s example of scriptural citation is any
measure of the scriptures that Alexandrian Jews held in high esteem, then they
evidently had an even more limited sacred collection than Jews in Palestine. Philo,
as we saw earlier, cites the OT scriptures over 1150 times but in 1100 of those

27
The traditional name given to the Greek translation of the Palestinian sacred scriptures is the
“Septuagint,” or its more frequent designation “LXX” (= seventy). It is commonly believed that
the term derives from the tradition passed on in the Letter of Aristeas that there were seventy-two
translators (six from each of the twelve tribes of Israel) who worked on the translation. Lohse, New
Testament Environment, 129, suggests that the number “Seventy-Two” could have been rounded off
to “seventy,” hence “Septuagint,” but it is also quite possible that the number LXX derives from
the tradition of the seventy elders of Exod 24:1, 9 who accompanied Moses and Joshua (hence 72?)
to Mount Sinai where he received the Law from Yahweh on tablets of stone. See Helmut Koester,
Introduction to the New Testament, 2 vols., 2nd ed (New York: de Gruyter, 1995–2000), 1:252;
Wevers, “Septuagint,” 4:273; and A. R. C. Leaney, The Jewish and Christian World, 200 B.C. to
A.D. 200, Cambridge Commentaries 7 (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1984), 153. If this
is the case, then the use of the term Septuagint could well be an acknowledgment of the early belief
in the divinely inspired status of the translation, that is, it authentically and faithfully conveyed the
full intent of the law given to Moses who was accompanied by the seventy elders. The number
seventy-two is elusive, however, and could be a reference to the seventy elders of Israel plus Moses
and Joshua who went up to the mountain to receive the Law (Exod 24:13). This is speculative, of
course. Interestingly, there is also a parallel that is mentioned in the legend of the preservation of
the works of Homer by the seventy-two grammarians under the direction of Peisistratus ca. 550–525
BCE. It is not certain which tradition came first, Aristeas or the Peisistratus’ recension of Homer.
According to the author of the Prologue to Sirach (grandson of Sirach?) by ca. 130 BCE, the
Prophets and some other sacred Jewish writings were likewise translated into the Greek language, a
tacit implication of their sacredness.
28
Albert C. Sundberg, “The Old Testament of the Early Church,” HTR 51 (1958): 205–26; The Old
Testament of the Early Church (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1964); “Symposium on
the Canon of Scripture: 2. The Protestant Old Testament Canon: Should It Be Re-examined?,” CBQ
28 (1966): 194–203; “The Old Testament: A Christian Canon,” CBQ 30 (1968): 403–9; and “The
Septuagint: The Bible in Hellenistic Judaism,” in McDonald and Sanders, eds., The Canon Debate,
68–90.
202 THE FORMATION OF THE BIBLICAL CANON, VOLUME I

instances he cites only books in the Pentateuch and only occasionally refers to
other Jewish scriptural texts. The early Christians, however, adopted the broader
collection of religious texts circulating in Palestine in the early first century before
their separation from Judaism and the synagogue (ca. 62–35). As we will see, even
larger collections of Jewish sacred texts in that region have been found among the
Dead Sea Scrolls at Qumran.
The legendary Letter of Aristeas (ca. 130 BCE29) is an important early text
that assumes the inspiration and authority of the Pentateuch and tells of its trans-
lation from a Hebrew antecedent into Greek at the request of King Ptolemy II
Philadelphus of Egypt (ca. 285–246 BCE), the earliest known tradition of the
translation of the Pentateuch into Greek. This translation will be discussed in
more detail in the next two chapters, but for now it is important to acknowledge
that it included initially only the Pentateuch and no other sacred Jewish books.
This points not only to the primacy of the Torah or Law, but also suggests that the
Prophets had not yet become an identifiable and widely accepted body of sacred
prophetic texts. That begins to change in the latter part of the second century BCE,
as we see in the Prologue to Sirach.
In the Letter of Aristeas, the books of Moses are for the first time specifically
called “scripture” in the sacred sense of this designation. This does not suggest
that those sacred texts were not viewed as scripture earlier, but only that this
common term for identifying scripture is first seen in this Letter. Its author states:
“So we are exhorted through scripture also by the one who says thus, ‘Thou
shalt remember the Lord, who did great and wonderful deeds in thee’” (Let. Aris.
155, OTP 2:23, emphasis added). This so-called letter was not actually a letter.
It was first designated as such in the fourteenth-century Codex Regius (Q) and is

29
For more than 400 years, scholars have rejected the authenticity of the Aristeas account of origins
of the Septuagint, and no one today seriously believes that it is an eyewitness account of the events it
describes. On the other hand, while many of its fictitious stories are intended to argue for the inspired
status of the Greek Old Testament, most scholars agree that some of its features are probably genuine
(listed in the text above). The Letter of Aristeas has been dated as early as 200 BCE, but most
scholars date it between 130 BCE and as late as 70 CE, with some suggesting 35 BCE, the terminus
ad quem since it is referred to by Philo. Natalio Fernandez Marcos, The Septuagint in Context:
Introduction to the Greek Versions of the Bible (Leiden: Brill, 2001), 40–41, suggests a slightly later
dating of this document claiming that it best fits between 122 and 118 BCE, but the latest possible
times are ca. 35 CE when Philo refers to the Aristeas tradition (Vit. Mos. 2.32–40) and after 70 CE
when Josephus rewrites the letter in his Antiquities 12.12–118. For a discussion of its origins, see
Herbert Andrews in R. H. Charles, ed., The Apocrypha and Pseudepigrapha of the Old Testament,
2 vols. (Oxford: Clarendon, 1913), 2:83–93; Zuntz, “Aristeas,” IDB 1:219–21; R. J. H. Shutt, OTP
2:7–11; Fernández Marcos, Septuagint in Context, 18–51; Hengel, Septuagint as Christian Scrip-
ture, 19–56; R. T. McLay, The Use of the Septuagint in New Testament Research (Grand Rapids:
Eerdmans, 2003), 100–136; and K. H. Jobes and M. Silva, Invitation to the Septuagint (Grand
Rapids: Baker, 2000), 19–44.
GREEK INFLUENCE AND THE FORMATION OF THE HEBREW BIBLE 203

identified as a “narrative” written to Philocrates the brother of Aristeas (Let. Aris.

1,121). The narrative was well known in antiquity, especially by Philo in the first
century CE who was aware of it, but he does not identify it by name (On the Life
of Moses 2.27–44, especially 31–33 and 37). The so-called Letter clearly had an
important influence on late Second Temple Judaism30 and early Christianity, and
it tells in legendary fashion about the creation of the Greek translation of the
Jewish “law” in Egypt. According to the Letter of Aristeas, an earlier attempt at
translation was deemed unworthy, and so a more accurate translation was needed:

Scrolls of the Law of the Jews, together with a few others, are missing (from the library), for
these (works) are written in Hebrew characters and language, according to the report of the
experts, because they have not received royal patronage. These (books) also must be in your
library in an accurate version because this legislation, as could be expected from its divine
nature, is very philosophical and genuine. (Let. Aris. 30–31, OTP 2:14–15, emphasis added)

After the new translation of the “whole Law” (309–310) had been prepared, the
writer says that a curse was put “on anyone who should alter the version by any
addition or change to any part of the written text, or any deletion either” (Let.
Aris. 311, OTP 2:33). This is similar, of course, to Deut 4:2 (cf. Deut 12:32 and
Rev 22:18–19), which reminded the Jews of the sacredness of that inspired text
by a charge against making any changes in it. Several terms used to describe the
writings of Moses in the Letter of Aristeas suggest that the books translated were
indeed acknowledged as sacred Scripture. For example, the writings are called
“divine law” (Let. Aris. 3), “sacred law” (5, 45), “Law” (142, 176, 310), “scrolls of
the Law of the Jews” (30), and “in the book [ἐν τη βίβλω]” (316). Although some
translate this as “in the Bible,” namely a reference to a larger collection of sacred
books, that was not intended here and is much too soon as we saw earlier. This
same designation is used in the story of a poet named Theodectus, who was about
to include a passage from the Law in his play, but was reportedly afflicted with
cataracts of the eyes because he had tried to add to what is written “in the book.”
This text is the first known time that the word “Bible” or “book” singular is used
in reference to the Jewish Scriptures.31 But was this an antecedent to what came
later? That is doubtful. Philo’s description of the remarkable translation reflects
also his awareness of the Letter of Aristeas. He writes:

Sitting here [on the island of Pharos] in seclusion with none present save the elements of
nature, earth, water, air, heaven, the genesis of which was to be the first theme of their sacred
revelation, for the laws begin with the story of the world’s creation, they became as it were
possessed, and, under inspiration, wrote, not each several scribe something different, but the
same word for word, as though dictated to each by an invisible prompter. (Moses 2.37, LCL)

30
For a discussion of the term “Second Temple” see Chapter 1 n. 22.
31
R. J. H. Shutt, “Letter of Aristeas,” OTP 2:34 n. 3, makes this claim.
204 THE FORMATION OF THE BIBLICAL CANON, VOLUME I

Although the biblical books referred to in the Letter are not specifically mentioned
by name, the parallels are all with the Pentateuch32 and the writer used such terms
as “the divine law” (3), “the laws of the Jews” (10), “the law” (176, 313); “the
books” (176, 317), “the entire law” (309), and “the rolls” (179, 310). See also “the
holy law” (5), “the law” (122, 168), “the scripture” (155, 168) and “the book”
(316).33 The only references in the whole Aristeas narrative are to matters found
in the Pentateuch, such as the allegorical interpretation of aspects of dietary and
cleanliness issues (see 139–155). Also, the only person referred to in regard to the
“law” was Moses (see 144), so it is reasonably certain that we are only talking
about the translation of the Pentateuch in this letter. In the closing parts of this
narrative, the whole of the translation was read to Demetrius who read it also to an
assembled company of Jews (see 308–310). Reading the whole of the Pentateuch in
one sitting is hardly possible and would only have been done in multiple settings.
If other books, such as the Former Prophets (Joshua to 2 Kings), were intended by
the author, that would be a near impossible task! And, for that matter, neither would
the reading of the whole Pentateuch on one occasion, as Lim has shown.34
Jerome, early fifth century CE, confirms the initial limited scope of the LXX
and underscores that the initial translation of the Septuagint only included the
Pentateuch and that subsequently many errors of translation crept into the trans-
lation. Citing Josephus, he writes: “Josephus, who gives the story of the Seventy
Translators (LXX), reports them as translating only the five books of Moses; and
we also acknowledge that these are more in harmony with the Hebrew than the
rest” (Jerome, Preface to the Book of Hebrew Questions – Quaest. Heb. in Gen. in
PNF trans., p. 486). We will return to the significance of the Septuagint (LXX) and
the Letter of Aristeas for canon formation later, but for now, despite the legendary
reports of the formation of the LXX, it is likely that aspects of this narrative have
some historical value, including what books were likely translated.35

32
Although some have suggested that not only the laws of Moses or the Pentateuch were trans-
lated at this time, but other HB books as well, the preference in Philo, Moses 2.37, indicates that the
translation began with the story of creation, clearly the Genesis story, and only Pentateuch books are
alluded to in the Letter of Aristeas. It was not the broader scope of the Jewish scriptures intended
here, such as the prophets. That took longer.
33
These references are also conveniently listed in Lim, Formation of the Jewish Canon, 68–69.
34
Ibid. Quite apart from the implausibility of reading the whole of the Pentateuch, that includes
some 5,845 verses, in one setting even at a very rapid pace, the rest of the books of the HB could not
be read out loud in one or more days at a rapid pace. Lim makes this observation in regard to Ezra
reading the Law to the people with interpretation (Neh 8:3–8) in the six hours mentioned in the text
that it would require reading 16 verses a minute for six hours to complete! If other books were added
to the Pentateuch in the case of the Aristeas narrative, it would not be possible to read the whole of
the HB to the people in less than several days!
35
Rajak, Translation and Survival, devotes considerable space to an analysis of this important
artifact from antiquity dating it sometime in the second century BCE and reflecting one of the
purposes of the document, namely to show how well the Jews did under the Ptolemies (pp. 15–66,
73–91, 125–52, 232–34, 239–43). This seems also to be Josephus’ intention in his longer description
of the translation in Ant. 12.12–118.
GREEK INFLUENCE AND THE FORMATION OF THE HEBREW BIBLE 205

The LXX may not be the first Greek translation, but it was by far the best known
in antiquity. It became the standard Greek translation of the Jewish Scriptures
first for the Jews in the Diaspora, and subsequently also for the Christians. Other
translations of the Jewish scriptures were also known in antiquity. While we are
uncertain of the dating and location of earlier Greek translations, some were likely
circulating earlier but they did not have credibility with the Jews. The report in
the Aristeas account about earlier and faulty translations of the Torah into Greek
seems to support this conclusion:

Scrolls of the Law of the Jews, together with a few others, are missing (from the library), for
these (works) are written in Hebrew characters and language. But they have been transcribed36
somewhat carelessly and not as they should be, according to the report of the experts, because
they have not received patronage. These (books) also must be in your library in an accurate
version, because this legislation, as could be expected from its divine nature, is very philo-
sophical and genuine. (Let. Arist. §§30–31, OTP trans., emphasis added)37

As all scholars acknowledge, the Aristeas document has many well-known

legendary features that are highly improbable, but it may nevertheless retain some
reliable historical features related to the origin of that translation.38 For example,
it reports that this major project began in Alexandria, Egypt sometime during or
shortly after the reign of Ptolemy II Philadelphus (ruled 285–246 BCE). Several
scholars put it around 250 BCE, but it could also have been earlier. The Letter of
Aristeas claims that Ptolemy II wanted to develop one of the largest libraries in
the ancient world and took considerable measures at great expense to acquire all
of the best-known classic writings. Ptolemy II reportedly had copies made of all
of the volumes that he could acquire. By the mid-to-late-third century BCE, the
Alexandrian library may have exceeded well over half a million volumes, and it
was likely the largest known library at that time.
The Letter of Aristeas claims that Ptolemy II also wanted to have a copy of
the Law of Moses translated into Greek and placed in his library. The author
claims that he took remarkable steps to insure the quality and integrity of the
translation. Eventually this translation became known as the LXX. The LXX
was likely started sometime in the first quarter of the third century BCE and

36
The author of the Letter of Aristeas may refer here to previous inferior translations of the Law
into Greek (§§30–31), but scholars debate this. The word “transcribed” [Greek = σεσήμανται] is
uncertain and may only mean “interpreted” as the text suggests somewhat carelessly. But see also
§314 that tells of a certain Theopompus who was “about to quote in a misleading way some of the
previously translated passages from the Law, he had a mental upset for more than thirty days…”
OTP).
37
The notes on this text in the OTP 2:14, do not agree with my conclusions here, but the context
in light of §314 refers to “previously translated passages from the Law”, see 2:33.
38
For a positive assessment of some of the historical aspects of the Letter of Aristeas, see N. L.
Collins, Library in Alexandria. I follow her dating of the first Greek translation of the Hebrew scrip-
tures. See 55–56.
206 THE FORMATION OF THE BIBLICAL CANON, VOLUME I

was produced in Alexandria by Jews using a Hebrew antecedent from Jerusalem

that included only the Pentateuch.39 The Letter reflects a generally favorable
acceptance of Jews in that vicinity. As noted above, the original translation was
only of the Pentateuch, but by 100 BCE, most, if not all of the other HB books,
as well as others also, were translated into Greek. A larger collection of translated
HB books into Greek is mentioned in the Prologue to Sirach that speaks of the
Law, “prophets,” and “others” in that collection. The Aristeas Letter defends the
importance of the Jewish Scriptures and reflects awareness of a significant Jewish
activity in royal levels in Alexandria in the third century BCE. The Letter of
Aristeas unquestionably is propagandistic and apologetic making a case for the
inspiration and reliability of the LXX. However, it probably reports fairly that the
translation began when Palestine was under the rule of the Egyptian Ptolemies
and that bilingual Jews probably from Jerusalem produced it in Egypt during the
expansion of the Alexandrian library. The Letter also reflects the good relations
between Alexandria and Jerusalem when the translation was made and that
Hebrew manuscripts from Jerusalem (likely stored in the Temple) were employed
in the project. It probably correctly reports that capable Jewish scholarship from
Jerusalem was employed in the translation.40 After the major revision of the two
primary works of Homer that took place in Alexandria, it may be that a revised
translation of the Hebrew Scriptures was also considered necessary because of
the “somewhat carelessly” prepared earlier version(s) of the Law (see Let. Aris.
30–31).
It is difficult to substantiate Aristeas’ claim that the king of Egypt himself
contacted the high priest in Jerusalem requesting six skilled translators from
each of the twelve tribes of Jews to come to Alexandria to translate the Hebrew
Scriptures into Greek. That seventy-two translators came to Egypt and finished
their task in seventy-two days – with each translator’s work being exactly like
that of the others is – most agree, over the top and without credibility! The further
claim that this translation was miraculously accomplished with the help of God
and could not be changed or altered is an ancient way of acknowledging its
inspired status. Kahle observes that the reference to the inviolability of the Greek
translation (Let. Aris. 310–11) was a way of speaking about its inspired and sacred
status.41 The Letter of Aristeas commends this translation thusly:

39
The term Pentateuch (Gk. πεντάτευχος, “five-volume [book]”) is a late designation for the five
books of Moses and it appears for the first time in the early church in the gnostic Letter to Flora,
when Ptolemy admonishes Flora (possibly a reference to the Roman church) that “you must learn
that the Pentateuch of Moses was not ordained by one legislator – I mean, not by God alone; some
commandments are Moses’, and some were given by men” (W. Barnstone, The Other Bible: Jewish
Pseudepigrapha, Christian Apocrypha, Gnostic Scriptures, Kabbalah, Dead Sea Scrolls [San Fran-
cisco: Harper, 1984], 622).
40
The Greek translation of the Law was undoubtedly an Alexandrian project, but the writer of the
Letter of Aristeas may be correct in stating that help for the project came from Palestine.
41
Kahle, Cairo Geniza, 211–12.
GREEK INFLUENCE AND THE FORMATION OF THE HEBREW BIBLE 207

When the work was completed, Demetrius collected together the Jewish population in the place
where the translation had been made, and read it over to all, in the presence of the translators,
who met with a great reception also from the people, because of the great benefits which they
had conferred upon them. They bestowed warm praise upon Demetrius too, and urged him to
have the whole law transcribed and present a copy to their leaders.
After the books had been read, the priests and the elders of the translators and the Jewish
community and the leaders of the people stood up and said, that since so excellent and sacred
and accurate a translation had been made, it was only right that it should remain as it was and
no alteration should be made in it. And when the whole company expressed their approval, they
bade them pronounce a curse in accordance with their custom upon any one who should make
any alteration either by adding anything or changing in any way whatever any of the words
which had been written or making any omission. This was a very wise precaution to ensure that
the book might be preserved for all the future time unchanged. (Let. Aris. 308–311, trans. by
R. H. Charles, Apocrypha and Pseudepigrapha, 2:121)

The apologetic tone of the Letter of Aristeas suggests that it may also have been a
defense against the LXX’s later opponents. Both Philo and Josephus cited Aristeas
with approval and modifications in defense of the translation. Philo, for example,
writes:

Sitting here (on the island of Pharos [the alleged site of the translation work]) in seclusion…
they became as it were possessed, and, under inspiration, wrote, not each several scribe
something different, but the same word for word, as though dictated to each by an invisible
prompter… The clearest proof of this is that, if Chaldeans have learned Greek, or Greeks
Chaldean, and read both versions, the Chaldean and the translation, they regard them with awe
and reverence as sisters, or rather one and the same, both in matter and words, and speak of
the authors not as translators but as prophets and priests of the mysteries, whose sincerity and
singleness of thought have enabled them to go hand in hand with the purest of spirits, the spirit
of Moses. (Philo, Moses 2.37–40, Kahle trans., Cairo Geniza, 215)

Kahle observes further that Philo did not know sufficient Hebrew (which he calls
Chaldean) to be able to make such claims about the similarities or differences
in the Hebrew and Greek texts of Scripture, but the LXX had become widely
accepted as an inspired translation long before Philo. His euphoric comments
point to the elevated status of the translation among Diaspora Jews in the early
first century CE and also to an acceptance of Aristeas’ defense of it. Kahle,
however, states what scholars of the Greek Bible and the HB already know well,
namely that there are numerous and significant differences between the text in
the HB and LXX.42
The Aristeas legend was known and cited with approval and sometimes by
expansion by several early church fathers including Justin (Dialogue with Trypho
78; 1 Apology 1.31), Irenaeus (Adv. Haer. 3.21.2; preserved also in Eusebius, Hist.
Eccl. 5.8.11–15), Clement of Alexandria (Stromata 1.22.148; 1.149.3), Tertullian

42
Ibid., 215.
208 THE FORMATION OF THE BIBLICAL CANON, VOLUME I

(Apologeticus 18.5–9 and 19.5–9), Pseudo-Justin (Cohortatio ad Graecos),43

Eusebius (Praeparatio Evangelica 8.1.8 and 8.2.1), and Augustine (Letter 71).
They all welcomed the Letter as support of the inspiration of the church’s Greek
OT Scriptures. Origen and Jerome appear to be the first early church scholars –
and for a while the only ones – to doubt the claims of the Letter of Aristeas.44
Eusebius reports a tradition from Irenaeus regarding the origins and recognition
of the inspired status of the LXX. He dates the translation at an even earlier time
than does the Letter of Aristeas, but shares much of the same story with his own
changes and expansions:

For before the Romans established their government, while the Macedonians still possessed
Asia, Ptolemy, the son of Lagus, being very anxious to adorn the library, which he had founded
in Alexandria, with all the best extant writings of all men, asked from the inhabitants of
Jerusalem to have their Scriptures translated into Greek. They, for they were at that time still
subject to the Macedonians, sent to Ptolemy seventy elders, the most experienced they had
in the Scriptures and in both languages, and God thus wrought what he willed. But Ptolemy,
wishing to make trial of them in his own way, and being afraid lest they should have made some
agreement to conceal by their translation of the truth in the Scriptures, separated them from one
another and commanded them all to write the same translation. And this he did in the case of
all the books. But when they came together to Ptolemy, and compared each his own translation,
God was glorified and the Scriptures were recognized as truly divine, for they all rendered the
same things in the same words and the same names, from beginning to end, so that even the
heathen who were present knew that the Scriptures had been translated by the inspiration of
God. (Eusebius, Hist. eccl. 5.8.11–14, LCL)

A remarkable fact about the LXX is the rapidity of its adoption within the
Christian community as the Bible containing the church’s first Scriptures. This
was true even in Palestine where the Hebrew Scriptures were also in circulation
and the earliest church was formed. The discovery of Greek manuscripts of scrip-
tural texts in caves in the Judaean Desert shows how popular the LXX was and
also how widespread the use of the Greek language was even in Palestine in the
first centuries BCE and CE. The LXX was the scriptures of Diaspora Jews and
also proved especially helpful in the Christian evangelization of the Greco-Roman
world. Indeed, the almost universal use of the LXX by the Christian community
likely contributed to rabbinic reaction against it at the end of the first century CE
and eventually its rejection altogether in the second century CE in favor of two
other Greek translations. This rejection could have stemmed from rabbinic claims
that Christians based their criticisms of Judaism on faulty LXX texts.45
Although the Letter of Aristeas reflects the centrality of the Torah in Jewish life
in the third century BCE, this does not deny that at least some of the Prophets

43
This treatise was falsely attributed to Justin Martyr and it is now called “Pseudo-Justin” and the
unknown author expands the tradition of the Letter of Aristeas in his work.
44
Hengel, Septuagint as Christian Scripture, 41.
45
In fact, there is little doubt that Christians tampered with a number of the LXX texts when trans-
mitting them.
GREEK INFLUENCE AND THE FORMATION OF THE HEBREW BIBLE 209

functioned as sacred authoritative texts among many Jews before the LXX was
produced. Other religious texts were cited and used in the Jewish community from
at least the seventh and sixth centuries BCE – likely as scripture – but the Law had
a special prominence for the Jews especially from the fifth century onward. By
roughly 100 BCE, it is likely that most of the other Jewish Scriptures were also
translated into Greek and were called “prophets.”

III. HOMER AND BIBLICAL CANONS

Alexander the Great established a cult of Homer in Alexandria and eventually a

recension of Homer’s works was produced there under the direction of Zenodotus,
Aristophanes of Byzantium, and Aristarchus who compared the various versions
of Homer’s works and commented on the text with annotations that appear in
the margins (scholia).46 As we saw above, Peisistratus, the “tyrant from Athens,”
reportedly employed seventy-two editors or grammarians to produce an edition of
Homer’s Iliad and the Odyssey from the various fragments he was able to recover
and with the goal of putting Homer’s works in perfect condition. Various traditions
claim that Homer’s works were somehow lost or destroyed or were victim of some
other disaster, but a portion of these works was circulating largely by memory and
oral tradition in song.47 Peisistratus, according to the tradition, collected various
parts of Homer’s work and then assembled seventy-two grammarians to produce
an acceptable edition of Homer’s works.48 The grammarians, so the tradition
reports, all worked in isolation from each other, just as in the report about the
translators in the Letter of Aristeas, and their editions all agreed completely in
every detail. This tradition was generally cited by the citizens of Pergamum to
advance their own literary standing in the ancient world, especially because of the
well-known rivalry between Pergamum and Alexandria.
Several scholars agree that the tradition about Peisistratus producing an edition
of Homer’s works may have some legitimacy, despite the many legendary elements
in it, but the parallels with the Letter of Aristeas show obvious dependence, though

46
Scholia (Greek = scholion, “notes”) often refers to any critical notes ranging from one word to
a commentary on a text and often written around the text in the margins in smaller and less formal
script. The term used in this way is first found in Cicero (Att.16.7.3). The scholia to Dionysius Thrax
dates to the sixth or seventh century CE, but the legend in it likely dates earlier in the third to the fifth
century CE. Some elements of the legend may have their origin in historical facts from the second
century BCE or earlier.
47
See Commenarius Melampolis seu Dimomedis, Cod. C, ed. Hilgard, pp. 29–30 = Scholia
Marciana (VN), ed. Hilgard, p. 316. Josephus also refers to the circulation of Homer by memory
and in song (Ag. Apion 1.13).
48
The primary ancient source reporting this activity includes the late Byzantine legendary scholia
to Dionysius Thrax. Dionysius Thrax lived ca. 170–90 BCE, but the legend in the scholia is much
later (perhaps seventh century CE).
210 THE FORMATION OF THE BIBLICAL CANON, VOLUME I

which way the dependency goes is debated. The grammarians in Alexandria

ignored this tradition and made their own claims for producing an authoritative text
of Homer.49 Jed Wyrick has assembled a large collection of ancient texts supporting
the notion that Peisistratus was widely recognized as the one who rescued the
writings of Homer and produced an early edition of them.50 The part of the legend
that involves the seventy-two grammarians, however, is likely late and may depend
on the similar legend in the Letter of Aristeas. By at least the late second century
BCE to the first century CE, the story of Peisistratus’ involvement in rescuing
the works of Homer was well known. As the legend grew, additions to the story
concerning the seventy-two grammarians were most likely added to support the
claim of perfection and also its divine inspiration. Despite the legendary aspects of
this tradition, widespread knowledge of Peisistratus’ involvement in a new edition
of Homer probably has some merit. Cicero (ca. 55 BCE), for instance, speaks of
Peisistratus’ involvement in a recension of Homer thusly:

Whose learning is reported, at the same period, to have been greater, or whose eloquence to
have received more ornament from literature, than that of Pisistratus? Who is said to have
been the first that arranged the books of Homer as we now have them, when they were previ-
ously confused. He was not indeed of any great service to the community, but was eminent for
eloquence, at the same time that he excelled in erudition and liberal knowledge. (De Oratore,
3.34.137, trans. J. S. Watson)

The parallels between the legendary origins of the LXX according to the Letter of
Aristeas and the Peisistratus Recension of Homer’s Iliad and Odyssey are obvious,
but legendary scholia about the seventy-two grammarians probably dates from
the third or fourth century CE and appears to depend in several details on the
Letter of Aristeas. This is described in the Scholia to Dionysius Thrax, a student
of Aristarchus51 who edited his recension.
Later, guided by Zenodotos of Ephesus (ca. early third century BCE),
Aristophanes and Aristarchus of Samothrace (ca. 217–145 BCE) developed an
apparatus of critical signs for reconstructing original texts that was later used
by Origen (ca. 185–254 CE) in his famous Hexapla, a synopsis of six parallel
columns of texts of the Old Testament Scriptures to try to identify the variants
in the then current Hebrew and Greek texts of the Old Testament with the

49
See Gregory Nagy, Pindar’s Homer: The Lyric Possession of an Epic Past (Baltimore: The
Johns Hopkins University Press, 1990); and also his earlier work: The Best of the Achaeans:
Concepts of the Hero in Archaic Greek Poetry (Baltimore: The Johns Hopkins University Press,
1979). See also his Homeric Questions (Austin: University of Texas Press, 1996), and more recent
Homer’s Text and Language, Traditions (Urbana: University of Illinois Press, 2004). This discussion
is also researched at length in Wyrick, Ascension of Authorship, 138–280.
50
Wyrick, Ascension of Authorship, 203–80.
51
Aristarchus of Samothrace (ca. 216–144 BCE) became head librarian at Alexandria, teacher of
Ptolemy VII, son of Ptolemy Philometor and he produced a critical text and treatises on Homer’s
Iliad and Odyssey.
GREEK INFLUENCE AND THE FORMATION OF THE HEBREW BIBLE 211

goal of correcting the many textual traditions current in his day. Zenodotos,
Aristophanes, and Aristarchus all lived in Alexandria centuries after Peisistratus
and in succession took responsibility for the library at Alexandria. They all, but
especially Aristarchus, produced an authoritative text of Homer for the library at
Alexandria.
The additions to the Peisistratus legend, and subsequent attempts to edit and
produce an authoritative text of Homer’s Iliad and Odyssey, all show that the
edition of Homer was accepted as a sacred text among the Greeks who perpetuated
this tradition. The tradition of corrected writings of Homer in the Alexandrian
library, primarily under the direction of Aristarchus in particular, has earlier roots
in, and may have been known to, the author of the Letter of Aristeas who wanted
to show the relationship between restoring the lost text of Homer to that of the
construction of a perfect Greek translation of the Torah in Alexandria – or vice
versa! In its current form, the Peisistratus recension legend of Homer appears
to depend on the Letter of Aristeas.52 Literary dependence in antiquity is not
always a one-way street, namely Jewish or Christian authors depending on pagan
sources, but it appears more like a two-way street in which each community –
Hellenistic, Jewish, and Christian – used well-known traditions that supported
their own dominant beliefs regardless of their origin. Interestingly, Philo claims
that the Greek lawgivers depended on Exod 32:1 and that they had knowledge of
the Jewish scriptures (De Specialibus Legibus 4.61).53 In such cases, what was
borrowed and cited argued for the superiority and sanctity of the works that were
cited.
Ancient reports that Homer’s writings were lost or destroyed but later
reassembled from memory by various credible individuals was familiar to
Josephus as we saw earlier. Part of the Peisistratus legend reflects the need to
collect what remained of Homer’s works, to edit or correct them, and make them
available to others. There is nothing far-fetched about this part of the legend and
it has other ancient parallels. Veltri is pessimistic about the authenticity of the
Peisistratus legend or any ancient recension of Homer’s works before the time of
Aristarchus at Alexandria (216–144 BCE), but he acknowledges that there may be
an element of truth in the legend besides substantiating the rivalry between Athens
and Alexandria.54

52
See Giuseppe Veltri, Libraries, Translations, and “Canonic” Texts: The Septuagint, Aquila and
Ben Sira in the Jewish and Christian Traditions, JSJSup 109 (Leiden: Brill, 2006), 79–89, for an
interesting discussion of these parallels, including the later additions to the story that include the
editing by the seventy-two grammarians. The legends about the LXX and Peisistratus’ recension are
strangely fused in Isidore of Seville’s “On Libraries” and “On Translators” in his Etymologies VI.
3.3–4).
53
The text reads: “it seems that some Grecian legislators did well when they copied from the most
sacred tables of Moses the enactment that hearing is not accepted as evidence, meaning that what a
man has seen is to be judged trustworthy, but what he has heard is not entirely reliable” (LCL, 47).
54
Veltri, Libraries, Translations, and “Canonic” Texts, 88–89.
212 THE FORMATION OF THE BIBLICAL CANON, VOLUME I

Josephus’ assessment of Homer’s writings as well as other Greek writings

(Ag. Apion 1.10–13) is supported by Strabo (ca. 64 BCE–25 CE) who ridicules
the Greeks’ handling of their literary texts, especially those of Aristotle and
Theophrastus:

But Apellicon was a bibliophile rather than a philosopher; and therefore, seeking a restoration
of the parts that had been eaten through, he made new copies of the text, filling up the gaps
incorrectly, and published the books full of errors. The result was that the earlier school of
Peripatetics who came after Theophrastus had no books at all, with the exception of only a few
mostly exoteric works, and were therefore able to philosophize about nothing in a practical
way… (Geography 13.1.54, LCL)

Josephus’ knowledge of Draco55 and Peisistratus can be seen in the following:

Even among the Athenians, who are reputed to be indigenous and devoted to learning, we find
that nothing of the kind existed, and their most ancient public records are said to be the laws
on homicide drafted for them by Draco, a man who lived only a little before the despotism of
Peisistratus. (Ag.Ap. 1.21, LCL)

Veltri concludes that although the Peisistratus legend emerged in the Common
Era, it was not a Christian publication, but rather “testifies to a historical rivalry
between Greece (the mother of Hellenistic culture) and Alexandria (the forum
of Hellenistic fusion and diffusion). The legend of Peisistratus, or better of a
Homeric edition before Aristarchus, is probably nothing but an apologetic answer
directed against the Alexandrian editorial function and supremacy.”56
Veltri brings to our attention three legends about the canonization of writings
that emerged in antiquity, namely: (1) the Aristeas story of the translation of the
Hebrew Scriptures into Greek, (2) the story of the emergence of a perfect edition
of Homer through the efforts of Peisistratus, and (3) the story of the restoration
of the Law by Ezra in forty days (4 Ezra 14). He shows how all three legends
have much in common, come from roughly the same area, and have a contami-
nation of the details one with the other.57 In the first and second cases, we see the
seventy-two scribes whose work was exactly the same though all work was done
separately. In the third instance, Ezra was given a restoration of the Law that
included not only twenty-four books but seventy others that were all inspired by
God and completed in the notable forty days, the special number reserved for a
period of God’s special activity in the world, namely, in the flood on the earth,
Moses at Mt. Sinai, Elijah at Mt. Horeb, the years of the children of Israel in the

55
Draco was the Athenian lawyer credited with introducing new laws to the Greeks and being the
first to put Greek laws into writing, ca. 621–620 BCE (Ath. pol. 4 and Plutarch, Sol. 17). He report-
edly wrote these laws in blood rather than ink. The term “draconian” reflects the ancient tradition
about the severe penalties that Draco imposed.
56
Veltri, Libraries, Translations, and “Canonic” Texts, 87.
57
Ibid., 79–80.
GREEK INFLUENCE AND THE FORMATION OF THE HEBREW BIBLE 213

wilderness, the days of Jesus’ temptation, and length of his appearances in Luke.
In the case of 4 Ezra 14, which will be discussed more completely in Chapter
10 §II, another edition of the “law” (14:21) was necessary because of its demise
during the destruction of Jerusalem (clearly a reference to all of the Jewish scrip-
tures as we see in 14:44–47). In the Peisistratus tradition, Homer’s writings were
destroyed by fire and other elements including rain. Although no one seriously
accepts the historicity of any of these three accounts today, their similarities and
overlapping of tradition is notable and all three reflect a divine restoration or trans-
lation of sacred texts. The purpose of these legends is equally clear in all three
cases, namely to legitimize the works highlighted in them – the Law (Pentateuch),
Homer, and all of the Jewish sacred texts besides the Law. Veltri contends that
Aristeas, like Peisistratus, intends to present a new edition of the Law in Greek
that is equal to the redaction of Homer that was carried out under the direction
of the editors (Aristarchus especially) at Alexandria.58 This Alexandrian influence
on the interpretation of the Jewish Scriptures, according to Sawyer, is first seen
in Philo, but subsequently in the Greek church fathers and eventually in all of
Christianity both East and West.59
Another feature that accompanies both the works of Homer and the biblical liter-
ature has to do with the commentaries by the Greeks on these works. Both Jews
and Christians subsequently followed that model as a means of contemporizing
and interpreting the meaning of their scriptures to subsequent generations. To our
knowledge, commentaries on sacred books began with Aristarchus of Samothrace
(216–144 BCE), also known as the “most scholarly scholar” (γραμματικοτατός or
grammatikos = γραμματικός) and sometimes even called “the Prophet” (ὁ μάντις),
who is reputed to have written the first commentaries (called hupomnemata) on
classical works beginning with Homer and Hesiod, then Aeschylus, Euripides,
and other classical books. He discussed not only the meaning of words, style,
form, and meter, but also made comparisons of the literature in his commentaries.
His well-known rule of interpreting a writer by use of his own words and in that
context, that is, the model of “interpreting Homer with Homer” (Homeron ex
Homerou saphenizein = “explain Homer from Homer”), was regularly followed
by rabbinic Jews and this can found in the seven hermeneutical rules attributed to
Hillel (‫“ = כיצי בא במקום אחר‬like something similar in another passage”).60 Early
Christian commentaries, especially those of Origen, and many contemporary
commentaries continue much of this pattern set by the Greeks.

58
Ibid., 88–89. Veltri has a helpful discussion of the origins of these three traditions and contends
that the Peisistratus legend emerged as a defense of the Athenian domination of literary canons when
in fact the Alexandrian editions were supreme in the third and second centuries BCE.
59
Sawyer, Sacred Languages and Sacred Texts, 148–49.
60
This comparison was brought to my attention in Sawyer, ibid., 147–49.
214 THE FORMATION OF THE BIBLICAL CANON, VOLUME I

Historically Jewish and Christian commentaries stem from a time after

Aristarchus’ commentaries, the majority of which were initially produced by
Origen and mostly in Alexandria, but later also elsewhere. Some of the earliest
known Jewish commentaries are the pesharim61 (commentaries) from Qumran.62
Philo’s commentaries were all produced in Alexandria.63 This Hellenistic influence
cannot be negligible for understanding the role that Alexandria and its Hellenistic
influences had on the formation of Jewish and Christian sacred scripture collec-
tions and their continuing relevance in those communities.64 We will consider that
influence next.

IV. THE ALEXANDRIAN LIBRARY, CATALOGUES,

AND CANONS

As noted above, standard literary collections of exemplary authors and their

works were produced for the library at Alexandrians, including references to
rules of grammar and the literary models for writers to follow. The librarians
at Alexandria did not use κανών to describe their collections of literary works,
but rather pinakes, that is, “lists” or “catalogues.” However, the very selectivity
employed in compiling the exemplary lists of works in their library showed that
high standards were held in the making of the catalogues. I have argued earlier
that these lists of authoritative works are not unlike the later lists of Jewish and
Christian scriptures that comprised the Christian Bible in that the catalogues also
were viewed as a listing of authoritative texts.65 The terminology is different but
the notion is the same.
Callimachus, born in Cyrene ca. 300 BCE and educated in Athens, was credited
with writing some 800 books himself, the most famous of which are Aetia
and Hecale. While living near Alexandria, he was commissioned to produce a
catalogue or listing of the volumes in the library. His lists comprised 120 volumes
that he titled Pinakes (tables, si. = πινάξ), or more specifically, “Tables of Those
who have Distinguished Themselves in Every Form of Culture and of What they
Wrote.” The estimated number of volumes in the Alexandrian library during his
major literary productivity (ca. 285–246 BCE) was around 500,000 volumes. To

61
For a helpful discussion of the origin, function, and significance of the pesharim or commentaries
at Qumran, see Charlesworth, Pesharim and Qumran History.
62
Namely, commentaries on Habakkuk, 1QpHab; on Micah, 1QpMic; on Isaiah, 4QpIsaa, 4QIsab,
and 4QpIsac, 4QIsae; on Hosea, 4QpHosb; on Nahum, 4QpNah; on the Psalms, 4QpPsa and 4QpPsb.
63
See for example his commentary on the days of creation of the world (De Opificio Mundi) and
his Allegorical Interpretation of Genesis 2,3 (Legum Allegoria), as well as his commentaries on the
Decalogue (De Decalogo) and Special Laws (De Specialibus Legibus).
64
A recent and important collection of essays that focus on the reception of the HB not only in the
LXX, but also in the NT is Clines and Exum, eds., Reception of the Hebrew Bible in the Septuagint.
65
McDonald, “Hellenism and the Biblical Canons.”
GREEK INFLUENCE AND THE FORMATION OF THE HEBREW BIBLE 215

our knowledge, he was not the head librarian at Alexandria, but produced the
first known catalogue of literary works in that library dividing the volumes into
subject categories (rhetoric, laws, miscellaneous prose, etc.) and he also included
biographical notes and catalogued the first line of each of the works. He also
arranged the poems of Pindar and Bacchylides.66
In his catalogues, Callimachus produced a list of model writers whose grammar
and style were used as standards for subsequent writers. The grammarians serving
at the great library of Alexandria sought to preserve an accurate and faithful text
as well as a catalogue of the classics in literature. Among the most commonly
recognized “canons” or ancient classics and models to follow were, of course,
Homer, Euripides, Menander, Demosthenes, and later Hesiod, Pindar, Sappho,
Aeschylus, Sophocles, Aristophanes, Herodotus, Thucydides, and Aesop. Porter
conveniently lists some of the standard classical writers with significant parallels
in some NT books.67 Those books were among the “canonical” or “classic” collec-
tions at Alexandria and were regularly cited in the educational system of that day.
At the core of the educational system in the Greco-Roman world were the classic
writers, but the most important among them was always Homer.
The Alexandrian grammarians set forth a “canon,” that they dubbed a pinax, of
exemplary authors as models whose Greek was used as a standard for others to
follow. Our question here is whether those grammarians influenced both the Jews
in forming their collection of sacred scriptures and later the Christians who sought
to identify the sacred books that established “standard” guidelines for their faith
and conduct? Were Alexandrian practices influential on subsequent generations
of Jews and Christians? As I have suggested earlier, the gathering together of an
authoritative collection of classical writings in the great library at Alexandria has
notable parallels with the canonical processes of the Jews and Christians. Guy
Darshan, for example, argues this case in regard to the number of books in the
Hebrew Bible, namely twenty-four, which is the same number as the books in
Homer’s Iliad and Odyssey. He observes that not only did the rabbinic sages adopt
the number twenty-four, the number of letters in the Greek alphabet, as the number
of their books in their scriptures, that number that does not actually identify the
number of the books in the HB, but only reflects that the books were combined
to come to that number.68 In the late first century some Jews, especially Josephus,

66
See Lesky, A History of Greek Literature, 5, 700–17; Pfeiffer, History of Classical Scholarship,
123–51; and Zetzel, “Re-creating the Canon,” 122–25; and Pirie, “Callimachus.”
67
See Stanley E. Porter and Andrew Witt, “Paul’s Bible, His Education and His Access to the
Scriptures of Israel,” JGRChJ 5 (2008): 9–41. The authors include Menander, Thais frg. 218 in 1 Cor
15:33; Aristotle, Pol. 3.8.2 1284a 14–15 in Gal 5:22; Aeschylus, Eum. 1014–15 in Phil 4:4; Pindar
frg. from Strabo, Geogr. 6.2.8 in 2 Tim 2:7; Epimenides in Tit 1:12 Aratus, Phaen. 5 or Epimenides
in Acts 17:28; Epimenides, Ion 8 in Acts 21:39; Euripedes, Bacch. 794–95 in Acts 26:14).
68
Darshan, “The Twenty-Four Books of the Hebrew Bible,” see especially 226–31 and 237. He
also draws attention to Jews adopting the Greek system of gematria, numbering by the alphabet,
written on three baskets holding coins in the Temple, 229. He suggests that the use of the number
216 THE FORMATION OF THE BIBLICAL CANON, VOLUME I

had adopted the number twenty-two for the number of books in their Scripture
collection (Ag. Apion 1:39) and this number followed the number of letters in
the Hebrew alphabet.69 Soon, however, some Jewish rabbis adopted the number
twenty-four, likely for the same sacred books in the twenty-two book collection,
though that is not for certain. Both numbers combine books to arrive at either
twenty-two or twenty-four books.
Later rabbis also adopted the Greek scribal signs (the puncta extraordinaria
and sigma and antisigma marks) for use in the transmission of the Hebrew text of
the HB. These signs were developed at a time when Alexandrian scribes had most
influence on the scribes of the Hebrew Scriptures, namely from the last part of the
second century BCE to the first century CE.
As we have seen, a number of classic writers, and a few others besides, became
the literary standards and were identified as such in the Alexandrian library.
Not everything written in the ancient world was placed in distinguished model
collections in the Alexandrian library, but those that were included in distin-
guished categories were copied with great care by people selected and trained to
preserve the accuracy of the texts and to order or classify them for identification
and location. Likewise, as noted above, Pindar, Bacchylides, Sappho, Anacreon,
Stesichorus, Simonides, Ibycus, Alcaeus, and Alcman became the standard “Nine”
lyric poets. Although the order differed in the various epigrams listing these
works, the names were all the same. It was a standard list. Subsequent writers
who departed from these standards were soon criticized and either marginalized
or ignored. That practice continues to the present! Authors exploring a subject
who neglect the best literature and best-known authors in their field of inquiry are
soon ignored!
Those in antiquity who acknowledged a select collection of sacred writings they
believed to be divinely inspired were not likely to criticize or stand in judgment
over those writings. Not many in antiquity criticized the classics, but rather
emulated them. Homer, whose writings were in essence the Bible of the ancient
Greeks, was, aside from Plato, seldom criticized. In fact, a “fence” was put around
his work by using the tool of allegorical interpretation to protect it from contem-
porary criticism over its excesses regarding the behavior of the gods.

twenty-four and the Hellenistic scribal symbols began in the second century BCE and had consider-
able influence on limiting the number of books that formed the HB since the Jews began subsequently
to put all of the books in the HB by various combinations in twenty-four scrolls and no more, 232.
69
As we will see below, this number is the same as the letters in the Hebrew alphabet widely used
as a symbolic number for completion and perfection. See e.g., Ps 119 is divided into 22 sections
each beginning with a different letter of the Hebrew alphabet. The importance of the number 22 can
be seen in Jub. 2:23–24. Several early church fathers indicated that the number of Jewish sacred
scriptures was twenty-two, not twenty-four. This will be discussed below, but in neither case were
the books in the HB exactly 24 or 22, but they were combined in order to arrive at those numbers.
One can only wonder how the combinations would have worked if Sirah had been included in the
HB Writings.
GREEK INFLUENCE AND THE FORMATION OF THE HEBREW BIBLE 217

Awareness of standard collections of literary texts was widespread in the Greco-

Roman world, but a firmly fixed or closed canon of sacred Scriptures appears to
be unique to Judaism and Christianity. Early Christianity adopted this notion of
a fixed collection of sacred scriptures and they eventually used the term kanon to
identify it. As we saw in our investigation of the use of kanon, to identify a list or
catalogue was uncommon in antiquity, but there are early parallels to the practice
of establishing a collection of standard texts that others needed to follow if their
work was to be accepted or recognized.
As we saw earlier, the early church fathers, including Origen and Eusebius,
employed the term kanon to identify what was specifically Christian, that is,
the “rule of faith” that identified the church’s traditional body of sacred beliefs.
Eusebius speaks about a rule of faith presented in a collection of sacred writings
when he cites Origen’s “encovenanted books” [ἐνδιαθήκους βίβλους]) (see Hist.
eccl. 6.25.1). However, in Origen’s commentary on the Song of Songs (Comm.
Cant., ca. 240 CE) he appears to refer to a limited canon of Hebrew scriptural
books. I rely here on Gallagher’s translation of this relevant text:

…since neither the Church of God has accepted any further songs of Solomon to be read, nor
is anything more contained in the canon [Latin, canone] among the Hebrews, from whom the
oracles of God were evidently transferred to us, beyond these three books of Solomon, which
we also have.70

For our purposes this is quite significant because some scholars are now beginning
to acknowledge the several interesting parallels between the development of lists
or catalogues of highly influential literary texts in the Hellenistic world and the
development of canonical lists of sacred scriptures that emerged subsequently both
in early Judaism and the church fathers. While establishing a direct dependence
on the Hellenistic world for canon formation is complex, interesting parallels
and similar developments in the Greco-Roman world and in Judaism and early
Christianity are suggestive of Hellenistic influence in the formation of Jewish and
Christian scripture canons.
It is interesting that occasionally the order or sequence of the classic writers
was considered important. It is reported that Aristophanes had a total recall of
the classics in terms of their canonical sequence or order and that he was able to
expose false poets by relying on his knowledge of the canonical sequence of the
books stored in the library. Nagy recalls an ancient reference to Aristophanes’
ability at recall: “relying on his [Aristophanes] memory, he had countless scrolls
brought out from their respective shelves [armaria], and then, by comparing
them with the recited texts, he compelled the men to admit about themselves that
they stole them.”71 Nagy also observes that the sources reporting the possession
of Homeric poetry by the Peisistratids emphasize the fixed order of performance

70
Gallagher, Hebrew Scripture in Patristic Biblical Theory, 38, emphasis added.
71
See Nagy, “Library of Pergamon as a Classical Model,” 210–11.
218 THE FORMATION OF THE BIBLICAL CANON, VOLUME I

and even performers and this finds expression in archaic Greek oral poetics.72
This practice of emphasizing order or sequence may lie behind the emphasis on
order or sequence of the sacred books by the author of b. Baba Bathra 14b who
offers a rationale for the positions of both the Prophets and Writings. He writes:
“Our Rabbis taught: The order of the Prophets is, Joshua, Judges, Samuel, Kings,
Jeremiah, Ezekiel, Isaiah, and the Twelve Minor Prophets…” and subsequently,
“The order of the Hagiographa is Ruth, the Book of Psalms, Job, Prophets,
Ecclesiastes, Song of Songs, Lamentations, Daniel and the Scroll of Esther, Ezra
and Chronicles” (Soncino trans.).73 Before this, the sequence of books does not
appear to have been of much concern to Jewish Scripture interpreters, though
the Pentateuch was always first in their collections. In the early lists of Christian
scriptures, the Gospels are always first, but the rest of the NT writings are in varied
sequences with Revelation generally last.
The notion of canons of writings appears obvious among the Alexandrian
librarians in Egypt both in reference to their grammar and literary models for
subsequent writers to follow. The selectivity employed in compiling these famous
lists (pinakes) of works demonstrated the high standards they used in their selec-
tivity. They produced a canon of writers whose Greek was used as a model for
other writers. This is the closest parallel to Scripture canons in Judaism and early
Christianity whose scripture canons set forth models adherents were expected to
follow.

V. THE SEPTUAGINT IN RABBINIC JUDAISM

AND EARLY CHRISTIANITY

In the second century CE and later, some rabbinic sages concluded that the
LXX had theological problems, no doubt because various sections of it were at
significant odds with the HB text. As we saw earlier, in his Prologue, Sirach’s
grandson noted the difficulty of translating the Hebrew Scriptures into Greek
thusly: “What was originally expressed in Hebrew does not have exactly the same
sense when translated into another language. Not only this book, but even the Law
itself, the Prophecies, and the rest of the books differ not a little when read in the
original.” Corrective measures were taken at various times to bring the text of the
LXX more in harmony with the Hebrew text that had obtained priority among the
rabbis, e.g., Origen’s Hexapla reflects these attempts, but also subsequent Greek
translations authorized by the rabbis replaced the LXX among the Jews. The
problem with this, as we will see below in our focus on Qumran, is that at times
the LXX appears to be based on an earlier antecedent (or Vorlage) text than the

72
Ibid., 211–12.
73
Proverbs is missing in this listing, but is found at the beginning of b. Baba Bathra 15a after Isaiah
and before Song of Songs and Ecclesiastes.
GREEK INFLUENCE AND THE FORMATION OF THE HEBREW BIBLE 219

Masoretic Text (MT) of the Jewish Scriptures adopted by the rabbis. As we will
see (Chapter 12 §IV.E), several scholars are now recognizing this and are paying
closer attention to the LXX text than was done earlier.
The text of the LXX is often faithful to the Hebrew text, but that may be because
of many later attempts to bring it more in line with the MT Hebrew text. After the
translation of all of the Jewish scriptures into Greek, the designation “Septuagint”
or LXX began to be transferred to all of the books in the Greek Bible.74 The LXX
is uneven in quality demonstrating multiple hands with uneven skills involved in
the translation. The best translation of the LXX is in the Pentateuch and possibly
the worst is in Isaiah. Nevertheless, the LXX helped to meet the religious needs of
Diaspora Jews throughout the Greco-Roman world and also throughout Palestine
in the first century CE.75 The LXX was the first scriptures of the early Christians.
In the second century CE, the LXX became identified as the scriptures of the
Christians, and the rabbis believed that another Greek version of their Scriptures
was necessary for the Jewish community. Some challenges came in regard to the
acceptance of LXX additions to books like Esther and Daniel that are not found
in the HB.76 The responsibility for producing another Greek translation was given
to Aquila, a Jewish proselyte from Pontus, who produced in 128 CE a literal
translation that was so slavishly loyal to the Hebrew text that the translation was
not generally understandable to those unfamiliar with the Hebrew text and it soon
fell into disuse and neglect.77 Two subsequent Greek translations of the Hebrew
Scriptures were produced probably near the end of the second century CE, one by
Theodotion, of whom little is known, and the other by Symmachus, an Ebionite
(or “Semitic-Christian”). Other Greek versions of the OT Scriptures emerged in
the third century CE, including one by Origen, who set out to amend and correct
some problems in the LXX in his Hexapla (six column text)78 and/or Tetrapla
(four column text). Eusebius preserves an interesting background story about
Origen’s work:

74
Fernández Marcos, Septuagint in Context, 48–51.
75
Some Greek fragments discovered in Cave 7 at Qumran may be sections of the LXX. They are,
however, quite small, and it is difficult to be certain of their origin.
76
These additions for Esther are helpfully discussed in John A. Dunne, Esther and Her Elusive
God: How a Secular Story Functions as Scripture (Eugene, OR: Wipf & Stock, 2014), 68–77; see
also C. A. Moore, Daniel, Esther, and Jeremiah: The Additions, AB (Garden City, NY: Doubleday,
1977), for a discussion of the other additions in Daniel.
77
Wevers, “Septuagint,” 4:275.
78
The Hexapla is a six-column text of the OT produced by Origen in order to establish a reliable
text of the Bible by eradicating errors through comparison of the current Greek translations (LXX,
Aquila, Symmachus, and Theodotion) and the Hebrew texts available to him. Fernández Marcos,
Septuagint in Context, 204–22, has a useful discussion of the origins of the Hexapla and notes that
it may be the same as the Tetrapla. The Hexapla can now be downloaded from the internet.
220 THE FORMATION OF THE BIBLICAL CANON, VOLUME I

And so accurate was the examination that Origen brought to bear upon the divine books, that he
even made a thorough study of the Hebrew tongue, and got into his own possession the original
writings in the actual Hebrew characters, which were extant among the Jews. Thus, too, he
traced the editions of the other translators of the sacred writings besides the Seventy [= LXX];
and besides the beaten track of translations, that of Aquila and Symmachus and Theodotion, he
discovered certain others, which were used in turn, which, after lying hidden for a long time,
he traced and brought to light, I know not from what recesses. With regard to these, on account
of their obscurity (not knowing whose in the world they were) he merely indicated this: that
the one he found at Nicopolis, near Actium, and the other in such another place. At any rate,
in the Hexapla of the Psalms, after the four well-known editions, he placed beside them not
only a fifth but also a sixth and a seventh translation; and in the case of one of these he has
indicated again that it was found at Jericho in a jar in the time of Antoninus the son of Severus.
All these he brought together, dividing them into clauses and placing them one over against the
other, together with the actual Hebrew text; and so he has left us the copies of the Hexapla, as
it is called. He made a further separate arrangement of the edition of Aquila and Symmachus
and Theodotion together with that of the Seventy, in the Tetrapla. (Hist. eccl. 6.16.1–4, LCL,
emphasis added.)

The value attributed to the LXX in the early church cannot be overestimated. It
was the Christian Bible. There was a belief circulating in the early church that the
LXX was an inspired translation that was superior to the Hebrew. That assertion,
of course, would not sit well with Rabbinic sages. Indeed, when the Hebrew and
the LXX differed, the latter was preferred by Christians because they believed that
the LXX translators who changed the Hebrew text were inspired by God to do so.
The NT authors apparently agreed with this conclusion and made use of the LXX
more than ninety percent of the time in the NT Scripture citations. In the fifth
century, Augustine expressed the opinion that the LXX was inspired and therefore
may be trusted in the Christian community. He also concluded that the writers of
the NT frequently believed it was superior to the Hebrew Scriptures. He states:

But, if scribal error is not involved, it must be believed that, where the sense corresponds to
the truth and proclaims the truth, they, moved by the divine Spirit, wished to deviate [from
the Hebrew original], not in the manner of interpreters [translators], but in the freedom of
those prophesying. Consequently, the apostles, in their authority, when they appealed to the
Scriptures, quite rightly utilized not only the Hebrew, but also their own – the witness of the
Seventy. (City of God 15.14, cited by Hengel, Septuagint as Christian Scripture, 17, emphasis
original)

Fernández Marcos notes the irony of the early church’s use of the LXX, and the
concomitant support that this gives to the Letter of Aristeas: “A Jewish propa-
ganda document which recommends the Greek translation of the Pentateuch has
become the principal witness for the defending [of ] the whole LXX, now adopted
by Christianity as its official Bible.”79

79
Ibid., 49.
GREEK INFLUENCE AND THE FORMATION OF THE HEBREW BIBLE 221

The importance of the LXX from a canonical perspective is not only that it was
the Bible of the early church, but it also differs considerably from the Hebrew text
in several important passages, the best known, of course, being Isa 7:14 – a fact
that was not missed in the early church in which a virgin conceives and this was
the basis of Matthew’s citation of the LXX Isa 7:14 in Matt 1:23 (see discussion
below). Also the considerably shorter text of Jeremiah in the LXX is often now
preferred over the longer HB (MT) text of that book. According to Irenaeus (ca.
170 CE), as reported by Eusebius, the differences with the Jews that arose over
this matter were settled by appealing to the inspiration of the Septuagint:

Hear also, word for word, what he [Irenaeus] writes about the interpretation of the inspired
Scriptures according to the Septuagint. “So God became a man and the Lord himself saved
us, giving us the sign of the virgin, but not as some say, who at the present time venture to
translate the Scriptures, ‘behold a young woman shall conceive and bear a son,’ as Theodotion
the Ephesian translated it and Aquila from Pontus, both of them Jewish proselytes, whom the
Ebionites follow and aver that he was begotten by Joseph.” (Hist. eccl. 5.8.10, LCL)

As most students of the Bible know, the MT Hebrew of Isa 7:14 reads: “The
Lord himself will give you a sign. Look, the young woman [‫ ]עלמה‬is with child
and shall bear a son, and shall name him Immanuel.” Quite differently, the LXX
has: “Therefore the Lord himself shall give you a sign; behold, a virgin [παρθένος]
shall conceive in the womb, and shall bring forth a son, and thou shalt call his
name Emmanuel.”80 The question, of course, is whether the Hebrew term ‫עלמה‬
(“young woman,” “girl,” “maiden”) may mean “virgin” (the usual Hebrew word
for virgin is ‫)בתולה‬. The translators of the LXX used instead the Greek term
παρθένος (“virgin”), and Matt 1:23 follows the LXX: “The virgin shall conceive
and bear a son.”81 One can easily understand the Christian preference for a trans-
lation that advances belief in the virgin birth of Jesus – but also why the Jews
authorized the production of a different Greek translation of their Scriptures.82
It is no wonder that in earlier years there was a tendency in the rabbinic
tradition to marginalize or even ignore the LXX text in favor of the MT. Several
ancient Jewish religious texts were rejected because of the language used in their
production. Some rabbis contended that only those writings originally composed
in Hebrew were approved. While it was permitted to translate the Torah into
another language, Hebrew and Aramaic were always preferred. Some Jews also
argued that the Torah could not be translated adequately and they specifically
rejected the LXX translation of the Torah as we see in the following text: “It is
related that five elders wrote the Torah in Greek for King Ptolemy. And that day

80
L. C. L. Brenton, The Septuagint Version of the Old Testament, According to the Vatican Text
(London: Bagster, 1844), 689.
81
H. M. Shires, Finding the Old Testament in the New (Philadelphia: Westminster, 1974), 82–84,
lists several other examples of the NT writers’ preference for the LXX.
82
For further discussion of this point, see Hengel, Septuagint as Christian Scripture, 25–42.
222 THE FORMATION OF THE BIBLICAL CANON, VOLUME I

was as intolerable for Israel as the day the golden calf was made, for the Torah
cannot be translated adequately” (Soferim, Massekhet 1, emphasis added; note the
“five elders”).
In the second century CE, it appears that translations of books of Scripture,
other than the Pentateuch, were not to be used at all. For example, “Rabbi Judah
said: Even when our masters allowed the use of Greek, they allowed it only for the
scroll of Torah, and that came about because of the action taken by King Ptolemy”
(b. Meg. 8b–9a; see also Gen. Rab. 36:8; Deut. Rab. 1:1). Although other
languages were allowed in the translation of the Hebrew Scriptures, Hebrew and
Aramaic were always preferred. Notice, for example, the following permission:
“Sacred writings, even if written in another language, must be put away properly
[when they become unfit for use]… Even if they are written in any language,
though they may not be read [publicly], yet he [the tanna] teaches that they may
be saved” (b. Shab. 115a, Soncino trans., emphasis added). This preference for
the Hebrew language eventually isolated Jews in the western diaspora from the
developing religious traditions (Mishnah, Tosefta, Talmudim, Targums) of their
fellow Jews in the eastern diaspora. The Diaspora Jews continued to make use of
the Greek translations until around the eighth or ninth century.
There was a time in some conservative Christian seminaries in North America
when students preparing for Christian ministry regularly heard that the LXX was
only a secondary source and not of much value for Scripture study since the inspi-
ration of the OT was rooted in its original Hebrew text. The Greek translation, so
the argument often went, is a “mere translation” of the authentic originals.83 More
recently, however, following the discovery and examination of biblical texts found
at Qumran, some scholars have begun to speak of the considerable value that the
LXX brings to our understanding of the original text of the Jewish Scriptures and
even at times acknowledging that it is likely superior to the Hebrew text.84 There is
a growing preference today among textual scholars to rely on a so-called eclectic

83
This characterization is, of course, a personal note of my time as a seminary student, but also
what I heard from some colleagues when I first began my teaching career.
84
J. Cook, “Septuagint Proverbs—and Canonization,” in van der Kooij and van der Toorn, eds.,
Canonization and Decanonization, 80, observes that in some instances the LXX was translated
from a parent text that differed from the MT. Tov, “Status of the Masoretic Text,” in McDonald and
Sanders, eds., The Canon Debate, 234–41, questions his former position of seeking to establish an
Urtext (“original text” or “earlier text”) that was believed to be roughly identifiable with the MT, but
now, like many NT textual critics, prefers an eclectic system to determine a more reliable biblical
text since, as he says, we are no longer able to call “a single source, extant or reconstructed, ‘the text
of the Bible’ ” (251). See also idem, “Recensional Differences Between the Masoretic Text and the
Septuagint of Proverbs,” in Of Scribes and Scrolls: Studies on the Hebrew Bible, Intertestamental
Judaism, and Christian Origins Presented to John Strugnell, ed. H. W. Attridge, J. J. Collins, and
T. H. Tobin (Lanham, MD: University Press of America, 1990), 43–56, and Textual Criticism of the
Hebrew Bible. Further discussion of this is in Chapter 12 §§IV and V.
GREEK INFLUENCE AND THE FORMATION OF THE HEBREW BIBLE 223

text85 that appeals not only to the MT and the Proto-MT texts among the Qumran
scrolls, but also to the LXX and Samaritan Pentateuch texts in various places.
Some ancient Jewish writings were apparently rejected because of the language
(Greek) used in their production. Some rabbis contended that only those writings
originally composed in Hebrew were approved. It was permitted to translate the
Torah into another language, but Hebrew and Aramaic were always preferred.

VI. THE GREEK ALPHABET

AND A TWENTY-FOUR BOOK CANON

Rabbinic Jews showed a preference for a twenty-four-book canon over a twenty-

two-book collection that likely included the same books. The twenty-two book
sacred collection, as we saw earlier, was the same as the number of letters in the
Hebrew alphabet that was replaced by some Jews at the end of the first century
with twenty-four, the number of letters in the Greek alphabet. By the end of the
first century CE, some Jewish teachers began identifying their sacred scriptures
with the number twenty-four, the same as the number of chapters or books in each
of Homer’s Iliad and Odyssey. Following 4 Ezra 14:22–48 (ca. 90–95 CE) and b.
Baba Bathra 14b–15a (ca. 150–180 CE), the later Amoraim (third–sixth centuries
CE) began to prefer the number twenty-four for counting their sacred scriptures
(see b. Ta’anit 8a; Numbers Rabbah 13:16; 14:4, 18; 18:21; Song Rabbah 4:11;
Ecclesiastes Rabbah 12:11–12). Why the change?
Later several early church fathers identified the twenty-two letters in the
Hebrew alphabet as the books of the Jewish Scriptures and they, like the rabbinic
sages, used various combinations of books to arrive at that number. However, at
the same time, the number twenty-four was also quite common and subsequently
adopted as the most appropriate number of the books in the Jewish scriptures.86
In his Prologue to Samuel and Kings, Jerome (ca. 390–400) also compared
the twenty-four books of the Hebrew Scriptures with the twenty-four elders of
the book of Revelation (Rev 4:4, 10; 5:8; 11:16; and 19:4; Prologus in Libro
Regum [= Prologus Galeatus]).87 Like other church fathers, he preferred to speak
of the twenty-two book Hebrew canon that follows the Hebrew alphabet, but

85
Eclecticism in textual criticism is the process of selecting from various sources – rather than
relying on a single source – to determine the original reading of a given text. In this case, various
ancient versions and manuscripts of the OT are used to try to arrive at the earliest and most reliable
biblical text.
86
For the number twenty-two among the church fathers for the number of their OT scriptures, see
Beckwith, Old Testament Canon, 240–41, 271 n. 70; David E. Aune, Revelation 1–5, 288–92 who
offers several possibilities for the identity of the 24 elders in Revelation; see also H. B. Swete, An
Introduction to the Old Testament in Greek (Peabody, MA: Hendrickson, 1989; earlier edition by
Cambridge University Press, 1914), 212–13, and Lim, Formation of the Jewish Canon, 38–40.
87
See Lim, Formation of the Jewish Canon, 39–41, for other examples.
224 THE FORMATION OF THE BIBLICAL CANON, VOLUME I

acknowledges that the number can be twenty-four by the way that the books are
counted and combined. By adding Ruth and Lamentations (Kinoth), there are
“twenty-four” books. From this he concludes: “we should thus have twenty-four
books of the old law. And these the Apocalypse of John represents by the twenty-
four elders, who adore the lamb” (Prologue to the Books of Samuel and Kings).
However, like other Christians of his time, Jerome accepted additional materials
into his scripture canon. His reference to the twenty-four elders in Revelation has
been variously interpreted from ancient times and no consensus is on the horizon,
but as we see in the references above, it was common to consider them as the
number of prophetic books in the OT.88
Unlike other ancient Greek writings, Homer’s Iliad and Odyssey were divided
into twenty-four parts (books or chapters), and each is identified by a sequential
letter of the Greek alphabet, from alpha to omega. The use of each letter in the
Greek alphabet for each of these books signifies not only completeness, but
also perfection when used in reference to literature viewed as having a divine
origin. The deities mentioned in Homer’s volumes are the same ones that became
normative in the Greek religion. Knowing this helps us understand the New
Testament references to God and Jesus as the “Alpha and Omega,” namely the
first and last letters of the Greek alphabet (Rev 1:1:8; 21:6; 22:13), in other words,
the beginning and end of all things. This also helps us understand the origin of the
Jewish practice of dividing some chapters of the Psalter (Psalms) into the letters of
the Hebrew alphabet, for example, Pss 25 and 34, with each line beginning with a
sequential letter of the Hebrew alphabet. Each psalm has twenty-two verses, but
the last line of each begins with a ‫( פ‬or P). Psalm 119 has twenty-two sections of
eight verses in each section and each section begins with a different sequential
letter of the Hebrew alphabet. Like those who revered Homer and used the
alphabet to designate chapters in his works, some Jews identified the number of
books in their sacred collection with the number of letters in the Hebrew alphabet
(22), but later the rabbis adopted the number of the Greek alphabet (24) instead to
number their sacred scriptures.
The twenty-two letters in the Hebrew alphabet is evidently what Josephus
believed to be the number of books in the Jewish Scriptures at the end of the first
century. Comparing the Greek writings to the Jewish Scriptures and writing from
Rome, he states: “we do not possess myriads of inconsistent books, conflicting
with each other. Our books, those which are justly accredited [Greek = δίκαίως
πεπιστευμένα], are but two and twenty, and contain the record of all time” (Ag.
Apion 1.39). He fashioned the scope the Jewish Scriptures after the Hebrew
alphabet, but that did not hold sway in Rabbinic Judaism when the Greek alphabet

88
See also Pseudo-Tertullian (Carmen Adv. Marc. 4.198–210; cf. Hengel, Septuagint as Christian
Scripture, 57–74). For a listing of church fathers who equated the number of prophets in their OT of
twenty-four with the elders in Revelation, see also Beckwith, Old Testament Canon, 240–41.
GREEK INFLUENCE AND THE FORMATION OF THE HEBREW BIBLE 225

of twenty-four letters was adopted as the number of books in the HB. Again, the
books in the Hebrew scriptures are more than twenty-two or twenty-four, but
various combinations were devised to bring the number to the letters in either
the Hebrew or Greek alphabets. The scriptures in both collections are widely
believed to be the same. At about the same time (ca. 90 CE), the pseudonymous
author of 4 Ezra from Palestine wrote 4 Ezra in Hebrew and it was later translated
into Greek. The author speaks of two collections of sacred texts that were both
inspired by God. The first collection is the twenty-four books that are to be read to
all persons publicly, but the other seventy books are reserved for the wise. “Make
public the twenty-four books that you wrote first, and let the worthy and unworthy
read them; but keep the seventy that were written last, in order to give them to the
wise among your people” (4 Ezra 14:45–46, NRSV).
The number twenty-four prevailed in Judaism, though the same books were
probably included in both numbers. Like the use of the Greek alphabet in Homer’s
writings, the use of the Greek alphabet in the HB represented the completion and
perfection of the Scriptures and pointed readers to their divine origin. Rabbinic
Judaism opted for the twenty-four-letter Greek alphabet as a symbol of the HB’s
completeness and included various combinations of books to achieve that number
such as the combination of Ezra and Nehemiah. This number prevailed among
the Amoraim leaders of rabbinic Judaism from the third to the sixth
century CE (see b. Taanith 8a; Bemidbar Rabbah 13.16; 14.4, 18; 18.21; Shir
Ha-Shirim Rabbah 4.11; Koheleth Rabbah 12.11, 12), and clearly the number
comes from the Greek alphabet. While the number of inspired books likely
stayed the same with some books debated for a time, the books that comprised
those twenty-four emerged through the combination of several books (e.g., Ruth
with Judges, Ezra with Nehemiah). Some rabbis continued to contest the
scriptural status of several biblical books including the Song of Songs long after
the number (but not identity) of sacred books was settled.89
In his Against Apion treatise, shortly before his death around 100 CE Josephus
defended the Jewish people against earlier attacks by Apion from Egypt, the
leading interpreter of Homer in his day. Apion represented the Greek citizens of
Alexandria against the Jews before Caligula, the Roman Emperor. He made many
unsubstantiated charges against the Jews, including that the Jews took a Greek into
their temple to be sacrificed. In his defense of the Jews, Josephus drew attention
to the Jews’ sacred Scriptures that, unlike the literary texts of the Greeks, were
twenty-two books in number and he identified them by classification or grouping,
not by name. As we will see in Chapter 10 §I, he claimed that they were “justly

89
See m. Eduyoth 5.3; m. Yad. 3.5; b. Meg. 7a; t. Yad. 2.14), Ecclesiastes (b. Shabbat 100a; see
also Jerome on Eccl. 12.14), Ruth (b. Megillah 7a); Esther (b. Sanhedrin 100a; b. Meg 7a. cf. t. Meg
2.1a), Proverbs (b. Shabbat 30b), and Ezekiel (b. Shabbat 13b; b. Hagiga 13a; b. Menahot 45a. For
other examples, see Leiman, Canonization, 82–108.
226 THE FORMATION OF THE BIBLICAL CANON, VOLUME I

accredited” and that the matter had been settled among all Jews for a long time.
For our purposes here, it is important to observe how Josephus’ twenty-two book
Scripture canon may depend on a tradition in Jubilees that emphasizes the number
twenty-two and says in part:

There were twenty-two chief men from Adam until Jacob, and twenty-two kinds of works
were made before the seventh day. The former is blessed and sanctified, and the latter is also
blessed and sanctified. One was like the other with respect to sanctification and blessing. And
it was granted to the former that they should always be the blessed and sanctified ones of the
testimony and the first law just as he had sanctified and blessed sabbath day on the seventh day.
(Jub. 2:23–24, OTP 2:57)90

By the late first century, however, we see a change in the making in the 4 Ezra
14:45 text that states: “And when the forty days were ended, the Most High spoke
to me, saying, ‘Make public the twenty-four books that you wrote first, and let the
worthy and unworthy read them…” The text goes on to mention the seventy other
books reserved for the “wise among your people.” I will say more about this text
in Chapter 10 §II, but for now, it is important to note how the number twenty-four
carried over into the second century in the well-known Jewish text, b. Baba Bathra
14a–15b (ca. 140–50 CE), that also recognized twenty-four sacred books that were
divided into three categories (Law, Prophets, and Writings). From the end of the
first century CE, it appears that the number twenty-four began to take priority in
Judaism. While the combinations of books sometimes varied, and especially their
sequence, from the second century and thereafter the number gained widespread
approval and remained among the Jews for the number of their sacred scriptures.
The big question here, of course, is why would the Jews change from using the
number of letters in their own alphabet and use instead the number in the Greek
alphabet and still have the same books? We can only guess here, but it is likely
that the influence of Homer and the widespread familiarity and significance of the
Greek alphabet influenced the rabbinic Jews. The Christians did not number their
NT sacred books in terms of either alphabet. It appears that the influence of the
Greek perspective of sacred writings also influenced the Jewish tradition. Why
else would there be a change from the obvious number of books in the HB that
included the same number of books as the books in each of Homer’s Iliad and
Odyssey? The twenty-four books in the HB canon and the parallels to the twenty-
four books in Homer’s writings suggest the influence of the Hellenistic world on
Judaism and early Christianity as well as the establishing of select collections of
sacred texts.

90
This text was discovered at Qumran, but there may be an earlier edition of it reflected later in
Epiphanius’ On Weights and Measures (315–403 CE). That text states: “As there were twenty-two
letters and twenty-two books and twenty-two chief men from Adam until Jacob, so twenty-two kinds
of works were made before the seventh day.”
GREEK INFLUENCE AND THE FORMATION OF THE HEBREW BIBLE 227

In an unpublished address at the Society of Biblical Literature, J. Van Seters

argued more forcefully that the act of gathering and copying the classical texts in
the library at Alexandria was the direct ancestor tradition of the biblical canons of
both Judaism and early Christianity. He states unequivocally that:

The scholarly tradition of the Alexandrian library was likewise concerned with the listing and
classification of its works. In this regard it established tables, i.e. lists (pinakes) of writers
and classical works from the past, and excluded spurious works whose creation was very
common in the Hellenistic period. These tables are the ancestors of the “canons of writers”
that one encounters in the Roman and Byzantine periods. I think it is obvious that the concern
to establish a canon of scripture in Judaism and Christianity draws directly upon this scholarly
tradition.91

VII. THE MYTH OF AN ALEXANDRIAN CANON

The presence of additional literature in the LXX beyond the books included in the
HB long ago led many scholars to conclude that the earliest Christian churches
adopted an Alexandrian canon of Jewish Scriptures and it contained the so-called
apocryphal books that were not included in the Hebrew canon of Scriptures. For
example, Pfeiffer, contending for the existence of an Alexandrian Jewish canon,
distinguished the LXX from the biblical canon of Palestinian Jews who he claimed
were part of a conservative group who “made a sharp distinction between inspired
Scripture and human writings.”92 He argued that the Alexandrian Jews “tended
to accept as Scripture any writing in Hebrew or Aramaic which came from
Palestine.”93 He added that the same was true of the rest of the Diaspora Jews,
who, unlike the Palestinian Jews, did not believe that prophecy had ceased with
Ezra, but instead had continued.
A comparison of the LXX used with the HB shows significant differences in the
number of books, the text, and also in the order or groupings of the books. The
books in the LXX included the additions to Daniel (Song of the Three Children,
Susanna, and Bel and the Dragon), extended portions of Esdras added to Ezra, and
the Epistle of Jeremiah (sometimes included as the last chapter of 1 Baruch) and
other books as well that are now called Apocryphal or Deuterocanonical writings
listed earlier. However, some Palestinian Jews welcomed as scripture several
extra-canonical books in the first century BCE and CE before the formation of
a more limited collection of sacred writings that emerged in the late first century
CE and throughout the second. The earliest Christians knew several of these
writings and like some of their Jewish siblings in the first century also welcomed
as scripture some of these additional writings before their separation from Judaism

91
VanderKam supplies this quote in his From Revelation to Canon, 30.
92
Robert Pfeiffer, “Canon of the OT,” 510.
93
Ibid.
228 THE FORMATION OF THE BIBLICAL CANON, VOLUME I

from around 62–135 CE. This larger collection reflects the Scriptures of some Jews
before there was a later rabbinic fixed biblical canon (the HB), and this collection
was more fluid and accounts for the larger collection of Scriptures among the
Christians especially in the first three centuries. With the exception of the obvious
Christian editing of 4 Ezra (also called 2 Esdras),94 it is unlikely that the early
Christians added anything else to their OT Scriptures. They later “decanonized”
some of books they earlier accepted as scripture. These additional writings in the
Christian collections of Jewish religious texts also informed the faith and life of
some Jews before and during the time of Jesus. Later many of them remained in
the early Christians’ scripture collections even after their separation from Judaism.
Those Jews who accepted a broader range of scriptures than the later rabbinic
sages will be examined in the next chapter.
The biggest problem with the theory of an expanded Alexandrian canon is that
there are no extant Alexandrian canons that one can point to and say that these
books and no others comprised it or that a larger number of books comprised it.
Pfeiffer acknowledges that no one knows what the Scriptures of the Alexandrian
Jews and other Diaspora Jews were before the LXX was condemned about 130
CE in Palestine.95 In 1909, Reuss concluded that we in fact know nothing about
the Septuagint before the time the church made extensive use of it.96 I will return
to this topic later in Chapter 11 §II.
Interestingly, there is no evidence that the Alexandrian Jews, or any other
Diaspora Jews, were more inclined to adopt more books into their Scriptures
than their Jewish siblings in Palestine. In fact, it appears from our discussion
of Philo earlier who focused almost exclusively on the Law, that the opposite is
true. Further, no evidence shows the existence of a biblical canon in Alexandria
in the second century BCE or even up to the second century CE that differs from
the sacred texts circulating in Palestine, though the evidence from Qumran may
suggest a more extensive collection circulating in Palestine. Moreover, since the
communications between Jerusalem and Alexandria were quite good during the
first century BCE and first century CE, it is unlikely that either the notion or extent
of divine Scripture varied significantly between the two Jewish communities
during the period before 70 CE. This does not necessarily mean, of course, that
there were no differences between the Jews in the Diaspora and those in Palestine.
Since there were several differences among the Jewish sects in Palestine (e.g.,
Sadducees, Essenes, and Pharisees, see Chapter 7 below) regarding what was
acknowledged as Scripture, it is likely that there were also similar differences
among Diaspora Jews. They were more affected by Hellenism than Palestinian

94
4 Ezra is an exception, of course, because of the lateness of its composition.
95
Sundberg, Old Testament of the Early Church, 51–79, offers a careful refutation of Robert
Pfeiffer’s position.
96
E. W. Reuss, History of the Canon of the Holy Scriptures in the Christian Church, trans. D.
Hunter (Edinburgh: Hunter, 1891), 7.
GREEK INFLUENCE AND THE FORMATION OF THE HEBREW BIBLE 229

Jews and they made use of the LXX as their sacred scriptures long after the books
that comprised the HB were settled. The additional writings that found their way
into the Christian OT were, for the most part, first written in Palestine in Hebrew
or Aramaic and were more likely revered by Jews there than elsewhere. On the
other hand, Jewish writings acknowledged as Scripture in Babylon, unlike in
Palestine, appear to have been restricted to those written before the end of the
reign of Artaxerxes.
The significant influence of the Greek language and culture in Palestine in the
time of Jesus is becoming more widely acknowledged now than in the past. There
is a growing number of scholars, as we noted earlier, who are making the case that
even Jesus spoke Greek.97 Likewise, Greek documents found at Qumran (mostly
Cave 7) and at Naḥal Ḥever raise questions about who wrote them and who read
them. For most early Christians, the Greek Bible was their only Bible from the
beginning of the Christian movement.
The likely explanation for the larger number of writings in the LXX is that
the process of limiting the Scriptures began in Palestine (and Babylon?) after
the time when Judaism ceased having a significant influence upon the Christian
community. After their separation from Judaism, Christians produced copies of
the Greek Scriptures that they inherited from fellow Jews before their separation.
The Christian OT Scriptures were larger because the Jews at an earlier time recog-
nized more writings as Scripture than the Jews under the influence of later rabbinic
Judaism. The Jewish Christians who separated from Judaism evidently welcomed
a broader collection of Scriptures that were circulating in Palestine before final
decisions were made about the scope of the Jewish Scriptures that formed the HB.
After the separation of Christians from Judaism, Palestinian Jewish influence on
the scope of the Christian Scriptures diminished considerably.

VIII. SUMMARY AND CONCLUSION

In the foregoing, I have identified a number of parallels between Hellenism in

the Greco-Roman world and several Jewish and Christian traditions regarding the
selection and listing of their sacred scriptures. This was especially true in regard
to Homer and we have seen several possible influences from that time on the
development of Jewish and Christian Scriptures. The number of the books in the
Hebrew Bible and those in each of the books of the Iliad and Odyssey is the same
as a result of various combinations to achieve that number which corresponds to
the number of letters in the Greek alphabet. The alphabet is also prominent in each
of the books in Homer’s Iliad and Odyssey that begin with a sequential letter of
the alphabet. The Jews also followed this practice for recognizing their own sacred

97
See S. E. Porter, ed., The Language of the New Testament: Classic Essays (Sheffield: JSOT
Press, 1991), for a history and summary of this discussion.
230 THE FORMATION OF THE BIBLICAL CANON, VOLUME I

books using the letters in the Hebrew alphabet as we saw in several Psalms as
well as later in Josephus’ scripture collection, but soon thereafter the Jews began
to adopt instead the number of sacred books corresponding to the Greek alphabet
(4 Ezra 14:45, b. Baba Bathra 14b) and using various combinations of books to
achieve that number.
It is interesting that later even the groupings and sequence of the Jewish scrip-
tures were considered important as we saw in b. Baba Bathra 14b–15a. This
has some parallels with the sources reporting on the Peisistratids’ emphasis on
the fixed order of performance and even performers of Homeric poetry which
find some parallels with canon formation. These and other parallels noted above
suggest that Jews and later Christians were well aware of the Hellenistic canons
of sacred and literary works and, given our knowledge of Jews and Christians of
Late Antiquity, it is difficult to think that they were unaffected by them. Different
criteria were used to establish classical and sacred collections, but, unlike most of
the earlier Greco-Roman classics, Jewish and Christian collections were reduced
in size and eventually fixed. The basic notion of select collections, however, is
clear in all three traditions.
The listing and categorizing of the biblical books historically follows a similar
practice found among the Greeks and the production of commentaries by the Jews
and Christians likewise follows the example set by Aristarchus in Alexandria.
Besides this, the parallels between Callimachus’ Pinakes at Alexandria and the
later Jewish and Christian cataloging of their sacred texts, offer the only known
literary parallels in antiquity. There are no other known models that were as
close geographically and chronologically or in substance to either the Jews or the
Christians than those in the works of Homer and the grammarians connected with
the Library in Alexandria.98 The Jews, of course, ordered their biblical canon with
Law, Prophets, and Writings and the Christians welcomed the Jewish Scriptures
but generally grouped them differently as Law, History, Poetry and Wisdom, and
Prophets. The Jewish and Christian Scripture collections were initially larger and
included other books, but in time both collections were reduced in size and a stabi-
lized collection of Scriptures, a biblical canon, emerged.
Jewish and Christian awareness of the Greco-Roman philosophy and literary
productions, such as we see in the Apostle Paul, Josephus, and later rabbinic sages,
suggests that the parallels with the Alexandrian literary canons of antiquity may
have been more than coincidental. I have argued that the notion of a collection
of sacred scriptures, including the Hellenistic allegorical methods for interpreting

98
I am aware that there were other lists of activities and writings produced both in Babylon and
in Asia (China), but these do not have the same proximity either in time or geographical distance
as those found in Alexandria or Athens. For a discussion of these other lists, see articles by Niek
Veldhuis, “Mesopotamian Canons,” 9–28, and Andrew H. Plaks, “Afterword: Canonization in the
Ancient World: The View from Farther East,” in Finkelberg and Stroumsa, eds., Homer, the Bible,
and Beyond, 267–76.
GREEK INFLUENCE AND THE FORMATION OF THE HEBREW BIBLE 231

them, suggests considerable influence from Alexandrian and other Hellenistic

practices. Homer was as close to a Bible for the Greeks as one could get in
antiquity, even eliciting worship of the gods mentioned in his works. Any listing
of ancient books in divisions of twenty-four also cannot be negligible, especially
since the Jews compared and occasionally contrasted their own sacred texts with
Homer’s writings (Josephus, Ag. Apion 1.6–46; m. Yad. 4:6 and y. Sanh. 10:1,
28a).
The Greek classics were somewhat open to the inclusion of new works, but
there came a time for both Jews and Christians when their sacred collections
were closed. That time closed sooner for the rabbinic Jews than for Jews in the
diaspora99 and for the Christians, but there was initially no notion of a closed
or fixed sacred collection of scriptures for either Jews or Christians until at the
earliest the end of the first century CE and even later for most other diaspora Jews
and Christians. Initially in the second and first centuries BCE and through most of
the first century CE, the collections of inspired sacred texts was fluid.
Because the works of Homer were considered next to, if not altogether, sacred
literature among most Greeks, the parallels and comparisons we have seen in
antiquity by both Jews and Christians should not be ignored. David Stern observes
the slowness among scholars to appreciate these parallels and states that “the
status of the Bible in Rabbinic culture was, in fact, more similar to that of Homer
in the Late Antique pagan world than is commonly acknowledged.” He goes on
to show through comparison how Homer was “an inspiration rather than a model
for imitation” in the Roman schools, and subsequently an influence on how “the
Bible also formed the base text of the Rabbinic curriculum.” On the other hand,
by way of contrast, Stern rightly notes that students of the rabbis did not learn the
Bible to imitate it or to write more biblical texts. He also notes that subsequently
the rabbis, as we see in their rabbinic texts, did not produce any literature similar
to the biblical literature.100
In the foregoing, as we have observed, there are a number of places where it
appears likely that the Hellenistic world had considerable influence on those in
late Second Temple Judaism and early Christianity in the shaping of their biblical
canons. We will now examine variations in scripture collections of Jewish sects in
Palestine in the first centuries BCE and CE.

99
I will address this issue later.
100
David Stern, “On Canonization in Rabbinic Judaism,” in Finkelberg and Stroumsa, eds., Homer,
the Bible, and Beyond, 239.
 CHAPTER 7

SCRIPTURE AMONG ESSENES,

SADDUCEES, PHARISEES, AND
SAMARITANS

I. JUDAISMS IN THE LATE SECOND TEMPLE PERIOD

In recent years biblical scholars have come to acknowledge that there was no
single “normative Judaism” to which all Jews subscribed in the first century CE or
before. However, there were several shared activities and beliefs common among
most Jews in Palestine and in the Diaspora. Most Jewish sects held in common
Sabbath keeping, circumcision, worship in the temple when possible, acceptance
of the sacrificial cultus in the temple along with its priesthood, care for the temple
though a temple tax, and a widespread recognition of the scriptural authority of the
Torah. Participation in local religious activities in synagogues,1 including worship
and teaching, especially for Jews living far from the temple in Jerusalem, also
seems to have been widespread in the first century CE. The residents at Qumran,
as we will see below, had a different understanding of Temple leadership, its high
priestly structures, and the rules for conduct whether in regard to dietary restric-
tions, poverty, or marriage. The sacred texts that informed their faith also appear
to be different from those that were eventually included in the Hebrew Scriptures.

1
In antiquity, a synagogue was sometimes called a προσευχη (“prayer” or “place of prayer”; cf.
Acts 16:13, 16), but the origin of synagogues is somewhat obscure. The earliest evidence for the
existence of synagogues comes from Egypt in the third century BCE, but they probably antedate
that time and likely have roots either in the reforms of Josiah (621 BCE), in the exile in Babylon,
or shortly after that during the reforms of Ezra and Nehemiah and the reconstruction of Jerusalem
and the temple. Whenever and wherever the synagogue began and whatever it was called, by the
first century BCE synagogues were known throughout the Greco-Roman world including Palestine.
They were a common feature among the various sects of Judaism in the Mediterranean world in the
time of Jesus and following and were typically used for Jewish gatherings for prayer, the reading
of Scriptures, and liturgical purposes. The standard work on the origin of the synagogue is Levine’s
Ancient Synagogue, see especially 19–41. In recent years synagogues have been found at Masada,
the Herodium, Gamla, Magdala, and perhaps the earliest in Palestine found at Modein that dates to
ca. 165 BCE.
SCRIPTURE AMONG ESSENES, SADDUCEES, PHARISEES, AND SAMARITANS 233

In the first century CE and before, synagogues and houses or places of prayer
were scattered around the Greco-Roman world in the land of Palestine, especially
Jerusalem, and in the Diaspora where many Jews lived. Local languages, mostly
Greek, were used in the synagogues and most Jews outside the land of Israel
spoke Greek. First century BCE and CE Jews, our primary focus in this chapter,
frequently disagreed with each other on a variety of issues, including the nature
and mode of life after death, whether there was life after death, and the books
they acknowledged as Scripture. Jewish apocalypticism that focused on the
rapidly approaching end of the ages, the impending judgment of God, and the
establishment of God’s kingdom on earth by a messianic figure were also popular
themes with some segments of the Jewish community, but those views were not
held universally by all Jews. There were several Jewish messianic claimants both
before and after the time of Jesus in the land of Israel, but none of them garnered
the universal support and recognition of all of the Jews. Judaism in the first century
was a mixed variety of expressions of piety. This is also true in the Scriptures they
recognized and that were read in their gatherings. So far as we can tell, all Jewish
sects in the first century, including early Christianity, acknowledged the authority
and inspiration of the books of Moses (the Pentateuch), even if the Samaritans’
Pentateuch differed in several respects from the Jewish Pentateuch acknowledged
by both Jews and Christians.
During the second century BCE and following, several collections of Scriptures
circulated among the Jews both inside and outside of Palestine. While there is
little certainty over the scope of these Scripture collections, what we can discern
is nonetheless instructive on the development of the Jewish Scriptures in the
formative era of early Christianity. What was in these varied collections is the
primary focus of this chapter, but I will also focus especially on the significant
importance of the Dead Sea Scrolls for our understanding of the biblical canon in
its formative stages in the first centuries BCE and CE. As we will see, the variety
of religious texts discovered at Qumran reflects the fluid state of the biblical canon
at that time.

II. THE ESSENES AND QUMRAN

The religious sect known as the Essenes was among the renewal movements in
Palestine from the second century BCE to the late first century CE (at least). Some
members of this community lived on the northwest shores of the Dead Sea in a
place today called Khirbet Qumran.2 These Jews are not identified by name in the

2
For summaries of the Qumran inhabitants, see J. Magness, The Archaeology of Qumran and the
Dead Sea Scrolls (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 2002), 32–46; Vermes, Dead Sea Scrolls, 87–136; E.
P. Sanders, “The Dead Sea Sect and Other Jews: Commonalities, Overlaps, and Differences,” in The
234 THE FORMATION OF THE BIBLICAL CANON, VOLUME I

NT, but Philo and Josephus (see below) both describe their identity, activities, and
beliefs. For our purposes, the Essenes at Qumran copied, transmitted, and also
produced religious literature that sheds considerable light on their beliefs around
the turn of the common era and now significantly informs scholarly opinion about
the formation of the biblical canon for ancient Judaism and early Christianity.
This literature, commonly known as the Dead Sea Scrolls (DSS), was discovered
in eleven caves near the ruins of the Qumran community on the northwestern
shores of the Dead Sea beginning in late 1946 to early 1947 and concluding in
1956 with the discovery of cave 11.3 Not all of the so-called DSS came from the
immediate vicinity of Qumran. Although the majority of them were found in the
eleven caves at Qumran, others were found in the general vicinity of the Dead Sea
and Judean wilderness at Masada and Naḥal Ḥever, so it is now more common to
speak of the “Discoveries of the Judean Desert” (DJD).4 The literary activity of
the Essenes suggests that a large number of Jewish religious texts, both sectarian
and non-sectarian, were circulating in Palestine in the first century CE and those
writings aid considerably in our understanding of the status of Jewish scriptures
in the first century CE. Several books that were not included in the later HB were
nonetheless acknowledged as sacred and authoritative religious texts not only at
Qumran and among the Essenes, but also in other Jewish religious sects as well.
The DSS are also helpful in understanding several NT passages,5 and they make
clear that there was no single normative Judaism in the first century BCE and
CE. In various collections of religious texts in the DJD, several non-sectarian
texts that were imported into the Essene community were also circulating among
other Jewish sects in Late Second Temple Judaism that some Jews believed were
normative for faith, as we will see below in Chapters 8 and 9.

Dead Sea Scrolls in Their Historical Context, ed. T. Lim (Edinburgh: T. &. T. Clark, 2000), 7–44;
and C. M. Patte, Communities of the Last Days: The Dead Sea Scrolls, the New Testament, and the
Story of Israel (Downers Grove, IL: InterVarsity, 2000), 53–84.
3
For a concise summary of these discoveries is in C. D. Elledge, The Bible and the Dead Sea
Scrolls (Atlanta: Society of Biblical Literature, 2005), 1–8.
4
For a summary of the scrolls, see F. M. Cross, The Ancient Library at Qumran, 3rd ed. (Minne-
apolis: Fortress, 1995), 19–53; also see Abegg, Flint, and Ulrich, Dead Sea Scrolls Bible, xiv–xv.
For a more detailed scholarly investigation of the scrolls and their significance for canon forma-
tion, see T. H. Lim and J. J. Collins, eds., The Oxford Handbook of the Dead Sea Scrolls (Oxford:
Oxford University Press, 2010); see also the significant and even foundational collection of articles
in Charlesworth, ed., The Bible and the Dead Sea Scrolls; Flint and VanderKam, eds., The Dead
Sea Scrolls After Fifty Years; James C. VanderKam and Peter W. Flint, The Meaning of the Dead
Sea Scrolls: Their Significance for Understanding the Bible, Judaism, Jesus, and Christianity (San
Francisco: HarperSanFrancisco, 2002); and Flint, ed., The Bible at Qumran.
5
For examples of Qumran texts that clarify the meaning of NT passages, see Evans, “Jesus
and the Dead Sea Scrolls,” 2:573–98; Fitzmyer, “Paul and the Dead Sea Scrolls,” 2:599–621; and
Aune, “Qumran and the Book of Revelation,” 2:622–48, in Flint and VanderKam, eds., The Dead
Sea Scrolls After Fifty Years; and George J. Brooke, The Dead Sea Scrolls and the New Testament
(Minneapolis: Fortress, 2005).
SCRIPTURE AMONG ESSENES, SADDUCEES, PHARISEES, AND SAMARITANS 235

The Essenes were known in Palestine in the first century CE, as well as in Asia
Minor between Colossae and Ephesus during Paul’s and John’s ministries, and in
Egypt. In the early first century CE, Philo of Alexandria summarized their virtues
as follows:

(1) they do not sacrifice animals; (2) they live in villages; (3) they work industriously at a
variety of occupations that are neither military nor commercial positions; (4) they keep no
slaves; (5) they study morals and religion and especially practice allegorical interpretation of
their Scriptures; (6) they pursue and practice virtue; (7) they refuse to swear oaths and reject
ceremonial purity; (8) they hold all goods and clothing in common; (9) they care for the sick
and the elderly; (10) they admit only adults to their order; and (11) they reject marriage and
have low opinions of women.6

At the end of the first century CE, Josephus produced a lengthy and generally
positive description of the Essenes, observing that they had several orders of
membership. He describes their daily activities and how they practiced their
religious piety (J.W. 2.119–61). We can see that Philo and Josephus have consid-
erable overlap in their descriptions, but Josephus adds other details as well. He
writes:

The doctrine of the Essenes is wont to leave everything in the hands of God. They regard the
soul as immortal and believe that they ought to strive especially to draw near to righteousness.
They send votive offerings to the temple, but perform their sacrifices employing a different
ritual of purification. For this reason they are barred from those precincts of the temple that are
frequented by all the people and perform their rites by themselves. Otherwise they are of the
highest character, devoting themselves solely to agricultural labour. They deserve admiration in
contrast to all others who claim their share of virtue because such qualities as theirs were never
found before among any Greek or barbarian people, nay, not even briefly, but have been among
them in constant practice and never interrupted since they adopted them from of old. Moreover,
they hold their possessions in common, and the wealthy man receives no more enjoyment from
his property than the man who possesses nothing. The men who practice this way of life number
more than four thousand [the same number mentioned by Philo]. They neither bring wives into
the community nor do they own slaves, since they believe that the latter practice contributes
to injustice and that the former opens the way to a source of dissension. Instead they live by
themselves and perform menial tasks for one another. They elect by show of hands good men
to receive their revenues and the produce of the earth and priests to prepare bread and other
food. (Ant. 18.18–22, LCL)

Given their close proximity historically to the production of the NT writings,

the DSS share several similarities with the New Testament writings, especially
with the Gospels, but also the letters of Paul. Perhaps the most important is the
Apostle Paul’s notion of works righteousness (Rom 4; Gal 3–4; 2 Cor 6:14–7:1)
and 4QMMT (see Chapter 5 §IV above). Other Essene parallels with Paul’s

6
This summary of Essene characteristics comes in Colson’s LCL translation of Philo (9:514–15).
For another description of the Essenes, see Philo’s That Every Good Person Is Free 75–87, and
Hypothetica 11.
236 THE FORMATION OF THE BIBLICAL CANON, VOLUME I

verbal terminology include “mystery,” “flesh and spirit,” “perfect,” “truth,” and
“justification.” Qumran parallels with the Gospel of John include the designations
“sons of light” and “the spirit of truth.” It may also be possible that the heresy
mentioned in the NT Colossian letter was an Essene-type theology, but that is not
certain. These similarities do not suggest any dependence of Christians upon the
Essenes, but more likely that both communities shared several religious character-
istics common among first-century Jewish sects.
The Essenes claimed that their covenant community was led by the priests
of the sons of Zadok, reportedly the priests of King David (2 Sam 15–19 and
1 Kgs 1) who, some scholars contend, remained as priests through most of the
Second Temple period.7 The texts that reflect the Essene commitment to priestly
leadership by the sons of Zadok priests are as follows:

This is the rule for the men of the Community who freely volunteer to convert from all evil and
to keep themselves steadfast in all he commanded in compliance with his will. They should
keep apart from the congregation of the men of injustice in order to constitute a Community
in law and possessions, and acquiesce to the authority of the sons of Zadok, the priests who
safeguard the covenant /and/ to the authority of the multitude of the men of the Community,
those who persevere steadfastly in the covenant. (1QS 5.1–3)

And

Whoever enters the council of the Community enters the covenant of God in the presence of
all who freely volunteer. He that shall swear with a binding oath to revert to the Law of Moses,
according to all that he commanded, with whole heart and whole soul, in compliance with all
that has been revealed of it to the sons of Zadok, the priests who keep the covenant and interpret
his will and to the multitude of the men of their covenant who freely volunteer together for this
truth and to walk according to his will. (1QS 5.7–10)8

A. Essene Sacred Literature

The literary collections of the Essenes tell us much about the books that informed
the faith of some Jews in the first century CE including some of the early
Christians. The parallels between the scrolls and the NT also help us understand
better many passages in the NT,9 including the breadth of Judaism in the first
centuries BCE and CE, as well as the normative religious texts at that time. Abegg

7
For a summary of the arguments for this view, see Alice W. Hunt, “Zadok, Zadokites,” NIDB
5:952–54; and Philip R. Davies, “The Prehistory of the Qumran Community,” in The Dead
Sea Scrolls: Forty Years of Research, ed. Devorah Dimant, Uriel Rappaport, and Yad Yitshak
Ben-Tsevi, Studies on the Texts of the Desert of Judah (Leiden: Brill, 1992), 116–25.
8
Both of these texts are cited from Martinez and Tigchelaar, eds., The Dead Sea Scrolls Study
Edition, 1:79, 81.
9
For examples of Qumran texts that clarify the meaning of NT passages, see Evans, “Jesus and
the Dead Sea Scrolls”; Fitzmyer, “Paul and the Dead Sea Scrolls”; and Aune, “Qumran and the Book
of Revelation.”
SCRIPTURE AMONG ESSENES, SADDUCEES, PHARISEES, AND SAMARITANS 237

has shown significant parallels between Paul’s understanding of the Law and
4QMMT at Qumran that helps clarify earlier confusing conclusions that Paul did
not fully understand the role of the Law in first-century Judaism.10 Evans shows a
number of parallels between what the NT writers say about Jesus and some of the
emphases in Jesus’ teachings.11
Several of the scrolls are most likely the literary products of the Essene religious
sect and date from approximately 250 (or possibly 150) BCE to perhaps ca. 40 CE,
though some scholars place the latest written documents at 40 BCE. It is difficult
to date any of the Dead Sea Scrolls after this date though that is still possible,
despite the later destruction of that community in 68 CE. The scrolls themselves
include thousands of small and large fragments as well as almost complete but
still fragmented books from about nine hundred to a thousand separate documents.
Because of the numerous fragments that have been found and the challenging
attempts to identify those that belong to the same manuscript, scholars now
generally say that there were somewhere between 900 and 1000 manuscripts in
these collections. Several of these documents are multiple copies of antecedent
texts. Some of them contain only a small portion of a single larger writing (e.g.,
Chronicles). Multiple copies of books at Qumran suggest the considerable value
placed on them by the Jews in that community. In terms of the multiple copies of
the Dead Sea Scrolls, it is obvious that some books were more favored than others
at Qumran since we have multiple copies of Isaiah (21), Deuteronomy (30), and
the Psalms (36), but only one of Ezra (and possibly Nehemiah) and Chronicles,
two of Joshua and Proverbs, and three of the Kings, Judges, and Ecclesiastes. All
of the books in the HB have been found among the DSS except the book of Esther.
On the other hand, multiple copies of so-called non-biblical books were also found
at Qumran, such as The Temple Scroll (likely at least 5 copies, the best preserved
is 11QTemplea, = 11Q19), 1 Enoch (12 copies), Jubilees (14 copies), Tobit (5
copies), and Sirach (2 copies). In the case of The Temple Scroll, we see from
11QTb, significant attention was given to this book well into the first century CE.12
It is assumed here that books with multiple copies were likely more significant
than others to the members of the Qumran community, though, again, it is possible
that not all of the scrolls have been found and also that some have been destroyed
that might change the contours of this assumption.

10
Martin G. Abegg, “4QMMT, Paul, and ‘Works of the Law,” in Flint, ed., The Bible at Qumran,
203–16.
11
Evans, “Dead Sea Scrolls and the Canon of Scripture.”
12
This observation is also in Elledge, The Bible and the Dead Sea Scrolls, 72. See also his helpful
introduction of the Temple Scroll in C. D. Elledge, The Statutes of the King: The Temple Scroll’s
Legislation on Kingship (11Q19 LVI 12-LIX 21), Cahiers De La Review Biblique 56 (Paris: J.
Gabalda, 2004), 1–69, especially 37–45, for the dating of the document between 143 and 125 BCE.
See also Andrew Gross, “Temple Scroll (11QTemple),” in Collins and Harlow, eds., Eerdmans
Dictionary of Early Judaism, 1291–94, here 1291.
238 THE FORMATION OF THE BIBLICAL CANON, VOLUME I

Although other Essene communities existed in Palestine, Egypt, and elsewhere,

the surviving available Essene literature comes from the Qumran community.
Some writings discovered at Qumran were also discovered in the Cairo Genizah
in Egypt, but the large number of the documents discovered at or near Qumran
has considerable significance for understanding Jewish and Christian biblical
canons.13

B. Biblical Texts
The “biblical”14 manuscripts found at Qumran are mostly in Hebrew and are
fully one thousand years earlier than the Leningrad Codex (ca. 1008/9 CE) and
the Aleppo Codex (ca. 925 CE), the chief witnesses to the Masoretic Text (MT)
of the HB. Most of the scrolls discovered at Qumran are in Hebrew, but a
hundred are in Aramaic, and several from Cave 7 and Naḥal Ḥever (south of
Qumran) are in Greek.15 Some 40 percent of the Hebrew biblical manuscripts are
of the Pentateuch, which suggests where the primary scriptural authority of the
Essenes was placed. Of the rest, thirty-six manuscripts (or possibly thirty-seven)
are of the Psalms and thirty-three are from the Major Prophets (there are nineteen

13
Recent works on the relevance of the Qumran literature for understanding Judaism in the time of
Jesus and the biblical canon at that time include Abegg, Flint, and Ulrich, Dead Sea Scrolls Bible;
J. A. Fitzmyer, The Dead Sea Scrolls and Christian Origins: Studies in the Dead Sea Scrolls and
Related Literature (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 2000); Flint and VanderKam, eds., Dead Sea Scrolls
After Fifty Years; Garcia Florintino Martínez, The Dead Sea Scrolls Translated: The Qumran
Texts in English, trans. W. G. E. Watson, 2nd ed. (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1996); L. Schiffman,
Reclaiming the Dead Sea Scrolls: Their True Meaning for Judaism and Christianity (New York:
Doubleday, 1995); Tov, “Groups of Biblical Tests Found at Qumran” and “Hebrew Biblical Manu-
scripts from the Judaean Desert,” and see others related in the Bibliography; J. Trebolle Barrera,
The Jewish Bible and the Christian Bible: An Introduction to the History of the Bible, trans. W. G.
E. Watson (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1998); Ulrich, Dead Sea Scrolls; and J. C. VanderKam, Dead
Sea Scrolls Today (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1994).
14
The terms “biblical” and “non-biblical” are, of course, anachronistic and are included here only
to clarify our discussion and identify the books in question. To some extent, the Essenes valued
everything found in the caves at Qumran, especially those writings in multiple copies. Whether
those books were always valued in the same way that sacred Scripture is now understood is unclear.
However, since the literature discovered there – “biblical” and “non-biblical” alike – was not only
copied but also stored in the caves without obvious distinguishing features suggests the considerable
value that the community attached to that literature.
15
These numbers are based in part on Milik’s Ten Years of Discovery, supplemented with later
sources. For a discussion of recently released documents, see García Martínez, Dead Sea Scrolls
Translated. Although some have argued that a small fragment of a manuscript discovered at Qumran
is from the Gospel of Mark, this view is now largely discredited, and scholars generally agree that no
NT texts were found at Qumran. For a discussion of whether 7Q5 is a fragment of Mark 6:52–53, see
G. N. Stanton, Gospel Truth? New Light on Jesus and the Gospels (London: HarperCollins, 1995),
20–32, who concludes that it is not.
SCRIPTURE AMONG ESSENES, SADDUCEES, PHARISEES, AND SAMARITANS 239

or twenty-one manuscripts of Isaiah and six each of Jeremiah and Ezekiel).16

If Daniel is figured into the Major Prophets, then eight more are added to this
list.17
All of the HB books, except perhaps Esther and Nehemiah, have been found at
Qumran.18 In the case of Esther, it is likely that it was never considered as a sacred
text among the Covenanters at Qumran not just because no portion of it was found
there, but more importantly, it is not cited, quoted, or alluded to in any of the liter-
ature found at Qumran, and the festival of Purim, which is central to the later use
of the book, is not mentioned in any of the calendar texts at Qumran.19 The scrip-
tures of Qumran are not equal to the biblical canon of later rabbinic Judaism or any
Christian OT canon and it is clear from what has survived that there were more
non-biblical texts discovered at Qumran than biblical texts and their sacredness
or scriptural status is not easily distinguishable from the biblical manuscripts.

16
It is not always easy to determine the precise number of manuscripts found at Qumran due to
their fragmentation. Because of this, scholars regularly calculate different numbers of documents
discovered at Qumran.
17
These figures come from Abegg, “Hebrew of the Dead Sea Scrolls”; and L. Greenspoon, “The
Dead Sea Scrolls and the Greek Bible,” in Flint and VanderKam, eds., The Dead Sea Scrolls After
Fifty Years, 1:101–27. For a more complete listing of the Qumran writings, see García Martínez,
Dead Sea Scrolls Translated, 466–519; G. Vermes, The Complete Dead Sea Scrolls in English
(London: Penguin, 1995), 602–18; S. A. Reed et al., eds., The Dead Sea Scrolls Catalogue:
Documents, Photographs, and Museum Inventory Numbers (Atlanta: Scholars Press, 1994); and E.
Tov and S. A. Pfann, Companion Volume to the Dead Sea Scrolls, Microfiche ed. (Leiden: Brill,
1995).
18
Several biblical scholars argue that Esther was not found at Qumran and was purposefully
omitted because of calendar conflicts. While no part of the biblical book of Esther has been found
to date at Qumran, several fragments of a loosely parallel work called proto-Esther were discov-
ered there namely, 4Q550, 4Q550a, 4Q550b, 4Q550c, 4Q550d, and perhaps 4Q550e (see García
Martínez and Tigchelaar, Dead Sea Scrolls Study Edition, 1096–103; and M. O. Wise, M. G. Abegg,
and E. M. Cook, The Dead Sea Scrolls: A New Translation [San Francisco: HarperCollins, 1996],
437–39). In these texts, Bagasraw (or Bagasro) seems to play the role of Haman. Mordecai and
Esther are not mentioned, but the story, as best as can be discerned from the fragments, resembles
somewhat the story of the book of Esther. I received this information in personal correspondence
from C. A. Evans. It is difficult to know what to make of such discoveries, but one cannot leap from
these texts to say that Esther as we know it was a part of a biblical canon at Qumran. The argument
to include Nehemiah among the books found at Qumran stems from a later development in Judaism
when Ezra and Nehemiah were often coupled together in one scroll; since, therefore, Ezra was
found at Qumran, some scholars often assume that Nehemiah must have been at Qumran as well.
This argument seems anachronistically flawed. For arguments against the presence of Nehemiah at
Qumran, see Davies, Scribes and Schools, 154, 197; and J. C. VanderKam, “Ezra–Nehemiah or Ezra
and Nehemiah,” in Priests, Prophets, and Scribes: Essays on the Formation and Heritage of Second
Temple Judaism in Honour of Joseph Blenkinsopp, ed. E. Ulrich, J. Wright, R. P. Carroll, and P. R.
Davies, JSOTSup 149 (Sheffield: JSOT Press, 1992), 55–75.
19
I owe this argument to Sidnie White Crawford, Rewriting Scripture in Second Temple Times.
SDSRL (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 2008), 9.
240 THE FORMATION OF THE BIBLICAL CANON, VOLUME I

No listing of a fixed collection of sacred books can be discerned at Qumran,

though some scholars have suggested one. Also, the psalmic texts at Qumran
exhibit significant variations from the later MT that became the fixed text of the
HB.20
As noted, some 700 “nonbiblical” scrolls or manuscripts were also discovered at
Qumran and elsewhere in the Judean desert. The noncanonical writings have been
conveniently classified as (1) rules and regulations, (2) poetic and wisdom texts,
(3) rewritten scriptures21 (e.g., Genesis Apocryphon, Rewritten Pentateuch, Temple
Scroll, and others), (4) commentaries (e.g., the Pesher commentary on Habakkuk),
and (5) a miscellaneous section that includes a variety of other writings that do not
fit the above categories.22

20
Most English translations of the OT are based on a single manuscript, the Leningrad Codex,
which was copied in 1009/8 and is the oldest and most complete manuscript of the MT of the HB. An
earlier manuscript, the Aleppo Codex, was produced in 925 CE, but because of considerable damage
to it during a raid against the synagogue where it was housed in Aleppo, Syria in 1947, it is not
complete and must be augmented by the Leningrad Codex. The Masoretic scribes produced many
biblical manuscripts that exist now largely in fragmentary condition, but the Bible they produced is
essentially the same as what is widely used today for translations of the HB, though the books are
not always in the same order. This rabbinic Bible is based on a meticulous amount of painstaking
work to maintain textual consistency in the biblical text. The final stages of this process were carried
out by a group of scribes known as the Masoretes, who added vowel points to the consonantal text
to ensure that it could be properly pronounced and carefully interpreted. The standardized form of
the text that resulted is found in both the Leningrad text which itself is based on the earlier Aleppo
text. See Abegg, Flint, and Ulrich, Dead Sea Scrolls Bible, x–xi.
21
The notion of a “rewritten Bible” was first introduced by Geza Vermes as a way of explaining
a number of the texts found at Qumran that appear to rewrite earlier biblical texts. Because of the
similarities of this literature with much of the biblical literature along with several changes to it,
Vermes coined this designation. The terminology has subsequently and more appropriately been
modified by George Brooke and Sidnie White Crawford to “rewritten scriptures” because of the
difficulty of determining a “Bible” or fixed collection of sacred scriptures among the Qumran
findings. What we are talking about here is the practice of several ancient writers who rewrote
portions of the sacred scriptures, e.g., Chronicles is generally looked upon as a rewriting of the
Deuteronomic History with more focus on the priestly traditions and practices in Judaism. For a
helpful discussion of the definition of this “genre,” see Crawford, Rewriting Scripture, 9–13 and
George J. Brooke, “The Rewritten Law, Prophets and Psalms: Issues for Understanding the Text of
the Bible,” in The Bible as Book: The Hebrew Bible and the Judaean Desert Discoveries, ed. Edward
D. Herbert and Emanuel Tov (London: British Library; New Castle, DE: Oak Knoll, 2002), 31–40.
He offers a broader definition than the more restrictive one presented by Philip Alexander on 32–33.
He claims that the rigid or “neat” distinction between “scripture” and “rewritten” is impossible
to measure, and in the broadest sense reflects “a composition that shows clear dependence on a
scriptural text” (32). See further discussion of this in Chapter 12 §IV.A.
22
Abegg, Flint, and Ulrich, Dead Sea Scrolls Bible, xv.
SCRIPTURE AMONG ESSENES, SADDUCEES, PHARISEES, AND SAMARITANS 241

C. Sectarian Literature
The following writings are generally recognized as peculiarly (sectarian) Essene
literature:

1.  Damascus Document (abbreviated CD). It was also discovered in the Cairo

Genizah in 1895. The Qumran manuscripts appear to be later versions of the
Community Rule.
2.  Community Rule or Manual of Discipline (1QS or Serekh) consists of rules
of life for the community: (a) aims and ideals; (b) annual census instruc-
tions, including moral outlook (humility); (c) treatise on the spirits of good
and evil; (d) regulations regarding obedience; (e) oath of allegiance; and (f)
a hymn with reference to calendar details and secrecy of doctrine.
3. Rule Annex or Messianic Rule (1QSa) consists of supplementary provisions
for instruction that describe the treatment of the aged and mentally ill, plus
offering more council rules.
4. Book of Blessings (1QSb) is a handbook of benedictions for members and
officials.
5. War Scroll (4QM or Milhama), a nineteen-column document, contains
instructions on the preparations for the great eschatological battle when the
universal dominion of God’s holy race will be established (cf. Ezek 38–39
and Daniel).
6. Hymn Scroll (1QH or Hodayot) contains some thirty hymns, many of which
are thanksgivings for salvation and knowledge. It is somewhat parallel to the
canonical Psalms, but is more individualistic.
7. Halakic Letter (4QMMT or Miqsat Ma’aseh ha-Torah [“some works of
the law”]). This is a collection of rules for behavior or law codes derived
from a particular interpretation of the scriptural law codes (similar to the
Temple Scroll and Jubilees). It has considerable relevance for the study of
the canonical process in that it speaks of the kinds of literature about which
the community was especially concerned, namely, the Law of Moses (see
Chapter 4 §III.E).
8. Liturgical and astrological fragments.
9. Florilegia (or testimony books) includes three fragments from Cave 4 with
assembled selections from OT passages.
10. Genesis Apocryphon (1QapGen or Lamech Scroll). This text, like Jubilees,
contains a rewritten and “modernized” version of parts of Genesis in
Aramaic.
11. Temple Scroll (11QTemple). This scroll is over thirty feet long and, based
on the number of copies discovered at Qumran, was apparently highly
influential in the Qumran community. This scroll is something of a rewritten
text similar to a “new Book of Moses” that describes rules related to the
Temple and sacrifices. More will be said about this scroll later.
242 THE FORMATION OF THE BIBLICAL CANON, VOLUME I

D. Biblical Commentaries
The commentaries found at Qumran consist of passages from the OT accompanied
by pesharim, literalistic and eschatological interpretations of the scriptural books
in light of the life and history of the community at Qumran. Scholars generally
agree that ancient Jewish and Christian writers only produced commentaries on
texts that they deemed were inspired and sacred. Lim offers a helpful discussion
of the pesharim and how the Essene commentators both interpreted and modified
their scriptural texts.23 The commentaries constituted for the residents of Qumran
the true interpretation of their sacred scriptures. Campbell conveniently lists these
as continuous commentaries (pesharim) and thematic commentaries as follows:

The continuous pesharim include: the well preserved and mostly complete Commentary
on Habakkuk (1QpHabakkuk), but also 4QpIsaiaha-e, 4QpHoseaa-b, 4Q166–7, Commentary
on Micah (1QpMicah (1Q14), 4QpMicah (4Q168), 4QpNahum (4Q169), Commentary on
Zephaniah (1QpSephaniah (1Q15), 4QpZephaniah (1Q170), and Commentary on Psalms
(1QpPsalms (1Q16), 4QpPsalmsa-b, (4Q173).

The thematic pesharim include: 4Q Florilegium (4Q174), 4QCatena A (4Q177) and

11QMelchizedek (11Q13), plus 4QOrdinancesa-c (4Q159, 513–14), 4QTanhumim (4Q176),
4QAges of Creation A-B (4Q180–1) and 4QCommentary on Genesis A (4Q252).24

E. Late Jewish Apocryphal and Pseudepigraphal Works

Several of the so-called apocryphal and pseudepigraphal writings were also found
at Qumran, including, but not limited to, a Hebrew version of Sirach, Tobit, an
Aramaic version of Tobit, a Greek version of the Epistle of Jeremiah, Jubilees,
an Aramaic version of 1 Enoch, and fragments used in producing the Testaments
of the Twelve Patriarchs. All of these are of special significance because they
point to the theological outlook in Palestine at the time of the emergence of early
Christianity as well as to other religious texts that informed the faith of some Jews
and some Christians in late Second Temple Judaism.25 Several of these works were
also welcomed and cited as authoritative documents in early Christianity.

23
Timothy H. Lim, Holy Scriptures in the Qumran Commentaries and Pauline Letters (Oxford:
Clarendon, 1997), 69–120. See also his discussion of the significance of these commentaries in The
Formation of the Jewish Canon, 135–41; see also VanderKam and Flint, Meaning of the Dead Sea
Scrolls, 174–75 for a similar listing and 221–25 and 303–7 for summarizing discussions of their
significance.
24
Jonathan G. Campbell, “Scriptural Interpretation at Qumran,” in Paget and Schaper, eds., The
New Cambridge History of the Bible: Vol. 1, From the Beginnings to 600, 242–66; here 250–51.
25
John J. Collins offers a recent discussion of this literature in his “The ‘Apocryphal’ Old Testa-
ment,” in Paget and Schaper, eds., The New Cambridge History of the Bible: Vol. 1, From the
Beginnings to 600, 165–89.
SCRIPTURE AMONG ESSENES, SADDUCEES, PHARISEES, AND SAMARITANS 243

F. The Significance of These Finds26

The presence or absence of apocryphal or pseudepigraphal books in the DSS and
DJD collections have considerable impact on current HB canonization discus-
sions. In the first place, the absence at Qumran of the books included in the HB
Scriptures cannot be ignored, namely Esther and Nehemiah, but this may not be
as important as earlier thought, for only one small fragment of the larger book of
Chronicles was found at Qumran.27 Esther, however, as we have seen, is another
story and there are likely reasons for its absence. What was discovered in and
around Qumran is not necessarily a complete library of what was actually stored
there, for the residents made no list of what they stored or where they stored their
manuscripts and we do not know whether one day another cave or caves will
be discovered with even more manuscripts in them. Therefore, a certain level
of caution is necessary here before drawing firm conclusions about the contents
of the Qumran library. Because of this uncertainty, it is also wise to soften some
conclusions about what was and was not found there. Nevertheless, the presence of
all but one or two of the HB books may shed light on what books were welcomed
as sacred scripture. That may also be true of other contemporary Jewish religious
sects elsewhere in Palestine. The collection of DSS, however, does suggest a
broader acceptance of sacred books than what is in the later HB.
Even though all but two biblical books were found at Qumran, this does not
mean that the Qumran community had the same biblical canon as the Pharisees
or the later rabbis in the second century CE who were responsible for fixing the
number and contents of the biblical books in the HB. Bruce incorrectly, I think,
argues that “it is probable, indeed, that by the beginning of the Christian era the
Essenes (including the Qumran community) were in substantial agreement with
the Pharisees and Sadducees about the limits of Hebrew scripture.”28 Beckwith
similarly argues that the presence of all of the OT canonical books at Qumran, save
Esther, points to the acceptance in that community essentially of the same biblical
canon as the one found in Pharisaic Judaism and later identified and promoted
in rabbinic Judaism that we now call Tanak or HB.29 However, the discovery of
parallels with Pharisaic Judaism in some of the books found at Qumran cannot

26
For a helpful discussion of the significance of the Dead Sea Scrolls for understanding the forma-
tion of the HB and NT, see Nora David and Armin Lange, eds., Qumran and the Bible: Studying the
Jewish and Christian Scriptures in Light of the Dead Sea Scrolls, CBET 57 (Leuven: Peeters, 2010).
27
Cross, From Epic to Canon, 225; adds, “an additional worm, and Chronicles, too, would have
been missing”!
28
F. F. Bruce, Canon of Scripture, 40. Similarly, Satlow, How the Bible Became Holy, 172–79,
contends that the Essenes were a related sect of the Sadducees and that 4QMMT is a Sadducean
document, but acknowledges that the sectarian community at Qumran “had a loose but not closed
canon” (180). Thus far, the evidence is not convincing that the Essenes and Sadducees held to the
same scriptures, especially since the two sects are distinguished in Josephus.
29
Beckwith, Old Testament Canon, 291–94, 312–13, and especially 358–66.
244 THE FORMATION OF THE BIBLICAL CANON, VOLUME I

support the conclusion that they and the Essenes utilized the same biblical canon
despite any overlap. Since the Qumran scrolls included considerably more than
the HB canonical books their collection of sacred texts was clearly broader than
the current HB biblical canon. In fact, as already noted, more nonbiblical writings
were discovered at Qumran than biblical ones and the former often outnumber the
biblical books.30
Beckwith contends that the Qumran community accepted as Scripture only
the canonical writings of the OT, though he concedes that the Essenes excluded
Esther for reasons related to the Jewish calendar. Oddly, however, he contends
that essentially all of the other books found at Qumran, whether books dealing
with legal matters or prophetic texts, were simply commentary or interpretations
of the already fixed collection of sacred Scriptures – and even “revealed inter-
pretation” of the biblical books.31 VanderKam challenges Beckwith’s conclusions
with reference to Jubilees and 1 Enoch stating that these books were not simply
commentary or interpretation of biblical books. These books, he claims, were
presented as new revelations. For example, 1 En. 72:1 states that the contents of
1 En. 72–82 (the so-called Astronomical Book or Book of Heavenly Luminaries)
were revealed to the writer by the angel Uriel, and in Jub. 6:29–35 a special
calendar is traced to “heavenly tablets.”32 It reads as follows:

And they set them upon the heavenly tablets. Each one of them in thirteen weeks from one to
another of the remembrances, from the first to the second, and from the second to the third, and
from the third to the fourth. And all of the days which will be commanded will be fifty-two
weeks of days, and all of them are a complete year. Thus it is engraved and ordained on the
heavenly tablets, and there is no transgressing in a single year, from year to year. (Jub. 6:29–31,
OTP 2:68)

VanderKam appropriately asks of Beckwith which OT texts the author of Jubilees

or 1 Enoch’s Astronomical Book is citing or commenting on in these passages.33
There are allusions to the OT Scriptures in some of these noncanonical books, but
several have no discernible reference to biblical books.34 Again, we underscore

30
For example, Jubilees is found in 14 or 15 manuscripts, and 1 Enoch in 12, but by contrast
some biblical manuscripts discovered there are much fewer in number. For such comparisons, see
VanderKam, Revelation to Canon, 25–26; and Davies, Scribes and Schools, 154–57. The more than
700 nonbiblical books cannot be viewed as only “commentary” on biblical books. Some of them
were “rewritten Scripture” but not all, and those that were “rewritten” likely functioned as scripture
for the residents at Qumran.
31
Beckwith, Old Testament Canon, 362; cf. 359–60. See also Davies, Scribes and Schools, 163–65.
32
VanderKam, Revelation to Canon, 27–28.
33
Ibid.
34
Ibid., 27. For a comparison and contrast of the parallels between 1 Enoch and Genesis, see
also James C. VanderKam, “The Interpretation of Genesis in 1 Enoch,” in Flint, ed., The Bible at
Qumran, 129–48.
SCRIPTURE AMONG ESSENES, SADDUCEES, PHARISEES, AND SAMARITANS 245

that at Qumran nonbiblical texts were found alongside biblical books with no
discernible way of distinguishing them.
An excellent publication that illustrates the popular misleading information
about the Dead Sea Scrolls is Abegg, Flint, and Ulrich’s Dead Sea Scrolls Bible. It
contains a translation of a select number of writings found at Qumran, but does not
present all of the non-canonical literature found at Qumran or offer an adequate
rationale for why the editors selected or omitted some of the Qumran literature in
their volume. The title of the book itself is also misleading since their translation
does not represent a Qumran “Bible.” Its title suggests, contrary to the evidence,
that somehow a “Bible” was discovered at Qumran made up of the books identified
in this volume. That, however, is simply not the case. The term “Bible” suggests
both a selected and limited collection of books that were placed side by side to
form the stabilized Scriptures of a religious community.35 Abegg, Flint, and Ulrich
rightly include in their volume Jubilees, 1 Enoch, some noncanonical Psalms,
Sirach, Epistle of Jeremiah, and Tobit, but oddly omit without explanation several
others such as Temple Scroll, Rule of the Community, Damascus Document, Book
of the Giants, 4 Enoch, Book of Noah, Books of the Patriarchs, and others. There
is little that distinguishes the books that eventually became a part of the HB from
the books at Qumran that did not.
A number of religious texts that were not included in the Hebrew Bible or most
Christian biblical canons, were evidently significant literature among the Essenes
at Qumran, for example, the Book of Jubilees (cf. reference to it in the Damascus
Document [CD X, 9–10 = Jub. 23:1; cf. also CD XVI, 2–4, and elsewhere in
4Q228]).36 There were some fifteen or sixteen copies of Jubilees discovered at
Qumran, more than were found of most of the biblical books. In 4QTestimonia,
there are not only quotations of Exodus (20:21b), Deuteronomy 5:28b–29; 18:18–
19), Numbers (24:15–17 and 33:8–11), but also of the Apocryphon of Joshua
(4QTest 21–23 = 4Q379 22 7–15). In 4Q247 (= 4QPesher on the Apocalypse

35
Abegg, Flint, and Ulrich have acknowledged that “Bible” is historically anachronistic in refer-
ence to the works found at Qumran and that “there is little evidence that people were seriously asking
the question yet about the extent or the limits of the collection – the crucial question for a ‘Bible’
or ‘canon’ – which books are in and which books are outside this most sacred collection. Thus, The
Dead Sea Scrolls Scriptures may be a more historically accurate title for this volume. At any rate,
it presents the remains of the books for which there is good evidence that Jews at that time viewed
them as Sacred Scripture” (vii). I would prefer instead Dead Sea Scrolls Scriptures omitting the
definite article, “The,” which would be more reflective of the status of canon formation in the first
centuries BCE and CE, which is more in keeping with previous publications of these editors, but
evidently, as I was informed by one of the authors, in this case the publishers made the final choice
of titles and not the one they preferred.
36
So argues Armin Lange, “The Status of the Biblical Texts in the Qumran Corpus and the Canon-
ical Process,” in Herbert and Tov, eds., Bible as Book, 23. See also VanderKam, Dead Sea Scrolls
Today, 154–55.
246 THE FORMATION OF THE BIBLICAL CANON, VOLUME I

of Weeks) there is a commentary on the Apocalypse of Weeks (= 1 En. 93,

91:12–17), and the Damascus Document also alludes to the Book of Watchers (CD
II, 17–19). In 1QSa I, 6–7; CD X, 6; XIII, 6–8 there is a reference to the vision
of Enosh (4Q417 I, I 16).37 It is also worth noting that half of the large scrolls
at Qumran are non-biblical, that is, they were not included in the later HB or
Christian OT.38 What to make of all of this is complex and seldom clear, but Armin
Lange goes so far as to say that the Qumran Covenanters “recognized, in addition
to the Pentateuch, the Former and Latter Prophets, the Psalter, Proverbs, Job,
Lamentations and Daniel, the following compositions as authoritative: Enochic
writings, the Aramaic Levi Document, the Book of Jubilees, the Apocryphon of
Joshua, and the Book of Hugo.” Interestingly, he adds that he does not think that
the Essenes at Qumran viewed Canticles, Qohelet, Ruth, Esther, Ezra, Nehemiah,
and 1–2 Chronicles as scripture.39
Elsewhere Ulrich clarifies his views on the Bible at Qumran, which accurately
reflect what other scholars have also found there. I am in full agreement with his
position on the status of the biblical canon during the time of the Qumran commu-
nity’s existence. He writes:

I do not think that “The Bible” in our modern sense (whether Jewish, Protestant, or Catholic,
or any other) existed as such in the Second Temple period, if by “Bible” we mean a complete,
fixed, and closed collection of books of Scripture. There is sufficient and sufficiently broad
reference to “the Scriptures” or “the Law and the Prophets” to ensure that certainly there
were Sacred Scriptures at the end of the Second Temple period, but the point would have to
be demonstrated that “The Bible” as such was an identifiable reality at the end of the Second
Temple period.40

Ulrich raises several important questions in this regard that need answers
before any conclusions can be drawn about fixing or stabilizing the Bible in its
modern canonical sense. His focus is on standardizing of the biblical text, but his
perceptive questions are also suitable for the standardized books as well. These
include:

1. What are the available data for determining the nature and characteristics of
the scriptural texts in the first century BCE and first century CE?
2. Even if we have the proper data, are we looking at them through the correct
interpretive lenses?

37
I owe these observations to Lange, “Status of the Biblical Texts,” 23.
38
I owe this observation to Emanuel Tov, “The Biblical Texts from the Judaean Desert: An
Overview and Analysis of the Published Texts,” in Herbert and Tov, eds., Bible as Book, 159.
39
Lange, “Status of the Biblical Texts,” 23–24.
40
E. Ulrich, “The Qumran Biblical Scrolls—The Scriptures of Late Second Temple Judaism,” in
Lim, ed., The Dead Sea Scrolls in Their Historical Context, 69–70.
SCRIPTURE AMONG ESSENES, SADDUCEES, PHARISEES, AND SAMARITANS 247

3. Since “standard biblical text” normally refers to the MT, what was the MT?
What would be an adequate description of it? Was there such a thing as “a/
the standard text”? If so, was the MT the standard text?
4. Was there an identifiable group of leaders in the first centuries BCE and
the first century CE that knew of the variety of texts, was concerned about
the diversity of textual forms, selected a single form, had the authority to
declare a single form to be the standard text, and succeeded in having that
standard text acknowledged by a majority of Jews? At the turn of the era,
was there sufficient cohesion in Judaism and sufficiently acknowledged
leadership to make it conceivable that a majority of Jews recognized and
used a standard text?41

After considerable investigation, Yadin concludes convincingly that the Temple

Scroll was venerated as the Essene Torah and held to be equal in importance to
the traditional Torah.42 He observes that the so-called Tetragrammaton, the four
letters Y-H-W-H (‫ )הוהי‬that form the unpronounced name of God (Yahweh) in the
Hebrew Scriptures, is replaced in the Temple Scroll with the personal pronouns
“I” or “me” and such like. For example, Num 30:3 in the Temple Scroll states:
“When a woman vows a vow to me,” which replaces the traditional Torah:
“When a woman vows a vow to the LORD.”43 Yadin’s point is that the author
presents the law as if it came directly from God himself rather than through
Moses. He also notes that the square Aramaic script is used in the Temple Scroll
to write the name of God, just as it is in the other biblical books, which is
further indication that the people at Qumran viewed this scroll as sacred
literature. Yadin adds that this lengthy scroll was copied several more times at
Qumran than even the scroll of Isaiah. This leads him to the conclusion that
“the Temple Scroll was, for the Essenes, a holy canonical book on par, for
them, with the other books of the Bible.”44
Neusner concludes that the Essene community had a much wider collection of
sacred Scriptures than did other Jews in the land of Israel. He acknowledges that
the Essenes’ library at Qumran encompassed a diverse group of writings,
surely received as authoritative and holy, and also those that “other Jews did
not know within their canon.” He adds:

41
Ibid., 70.
42
Y. Yadin, “The Temple Scroll, the Longest and Most Recently Discovered Dead Sea Scroll,” in
Archaeology and the Bible: The Best of BAR: Archaeology in the World of Herod, Jesus, and Paul,
ed. H. Shanks and D. P. Cole (Washington, DC: Biblical Archaeology Society, 1990), 161–77; and
idem, The Temple Scroll, 3 vols. (Jerusalem: Israel Exploration Society, 1983).
43
Yadin, “Temple Scroll,” 168.
44
Ibid., 172.
248 THE FORMATION OF THE BIBLICAL CANON, VOLUME I

We have no evidence that the relation to the canon of Scripture of the Manual of Discipline, the
Hodayot (or Hymns of Thanksgiving),45 the War Scroll, or the Damascus Covenant and others
perplexed the teacher of righteousness and the other holy priests of the Essene community
about the scope of their biblical canon. To the contrary, these documents at Qumran appear side
by side with the ones we now know as canonical Scripture.46

Interestingly, at Qumran the practice of altering and changing the biblical text
was common and it did not seem to violate the Essenes’ understanding of the
sacredness of the texts that they were examining, copying, or editing. As noted
earlier, the command in Deut 4:2 (cf. 12:32) that forbids anyone from adding to or
taking from the Law, became the standard for distinguishing sacred texts (cf. also
Let. Aris. §311; and Rev 22:18–19).
This notwithstanding, the Essene community frequently changed or altered
sacred texts, even books of the Pentateuch. Silver calls attention to how the
scribes at Qumran felt free to alter the order and wording of the Psalms, even to
the point of adding the refrain “Praised be the LORD and praised be his name
forever and ever” after each verse of Ps 145, and they also changed the script,
spelling, grammar, and content of the two scrolls of Isaiah found in Cave 1. When
the Qumran scrolls were produced, there were no agreed formal standards for the
transmission of sacred writings, and the practice of changing the text, whether in
books eventually included in the biblical canon or not. This common practice of
changing the biblical texts was done in regard to the Torah as well. The Essenes at
Qumran regularly deleted or added words and even sentences in the transmission
and copying of their sacred texts. Changing such things as word division, syntax,
and spelling appears to have been of little concern to the scribes at Qumran.
Silver concludes that in pre-rabbinic times the Law, Prophets, and Psalms
carried a large degree of authority in the Qumran community, but they had not
yet attained the inviolable status given to Scripture by the later rabbinic schools,
which copied every letter and word as accurately as possible.47 The idea of scrip-
tural inviolability was not uniformly understood or followed by the Essenes in the
first century CE or before. There is no evidence that they handled their sacred texts
differently than other Jewish and Christian sects did in the first or second century
CE and later. As I will note later in regard to the texts of surviving HB/OT or NT
manuscripts, there are no two manuscripts exactly alike before the invention of
the printing press. While most of the changes in the texts of these manuscripts
were accidental and so corrections were made in them, some were intentional to

45
Hodayot is the term given to a number of thanksgiving hymns discovered at Qumran. The title
takes it name from the opening verb to the various hymns that begins “I thank you [O Lord]” that
usually begins with gratitude for knowledge or that the righteous will eventually overcome the trials
facing them, and such like.
46
J. Neusner, The Talmud: A Close Encounter (Minneapolis: Fortress, 1991), 174.
47
Silver, Story of Scripture, 136–41.
SCRIPTURE AMONG ESSENES, SADDUCEES, PHARISEES, AND SAMARITANS 249

change the meaning of the texts transmitted. This will be further discussed below
in Chapter 19.
Tov, whose work supports Silver’s conclusions, comments on how the scribes at
Qumran often incorporated their thoughts about the biblical text into new versions
of the text they produced. He explains: “In the newly created text scribes and
readers inserted sundry changes, which are recognizable because the limitations
of the ancient materials and the rigid form of the manuscript did not allow them
to hide the intervention.”48 He adds that notations and changes in the various texts
had little to do with whether they were biblical or non-biblical texts:

Very little distinction, if any, was made between the writing of biblical and nonbiblical texts.
For example, the scribe who wrote 1QS, 1QSa and 1QSb, as well as the biblical 4QSamc and
some of the corrections in 1QIsaa (e.g., at col. 33:7), employed the same system and notations
throughout all five texts (including the use of four dots for the tetragrammaton [Y H W H
or ‫)]יהוה‬. In addition, 1QS and 1QIsaa also share three unusual marginal signs, which were
probably inserted by the same scribe.49

Tov goes on to say that in a few cases some scribes did distinguish the biblical
texts from the nonbiblical texts by writing on only one side of the parchment for
biblical texts and on both sides for nonbiblical texts, and notes that the biblical
texts were almost exclusively written on parchment and only on a few on papyrus
sheets which were likely for personal use. Finally, Tov notes that a special
arrangement was devised for writing poetical sections in only the biblical books
– and this included Sirach.50
Contemporary canon scholars generally agree that the discovery and study
of the DSS has revolutionized previous conclusions about the formation and
canonization of the HB. Whether the Essenes at Qumran had a biblical canon
as such has been the subject of considerable debate, but again, further study of
the scrolls demonstrates the fluidity of the scripture collections at the turn of the
first century CE. Shemaryahu Talmon, for instance, claims that those who try to
construct a twenty-four book biblical canon from the discoveries at Qumran will
have considerable difficulty making their case. He concludes that “no discussion
or even a hint of the reasons which put on foot the inclusion or non-inclusion of
a work in the compendium of biblical books can be found in a Yahad [Qumran
community] document, nor a mention of an authoritative committee or council
that ever legislated in these matters.”51 He contends that the Covenanters at
Qumran “did not consider their assemblage of biblical writings a closed canon

48
E. Tov, “Scribal Practices Reflected in the Texts from the Judean Desert,” in Flint and
VanderKam, eds., The Dead Sea Scrolls After Fifty Years, 1:424.
49
Ibid., 1:425.
50
Ibid., 1:426. See also idem, “Scribal Practices Reflected in the Paleo-Hebrew Texts from the
Judean Desert,” Scripta Classica Israelica 15 (1996): 268–73.
51
Talmon, Text and Canon of the Hebrew Bible, 441–42.
250 THE FORMATION OF THE BIBLICAL CANON, VOLUME I

of Holy Writ” and that “Qumran literature evinces not only an ‘open-ended
biblical canon,’ as is argued, but rather gives witness to what I have termed ‘the
living Bible’.”52 He claims that the Qumran Covenanters viewed themselves as
living in the biblical age and in the historical and social context of biblical Israel.
Finally, he states that attempts to discover a fixed biblical canon at Qumran ignore
the central features of canon formation, namely a clearly stated and “precisely
defined corpus of textually fixed or at least stable literary works, to which nothing
can be added, and from which nothing can be detracted.”53 Because the Qumran
Covenanters (Essenes) saw themselves as part of the biblical story of Israel, as
their writings and pesharim54 (commentaries) make clear, it is difficult to show
from them any claim for a fixed text or collection books that formed the Hebrew
scriptures. Talmon’s arguments that the Covenanter’s synagogal style of worship
that consisted exclusively of prayer texts “without the inclusion of readings from
Scripture as a constitutive element,” precludes both the necessity of establishing a
closed canon of biblical books and a fixed transmission of their texts.55
James Sanders draws similar conclusions based on his foundational work on
the Psalms scrolls of Cave 11 at Qumran in which he shows convincingly that
there was no single expression of Judaism in Israel in the first century BCE and
CE. He contends that once the myth of the Jamnia hypothesis was dispelled,
scholars typically moved in two opposite and contradictory directions, namely
some chose to locate the formation of the HB in the Hasmonean period (Leiman,
Beckwith, and Davies) and others chose sometime after the Bar Kochba rebellion
in 133–135 CE (Sanders, VanderKam, Flint, McDonald).56 The discoveries at
Qumran, however, make it much less likely that the formation of the HB canon
took place during the Hasmonean Dynasty since the nonsectarian57 writings
are alongside the so-called biblical writings at Qumran and this shows that the
formation of the HB was still in a fluid state in the last century BCE and the first
century CE. This does not deny that several collections of sacred texts existed
at that time, such as the Pentateuch, the Twelve, and likely some if not all of the
Prophets, though we have no indication of what was in the Prophets of those
collections. As a result of DSS scholarship in recent years, scholars have begun to
rethink many of the earlier notions about canon formation in late Second Temple
Judaism.

52
Ibid., 433–34.
53
Ibid., 435–36.
54
For a careful discussion of these commentaries, see Lim, Holy Scripture in the Qumran
Commentaries.
55
Talmon, Text and Canon of the Hebrew Bible, 441–42.
56
See especially J. A. Sanders, Psalms Scroll of Qumran Cave 11; “Cave 11 Surprises”; and “The
Scrolls and the Canonical Process,” esp. 7.
57
These so-called nonsectarian writings are those that were brought to Qumran, but did not origi-
nate there, as in the case of 1 Enoch.
SCRIPTURE AMONG ESSENES, SADDUCEES, PHARISEES, AND SAMARITANS 251

As Talmon has reminded us, nothing at Qumran suggests anything related to

a biblical canon. He agrees with James A. Sanders that the Qumran scrolls and
other documents from the Judaean Desert “do not offer any decisive new evidence
pertaining to the crystallization of a closed canon of Hebrew Scriptures, worded in
a fixed and essentially standardized text.”58 While Sanders was among the earliest
scholars to understand how revolutionary the discovery of the Dead Sea Scrolls is
to our understanding of the formation of the HB, others have subsequently joined
him and share many of his sentiments on the matter.59
The Essene community reflects the multiple understandings of Scripture
and canon in first century CE. Other first-century Jewish sects differ from its
perspective and often also from perspectives that emerged in later rabbinic
and Christian traditions. While no direct evidence exists for early Christian
dependence upon Essene perspectives, some Essene influence may be detected in
Jesus’ understanding of poverty and divorce,60 or perhaps more likely, both shared
a common Jewish perspective in the first century CE.

III. THE SADDUCEES AND THEIR SCRIPTURES

The Sadducees were generally a wealthy priestly group made up mostly of aristo-
cratic families. They were responsible for public order and cooperated with the
Romans in order to ensure that the Jewish sacrifices would not be interrupted.
They have a poor reputation in the NT, as well as in other ancient Jewish literature,
especially that of rabbinic Judaism. After the destruction of Jerusalem and its
temple in 66–70 CE, the Sadducees did not survive long in the religious life of
Israel, and not much from their past survives, though some suggestions have been
made as we will see presently.

A. Background
The origins of the Sadducees are obscure in Israel’s traditions in part because
we have no clear extant literature from them though some have suggested that
Ecclesiastes, Sirach, the Targum of Ruth, 1–2 Maccabees, even the Damascus

58
Talmon, Text and Canon of the Hebrew Bible, 444–42. He refers here to James A. Sanders, “The
Issue of Closure in the Canonical Process,” in McDonald and Sanders, eds., The Canon Debate,
252–63.
59
For an understanding of how the HB text has recently been affected by the DSS and how those
finds affect current interpretations of the HB, as well as how the DSS relate to daily living, see Nora
David, Armin Lange, Kristin De Troyer, and Shani Tzoref, eds., The Hebrew Bible in Light of the
Dead Sea Scrolls. FRLANT 239 (Göttingen: Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht, 2012).
60
Magen Broshi argues this point in “What Jesus Learned from the Essenes: The Blessing of
Poverty and the Bane of Divorce,” BAR 30, no. 1 (2004): 32–37, 64. He makes a very good case and
also acknowledges that this influence may have come directly from John the Baptist, who possibly
grew up in such a community.
252 THE FORMATION OF THE BIBLICAL CANON, VOLUME I

Document, and possibly 4QMMT described above, come from the Sadducees, but
it is difficult to find something specific that ties the Sadducees to this literature.
Our primary sources of information about this sect come from Josephus and the
New Testament,61 and while they are also mentioned in several rabbinic texts, it
is essentially only when they are in dispute with the Pharisees or rabbinic sages.
Nothing is said in Josephus or the NT about their origin or if they wrote anything.
This absence suggests that there is much to be said about history’s winners getting
all the attention. After the destruction of the Temple in 70 CE, little is known of
their activity apart from disputes with the Pharisees.
Three common suggestions for their origins have emerged in recent years: First,
the name Sadducee may have come from ‫צדוקים‬, a Hebraization of the Greek word
σύνεδροι (“members of the council”). This appears to be more in keeping with
the role assigned to the Sadducees in the NT, but it is difficult to make a strong
case for this option because of the dearth of available ancient sources. Second,
the Sadducees’ name is derived from the Hebrew ‫“( צדק‬righteous”), but other
religious groups also used this designation of themselves, including the residents
at Qumran who esteemed their “Teacher of Righteousness” or “Righteous
Teacher.” Consequently this view also is difficult to substantiate. Third, and more
likely but also difficult to establish, is that the name is derived from the OT priest
Zadok (from the line of Aaron) whose sons were recognized as the legitimate
priests of Israel (Ezek 40:46). Both Ezra (Ezra 7:2) and the high priests of the
postexilic and pre-Maccabean period (1 Chr 24:3; Hag 1:1; Sir 51:12 addition)
founded their reigns as priests after the order of Zadok.
Since the Essenes claimed to be the spiritual sons of Zadok (1QS 5.2 and 9,
see the passages in question included above; and Damascus Document 4.1–5),
it is sometimes suggested that a close connection existed between the Sadducees
and the Essenes. The traditional view that the Sadducees recognized a smaller
collection of scriptures (Pentateuch) than the Pharisees and Essenes is based
largely on comments from Josephus and the New Testament texts that claim that
the Sadducees rejected fate and belief in the resurrection or life beyond death
(War 2:164–65; Ant. 18:16–17; Acts 23:6–8) and this can also be seen in Jesus’
reference to the Sadducees’ scripture, i.e., Moses or Law/Torah which does not
speak of resurrection, saying that God is the God of the living and not of the
dead (Mark 12:18–27). Scholars differ on the significance of these texts, but it is
difficult to see how the Sadducees could accept all of the HB books at Qumran as
Scripture and yet deny the resurrection since resurrection from the dead is clearly
found in Isa 26:19 in the “Isaiah Apocalypse” (Isa 24:1–27:13, perhaps from
the sixth century BCE near the end of the Babylonian exile), as well as in Ezek

61
Josephus, Life 10–11; War 2.119, 164–166; Ant. 13.171, 173, 293, 296–98; 18.11, 16–17; 20.199;
Matt 3:7; 16:1, 6, 11, 12; 22:23–32; Mark 12:18–27; Luke 20:27; Acts 4:1; 5:17; 23:6–8.
SCRIPTURE AMONG ESSENES, SADDUCEES, PHARISEES, AND SAMARITANS 253

37:1–14 and Dan 12:1–2. It is difficult to see how the Sadducees could accept
those books if they rejected the notion of resurrection and life after death. The
identity of the Essenes with the Sadducees is problematic.
It is possible that the Essenes and the Sadducees had similar origins, but
there are significant differences between them, not only on the notion of life
after death, the rejection of fate, Sabbath laws, and ritual purity. It is unlikely
that the Sadducees and the Essenes were the same or similar, despite some
similarities such as giving priority to the Torah or Pentateuch. Also, since the
Sadducees appear to have persecuted the Essenes and the Zadokite priests who
headed the Qumran sects, and there is evidence that the Sadducees supported
the non-Zadokite priesthood of the family of Annas (Acts 4:1, 6; 5:17), again
it is difficult to make the claim that they were the same sect.62 Whether Annas
or his son-in-law, Caiaphas, was high priest, the latter being the most likely, the
priesthood was still in the Annas family which was acceptable to the Sadducees,
but not to the Essenes. The arguments in favor of the relationship between the
Essene group and the Sadducees are based on the both groups advocating a strict
observance of several laws that is reflected in the Temple Scroll at Qumran and
in the Halakhic Letter (4QMMT B 21–22). Both rejected the Pharisaic practice
of exhibiting the Temple menorah outside the Temple (t. Hag. 3:35), and both
rejected the Pharisees’ rule regarding the annual half-shekel tax and their annual
celebration of the days of ordinance.
According to Eyal Regev, the Sadducees and the authors of the Damascus
Document rejected “the practice of transforming the courtyard or alley into
common property that allows its use on Sabbath.”63 However, he observes that
while the Sadducees share with those at Qumran similar views that are empha-
sized in the Temple Scroll and in the Halakhic Letter and, although the Sadducees
and Essenes may have had a common heritage, both Sadducees and Essenes
developed independently.64 Cross, acknowledging the similarities between them,
agrees that they may have had a common origin, but says that because the Essenes
called themselves “Sons of Zadok,” they may have been “an apocalyptic branch
of the Sadducees” and concludes that we have no firm evidence on which to
determine a Sadducee biblical canon. He doubts, however, that the “conservative
wing” of the Sadducee party as we see by that name in the NT “would have held
the late apocalyptic book of Daniel, with its explicit doctrine of resurrection, to be

62
For a summary discussion of the origin and beliefs of the Sadducees, see Günter Stemberger,
“Sadducees,” in Collins and Harlow, eds., Eerdmans Dictionary of Early Judaism, 1179–81; for
a more complete discussion see the earlier but still relevant examination of the all of the relevant
ancient texts about the Sadducees, including the rabbinic references, in Anthony J. Saldarini, Phar-
isees, Scribes and Sadducees in Palestinian Society (Wilmington, DE: Glazier, 1988).
63
Eyal Regev, “Sadducees,” NIDB 5:32–36, here 33–34.
64
Ibid., 5:34.
254 THE FORMATION OF THE BIBLICAL CANON, VOLUME I

authoritative.”65 Religiously, the Sadducees were both conservative and tradi-

tional. They cooperated with the Romans for pragmatic reasons because by doing
so they were allowed to keep the sacrificial system going on in Jerusalem. Like
most other Jews, they also despised the Romans for occupying their homeland.

B. The Scriptures of the Sadducees

Once again, scholars are divided over which biblical books the Sadducees
acknowledged as sacred scripture. Since we do not have any clear statement
from the first centuries BCE or CE on the parameters of their Scriptures, we are
left to infer from several comments about the Sadducees in Josephus and the NT
what those scriptures might have been. Were their choices different from other
first-century sects of Judaism that welcomed other books that were also finally
included in the HB? I have already indicated why it is likely that the Sadducees
had the most conservative collection of Jewish Scriptures in the first century CE.
Some scholars questioned whether there was any essential difference between the
Sadducees, the Pharisees, or the Essenes in regard to the scope of their Scriptures.
F. F. Bruce, for instance, suggests that the notion of a limited Sadducee biblical
canon stems from a common misunderstanding of the following text in Josephus:

The Sadducees hold that the soul perishes along with the body. They own no observance of any
sort apart from the laws; in fact, they reckon it a virtue to dispute with the teachers of the path of
wisdom that they pursue. There are but few men to whom this doctrine has been made known,
but these are men of the highest standing. They accomplish practically nothing, however. For
whenever they assume some office, though they submit unwillingly and perforce, yet submit
they do to the formulas of the Pharisees, since otherwise the masses would not tolerate them.
(Josephus, Ant. 18.16–17, LCL)

This passage is usually taken to mean that only the Law of Moses was sacred to
the Sadducees and that they excluded all other authoritative writings accepted
by the Pharisees. Bruce claims instead that this passage refers only to their
rejection of the oral traditions of the Jews, not to their rejection of the Prophets
and Writings.66 He may be right in this instance, but it would still be odd for
the Sadducees to affirm all of the books affirmed by the Pharisees and Essenes
and yet deny the resurrection and life after death. Saldarini acknowledges that
scholars differ over the meaning of this text and concludes: “Josephus does not say
explicitly that the Pharisees follow oral law, nor does he say that the Sadducees
only follow the laws written in the Bible, contrary to the claims made in many
descriptions of these groups. This passage says that their traditions differed, but
not how.”67 He is correct, of course, in seeing the ambiguity of this passage, but

65
Cross, From Epic to Canon, 224–25.
66
F. F. Bruce, Canon of Scripture, 40–41.
67
Saldarini, Pharisees, Scribes, and Sadducees, 113.
SCRIPTURE AMONG ESSENES, SADDUCEES, PHARISEES, AND SAMARITANS 255

given what Josephus and the NT say elsewhere about the Sadducees’ beliefs about
life after death, including the perishing of the soul and the body, it is not a stretch
to suggest that they adhered to a different collection of Scriptures. Likewise, when
Jesus responds to the Sadducees and affirms that God is the God of Abraham, the
God of Isaac, and the God of Jacob (Exod 3:6) and that he is the God of the living,
not the dead (Mark12:24–27), the passage makes little sense unless Jesus assumes
that the Sadducees reject later HB/OT teachings about resurrection.68
Bruce cites another passage from Josephus that he claims makes clear that Ant.
18.16–17 refers to only the oral traditions of the Pharisees and not to the Prophets
or Writings:

For the present I wish merely to explain that the Pharisees had passed on to the people certain
regulations handed down by former generations and not recorded in the Laws of Moses, for
which reasons they are rejected by the Sadducaean group, who hold that only those regulations
should be considered valid which were written down (in Scripture) and that those which had
been handed down by former generations need not be observed. (Ant. 13.297, LCL)

Based on these texts alone, we cannot say conclusively whether the Sadducees
rejected the Prophets and the Writings, but supposedly, as Bruce claims, only the
oral traditions of the Jews. However, can it be inferred here that the Sadducees
accepted the same scriptures as the Pharisees or Essenes, especially in light
of their rejection of belief in the resurrection of the dead, which is well estab-
lished in Josephus and the book of Acts (see below)? Again, it is difficult to
understand how the Sadducees could affirm the scriptural status of the biblical
books mentioned above and yet deny the resurrection.69 More importantly, Jesus’
argument against the Sadducees’ denial of the resurrection in Matt 22:23–32
(see also Mark 12:18–27) is not based on the clearer texts in Isaiah, Ezekiel, and
Daniel, but rather on an inference taken from the Law (Exod 3:6), which the
Sadducees clearly affirmed. Had the Sadducees accepted the Prophets, Jesus’ case
would have been stronger had he cited Isaiah, Ezekiel, or Daniel. Jesus’ response,
however, fits best with the obvious assertions of Acts 23:6–10 that the Sadducees
denied the resurrection from the dead:

68
For helpful discussions of this passage and its implications and examples of early Jewish and
rabbinic parallels in argumentation, see Hugh Anderson, The Gospel of Mark, New Century Bible
(London: Oliphant, 1976), 276–79; Adela Yarbro Collins, Mark, Hermeneia (Minneapolis: Fortress,
2007), 557–64; Craig A. Evans, Mark 8:27–16:20, WBC 34B (Nashville: Thomas Nelson, 2001),
253–58.
69
Beckwith recognizes the force of this argument but rejects it, claiming that the Sadducees
rejected a belief in angels, which is taught in the Torah (e.g., Gen 19:1, 15; 28:12; 32:1), and that
this line of reasoning would imply that the Sadducees also rejected the Law of Moses. See Beckwith,
Old Testament Canon, 87–88 and 30–39 (his discussion of the Sadducees).
256 THE FORMATION OF THE BIBLICAL CANON, VOLUME I

When Paul noticed that some were Sadducees and others were Pharisees, he called out in the
council, “Brothers, I am a Pharisee, a son of Pharisees. I am on trial concerning the hope of
the resurrection of the dead.” When he said this, a dissension began between the Pharisees and
the Sadducees, and the assembly was divided. (The Sadducees say that there is no resurrection,
or angel, or spirit; but the Pharisees acknowledge all three.) Then a great clamor arose, and
certain scribes of the Pharisees’ group stood up and contended, “We find nothing wrong with
this man. What if a spirit or an angel has spoken to him?” When the dissension became violent,
the tribune, fearing that they would tear Paul to pieces, ordered the soldiers to go down, take
him by force, and bring him into the barracks.70 (emphasis added)

Had they held to the rest of the Jewish scriptures, how could they deny the belief
in resurrection?
Origen and Jerome both lived in the land of Israel and had access to Jewish
leaders and Jewish thought in their day. They both concluded that the Sadducees
limited their scriptural collection to the Pentateuch. Origen, for instance, states:
“But although the Samaritans and Sadducees, who receive the books of Moses
alone, would say that there were contained in them predictions regarding Christ,
yet certainly not in Jerusalem, which is not even mentioned in the times of Moses,
was the prophecy uttered” (Against Celsus 1.49 ANF, emphasis added).71 Both
Origen and Jerome agree that the Sadducees accepted only the Law of Moses
as Scripture. Bruce suggests that both depended on the Josephus texts for this
information,72 but this is neither obvious nor stated by either of these authors. Both
writers had independent access to informed Jews in their own respective commu-
nities. Irenaeus, however, did not depend on Josephus, but rather the story of Jesus
in the Gospels of Matthew and Mark and acknowledges that the Sadducees did not
believe in the resurrection (Ag. Haer. 5.2).
Chapman has set forth five arguments against there being a difference between
the Sadducees and the Pharisees in their scriptural collections, but some of them are
not as clear as he would make them. For instance, he claims that there are rabbinic
arguments for the resurrection based on the Pentateuch and non-Pentateuch books
and cites Sanh. 90b and Pesach. 68a (cf. Sipre 306),73 but, these augments are
not at all obvious or convincing and they reflect a specious style of midrashic
explanation typical of the Talmudic rabbis. For example, in the b. Sanhedrin 90b

70
The difference in the biblical canons of the Pharisees and the Sadducees is unclear in the NT,
but it is obvious that there was a lack of belief in the resurrection by the Sadducees. The differences
between the Sadducees and the Pharisees in the Mishnah (see m. Yadayim 4:6) are primarily over
matters of purity, and this distinction is carried over to the Tosefta (t. Parah 3.7). However, those
who have no hope and are called heretics in the Mishnah are those who say, “there is no resurrection
of the dead prescribed in the Law” (m. Sanh. 10.1). For additional references to the Sadducees in the
Mishnah, Tosefta, and Talmuds, see Porton, “Sadducees,” ABD 5:892–93.
71
See also Jerome’s Commentary on Matthew 22:31–32 for the same understanding of the Saddu-
cees’ scriptures.
72
F. F. Bruce, Canon of Scripture, 40–41 and n. 41.
73
Chapman, “Canon, Old Testament,” 105.
SCRIPTURE AMONG ESSENES, SADDUCEES, PHARISEES, AND SAMARITANS 257

passage, much of which seeks to argue for a belief in resurrection from Torah,
Prophets, and Writings, we read:

Sectarians [minim] asked Rabban Gamaliel: Whence do we know that the Holy One, blessed
be He, will resurrect the dead? He answered them from the Torah, the Prophets, and the
Hagiographa, yet they did not accept it [as conclusive proof]. “From the Torah”: for it is written,
And the Lord said unto Moses, Behold, thou shalt sleep with thy fathers and rise up [again].
“But perhaps,” said they to him, “[the verse reads], and the people will rise up?” (Soncino trans.)

The rest of passage focuses on arguments for the resurrection, but nothing here is
clear or substantiates Chapman’s claims about Pharisees and Sadducees holding
the same views. Indeed, all arguments from these texts are drawn from inferences
to substantiate views already held by the rabbis in view of the minim or heretics
(Christians and others) that they are challenging. Hugh Anderson, in his above
commentary on Mark 12:24–27, acknowledges that the rabbinic texts are strange
arguments not so much from the Torah as from their own previously held views.
The passages reflect a pesher style of interpretation more than identifying what
Pharisees and Sadducees have in common. The Christians maintained that their
resurrection depended on the resurrection of Christ and that resurrection was
grounded in their Scriptures, but if the rabbis showed how that view derived from
the Torah it would weaken their argument. Chapman then argues that since Acts
23:8 reflects the Sadducees’ disbelief in angels and spirit, both of which are found
in the Torah, a limited canon of scripture for the Sadducees cannot be argued
from this passage. While the rabbis through odd exegesis affirmed resurrection
from Torah or Pentateuch, this does not set aside the arguments earlier based on
Josephus’ understanding of the Sadducees or the reflections of them in the New
Testament.
Chapman’s third argument depends on a reading of Josephus that says that
Sadducees rejected the Pharisees’ “regulations handed down by former genera-
tions” that were not in the Laws of Moses and that they only held that those
“regulations should be considered valid which were written down (in Scripture)”
(Ant. 13.297, LCL). The passage, like Ant. 18.16–17 noted above, could by itself
could go either way, but it is clear that teaching about the future resurrection is in
the other scriptures, but not as explicitly stated in the Torah. Jesus’ reference to the
Law’s affirmation of the resurrection by saying that God is the God of Abraham,
Isaac, and Jacob and he is not the God of the dead but the living is a similar
midrashic interpretation of Torah that is not explicit in it. In his Jewish War,
Josephus says of the Sadducees, “as for the persistence of the soul after death,
penalties in the underworld, and rewards, they will have none of them” (War
2.165). His fourth argument makes it less clear, namely that the prophetic structure
was a normal part of the synagogue service (cf. Matt 2:4–6 and Luke 4:16–20),
but he assumes that the Sadducees were actively involved in the synagogue.
Finally, Chapman claims that the “gospel disputation scenes involving Jesus and
the Sadducees cannot be satisfactorily interpreted according to the inference that
258 THE FORMATION OF THE BIBLICAL CANON, VOLUME I

they observed different canons.”74 Why not? I continue to affirm that the only way
to make sense of the Josephus texts, Jesus’ conflict with Sadducees, and Paul’s
division between the Pharisees and Sadducees is if they recognized different
collections of scriptures (there were no biblical canons at that time) and had
different interpretations of those they held in common (the Law).
There is no evidence that anyone had fixed canons during the time of Jesus
whether for the Sadducees, Pharisees, or Essenes, though there were collections
of sacred texts circulating at that time, i.e., the Pentateuch, the Twelve, likely the
Former and Latter Prophets, and other HB Scriptures. However, there is uncer-
tainty over some books that later were included in the Writings and whether they
formed a separate collection from the Prophets in the first century or whether
they also included books that were later rejected in the HB. As shown above, the
scripture collections were still quite fluid in the first centuries BCE and CE. There
is no evidence that all of the first-century Jewish sects held to the same collection
of sacred scriptures. It makes more sense to go with the inferences drawn both by
Josephus, the early Christians, and two leading church fathers who were familiar
with Jews in Palestine and they likely got it right.

IV. PHARISEES

The best known New Testament Jewish religious sect is without question the
Pharisees who are mentioned ninety-nine times in the New Testament (89 in
the Gospels; 9 others in Acts, and 1 in Phil 3:5) and also in numerous places
throughout Josephus’ writings. They became the dominant religious expression
of Judaism following the destruction of Jerusalem and the Temple in 70 CE and
had a greater influence on all subsequent expressions of Judaism than any other
Jewish sect, beginning with the rabbinic sages at the end of the first century
CE to the present. Remarkably, despite their frequent mention in the NT and
in Josephus, little is known of their origins, core beliefs and practices, and the
specific Scriptures that they recognized. The only Pharisee to leave behind
any information about them was Josephus who was often given to hyperbole.
Scholars have little agreement on their origins or how they organized. The two
main sources of information about them is an obviously biased favorable report
from Josephus (Life 10–12; War 2.119–66; Ant. 13.171–73; and 18.12–22) and
from the biased and almost always polemical descriptions of them regarding their
activities and hypocrisy in the NT. No unbiased reports about them exist, but their
widespread popularity among many of the Jewish people in Palestine in the first
century BCE and CE is obvious.

74
Ibid.
SCRIPTURE AMONG ESSENES, SADDUCEES, PHARISEES, AND SAMARITANS 259

Their origin is vague and complex and most of what we know about them is in
Josephus, the New Testament, and rabbinic literature but none the less vague at
several important points. It is likely that the Pharisees were a pious Jewish sect
initially known as the Hasideans (Hasidim) whose origins date from sometime
between 165 and 150 BCE. The name “Pharisee” comes from the Hebrew or
Aramaic word parash (‫)פרש‬, which means “to separate” or “be separated,” but
possibly also “to explain” or “specify.” It is not clear if the sect identified itself
as “Pharisees” (Greek = pharisaioi) or by the Hebrew or Aramaic equivalent
perushim. It may be that this name was given to them by non-Pharisaic Jews, but
somehow “Pharisee” stayed with them and initially it appears it was not neces-
sarily a positive designation. The Apostle Paul in boasting identified himself as a
Pharisee (Phil 3:5) before his conversion to follow Jesus the Christ (Acts 26:5).
The term may suggest that the group was known for separating itself from others,
but it is not clear from whom or what. Josephus refers to their wanting to be exact
in their interpretations of the Torah (e.g. Life 191; War 1.110; 2.162; Ant. 17.41).
They were apparently committed to a careful and strict interpretation of their
scriptures and careful observance of the regulations both oral and written related
to keeping the Law (Acts 22:3; 26:5).
The name could refer to the Pharisees’ separation from other religious or
political institutions that they perceived were not interpreting Torah carefully or
serving God faithfully. Or, perhaps they could have been known for their explana-
tions of the sacred scriptures and traditions that were deemed relevant for daily
living. Both of these ideas fit well with their usual association with the scribes in
many NT passages and their strict adherence to the Law (e.g., Matt 5:20; 15:1;
Mark 2:16; 7:1; Luke 5:21; 15:2, Acts 5:34; 23:9, passim). Possibly the former
was what was intended if the union of scribes and Hasideans (cf. 1 Macc 7:12–13)
is the same as scribes and Pharisees in the NT and their “separation” was either
from the Hasmoneans and/or the Essenes (Hasideans?).
The Pharisees, along with the Hasmonean priestly family, were the two primary
resisting parties against the hellenization imposed on the Jewish nation by the
Seleucid ruler Antiochus Epiphanes in the second century BCE mentioned
above. Their sect had some 4000 to 6000 members and they were popular and
quite influential among the Jews in Palestine in the first centuries BCE and CE.
They were the dominant Jewish religious sect to survive the Roman destruction
of the nation in 66–70 CE and subsequently the name itself lost its significance
when scribal Pharisaism came to represent the entire Jewish people.75 The most
extensive descriptions of the Pharisees are found in Josephus (e.g., War 1.110–14;
2.162–66; Ant. 13.171–73, 288–98, 399–423; 17.41–45; 18.11–13, 15–16; Life
10–12, 190–96).

75
Eckhard J. Schnabel, “Pharisees,” NIDB 4:485–96, here 486.
260 THE FORMATION OF THE BIBLICAL CANON, VOLUME I

In the New Testament the Pharisees, like the Sadducees, are typically repre-
sented unfavorably. They are often depicted as legalistic and malicious antagonists
of Jesus. Most NT writers and the later church fathers had little good to say
about them. In Matthew, for instance, they are seen as arrogant, treacherous, and
fundamentally hypocritical. John the Baptist makes scathing comments about the
Pharisees in Matt 3:7 (“you brood of vipers”) and Jesus describes them in Matt
23:27 as “you white-washed tombs.” Jesus also said to those who listened to
him that “unless your righteousness exceeds that of the Pharisees, you will never
enter the kingdom of heaven.” (5:20) which drives home his point that he saw the
Pharisees as legalistic hypocrites.
Josephus also mentions a “Fourth Philosophy” that was initiated by a certain
Judas, a Gaulanite from Gamala (ca. 6 CE), who was accompanied by Saddok,
a Pharisee. Together they led a rebellion against the forces of Quirinius of Syria
because of his heavy and severe taxation imposed on the Jewish people (Ant. 18.4;
cf. Luke 2:1–2). According to Josephus these people and their “Fourth Philosophy”
were initially well received among the people, but the rebellion was put down with
brutal force. The philosophy that he describes is similar to that of the Pharisees,
except that its adherents would rather have liberty even at the cost of death than to
live in slavery (Ant. 18:23). In this they are not unlike the later Zealots who came
into prominence during the First Revolt against Rome (Josephus, War 4.162–313).
They are not to be confused with the “zealots” in the NT (Luke 6:15) who were
zealous to keep the law of God and have freedom from the yoke of bondage. These
and others share the determination of the earlier Fourth Philosophy to live free and
in obedience to the will of God.76
Paul does not condemn the Pharisees but rather claims to have been one (Phil
3:5) and according to Acts also studied under the famed Rabban Gamaliel (Acts
22:2–3; cf. 5:34). While their origins are obscure, it is possible that the Pharisees
movement began with dissatisfied priests and pious Jews (the Hasideans) in
the second century BCE who rejected the Hasmonean dynasty’s combination
of priesthood and kingship. That group of Hasideans or pious ones may have
split into the Essenes and Pharisees, but this is difficult to prove since the only
surviving evidence is vague and comes from the Hasmoneans (1 Macc 2:29–38,
42; 7:12; 2 Macc 14:6). They were the “winners” in the conflict. The Pharisees
believed that the Hasmonean dynasty’s leaders were compromising the will of
God. In New Testament times the Pharisaic movement was made up primarily of
lay people. They were popular among members of the emerging class of artisans
and merchants of Palestine, but also among the Diaspora Jews. Paul, as noted,
was a Pharisee born in the Diaspora city of Tarsus, a Hellenized city and Roman
colony, though in his case it is not clear whether his commitment to the Pharisees
began in Tarsus or in Jerusalem. His father was also a Pharisee and this suggests

76
For a summary of what we can know historically about the Pharisees, see Roland Deines, “Phar-
isees,” in Collins and Harlow, eds., Eerdmans Dictionary of Early Judaism, 1061–63.
SCRIPTURE AMONG ESSENES, SADDUCEES, PHARISEES, AND SAMARITANS 261

that such a group also existed in Tarsus. Since Paul claimed to be a Pharisee, it is
suggestive that he would have recognized a similar collection of scriptures as we
find in Josephus, a Pharisee in Ag. Ap. 1.37–43.
The Pharisees, like other first century Jewish, sects believed that they alone
rightly interpreted their sacred scriptures and lived appropriately in accord with
them. There were two major Pharisaic schools of scripture interpretation in the
time of Jesus led by two famous teachers whose teaching careers extended from
roughly 30 BCE to 10 CE, namely Shammai and Hillel. The first of these teachers
of the Law was Shammai who was conservative in his outlook and tended to be
somewhat rigid. His teaching on divorce is similar to the one Jesus adopted and
taught in Matt 19:3–12. Shammai’s teachings were Palestinian in orientation
and focused on obedience to the Law and the sacrificial system of the Temple.
Followers of Shammai were the dominant Pharisaic sect in Palestine until after
the destruction of the Temple in 70 CE. After that, Hillel’s teachings became the
primary understanding of the Law, when a more liberal understanding of the Law
and less rigidity in how it was to be kept carried the day. It is probable that he was
raised in Babylon, or at least had early roots there, and was less interested in the
Temple orientation than Shammai. He was more focused on the practical implica-
tions of the Law and taught that all of the requirements of the Law were fulfilled
by loving God with all of one’s heart and also by loving one’s neighbor, which is
similar to Jesus’ interpretation of the Law (Matt 22:34–40).77
The Scriptures that the Pharisees recognized are noted by Josephus, who was
himself a Pharisee, though he identifies the scriptures in terms of collections rather
than by the names of the individual books (Ag. Apion 1.38–43). The individual
books in those collections are possibly the same, but in a different order than those
listed later in b. Baba Bathra 14b (see Chapter 11 §II.A). At the time when the
Jewish-Christian separation began (62–66 CE) the collection that comprised the
Jewish Scriptures was still not a fixed collection. That collection possibly included
all of the books that were included in the HB, but probably others also that were
more prominent in the earlier part of the first century CE.
I am in substantial agreement with Timothy Lim who posits that the collection of
scriptures used by Paul was also in broad agreement with the scriptures that were
recognized by the Pharisees in the first century CE. Lim acknowledges that Paul
never set forth a biblical canon, though he points to Paul’s familiarity with most of
the books that later formed the HB canon. Lim carefully examines Paul use of the
books in the HB canon and finds that he either cites or shows awareness of most
the HB books with the exception of Ruth, Song of Songs, Ecclesiastes, and Esther,
books that were also disputed later in the rabbinic tradition. He goes on to say that
Paul does not clearly cite as scripture any of the Deuterocanonical or apocryphal

77
For a discussion of the Pharisees, see Saldarini, Pharisees, Scribes and Sadducees and his article
“Pharisees,” ABD 5:289–303. Also helpful is R. A. Horsley and J. S. Hanson, Bandits, Prophets, and
Messiahs: Popular Movements in the Time of Jesus (San Francisco: Harper, 1985).
262 THE FORMATION OF THE BIBLICAL CANON, VOLUME I

books with his usual introductory formulae such as “the scripture says” or “as it
is written.” This suggests to him that Paul was silent on the books that w#isputed
among the rabbis and that he did not accept the apocryphal books as scripture,
though he was doubtless familiar with several of them and also made use of some
of them.78 Obviously Paul cites a number of ancient non-biblical sources that he
likely did not view as scripture, but rather as illustrative material that supported
his points. But this is the point where some biblical scholars disagree with Lim.
The most obvious example, of course, is whether Paul cited Wisdom of Solomon
as sacred scripture in Rom 1:19–32 (compare Wis 12–15). The parallels between
Rom 2:4 and Wis 15:1–5 also suggest more than a casual familiarity with that
book. The question this raises for Lim has to do with the way that Paul makes use
of this text and whether he is citing it as scripture. He is not convinced that Paul
thought of Wisdom as scripture, but he does not deny Paul’s awareness of this text.
It may be that a reexamination of how the NT uses and cites the OT texts and other
texts needs further clarification. Some scholars continue to insist that Paul cited
Wisdom as scripture in this text and that may well be the case. Lim cites Dunn as
an example. The lack of Paul’s use of citation formulae is not necessarily deter-
minative here, as we see in other NT examples where Jesus, according to Mark
14:62, cites Dan 7:13, but does not use any scriptural formulae such as “as the
scripture says.” It is generally conceded that Jesus saw and cited Daniel of sacred
scripture. This practice of citing scriptural texts without the scriptural formulae
is also found throughout the book of Hebrews in which its author regularly cites
many OT texts, more than almost any other NT book, but with one exception (Heb
10:7) without the familiar introduction “as it is written.”
That author and others seems to be “writing with scripture,” to use Jacob
Neusner’s line,79 which often reflects the way that the NT writers occasionally
made use of scriptural texts, namely without the typical introductory formulae.
Paul’s use of the Wisdom of Solomon, like other NT writers’ use of Wisdom
of Jesus ben Sirach, may reflect what was common in the early churches who
welcomed these books and subsequently included them in sacred scripture collec-
tions. While Sirach was a disputed book for generations in rabbinic Judaism,
it was welcomed initially by the rabbis as scripture and it is also included in
early Christianity scripture canons. Does this suggest that it was also accepted
as scripture in the first century and cited as such in several texts in the NT? The
history of the early churches’ reception of both of these books as scripture suggests
that Paul too may have had a more positive view toward Wisdom as scripture than
what some scholars have seen.

78
Lim, Formation of the Jewish Canon; see his whole discussion of Paul’s scriptural canon on
159–77.
79
See Jacob Neusner and W. S. Green. Writing with Scripture: The Authority and Uses of the
Hebrew Bible in the Torah of Formative Judaism (Minneapolis: Fortress, 1989).
SCRIPTURE AMONG ESSENES, SADDUCEES, PHARISEES, AND SAMARITANS 263

Lim also acknowledges that the full scope HB canon was not settled for the
Pharisees in the first century. He also observes that Paul’s claim to have been
a Pharisee in regard to his zeal for the law (Phil 3:4–6) and reportedly studied
under the famous Pharisee, Rabban Gamaliel (Acts 22:3), and boasts of his
heritage as a Hebrew (2 Cor 11:22), and may claim that his father was a Pharisee
(Acts 23:6), or at least that he belonged to the family of the Pharisees. This all
leads us to conclude with Lim that “it is, therefore, entirely natural to compare
Paul’s canon to that of the Pharisees” noting that the Pharisees’ biblical canon
was still a work in process during the first century CE. That canon, for the most
part, is quite similar to the HB canon that emerged in the second century CE and
so Lim correctly concludes that Paul’s “canon was the canon of the Pharisees,
which was itself emerging and not yet finally closed” at the end of the first
century.80 There is no conclusive evidence that the HB canon, as it now stands,
was settled for most Jews in the first century CE, but it appears that most of the
books that eventually were canonized in the HB were those that were circulating
as scripture in the first century CE. Nevertheless some doubts continued for
centuries after broad agreement on the contours of the HB canon took place in
the third and fourth centuries.
It is possible that the scope of the HB scriptures was settled for Josephus
(Ag. Apion 1.37–43) and that his canon was equivalent to the same canon that
eventually obtained scriptural status by the second century, but questions still
remain since Josephus, the author of 4 Ezra, and Paul never specifically identified
the books that they believed were sacred scripture.
It has been suggested that the stabilization of the HB canon was largely due
to the influence of Hillel, one of the two leading teachers of the Pharisees in the
first century. He came to Palestine from Babylon and, according to F. M. Cross,
appears to have been a leading voice in promoting the books that came to shape
the contours of the HB. Cross suggests that Hillel may have had a greater influence
on the formation of the Pharisaic biblical canon than any other leading voice from
the first century.81
The author of 4 Ezra 14:45–46 appears to have conceded the widespread
acceptance of the “twenty-four” books that comprised the Jewish scriptures
through various combinations by the last decade of the first century. His list
of “seventy” other texts that were reserved for the wise was likely his way of
focusing attention on the writings that were later rejected and are often dubbed
apocryphal and pseudepigraphal writings. That author, like Josephus, has a specific
number for the books that comprise the Jewish scriptures, but, as we saw earlier,
that number was a special one that focused on divine origin and perfection, but
not necessarily on which books were included in it. As we saw, various combina-
tions of books were made to come up with that number and we do not know what

80
Ibid., 176–77.
81
Cross, From Epic to Canon, 223–24.
264 THE FORMATION OF THE BIBLICAL CANON, VOLUME I

books were in Josephus’ collection or the author of 4 Ezra. However, it is likely

that Paul’s understanding of the sacred scriptures was similar to the Pharisees’
scripture collection which was still fluid “around the edges” or “fringes” at the
turn of that century. Later the shape of that biblical canon became more firmly
established but debate continued among the rabbis over some of the books that
were later included (Ezekiel, Ruth, Song of Songs, Ecclesiastes, Esther) and one
that initially was welcomed but later dropped (Sirach).
The continuing fluidity in the shape of the HB canon during the early rabbinic
period can be seen in the continuing questions about the sacredness of the disputed
books, but it appears that the majority of books that later formed the HB canon
were not in serious doubt among the rabbis. (A discussion of these disputed books
will be discussed below in Chapter 11 §III.)

V. THE SAMARITAN BIBLE

Many of the Jews who survived the 721 BCE Assyrian invasion of the northern
tribes of Israel with the capture of Samaria, its capital, subsequently intermarried
with the Assyrians and became known as “Samaritans.” The Jews to the south
tended to view them as despised “half-breeds” and rejected their participation
in the life of the nation and its temple cultus. Following the devastation of the
nation that began in 598/597 BCE, and concluded with the subsequent destruction
of the temple and deportation of the people in 587/586 BCE, the only thing that
remained for the Jews who returned to Palestine after more than fifty years of exile
was a story about their heritage, including their experience with Yahweh.82 These
survivors concluded that the destruction of their homeland and temple was due to
their own failure to keep their covenant (the Law/Torah) with Yahweh.
The school of interpretation that began with Ezra added a new focus on the Law
and its practical implications in the lives of the Jewish people. After renewing
their covenant with God (Ezra 10:1–5; Neh 7:73–9:38), they rebuilt the Jerusalem
temple under Zerubbabel (Hag 1–2; Zech 1–8) and then rebuilt the walls around
the city probably no later than 445–443 BCE. During the rebuilding of the walls,
the Jews met with opposition from Sanballat, the governor of Samaria (Neh 4:2).83
This is the first time the Samaritans are mentioned by name.
The division between Jews and Samaritans was discussed later among the
rabbinic sages, who saw the Samaritans as ritually unclean (b. Niddah 4:1), and

82
As we saw earlier, Sanders, From Sacred Story, 127–47, 175–90, explains that it was not the
cultus or the monarchy or anything else other than a story of Israel’s life and heritage, wrapped up
in the call of Yahweh, that gave Israel its identity and the incentive to continue its existence in the
face of overwhelming odds.
83
The dating of these events and the conflict that ensued are summarized in Cross, From Epic to
Canon, 188–89.
SCRIPTURE AMONG ESSENES, SADDUCEES, PHARISEES, AND SAMARITANS 265

asserted that they made unacceptable offerings to God (b. Bekhorot 7:1), did not
observe the holy days properly (b. Rosh HaShanah 22b), and could not be relied
on to give a reliable witness (b. Gittin 1:5). The question of when the Samaritans
would be acceptable to the Jews is answered in the Babylonian Talmud: “When
they renounce Mount Gerizim, and confess Jerusalem and the resurrection of the
Dead,” which is the conclusion of the Masseket Kutim.84
By the first century BCE, Jews generally viewed the Samaritans with disdain
(see also John 4:4–12, 19) and as natural enemies of the Jews. The point of Jesus’
parable of the Good Samaritan (Luke 10:25–37) – that his disciples are to be
good neighbors even to their natural enemies – is heightened by an awareness of
the long-standing Samaritan–Jewish antagonism. The Samaritans built their own
temple on Mt. Gerizim around 330 BCE, but John Hyrcanus, the Hasmonean
king, destroyed it (ca. 128–125 BCE), although he did not destroy the Samaritans’
devotion to Mt. Gerizim. The period of Persian domination of Palestine (ca.
532–330 BCE) was often turbulent for the Samaritans, but in comparison with the
time of the Seleucid domination of Palestine (198–142 BCE) it was a relatively
peaceful time. Evidence for the upheaval during this period may be recorded in
Zech 9–14 (sometimes called Second Zechariah), which some scholars place
somewhere between 330 BCE and 150 BCE since according to Zech 9:13 the rise
of the Greeks had already occurred.85
The Samaritans adopted as their Scriptures their version of the Pentateuch
that is regularly called the Samaritan Pentateuch (SP), which included varia-
tions not found in the MT. There is no record that they ever adopted as their
Scriptures any other books of the HB. It is likely that the limited biblical canon
of the Samaritans was adopted in the fifth–fourth century BCE during the time
when the Jews preeminently acknowledged the Pentateuch as their primary
Scriptures. Immediately after the reforms of Ezra and Nehemiah, the Law of
Moses functioned as the primary Scriptures for the Jews, but as we saw earlier,
other books called “prophets,” some of which included references to the biblical
Prophets as authoritative scripture, were also cited authoritatively as scripture, but
not by the Samaritans. The Samaritans had already accepted a version of their SP
when they made a final separation from the Jews. This is not to suggest that the
Samaritans copied and modified the Jews’ Scriptures. On the contrary, it is likely
that they had an earlier version of the Law than what was eventually accepted by
the Jews in their Scripture collection. Ulrich observes how the DSS discoveries
at Qumran often show remarkable parallels with the SP texts in the Pentateuchal
books and against the later MT text of those books. This, he claims, argues for an

84
Cited by R. Anderson, “Samaritan Literature,” in Dictionary of New Testament Background, ed.
C. A. Evans and S. E. Porter (Downers Grove, IL: InterVarsity, 2000), 1053.
85
Coogan, The Old Testament, 2nd ed., 437–38; and Collins, Introduction to the Hebrew Bible,
2nd ed., 429.
266 THE FORMATION OF THE BIBLICAL CANON, VOLUME I

earlier and separate text of the Pentateuch.86 As we will see, the SP and the LXX
often agree against the MT and likely follow an earlier antecedent than the MT
that became the sacred text of the rabbinic HB.
While these two forms of the Pentateuch (SP and HB) have considerable
overlapping in their text, several textual variations in them point to two different
editions of an earlier Pentateuchal text. Of course, the Samaritans considered their
Pentateuch to be the authoritative and original text of their scriptures, especially
in regard to the location of their altar on Mt. Gerizim. For example, the MT of
Deut 27:4–5 says that after the Jews cross the Jordan River, they are to build an
altar to the Lord on Mt. Ebal, but the Samaritan Pentateuch of the same passage,
which may well be the earlier and more reliable text, says that it is to be built on
Mt. Gerizim.87
Unlike the MT, the Samaritan Pentateuch adds to the Decalogue a command
to build an altar on Mt. Gerizim. This is generally seen as a late edition in the
Samaritan Pentateuch, but that may not be the case based on a recent DSS
discovery.88 Interestingly, the Samaritans did not see themselves as a sect of
Judaism, but rather as the community that interpreted the Mosaic tradition
accurately, unlike the Jewish sects that they believe wrongly promoted Jerusalem
as God’s religious center. According to Purvis, however, the Samaritans may be
understood as a “variety of Judaism” since both the Samaritans and the Jews saw
themselves as the faithful “carriers of Israel’s sacred traditions.”89
Although other writings are found in the Samaritan collection of ancient liter-
ature, only the SP is canonized and read in all of their services of worship. Waltke
says that one of the important features of the SP for canonical criticism is that it
bears witness to texts being adapted to meet the needs of the living community and
those adaptations “assisted the Samaritans in preserving themselves as a unified
community for over two millennia.”90 Tov acknowledges the antiquity of the SP
text and acknowledges that it is in many cases earlier than the MT, but he is also
aware that the Samaritans have modified their SP text for their own sectarian
purposes in various places.91

86
Ulrich, “Qumran Biblical Scrolls,” 75–76.
87
R. Anderson, “Samaritans,” 946.
88
See James H. Charlesworth, “An Unknown Dead Sea Scroll and Speculations Focused on the
Vorlage of Deuteronomy 27:4,” in Jesus, Paulus und die Texte von Qumran, ed. Jörg Frey und Enno
Edzard Popkes (Tübingen: Mohr Siebeck, 2015), 393–414.
89
Purvis, “Samaritans and Judaism,” in Early Judaism and Its Modern Interpreters, ed. R. A. Kraft
and G. W. E. Nickelsburg (Atlanta: Scholars Press, 1986), 90–92. See also idem, The Samaritan
Pentateuch and the Origin of the Samaritan Sect, HSM 2 (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University
Press, 1968).
90
B. K. Waltke, “Samaritan Pentateuch,” ABD 5:938–39.
91
Emanuel Tov, “The Nature of the Large-Scale Differences between the LXX [Septuagint] and
MT [Masoretic Text,] S [Syriac Bible,] T [Targum, and] V [Vulgate], Compared with Similar
Evidence in Other Sources,” in The Earliest Text of the Hebrew Bible: The Relationship Between
the Masoretic Text and the Hebrew Base of the Septuagint Reconsidered, ed. Adrian Schenker, SCS
SCRIPTURE AMONG ESSENES, SADDUCEES, PHARISEES, AND SAMARITANS 267

The Essenes, Sadducees, Pharisees, and Samaritans were competing sects of

Judaism in the first century CE, though the latter was no longer a part of the main
body of expressions of Judaism. Their place of priority for the SP is not unlike the
Jewish priority given to the Torah/Law in their worship and instruction. The Law
of Moses was clearly the primary and undisputed scripture of all of these sects,
but from there considerable differences arose on what religious texts identified
their faith.
We will now turn to emerging collections of HB/OT Scriptures in both second
Temple Judaism and early Christianity.

52 (Atlanta: SBL, 2003), 121–43, here 133–34. He illustrates this with the change in the Samar-
itan Pentateuch when its producers rewrote the Decalogue in Exod 20 and Deut 5 by producing a
sectarian tenth commandment that refers to the sanctity of Mt. Gerizim.
 CHAPTER 8

EMERGING JEWISH AND CHRISTIAN

COLLECTIONS OF SCRIPTURES

Some biblical scholars have argued that the earliest followers of Jesus received
from him a closed canon of Scriptures that was circulating in Palestine in the
century before and during Jesus’ ministry. In other words, there was a fixed a
biblical canon that is essentially the same as the books that comprise the current
HB and the Protestant OT canon. They contend that the HB was essentially
complete by around 150 BCE or even slightly earlier (165 BCE). Some insist
that Jesus endorsed the current Protestant OT books but arranged them as Law,
Prophets, and Writings in the HB. For instance, LaSor, Hubbard, and Bush
concluded, “the Christian church was born with a canon in its hands” and that “the
New Testament authors never cite apocryphal writings directly, and it is probably
safe to assume that the OT they used was identical with that known today.”1
In what follows I will examine the most frequently cited witnesses to emerg-
ing collections of Jewish HB and Christian OT scripture collections beginning
with 2 Macc 2:13–15, followed by Philo, Luke 24:44, and Matt 23:35 with Luke
11:51.

I. 2 MACCABEES 2:13–15
This highly significant and controversial text comes from the time of the
Hasmonean period and focuses on events that took place from 176–161 BCE
including a reference to a supposed library began by Nehemiah. The text itself was
more likely written sometime shortly after 130–100 BCE. Unlike 1 Maccabees,

1
W. S. LaSor, D. A. Hubbard, and F. W. Bush, Old Testament Survey: The Message, Form, and
Background of the Old Testament (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1982), 17, 21. See also F. F. Bruce, The
Books and the Parchments: How We Got Our English Bible, 5th ed. (London: Marshall Pickering,
1991), 128; idem, Canon of Scripture, 28–32; R. K. Harrison, Introduction to the Old Testament
(Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1969), 287, says the OT canon in all of its essentials was complete by 300
BCE; D. Ewert, From Ancient Tablets to Modern Translations (Grand Rapids: Zondervan, 1983),
71; Leiman, Canonization of Hebrew Scripture; Beckwith, Old Testament Canon; Trebolle Barrera,
Jewish and the Christian Bible.
EMERGING JEWISH AND CHRISTIAN COLLECTIONS OF SCRIPTURES 269

which was written in Hebrew, 2 Maccabees was written in Greek. Whether one
should make much of that is unclear, but since the first letter in 2 Maccabees
was written to the Jews in Egypt who spoke Greek (2 Macc 1:1 and 1–9), it is
reasonable that this Jewish letter was composed in Greek.
Some scholars have contended that 2 Macc 2:13–15 reflects an early recog-
nition of the completion of the HB. Leiman, for instance, appears to be the first to
introduce this argument, but others after him have also cited this text as evidence
for the completion of the HB canon in the second century BCE. Leiman and
Beckwith appeal to this passage to justify their view that a three-part biblical
canon existed in the second century BCE. It is hardly that, however, as we will see
below. This passage speaks of a time following the Jewish rebellion against the
Seleucid King, Antiochus Epiphanes IV, when the Jews were back in full control
of their land, and the letter was written to the Jewish community in Egypt (cf. 1:1,
probably Jews at Alexandria). The text in question is as follows:

The same things are reported in the records and in the memoirs of Nehemiah, and also that
he founded a library and collected the books about the kings and prophets, and the writings
of David, and letters of kings about votive offerings. In the same way Judas [Maccabeus] also
collected all the books that had been lost on account of the war that had come upon us, and they
are in our possession. So if you have need of them, send people to get them for you. (2 Macc
2:13–15, NRSV, emphasis added)

This passage claims that Nehemiah collected books for a library that included
books of the “kings” (1–2 Samuel and 1–2 Kings?), the “prophets” (Former
Prophets, or Latter Prophets, or both?), and the “writings of David” (psalms?)
and the “letters of kings about votive offerings” (unclear). It may be possible to
guess which books are intended in the first three of these categories, but the last
one about “letters of kings about votive offerings” is a puzzle for all scholars. It
may be that the tradition about a gathering together of prophetic books to form
a “library” existed following the exile and that post-exilic prophets and later
“prophetic” traditions were already functional among the Jews (e.g., Ezra 5:1; Dan
9:2 and 4 Ezra 14:1–48), but this is, of course, all speculation. Given the refer-
ences to additional “other” sacred writings in the Prologue to Sirach noted earlier,
however, it is possible that other texts were also in view.
This passage does not allow us to speak with certainty about which books
were in Nehemiah’s collection and there is no attempt to identify the books that
Judas’ collection made available. Further, there is no corroborating evidence
that Nehemiah ever started a library. While libraries were known in the Persian
period, it is more likely that this tradition came from the Hellenistic period
in which several prominent libraries, such as those at Athens, Pergamum and
especially Alexandria, were well known. This passage would have been especially
significant to readers of 2 Maccabees because they lived in Egypt and more likely
in Alexandria (2 Macc 1:1), the home of the most famous library in antiquity.
Did the author have in mind an already existing library in Alexandria or in the
270 THE FORMATION OF THE BIBLICAL CANON, VOLUME I

Jerusalem Temple?2 We do not know. Nevertheless, this text does not specifically
speak of sacred books deposited in the Jerusalem Temple during the time of
Nehemiah or later following the Maccabean victories, though the practice of
storing sacred books in the temple would not have been unusual for that time.
The suggestion that sacred books were placed in the Jerusalem Temple is
supported by Josephus who was able to rescue “some sacred volumes” from the
Temple during the destruction of Jerusalem (Life 418–19) and also by another
reference he made to the “holy books” placed in the Temple (Ant. 3.1.7; 5.1.17;
10.4.2). Similarly, the author of the Letter of Aristeas refers to the chief priest
in Jerusalem sending to the king a decorative copy of the Law (Pentateuch) and
seventy-two scribes for the purpose of translating it (Let. Aris. 176). Presumably
the chief priest, who was responsible for sending a copy of the Law to the king,
kept the copy of the Law in the Temple or at least had control over it and could
send a copy to the king of Egypt. This is supported by Hilkiah’s discovery of the
“book of the law in the house of the Lord” (2 Kgs 22:8–10//2 Chr 34:14–21). The
sacred books destroyed during Antiochus Epiphanes’ attempt to destroy the Jews’
sacred books are obviously those that Judas attempted to recover and subsequently
make available to other Jewish communities. During Antiochus Epiphanes’ perse-
cution of the Jews, his soldiers tried to destroy the “books of the law” which all
but certainly included not only the Law of Moses but other sacred books as well.
It is also unlikely that the soldiers would have been able to distinguish between
the Law and other prophetic texts. The relevant part of that text reads as follows:

Now on the fifteenth day of Chislev, in the one hundred forty-fifth year, they erected a
desolating sacrilege on the altar of burnt offering. They also built altars in the surrounding
towns of Judah, and offered incense at the doors of the houses and in the streets. The books of
the law that they found they tore to pieces and burned with fire. Anyone found possessing the
book of the covenant, or anyone who adhered to the law, was condemned to death by decree of
the king. (1 Macc 1:54–57, emphasis added)

Leiman probably correctly insists that “law” in this passage is a general

reference to all of the Jewish Scriptures, not just the Pentateuch, and that Judas
Maccabeus was involved in the canonization process.3 It is quite likely that the
authors of both 1 and 2 Maccabees had in view all of the Jewish sacred scriptures,
but we do not know specifically what was in the collections in question. However,
Leiman’s suggestion that 2 Macc 2:13–15 supports his claim that Judas Maccabeus
was instrumental in closing the third category of the Hebrew canonical books, the
Writings, is questionable. He asserts: “The literary activity ascribed here to Judah
Maccabee may, in fact, be a description of the closing of the Hagiographa, and

2
Schniedewind, How the Bible Became a Book, 182–83; makes this suggestion but also questions
the historical validity of this attribution to Nehemiah in the Persian period.
3
Canonization of the Hebrew Scripture, 151 n. 138. Leiman contends that the Syrians would not
have been able to distinguish the Law from the Jews’ other scriptures, though surely the Jew who
wrote this text would have been able to recognize the difference.
EMERGING JEWISH AND CHRISTIAN COLLECTIONS OF SCRIPTURES 271

with it the entire biblical canon.”4 Although he acknowledges in a footnote that no

clear literary activity leading to a canonical collection of Scriptures is mentioned
in this text, he nevertheless contends that Judas Maccabeus began a canonization
process in response to Antiochus Epiphanes’ attempt to destroy the Hebrew
Scriptures. In a footnote, however, Leiman appears less certain about the implica-
tions of this text and cautions that: “Uncertainties, however, abound and when
viewed independently, nothing conclusive can be derived from this passage. While
‘the books about the kings and prophets’ probably refers to the Prophets section of
the canon, the activity ascribed to Nehemiah may reflect the formation of a private
library rather than an act of canonization.”5 Barton concludes that Leiman’s inter-
pretation of this text, especially his footnote, is “a quite unnatural way of reading
the passage, which is actually about a salvage operation on archival material of
all kinds, including Scripture. It has nothing to do with a decision about the limits
of the canon.”6 If Leiman’s conclusions are correct about Nehemiah’s library,
however, and there are no historical reports that support them, it appears that we
would then have to assume that the HB canon was stabilized sometime in the
fifth century BCE and that simply cannot be demonstrated and does not account
for writings later produced that were included in later canonical collections (e.g.,
Daniel, but also Sirach and others).
Considerable discussion continues over this text without agreement on its
significance. There is some agreement, however, that three kinds of literature are
described in the library of Nehemiah (“books about kings and prophets,” “books
of David,”7 and “letters of kings about votive offerings”). In the latter case there is
no clear understanding of what that means. Nothing, however, is said specifically
about the literature that Judas Maccabeus collected and made available to others,
but it is likely that his collection also included Jewish sacred texts recognized as
such at that time. Because the three kinds of literature in Nehemiah’s so-called
library, including the library itself, are unclear to us, Lim argues that the whole
passage lacks historical credibility, and instead of building a library, Nehemiah
instead built a wall around Jerusalem (see Neh 2–4; cf. Sir 49:13) as we see in
the two traditions that support his participation in rebuilding the Temple (2 Macc.
1:18; Josephus, Ant. 11.183–85).8

4
Ibid., 29.
5
Ibid., 149 n. 132. Lim, Formation of the Jewish Canon, 231 n. 58 cites Barton, Oracles of God,
57–58, regarding Leiman’s discussion of 2 Macc. 2:13–15 that “As is often the case, Leiman’s
footnote on the first suggestion [i.e., about canonization] is more cautious than the main text.” cf.
149 n. 132.
6
Barton, Oracles of God, 57.
7
Compare the discussion of 4QMMT in Chapter 5 §IV above with this text. The 4QMMT text
is fragmented and difficult to put together, but it mentions “book[s of Pr]ophets and David.” Luke
24:44 also speaks of “the law of Moses, prophets, and the psalms.” It is possible that “David” is a
reference to a collection of psalms attributed to David.
8
Lim, Formation of the Jewish Canon, 113–14.
272 THE FORMATION OF THE BIBLICAL CANON, VOLUME I

We should note here that in the latter part of 2 Maccabees, while preparing
for battle, Maccabeus encouraged the troops “from the law and the prophets
reminding them also of the struggles they had won…” (2 Macc 15:9). Had there
been any notion of a broader tripartite collection of sacred scriptures some imply
from the 2 Macc 2:13–15 passage, it is surprising that it is not mentioned here.
The focus in 2 Macc 2:15 is not on the specific books that Judas collected,
but rather on his collection of the sacred books that had been destroyed by the
Seleucids in their wars against them. Again, there is little doubt that the destruction
of the books included whatever Jewish sacred texts the soldiers could find, though
a specific list of the books destroyed is uncertain. Leiman acknowledges that
other Jewish groups did not adopt the same collection of Scriptures, but never-
theless declares that Judas Maccabeus completed the canonical activity started by
Nehemiah. While he is doubtless correct in assuming that whatever books were
discovered in the Jewish sacred collections were targeted for destruction by the
Seleucid troops, this says nothing specific about the contents of Judas’ collection.
Interestingly, the burning of the books by the Syrian army in 1 Macc 1:56–57
and the burning of the “law” in 4 Ezra (= 2 Esdras) 14:21 may be the same event
and may be a response to the report in 2 Macc 2:13 about Nehemiah’s activity in
gathering the lost books of the law. If so, it is interesting that the author of 4 Ezra
says, “Your law has been burned, and so no one knows the things which have
been done or will be done by you” (14:21). In that passage Ezra requested that
God “send the holy spirit into me and I will write everything that has happened in
the world from the beginning, the things that were written in your law” (14:22).
Here “law” evidently refers to “twenty-four books” that can be read publicly and
the other “seventy [books] that were written…[for] the wise” (14:45–46). It is
possible that the author of 2 Maccabees believed that all of the sacred books in the
temple – not just the Pentateuch – were destroyed and perhaps some other books
that were not eventually included in the HB.
A basic problem with Leiman’s argument is the difficulty of knowing what
was in Judas’ collection. Nothing is said in this text about anything related to a
complete collection of sacred scriptures or any canonizing process attributed to
Judas, and there is no corroborating evidence for a canonization process whether
adding or excluding religious texts during the second or first centuries BCE by the
Jews. Leiman’s claim that the books that Judas Maccabeus collected are identical
with the later closed collection of HB Scriptures is beyond what the text says. The
first time the specific books in the HB are identified is in the second-century CE
baraita known as b. Baba Bathra 14a–15b (see Chapter 11 §III.A). In Collins’
assessment of this passage, he correctly sees that no awareness of a distinction
between canonical and noncanonical books existed at that time. He concludes “all
the available evidence suggests that the category of Scriptures, or authoritative
writings, was open-ended throughout the Second Temple period.”9

9
Collins, Seers, Sibyls and Sages, 7–8.
EMERGING JEWISH AND CHRISTIAN COLLECTIONS OF SCRIPTURES 273

There is no question that from the late pre-exilic to the early post-exilic period,
the Law was the most influential part of the Jewish scriptural texts, although
at that time there was an emerging undefined collection of prophetic literature
functioning as sacred scripture (Jer 26:4–6, 16–18; Zech 7:12; 2 Kgs 17:13; and
Sir 39:1–3). The emergence of these two strands of scriptural authority is what
Chapman calls “a merism for Jewish faith.”10 However, there was at that time no
clarity on what constituted this second part of the Jewish Scriptures. We saw in
Sirach that besides the Law the Jewish Scriptures included at that time (ca. 180
BCE) at least several of the books that are now included in the HB Prophets. This
emerging collection of “prophets” in Sirach cannot be easily distinguished from
the books that later were identified as Writings (‫)כתובים‬. Nehemiah interestingly
is identified among the prophetic figures (Sir 44:3; cf. 49:13). Scholars are aware
that several of the books now included in the HB Writings date earlier than some
Prophets (Former and Latter), and were likely included among the “prophecies”
or “prophets” mentioned in earlier references to sacred writings.
Sometime in the post-exilic period several of the lost writings mentioned earlier
in Joshua to 2 Chronicles, were either lost or discarded and no longer formed
part of Israel’s sacred literature. We cannot pinpoint when that literature was lost,
but we cannot rule out that some of the literature may have been lost during the
destruction of the Temple in 586 BCE or during Antiochus Epiphanes’ hostilities
toward the Jews and his destruction of Jewish sacred literature.

II. THE THERAPEUTAE, THEIR SCRIPTURES,

AND PHILO

In his treatise On the Contemplative Life 3.25–29, Philo of Alexandria (ca.

20 BCE–40 CE) admiringly describes the life of a Jewish sect known as the
Therapeutae. In several ways they are similar to the Essenes, but nevertheless
distinct from them. The Therapeutae lived near Alexandria on the shores of Lake
Mareotis. We know practically nothing about them apart from what we read in
Philo, but in his description he describes the books that these individuals used for
reading during their devotional time. This collection of books, as with 2 Macc
2:13–15, is the source of considerable debate, since there appears to be three or
four categories, but the specific identity of the books in these categories is not
clear. We may be able to make some educated guesses about which books were
involved, but considerable doubt remains about their identity:

In each house [of the Therapeutae] there is a consecrated room, which is called a sanctuary or
closet [μοναστήριον] and closeted in this they are initiated into the mysteries of the sanctified
life. They take nothing into it, either drink or food or any other of the things necessary for the

10
Chapman, “Canon, Old Testament,” 1:103.
274 THE FORMATION OF THE BIBLICAL CANON, VOLUME I

needs of the body, but laws and oracles delivered through the mouth of prophets, and psalms
and anything else [τὰ ἄλλα, lit. “the others” (perhaps “other books”)] which fosters and perfects
knowledge and piety.
…
The interval between early morning and evening is spent entirely in spiritual exercise. They
read the Holy Scriptures [ἱεροῖς γράμμασι] and seek wisdom from their ancestral philosophy
by taking it as an allegory, since they think that the words of the literal text are symbols of
something whose hidden nature is revealed by studying the underlying meaning.

They have also writings of men of old, the founders of their way of thinking, who left many
memorials of the form used in allegorical interpretation and these they take as a kind of
archetype and imitate the method in which this principle is carried out. And they do not confine
themselves to contemplation but also compose hymns and psalms to God in all sorts of metres
and melodies which they write down with the rhythms necessarily made more solemn.11
(Contempl. Life 3.25, 28–29 LCL, emphasis added)

The text generally offered in canon discussions usually stops at 3.25, but I
have added an extended part of the text to see what else the community did in
regard to their sacred scriptures and how they spent their days. The Therapeutae
appear to have been a group of Jewish ascetics living in something like a monastic
community and involved in spiritual formation that focused on scriptural medita-
tions. This text sheds light on an important statement about the sacred texts of a
group of Jewish sectarians living in Egypt in the early first century CE. Philo’s
reference to the kinds of writings included in their sacred literature is especially
important for canon studies. Unfortunately, Philo does not identify which books
were in their sacred collection, but only categories that made up those sacred
texts. He does, however, suggest that the Therapeutae had a larger and perhaps
unrestricted collection of religious texts that presumably included their own
psalms and hymns. Ancient Jewish communities apparently often incorporated
psalms and hymns into their worship and daily living. This was true for the
Essenes at Qumran, both in the variety of psalms they possessed and in their
Hodayot, and subsequently also among the Christians.12 See also the admonition
to employ “psalms, hymns, and spiritual songs” in Eph 5:19 and also the example
of such collections of songs in Odes of Solomon, a Jewish-Christian composition
of spiritual songs from ca. 100–125 CE, that were for a time called scripture by
some church fathers and reflect that the use of additional hymns and odes was
commonplace.13

11
Colson, Philo, vol. 9, LCL 130–31 n. a, explains “solemn” as “it is the rhythm which gives the
solemnity necessary for sacred music and that this was indicated by some notation.”
12
See, for example, the Gregory 1505 manuscript at the Laura monastery on Mt. Athos that
includes psalms and odes along with their NT scriptures.
13
For a discussion of how these odes were viewed in ancient Christianity see Lee M. McDonald,
“The Odes of Solomon in Ancient Christianity,” in Sacra Scriptura: How “Non-Canonical” Texts
Functioned in Early Judaism and Early Christianity, ed. J. H. Charlesworth and L. M. McDonald,
EMERGING JEWISH AND CHRISTIAN COLLECTIONS OF SCRIPTURES 275

In the passage above Philo distinguishes between the history of the kings and the
“oracles delivered through the mouth of prophets.” If they are not the same, should
we conclude that Joshua, Judges, 1–2 Samuel and 1–2 Kings, and perhaps even
1–2 Chronicles, are the “history of the Kings” and are the “oracles” mentioned
equal to the “prophets” or Latter Prophets? If that is the case, and it is by no means
certain, does this collection also include Ezra, Nehemiah, Ruth, and Esther? Is it
possible to put them in the “other” category that we see in the Prologue to Sirach?
This is, of course, an argument from silence since the text does not make this clear.
Ellis translates this passage as follows: “[They take into their study rooms
nothing] but the laws, the oracles uttered by the prophets, and hymns and the
other [books]…that foster and perfect knowledge and purity.”14 However, because
of a connective kai (“and”) after “laws,” the passage is more accurately translated
“laws and oracles uttered by the prophets.” The difference here is more than mere
semantics. Ellis’ translation isolates the law from the oracles by the prophets,
but the inclusion of kai in the translation makes it clear that the Therapeutae use
nothing but “laws and oracles uttered by the prophets and hymns and the others.”
We cannot, however, establish from this vague reference precisely what books
Philo had in mind; nor can we determine how many categories he had in mind:
two, three, or even four: laws, prophetic oracles, psalms, and other books. We do
not have sufficient information in the passage to go on, but nothing in the text
clearly identifies the threefold division of the Hebrew Scriptures (Tanak) that
emerges in the second century CE (Law, Prophets, Writings). As Barton observes,
if one has to speak of a biblical canon here, it is fourfold, not tripartite, namely
“(a) laws, (b) oracles, (c) psalms, and (d) other books,” and he concludes that this
shows how inappropriate it is to find clear divisions of a HB canon at this point.15
We know nothing specific about the contours of a biblical canon either for the
Therapeutae from Philo’s description of them.
In the above text, Philo’s reference to the “writings of men of old” suggests
perhaps something like the noncanonical writings found at Qumran, such as the
Damascus Document, Community Rule, 4QMMT, and their hymns and psalms.
Could such writings have been taken into the Therapeutae closets for meditations?
We cannot tell from the description provided, nor whether they distinguished
these other books from what were later called “biblical books.” How they related
to these “writings of men of old” is not clear in the text, but from the context it
appears as if these writings were highly prized as sacred texts.

T&T Clark Jewish and Christian Texts in Contexts and Related Studies 29 (London: Bloomsbury,
T&T Clark, 2014), 108–36. These are sometimes cited as scripture by some early church fathers or
included in scripture collections as in the case of the inclusion of Ode 11 in a papyrus manuscript
(P72) of Christian sacred texts/scriptures.
14
E. Earle Ellis, The Old Testament in Early Christianity (Grand Rapids: Baker, 1991), 8 (words
in brackets are provided by Ellis).
15
Barton, Oracles of God, 58.
276 THE FORMATION OF THE BIBLICAL CANON, VOLUME I

Interestingly, Philo’s use and citation of the Jewish Scriptures can be seen
throughout his writings and it is clear that he strongly favored the Pentateuch
citing some eleven hundred references, yet fewer than fifty other references to
non-Pentateuch books.16 In practice, he cited the Pentateuch more frequently than
the writers of the Mishnah who only cited the books of Moses twice as often
as they cite the rest of the books in the HB.17 Conceding Philo’s greater use of
Torah in his scriptural exegesis, Leiman strangely argues that Philo’s practice
was simply characteristic of Jewish exegesis in the first century CE, but that it
has no bearing on the shape of his canonical collection.18 Philo’s citation of the
Pentateuch over all other prophetic books was also true in later Talmudic literature
though to a lesser extent. Philo’s references to the Pentateuch over all of the other
Jewish Scriptures, and the fact that all of his scriptural commentaries were on the
Pentateuchal books, is a factor worthy of consideration when evaluating the status
of the HB canon in his day. Does this suggest that Philo had “a canon within a
canon” or that at the core of his sacred tradition was the Law of Moses and every-
thing else was secondary to it?
Much has been made of Philo’s failure to cite the so-called apocryphal literature
or all of the books that later were included in the HB. Does his practice also mean
that only the Pentateuch was canon for Philo? That is likely an overstatement, but
it could be that the other sacred writings were, for Philo, not equal to the status
of the Law. Does the restriction of his exegesis to the Pentateuch mean that he
rejected the scriptural status of the rest of the HB books? Leiman himself cites
examples in Philo where he calls the Torah books “Scripture” but calls books now
in the Prophets and the Writings “sacred word” and “divine.” Without doubting
their scriptural status, Leiman suggests that Philo had a different attitude toward
the non-Torah literature that he knew.19
What can be drawn from this? Why is Philo hesitant to cite the other books that
are in the HB? Surely many if not all of them were known in his day. It may be
an overstatement to conclude that Philo limited his biblical canon to the Law of
Moses, but at least it is clear that the Law was the apex of what he considered
sacred and authoritative. Leiman acknowledges that any argument about the scope
of Philo’s sacred scriptures based on what he used or cited most is an argument
from silence, and must not be pressed too far.20 Whatever the case, it appears that
functionally Philo had a significantly smaller biblical canon than several of his
predecessors and most of his contemporaries.

16
Hengel, Septuagint as Christian Scripture, 78–79, cites these numbers.
17
Leiman, Canonization of the Hebrew Scripture, 31, 151 n 146.
18
Ibid., 31.
19
Ibid., 151 n. 147.
20
Ibid., 31.
EMERGING JEWISH AND CHRISTIAN COLLECTIONS OF SCRIPTURES 277

III. LUKE 24:44, DANIEL, AND A TRIPARTITE BIBLICAL

CANON

As we have argued earlier, the Jewish tripartite biblical canon was not yet formed
when the Evangelists were writing their Gospels, but Luke 24:44 is frequently
cited as evidence that a third category of their scriptures was present or emerging
in the first century CE. The text in question takes place in Jesus’ final post-resur-
rection appearance to his disciples when he said: “These are my words that I spoke
to you while I was still with you – that everything written about me in the law
of Moses, the prophets, and the psalms must be fulfilled” (Luke 24:44, emphasis
added). When the Gospel of Luke was written (ca. 65–70 CE), the influence of
Judaism on early Christianity had largely ceased, but the Jewish scriptures and
their known boundaries at that time still significantly influenced his community.
Luke 24:44 may reflect that influence and perhaps an early stage of what later
became the third part of the HB canon that had at its heart the Psalms.
Luke 24:44 is the only NT reference to three parts in the Jewish Scriptures, but
there is nothing in the text to suggest that it included other books that were later
included in the collection of Writings of the Tanak. However, some of those later
designated Writings are cited in the NT as “prophetic” scriptures, e.g., Matt 24:15
citing Dan 9:27 and Jesus’ citation of Dan 7:13 in Mark 14:62. However, Leiman,
Beckwith, and Bruce contend that “psalms” in this passage refers to the first book
of the Writings that is representative of that whole collection of the Writings.21
There is, however, no NT evidence that supports that assertion and there is no
evidence that a three-part canon existed in the NT era or that the later third part
began with the Psalms. These scholars impose a later notion that emerges only in
the rabbinic era, but it cannot be demonstrated earlier. The Psalms were important
in their own right and could easily have been given their own place of prominence
in any collection of Scriptures. After all, the Psalms were among the three most
frequently cited Scriptures in the NT (Isaiah, Psalms, and Deuteronomy), as well
as at Qumran, and in the early churches. Also, there were more copies of the
Psalms scrolls (thirty-six or thirty-seven) discovered at Qumran than any other
book of the HB.

21
Ibid., 40, and Ellis, Old Testament in Early Christianity, 9 n. 30, contend that since the Psalms
stand in the first place in some Hebrew manuscripts, the Psalms may “represent the third division of
the Old Testament canon in Luke.” See also Beckwith, Old Testament Canon, 111–15. Speaking of
the possibility that Luke 24:44 may stand for the whole of the Writings, F. F. Bruce, Canon of Scrip-
ture, 32, concludes: “Here ‘the psalms’ might denote not only the contents of the Psalter, but also
the whole of the third division – the Writings – of which the Psalter was the first book. We cannot
be sure of this; in any case, the Hebrew Scriptures are more often referred to in the New Testament
as ‘the law and the prophets’.” Unlike Beckwith, Ellis remains non-committal on this point.
278 THE FORMATION OF THE BIBLICAL CANON, VOLUME I

The question then emerges, on what basis can we say that Psalms had first place
in a third division of the HB or that it represented all of the other books in the later
Writings? Further, what psalms were initially in view? Not all collections of the
Psalms were alike, as we saw earlier in the Psalms Scroll in Cave 11 at Qumran.
What we have in Luke 24:44 is more likely an early stage of the later three-part
biblical canon that had not yet developed, but again, this suggestion is unclear
even in the Gospel of Luke that elsewhere regularly identifies Scripture as the
Law and Prophets.
Since both the MT and the LXX translation of the Psalms follow the same
order, this suggests that there was some fixing of the text of the Psalms quite
early, but there is no indication that this was true also of the rest of the Writings.
Also, this does not imply that the Psalms at Qumran were fixed and that nothing
could be added or deleted. Most of the Psalms through Ps 89 are roughly the same
at Qumran as those in the MT, but after that there is considerable variability in
them. It seems clear that several additions to or modifications of the Psalms took
place sometime between the first century BCE and the end of the first century CE.
Davies comments as follows on the differences between the psalms at Qumran and
in the MT Psalms: “Some of the psalms contain additional material and a different
sequence from the Masoretic [text], including the Cave 11 scroll, the most exten-
sively preserved, which includes ‘David’s Last Words’ (2 Sam. 23:1–7), Psalms
154–55 of the Syriac canon, the Greek Psalm 151, and Sirach 51:13–30.”22 His
work builds on the foundational work of James Sanders that reflects on the
fluid state of the canonical psalmic literature in the first centuries BCE and CE,
especially for the last third of the Psalter.23
Julio Trebolle Barrera has shown convincingly that the Law and Prophets were
the dominant core of the Jewish scriptures, and that the Prophets were in a state of
flux well into the first century CE. By the first century CE, the Psalms, and they
alone, it appears, began to form a separate part of the Jewish scriptures, namely
Law, Prophets, and Psalms. The “psalms” were sometimes identified as “David”
as we saw as a possibility in 2 Macc 2:13 and possibly also but not necessarily in
4QMMT. By the end of the first or early second century CE, Barrera claims that
the Psalms were included in the Writings, but were initially viewed as prophetic
literature.24 An emerging third part of the Jewish scriptures may be also attested in
the 4QMMT passage discussed above,25 but nothing is said here about the other

22
Davies, Scribes and Schools, 162.
23
J. A. Sanders, Psalms Scroll of Qumran Cave 11.
24
Julio C. Trebolle Barrera, “Origins of a Tripartite Old Testament Canon,” in McDonald and
Sanders, eds., The Canon Debate, 128–45, especially 138–45.
25
See Ulrich, “Qumran and the Canon of the Old Testament,” for a careful discussion of the sacred
texts in 4QMMT. He claims that the Dead Sea Scrolls offer the “oldest, the best, and most authentic
evidence we have for the shape of the Scriptures at the time of the beginning of Christianity and
Rabbinic Judaism” (62), and, after a careful re-translation and investigation of 4QMMT (66–71), he
concludes that “David, if correct, does not refer to the Ketubim” (70). I agree! We can agree with
EMERGING JEWISH AND CHRISTIAN COLLECTIONS OF SCRIPTURES 279

books in the Writings besides “David.” Trebolle Barrera calls this tripartite canon
“a further development of the canon of the Law and the Prophets, or rather, of
the canon of ‘Law, Prophets, and Psalms’.”26 The books cited most frequently at
Qumran were the Pentateuch (Deuteronomy especially), Isaiah, the Minor Prophets
and the Psalms, and only sparingly references to other books. The same is true in
the NT writings and the early church fathers. It is unlikely that other books were in
view in a third collection besides the Psalter in its as yet incomplete form.
Barton draws attention to the practice of reading only the Pentateuch and
the five Megilloth or Hamesh Megilloth (Song of Songs, Ruth, Lamentations,
Ecclesiastes, and Esther) that came to be read on the fixed occasions among
Jews in synagogues, and only selective texts from the haftaroth or Prophets,27 but
nothing else from the Writings with the only exception being of some Psalms.
Barton posits that there is a connection between Jewish liturgical practice and
the origins of the tripartite biblical canon.28 This practice distinguishes between
those texts that could be read in the synagogue and those that were written but not
read. This selectivity of what can be read in the synagogues is likely confirmed
by m. Shabbat 16:1 which reads: “Any of the Holy Scriptures may be saved from
burning [by bearing them from one domain to another on the Sabbath], whether
they are such that are read [on the Sabbath] or not” (Danby trans.).
From this text we see that some Scriptures were read on the Sabbath in a
synagogue, but some were not. For example, Barton observes that in Luke 4:17
Jesus was given the scroll of Isaiah (Isa 61) to read rather than asking him to select
it. From this, he concludes that the haftaroth were already set at this time.29 Could
this reflect why some of the most common texts cited by Jesus were Deuteronomy,
Isaiah, and the Psalms? Were these books also cited and copied extensively at
Qumran, in the NT, and in early Christianity? Since it is highly unlikely that
all first-century CE synagogues possessed all of the books that later comprised
the HB, it may be that the popularity of Torah or Pentateuch, Isaiah, and the
Psalms reflect the limited collections of Jewish scriptures circulating in most
early synagogues of Judaism of Late Antiquity. Barton is probably right when
concluding that all of the HB scriptures would not have been in every synagogue
or even later in every church. Hence, the readings of sacred scripture in both were
limited to what they had, but later this habit of reading primarily the Torah and
selections from some Prophets, some of the Psalms, and the five Megilloth became
a common practice in Rabbinic Judaism.

Ulrich who concludes that “no list of authoritative books has been preserved in the writings found at
Qumran” though he observes that in the sub-collections found there several authoritative books can
be discerned, but again, that does not reflect a complete list of them (66).
26
Trebolle Barrera, “Origins of a Tripartite Old Testament Canon,” 144.
27
Haftarah (pl. Haftaroth) is a prophetic reading or book classified as a prophetic book that was
read by a maftir in a synagogue on the Sabbath following a reading from the Torah.
28
Barton, Oracles of God, 75–76.
29
Ibid., 77–79.
280 THE FORMATION OF THE BIBLICAL CANON, VOLUME I

As noted above, Beckwith contends that “psalms” in Luke 24:44 refers to the
whole of the books that comprise the writings in the HB, but his evidence is
unconvincing. It is a special challenge to identify the “psalms” in Luke 24:44 with
the later collection of Writings identified in the second century CE. Beckwith’s
evidence comes from the later Talmudic references when the term “Fifths” (Heb.
‫ חומשׁים‬or ‫ )חומשׁין‬sometimes refers to the five parts of the book of Psalms and
sometimes refers to the Writings. He concludes that “psalms” refers to the third
part of the Hebrew biblical canon in the Talmudic literature for the following
reasons:

In a scroll of the Law, the space of the two finger-breadths must be left (between columns),
but in scrolls of the Prophets and in scrolls of the Fifths the space of one thumb-breadth. In the
lower margin of a scroll of the Law the space of a hand-breadth is left, and in the upper margin
two thirds of a hand-breadth, but in scrolls of the Prophets and the Fifths three finger-breadths
in the lower margin and two finger-breadths in the upper.30

Beckwith claims that all of the Writings are referred to as the “Fifths” in the
Tosefta. For instance: “The Scroll of Ezra which went forth outside [the court]
renders the hands unclean. And not only of the Scroll of Ezra alone did they speak,
but even the Prophets and the Pentateuch. And another scroll which entered there
renders the hands clean” (t. Kelim Bava Metzi’a 5.8, Neusner, Tosefta, 1617). He
adds that both the “Scroll of Ezra” and “psalms” in Luke 24:44 refer to the Writings
as a whole. The texts he cites, however, do not demonstrate his claim even for a
later period let alone for the first century CE. Also, it is not clear what books the
“Scroll of Ezra” contained. Beckwith projects anachronistically a slim possibility
from the middle to late third century CE as a certainty back on the time of Jesus
and before. He reasons that since Jesus also cites the book of Daniel (e.g., Dan
4:26 in Matt 4:17 and 9:27; 11:31; Dan 12:11 in Matt 24:15 and Dan 7:13 in Mark
14:62), which was a part of the Writings, he surely must have intended the whole
of the Writings when he mentioned the “psalms” in Luke 24:44.31 This argument
assumes, of course, that Daniel and the Psalms were a part of a well-defined
third collection, Writings/Ketubim, in the first century, but there is no evidence
for that assumption or arguments that the Writings were fixed before the time of
Jesus. Beckwith assumes as evidence the placement of Daniel in the Ketubim for
which there is no evidence before the middle to late second century CE and on the
contrary, as we saw earlier, Daniel was viewed as one of the prophets in the DSS,
the Gospels, and in Josephus.

30
Beckwith, Old Testament Canon, 438 (citing Sepher Torah 2.3–4 and Sopherim 2.4); see also
111–14.
31
Ibid., 111–12.
EMERGING JEWISH AND CHRISTIAN COLLECTIONS OF SCRIPTURES 281

Leiman and Beckwith acknowledge that the meaning of “Fifths” is not uniform
in the rabbinic tradition, but this does not deter their willingness to use it as a
defense of their interpretations of Luke 24:44.32 As noted earlier, it is best to
understand “psalms” in Luke 24:44 in light of Luke 24:27. Did Luke intend to
say, just a few verses earlier, that when Jesus explained to his disciples “beginning
with Moses and all the prophets,” he consciously did not intend also the psalms
among the prophets? That would only make sense in the same chapter if v. 27
specifically excluded the psalms. Later when Jesus met with his disciples Luke
included “psalms” to Moses and all the prophets in Luke 24:44, but not earlier
in 24:27. That is difficult to explain if Jesus wanted to exclude “psalms” in v.
27 and include it in v. 44. Since Luke later claimed that David, the author of the
Psalms, was a prophet (Acts 2:30), it is more likely that “psalms” in Luke was also
understood as prophetic literature as we see in Luke 24:27 which reads: “Then
beginning with Moses and all the prophets, he interpreted to them the things about
himself in all the scriptures.”
Kümmel concludes that it is highly unlikely that Luke intended this reference to
psalms to include all of the documents later designated as the Writings.33 Rather,
Luke’s reference only to “psalms” here instead of all the Writings supports the
view that the third part of the Jewish biblical canon had not yet been defined in
the time of Jesus – or even later when Luke was written and only “psalms” was
intended. All but one of the references to the Jewish scriptures in the NT is to the
Law (or Moses or law of Moses) or to the Law (or “Moses”) and the Prophets. It is
more likely that all of the Jewish scriptures, including the “psalms,” were included
in v. 27. Like 24:44, in 24:27 Jesus instructed the disciples in all the scriptures
in both places and this presumes that the “psalms” was intended in “all the scrip-
tures” (v. 27) as well as in 24:44.
Since there is no clear evidence for a tripartite HB before the middle to late
second century CE,34 we should be cautious about declaring its presence before
we have solid evidence of its existence. It is best to avoid assuming a tripartite HB
canon before or during the ministry of Jesus or even later in the first century CE.
Even when a specific number of books were identified as in Josephus and 4 Ezra
noted earlier, we do not know what books were included in these texts and neither
author reflects a tripartite collection of those scriptures. The first time this happens
is in the middle to late second century (b. Baba Bathra 14b).

32
Leiman, Canonization of the Hebrew Scripture, 61–63; and Beckwith, Old Testament Canon,
438–47.
33
Kümmel, Introduction to the New Testament, 335.
34
As we will see in Chapter 10 §I, Josephus (Ag. Apion 1.37–43) divided his scripture collection
into categories that are not identical to the later Tanak (Law, Prophets, and Writings).
282 THE FORMATION OF THE BIBLICAL CANON, VOLUME I

Again, there is one piece of evidence that suggests an emerging third part of
the Jewish scriptures that included in the first century only the “psalms.” There
is little evidence that the Psalter itself was complete before the fall of Jerusalem
in 70 CE, even though major sections of it (up to Ps 89) were fairly stable in the
Jewish communities possibly from the Persian period.35 As we saw in the Halakhic
Letter or 4QMMT (Chapter 5 §IV) and 2 Macc 2:13, a third part of the Hebrew
Scriptures may have been emerging in the second century BCE, and scholars who
make this claim generally refer to Luke 24:44 and to “others” in the Prologue
to Sirach as evidence, but as we saw earlier, that is not clear in those texts. The
majority of references to the HB scriptures refer only to the Law and the Prophets
before the middle to late second century CE. Even in the Mishnah that reflects first
and second century CE Jewish religious teachings, nothing suggests that “psalms”
represented all of the literature that later comprised the Writings.
In the later rabbinic period there are references to a tripartite canon of Jewish
scriptures. For instance: “The Torah and prophets may be written on one scroll;
this is the ruling of R. Meir (135–170). The Sages, however, say that the Torah
and Prophets may not be written on one scroll, but that the Prophets and the
Hagiographa [Writings/Hagiographa] may be written on one scroll” (y. Megillah
73d–74a).36 In this case, the Prophets and Writings never have priority over the
Torah. In a later Talmudic text there is a reference to an earlier tradition that
speaks of three parts of the Jewish Scriptures supposedly reflecting an earlier time
around 80–110 CE. It reads: “Sectarians asked Rabban Gamaliel: Whence do we
know that the Holy One, blessed be He, will resurrect the dead? He answered
them from the Torah, Prophets, and Hagiographa, yet they were not convinced”
(b. Sanhedrin 90b).37 However, there is no evidence that this notion was present
in other surviving traditions from the first century.
Collins observes that the Pesharim (commentaries) at Qumran were not written
on any other books that comprise the Writings, except for the Psalms as in
1QpPsalms (1Q16), 4QpPsalmsa-b (4Q173), and Daniel as in (4QFlorilegium or
4Q174), both of which were viewed as prophetic literature.38 This suggests, he
claims, “that Psalms and Daniel were regarded as prophetic books, even if Psalms
[David] was understood to constitute a special category in 4QMMT. This view of
the emerging canon corresponds with what we know from other sources for the
period between the Maccabees and the fall of Jerusalem in 70 CE.”39

35
J. A. Sanders, Torah and Canon, 97.
36
Leiman, Canonization of the Hebrew Scripture, 60.
37
Ibid., 67. Other examples are b. Baba Bathra 13b; y. Hagigah 72b (reporting the teachings
of Elisha b. Abuyah [110–135 CE] and Rabbi Joshua [80–110 CE]); and Leviticus Rabbah 16.4
(reporting the tradition of Ben Azzai [110–135 CE]). See Leiman, Canonization of the Hebrew
Scripture, 61–62, 66–67.
38
Collins, Seers, Sybils and Sages, 13–14.
39
Ibid., 14.
EMERGING JEWISH AND CHRISTIAN COLLECTIONS OF SCRIPTURES 283

On a related topic, there is a well-known and widely held view that since the
book of Daniel, the last of the HB books to be included in the HB,40 was not
included among the Prophets where it logically belongs, then the Prophets as we
now have them in the HB must have been closed as a collection sometime before
the time when Daniel was written and so it was placed among the Writings, the
third part of the HB. Collins, however, suggests that the assumption that the
Prophets as we now have them were closed before Daniel was written is not
well founded since Nehemiah, which was later placed in the Writings, was also
seen by Sirach as a prophetic figure and he did not distinguish Nehemiah from
the other prophets (Sir 49:13), but rather saw him as one of those “who spoke in
prophetic oracles” (Sir 44:3).41 He adds that Daniel is often identified as a prophet
in antiquity as in the cases of 4QFlorilegium (4Q174 2:4) that refers to “the book
of Daniel the Prophet,” Matt 24:15 which refers to the “desolating sacrilege”
found in Dan 9:27; 11:31; 12:11 as “spoken of by the prophet Daniel,” and later in
Josephus who refers to Daniel “as to one of the greatest prophets” and later adding
that “Daniel spoke with God, for he was not only wont to prophecy future things,
as did the other prophets” (Ant. 10.266–67, LCL).42 Elsewhere Collins says that
the later rabbis may have placed Daniel among the Writings because they thought
the book had more in common with the Writings than with the Prophets.43
Whatever the case, the only evidence that places Daniel in the Writings is
middle to late second century CE and that does not account for the book’s earlier
placement among the prophets. Daniel was placed among the Prophets in the
LXX and in Christian Bibles and was widely regarded as a prophet in the Dead
Sea Scrolls,44 the NT (Matt 24:15; cf. Dan 11:31; 12:11), including also in some
Rabbinic traditions where Daniel is counted among the prophets (Megillah 3a,
Sanhedrin 94a), and in all but one of the early church fathers, namely Jerome in
his Preface to the Books of Samuel and Kings, ca. 394 CE, but who places Daniel

40
The Aramaic section of Daniel (2–7) may derive from an earlier antecedent from the fifth to
fourth centuries BCE in the late Persian period, but its introduction and final apocalyptic second
section (chs. 1, 8–12) were composed in Hebrew ca. 167–163 BCE during the Maccabean revolt
clearly reflected in Dan 11. John J. Collins, Introduction to the Hebrew Bible, 2nd ed. (Minneapolis:
Fortress, 2014), 565–66, comments on the strangeness of the two major parts of the book, namely
that it is naturally divided in two sections, chs. 1–6 and 7–12, but the language division is oddly
different. 2:4b–7:28 is in Aramaic, but ch. 1, an introduction to the stories in the book, and chs. 8–12
are in Hebrew. Collins suggests the Hebrew may have been added because of the patriotic fervor at
the time of the Maccabean revolt.
41
Collins, Seers, Sibyls and Sages, 8–9.
42
Ibid., 10.
43
Collins, Introduction to the Hebrew Bible, 565.
44
According to G. Anderson, “Canonical and Non-Canonical,” 151, the Dead Sea Scrolls have at
least seven fragments of the book of Daniel and he cites Milik’s Ten Years of Discovery, 41, saying
that several of these citations of Daniel begin with the formula, “as it is written in the book of the
prophet Daniel.”
284 THE FORMATION OF THE BIBLICAL CANON, VOLUME I

among the Prophets in his Epistle 53:8 (ca. 384; see also Prologus Galeatus, PL
28). The assignment of Daniel to the Writings instead of the Prophets is a later
activity of the rabbis in the second century and after, but that was not the case
at Qumran, or in the NT, the early church fathers, or even in several rabbinic
writings.
Since the NT writings, with only one exception (Luke 24:44), speak of the Law
and the Prophets, it is clear that the third part of the HB had not yet been firmly
formed or fixed in the first century CE.45 It is clearly anachronistic to speak of
the Prophets in the first century CE, that are so designated in the later HB as a
closed list reflecting what is later designated as the Former and Latter Prophets,
simply based on the Prologue to Sirach or Luke 24:44. Barton correctly makes
the point that there is little distinction between the Prophets and the collection of
Writings in the Rabbinic traditions and this also acknowledges that the three-part
HB canon was not as familiar to rabbinic Jews until well into the Talmudic period
and following. He notes that the Tosefta does not regularly distinguish between
Prophets and Writings.46 We must therefore exercise caution and not impose later
meanings of a term or later designations on an earlier ancient text. Likewise, it is
difficult under any reckoning to assume that the books of Ezra–Nehemiah, Esther,
or the Chronicles can be implied in Jesus’ reference to the “psalms” in Luke 24:44,
or for that matter any other books in the Writings.47
Because there were considerably more books in the Writings than just “psalms,”
and because there is such a wide range of meanings of the term “Fifths” in the later
rabbinic traditions, we must conclude that the third division had not yet come to
its final form at the time of the writing of Luke’s Gospel (perhaps as early as ca.
65–70 CE). It is further not useful to employ later designations, as in the case of
“Fifths,” that have no parallels in the first century CE or before to interpret what
a first-century writer (Luke) says.48
Again, Luke 24:44 may reflect an early stage of an emerging three-part canon,
but “psalms” is not equal to the later collection of Writings that is first seen in
the b. Baba Bathra 14b text. The earlier reference in Luke 24:27 in which Jesus
refers to “Moses and all the prophets” no doubt included all the known Jewish
scriptures, including the Psalms, and all of which were viewed at that time as

45
See also Barton, Oracles of God, 52–55, who makes this same point.
46
Ibid., 43–44.
47
Reuss, History of the Canon, 10, agrees with this conclusion.
48
P. Stuhlmacher, “The Significance of the Old Testament Apocrypha and Pseudepigrapha for the
Understanding of Jesus and Christology,” in The Apocrypha in Ecumenical Perspective, ed. Sieg-
fried Meurer, UBS Monograph Series 6 (New York: United Bible Society, 1991), 2, also agrees with
this and adds that “nowhere in the New Testament writings can any special interest in the canonical
delimitation and fixing of the Holy Scriptures be detected.”
EMERGING JEWISH AND CHRISTIAN COLLECTIONS OF SCRIPTURES 285

prophetic texts.49 This is also supported by a reference in 4 Maccabees,50 a Jewish

text written after the Gospel of Luke that tells the story of a mother saying to her
sons that their father “taught the law and the prophets” (18:10). She then gives
examples of what the father taught from stories from the Pentateuch, Isaiah, and
Daniel, and then states that he sang to them “songs of the psalmist David” and
noting that he “recounted to you Solomon’s proverb [Prov 3:18].” She finally
cites Ezekiel and concludes with Moses (Deut 30:20; 32:39) in 4 Macc. 18:11–19.
From that writer’s perspective all of the non-Mosaic writings were included in the
prophetic scriptures at that time.
While Luke 24:44 may suggest an initial stage of an emerging tripartite biblical
canon, the reference to “psalms” is not evidence that more than psalms was
intended at that time. As we saw in the discussion of the Dead Sea Scrolls above,
Psalms played a significant role in the Essene community and references to David
as a prophetic figure points to a special place for the Psalms in the Jewish sacred
scriptures. References simply to David may also refer to him as an example for the
people as we saw earlier. This does not deny that other texts were also viewed as
sacred scripture among the Essenes or other Jews in that period, but they also were
viewed as prophetic literature and subsumed among the category of “prophets.”
As we will see below, the later Writings included not only prophetic material, such
as Daniel, but also historical material (Chronicles, Ezra–Nehemiah, Esther) and
wisdom literature. The Ketubim appears to have been something of a “catch all”
collection without an easy explanation for its formation.51
It is interesting that all of the disputed books noted in the later rabbinic tradition,
with the exception of Ezekiel, are from the Writings, a sign that the last category
of the HB were formed later than the others. The books in the Writings were not all
late, and it is likely that all or most of them were considered scripture in the first
centuries BCE and CE, but their place in the Jewish Scriptures was not separated
from the Prophets until the middle to late second century.
Finally, had all of the books of the HB been formed as a fixed collection of
scriptures before the first century CE, it is remarkable that the Christians, who
adopted the scriptures of their first-century CE Jewish siblings in the first century,
also welcomed other books than those that were later included in the HB, as in the
cases of the Wisdom of Solomon, 1 Enoch, Sirach, and others.52

49
Evans, “The Scriptures of Jesus,” 190–91, makes this point.
50
4 Maccabees was probably written perhaps ca. 100 CE, or even in the middle to late second
century CE, by an observant Jew most likely from the northeastern Mediterranean basin.
51
Donn F. Morgan, Between Text and Community: The “Writings” in Canonical Interpretation
(Minneapolis: Fortress, 1990), 108–29, makes this point and seeks a way to understand the Writings
as canon when it has such divergent writings in it.
52
John Barton also argues this point in his “The Old Testament Canon,” in Paget and Schaper, eds.,
The New Cambridge History of the Bible: Vol. 1, From the Beginnings to 600, 145–64, here 151.
286 THE FORMATION OF THE BIBLICAL CANON, VOLUME I

IV. LUKE 11:48–51 AND MATTHEW 23:34–35

Canon scholars regularly debate the significance of two almost parallel passages
from the Gospels as evidence for a closed HB biblical canon in the early first
century CE. Some claim that these passages reveal Jesus’ biblical canon, but
others are unconvinced. I present the major arguments for each position in
this section. The relevant texts and their parallels and differences can be seen,
including Matthew’s addition of the patronym, in the following two texts.

Therefore I send you prophets, sages, and scribes, some of whom you will kill and crucify, and
some you will flog in your synagogues and pursue from town to town, so that upon you may
come all the righteous blood shed on earth, from the blood of righteous Abel to the blood of
Zechariah son of Barachiah, whom you murdered between the sanctuary and the altar. (Matt
23:34–35, emphasis added)

So you are witnesses and approve of the deeds of your ancestors; for they killed them
[prophets], and you build their tombs. Therefore also the Wisdom of God said, “I will send
them prophets and apostles, some of whom they will kill and persecute,” so that this generation
may be charged with the blood of all the prophets shed since the foundation of the world, from
the blood of Abel to the blood of Zechariah, who perished between the altar and the sanctuary.
Yes, I tell you, it will be charged against this generation. (Luke 11:48–51, emphasis added)

Several scholars claim that these two texts show that Jesus endorsed the current
HB canon. Not long ago Peels argued, wrongly in my opinion, that “virtually all
exegetes believe that Mt 23,35 and Lk 11,51 mirror the structure and scope of the
Old Testament canon of that time.”53 This view historically can be traced back
to Johann Gotfried Eichhorn in 178054 whose later commentary on Matt 23:35
in 1836 had a significant impact on subsequent interpretations of this passage.
Gallagher, however, has shown that this interpretation depends on Chronicles
standing last in the HB manuscripts and that there is only one antecedent that
supports that place in HB manuscripts before the twelfth century, namely the
second-century CE baraita, the b. Baba Bathra 14b text that has 2 Chronicles in
the last place in the HB. However, there is no evidence that this was the order of
the Jewish Scriptures in the first century CE and Gallagher contends that only after
the HB was published in print, and I might add in a codex, was such a position

53
H G. L. Peels, “The Blood ‘from Abel to Zechariah’ (Matthew 23:35; Luke 11:50f.) and the
Canon of the Old Testament,” ZAW 113 (2001): 583–601, here 586. I owe this reference to Edmon
L. Gallagher, “The Blood from Abel to Zechariah in the History of Interpretation,” NTS 60, no. 1
(2014): 121–38. Beckwith, Old Testament Canon, 122–23, 127, draws the same conclusion as Peels
and claims that Jesus in Matt 23:35, Luke 11:51, and Luke 24:44 refers to “the beginning of the Law
to the end of the Hagiographa.” Gallagher adds a list of modern interpreters who hold this position
but also a growing list of scholars who do not (p. 122).
54
J. G. Eichhorn, Einleitung in das Alte Testament (Leipzig: Bey Weidmanns Erben & Reich,
1780), 1:18.
EMERGING JEWISH AND CHRISTIAN COLLECTIONS OF SCRIPTURES 287

possible. Codices L (Leningrad) and A (Allepo), for instance, have Chronicles in

the first place in the Writings, not the last. Gallagher concludes that “neither Jesus
nor anyone else could assert the same [order or sequence] until the late fifteenth
century” after the printing press was invented. He also draws attention to the
lack of any church father drawing from Matt 23:35 or Luke 11:51 that Jesus had
in mind the scope of the biblical canon. Jesus’ point rather was his focus on the
heinous acts taken against pious Jews in antiquity.55
Gallagher also observes that no one before the eighth century CE suggested that
Jesus’ reference to Zechariah was to one of the Minor Prophets. He adds “it was
apparently, not until the rise of modern biblical criticism that someone thought of
relating the mention of Zechariah to the concluding position of Chronicles within
the Bible.”56 Matthew alone adds the patronym “son of Barachiah” and modern
scholars frequently identify this Zechariah with the Zechariah in 2 Chr 24:20–21
who is listed as “the son of the priest Jehoiada.” That text reads:

Then the spirit of God took possession of Zechariah son of the priest Jehoiada; he stood above
the people and said to them, “Thus says God: Why do you transgress the commandments of the
Lord, so that you cannot prosper? Because you have forsaken the Lord, he has also forsaken
you.” But they conspired against him, and by command of the king they stoned him to death in
the court of the house of the Lord. (2 Chr 24:20–21, emphasis added)

Only Zech 1:1 speaks of a “Zechariah, the son of Berechiah” and there is no
evidence that the author of one of the final books of the HB had a violent death
or was executed. Roger Beckwith argues in considerable detail that this passage
refers to the scope of the Bible. To make the texts harmonize, he conflates
Zechariah son of Jehoiada in 2 Chr 24:20 with Zechariah son of Berechiah (Zech
1:1), claiming that Jesus referred to both Zechariahs!57 Lim disagrees, however,
and concludes that Beckwith’s argument is a most unlikely technique and that
Jesus was not speaking about a “composite figure” (two Zechariahs) after
speaking of a single individual (a singular Abel). Lim also points to Beckwith’s
failure to consider that the editor of Matt 23:35 may be reflecting a later reference
in Josephus.58

55
Gallagher, “Blood from Abel to Zechariah.” See also A. Van Der Kooij, “The Canonization
of Ancient Books Kept in the Temple of Jerusalem,” in Van der Kooij and Van der Toorn, eds.,
Canonization and Decanonization, 17–40, here 21–22. He agrees that the place of Chronicles in the
HB varied for many centuries and was in last place only in the b. Baba Bathra 14b text until much
later.
56
Ibid., 126 n. 16 and 133 n. 40. The quote is from 136.
57
Beckwith, Old Testament Canon, 211–22. See also similarly Robert H. Gundry, Matthew: A
Commentary on His Handbook for a Mixed Church Under Persecution, 2nd ed. (Grand Rapids:
Eerdmans, 1994), 471–72; and F. F. Bruce, The Canon of Scripture, 30–31.
58
Formation of the Jewish Canon, 158–59 and 160–61.
288 THE FORMATION OF THE BIBLICAL CANON, VOLUME I

Interestingly, Origen is the first to suggest that Jesus was not referring to
Zechariah the prophet, but rather to a first century Zechariah, namely the father of
John the Baptist (Origen, Comm. on Matthew 25),59 and he claims that Jesus had
in mind all of the bloodshed of pious individuals from the beginning of humanity
to the time of Jesus, namely the death of John the Baptist’s father according to
“apocryphal sources” (Origen, Ep. Africanus 14). Jerome rejected Origen’s view
and identified Zechariah as the one killed near the altar by King Joash of Judea in
2 Chr 24:20–22, 25, despite his not being referred to there as the son of Jehoiada,
but rather Barachiah (see his Commentary on Matthew). While Jerome alone lists
the books of the Old Testament in roughly the same sequence as the HB (See
Appendix A), namely Law, Prophets, and Writings, he does not place Chronicles
at the end of his list. Further, Gallagher observes that “Jerome did not interpret ‘the
blood of Zechariah’ as a reference to the last book of the Hebrew Bible because it
was not the last book of the Hebrew Bible/Old Testament as he knew it.”60
No ancient discussion or interpretation of the identity of Zechariah in Luke or
Matthew is without its problems, but it is important that no church father identified
these two texts as references to the scope of the Jewish scriptures. Also, this
passage referred to the all of the prophets that were executed from the time of Abel
(who is not called a prophet in the HB/OT) to Zechariah, but identifying him as
an Old Testament figure would be strange had Jesus intended to say to his current
listeners that “this generation” was accountable for the death of Zechariah when
he had been executed hundreds of years earlier.
Also, the prophetic figure, Uriah son of Shemaiah, was executed by the sword
by Jehoiakim (ca. 609–598 BCE; see Jer 26:20–23), unlike the stoning of the
Zechariah son of Jehoiada in 2 Chr 24:20–21. Could it be that the idea of shedding
of blood is simply a reference to death rather than how it was accomplished?
The author of 2 Chronicles does refer to the execution of Joash “because of the
blood of the son of the priest Jehoiada” (24:25), but more importantly Uriah was
the last prophetic figure executed in the HB. Zechariah the son of Barachiah (or
Jehoiada?) was executed much earlier. Responding to this, John Lightfoot long
ago suggested that the reason Jesus chose Zechariah instead of Uriah was because
the “killing of Zechariah was more horrible, as he was more high in dignity; and
as the place wherein he was killed was more holy.”61 He adds that Zechariah’s
death involved the consent of all of the people unlike Uriah’s death. He suggests
that Zechariah was more a type of Christ figure, and both Abel’s and Zechariah’s

59
This text is discussed in Gallagher, “The Blood from Abel to Zechariah,” 127–33.
60
Ibid., 134. I have identified the two surviving lists of Jerome’s OT canon in the appendices and,
likely following Jewish tradition at that time, this shows that he concluded his OT canon with either
Ezra–Nehemiah (Epistle 53.8) or Esther (Preface to the Books of Samuel and Kings).
61
John Lightfoot, A Commentary on the New Testament from the Talmud and Hebraica (Oxford:
Oxford University Press, 1859; reprinted in Grand Rapids: Baker Book House, 1979), 2:307. See his
longer discussion of this passage in 302–8.
EMERGING JEWISH AND CHRISTIAN COLLECTIONS OF SCRIPTURES 289

deaths cry out for vengeance (Gen 4:10 and 2 Chr 24:22, cf. Matt 27:25).62 This
is not unlike George Foot Moore’s comment: “It is not, then, because the death of
Zechariah was the last crime of the kind in Jewish history that it is named in the
Gospel, but because it was in popular legend the typical example of the sacrile-
gious murder of a righteous man, a prophet of God, and of the appalling expiation
of God exacted for it.”63 This may also be special pleading and it does not show
that the death was either the last or specifically whether Jesus had this in mind in
his accusation, let alone the scope of the HB canon.
The difference in the patronyms “son of Barachiah” and “son of Jehoiada” has
not troubled most commentators who assume that since the names “Barachiah”
and “Jehoiada” are roughly equivalent in meaning and since most conclude that
Jesus had 2 Chronicles in mind, the name does not pose a problem for their inter-
pretation. More recently, several scholars have moderated the popular notion that
these two texts in Matthew and Luke reflect the scope of the biblical canon.64
Since no one in antiquity came up with the notion that Jesus was referring to the
completion or scope of the HB/OT canon, the reconsiderations of these passages
in Matthew and Luke are a welcome contribution to current canon discussions.
As we saw above, Origen (Comm. ser. Matt. 25; Comm. in Matt. 10.18) claims
that Jesus’ reference to Zechariah was to the father of John the Baptist (Luke
1:59–80). The author of the second-century CE Protevangelium of James supports
Origen’s interpretation and reports that it was Zechariah, the father of John the
Baptist, who was executed by the sword, and that this Zechariah is the one Jesus
had in view. That text reads:

Herod was searching for John [the Baptist], and sent officers to Zacharias [father of John]
saying “Where have you hidden your son?” And he answered and said to them, “I am a minister
of God and serve in the temple of the Lord. I do not know where my son is.” And the officers
departed and told all this to Herod. Then Herod was angry and said, “His son is to be king over
Israel!” And he sent to him saying, “Tell the truth. Where is your son? You know that you are
at my mercy.” And the officers departed and told him these things. And Zacharias said, “I am
a witness of God. Pour out blood! But the Lord will receive my spirit, for you shed innocent
blood at the threshold of the temple of the Lord.” And about daybreak Zacharias was slain. And
the children of Israel did not know that he had been slain. (Protevangelium of James 23.1–3)65

62
Ibid., 308.
63
George Foot Moore, “Conjectanea Talmudica: Notes on Rev 13:18; Matt 23:35f.; 28:1; 2 Cor
2:14–16; Jubilees 34:4, 7; 7:4,” JAOS (1905): 315–33, here 323. I first saw this reference in Lim,
Formation of the Canon, 237 n. 13.
64
See, for example, Ulrich Luz’s discussion of these passages in his Matthew 21–28: A Commen-
tary, Hermeneia, trans. J. E. Crouch (Minneapolis: Fortress, 2005), 154–56; W. D. Davies and Dale
C. Allison, Jr., The Gospel According to Saint Matthew, ICC (Edinburgh: T. & T. Clark, 1997),
3:316–19; and Chapman, “Canon, Old Testament,” 104.
65
From Elliott, ed., Apocryphal New Testament, 66–67.
290 THE FORMATION OF THE BIBLICAL CANON, VOLUME I

Josephus referred to a certain Zecharias son of Baras who was slain in the Temple
by the Zealots during the outbreak of the war against Rome (ca. 69 CE), which
may have been confused by some church fathers with the Zechariah mentioned
by Jesus in Matt 23:35. Although this cannot have been the Zechariah mentioned
by Jesus, some scholars have suggested that later editors of Matthew inserted
this patronym into the text (it is absent in Luke). Long ago Julius Wellhausen
suggested that this Zecharias “son of Baras” (or Bariscaeus) (see Josephus, War
4.335–43) was the same as the Zechariah son of Barachiah, in Matt 23:35.66 He
suggests that Matthew’s text focused on a certain Zacharias, the Greek equivalent
of Zechariah, who was executed after the time of Jesus and that he (Matthew or
Matthew’s latest editor) was confused on the identity of the one Jesus spoke about.
Josephus’ text is as follows:

Having now come to loathe indiscriminate massacre, the Zealots instituted mock trials and
courts of justice. They determined to put to death Zacharias, son of Baris, one of the most
eminent of the citizens. The man exasperated them by his pronounced hatred of wrong and love
of liberty… (War 4.334–35, LCL)

When their mock trial did not go the way they had hoped because of the
convincing defense that Zecharias gave before the judges, the Zealots slew him
anyway.

Two of the most daring of them [Zealots] set upon Zacharias and slew him in the midst of the
Temple, and exclaiming in jest over his prostrate body “Now you have our verdict also and also
a more certain release,” forthwith cast him out of the Temple into the ravine below. (Josephus,
War 4.343, LCL)

Nothing certain can be proved from this, but Josephus, like the Protevangelium of
James text above, speaks of a more recent Zechariah than the one in 2 Chronicles.
Since it is unlikely that Matthew and Luke are referring to the Zechariah of
2 Chr 24, what other possibilities are there? Although some have suggested that
Zechariah is a reference to the author of one of the latest books in the Minor
Prophets, no one before the eighth century CE concluded that and no one today
makes that suggestion. The first church father to suggest that Jesus referred to the
Zechariah of 2 Chr 24:20–22 was apparently Jerome in the late fourth century
(Commentary on Matthew 23.35), but he never drew from this that Jesus was
describing the boundaries of the OT canon.
The ancient Greek church fathers generally concluded that Jesus’ reference to
Zechariah was to the father of John the Baptist with the inference from Jesus that
from the beginning of time until the generation of Jesus, prophets had been slain.

66
Wellhausen, Einleitung in die drei ersten Evangelien, ed. 2, 1911, pp. 118ff. This is noted in
the editor’s n. a, p. 254–55 in Josephus, War IV (LCL). I found these references in Gallagher, “The
Blood from Abel to Zechariah in the History of Interpretation,” 127–29.
EMERGING JEWISH AND CHRISTIAN COLLECTIONS OF SCRIPTURES 291

Luke does not mention the father of Zachariah and so the guessing game goes
on in that Gospel. Those scholars who think that this Zechariah was the author
of the Minor Prophet, Zechariah (see Zech 1:1), who was the son of Berechiah,
son of Iddo, have difficulty acknowledging that there is no ancient evidence that
Zechariah, who authored one of the last two Minor Prophets, died a martyr’s death
or in a violent manner. The Lives of the Prophets, perhaps a fourth-century text
with first-century traditions in it (it appears to contain both Jewish and Christian
elements),67 claims that the biblical prophet Zechariah died a peaceful death at an
advanced age (Liv. Pro. 15.6).68 The Zechariah mentioned in Isa 8:1–2 does not
appear to be a likely candidate either since there also is no record of his death in a
violent manner or that others were murdered after him. There are some 30 different
Zechariahs in the HB scriptures and the name was still popular even in the first
century (John’s father and Josephus). The most commonly suggested candidates
include the author of the book of Zechariah in the Minor Prophets (Zech. 1:1),
the son of Jehoiada in 2 Chr 24:20, Zechariah son of Jeberechiah (which becomes
Barachiah in the LXX) in Isa 8:2, and from the time of Origen, the father of John
the Baptist (Luke 1:5–23, 67–79).
Was Jesus focused on the shape of the biblical canon when he referred to
Abel and Zechariah consciously considering all of the books from Genesis to
2 Chronicles? F. F. Bruce concludes that Jesus’ reference to Zechariah in 2 Chr
24:20–23 affirmed a tripartite biblical canon that was settled long before Jesus.69
He states that since canonically Zechariah the son of Jehoiada70 was the last
mentioned prophet martyred in the Hebrew canon, then these texts point to the
completeness of the Hebrew biblical canon by the time of Jesus.71 Bruce states,
“[t]here is evidence that Chronicles was the last book of the Hebrew Bible as Jesus
knew it.” And he goes on to say “Zechariah is canonically the last faithful prophet
to die as a martyr, because his death is recorded in Chronicles, the last book in the
Hebrew Bible.”72

67
For a helpful discussion of the date and provenance of this ancient text of some 180 sentences,
see Peter Enns, “Lives of the Prophets,” in Collins and Harlow, eds., Eerdmans Dictionary of Early
Judaism, 892–94.
68
See the discussion in Luz, Matthew 21–28, 154–55. He concludes that Jesus is speaking of
Zechariah in 2 Chr 24 and offers support from the rabbinic tradition, namely y. Ta’an 4.69a.56, Liv.
Pro. 23; and Tg. Lam. 2.20. He does not discuss the reference in Protevangelium James 23.1–3 to
the father of John the Baptist.
69
F. F. Bruce, Canon of Scripture, 29.
70
The problematical parallel in Matt 23:35 appears to have the wrong family tree for Zachariah or
it is talking about a different Zachariah. Could it be that Matthew and Luke may be referring to the
murder of Zechariah the son of Baris in Jerusalem during the first Jewish revolt (see Josephus, War
4.335–343)?
71
F. F. Bruce, Canon of Scripture, 31.
72
Ibid.
292 THE FORMATION OF THE BIBLICAL CANON, VOLUME I

Bruce misses, of course, the reference to Uriah and his explanation assumes
that there was a clearly identifiable order of the HB by the time of Jesus, but
there is no evidence for that supposition. He also contends that the reference in
Luke 24:44 to “the law of Moses, prophets, and the psalms” does not interfere
with that order. However, if the order of the Writings had already been set by the
time of Luke’s writing (ca. 65–70 CE or even later), it is strange that Josephus
(ca. 95–100 CE) does not reflect that ordering in his comments on the scope of
the Jewish Scriptures. Josephus concludes his summary of the Jewish Scriptures
with a final group he designated: “the remaining four books contain hymns to
God and precepts for the conduct of human life” (Ag. Apion 1.40, LCL). It is also
strange that most of the early Christians, when they focused on the formation of
their Christian scriptures, including their contents and order, did not discuss these
two passages as a reference to a three-part and complete biblical canon ending
with books of hymns. The HB sequence is only detected in Jerome, the church
father who wrote mostly in Bethlehem and was more acquainted with local Jewish
tradition than most of his contemporaries, but even he does not tie the order or
formation of the OT books to these passages.
The tripartite HB canon was largely formed by some rabbis in the middle to
end of the second century CE and this was later widely acknowledged in the
two Talmudim. The best explanation for the almost universal lack of reference
to the Jewish tripartite biblical canon is that it had not been developed before
the separation of Jews and Christians was complete, after which the Jews ceased
having an influence on the scope and order of the Christian Scriptures. There is
nothing wrong with the formation of the HB, but the Christians overwhelmingly
did not follow it, which suggests that it was largely unknown to them at the time
of their separation from their Jewish siblings.
Rather than Chronicles being the last book in the Hebrew biblical canon,
Freedman argues convincingly that Chronicles stands in first place in the Writings,
and he supports this with references to the major medieval manuscripts, including
the standard Masoretic Aleppo and Leningrad Codices. Rather than Writings
concluding with 1–2 Chronicles, he contends that they end with Ezra–Nehemiah.73
Freedman adds that since 2 Chr 36:22–23 and Ezra 1:1–4 are almost identical, this
suggests that the books were separated spatially since, had they been consecutive,
and that order remained, there would have been no need for the repetition.74
By contrast, the primary historical books (Former Prophets, are consecutive
(i.e., Joshua, Judges, 1–2 Samuel and 1–2 Kings) and have no repetitive texts

73
Freedman, “Symmetry of the Hebrew Bible,” 95–96. The order of books in the Aleppo Codex
is as follows: Genesis to Judges (same as usual), 1–2 Samuel, 1–2 Kings, Isaiah, Jeremiah, Ezekiel,
the Twelve (in the standard sequence), 1–2 Chronicles, Psalms, Job, Proverbs, Ruth, Ecclesiastes,
Lamentations, Esther, Daniel, Ezra. (Ezra includes Nehemiah. Freedman does not mention Song of
Songs.)
74
Ibid., 96.
EMERGING JEWISH AND CHRISTIAN COLLECTIONS OF SCRIPTURES 293

connecting them. More importantly, Chronicles is in the last place only in the
b. Baba Bathra text before the tenth-century classical Tiberian codices of the
Masoretic text of the HB (Codices Allepo and Leningrad) that place Chronicles
last in the Ketubim. Although the Talmud places Chronicles in first place in the
Ketubim, all Tanak Bibles in use today have Chronicles at the end of the Ketubim
more out of habit and based on Codices A and L.
Evans suggests that the words “righteous” (“innocent” in some translations),
“son of Barachiah,” and “whom you murdered” in Matt 23:35 are probably all
Matthean additions to the tradition cited in Luke, and they are designed to intensify
and clarify the meaning of the utterance. He adds that the Matthean evangelist
either added “son of Barachiah,” thus identifying the martyr with the prophet
Zechariah, or the Lukan evangelist deleted the familial epithet, because he realized
that the person murdered “between the sanctuary and the altar” was a different
Zechariah. On balance, it appears more likely that Matthew added the epithet to
the Q tradition, since Jesus more typically referred simply to given names, e.g.,
“Jonah” and not their ancestry as in “Jonah son of Amittai,” or “Isaiah” not “Isaiah
the son of Amoz.”75 Trebolle Barrera is in basic agreement with Evans here and
suggests that Matt 23:35 “simply points to the first and last murder in the Bible
without implying that Chronicles was the last book in the Bible, as is the case in
the present sequence of books but not in other traditions known in the Talmudic
period.”76 Evans concludes that the argument put forth by Bruce, Beckwith, and
others assumes not only that 2 Chronicles was considered canonical in the time
of Jesus, but also that it had already been assigned the last place in the Jewish
scriptural collection. He correctly, in my opinion, concludes that in context Jesus’
reference to Abel and Zechariah was “probably meant to sum up Israel’s history,
not Israel’s sacred Scripture.”77
In conclusion, Luke 11:49–51 and Matt 23:34–35 do not reflect a fixed biblical
canon in the first century CE and that conclusion is no longer as convincing as
previously thought. The precise boundaries and contents of the Jewish scriptures
cannot be discerned in the first century CE from these two texts.

75
Evans, “Scriptures of Jesus,” 90 n. 17.
76
Trebolle Barrera, “Origins of a Tripartite Old Testament Canon,” 131. In regard to the obscure
reference to “the Wisdom of God” in Luke 11:49, this locution is also in Luke 7:35 where it is a
reference to God and it may be a reference to Jesus. Commentators are not in agreement on the
precise meaning here and some have suggested that a reference to a book in the third-part of the HB
or to an unknown book that Jesus is citing, may simply be an allusion to common language circu-
lating among Jews in the first century CE or earlier.
77
Evans, “Scriptures of Jesus,” 190.
294 THE FORMATION OF THE BIBLICAL CANON, VOLUME I

V. ORDER AND SEQUENCE OF BIBLICAL CANONS

Because the early collections of the HB books circulated in scrolls and not in
codices, it is understandable why there is considerable variety in the order of the
books in various Jewish and Christian traditions well into the tenth and eleventh
century, as we will see in Chapter 11 and Appendix A. It is important simply to
note here that all such discussions of the order or sequence of books in antiquity
appear to be something like what Barton described as a “wild goose chase” that
is ultimately “devoid of importance.”78 He doubts whether any significance can
be found in the order of biblical books before the use of the codex for trans-
mitting them. Such notions, he claims, were not present either in Judaism of Late
Antiquity or in early Christianity before the widespread use of the codex. Until
the technology of the codex had advanced to the point where one could include
all of the biblical books in one volume, which was possible for the first time in
the fourth century CE, there was very little focus on order or sequence. Since the
use of codices for the HB books is not attested before the eighth century CE,79
little focus was placed on the sequence of HB books outside of the Pentateuch and
Deuteronomistic History books except in b. Baba Bathra 14b. The variability in
sequences of specific collections such as the Twelve Minor Prophets or the places
of Job and Proverbs in HB manuscripts makes this point. Sanders draws attention
to the often significantly different contents and order of the Psalms in Cave 11 at
Qumran (11QPsa) that he argues reflect the fluidity of the scriptures at that time
and should not be seen as “a deviation from a rigidly fixed canon of the latter third
of the Psalter, but rather as a signpost in the multi-faceted history of the canoni-
zation of the Psalter.”80 The earliest rabbinic text that identifies the order of the
books in the Jewish scriptures, b. Baba Bathra 14b–15a, says nothing essential
about the order in it, except perhaps that the Pentateuch is in first place (see 14a
and 15a). Barton suggests that the order here may emphasize the chronology of
the books within each category, but while this is easier to see in the Pentateuch
and the Former and possibly Latter Prophets, it is more difficult to establish in
regard to the Writings.81 The early Christian listings of the order of the books
generally follow the LXX and not the HB sequence and little can be made from
this sequence except, as Sanders has noted, the Christian OT closes with a view to
the future that anticipates the next event in salvation history, namely the story of

78
Barton, Oracles of God, 82.
79
For this date, see Barton, Oracles of God, 83, who cites the work of E. Würthwein, The Text of
the Old Testament: An Introduction to Kittel-Kahle’s Biblia Hebraica (Oxford: Oxford University
Press, 1957), 10.
80
J. A. Sanders, Psalms Scroll of Qumran Cave 11; and idem, “Variorum in the Psalms Scroll,”
HTR 59 (1966): 89. Barton also quotes Sanders’ conclusion in Oracles of God, 86.
81
Ibid., 88.
EMERGING JEWISH AND CHRISTIAN COLLECTIONS OF SCRIPTURES 295

Jesus, which is why the (Latter) Prophets are placed last and not second in most
of the Christian Bibles.82
Barton adds that while distinctions in genre, date, and classification are
important to modern scholars, they were of little concern to the mindset of the
earliest interpreters of scripture who, like the author of Hebrews, could speak
of God in former times who “spoke to our fathers ancestors [fathers]…by the
prophets” (Heb 1:1). The author goes on to cite all three of the later designations
of the Hebrew Scriptures (prophets, psalms, and Pentateuch) “without any sense of
incongruity.” It is not unusual, however, for modern readers of these ancient texts
to suppose that the first readers always had in mind what scholars many centuries
later now consider relevant.83 More will be said about this issue in Chapter 11 §II.

VI. CONCLUSION

It is quite likely that all of the books that eventually made up the HB canon were
also widely circulating as sacred scripture among many Jews and early Christians
in the first century CE. However, Barton reminds us that this does not suggest that
only those books were accepted as sacred Scripture at that time. He cites Jude 14’s
reference to 1 En. 1:9 and Paul’s use of Wisdom of Solomon in Rom 2:23–24 and
5:12–21 as evidence for more writings functioning as scripture in the first century
and concludes: “To say that these references are real but do not involve treating the
deuterocanonical books as ‘scripture’ is simply special pleading.”84 I fully agree.

82
For a discussion of the order of the Jewish and Christian Bibles, see Sanders, “Spinning the
Bible,” but as we will see later, that order may not have been altogether a Christian invention but
one they may have inherited.
83
Barton, Oracles of God, 82–91. He correctly concludes, in my opinion, that with the exception
of the historical books, sequence seems to be of “small importance” (91).
84
Barton, “Old Testament Canon,” 151.
 CHAPTER 9

THE SCRIPTURES OF JESUS AND

EARLY CHRISTIANITY*

I. SCRIPTURE IN EARLY CHRISTIANITY

Jesus and his earliest followers were all Jews who worshipped regularly at Jewish
synagogues and likely also made periodic visits to the Temple in Jerusalem.
Their understanding of the notion of Scripture and the Scriptures that constituted
their sacred Scripture collections they learned from fellow Jews in first-century
Palestine. The earliest disciples of Jesus experienced him within the Jewish
culture and within the knowledge of the Jewish Scriptures that significantly
influenced their belief that Jesus was the eschatological fulfillment of their
Scriptures. Also, they believed that their understanding of the outpouring of the
Holy Spirit in the “last days” was foretold in their Scriptures (Joel 2:28–29; Ezek
36:27; 37:14; cf. Acts 2:17–17; John 7:39; 14:16–17; 15:26) and was present in
Jesus and in the community of those who followed him. As we saw earlier, the
notion that prophecy had ceased in Israel was a popular view among many Jews
in the time of Jesus, but not by all. Jesus himself may have assumed the absence
of the Spirit and prophetic activity among the Jews and spoke of the Spirit’s return
(John 14:26; 15:26; 16:7–15; 20:22; Acts 1:8), though not necessarily since he saw
John the Baptist as a prophetic figure (Matt 11:7–15). Jesus may have suggested
that the Sprit and prophetic activity departed the nation perhaps at the time of the
death of John the Baptist as the last prophet in Israel (Matt 11:7–14 // Luke 16:6),
or earlier as that popular view may have been considered by him. However, before
and during the time of Jesus some Jews believed that the religious books produced
by prophetic figures, before the supposed cessation of the Spirit and prophetic
activity, were their inspired sacred Scriptures (1 Macc 14:41; Prayer of Azariah
15; Josephus, Ag. Apion 1.37–41). The early Christians believed that in the resur-
rection of Jesus, the promised Spirit, which evidently was absent, had returned
(John 7:39; 20:22; Acts 1:8; 2:14–21).

* Portions of this chapter are published in Forgotten Scriptures, 123–50, and are updated and used
here with permission from Westminster John Knox Press.
THE SCRIPTURES OF JESUS AND EARLY CHRISTIANITY* 297

Early Christianity also emphasized an important eschatological feature that

focused on the presence of the Spirit as a demonstration that they were in the “last
days” (2 Cor 5:4–5). Coupled with that, the church’s Christological emphasis in
their interpretation of Scripture, while not unique to the followers of Jesus, was
certainly characteristic of them.
As a first-century Jew living in Palestine, Jesus and his earliest followers were
informed by the same Jewish Scriptures that circulated among his fellow adherents
of Judaism in Palestine. Evans has observed that in the Synoptic Gospels Jesus
cited the same books that were most frequently quoted or cited in the Qumran
scrolls, especially Deuteronomy some fifteen or sixteen times, Isaiah some forty
times, and the Psalms some thirteen times.1 Jesus apparently favored those books,
but frequently he also cited Daniel and Zechariah and several other HB books as
well. He did not cite or quote all of the HB books, however. According to Evans,
“Jesus’ usage of Scripture was pretty much in step with what we observe in other
circles, circles that took the Law very seriously, understood the Prophets eschato-
logically, and had some regard for the Writings, though this last division was very
open ended.”2 In the approximately 700 (or so) extra-biblical scrolls discovered at
Qumran and elsewhere in the Judean desert,3 there are several parallels with the
NT literature, not only in mutual themes, beliefs, and practices, but in parallels
with specific focus such as a messianic text in 4Q521 that helped answer questions
raised about Jesus’ response to John’s disciples in Matt 11:4–6.4 Besides the NT’s
use of the Jewish scriptures, there are several NT passages that have very close
parallels or allusions to the so-called non-canonical writings, some of which were
also discovered at Qumran. I have listed several of these attributed to Jesus at the
end of this chapter, but I will simply list a few of the more significant texts here
that have NT parallels. These include 1 Enoch, Jubilees, possibly the Apocalypse
of Moses, Testament of Levi, Tobit, and Sirach. Several of the DSS have no
parallels in the NT, but in the Temple Scroll, for example, there is a certain praise
for death by hanging on a tree that reflects awareness of what we find in Deut 21:22
(compare 11QTa LXIV) and may shed some light on the hanging of Jesus on a tree

1
C. A. Evans, “Scriptures of Jesus,” 185–86.
2
Ibid., 186.
3
The ancient Jewish religious texts discovered at Qumran, and popularly called the Dead Sea
Scrolls, were not all in the eleven caves at Qumran and, as noted earlier, scholars now regularly
identify them as “Discoveries of the Judaean Desert” (or DJD). The Essenes produced or copied
several of those writings either at Qumran or brought them in from other communities in Palestine.
Also, other documents were found in caves away from Qumran such as those discovered at Masada
(where some three chapters of Sirach and fragments of Psalms, Leviticus, and Genesis) were found.
Also, at Naḥal Ḥever other documents were found in what is termed the “Cave of Letters” and “The
Cave of Horror,” including bits and pieces of the Minor Prophets and a large number of Bar Kochba
documents. For a helpful summary of the contents of these scrolls, see Cross, Ancient Library at
Qumran, 19–53. See also Abegg, Flint, and Ulrich, Dead Sea Scrolls Bible, xiv–xv.
4
For a careful assessment of the parallels between the Dead Sea Scrolls and how to understand
them, see Brooke, Dead Sea Scrolls and the New Testament. For our purposes, see especially 3–69.
298 THE FORMATION OF THE BIBLICAL CANON, VOLUME I

(see Acts 5:30; 10:39; Gal 3:13). Brooke discusses this topic in detail along with a
number of parallels to Jesus’ understanding of divorce and he examines carefully
the parallels between the Gospels of John and Mark in this regard.5 I have already
drawn attention to the parallels between 4QMMT and Paul’s focus on the works
of the Law and righteousness. Such parallels do not suggest that Jesus or his
early followers made use of or read any of the DSS, but only that they had been
exposed to some teachings that also informed the Essene community. Some of the
parallels between the NT and the DSS more likely are elements they shared with
first-century CE expressions of Palestinian Judaism.
There is considerable evidence in the Gospels that Jesus regularly cited the
Jewish Scriptures, but no evidence that he cited any particular form of the various
biblical texts. Again, Evans observes that Jesus regularly “appealed to words,
phrases, and sometimes whole passages – whatever their textual origin – in an ad
hoc, experiential fashion.”6 Because of the ad hoc nature of his citations or quotes
that addressed specific concerns and situations, it is not possible to determine all
of the books that Jesus deemed sacred. However, from his teachings that have
parallels in extra-biblical writings, as we will see below, it is apparent that he was
familiar with more traditions or teachings than those in the HB. It is likely that he
considered more books as Jewish Scripture than the available sources allow us to
discern, but most of the works he cited are from HB books (Pentateuch, especially
Deuteronomy, Isaiah, and Psalms).
In a recent study, David deSilva makes the case that in the Synoptic Gospels
Jesus was either familiar with several extra-biblical or non-canonical writings,
or that those works were familiar to the teachers of Jesus. However, he makes
a case for Jesus’ familiarity with several noncanonical writings found in letters
produced by two of Jesus’ half brothers, James and Jude. Those writings include
parallels in word and/or thought with Sirach, Tobit, 1 Enoch, Psalms of Solomon,
2 Maccabees (possibly also 1 Maccabees), and likely the Testaments of the Twelve
Patriarchs, and the Testament of Job.7 Since several noncanonical writings were
popular in Palestine in the first century CE, it is likely that he either heard some
of the traditions in them or had seen some of those writings. There is no evidence
that Jesus specifically read extra-biblical books, but there are a number of parallel
words, phrases, and ideas from them in his teachings that are suggestive of that.
There is no question, however, that Jesus mostly cited scriptural texts with the
designations “the Law” or “the Law and the Prophets.” Several of the biblical
and extra-biblical texts with which he appears to have some familiarity were
circulating in Galilee and Judea in his generation. The parallels listed in deSilva’s
substantial investigations support this notion.

5
Ibid., 97–114.
6
Evans, “Scriptures of Jesus,” 195.
7
deSilva, Jewish Teachers of Jesus.
THE SCRIPTURES OF JESUS AND EARLY CHRISTIANITY* 299

Several biblical scholars insist that Jesus and the apostles subscribed to a fixed
biblical canon of the Hebrew Scriptures that was settled well before the first century
CE that was exactly like the current HB, but the evidence for that conclusion is
not convincing. Beckwith, for instance, contends that “the New Testament shows
Jesus and his apostles endorsing a canon wider than that of the Samaritans and
indistinguishable from that of the Pharisees, which now seems to have been the
standard (if not, indeed, the only) Jewish canon.”8 It is, however, anachronistic to
suggest that Jesus and his disciples endorsed a particular biblical canon. If Jesus
had endorsed a closed biblical canon in the first century, it is remarkable that his
followers in the second century cited non-biblical texts as Scripture. As we will
see, the response to that has often been that by the second century many of his
followers had lost sight of what Jesus had endorsed! While there were known
collections of religious texts available to them that functioned as Scripture, and
chief among them was Torah, several Prophets, and some Writings (especially
Psalms and Daniel), that is considerably different from a widely accepted biblical
canon. None of Jesus’ followers or Jesus himself discussed a fixed biblical canon
in the first century. As noted earlier, most, if not all, of the literature that is now a
part of the HB was recognized as Scripture by many Jews in Palestine in the first
century CE, but Jesus and his followers were also informed by other religious
texts and may have viewed some of them as Scripture.
Admittedly it is difficult to determine which texts Jesus acknowledged as
Scripture since he does not cite or quote all of the books in the HB, but he appears
to be familiar with several “non-canonical” Jewish religious texts circulating in
Palestine in his day. The available evidence, discussed in the next section, suggests
that Jesus was familiar with several other religious texts or textual traditions
circulating in Palestine that were not eventually included in the HB canon or the
Christian OT. I will also include texts from other parts of the NT and the church
fathers. This necessarily also involves the complex issue of how the NT uses the
OT writings.

II. THE SCRIPTURES OF JESUS

There is general agreement among scholars that quoting or citing a particular

document does not mean that a writer considered what was quoted or cited to be
sacred and inspired Scripture. A familiar example of this is when, in one of the
speeches of Acts, Paul is cited as quoting Epimenides and also the opening lines
from Aratus’ Phaenomena when he stood before the Areopagus on Mars Hill (Acts
17:28). Most agree that those texts were simply illustrative material for Paul’s
message, not unlike such material used in most pulpits today, but no one seriously
thinks that such writings were part of Paul’s (or Luke’s) acknowledged scriptural

8
Beckwith, “Canon of the Hebrew Bible,” 102.
300 THE FORMATION OF THE BIBLICAL CANON, VOLUME I

texts, rather they were a reflection of familiarity with classical writers that were
employed to gain the interest of Athenian hearers. It is seldom easy to distinguish
one’s high esteem for a source and one’s views on its scriptural authority, but
generally, if the source is cited in a scriptural or authoritative manner, introduced
perhaps with the words “it is written,” “as the Scripture says,” or similar designa-
tions, it is easier to identify the text as a writer’s Scriptures. NT writers do not
always use the familiar scriptural formulae to distinguish the status of writings,
but clearly a text may be cited authoritatively without using such designations (see
examples below), yet still use the cited text as Scripture. Beckwith rightly speaks
of the difficulty and inappropriateness of drawing conclusions about the scope of
the biblical canon from simple references to other sources and helpfully lists five
major methodological fallacies commonly followed by scholars:

1. failure to distinguish evidence that a book was known from evidence that a
book was canonical;
2. failure to distinguish disagreement about the canon between different parties
from uncertainty about the canon within those parties;
3. failure to distinguish between the adding of books to the canon and the
removal of books from it;
4. failure to distinguish between the canon which the community recognized
and used, and the eccentric views of individuals about it;
5. failure to make use of Jewish evidence about the canon transmitted through
Christian hands, whether by denying its Jewish origins, or by ignoring the
Christian medium through which it has come.9

I am in agreement with each of these points and acknowledge the temptation of

many scholars to say that what was quoted or used was necessarily also Scripture
or canonical. Beckwith, however, stresses that the NT writers did not quote any
of the apocryphal or pseudepigraphal writings as Scripture or canon, even though,
as he says, there is “an occasional correspondence of thought which suggests
a knowledge of some of them.”10 However, there is more to the NT’s use of
apocryphal and pseudepigraphal writings than an “occasional correspondence of
thought.” Beckwith argues that since the usual scriptural citation formulas are not
used when the “occasional correspondence of thought” occurs, it is important to
remember that the lack of the standard citation formulae, such as “it is written,”
is not determinative of a text’s sacred status in the NT writings. For instance, in
Mark 14:62 Jesus cited Dan 7:13 in a scriptural manner, but without any typical
formulae. Similarly, the author of Hebrews, who cites the OT Scriptures propor-
tionately more than any other NT author, only used one of the scriptural citation
formulae and that was used in a citation from the LXX (Heb 10:7 citing Ps 40:8).

9
Beckwith, Old Testament Canon, 7–8.
10
Ibid., 387.
THE SCRIPTURES OF JESUS AND EARLY CHRISTIANITY* 301

Otherwise, all of his citations in Hebrews are from the LXX and without the usual
formulae. No one would deny that the author of Hebrews cited many OT texts as
Scripture, but he did not use the introductory formulae. Because those formulae
are not cited when Apocryphal or Deuterocanonical writings are cited or used, as
in the clear citation of Wis 7:25 in Heb 1:3, we cannot conclude that all ancient
texts cited without the usual formulae were not viewed as sacred Scripture. Lim
has shown that many of the parallels in language and so-called citations listed
in the Appendix of the Nestle/Aland 27th edition of the Greek New Testament,
Novum Testamentum Graece – which I also included in my previous edition
of this volume – are often unconvincing especially as they relate to Paul.11 He
concludes “on the whole, literary dependence of the Pauline letters on apocryphal
and pseudepigraphal texts is not supported by the evidence.”12 It is difficult to
know, however, whether Paul had a different biblical canon than the other writers
of the NT since he never quotes all of the HB books nor did he ever list all of the
books that he thought were inspired Scripture. There are, nevertheless, still some
parallels in Paul’s letters with noncanonical writings. I agree with Lim, that it is
not possible to determine the full scope of the Scriptures of the Pharisees or of
Paul in the first century, but perhaps his examination of Paul’s familiarity with and
use of Wis 11:15, 23 and 15:1–5 in his Rom 1:23 and 2:4, discussed earlier, may
be an exception that might need reconsideration. Those citations are close enough
to suggest Paul’s awareness of them and, I suggest, that he used them in a scrip-
tural manner in making his case. In the following lists, we will see a number of
the parallels between Jesus’ teachings and several apocryphal and pseudepigraphal
texts. How did they influence Jesus and his early followers? Were they a part of
his scriptural collection or did they simply inform his thinking? The following
parallels, both verbal and notional, between Jesus’ teachings and the several
apocryphal and pseudepigraphal sources are suggestive of a broader collection of

11
See Appendix 4 in Lim, Formation of the Jewish Canon, 195–207 and 166–77, where he refers
to Nestle-Aland’s loci citati vel allegati and lists each of these so-called references, but finds them
unconvincing. This list has been updated and modified in NA28 and in some places citations are
reduced, but in others expanded. Lim contends that Paul had adopted the collection of Scriptures
adopted by the Pharisees that was still emerging and not yet closed during Paul’s lifetime (177).
He correctly observes that Paul’s most frequent citations are Isaiah, Psalms, Deuteronomy, and
Genesis (not unlike Jesus and the Essenes at Qumran), but Paul does not cite all of the HB books.
This does not settle canon issues for Paul since all of his writings were ad hoc, that is written to
address specific issues facing his churches and he does not identify all of the writings that he deemed
sacred. It is certainly correct to say that Paul cites the HB texts most of the time. Lim does not say
that Paul’s view was the same as all other writers of the NT, but only that his collection of citations
parallels the best-known views of the Pharisees of his day. Jude’s reference to 1 En. 1:9 in Jude 14,
however, shows that the canon was still fluid at the time of Paul’s writings. Again, in the recent NA28
(pp. 869–78 for parallels with noncanonical writings), some changes were made in the list of paral-
lels and citations and many earlier parallels were retained, but not all.
12
Ibid., 196.
302 THE FORMATION OF THE BIBLICAL CANON, VOLUME I

sacred texts circulating in Palestine in Jesus’ generation. I will start with several
of the key parallels in deSilva’s collection and I will then add some from 1 Enoch
that illustrate Jesus’ awareness either of that literature or the oral teachings about
them in the early first century CE. At the end of this chapter I will list several more
parallels that are at least worth consideration.

A. Jesus’ Teachings and Extra-Biblical Influences (deSilva’s list)

1. Receiving God’s forgiveness depends upon forgiving one’s fellow human
beings, extending to others the forbearance and mercy one seeks for oneself
(Sir 28:2–5; Matt 6:12 // Luke 11:4; Mark 11:25 // Matt 6:14).
2. Charitable giving toward those in need now is the best means by which to
lay up one’s treasure for the future (whether for this life of the next) rather
than hoarding resources to rust and rot doing no one any good (Sir 29:9–12;
Tob 4:6b–11; 12:8–9; Matt 6:19–20 // Luke 12:33; Mark 10:22 // Matt
19:21 // Luke 18:22).
3. Being rich in terms of amassed wealth, but not rich in a way that God would
affirm, poses grave danger to an individual, rather than ensuring the security
that such a person seeks (1 En. 97:8–9; Luke 12:16–21).
4. Hypocrisy and presumption upon God’s favor and forgiveness, for example
on the basis of the performance of acts of personal piety, have no place in
the life of the covenant people (Sir 7:5, 8–9; Pss. Sol. 4:2–3; Luke 18:10–14;
Matt 7:3–5).
5. Humility and other-centered service is the path to honor in God’s sight,
not the practices and orientations modeled by the competitive, precedence-
seeking culture (Sir 1:30; 3:18; T. Jos. 17:8; Luke 14:11; 18:14; Matt 23:12;
Mark 10:42–44 // Matt 20:26–28; Mark 9:35 // Luke 9:46–48).
6. In the resurrection, the righteous will enter upon a life like that led by the
angels, in which there is no need or place for either marriage or procreation
(1 En. 15:6–7; 51:1, 4; Mark 12:25 // Matt 22:30 // Luke 20:35–36).13

At the end of his list, deSilva comments that besides these:

there are also several striking points of commonality between Jesus’ teachings and these
extra biblical texts that indicate further influence through some channel, though the disputes
concerning the date and availability of these texts or portions of texts require greater caution
in this regard.14

13
These examples have all come from deSilva, Jewish Teachers of Jesus, James, and Jude,
254–55. I have numbered deSilva’s list for convenience of reference, but the text is almost all his.
14
Ibid., 255.
THE SCRIPTURES OF JESUS AND EARLY CHRISTIANITY* 303

B. Parallels Between the Parables of Enoch and Jesus’ Teaching15

1.  1 Enoch 15:6–7: “Indeed, formerly you were spiritual, (having) eternal life,
and immortal in all the generations of the world. That is why (formerly)
I did not make wives for you, for the dwelling of the spiritual beings of
heaven is heaven.” – Mark 12:25: “For when they rise from the dead, they
neither marry nor are given in marriage, but are like angels in heaven.” The
similarity here is in the thought that angels do not marry and neither do those
who go from this life to the next.
2.  1 Enoch 22:9–10: “the spirits of the dead might be separated. And in the
manner in which the souls of the righteous are separated [by] this spring of
water with light upon it, in like manner, the sinners are set apart when they
die and are buried.” – Luke 16:26: “Besides all this, between you and us a
great chasm has been fixed, so that those who might want to pass from here
to you cannot do so, and no one can cross from there to us.” The similarity
is in the notion of separation of the righteous in the afterlife.
3.  1 Enoch 38:2, cf. Matt 26:24; 1 En. 46:3–5, cf. Matt 13:41–42 and Matt
16:27. The Son of Man comes from heaven at the end of the age and judges
evil in the world, including those who have “denied the Lord of the Spirits
and his Messiah” in 1 En. 48:10. See also the Son of Man’s authority as Lord
of the Sabbath in Mark 2:28/Matt 12:8/Luke 6:5.
4.  1 Enoch 51:3–5: “In those days, (the Elect One) shall sit on my throne, and
from the conscience of his mouth shall come out all secrets of wisdom, for
the Lord of the Spirits has given them to him and glorified him… And the
faces of all the angels in heaven shall glow with joy, because on that day
the Elect One has arisen.” Compare also 1 En. 61:2–5: “And I asked the
angel, saying unto him, “Why have those (angels) hoisted these ropes and
gone off?” And he said unto me, ‘They have gone in order to make measure-
ments.’ The angel who was going with me also said unto me, ‘These (angels)
are the ones who shall bring the measuring ropes of the righteous ones as
well as their binding cords in order that they might lean on the name of
the Lord of the Spirits forever and ever’.”; compare parallels in word and
thought in Matt 19:28 and 25:31 below for “sitting on my throne.”
5.  1 Enoch 52:4: “All these substances [metals] will be removed and destroyed
from the surface of the earth when the Elect One shall appear before the
face of the Lord of the Spirits.” The pre-existence of Son of Man is kept in
secret and is now being revealed (see also 48:2, 7, 10; cf. John 1:1–3, 14–18
+ Rev 5:1–4).]

15
The biblical texts cited are from the NRSV and the Enoch texts are from OTP.
304 THE FORMATION OF THE BIBLICAL CANON, VOLUME I

6.  1 Enoch 61:8: “He placed the Elect One on the throne of glory; and he
shall judge all the works of the holy ones in heaven above, weighing in the
balance their deeds. And he shall lift up his countenance in order to judge
the secret ways of theirs, by the word of the name of the Lord of the Spirits,
and their conduct, by the method of the righteous judgments of the Lord of
the Spirits, then they shall all speak with one voice, blessing, glorifying,
extolling, sanctifying the name of the Lord of the Spirits.” Observe the role
of eschatological judge. See Luke 19:10 where the words are different, but
the two passages have similar theological content. See also Matt 16:27. See
also Matt 19:28 and Mark 8:38; Luke 9:26; cf. also role of Christ as judge
in 2 Cor 5:10; and Mark 13:26–27; 14:62 cf. Matt 24:26–27,37–39/Luke
17:22–37.
7.  1 Enoch 62:2–5 (cf. Luke 19:10): “The Lord of the Spirits has sat down
on the throne of his glory, and the spirit of righteousness has been poured
out upon him. The word of his mouth will do the sinners in; and all the
oppressors shall be eliminated from before his face. On the day of judgment,
all the kings, the governors, the high officials, and the landlords shall see and
recognize him – how he sits on the throne of his glory, and righteousness
is judged before him, and that no nonsensical talk shall be uttered in his
presence. Then pain shall come upon them as a woman in travail with birth
pangs – when she is giving birth…and pain shall seize them when they see
that Son of Man sitting on the throne of his glory.” – Matt 25:31: “When
the Son of Man comes in his glory, and all the angels with him, then he
will sit on the throne of his glory.” Note: Besides the role of judge of evil,
the judged will experience judgment as in birth pangs, see Mark 13:8; Matt
19:28; 24:8. Also see Rev 3:21 where the Son of Man comes and “sits
on his throne” with the Father. See also Phil 2:9–11where Christ receives
exaltation (like one on a throne) and every knee bows to him.
8.  1 Enoch 62:14–15: “The Lord of the Spirits will abide over them; they shall
eat and rest and rise with that Son of Man forever and ever” [see Rev 3:20].
“The righteous and elect ones shall rise from the earth and shall cease being
of downcast face. They shall wear the garments of glory [see Rev 6:11].
These garments of yours shall become the garments of life from the Lord of
the Spirits.” Compare Mark 8:38–9:1 (“coming with angels”).
9.  1 Enoch 65:9–10: “Because their [evil persons’] oppression has been carried
out (on the earth), their judgment will be limitless before me. On account of
the abstract things which they have investigated and experienced, the earth
shall perish (together with) those who dwell upon her.” Note: Judgment
comes upon those who persecuted the righteous. See also 1 En. 66:1–2
where angels in charge of the flood are agents of God to perform judgment
on those who dwell on the earth. Note also: judgment comes to those who
oppress the righteous. Note the parallels of judgment against those who
persecute the righteous in Luke 11:49–52 and // in Matt 23:31–35.
THE SCRIPTURES OF JESUS AND EARLY CHRISTIANITY* 305

10.  1 Enoch 69:27–29: “Then there came to them a great joy. And they blessed,
glorified, and exalted the Lord on account of the fact that the name of that
Son of Man was revealed to them. He shall never pass away or perish from
before the face of the earth…for that Son of Man has appeared and has
seated himself upon the throne of his glory; and all evil shall disappear from
before his face; and he shall go and tell to that Son of Man, and he shall be
strong before the Lord of the Spirits.” – Matt 19:28: “Jesus said to them,
‘Truly I tell you, at the renewal of all things, when the Son of Man is seated
on the throne of his glory, you who have followed me will also sit on twelve
thrones, judging the twelve tribes of Israel.” – Matt 26.64: “Jesus said to
him, “You have said so. But I tell you, from now on you will see the Son of
Man seated at the right hand of Power and coming on the clouds of heaven.”
[Note: Exaltation of Son of Man is revealed and he exercises judgment. See
also Matt 13:37–43 and 25:31. See also 1 En. 46, 48:2–4; 62–63; 70–71.]
11.  1 Enoch 94:8: “Woe unto you, O rich people! For you have put your trust
in your wealth. You shall ooze out of your riches, for you do not remember
the Most High.” – Luke 6.24: “But woe to you who are rich, for you have
received your consolation.”
12.  1 Enoch 97:8–10: “Woe unto you who gain silver and gold by unjust
means; you will then say, “We have grown rich and accumulated goods, we
have acquired everything that we have desired. So now let us do whatever
we like; for we have gathered silver, we have filled our treasuries (with
money) like water. And many are the laborers in our houses. Your lies flow
like water. For your wealth shall not endure but it shall take off from you
quickly, for you have acquired it all unjustly, and you shall be given over
to a great curse.” – Luke 12.19–21: “And I will say to my soul, ‘Soul, you
have ample goods laid up for many years; relax, eat, drink, be merry.’ But
God said to him, ‘you fool! This very night your life is being demanded of
you. And the things you have prepared, whose will they be?’ So it is with
those who store up treasures for themselves but are not rich toward God.”
Note: The parallel here is in the notion of putting confidence in worldly
goods and losing all of one’s wealth. [See also 1 En. 5:7 (Matt 5:5); 16:1
(Matt 13:39); 22:9 (Luke 16:26); 94:8 (Luke 6:24); 97:8–10 (Luke 12:19);
103:4 (Matt 26:13). There are also several similarities between Matt
11:25–28 and the apocryphal Psalm 11QPs 154 (see 11Q5 XVIII, 3–6).]16

16
A more complete listing of Enochic parallels in the teaching of Jesus and early Christianity can
be found in Lee M. McDonald, “The Parables of Enoch in Early Christianity,” in Parables of Enoch:
A Paradigm Shift, ed. Darrell L. Bock and James H. Charlesworth, Jewish and Christian Texts in
Contexts and Related Studies 11 (London: Bloomsbury T&T Clark, 2013), 329–63.
306 THE FORMATION OF THE BIBLICAL CANON, VOLUME I

Again, these parallels do not necessitate that Jesus read 1 Enoch or other extra-
biblical texts in deSilva’s list of parallels, but it appears that the contents were
either common elements in Judaism in the first century known by Jesus or that
those teachers of Jesus in his early years were familiar with some of these texts,
or Jesus may himself have read them. It appears that the understanding of the Son
of Man as reconfigured both in 1 Enoch and the Synoptic Gospels has similarities
and occasional verbal parallels.17
Biblical scholars today are aware of Jude’s reference to Enoch who “proph-
esied” (Jude 14; cf. 1 En. 1:9), but they differ on what it implies. Did Jude, the
half-brother of Jesus, accept it as Scripture?18 Did Jesus also accept the same
texts as Scripture since we saw above that his understanding of the Son of Man is
similar to texts in the Enochic Parables that sometimes have similar wording or
thought patterns? It may be that Jesus never saw a copy of 1 Enoch, but it appears
likely at the least that he was aware of the oral tradition in it that was circulating
in the region of Galilee in the first century. It appears that one or the other of these
possibilities is likely and both reflect Jesus’ awareness of some of the teaching in
1 Enoch.
Since neither Jesus nor his disciples left behind a listing of the writings
that they acknowledged as Scripture, what can be discerned from some of the
parallels in word or thought between his teachings and some of the extra-biblical
works? What complicates this issue is that we cannot prove that we have in the
canonical Gospels a complete collection of all of the citations of sacred texts that
Jesus made or all of the texts that he considered sacred. John acknowledges in
his Gospel that we do not know everything that Jesus said or did, but what he
wrote was relevant for faith in him (John 20:30–31). Even if we include some of
the so-called agrapha,19 we still possess only a brief summary or outline of Jesus’

17
DeSilva, Jewish Teachers of Jesus, 255, also makes this point. James Davila (posted on his Univer-
sity of St. Andrews web site at: http://www.st.andrews.ac.uk/divinity/rt/otp/abstracts/2enoch2/) has
also drawn attention to several parallels between 2 Enoch and the Gospel of Matthew, but because
the date and provenance of 2 Enoch are less certain than the five treatises that comprise 1 Enoch,
2 Enoch will not be considered here. Some of those parallels are also listed in G. K. Beale and D. A.
Carson, eds., Commentary on the New Testament Use of the Old Testament (Grand Rapids: Baker
Academic, 2007), 1233–34.
18
DeSilva, Jewish Teachers of Jesus, 255–56, draws attention to these texts that the reported
brothers of Jesus cited or are reflected in their writings. It is assumed that since they grew up in the
same environment as Jesus, there would be parallels in the writings they all considered Scripture or
in writings that influenced their teachings. He points to the parallels between the Epistle of James
and several noncanonical writings such as the source of temptation is not God but in human beings
(Sir 15:11–20; cf. Jas 1:13–15); the destructive nature of human speech is like a fire (Sir 19:16;
22:27; 28:12–16; Jas 3:6–12); wealth obtained without regard to justice will lose divine favor (1 En.
94:7–8; 96:5, 8; 97:7–8; Jas 5:1–6); and the destructive power of envy that destroys human relation-
ships and only humility before God can cure it (T. Sim. 3:2–5; 4:4, 7–8; Jas 4:1–8).
19
As we will see in Part 3 below, the agrapha are both authentic and inauthentic sayings of Jesus
recorded outside the canonical Gospels in other parts of the NT, in the early church fathers, in
THE SCRIPTURES OF JESUS AND EARLY CHRISTIANITY* 307

ministry and teachings. Conclusions drawn from parallels in what we find in the
NT and nonbiblical resources cannot with confidence tell us all of the writings
that Jesus knew or affirmed as sacred Scripture. In the Gospels that tell Jesus’
story, he never made a list of the books that he accepted as sacred Scripture, but
simply used various religious texts in the many circumstances he faced during his
ministry to teach and illustrate his points. Stuhlmacher concludes that in regard
to Jesus or any NT writer: “nowhere in the New Testament writings can any
special interest in the canonical delimitation and fixing of the Holy Scriptures
be detected.”20 Scholars collect and list those references, but that only tells us
part of the story. What we see in the texts he cited, alluded to, or those that have
parallels with other texts, suggests that Jesus was familiar with and acknowl-
edged a broader collection of sacred texts than those finally included in the HB
or Protestant OT.
That notwithstanding, it is essential that we see how each of those texts cited or
alluded to both in the NT and early church fathers were employed before drawing
conclusions about the scope and identity of their Scriptures. How did Jesus or his
followers refer to or cite noncanonical writings, as in the case of Jude 14 citing
1 En. 1:9, or did he or they simply use them as illustrative material, as some
suppose, and place 1 Enoch on the same level as is reported of Paul in the Acts
when citing well-known sources: Epimenides (Acts 17:28) or Posidonius (based
on Plato?) and Aratus (Acts 17:28, cf. Phaenomena 5) and Epimenides (Titus
1:12)? Only after carefully examining each context can responsible conclusions be
drawn about how such ancient sources functioned for their users. Both Steinberg
and Stone acknowledge that Jude cited 1 Enoch as Scripture, despite the claims
and arguments to the contrary by Brevard Childs and Roger Beckwith.21 Dale
Allison also recognizes the obvious reference to 1 Enoch as Scripture in Jude
14, but marginalizes its impact on the rest of the NT writers with the exception
of Matthew that he thinks likely has “echoes” of 1 Enoch in it.22 He adds that

noncanonical writings, and in textual variants in biblical manuscripts. The large majority of these
are not considered authentic. For an evaluation of the authenticity of the agrapha, see James H.
Charlesworth and Craig A. Evans, “Jesus in the Agrapha and Apocryphal Gospels,” in Studying the
Historical Jesus: Evaluations of the State of Current Research, ed. Bruce Chilton and C. A. Evans,
New Testament Tools and Studies 19 (Leiden: Brill, 1994), 479–533.
20
Stuhlmacher, “Significance of the Old Testament Apocrypha,” 2.
21
See Steinberg and Stone, “Historical Formation of the Writings,” 23–24.
22
Dale C. Allison, Jr., “The Old Testament in the New Testament,” in Paget and Schaper, eds., New
Cambridge History of the Bible: Vol. 1, From the Beginnings to 600, 479–502, here 480. Presum-
ably he is thinking especially of Matt 19:28 when the “son of man comes sitting on the throne of
his glory” (cf. also and 25:31) whose only parallels are in 1 En. 61 and 62. Other examples of such
parallels can be seen in Tertullian’s use of 1 Enoch as Scripture in Apol. 22 (cf. 1 En. 15:8, 9); De
cultu feminarum 1.3.1 (1 En. 8:1, 3); 2.10 (1 En. 8:1); De Idolatria 4, 15 (1 En. 19:1; 99:6–7); 9
(1 En. 6; 14:5), 15; De Virg. Veland. 7 (1 En. 6; 14:5; see also De Anima 50).
308 THE FORMATION OF THE BIBLICAL CANON, VOLUME I

of the early Christians, like their Jewish siblings, doubtless some of them found
some parts of the Jewish Scriptures more favorable than others, but also that they
borrowed regularly from all three of the divisions that later comprised the Tanak
Scriptures.23
As noted, in the canonical Gospels Jesus does not cite or refer to all of the
writings in the OT, but what does that show? Does it mean that we cannot be sure
which ones he considered sacred and which ones he did not? Since his teachings
were of an ad hoc nature addressing specific issues relevant to his hearers, we
cannot say with assurance that had he faced other issues that he would have
cited additional texts from the HB books or even extra-biblical sources. What
we can say with assurance is that according the NT Evangelists, Jesus directly
quotes or cites only twenty-three of the thirty-nine books in the HB/Protestant
OT.24 He alludes to or cites all five books of Moses (but Deuteronomy the most);
Isaiah, Jeremiah, Ezekiel, and Daniel (with Isaiah and Daniel cited most); eight
of the twelve Minor Prophets, but not Obadiah, Nahum, Habakkuk, and Haggai;
and Psalms, Proverbs, Job, and possibly Chronicles. He does not refer to Song
of Songs, Ruth, Lamentations, Ecclesiastes, Esther, and Ezra and Nehemiah.25
Should all of the HB books that Jesus did not cite be excluded in the OT/HB
canon? No one will go that far and that would only be true if we possessed
everything that Jesus said or taught and especially if he gave a fixed list of
Scriptures to his disciples, but he did not nor did anyone else in his generation
or earlier make a list of all of the books that they considered sacred Scripture.
Certainly, if Jesus made such a listing, the works he cited or alluded to would
most likely be in it.
Origen believed that Jesus had used and recognized as Scripture the Wisdom
of Solomon based on his investigation of Luke 11:49 and Matt 23:35.26 Scholars
have long acknowledged the significant parallels in word and thought with Paul’s
arguments in Rom 1:18–3:20 and the Wisdom of Solomon. Stuhlmacher also
draws attention to the close parallels between the series of proverbs in Jesus’
teachings in Matt 11:25–30 (see also Luke 10:21–22) and those found in Sir 24:19;
51:1, 23, 26.27

23
Ibid., 481. I should add here that these divisions were not known in the first century, as we saw
above, and the church fathers later did not adopt them.
24
These are tabulated in R. T. France, Jesus and the Old Testament (London: Tyndale, 1971),
259–63.
25
Evans, “Scriptures of Jesus,” 185–86, offers a comparison of the references that Jesus makes to
the OT Scriptures with the quotation of biblical texts in noncanonical writings from Qumran.
26
Other references to this possibility are in Bibliotheke Ellenion Pateron kai Ekklesiastikon
Syggrafeon (Athens) 16:354–56.
27
Stuhlmacher, “Significance of the Old Testament Apocrypha,” 8–10, who also notes the close
parallels in Jesus’ teaching in Matt 11:25–28 and the apocryphal 11Q Ps154 18.3–6.
THE SCRIPTURES OF JESUS AND EARLY CHRISTIANITY* 309

The Gospels frequently show that Jesus cited the Psalms28 in his teaching (e.g.,
Ps 22:1; cf. Mark 15:34),29 and that his disciples cited and applied various Psalms
in reference to his teaching or ministry (e.g., Ps 69:4–9 in John 2:17). No one
contests Jesus’ familiarity with most of the books in the HB. That appears beyond
dispute and the same is also true of his earliest followers. The theology of the
NT without question is inextricably bound to the books later included in the HB,
but that may not be all of the books that informed early Christianity’s faith. The
HB texts bolstered the church’s messianic claims about Jesus and offered clarity
for his messianic identity as well as guidance for Christian conduct. All of that
is beyond dispute and not at issue here, but the question here is whether Jesus
appealed to or made use of writings that are now considered noncanonical books
(or apocryphal or pseudepigraphal texts)? The parallels above and those at the end
of this chapter suggest that he did.
Some scholars assume that since Jesus cites books from each of the later
tripartite HB canon (Law, Prophets, and Writings) that the HB canon was closed
and fixed in or before the time of Jesus. They seldom acknowledge that many
if not all of the books that are now in the Writings were earlier included in the
prophetic corpus in the time of Jesus (compare Luke 24:27 and 24:44 which
speaks of the same collection), and possibly others also (Sirach, 1 Enoch, Wisdom
of Solomon). Copies as well as citations of nonsectarian extra-canonical literature
at Qumran and sometimes in the early church fathers reflect a broader collection
of Jewish sacred texts circulating in Palestine in the first century CE. Were the
early Christians aware of it and did they cite or make use of some of it? The
answer is yes. We see this in the early church fathers’ citations, some of which
were actually called “Scripture.” The early church fathers cited the OT books
mostly, but occasionally they also cited extra-biblical books as Scripture and used
the usual scriptural formulae when referring to them (see §V below). Some of this
literature may only have been known by oral tradition circulating in Palestine in
the first century CE, but it is possible that those who could read also knew it from
having read it.

28
Namely, see Pss 6:9 (Matt 7:23/Luke 13:27); 8:3 (Matt 21:16); 22:2 (Mark 15:34/Matt 27:46);
22:2 (Mark 15:34/Matt 27:46); 24:4 (Matt 5:8); 31:6 (Luke 23:46); 37:11 (Matt 5:5); 48:3 (Matt
5:35); 50:14 (Matt 5:33); 110:1 (Mark 12:36; 14:62/Matt 22:44; 26:64/Luke 20:42–43; 22:69);
118:22–23 (Mark 12:10–11/Matt 21:42/Luke 20:17); 118:26 (Matt 23:39/Luke 13:35).
29
It is generally agreed that Jesus made use of this psalm at his crucifixion, especially because it
appears to report Jesus’ loss of faith, and that it is not the kind of text that the early church would
have invented and placed in the mouth of Jesus without some credible basis for doing so. For an
interesting interpretation of the meaning of the passage see Dibelius, From Tradition to Gospel,
193–94, who claims that the reference to the first verse of Ps 22 was in fact a reference to the whole
psalm.
310 THE FORMATION OF THE BIBLICAL CANON, VOLUME I

III. THE NEW TESTAMENT’S USE OF SCRIPTURE

We have considerable information about which sacred texts informed the NT

authors. The frequency with which they cited various OT books indicates that
those writings formed their primary core of scriptural collections. NT citations
of the Law and Prophets are considerable, while several OT books (e.g.,
Judges, Ruth, and Esther) are not mentioned in the NT. Others (Chronicles and
Ecclesiastes) do not appear to have played any role in the formation and ministry
of the early church.
As noted earlier, the NT has numerous references to the Law and the Prophets
(e.g., Matt 7:12; Rom 3:21; Luke 4:17; John 1:45; Acts 13:27; 28:23) and “law”
sometimes refers to all of the Jewish Scriptures (e.g., Ps 82:6 in John 10:34, and a
series of quotations from the Psalms in Rom 3:10–19 that Paul calls “law”). The
Law and the Prophets were read regularly in the synagogue: “After the reading
of the law and the prophets, the officials of the synagogue sent them [Paul and
Barnabas] a message, saying, ‘Brothers, if you have any word of exhortation for
the people, give it’ ” (Acts 13:15).30 With numerous NT references to a two-part
collection of sacred writings (Law and Prophets), and only one text that mentions
“psalms” (Luke 24:44) that was later placed in the Writings, we can surmise that
there was not a widespread recognition of a tripartite biblical canon at that time,
but rather that all sacred literature was typically referred to as “the Law and the
Prophets.” For most Jews in the first century, their Scriptures were acknowledged
as Law and Prophets, even though some of those writings were later assigned to
the third part of the HB. Bishop Melito of Sardis (ca. 170–180 CE), the earliest
Christian writer to produce a list of OT books, called his collection “the Law and
the Prophets,” and he included in them books now considered by Jews to be part
of the Writings (Eusebius, Hist. eccl. 4.26.13–14). We should note that Melito’s
list excludes Esther that only later was included in Jewish and Christian canon
catalogues. This cannot be unimportant in his time in view of his likely consulting
Jewish (Jewish Christian?) authorities in Palestine about the contents of the
churches’ OT (see §V.A.1 below). Likewise, as we will see in Chapter 11, Esther
was one of the disputed books among the second-century rabbis.
Some scholars contend that no apocryphal or pseudepigraphal books are quoted
or cited in the NT and conclude with confidence that those books were not a part
of Jesus’ or his followers’ biblical canon. That position, however, is not easily
sustained. There are, in fact, several parallels to this literature both in verbal and
written expression. Stuhlmacher lists the following parallels with and allusions to
the apocryphal literature in the NT:31

30
Leiman, Canonization of the Hebrew Scripture, 40.
31
Stuhlmacher, “Significance of the Old Testament Apocrypha,” 2–12. Harrington, “Old Testa-
ment Apocrypha,” challenges the view that there was a lot of dependency on this literature in early
Christianity, but acknowledges the use of Tobit, 2 Maccabees, and Sirach. He questions how much
THE SCRIPTURES OF JESUS AND EARLY CHRISTIANITY* 311

1. Mark 10:19 appears to make use of Sir 4:1 alongside the canonical Exod
20:12–16 and Deut 5:16–20.
2. Second Timothy 2:19–20 appears to cite Sir 17:26 alongside the canonical
Num 16:5.
3. It is likely that Paul uses Wis 14:22–31 in Rom 1:24–32 and Wis 2:23–24
in Rom 5:12–21.32
4. In 1 Cor 2:9, Paul appears to cite as Scripture (“it is written”) either the Asc.
Isa. 11:34 or a lost Elijah Apocalypse derived from or based on Isa 64:3.
5. Jude 14 expressly mentions Enoch who “prophesied” and refers explicitly
to 1 En. 1:9.
6. The author of 2 Pet 2:4 and 3:6 shows knowledge or awareness of 1 Enoch.33
7. The author of Heb 1:3 makes a clear reference to and citation of Wis
7:25–26.
8. James 4:5 appears to cite an unknown Scripture (pseudepigraphal?).
9. The pseudepigraphal writings Life of Adam and Eve and Apocalypse of
Moses have several parallels in the writings of the NT.

In this last reference, Life of Adam and Eve and Apocalypse of Moses are the
names given to somewhat different versions (respectively, Latin and Greek) of
the same ancient book, which is also called Life of Adam and Eve.34 Several NT
themes may be found in these two pseudepigraphal books: worship of God by
angels (Heb 1:6; LAE 13–14); God as light (Jas 1:17; LAE 28:2; Apoc. Mos. 36:3);
tree of life (Rev 22:2; Apoc. Mos. 9:3); Eve as the source of sin (2 Cor 11:3; 1 Tim
2:14; Apoc. Mos. 14:2); death following the sin of Adam (Rom 5:12–21; Apoc.
Mos. 14:2); death as the separation of soul and body (2 Cor 5:1–5; Apoc. Mos.
31); Satan as an angel of light (2 Cor 11:14; LAE 9:1; Apoc. Mos. 17:1); paradise
located in the third heaven (2 Cor 12:2; Apoc. Mos. 37:5); and covetousness as the
root of all sin (Rom 7:7; Apoc. Mos. 19:3).35

the early Christians included this literature, and suggests a growing tendency in Judaism at the end
of the first century CE toward a three-part Scripture canon. He also adds that there was a growing
acceptance of a wider and more inclusive OT canon among Christians in the fourth and fifth
centuries.
32
J. Barton, People of the Book? The Authority of the Bible in Christianity (Louisville: Westmin-
ster John Knox, 1988), 25, 34, makes the observation that the canonicity of the Wisdom of Solomon
does not appear to concern Paul, but only the theological arguments in it.
33
Stuhlmacher, “Significance of the Old Testament Apocrypha,” 2.
34
See OTP 2:249 for a fuller explanation of the date and origin of this text.
35
For additional NT themes drawn from apocryphal and pseudepigraphal literature, see Stuhl-
macher, “Significance of the Old Testament Apocrypha.”
312 THE FORMATION OF THE BIBLICAL CANON, VOLUME I

These and other parallels do not necessarily reflect the NT writers’ acknowl-
edgment of noncanonical writings as sacred Scripture or even always their
dependence upon them. The parallel themes, words, and phrases may at the least
show a shared knowledge or perspective that was common among Jews in the first
century CE. Their cumulative effect, however, shows the tenuous boundaries of
Scripture collections in the first century.
The Apostolic Fathers (ca. 90–150), the closest writers chronologically to the
NT writings with some overlap in dating, have a number of parallels, quotations,
and allusions to noncanonical literature. For example, Clement of Rome (ca.
90–95 CE) quotes Sir 2:11 (1 Clem. 60.1), Wis 12:10 (1 Clem. 7.5), and Wis 12:12
(1 Clem. 27.5, with allusions in 3.4 and 7.5), and he does not distinguish between
the stories of biblical Esther and nonbiblical Judith (1 Clem. 55.4–6). The author
of 2 Clement (ca. 150 CE) has several quotations and references of unknown
sources (2 Clem. 11.2–4, 7; 13.2). The Epistle of Barnabas includes several quota-
tions or citations from 1 En. 89:56 (Barn. 16.5), 4 Ezra 4:33 and 5:5 (Barn. 12.1).
The Didache (ca. 70–90 CE), which itself was included in some fifth-century
canonical lists, but was excluded by Athanasius, makes use of Wis 12:5–7 and
15:11 (Did. 5.2) and Wis 1:14 (Did. 10.3), along with an unknown quotation (Did.
1.6). Lastly, Polycarp, Phil. 10.2 cites Tob 4:10 and 12:9.
The later second-century church fathers are similar. In his Dial. 120.5, Justin
Martyr (ca. 160) appears to refer to the Ascension of Isaiah in an authoritative
or scriptural manner and yet seems to base his argument on the books accepted
by the Jews. He also refers to Genesis, Exodus, Leviticus, 1–2 Kings, 1–2
Samuel (possibly), Psalms, Proverbs, and Job and names the prophets Isaiah,
Jeremiah, Ezekiel, Daniel, the Minor Prophets, and 1 Esd 2:36–37 (see Dial.
72.1). He quotes, without referring to them by name, Numbers, Deuteronomy,
and 2 Chronicles. These references to biblical literature do not imply that Justin’s
references suggest that he had in mind the full scope of a biblical canon, but
only that he used these texts when addressing specific situations addressed in his
Dialogue with Trypho. It is nevertheless possible that this text may be reflective
of the accepted Scriptures among Christians in the middle of the second century.
Justin is surely not unique in the various texts he quotes, but, like Jesus, he does
not mention Ecclesiastes, Song of Songs, and Esther. This silence may reflect the
doubts that existed about these books in the rabbinic community and possibly also
in the second- and third-century churches as can be seen in the earliest scripture
lists (see Appendix A).36

36
Robert M. Grant, The Formation of the New Testament (New York: Harper & Row, 1965),
38–41, makes this suggestion and cites several examples of doubts about Esther in the church
fathers. He proposes that later Christians may have avoided using most of the apocryphal and
pseudepigraphal writings, unless they allegorized them, because they no longer addressed the special
or specific concerns of later Christian communities (41).
THE SCRIPTURES OF JESUS AND EARLY CHRISTIANITY* 313

There is no question that most scriptural references and quotations in 1 Clement

are from the books in the later HB and Protestant OT, with some citations of NT
texts. We cannot conclude from this, however, that all apocryphal and pseude-
pigraphal writings were only “fringe” literature and had no impact on the early
church’s life, theology, and development. On the contrary, as Bruce Metzger
has shown, these books inspired homilies, meditations, liturgical forms, poets,
dramatists, composers, and artists to draw freely for centuries upon the Apocrypha
for their subject matter. Apparently even the discovery of the New World by
Christopher Columbus was initiated by his understanding of 2 Esd 6:42. Columbus
reasoned that if only one seventh of the earth’s surface was covered with water,
the distance between the coast of western Europe and the coast of eastern Asia
could not be too far apart, and with a few good days of sailing, he could reach
the eastern coast of Asia. He cited this text before Ferdinand and Isabella of
Spain and that helped gain their financial support for his historic journey. This
literature affected English literature, including Shakespeare and Henry Wadsworth
Longfellow. In music, some of the words of the exalted hymn “Now Thank We
All Our God” depend on Luther’s translation of Sirach. Ideas included in the
Christmas carol “It Came upon the Midnight Clear” are also derived from the OT
Apocrypha (nothing is said in the NT writings about the exact time of Jesus’ birth.
i.e., “midnight clear”!). Traces of the names of Susanna, Judas Maccabeus, and
Alexander Balas are found in Handel’s famous oratorios. Similarly, significant
numbers of Renaissance paintings treat themes from the apocryphal writings.37 It
is difficult to imagine that such influence had no impact on the formation of the
church’s Scriptures and the sacredness believed inherent in this literature.
The number of passages from noncanonical books cited or having parallels in
either the NT or in the second- and third-century church fathers may be debated –
that is, some are questionable and some are more clearly referred to as “Scripture.”
Stuhlmacher argues that these references at the least demonstrate that at that time
there was “no firm decision about the extent of the third part of the OT canon, the
so-called Writings.”38 What all of this confirms, of course, is that the HB and OT
canons were still in a fluid state in the first century CE.
The Apocryphal additions to biblical books in the LXX further demonstrate
this point. For example, the additions to Daniel – namely the Song of the Three
Young Men, Susanna, and Bel and the Dragon – all became part of the LXX and
were accepted by Clement of Alexandria, Irenaeus, Tertullian, and Origen. The
additions to Esther mentioned in Josephus are also referred to by Clement of
Rome, Clement of Alexandria, and Origen. The Prayer of Manasseh is found in the

37
The information in this paragraph comes from B. M. Metzger, “Introduction to Apocryphal/
Deuterocanonical Books,” in The New Oxford Annotated Bible with the Apocryphal/Deuteroca-
nonical Books, ed. B. M. Metzger and R. E. Murphy (New York: Oxford University Press, 1991),
viii–xi.
38
Stuhlmacher, “Significance of the Old Testament Apocrypha,” 3.
314 THE FORMATION OF THE BIBLICAL CANON, VOLUME I

Syriac Didascalia (third century CE), in the Apostolic Constitutions 2.22.12–14

(second half of the fourth century CE in Syria), and in Codex Alexandrinus (fifth
century CE).39 According to Grant, an examination of the Apostolic Fathers shows
conclusively that they appealed to apocryphal and pseudepigraphal literature in
much the same way that they appealed to the Scriptures of the HB. He adds: “We
cannot deny, of course, that the Apostolic Fathers did make use of apocryphal
documents. Indeed, the only explicit quotation in the Shepherd of Hermas comes
from the lost Book of Eldad and Modad (Herm. Vis. 2–4; cf. Num 11:26).”40
Long ago Reuss observed that Greek-speaking Christians in the time of Origen
were not yet ready to choose between the books in the Hebrew canon and those in
the larger collection in the Septuagint. He notes, “the learned Origen does not put
an end to this uncertainty.” When enumerating the books of the Old Testament,
Reuss observes that Origen fixed their number at twenty-two, which is the number
of letters in the Hebrew alphabet (Selecta in Psalmos; cf. Eusebius, Hist. eccl.
6.25), but changed the order of those books to that of the Septuagint.41 While he
was clearly aware of the scope of the Hebrew canon at that time – which suggests
that the matter was settled for most Rabbinic Jews by the third century, Origen
preferred instead to accept books from the apocryphal collection in his own canon.
In his response to the rebuke paid him by Julius Africanus for accepting additional
books, Origen defended his use of Bel and the Dragon, Song of the Three Children,
and additions to Esther, and Judith (Origen, ad Africanus 13) and also elsewhere
quoted positively the Wisdom of Solomon and Sirach/Ecclesiasticus (Homily 18
in Numer.), and he specifically calls the Maccabees (presumably 1 and 2) “the
Scriptures, the Word of God” (De princip 2.1.5).42

IV. THE INVIOLABILITY OF SCRIPTURE

With one exception (Rev 22:18–19), the notion of the inviolability of Scripture
found in later teachings of the church is not present in the same way in the rest
of the NT Scriptures themselves. Ellis objects to this suggestion,43 but it seems to
be the most natural way to understand Jesus’ contrast with the Law. While Jesus
says “not one letter, not one stroke of a letter, will pass from the law until all is
accomplished” (5:18), this does not appear to negate the clear contrast that he
made between the teaching of the Law of Moses and his own intensification of the
Law (Matt 5:21–48). Jesus does not negate the Law in this passage, but radically
intensifies its focus away from the externals to the internals. Nevertheless, his

39
See Grant, Formation of the New Testament, 44.
40
Ibid., 46.
41
Reuss, History of the Canon, 130–31.
42
I owe these references to Reuss. Ibid., 130–31.
43
Ellis, Old Testament in Early Christianity, 128, 138.
THE SCRIPTURES OF JESUS AND EARLY CHRISTIANITY* 315

emphasis on loving unlovely persons in Matt 5:43–48 is a direct contrast with the
OT focus on the punishment and hatred of one’s enemies, seen in the imprecatory
psalms (e.g., 69:21–29; 71:13; 109:6–25), and the instructions to kill the residents
of the promised land (Deut 7:1–2; 13:12–15; 20:16–18).
Neither the covenanters at Qumran nor the NT writers apparently viewed the
OT Scriptures as inviolable in accordance with the commands in Deut 4:2 and
12:32. Several statements of Jesus in the Sermon on the Mount (see Matt 5:21,
27, 31, 33, 38, 43), for example, contrast Jesus’ teachings with – and show their
superiority to – Scriptures from the HB/OT, especially the Law of Moses. We see
this contrast from the lesser to the greater in Jesus’ words “you have heard that
it was said…but I say to you…” in clear contrast to admonitions in the sacred
Scriptures, including those in the Law.
How could Jesus have made such a series of comments in that context if he
viewed the Law as authoritative and inviolable as was later taught by the rabbinic
Amoraim and the church fathers? Neusner says of this that when Jesus says, “You
have heard that it was said…but I say to you…” he was saying “nothing less than
the Torah, God himself speaking through his prophet Moses. Any observant Jew
would immediately recognize that fact.” Neusner goes on to say that Jesus is “not
simply being assertive, in our modern parlance; he is claiming for himself the right
to adapt, or modify, Divine Law.” Neusner goes on to ask of Jesus, “Who do you
think you are – God?”44
The author of Hebrews, speaking likely to a Hellenistic Jewish-Christian
community, argues that the old covenant made with Israel had fault and was
surpassed by the new covenant initiated in the ministry of Jesus (Heb 8:7–12). If
we are to suppose that the biblical writings had reached a final fixed corpus by the
time of Jesus (i.e., canon 2), how could any Jew with this view of Scripture have
taught that the Law, the very foundation of Judaism, was but a shadow of its “true
form”? How also could the author of Hebrews continue to show the superiority of
the sacrifice of Jesus over what the Torah had to say about the temple cultus and
the sacrifices made in the Temple (Heb 10:1–14)?
What was the relationship of early Christianity to the canonical or the author-
itative scriptural base that it had inherited from Judaism? How was that base
understood? How could Paul, who was brought up in Judaism and became a
“Pharisee of the Pharisees,” have made the kinds of statements he did about the
law and its abrogation because of what God did in Jesus (see Gal 2:21; 4:21–5:6;
Rom 2:28–29)? Without question the notion of Law (νόμος) in the NT has several
possible meanings and not all are understood in the same way. On occasion the
Law is good and holy and just, but on others we are not under the law but grace.
Have we misunderstood Paul, or did his opponents actually understand correctly
what he meant regarding the Law and therefore rejected what he had to say?

44
Quotations from Robert J. Hutchinson, “What the Rabbi Taught Me About Jesus,” Christianity
Today (September 1993): 28.
316 THE FORMATION OF THE BIBLICAL CANON, VOLUME I

Was Jesus the Christ Paul’s primary basis of authority and not his observance of
the Law? Was James’ concern over rumors about Paul’s teaching about the law
simply a case of misunderstanding Paul (Acts 21:18–25; cf. Jas 2:14–26)? That the
author of Acts felt obliged to mention this story undoubtedly reflects accusations
against Paul’s interpretation of the Law. Further, if the NT writers were all that
concerned with the text of the OT as an inviolable Scripture (a view that we see in
later Christianity and Judaism), then how can the author of Ephesians change the
meaning of Ps 68:18 from “receives” to “gives” in Eph 4:8 when citing that text?
Was he unaware of the context of the passage he cited? What was his Vorlage? It
was not the Hebrew text or the LXX text (cf. Ps 67:19), both of which say that the
gifts were “received” not given.
A close parallel to this is in the contemporary Qumran community where scribes
did not hesitate to change the text to suit their needs or to make it relevant to
their contemporary situation. They made minor changes in spelling, deleted full
sentences, and even wrote words into the text on top of other words when copying
or transmitting the Torah. From this, Silver concludes that “the Law, the Prophets,
and the Psalms carried a large and increasing measure of authority but, in these
pre-rabbinic centuries, had not yet fully graduated to the rank of Scripture, in
which it is crucial that every word and every letter be presented accurately and
copied faithfully.”45
In later centuries, this would have been most unusual and almost unthinkable,
given the perceived holiness of the text. For instance, Irenaeus (ca. 130–200),
reflecting the admonition in Deut 4:2 and 12:32, warns: “There shall be no light
punishment [inflicted] upon him who either adds or subtracts anything from
the Scripture, under that such a person must fall” (Haer. 3.30, ANF). Similarly,
Tertullian (ca. 200 CE) writes: “If it is nowhere written, then let him [Hermogenes]
fear the woe which impends on all who add to or take away from [the written
word]” (Against Hermogenes 22). The same is true of later rabbinic sages who
appointed maggihei sefarim (“investigators of texts”) to make sure that copies of
Scriptures were free from error (b. Ketubbot 106a).
This view is not found in practice at Qumran or in the NT because this later
and more highly developed sense of the accuracy of the text of Scripture and
canon simply did not exist in the first centuries BCE and CE.46 In other words,
looking at Scripture and canon in the first century CE (i.e., canon 1) is significantly
different from the way it developed later both in Judaism and early Christianity
(i.e., canon 2). The multiple variants in the HB manuscripts and even later in the
NT manuscripts show the lack of commitment to an inviolable text.

45
Silver, Story of Scripture, 141.
46
B. B. Levy’s Fixing God’s Torah: The Accuracy of the Hebrew Bible Text in Jewish Law
(Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2001), is a useful description of the stabilizing of the text of the
HB that includes a widely and carefully illustrated collection of primary texts from the Talmudic
literature. He also notes how unstable the text of the HB was prior to the production of the Masoretic
Text.
THE SCRIPTURES OF JESUS AND EARLY CHRISTIANITY* 317

V. THE CHURCH FATHERS

AND THE OLD TESTAMENT CANON

An examination of the early church’s use of the OT and noncanonical writings

is made more helpful if we group the church fathers by geographical location
because their tendencies are often linked to their locale. In this section we will
examine some of the lists of Scriptures appealed to or listed by the church fathers
in the second and later centuries.

A. Eastern Church Fathers

Although the Eastern church fathers generally preferred the Jewish twenty-two-
book or twenty-four-book biblical canon, they did not object to reading many of
the deuterocanonical books in their churches.

1. Melito (ca. 180). Because of some confusion in his region over the scope of the
biblical canon, Bishop Melito of Sardis, upon the request of a fellow Christian for
clarity on the scope and identity of the church’s Scriptures, made a special trip to
the East (Jerusalem?) in order to find out the number and names of the books in
the Hebrew Scriptures. Melito describes his visit in a letter to Onesimus that is
recorded by Eusebius:

Melito to Onesimus his brother, greeting. Since you often desired, in your zeal for the true
word, to have extracts from the Law and the Prophets concerning the Saviour, and concerning
all our faith, and, moreover, since you wished to know the accurate facts about the ancient
writings, how many they are in number, and what is their order, I have taken pains to do
thus, for I know your zeal for the faith and interest in the word, and that in your struggle for
eternal salvation you esteem these things more highly than all else in your love towards God.
Accordingly when I came to the east and reached the place where these things were preached
and done, and learnt accurately the books of the Old Testament, I set down the facts and
sent them to you. These are their names: five books of Moses, Genesis, Exodus, Numbers,47
Leviticus, Deuteronomy, Joshua the son of Nun, Judges, Ruth, four books of Kingdoms, two
books of Chronicles, the Psalms of David, the Proverbs of Solomon and [or “even” or “that
is”?] his Wisdom,48 Ecclesiastes, the Songs of Songs, Job, the prophets Isaiah, Jeremiah, the
Twelve in a single book, Daniel, Ezekiel, Ezra. From these I have made extracts and compiled
them in six books. (Hist. eccl. 4.26.13–14, LCL; emphasis added)

In this list, Melito identifies the books of the Christian OT and their order,49 though
not in their usual order,. and he omits Esther and Nehemiah, adds Wisdom of

47
Note this strange sequence of Numbers before Leviticus.
48
The Greek of the emphasized part of this translation will be discussed below.
49
Grant, Formation of the New Testament, 39, points out that variation in the sequence of even the
books of the Law gives little confidence that the writings of David or Solomon or the Prophets could
find a fixed sequence.
318 THE FORMATION OF THE BIBLICAL CANON, VOLUME I

Solomon, and gives Greek titles for the books (though this may have come from
Eusebius’ editing). Unlike in the HB, he does not divide the books according to
the later Tanak, but places Ruth after Judges, several poetic and wisdom books
before the Latter Prophets, and has Daniel, Ezekiel and Ezra after the Twelve. Even
though Melito had to make such a trip to discover the scope of the Christian OT
Scriptures, one might well ask why did he not consult one of the many Jews living
in Sardis at that time.50 Perhaps he did, but it is certainly possible at that time that
Jews in Sardis did not know the full parameters of their HB canon or did not have
access to all of their sacred books. Whatever the case, Melito’s list lets us know
that the HB canon that later prevailed was not fully formed or known at the end of
the second century either in the church and probably also in Rabbinic Judaism.51
I should note here that the translation of the Greek Σολομῶνος Παροιμίαι ἡ καὶ
Σοφία (Hist. eccl. 4.26.12–13, emphasized above) could be, as Gallagher claims,
“Proverbs of Solomon, i.e., his Wisdom.”52 The καί in the passage is usually trans-
lated “and,” that is, as a connective as in “Solomon’s Proverbs and the Wisdom,”
signifying two books attributed to Solomon (Proverbs and Wisdom of Solomon). It
can also be translated as an explicative as in “Solomon’s Proverbs, even (or that is)
Wisdom.” In this case, it signifies only one book, namely Proverbs. In Hist. eccl.
4.22.9, Eusebius’ focus is only on the Proverbs as an exemplary of a special divine
wisdom and Eusebius says: “And not only he but also Irenaeus and the whole
company of the ancients called the Proverbs the All-virtuous Wisdom” (Greek,
καὶ Εἰρηναῖος δὲ καὶ ὁ πᾶς τῶν ἀρξαίων χορός πανάρετον Σοφιάν τὰς Σολομῶνος
Παροιμίας ἐκάλουν). The translation in the LCL is not exact, but the focus here is
only on Proverbs and the special wisdom in it, that is, the divine wisdom given
to Solomon. In 4.22.9, Irenaeus is not citing the Proverbs by a different name
(Wisdom), but rather he is magnifying the wisdom with which Solomon wrote the
Proverbs. Irenaeus writes:
I have also largely demonstrated, that the Word, namely the Son, was always with the Father;
and that Wisdom also, which is the Spirit, was present with Him, anterior to all creation, He
declares by Solomon: ‘God by Wisdom founded the earth, and by understanding hath He estab-
lished the heaven” (Haer. 4.20.3, ANF).

50
See L. M. McDonald, “Anti-Judaism in the Early Church Fathers,” in Anti-Semitism and Early
Christianity: Issues of Polemic and Faith, ed. C. A. Evans and D. A. Hagner (Minneapolis: Fortress,
1993), 215–52, for Melito’s knowledge of the Jews in Sardis.
51
Interestingly, Reuss, History of the Canon, 248–49, observes that John of Damascus (d. 754) in
his De orthod. fide 4.7 takes up the question of the biblical canon dividing those books into “four
Pentateuchs” of five books in each (Law, the Scriptures, Poems, and Prophets). Ezra and Esther were
placed in an appendix and Wisdom and Sirach are not counted at all.
52
Gallagher, Hebrew Scripture, 22. See also Lim, Formation of the Jewish Bible, 219 n. 6, who
similarly agrees with Leiman’s translation (Canonization of Hebrew Scripture, 42 and 158), namely,
“the Proverbs of Solomon also called his Wisdom.” Or, as Lim translates it, “the Proverbs of
Solomon or also Wisdom” and compares it to Hist. eccl. 4.22.9. However, the easiest translation here
makes the καὶ a connective and not an explicative and this fits with the regular distinctions between
Proverbs and Wisdom of Solomon in the fourth- and fifth-century catalogues in Appendix A.
THE SCRIPTURES OF JESUS AND EARLY CHRISTIANITY* 319

Interestingly, Clement of Rome introduces a quote from Prov 1:23–33 with

words similar to those in Eusebius (Hist. eccl. 4.22.9): “For thus says his [God’s]
all-virtuous Wisdom” (Greek: οὕτως γάρ λέγει ἡ πανάρετος σοφία, 1 Clem 57.3).53
Solomon’s name is not mentioned there, but the focus is on divine wisdom and
Clement is citing Proverbs. This is a similar description of “all virtuous wisdom”
that is not specifically in reference to a book, such as the Wisdom of Solomon. In
Irenaeus, “Wisdom” was equal to the “Spirit” that Solomon had and exercised in
writing. The passage in Irenaeus that Eusebius is citing is not a reference to a book
at all, but rather to divine wisdom. The text in Hist. eccl. 4.22.9 is only saying
that Solomon exercised “all-virtuous Wisdom,” but it is not the same as we see in
Hist. eccl. 4.26.12–13.
Michael Law, however, is unconvinced by Gallagher’s translation and claims
that the Wisdom of Solomon is more commonly abbreviated as “Wisdom” and
claims that this is what was intended in 4.26.12–13.54 For example, we can see
this in ancient catalogues of Scriptures (e.g., Augustine, De doctrina christiana
26–27; ca. 395) and in later manuscripts of Codices Vaticanus, Sinaiticus, and
Alexandrinus that two books are intended (Proverbs and Wisdom of Solomon).
These references agree that Proverbs and Wisdom are two separate books though
Augustine does not attribute the Wisdom of Solomon to Solomon, but instead
to Sirach (De doctrina christiana 27). Jerome also understands “Wisdom” as
the Wisdom of Solomon, a book that he does not include in the church’s OT
Scriptures. He places it and Sirach among the Apocryphal books that are not
included in the biblical canon. He writes: “Therefore Wisdom, which is commonly
entitled Solomon’s, with the book of Jesus the son of Sirach…” (Prologus gateatus
[“Helmeted Prologue”]). Again, the order in the text varies, namely Numbers is
before Leviticus, the Twelve before Daniel and Ezekiel, and Esther is missing, but
the inclusion of Wisdom of Solomon is most likely intended. Also Melito omitted
Esther but that is not unlike other church fathers and some rabbis as well.55

2. Origen (ca. 185–254). Origen lived in two cities with large Jewish and Gentile
populations, Alexandria and Caesarea, and he reported the biblical canon of the
Jews, as recorded in Eusebius thusly:56

53
This translation comes from Bart D. Ehrman, 1 Clement (The Apostolic Fathers, 137, LCL). In
the earlier LCL translation of the same text by Kirsopp Lake, we read “For ‘the excellent wisdom’
says thus:” (107).
54
Law, When God Spoke Greek, 123.
55
Ibid., 121 and n. 16 on the NT’s use of apocryphal and pseudepigraphal literature.
56
E. R. Kalin, “Re-examining New Testament Canon History, 1: The Canon of Origen,” Currents
in Theology and Mission 17 (1990): 277, contends that Eusebius was not careful when he states
that Origen is setting forth his own collection of Old Testament Scriptures. Rather, Kalin holds that
Origen is offering a Jewish list, not his own views on what belonged in the Christian canon. This is
confirmed by Origin’s use and defense of non-Tanak books, noted below.
320 THE FORMATION OF THE BIBLICAL CANON, VOLUME I

Now while expounding the first Psalm he [Origen] set forth the catalogue [καταλόγου] of the
sacred Scriptures of the Old Testament, writing somewhat as follows in these words: “But it
should be known that there are twenty-two canonical books [ἐγδιαθήκους βίβλους], according to
the Hebrew tradition; the same as the number of the letters of their alphabet.”

He further adds:

There are twenty-two books according to the Hebrew tradition; the same as the number of the
letters of their alphabet. (Hist. eccl. 6.25.1–2, LCL, emphasis added)

Origen did not, however, restrict himself to the biblical canon of the Jews or reject
the use of deuterocanonical literature as we saw above. In the list that Eusebius
reports as being given in Origen’s commentary on Ps 1, Origen includes in his
own canon the Epistle of Jeremiah (an apocryphal book allegedly written by the
prophet Jeremiah to the captives at Babylon during the exile) and 1–2 Maccabees.57
And in his Homily on Numbers, Origen recommends that a Christian’s intellectual
diet should begin with Esther, Judith, Tobit, and Wisdom of Solomon before
proceeding to the Psalms and the Gospels. It was not good, he said, to set before
the reader either Numbers or Leviticus!58
When Julius Africanus, Origen’s contemporary, challenged him about the
propriety of appealing to Susanna (one of the Septuagint additions to the book
of Daniel), Origen replied that many things in the Greek Bible were not in the
Hebrew Bible, and that the church could not be expected to give them all up!59

3. Athanasius (ca. 367). Athanasius excluded some writings of the Apocrypha

(Wisdom of Solomon, Sirach, Esther, Judith, Tobit) as well as some Christian
Apostolic Fathers (Didache and Shepherd of Hermas), declaring that they were
not canonical, but nevertheless were valuable for instructing new converts (“those
who newly join us”) in piety. On the other hand, he included in his list of canonical
Scriptures the Epistle of Jeremiah and Baruch:

“Forasmuch as some have taken in hand,” to reduce into order for themselves the books termed
apocryphal, and to mix them up with the divinely inspired Scripture, concerning which we have
been fully persuaded, as they who from the beginning were eyewitnesses and ministers of the

57
Aland, Canon, 6–7.
58
I owe this reference to C. H. Roberts, “The Christian Book and the Greek Papyri,” JTS 50 (1949):
164–65, who also shows how the Jews restricted the reading of Genesis and certain passages in
Ezekiel and Song of Songs to the mature reader.
59
I owe this reference to F. F. Bruce, Canon of Scripture, 76–77, who claims that Origen practiced
a double standard by including apocryphal books in the canon because the Jews included them.
However, Gallagher argues that Origen knew the contents of the Hebrew canon, but he did not limit
himself or the church to them. See also Gallagher, Hebrew Scriptures, 37–40. Also Kalin (“Re-ex-
amining New Testament Canon History,” 277–78) notes that the Letter to Africanus 13 (see also 8)
states that the churches used Tobit and Judith even though the Jews did not.
THE SCRIPTURES OF JESUS AND EARLY CHRISTIANITY* 321

Word, delivered to the fathers; it seemed good to me also, having been urged thereto by true
brethren, and having learned from the beginning, to set before you the books included in the
Canon, and handed down, and accredited as Divine; to the end that any one who has fallen into
error may condemn those who have led him astray; and that he who has continued steadfast in
purity may again rejoice, having these things brought to his remembrance.

There are, then, of the Old Testament, twenty-two books in number; for, as I have heard, it
is handed down that this is the number of the letters among the Hebrews; their respective
order and names being as follows. The first is Genesis, then Exodus, then Leviticus, after that
Numbers, and then Deuteronomy. Following these there is Joshua, the son of Nun, then Judges,
then Ruth. And again, after these four books of Kings [i.e., 1–2 Samuel and 1–2 Kings], the first
and second being reckoned as one book, and so likewise the third and fourth as one book. And
again, the first and second of the Chronicles are reckoned as one book. Again Ezra, the first and
second [Nehemiah] are similarly one book. After these there is the book of Psalms, then the
Proverbs, next Ecclesiastes, and the Song of Songs. Job follows, then the Prophets, the twelve
being reckoned as one book. Then Isaiah, one book, then Jeremiah with Baruch, Lamentations,
and the epistle, one book; afterwards, Ezekiel and Daniel, each one book. Thus far constitutes
the Old Testament. (Ep. fest. 39.3–4, NPNF)

It is interesting that he omits Esther as did several church fathers (see Appendix
A), and also that the occasion for this listing of the books in the HB that he accepts
as the church’s OT is that some church fathers continued “to mix them [apocryphal
books] up with the divinely inspired Scripture” and he wanted to present his own
views on the matter. He acknowledges that others have included books that he
himself rejects in his OT canon and largely, but not completely follows the books
of the HB and not in the Tanak order, but following more the LXX order. He also
includes Baruch and the Epistle of Jeremiah which are not included in the HB.

4. Synopsis scripturae sacrae (ca. 350–370). Similar to Athanasius is the

anonymous Synopsis scripturae sacrae, which was reproduced in the works of
Athanasius, but was probably not written by him. The author lists in accordance
with the Hebrew alphabet a twenty-two-book canon that separates Judges and
Ruth and omits Esther. The author specifically rejects Esther as “not canonical”
along with the Wisdom of Solomon, Sirach, Judith, and Tobit.

5. Cyril of Jerusalem (ca. 350). Like Origen and Athanasius, Cyril has a twenty-
two-book OT canon in which he refers to the LXX Scriptures and the legend of
their origin in the Letter of Aristeas, which he claims, “were translated by the
seventy-two interpreters” like the HB canon, but in a different sequence. He adds
to Jeremiah both Baruch and the Letter of Jeremiah.60

60
Cyril of Jerusalem, Catech. 4.35 (ca. 394–395, Bethlehem).
322 THE FORMATION OF THE BIBLICAL CANON, VOLUME I

6. Gregory of Nazianzus (ca. 370). In a list of canonical books that conforms to

the twenty-two-letter Hebrew alphabet, Gregory of Nazianzus omits Esther and
as a result, divides Judges and Ruth in order to keep the same number of books.

7. Epiphanius (ca. 315–403). Bishop Epiphanius of Salamis produced in his On

Weights and Measures 23 a twenty-two-book catalogue of canonical writings and
two others, noted below, that have some similarities with the list in the Bryennios
Canon (see discussion of this early list in Chapter 10 §IV), although Epiphanius
placed them in the more familiar Christian OT order.61 Epiphanius’ list also
parallels the current Protestant OT canon, and it depends on the twenty-two-letter
Hebrew alphabet: “so twenty-two books are completed according to the number
of the twenty-two letters of the Hebrews.” Elsewhere, Epiphanius clearly favors
the Wisdom of Solomon and Sirach, which he calls “helpful and useful but are not
included in the number of the recognized” (Pan. 8.6.1).62 As listed in Appendix
A, there are three lists with variable sequences (Panarion 1.1.8.6; De Mensuris et
Ponderibus 3–5; and De Mensuris et Ponderibus 22–23).

9. Jerome (342–420). Jerome’s two lists of OT Scriptures follow the basic flow of
the HB canon, that is Law, Prophets, and Writings and in this regard are similar to
b. Baba Bathra 14b–15a, but he does not mention those three categories and the
lists do not have the same sequence nor are they the same. However, he includes
Ruth with Judges and Lamentations with Jeremiah instead of including them in the
Writings or “third order” of his canon list. Interestingly, in his Ep. 53.8, Jerome
has Job after Deuteronomy and before Joshua (for his other list, see also his Praef.
in Lib. Sam. et Mal.).
Bruce notes that Jerome has three categories of writings: canonical, edifying but
not canonical, and apocryphal.63 For Jerome and the churches he served, the last
category of books was to be avoided altogether. In the first category, Jerome put
the Jewish biblical canon, consisting of twenty-four books, which he related to
the twenty-four elders of Revelation, and he numbered them in the three Hebrew
categories: Law (5), Prophets (8), and Writings (11).64 His lists, apart from Codices
Sinaiticus and Alexandrinus, are the only Christian examples that follow generally
(not in all details) the HB sequence of books. In his list, Prologus gateatus
(“Helmeted Prologue”), Jerome concludes:

61
See Leiman, Canonization of the Hebrew Scriptures, 161 n. 28.
62
Quoted from ibid., 44–45. Leiman also points out that in a third list Epiphanius included Baruch
and the Epistle of Jeremiah. See n. 235 on p. 159.
63
F. F. Bruce, Canon of Scripture, 90.
64
I should note that Jerome placed Daniel among the Writings in his list in Preface to the Books
of Samuel and Kings (see text below), but not in his other two lists where Daniel is at the end of the
other Major Prophets (see Appendix A), though he generally followed the tripartite HB categories
of HB Scriptures.
THE SCRIPTURES OF JESUS AND EARLY CHRISTIANITY* 323

Whatever falls outside these [his list of twenty-four books] must be set apart among the
Apocrypha. Therefore Wisdom, which is commonly entitled Solomon’s, with the book of Jesus
the son of Sirach, Judith, Tobias, and the Shepherd are not in the canon. I have found the first
book of Maccabees in Hebrew; the second is in Greek, as may be proved from the language
itself.65

Jerome includes Esther at the end of his lists, possibly reflecting the doubtful
status of Esther among the church fathers at that time. He also includes Wisdom
of Solomon, Sirach, Judith, Tobit, Didache, and Shepherd of Hermas for edifying
reading in the churches (see Jerome, Preface to the Books of Samuel and Kings;
see also Appendix A). In the Prologue or Preface, he states the following:

That the Hebrews have twenty-two letters is testified by the Syrian and Chaldean languages
which are nearly related to the Hebrew, for they have twenty-two elementary sounds which
are pronounced the same way, but are differently written… Whence it happens that, by most
people, five of the books are reckoned as double, viz., Samuel, Kings, Chronicles, Ezra,
Jeremiah with Kinoth (Lamentations)… The first of these books is called Bresith, to which
we give the name Genesis. The second [Exodus and the remaining books of the Pentateuch]…
The second class is composed of the Prophets, and they begin with Jesus the son of Nave, who
among them is called Joshua the son of Nun [he then lists Judges, Ruth, 1 & 2 Samuel, 1 & 2
Kings, then Isaiah, Jeremiah, Ezekiel, the Twelve Prophets.]… The third class belongs to the
Hagiographa of which the first begins with Job [followed by David (= Psalms), three attributed
to Solomon, namely Proverbs, Ecclesiastes, Song of Songs, then Daniel, Ezra in two books
(Ezra–Nehemiah) and Esther.

… And so there are also twenty-two books of the Old Testament; that is, five of Moses, eight of
the Prophets, nine of the Hagiographa, though some include Ruth and Kinother (Lamentations)
amongst the Hagiographa, and think that these books ought to be reckoned; we should thus have
twenty-four books of the old law. And these the Apocalypse of John represents by the twenty-
four elders, who adore the lamb. (Prologue to the Books of Samuel and Kings)66

Jerome cited Sirach over eighty times in the Greek translation, but he still calls it
“Proverbs” (meshalim), a title seen elsewhere in a commentary on the Mishnaic
tractate Sanhedrin found in the Cairo Genizah. He refused to make a new Latin
translation for Sirach, suggesting that he did not accept it as Scripture, but he
nevertheless saw its value for Christian faith.67
It is interesting that Beckwith suggests an early church identification of the
twenty-four elders of Revelation with the twenty-four prophets or books of the HB
canon. His argument is based on a text in in the Gospel of Thomas (52) that points
to the number of the books in the HB and speaks of a closed biblical canon.68 That

65
F. F. Bruce, Canon of Scripture, 90.
66
I have listed and abbreviated this Prologue or Preface from the longer text provided in Lim,
Formation of the Jewish Canon, 39–40.
67
M. Gilbert, “The Book of Ben Sira: Implications for Jewish and Christian Traditions,” in Jewish
Civilization in the Hellenistic-Roman Period, ed. S. Talmon (Philadelphia: Trinity, 1991), 85–87.
68
Beckwith, Old Testament of the New Testament Church, 273 n. 86.
324 THE FORMATION OF THE BIBLICAL CANON, VOLUME I

text reads: “His disciples said to him [Jesus], ‘twenty-four prophets have spoken
in Israel, and all (of them) have spoken through you’.”69 Beckwith concludes from
this text that it “may well stand for the authors of the Old Testament.” He adds:

But even if some such list does not lie behind the prophet John’s symbolism, the fact that
the Old Testament canon to which the New Testament in various other ways refers did have
a settled number of books by New Testament times is a further indication that Jesus and his
earliest followers were acquainted with a closed canon, and commended a closed canon to the
Christian Church.70

The difficulty with this identification, of course, is that while the Jews identified
the number of books by the number twenty-four, the names of the prophets who
wrote those books is larger than twenty-four since the names in the Twelve Minor
prophets are counted as one, that is as one book. In this matter, Plisch acknowl-
edges the problem of trying to identify only twenty-four names of prophets with
the number of books, but adds: “at least the statement of the disciples makes
absolutely clear that the 24 prophets refers to all the prophets of Israel, no matter
how the number arose.”71 More importantly, this may suggest that the author
of Revelation knew of this equating of the twenty-four elders with the books
that comprised the HB. Also since the equation first appears in the Gospel of
Thomas, and likely in the second century when it became popular in the rabbinic
tradition and subsequently cited in Jerome and reflected in Augustine, it appears
that this equation is a later tradition. The same number in the 4 Ezra 14:44–45
text and in Revelation with both appearing at or near the end of the first century
CE may reflect a tradition circulating among Jews at that time about the scope
of the HB. Does this early Christian notion seen in the Gospel of Thomas 52 and
in Revelation depend on some late first-century tradition that is also reflected
in 4 Ezra 14 and in the second-century b. Baba Bathra 14b tradition (see next
chapter)?72 We should not forget that the number twenty-four is taken over from
a Greek holy number identifying the number of letters in the Greek alphabet and
the number of chapters or books in each of Homer’s Iliad and Odyssey, discussed
above in Chapter 6 §VI.

69
I am using here the translation of Plisch, Gospel of Thomas, 133.
70
Beckwith, Old Testament of the New Testament Church, 262–63 and see also 271 n. 70. The
dating of the Gospel of Thomas is important of course for this reading, but if the book of Revelation
was written at the end of the first century, then, of course, it could have parallels with Josephus’
twenty-two-book list, but especially with the author of 4 Ezra’s collection of twenty-four books
(4 Ezra 14:44–45). The author of Gospel of Thomas, probably a second-century text, could be
reflecting an early Jewish tradition that the HB was closed and the books in it are twenty-four. Is this
the source for the twenty-four elders in Revelation? It is possible because there are few other attrac-
tive possibilities for that number and Revelation was written close to the time of 4 Ezra (ca. 90–100).
71
Plisch, Gospel of Thomas, 133, emphasis his.
72
The developments in rabbinic Judaism that opted for the twenty-four book biblical canon are
discussed above in Chapter 6 §VI.
THE SCRIPTURES OF JESUS AND EARLY CHRISTIANITY* 325

10. Later Catalogues of Noncanonical Books. Perhaps we should note here that
even in later catalogues, writings viewed as sacred, suspect, and rejected were
listed in catalogues in separate sections and that, as we have already commented,
there would be little need to continue to list rejected books if no one was using
them centuries after some church councils had rejected them.

a. The Stichometry. of Nicephoris (ca. 850 CE).73 Its author is not Nicephoris of
Constantinople,74 but it lists not only the received Scriptures, but also some of the
rejected books that, although rejected quite early by a majority of churches and in
later church councils, they continued to be listed for more than 100 to even 500
years later. The OT part of this list includes: Genesis, Exodus, Leviticus, Numbers,
Deuteronomy, Joshua, Judges, Ruth, 1–2 Samuel, 1–2 Kings, I–2 Chronicles, 1–2
Esdras, Psalms, Proverbs, Ecclesiastes, Song of Songs, Job, Hosea, Amos, Micah,
Joel, Obadiah, Jonah, Nahum, Habakkuk, Zephaniah, Haggai, Zechariah, Malachi,
Isaiah, Jeremiah, Ezekiel, Daniel, and evidently 1 Maccabees, but not 2, 3, 4
Maccabees. Among the antilegomena (“spoken against” books) were Maccabees
(3), Wisdom of Solomon, Ecclesiasticus (Sirach), Psalms of Solomon, Esther,
Judith, Susanna, and Tobit.75
In the case of the Stichometry of Nicephoris it appears that some Christians were
still reading the rejected books. Why else would someone that late continue to list
them in a rejected column?76 The author of that stichometry lists the following
titles of OT apocryphal books along with the lines of text in each book:77

Enoch 4800
Patriarchs 5100
Prayer of Joseph 1100
Testament of Moses 1100
Assumption of Moses 1400
Abraham 300
Eldad and Modad 400
Of Elias the Prophet 316
Of Sophonias the Prophet 600
Of Zacharias the father of John 500

73
Stichometry is an ancient method of calculating the number of lines in a manuscript that were
used as a basis for payment to the professional scribe or copier. The term comes from the Greek
stichos (pl. = stichoi), referring to a line in a manuscript that normally had 16 syllables or some 36
letters per line.
74
Nicephoris of Constantinople (d. 828) was supposedly the one who constructed this list and later
it was wrongly inserted in the Abridgment of Chronography, a catalogue of biblical books (ca. 850).
75
See these lists in Swete, Introduction to the Greek Old Testament, 207–8 and 346–48.
76
For a listing of the Stichometry of Nicephorus, see ibid., 208–9, 346–47. See also Theodore
Zahn, Geschichte des neuestestamentlichen Kanons, 2 vols. (Erlangen: A Deichert, 1888–92),
2:295ff. and 143ff. For a discussion of this document, see my Forgotten Scriptures, 67–68.
77
The following lists come from the dated but still very useful description of these ancient texts to
the extent possible in James, Lost Apocrypha, xii–xiv.
326 THE FORMATION OF THE BIBLICAL CANON, VOLUME I

The list also includes the Pseudepigrapha of Baruch, Ambacum (Habakkuk),

Ezekiel, and Daniel (no lines are listed).

b. Besides this collection, the Sixty Books,78 which refers to the canonical books,
then lists the apocryphal books without the stichoi (or lines, which presumably
means they were no longer copied by scribes) as follows:

Adam
Enoch
Lamech
Patriarchs
Prayer of Joseph
Eldad and Modad
Testament of Moses
Psalms of Solomon
Apocalypse of Elias (Elijah)
Vision of Esaias (Isaiah)
Apocalypse of Sophonias
Apocalypse of Zacharias
Apocalypse of Esdras

c. Gelasian Decree (or Decretum Gelasianum, ca. 492–96). This Latin list is
attributed to Pope Gelasius’ decree on which books are approved for reading in
the churches and which are not. It includes a reference to pseudepigraphal books
as follows: “concerning books to be received and not to be received” (Latin = De
libris recipiendis et non recipiendis). The Decree omits mentioning Enoch, but
adds several other uncommon names as follows:

The book, concerning the daughters of Adam, of Leptogenesis

The book, which is called the Penitence of Adam
The book concerning the Giant Ogias who is stated by the heretics to have fought with a dragon
after the Flood
The book which is called the Testament of Job
The book which is called the Penitence of Jannes and Mambres
The writing, which is called the Interdiction (or Contradiction) of Solomon

d. The Armenian lists. These lists of noncanonical books were collected by

Theodor Zahn in 1893 and are comprised of three shorter collections:

1. Samuel of Ani (ca. 1179) speaks of books brought to Armenia around 591 CE by Nestorian
missionaries and they include: The Penitence of Adam and The Testament (probably of
Moses or Adam).

78
This list is found in some of the manuscripts of the Quaestiones (or Questions and Answers) of
Anastasius, abbot of the monastery of St. Catherine at Mt. Sinai (d. ca. 700 CE).
THE SCRIPTURES OF JESUS AND EARLY CHRISTIANITY* 327

2. Mechithar of Airivank (ca. 1290) who lists writings similar to those in Greek and is under
the title of Secret Books of the Jews that are as follows:
Book of Adam
Book of Enoch
Book of the Sybil
The Twelve Patriarchs (= testaments of the Twelve sons of Jacob)
The Prayers of Joseph
The Ascension of Moses
Eldad and Modad
The Psalms of Solomon
The Mysteries of Elias
The Seventh Vision of Daniel79

3. Another list under the same writer’s name, and perhaps dated ca. 1085 CE, mixes some of
the apocryphal books with the OT canon in the Roman Catholic and Orthodox churches,
as the following shows:
The Vision of Enoch
The Testaments of the Patriarchs
The Prayers of Asenath (takes the place of the Prayer of Joseph)
Tobit, Judith, and Esther
Esdras Salathiel (= 4 Ezra) = Job, etc.
The Paralipomena concerning Jeremiah Babylon (= the Rest of the Words of Baruch)
Deaths of the Prophets (a version of the Pseudo-Epiphanian, Lives of the Prophets)
Jesus son of Sirach

Along with the above, other writings have occurred in later lists under the
names of Moses, Eve, Seth, Noah, Ham, Melchizedek, Hezekiah, and the ancient
Persian King Hystaspes.80 Along with the ancient books that we know about
through various ancient sources including the early church fathers and especially
through the fourth century, there were doubtless others of which we are unaware
that were produced and functioned as sacred literature in one or more Jewish or
Christian communities.

B. Western Church Fathers

Interest in the deuterocanonical writings was much more substantial in the Western
churches that acknowledged fifteen of the apocryphal writings as Scripture and
added them to their biblical canon.

79
This is similar to the list in the Sixty Books above, but Sibyl is substituted for Lamech and Testa-
ment of Moses is omitted and the last four items are replaced by the Seventh Vision of Daniel.
80
These and a number of unnamed apocryphal or pseudepigraphal writings are discussed in James,
Lost Apocrypha, 87–95. He lists many of the ancient texts where these writings are either cited or
quoted.
328 THE FORMATION OF THE BIBLICAL CANON, VOLUME I

1. Hilary of Poitiers (ca. 315–367). Hilary of Poitiers appears to follow Origen’s

example of holding to the twenty-two books, but nevertheless adds two extra
books to his canon, namely, Tobit and Judith, in order to make a twenty-four-book
biblical canon, which he believed followed the number of letters in the Hebrew
alphabet! He, too, along with Cyprian and Ambrose, included the Epistle of
Jeremiah with Jeremiah and Lamentations and cited all three as having been
written by Jeremiah (see Hilary of Poitiers, Prologue in the Book of Psalms 15).

2. Augustine (354–430). Without question the most influential Western church

father was Bishop Augustine of Hippo in North Africa, who lists some forty-four
books in his OT biblical canon. He identifies each of the twelve Minor Prophets, but
also includes Wisdom of Solomon, Sirach, Tobit, Esther, Judith, 1–2 Maccabees,81
the additions to the books of Daniel and Esther, Baruch, and the Epistle of
Jeremiah (Augustine, De doctrina christiana 2.13). The text of his word on the
matter is instructive and, unlike others listed above, he was not interested in the
number of the books in his Old Testament, but more in the books he believed
informed the church’s faith. His statement on the books that comprised his Old
Testament reads as follows:82

The complete canon of Scripture, on which I say that our attention should be concentrated,
includes the following books: the five books of Moses (Genesis, Exodus, Leviticus, Numbers,
Deuteronomy), and the single books of Joshua, son of Nave [Nun], and of Judges, and the
little book known as Ruth, which seems to relate more to the beginning of Kings, and then the
four books of Kings [1–2 Samuel, 1–2 Kings], and two of Chronicles, which do not follow
chronologically but proceed as it were side by side with Kings. All this is historiography,
which covers continuous periods of time and gives a chronological sequence of events. There
are others, forming another sequence, not connected with either this class or each other,
like Job, Tobias, Esther, Judith, and the two books of Maccabees and the two of Ezra, which
rather seem to follow on from the chronologically ordered account which ends with Kings
and Chronicles. Then come the prophets, including David’s single book of Psalms, and three
books of Solomon, namely Proverbs, Song of Songs, and Ecclesiastes. The two books entitled
Wisdom [Wisdom of Solomon] and Ecclesiasticus [Wisdom of Jesus ben Sirach] are also said
to be by Solomon on the strength of a general similarity; but there is a strong tradition that
Jesus Sirach wrote them, and in any case, because they have been found worthy of inclusion
among authoritative texts, they should be numbered with the prophetic books. There remain
the books of the prophets properly so called, the individual books of the twelve prophets who
because they are joined and never separated are counted as one. Their names are these: Hosea,

81
Augustine was not the first Christian to appreciate the stories of 1–2 Maccabees. The story of the
Maccabean brothers and their mother (2 Macc 7) was especially inspiring to Christians who were
being persecuted because of their faith, as in the case of Cyprian and other Christians who suffered
during the Decian persecution. Rutgers shows how the Maccabean literature endeared itself to perse-
cuted Christians in his “Importance of Scripture.”
82
He actually lists the books of both Old and New Testaments, but I will limit myself here only to
the books that comprised his Old Testament.
THE SCRIPTURES OF JESUS AND EARLY CHRISTIANITY* 329

Joel, Amos, Obadiah, Jonah, Micah, Nahum, Habakkuk, Zephaniah, Haggai, Zechariah, and
Malachi. Then there are the four prophets in larger books: Isaiah, Jeremiah, Daniel, Ezekiel.
These forty-four books form the authoritative Old Testament. (De doctrina christiana
2.8.26–29, emphasis added)83

The added emphasis in the above draws attention to the categories of the
Scriptures. They include the books of Moses, history, prophets that include the
wisdom literature, and the “properly so called Prophets” that include what is
usually called the Latter Prophets or simply Prophets. It is interesting that the
Twelve are listed before the Major Prophets and Daniel comes before Ezekiel.
Augustine’s collection of the church’s sacred Scriptures was also what won the
day at the early church Councils of Hippo (393), Carthage (397 and 416) and had
considerable influence in churches especially in the West. Canon 26 in the 397
Council included 1–5 Solomon, which included Proverbs, Ecclesiastes, Song of
Songs, Sirach, and Wisdom of Solomon. It also included Tobit, Judith, 1–2 Esdras,
and 1–2 Maccabees. The order is the same or similar to others from Genesis to 2
Chronicles but varies thereafter.

3. Rufinus (ca. 345–410). Rufinus tabulated a list of canonical books (On the
Creed 38), similar to that of Jerome, but he included in his “ecclesiastical”
collection Wisdom of Solomon, Sirach, Tobit, Judith, and 1–2 Maccabees.84 That
“ecclesiastical” collection was intended to be read privately, but not in church
worship.85 Also, he places the poetic and wisdom literature last.

C. Summary
The LXX was the Christians’ Bible and what went into it was never formally
fixed.86 Put another way, Stendebach writes: “the church Fathers did not treat as
canonical what they found in the Septuagint; what they treated as canonical came
into the Septuagint.”87 However, as we will see in Chapter 11 §II, that may not
be the case. The development and complete contents of the LXX have always
been elusive, but it is likely that the Greek Bible used by the Christians included
writings that were a part of this collection and used by the earliest Christian
community even before their separation from Judaism in the first century CE.

83
R. P. H. Green, trans., Saint Augustine: On Christian Teaching, Oxford World’s Classics
(Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1997), 36–37.
84
See also Rufinus, Comm. in Symb. Apos. 35 (Rome, Italy). For a useful discussion of this text,
see F. F. Bruce, Canon of Scripture, 90–91.
85
For other lists of Christian OT Scriptures see the additional lists in Appendix A.
86
Stuhlmacher, “Significance of the Old Testament Apocrypha,” 3.
87
F. J. Stendebach, “The Old Testament Canon in the Roman Catholic Church,” in Meurer, ed.,
The Apocrypha in Ecumenical Perspective, 34, quoting H. Haag.
330 THE FORMATION OF THE BIBLICAL CANON, VOLUME I

There is no evidence that their OT Scripture collection got bigger with time.
The Christians accepted from Hellenistic Judaism the LXX books before their
separation from Judaism. That separation took place most likely just prior to the
destruction of Jerusalem in the first century (66 CE) and was pretty well complete
no later than 132–135 CE following the Bar Kokhba rebellion noted earlier.
The Eastern Church fathers usually opted for the shorter OT canon, generally
following either the twenty-two or twenty-four-book biblical canon that they
believed comprised the sacred Scriptures of their Jewish siblings. However, the
contents of their lists of sacred Scriptures vary in the fringe areas (Baruch, Epistle
of Jeremiah, and Esther especially) and in their sequence, but they all have most
of the HB canon in common. Generally speaking, the Western church followed
the lead of Augustine and included many of the apocryphal writings. What is not
clear is why they accepted the apocryphal books but rejected most of the pseude-
pigraphal writings that initially informed the faith of the early Christians and
possibly Jesus as well.88

VI. THE AUTHORITY OF THE OLD TESTAMENT

IN EARLY CHRISTIANITY

Acknowledgment of the authority of the Jewish Scriptures in the early church

was never seriously doubted before the time of Marcion, or even after him and
his movement that rejected the church’s OT Scriptures, but evidence that the NT
writers were interested in the contextual message of the OT itself is more difficult
to establish. As von Campenhausen has observed, an examination of the NT’s
citation of the OT Scriptures shows that the early Christians were more inter-
ested in finding prophecies of the life, death, and resurrection of Jesus than in
examining those texts to discover their own meaning.89 This suggests, as Williams
acknowledges, that the early followers of Jesus recognized the authority of their
Scriptures, but their focus was not so much on the message of the OT, as on how
those Scriptures affirmed the story of Jesus.90 Greer concludes from this “while the
Hebrew Scriptures were the Bible of the church, their authority was secondary to
that of the Christian preaching.”91 He claims that the Christians as a whole “were

88
Lewis examines the question why both the Greek and Latin church fathers rejected the Pseude-
pigrapha, but he does not find a suitable answer; see “Problems of Inclusion,” 182.
89
Hans von Campenhausen, The Formation of the Christian Bible, trans. J. A. Baker (Philadelphia:
Fortress, 1972), 21–102, especially 82–102.
90
R. R. Williams, Authority in the Apostolic Age (London: SCM, 1950), 32–37.
91
J. L. Kugel and R. A. Greer, Early Biblical Interpretation, Library of Early Christianity 3 (Phil-
adelphia: Westminster, 1986), 114. Greer argues that the Hebrew Scriptures played less of a role in
the early Christian community than has been previously supposed. He supports this claim with many
examples from the early church fathers (126–54). The church attempted to maintain both continuity
and discontinuity with its Jewish heritage (113–17).
THE SCRIPTURES OF JESUS AND EARLY CHRISTIANITY* 331

less a ‘people of the book’ than the Jews, for the Christian revelation was located
in Christ and only secondarily in the Scripture that bore witness to him.”92 This
claim finds support in the fact that most Scripture references in the early church
fathers are from the NT writings and not their OT! There are exceptions, of course
(1 Clement), but until the fourth century, references to the OT writings are fewer
in number than the NT writings. Barton brings this tension into full relief: “We
see here a paradox. The early Church cited the Old Testament as ‘Scripture,’ but to
begin with tended to possess it only in a fragmentary form. The New Testament,
on the other hand, was widely available and was used much more heavily, but it
was not yet cited as ‘Scripture.’ ”93 How could writings that were only beginning
to be considered Scripture so outstrip the earliest Scriptures of the church, namely,
the writings of the OT?
The early Christians believed that the whole story of God’s plans and purposes
for Israel reflected in their OT Scriptures had reached their completion and
fulfillment in the life and ministry of Jesus.94 Without question the NT writers saw
continuity in what they were describing, presenting, or advocating with their OT
Scriptures. They fully accepted them as the authoritative word of God, but like
their Jewish contemporaries, they also took many liberties in the way that they
cited and interpreted the OT Scriptures, sometimes even altering the passages they
cited (e.g., Ps 94:11 in 1 Cor 3:19–20; Ps 68:18 in Eph 4:8; and Ps 8:4–6 in Heb
2:6–8). A study of the NT’s use of the HB/OT shows that the driving force behind
the NT writers was not so much an interpretation or exegesis of the OT, as an
affirmation of the word of and about the risen Christ.95 Paul, for example, in 2 Cor
3:12–18 sets forth a commonly held view in the early church that the OT could
be understood only through Jesus the Christ. Barr observes that the OT had the
status of the Word of God in the early church, but this “did not alter the fact that,
for the men of the NT, the OT, though authoritative, was no longer the commu-
nicator of salvation… Only the preaching of Jesus Christ as crucified and risen
communicated salvation in the Christian sense.”96 He adds that Jesus’ teachings
likewise do not result from an exegesis of OT texts or an attempt to elucidate the
meaning of those texts, but rather that Paul employs the OT to support his own
claims.97 Seldom, Barr observes, do the NT writers interpret whole passages (e.g.,
Gen 1–3), because the NT writers never set out to interpret the OT itself, but rather
the new substance of the gospel.98

92
Ibid., 202.
93
Barton, Holy Writings, 65, citing Franz Stuhlhofer.
94
Shires, Finding the Old Testament, 31–35.
95
Numerous examples of this are listed in ibid. 183–84, a still useful work on this topic.
96
Barr, Holy Writings, 14.
97
Ibid., 68.
98
Ibid., 68–70.
332 THE FORMATION OF THE BIBLICAL CANON, VOLUME I

Early Christian use of the OT was highly selective and generally aimed at clari-
fying or confirming Christian beliefs. According to Shires, the real moving force
of the NT was not an exegesis of the OT, but rather the early Christians’ experi-
ences of Jesus.99 The early Christians regularly appealed to the OT as a predictive
book, that is, eschatologically. In fact, portions of the OT, especially the Law,
raised difficulties for the Christian faith in the first and second centuries and how
the church’s normative Scriptures could be ignored or reinterpreted (Justin) or
dispensed with (Marcion).100
There is no question about the authority of the Jewish Scriptures among the
earliest followers of Jesus, not only for understanding the life and ministry of
Jesus, but also as an authoritative guide for their conduct and mission. This was
true even though the boundaries of the canon had not yet been fully decided. For
example, Clement of Rome, in almost every matter of faith, order, and morals,
exhorts his readers in 1 Clement with the aid of OT citations. Also, for Polycarp
the “Prophets” were inseparable from the mission of the apostles and the church.
He writes: “So then ‘let us serve him with fear and all reverence,’ as he himself
commanded us, and as did the Apostles, who brought us the Gospel, and the
Prophets who foretold the coming of our Lord” (Pol. Phil. 6.3, LCL.). Tertullian,
who viewed the NT writings as equals with the church’s OT Scriptures, said:
“One Lord God does she [the church] acknowledge, the Creator of the universe,
and Christ Jesus (born) of the Virgin Mary, the Son of God the Creator; and the
Resurrection of the flesh; the law and the prophets she unites in one volume
with the writings of evangelists and apostles, from which she drinks in her faith”
(Praescr. 36, ANF).
It is obvious that the early Christians received from their Jewish siblings their
first Scriptures (First Testament) that they believed disclosed the revelation of
God and predicted the Christ event. Even though this collection of Scriptures
was used in the Christian communities to argue for church polity (e.g., Rom
14:10–13; 1 Cor 6:12–16; 9:7–10; 14:20–22; 1 Tim 5:17–18), mission (Rom
10:14–21), and many other functions relevant to the life of the early Christian
community, the most important function of those Scriptures for the early church
appears to have been their predictive witness to the Christ event (e.g., Luke
24:44; John 5:39; 2 Tim 3:15). That is, they were predictive (eschatological) and
Christological (identifying Jesus as the Lord and Christ) in their major function
for the churches.

99
Shires, Finding the Old Testament, 38–39. In his discussion of the OT predictions of Christ
(43–51), Shires observes that Christians made the OT “their own special possession whose meaning
relates directly to their situation” (51).
100
I will discuss Justin’s and Marcion’s perspectives on the Law below in Chapter 16 §I.
THE SCRIPTURES OF JESUS AND EARLY CHRISTIANITY* 333

VII. CHURCH COUNCIL DECISIONS

AND CANON FORMATION

It has long been thought that church councils deliberated and determined which
books would be included in the Christian Bibles and read in churches, but a more
precise view of the function of the fourth- and fifth-century church councils is
that they simply acknowledged the books that had already obtained prominence
from widespread usage (catholicity) among the churches in their respective areas.
Church council decisions generally reflected what the communities in their regions
had already recognized, and they subsequently authorized this recognition for the
churches. Any decisions by church councils on the scope of the biblical canon
usually had only to do only with books on the “fringe” in the collections where
some element of doubt had existed. The rest had already obtained widespread
recognition in the majority of churches. No council, for example, could have taken
away from the churches the Pentateuch, Psalms, Isaiah, and most of the other OT
books, though doubts lingered about Ecclesiastes, Song of Songs, Esther, and a
few others for centuries.
Likewise no church council would or could have taken away from the churches
the Gospels and the recognized authentic letters of Paul. Those books were
favorites and frequently cited by the church fathers and read in churches. Council
decisions came at the end of a long process of recognition in the churches, and
they were often not unilateral decisions issued from the top of an organization. In
other words, church councils did not create biblical canons, but rather reflected
the state of affairs about such matters in their geographical locations. The Eastern
churches appear to have been more conservative in such matters than those in the
West and they were less inclined to convene councils to determine the scope of
their scriptural collections. As we will see, the Eastern churches never had the
equivalent of a Council of Trent that made such decisions for all of their churches.
Historically, several important early church councils issued statements regarding
the books that comprised the biblical canon, and more specifically which books
could be read in the churches. The Council of Laodicea (360–363) focused on
which psalms could be read in the churches (canon 59) and subsequently a list
of the OT and NT books was attached to the rules or canons derived from the
Council of Laodicea (canon 60). Since these canons generally agree with the
canon presented later in Athanasius’s Thirty-Ninth Festal Letter (except that Ruth
is combined with Judges and Esther immediately follows), Bruce rightly cautions
that canon 60 in the Council of Laodicea canons may be corrupt.101
The Council of Hippo (393 CE) set forth a biblical canon similar to the one
produced by Augustine. Although the full deliberations of this council are now
lost, they were summarized in the proceedings of the Third Council of Carthage

101
F. F. Bruce, Canon of Scripture, 80.
334 THE FORMATION OF THE BIBLICAL CANON, VOLUME I

(397 CE). This was apparently the first council to make a decision or, as Bruce
puts it, a “formal pronouncement” on the biblical canon.102 Again, scholarly
opinion generally agrees that for the most part councils did not determine books
included in the Christian biblical canons, but rather decisions were made on the
basis of widespread tradition and use of sacred books in their respective commu-
nities of faith. Bruce states, correctly I think: “It is probable that, when the canon
was ‘closed’ in due course by competent authority, this simply meant that official
recognition was given to the situation already obtaining in the practice of the
worshipping community.”103
An important church council that came at the end of the process for the Roman
Catholic Church is the Council of Trent, which, in its fourth session on April
8, 1546, set forth its decision regarding the limits of the biblical canon. Its OT
included not only all of the books in the HB, but also the so-called Apocryphal
or Deuterocanonical writings. The pertinent aspects of the Trent decisions for OT
canon formation are as follows:

They [the books] are as set down here below: of the Old Testament: the five books of Moses,
to wit, Genesis, Exodus, Leviticus, Numbers, Deuteronomy; Josue [Joshua], Judges, Ruth, four
books of Kings [= 1–2 Samuel and 1–2 Kings], two of Paralipomenon [1–2 Chronicles], the
first book of Esdras, and the second which is entitled Nehemiah; Tobias, Judith, Esther, Job,
and the Davidical Psalter, consisting of a hundred and fifty psalms; the Proverbs, Ecclesiastes,
the Canticle of Canticles, Wisdom, Ecclesiasticus, Isaias, Jeremias, with Baruch; Ezechiel,
Daniel; the twelve minor prophets, to wit, Osee [Hosea], Joel, Amos, Abdias [Obadiah], Jonas
[Jonah], Micheas [Micah], Nahum, Habacuc [Habakkuk], Sophonias [Zephaniah], Aggaeus
[Haggai], Zacharias [Zechariah], Malachias [Malachi]; two books of the Maccabees, the first
and the second.
…
The holy, ecumenical and general Council…following…the examples of the orthodox Fathers,
…receives and venerates with a feeling of piety and reverence all the books of the Old and
New Testaments, since one God is the author of both; also the traditions, whether relating to
faith or to morals, as having been dictated either orally by Christ or by the Holy Ghost, and
preserved in the Catholic Church in unbroken succession… If anyone does not accept as sacred
and canonical the aforesaid books in their entirety and with all their parts, as they have been
accustomed to be read in the Catholic Church…let him be anathema.104

Interestingly, Stendebach brings to our attention that the legitimacy of the

Council of Trent’s declaration on the inclusion of the apocryphal books in the OT
canon is confirmed by the New Testament’s use of the apocryphal literature. He
cites, for example, the allusion to Sir 5:11 in Jas 1:19; the allusion to Wis 3:5–7
in 1 Pet 1:6–7; the parallel of or allusion to 2 Macc 7:9, 11, 14, 23, 29, 36 in

102
Ibid., 97.
103
Ibid., 42.
104
This text is from Philip Schaff, The Creeds of Christendom. Vol. 3, The Greek and Latin Creeds,
6th ed. (Grand Rapids: Baker, 1993; repr. from Harper & Row, 1931), 81.
THE SCRIPTURES OF JESUS AND EARLY CHRISTIANITY* 335

Heb 11:35; the parallel of Wis 7:26 with Heb 1:3 and Col 1:15; and the parallel
of Wis 13:1–9 with Rom 1:18–21.105 (The NT portion of that decree is below in
Chapter 21 §IX.B.) The First Vatican Council (1869–70) reaffirmed this decision.
The Reformed churches set forth in the 1559 Gallican Confession (arts. 3–4)
and the 1561 Belgic Confession (arts. 4–5) a canon that excluded the apocryphal
books. In England, the 1562/1571 Thirty-Nine Articles of the Church of England
(art. 6) affirmed the use of the apocryphal books, but added: “And the other books
(as Hierome [i.e., Jerome] saith) the Church doth read for example of life and
instruction of manners, but yet doth it not apply them to establish any doctrine.”106
As late as 1950 the Greek Orthodox Church authorized as its OT canon all of
the HB books and the entire Apocrypha, including 2 Esdras and 3 Maccabees
(4 Maccabees was placed in an appendix). The 1956 Russian Bible included the
107
same OT contents as the Greek Bible, but omits 2 Esdras and 4 Maccabees.
The popularity of the Jewish biblical canon, that is, the twenty-four-book HB
collection, that obtained canonical status among early Christians, is undeniable.
It is instructive, however, that all of the Christian lists of OT Scriptures in the
fourth to sixth centuries differ slightly from the Jewish biblical canon whether in
books included or their sequence and divisions.108 And even when they attempt
to produce lists of these Scriptures, several of these lists varied in regard to their
inclusion of Esther or whether to add the Epistle of Jeremiah and Baruch. The
ancient and even modern churches have never fully agreed on the scope of their
OT Scriptures.

VIII. CONCLUSION

The NT writers were clearly aware of more books than those that were finally
included in the HB or OT biblical canons. They often alluded to or specifically
cited several apocryphal or Deuterocanonical texts in their discussions or descrip-
tions. It is clear that several other texts influenced the writers of the NT. For
instance, the author of John 10:22 refers to the “festival of Dedication,” which
is not found in the Hebrew Scriptures, but only mentioned in the Greek text of
1 Macc 4:59 and 2 Macc 10:18. Similarly, the author of Heb 1:3 uses precisely
the technical terms for wisdom found in the Wis 7:25. Whatever else one can say
about the so-called apocryphal writings, several of them appear to have informed
the faith of the early Christians who received them from their Jewish siblings
before their separation. Apocryphal writings continued to be welcomed and read

105
Stendebach, “Old Testament Canon,” 35–36.
106
O. Chadwick, “The Significance of the Deuterocanonical Writings in the Anglican Tradition,” in
Meurer, ed., The Apocrypha in Ecumenical Perspective, 117.
107
Aland, Canon, 5.
108
Aland, ibid., 4–6, claims that no early church list exactly parallels the Jewish biblical canon.
336 THE FORMATION OF THE BIBLICAL CANON, VOLUME I

in Christian congregations long after their separation from their Jewish siblings.
Hippolytus of Rome (ca. 180–200 CE), for example, included sections of Susanna
and the Song of the Three Jews in his Commentary on Daniel.
A large number of so-called noncanonical Jewish religious texts were circu-
lating among the Jews in Palestine in the first century CE and the early Christians
adopted some of them as sacred Scripture. As a Jewish sect, the earliest followers
of Jesus were naturally drawn to popular religious texts circulating in their
homeland and after their separation they did not abandon those “other” texts that
had become important to them earlier. We have identified some of these “other
writings” in the various NT citations and some of them were found at Qumran
among the Dead Sea Scrolls.

IX. SUPPLEMENT: JESUS’ SCRIPTURE REFERENCES

Some scholars have argued that most of the citations of Jewish Scriptures by
Jesus were inauthentic and not reflective of the historical Jesus, but rather were
later insertions into the Gospel texts or inventions by the Gospel writers.109 They
deny that Jesus himself invoked or quoted Scripture, but relied instead on his
own authority that he expressed in parables and aphorisms.110 Most NT scholars,
however, agree that Jesus knew the Jewish Scriptures and made considerable use
of them. As we see in the canonical Gospels, Jesus’ earliest followers attributed to
him many quotes or citations of the Jewish Scriptures. These attempts to set Jesus
apart from the Jewish community in which he was raised makes little sense to
most contemporary NT scholars who are more willing to acknowledge that Jesus
was a Jew and, like most if not all fellow Jews, recognized the authority of Jewish
Scriptures. The only question for the majority of NT scholars is which Scriptures
Jesus used or cited, but not whether he ignored them altogether. For that reason
it is important to examine the teachings attributed to him in the Gospels. I list
them below and acknowledge here that some of them may have been attributed
to him by the Gospel writers, but, following E. P. Sanders,111 I am convinced that
Jesus was quite familiar with Jewish Scriptures and this comes out clearly in his
teachings. As I have noted earlier, he was especially familiar with the Pentateuch,
Isaiah, and the Psalms, but with many other writings as well.
The following lists are not complete, but reflect most of the citations of, or
allusions to, Jewish Scriptures that the NT Evangelists say Jesus cited or included
in his teachings in the Gospels. The parallels may also be in subject as well as

109
For a discussion of this, see Emerson B. Powrey, Jesus Reads Scripture: The Function of Jesus’
Use of Scripture in the Synoptic Gospels, BINS (Leiden: Brill, 2003), 1–27.
110
Robert W. Funk and Roy W. Hoover, The Five Gospels: What Did Jesus Really Say? The Search
for the Authentic Words of Jesus (San Francisco: Harper One, 1996), 68.
111
J. E. Sanders, “Jesus in Historical Context,” Theology Today 3 (1993): 448.
THE SCRIPTURES OF JESUS AND EARLY CHRISTIANITY* 337

verbal matter with the Old Testament/Hebrew Bible and also several Apocryphal
and Pseudepigraphal writings.

A. Jesus’ Citations of Biblical Books in the Synoptic Gospels112

Gen 1:27 (Mark 10:6/Matt 19:4); 2:24 (Mark 10:7–8/Matt 19:5); 4:1ff. (Matt 23:35/Luke
11:51); 4:24 (Matt 18:22); 6–7 (Matt 24:37–39/Luke 17:26–27); 19 (Matt 10:15/11:23–24/Luke
10:12); Exod 3:6 (Mark 12:26/Matt 22:32/Luke 20:37); 20:7 (Matt 5:33); 20:12 (Mark 7:10/
Matt 15:4); 20:7 (Matt 5:33); 20:12–16 (Mark 10:19/Matt 19:18–19/Luke 18:20); 20:13 (Matt
5:21); 20:14 (Matt 5:27); 21:12 (Matt 5:21); 21:17 (Mark 7:10/Matt 15:4); 21:24 (Matt 5:38);
23:20 (Mark 1:2/Matt 11:10/Luke 7:27); 24:8 (Mark 14:24; Matt 26:28); 29:37 (Matt 23:17,
19); 30:29 (Matt 23:17, 19); Lev 13–14 (Luke 17:14); 14:2–32 (Mark 1:44/Matt 8:4/Luke 5:14);
19:2 (Matt 5:48/Luke 6:36); 19:12 (Matt 5:33); 19:18 (Mark 12:31/Matt 5:43; 19:18; 22:39/
Luke 10:27); 24:9 (Mark 2:25–26/Matt 12:3–4/Luke 6:3–4); 24:17 (Matt 5:21); 24:20 (Matt
5:38); Num 28:9–10 (Matt 12:5); Deut 5:16–20 (Mark 10:19/Matt 19:18–19/Luke 18:20); 5:17
(Matt 5:21); 5:18 (Matt 5:21); 6:4–5 (Mark 12:29–30/Matt 22:37/Luke 10:27); 6:13 (Matt 4:10/
Luke 4:8); 6:16 (Matt 4:7/Luke 4:12); 8:3 (Matt 4:4/Luke 4:4); 13:2 (Matt 24:24); 19:15 (Matt
18:16); 23:22 (Matt 5:33); 24:1 (Mark 10:5/Matt 5:31/19:8); 30:4 (Matt 24:31); 1 Sam 21:2–7
(Mark 2:25–26/Matt 12:4/Luke 6:3–4); 1 Kgs 10:4ff. (Matt 6:29/Luke 12:27); 10:13 (Matt
12:42/Luke 11:31); 17:1ff. (Luke 4:25–26); 2 Kgs 5 (Luke 4:27); 2 Chr 24:20–22 (Matt 23:35/
Luke 11:51); Pss 6:9 (Matt 7:23/Luke 13:27); 8:3 (Matt 21:16); 22:2 (Mark 15:34/Matt 27:46);
22:2 (Mark 15:34/Matt 27:46); 24:4 (Matt 5:8); 31:6 (Luke 23:46); 37:11 (Matt 5:5); 48:3
(Matt 5:35); 50:14 (Matt 5:33); 110:1 (Mark 12:36; 14:62/Matt 22:44; 26:64/Luke 20:42–43;
22:69); 118:22–23 (Mark 12:10–11/Matt 21:42/Luke 20:17); 118:26 (Matt 23:39/Luke 13:35);
Isa 5:1–2 (Mark 12:1/Matt 21:33/Luke 20:9); 6:9–10 (Mark 4:12/Matt 12:4; 13:14–15/Luke
6:4); 8:14–15 (Matt 21:44/Luke 20:18); 13:10 (Mark 13:24–25/Matt 24:39/Luke 21:25–26);
14:13, 15 (Matt 11:23/Luke 10:15); 23 (Matt 11:21–22/Luke 10:13–14); 29:13 (Mark 7:6–7/
Matt 15:8–9); 32:15 (Luke 24:49); 34:4 (Mark 13:24–25/Matt 24:29/Luke 21:25–26); 35:5–6
(Matt 11:5/Luke 7:27); 53:10–12 (Mark 10:45/Matt 20:28); 53:12 (Luke 22:37); 56:7 (Mark
11:17/Matt 21:13/Luke 19:46); 58:6 (Luke 4:18); 66:1 (Matt 5:34–35; 11:5/Luke 7:22); 61:1–2
(Luke 4:18–19); Jer 6:16 (Matt 11:29); 7:11 (Mark 11:17); Ezek 26–28 (Matt 11:21–22; Luke
10:13–14); Dan 7:13 (Mark 13:26; 14:62/Matt 24:30; 26:64/Luke 21:27; 22:69); 11:31 (Mark
13:14/Matt 24:15); 12:11, cf. 9:27 (Mark 13:14/Matt 24:15); Joel 4:13 (Mark 4:29); Hosea 6:6
(Matt 9:13); 10:8 (Matt 23:30); Mic 7:6 (Matt 10:35–36/Luke 12:53); Jonah (Matt 16:4; cf.
12:39); 2:1 (Mark 8:31); 3:5–9 (Matt 12:41/Luke 11:32); Zech 9:9 (Mark 11:1ff./Matt 21:1ff./
Luke 19:29ff.); 13:7 (Mark 14:27/Matt 26:31); Mal 3:1 (Matt 11:10/Luke 7:27); 3:23–24 (Mark
9:12–13; 11:14/Matt 11:10/Luke 7:27; 17:11–12); 12:12 (Matt 24:30).113

112
The following examples are adapted from Nestle/Aland’s Novum Testamentum Graece27,
pp. 770–806, especially pp. 800–806, but also the NA28, pp. 836–78. A more complete current listing
of these references is in Kevin P. Edgecombe’s collection. Edgecombe has expanded the NA27 list of
allusions and parallels considerably and added comparisons in translation at: http://bombaxo.com/
allusions.html. See also his lengthy index of comparisons with the pseudepigraphal writings at http://
www.bombaxo.com. A more detailed collection of references can be found in Steve Delamarter,
A Scripture Index to Charlesworth’s The Old Testament Pseudepigrapha (Sheffield: Sheffield
Academic, 2002).
113
What we see from this survey is that the Evangelists frequently attribute to Jesus the use of the
Pentateuch, especially Deuteronomy, the Psalms, and Isaiah.
338 THE FORMATION OF THE BIBLICAL CANON, VOLUME I

B. Jesus’ Citations of Biblical Books in the Gospel of John

It is commonly recognized today that the Gospel of John (or more precisely,
“The Gospel according to John”), known by that name at least from the time
of Irenaeus (Adv. Haer. 3.11.1–9), has more archaeological, topographical, and
chronological data in it than all three Synoptic Gospels combined.114 While there
is considerable debate about the amount of theology that prevails in this Gospel,
scholars are beginning to reassess its value for constructing the life of Jesus. For
more than a century its historical value as a reliable witness to the historical Jesus
has been minimized, but recent attention to its historical accuracy has often been
corroborated through archaeological activity and has led to a new appreciation of
its attention to historical detail.115 This does not mean that John’s christological
affirmations are any more acceptable to critical scholarship than before, but only
that John’s Gospel needs to be given more consideration for its historical value
in reconstructing the story of Jesus.116 In terms of the scriptural citations of Jesus,
John is similar to the Synoptic Gospels in that he also shows that Jesus cited the
Psalms, Deuteronomy, and Isaiah more than the other HB Scriptures, but he also
shows that Jesus cited other HB texts as well. The following is a list of citations
attributed to Jesus in the Gospel of John.

Gen 1:1 (John 1:1); 4:7 (John 8:34); 17:10–12 (John 7:22); 21:17 (John 12:29); 21:19 (John
4:11); 26:19 (John 4:10); 28:12 (John 1:51); 40:55 (John 2:5); 48:22 (John 4:5); Exod 7:1 (John
10:34); 12:10 and 46 (John 19:36); 14:21 (John 14:1); 16:4 and 15 (John 6:32); 22:27 (John
10:34 and 18:22); 28:30 (John 11:51); 33:11 (John 15:15); 34:6 (John 1:17); Lev 17:10–14
(John 6:53); 20:10 (John 8:5); 23:34 (John 7:2); 23:36 (John 7:37); 23:40 (John 12:13); 24:16
(John 10:33); Num 5:12 (John 8:3); 9:12 (John 19:36); 12:2 (John 9:29); 12:8 (John 9:29);
14:23 (John 6:49); 16:28 (John 5:30 and 7:17); 21:8 (John 3:14); 27:21 (John 11:51); Deut 1:16
(John 7:51); 1:35 (John 6:49); 2:14 (John 5:5); 4:12 (John 5:37); 11:29 (John 4:20); 12:5 (John
4:20); 17:7 (John 8:7); 18:15 (John 1:21 and 5:46); 19:18 (John 7:51); 21:23 (John 19:31);
22:22–24 (John 8:5); 24:16 (John 8:21); 27:12 (John 4:20); 27:26 (John 7:49); 30:6 (John 3:13);

114
This claim is made by P. N. Anderson, “Aspects of Historicity in the Gospel of John,” in Jesus
and Archaeology, ed. James H. Charlesworth (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 2006), 596. This claim
is supported by Urban C. Von Wahlde, “Archaeology and John’s Gospel,” 583–86, in the same
volume.
115
Several studies of John’s Gospel that highlight this emerging change in reassessing the historical
features of John’s Gospel include James H. Charlesworth, Jesus within Judaism: New Light from
Exciting Archaeological Discoveries (New York: Doubleday, 1988), 103–30, especially 118–27,
followed by his The Beloved Disciple: Whose Witness Validates the Gospel of John? (Valley Forge:
Trinity Press International, 1995); Urban C. Von Wahlde, “Archaeology and John’s Gospel,”
523–86, and P. N. Anderson, “Aspects of Historicity in the Gospel of John,” 587–618; P. N.
Anderson, “John and Mark –the Bi-Optic Gospels,” in Jesus in Johannine Tradition, ed. R. Fortuna
and T. Thatcher (Philadelphia: Westminster John Knox, 2001); A. J. B. Higgins, The Historicity of
the Fourth Gospel (London: Lutterworth, 1960); Franz Müssner, The Historical Jesus in the Gospel
of John, trans. W. J. O’Harah (New York: Herder & Herder, 1966); and J. A. T. Robinson, The
Priority of John, ed. J. F. Coakley (London: SCM, 1985).
116
For a discussion of this and examples as well, see McDonald, Story of Jesus, 109–25.
THE SCRIPTURES OF JESUS AND EARLY CHRISTIANITY* 339

Josh 7:19 (John 9:24); 2 Sam 7:12 (John 7:42); 13:25? (John 11:54); 2 Kgs 5:7 (John 5:21);
10:16 (John 1:46); 14:25 (John 7:52); 19:15 (John 5:44); 19:19 (John 5:44); Neh 12:39 (John
5:2); Job 24:13–17 (John 3:20); 31:8 (John 4:37); 37:5 (John 12:29); Pss 2:2 (John 1:41); 2:7
(John 1:49); 15:2 (John 8:40); 22:19 (John 19:24); 22:23 (John 20:17); 25:5 (John 16:13); 31:10
(John 12:27); 32:2 (John 1:47); 33:6 (John 1:3); 35:19 (John 15:25); 35:23 (John 20:28); 40:11
(John 1:17); 41:10 (John 13:18); 51:7 (John 9:34); 63:2 (John 19:28); 66:18 (John 9:31); 69:5
(John 15:25); 69:10 (John 2:17); 78:24 (John 6:31); 78:71 (John 21:16); 80:2 (John 10:4); 82:6
(John 10:34); 85:11 (John 1:17); 89:4 (John 7:42); 89:27 (John 12:34); 92:16 (John 7:18); 95:7
(John 10:3); 107:30 (John 6:21); 118:20 (John 10:9); 119:142 and 160 (John 17:17); 122:1ff.
(John 4:20); 132:16 (John 5:35); 145:19 (John 9:31); Prov 1:28 (John 7:34); 8:22 (John 1:2);
15:8 (John 9:31); 15:29 (John 9:31); 18:4 (John 7:38); John 24:22 (John 17:12); 30:4 (John
3:13); Eccl 11:5 (John 7:38); Isa 2:3 (John 4:22); 6:1 (John 12:41); 6:10 (John 12:40); 8:6
(John 9:7); 8:23 [9:1] (John 2:11); 9:2 (John 4:36); 11:2 (John 1:32); 12:3 (John 7:37); 26:17
(John 16:21); 35:4 (John 12:15); 37:20 (John 5:44); 40:3 (John 1:23); 40:9 (John 12:15); 42:8
(John 8:12); 43:10 (John 8:28, 58); 43:13 (John 8:58); 43:19 (John 7:38); 45:19 (John 18:20)
46:10 (John 13:19); 52:13 (John 12:38); 53:7 (John 8:32); 54:13 (John 6:45); 55:1 (John 7:37);
57:4 (John 17:12); 58:11 (John 4:14); 60:1 and 3 (John 8:12); 66:14 (John 16:22); Jer 1:5 (John
10:36); 2:13 (John 4:10); 11:19 (John 1:29); 13:16 (John 9:4); 17:21 (John 5:10); Ezek 15:1–8
(John 15:6); 34:11–16 (John 10:11); 34:23 (John 10:11, 16); 36:25–27 (John 3:5); 37:24 (John
10:11, 16); 37:25 (John 12:34); 37:27 (John 1:14); 47:1–12 (John 7:38); Dan 1:2 (John 3:35);
Hos 6:2 (John 5:21); 4:18 (John 7:38); Obad 1:12–14 (John 11:50); Mic 5:1 (John 7:42); 6:15
(John 4:37); Zeph 3:13 (John 1:47); 3:14 (John 12:15); 3:15 (John 1:49); Hag 2:9 (John 14:27);
Zech 1:5 (John 8:52); 9:9 (John 12:15); 12:10 (John 19:37); 13:7 (John 16:32); 14:8 (John 4:10
and 7:38); Mal 1:6 (John 8:49); 3:23 (John 1:21).

C. Allusions to or Verbal and Subject Parallels with Apocryphal and Pseudepigraphal

Texts Attributed to Jesus in the Synoptic Gospels

3 Ezra 1:3 (Matt 6:29); 4 Ezra 4:8 (John 3:13); 6:25 (Matt 10:22); 7:14 (Matt 5:1); 7:36 (Luke
16:26); 7:77 (Matt 6:20); 7:113 (Matt 13:39); 8:3 (Matt 22:14); 8:41 (Matt 13:3; 22:14); 1
Macc 1:54 (Matt 24:15); 2:21 (Matt 16:22); 2:28 (Matt 24:16); 3:6 (Luke 13:27); 3:60 (Matt
6:10); 4:59 (John 10:22); 5:15 (Matt 4:15); 9:39 (John 3:29); 10:29 (Luke 15:12); 12:17 (Matt
9:38); 2 Macc 3:26 (Luke 24:4); 8:17 (Matt 24:15); 10:3 (Matt 12:4); 4 Macc. 3:13–19 (Luke
6:12); 7:19 (Matt 22:32/Luke 20:37); 13:14 (Matt 10:28); 13:15 (Luke 16:23); 13:17 (Matt
8:11); 16:25 (Matt 22:32/Luke 20:37); Tobias 2:2–3a (Luke 14:13); 3:17 (Luke 15:12); 4:3
(Matt 8:21); 4:6 (John 3:21); 4:15 (Matt 7:12); 4:17 (Matt 25:35); 5:15 (Matt 20:2); 7:10
(Luke 12:19); 7:17 (Matt 11:25/Luke 10:17); 11:9 (Luke 2:29); 12:15 (Matt 18:10/Luke 1:19);
14:4 (Matt 23:38/Luke 21:24); Jdt 11:19 (Matt 9:36); 13:18 (Luke 1:42); 16:17 (Matt 11:22);
Susanna 46 (Matt 27:24); Bar 4:1 (Matt 5:18); 4:37 (Matt 8:11/Luke 13:29); Epistle of Jeremiah
6:24, 28 (Matt 11:29); 7:14 (Matt 6:7); 7:32–35 (Matt 25:36); 9:8 (Matt 5:28); 10:14 (Luke
1:52); 11:19 (Luke 10:19); 13:17 (Matt 10:16); 14:10 (Matt 6:23); 20:30 (Matt 13:44); 23:1.4
(Matt 6:9); 24:19 (Matt 11:28); 24:21 (John 6:35); 24:40.43 (John 7:38); 25:7–12 (Matt 5:2);
27:6 (Matt 6:12); 28:18 (Luke 21:24); 29:10 (Matt 6:20); 31:15 (Matt 7:12); 33:1 (Matt 6:13);
35:22 (Matt 16:27/Luke 18:7); 37:2 (Matt 26:38); 40:15 (Matt 13:5); 44:19 (John 8:53); 48:5
(Luke 7:22); 48:10 (Matt 11:14; 17:11/Luke 1:17; 9:8); 48:24 (Matt 5:4); 50:20 (Luke 24:50);
50:22 (Luke 24:53); 50:25 (John 4:9); 51:1 (Matt 11:25/Luke 10:21); 51:23 (Matt 11:28); 51:26
(Matt 11:29); Wis 2:13 (Matt 27:43); 2:16 (John 5:18); 2:18–20 (Matt 27:43); 2:24 (John 8:44);
3:7 (Luke 19:44); 3:9 (John 15:19); 5:22 (Luke 21:25); 6:18 (John 14:15); 7:11 (Matt 6:33);
8:8 (John 4:48); 9:1 (John 1:3); 15:1 (Luke 6:35); 15:3 (John 17:3); 15:8 (Luke 12:20);
340 THE FORMATION OF THE BIBLICAL CANON, VOLUME I

15:11 (John 20:22); 16:13 (Matt 16:18); 16:26 (Matt 4:4); 17:2 (Matt 22:13); 18:15 (John 3:12);
Pss. Sol. 1:5 (Matt 11:23); 5:3 (John 3:27); 5:9 (Matt 6:26); 7:1 (John 15:25); 7:6 (John 1:14);
16:5 (Luke 22:37); 17:21 (John 7:42); 17:25 (Luke 21:24); 17:26, 29 (Matt 19:28); 17:30 (Matt
21:12); 17:32 (Luke 2:11); 18:6 (Matt 13:6); 18:10 (Luke 2:14); 1 En. 5:7 (Matt 5:5); 16:1 (Matt
13:39); 22:9 (Luke 16:26); 38:2 (Matt 26:24); 39:4 (Luke 16:9); 51:2 (Luke 21:28); 61:8 (Matt
25:31); 62:2 (Matt 25:31); 63:10 (Luke 16:9); 69:27 (Matt 25:31/ 26:64/ John 5:22); 94:8 (Luke
6:24); 97:8–10 (Luke 12:19); 103:4 (Matt 26:13).117

D. Allusions to or Verbal and Subject Parallels with Apocryphal and Pseudepigraphal

Texts Attributed to Jesus in the Gospel of John

4 Ezra 1:37 (John 20:29); 4:8 (John 3:13); 1 Macc 4:59 (John 10:22); 9:39 (John 3:29); 10:7
(John 12:13); 4 Macc. 17:20 (John 12:26); Tob 4:6 (John 3:21); Bar 3:29 (John 3:13); 2 Bar.
18:9 (John 1:9; 3:19; 5:35); 39:7 (John 15:1); Sir 16:21 (John 3:8); 24:21 (John 6:35); 24:40, 43
(John 7:38); 44:19 (John 8:53); 50:25–26 (John 4:9); Wis 2:16 (John 5:18); 2:24 (John 8:44);
3:9 (John 15:9–10); 5:4 (John 10:20); 6:18 (John 14:15); 8:8 (John 4:48); 9:1 (John 1:3); 9:16
(John 3:12); 15:3 (John 17:3); 15:11 (John 20:22); 18:14–16 (John 3:12); Pss. Sol. 5:3 (John
3:27); 7:1 (John 15:25); 7:6 (John 1:14); 17:21 (John 7:42); 1 En. 69:27 (John 5:22).

117
Peter Stuhlmacher adds some other parallels to this list in his “Significance of the Old Testament
Apocrypha,” 8–10. As noted above, Stuhlmacher also notes the parallels between Matt 11:25–28 and
the apocryphal Psalm 11QPs 154 (11Q5 XVIII, 3–6).
 CHAPTER 10

TEXTS REFLECTING AN EMERGING

BIBLICAL CANON

By the end of the first century CE, several texts suggest and point to an emerging
tendency in Palestine to define more specifically the works that comprise the
Jewish scriptures. The contributions of Josephus and the pseudonymous author of
4 Ezra are more clearly representative of those advances in canon consciousness
following the destruction of the Temple. Both texts set forth a precisely defined
number of books that reflect the sacred texts that identified the ancient faith of the
Jewish people by the end of the first century CE. Unfortunately the specific books
are not identified, but the numbers identified in Josephus (22) and 4 Ezra (24)
point to a time when the biblical canon was closing for some first-century Jews.
Neither contribution is without its complexity and challenges, but both advance
the idea that a specific number of books form the scriptures of their nation and
reflect early stages of the canonization of the Hebrew Bible. Those numbers, as we
will see, are not exact, but by combining several of the books the counts come to
twenty-two and twenty-four books. These numbers are the same number of letters
in the Hebrew and Greek alphabets respectively. Besides these books, however,
there are other examples that point to the early stages of canonical formation.
These will be examined below along with summary comments about an emerging
biblical canon.

I. JOSEPHUS AND A TWENTY-TWO BOOK CANON

At the end of the first century CE two separate traditions, Josephus (Ag. Apion
1.37–43) and the author of 4 Ezra (14:19–48), acknowledge a limited or fixed
collection of sacred Jewish books. The fixed number of books in each collection
suggests that the number of sacred books is settled and that the biblical canon
of the Jews is closed, even though the authors do not specifically identify which
books are in their limited collections.
We have discussed earlier (Chapter 6 §VI) the importance of the Greek
and Hebrew and Greek alphabets for identifying the number of Jewish sacred
Scriptures. The esteem the Greeks had for Homer’s Iliad and Odyssey can be
342 THE FORMATION OF THE BIBLICAL CANON, VOLUME I

seen in their division of Homer’s works into twenty-four chapters by a successive

letter of the twenty-four letters in the Greek alphabet. This suggests, as noted
earlier, completion and divine perfection. A Jewish example of using the alphabet
in sacred literature is the division of certain psalms into twenty-two sections,
each beginning with a different letter of the Hebrew alphabet (Pss 25; 34; 119).
A Christian example of the popularity of this notion can be seen in the reference to
God and Jesus as the “alpha and omega” (Rev 1:8; 21:6; 22:13). Not surprisingly,
in the first century CE, and possibly earlier, some Jews began using the twenty-
two letters of the Hebrew alphabet to enumerate the books of their OT canon.
As we will see below in the Jub. 2:23–24 text, Jews and later Christians made
attempts to tell their history’s completion and perfection including the scope of
their scriptures employing the number of letters in the Hebrew alphabet.
Again, near the end of the first century CE some Jews began identifying the
number of their sacred books with the number of letters in the Hebrew alphabet,
but eventually adopted the number twenty-four from the Greek alphabet for the
number of books in their sacred scriptures. As noted earlier, the actual number of
books in the HB is not the same as the number of letters in either alphabet but the
numbers were possible by various combinations of books. This seems also to have
influenced several early church fathers. Hilary of Poitiers (d. 367 CE), as we saw
above, mentions the twenty-two books of the Old Testament based on the Hebrew
alphabet (Instructio Psalmorum 15), but then adds Judith and Tobit because the
Greek alphabet has twenty-four letters!1 This suggests, of course, that whatever
books were considered sacred, the number was going to be either twenty-two
or twenty-four and the subsequent debates about the scope of the HB or the
OT, regardless of the content, would still come out to one of the two numbers.
Josephus, the earliest known source adopting the number twenty-two for his
collection of the Jewish scriptures, may have been influenced by Jub. 2.23–24 (see
below), but that is not clear. Special reference to the number twenty-two, however,
continued in several church fathers for centuries, long after it was abandoned by
the rabbis in favor of the twenty-four-book canon.
Josephus is best known as a Jewish historian and advocate for Judaism at the
end of the first century CE. He was born Joseph ben Matthias in 37 CE, was
well educated in Jewish law and Greek literature, was intimately knowledgeable

1
See the discussion of this text in Hengel, Septuagint as Christian Scripture, 62 n. 13; and in
Beckwith, Old Testament Canon, 271 n. 70 and 273 n. 86, who notes also that Mommsen’s list
strangely reaches the number twenty-four by counting Samuel, Kings, and Chronicles as six books
and reckoning Wisdom of Solomon and Sirach, the Major and Minor Prophets as only three books,
and including Tobit and Judith along with 1 and 2 Maccabees without mention of Lamentations and
excluding Ezra–Nehemiah. By combining these books with the five books of Moses and Joshua,
Judges, Ruth, Job, Esther and Psalms, he comes to the desired number of twenty-four. As we saw in
the previous chapter, Beckwith argues from the book of Revelation’s otherwise unknown identity of
the twenty-four elders that they may well be a reference to the 24 prophets of an already completed
OT biblical canon.
TEXTS REFLECTING AN EMERGING BIBLICAL CANON 343

about the three major sects of Judaism in the first century (Sadducees, Pharisees,
and Essenes), but also the Herodians, scribes, priests, and Jewish and Samaritan
history. He became a priest at age twenty-nine and identified himself with the
Pharisees. Soon thereafter he became a general in the Jewish army in the Galilee
region during the 66–70 CE war against Rome. After surrendering to the Romans,
Josephus prophesied that Vespasian, the Roman general, would one day become
the Roman emperor. At first he was disbelieved, but when his prophecy came
true, both Vespasian and his son Titus, who later also became Roman emperor,
remembered the prophecy and treated Josephus with respect and gave him many
privileges. Where Josephus got this prophecy is not known, but there were stories
circulating in the Greco-Roman world in the first century that someone coming
from Judea would rule the world:

There had spread over all the Orient an old and established belief, that it was fated at that
time for men coming from Judaea to rule the world. This prediction, referring to the emperor
of Rome, as afterwards appeared from the event, the people of Judaea took to themselves.
(Suetonius, Lives of the Caesars: Vespasian 4.5, LCL)

Few interpreted these omens as fearful; the majority firmly believed that their ancient priestly
writings contained the prophecy that this was the very time when the East should grow strong
and that men starting from Judaea should possess the world. This mysterious prophecy had
in reality pointed to Vespasian and Titus, but the common people, as is the way of human
ambition, interpreted these great destinies in their own favour, and could not be turned to the
truth even by adversity. (Tacitus, Histories 5.13, LCL)

Whether Josephus knew these stories and simply shared them with Vespasian is
not known, but when the prophecy came true in 69 CE, Josephus was favored by
Vespasian and Titus and eventually taken to Rome where he spent the rest of his
days writing and advocating on behalf of the Jewish people.
More importantly for our purposes, when the city of Jerusalem lay in ruins
in 70 CE, Josephus reports that Titus told him that he could have anything he
wanted from the city. Josephus asked to have some of his family and friends freed
from captivity and he requested some of the sacred books stored in the temple.
Being a priest, Josephus was “not ignorant of the prophecies in the sacred books”
(War 3.352, LCL) and he may have taken some sacred books from the temple in
Jerusalem to Rome, where he began or continued his career as a writer of Jewish
history. Josephus tells the story of his interest in taking these sacred volumes:

And after the city of Jerusalem was being held by force, he [Titus] tried to persuade me to take
anything I might like from the ruin of my native place. He insisted that he gave his consent.
Having nothing of greater value in the fall of my native place that I might take and cherish as
a consolation for my circumstances, I put the request to Titus for the freedom of persons, and
for some sacred volumes… I received [them] as an expression of Titus’ favor. A little later, in
fact, when I requested [freedom for] my brother along with fifty friends, I was not disappointed.
(Life 418–19, Mason, Life of Josephus, 165–66)
344 THE FORMATION OF THE BIBLICAL CANON, VOLUME I

After his arrival in Rome, Josephus took the name Flavius, the family name
of Vespasian, the Roman emperor. Toward the end of the first century, after
completing his Jewish War and Jewish Antiquities, he wrote Against Apion, an
apology for the Jewish religion and against anti-Semitism. In this work, Josephus
is the earliest to describe a specific number of sacred books in the Hebrew
Scriptures. Because of his unique position of favor at the time of the destruction
of Jerusalem and because of his knowledge and access to sacred literature kept in
Jerusalem, Josephus becomes an important figure for understanding the scope of
the Jewish Scripture collection at the end of the first century CE.
Shortly before his death (ca. 100 CE), Josephus, in his Against Apion, defended
the Jewish people in a case argued before Emperor Caligula in Rome against attacks
by Apion from Egypt who represented the Greek citizens of Alexandria against
the Jews. Apion made numerous unsubstantiated charges against the Jews, even
including hiding a Greek in the temple for later sacrifice by the Jews, and he appar-
ently also rejected Josephus’ Antiquities written about his fellow countrymen. In
his defense, Josephus stated that the Jews’ sacred Scriptures contained twenty-two
books,2 which he identifies by classification or groupings, but not by name. He
claimed that these books were “justly accredited” by the Jews and that the matter
had been settled for all Jews for a long time. The full text is as follows:3

It therefore naturally, or rather necessarily, follows (seeing that with us it is not open to
everybody to write the records, and that there is no discrepancy in what is written; seeing that,
on the contrary, the prophets alone had this privilege, obtaining their knowledge of the most
remote and ancient history through the inspiration which they owed to God, and committing
to writing a clear account of the events of their time just as they occurred) – it follows, I say,
that we do not possess myriads of inconsistent books, conflicting with each other. Our books,
those which are justly accredited,4 are but two and twenty, and contain the record of all time.
Of these, five are the books of Moses, comprising the laws and the traditional history from
the birth of man down to the death of the lawgiver. This period falls only a little short of three
thousand years. From the death of Moses until Artaxerxes, who succeeded Xerxes as king of
Persia, the prophets subsequent to Moses wrote the history of the events of their own times in
thirteen books. The remaining four books contain hymns to God and precepts for the conduct
of human life.
From Artaxerxes to our own time the complete history has been written, but has not been
deemed worthy of equal credit with the earlier records, because of the failure of the exact
succession of the prophets.5

2
Sarna (“Canon, Text, and Editions,” 828) suggests that Josephus may not have included Song of
Songs and Ecclesiastes in his collection, which is why he has only twenty-two books rather than the
more usual twenty-four.
3
See S. Mason, “Josephus and His Twenty-two Book Canon,” in McDonald and Sanders, eds.,
The Canon Debate, 110 n. 2, critical literature on Ag. Apion 1.37–43.
4
While scholars disagree on the significance and meaning of “which are justly accredited” (Greek,
τὰ δικαίως πεπιστευμένα), most agree that Josephus wanted to emphasize that the sacred books he
mentioned in several categories were widely acknowledged among the Jews as sacred scripture.
5
This is a reference to the notion of a cessation of prophecy discussed above in Chapter 5 §V.
TEXTS REFLECTING AN EMERGING BIBLICAL CANON 345

We have given practical proof of our reverence for our own Scriptures. For although such long
ages have now passed, no one has ventured either to add, or to remove, or to alter a syllable;6
and it is an instinct with every Jew, from the day of his birth, to regard them as the decrees of
God, to abide by them, and, if need be, cheerfully to die for them. Time and again ere now the
sight has been witnessed of prisoners enduring tortures and death in every form in the theaters,
rather than utter a single word against the laws and the allied documents. (Ag. Apion 1.37–43.
LCL, trans. H. St. J. Thackeray, emphasis added)

Josephus does not specify which books comprise his tripartite scripture canon,
but only the kinds of writings in that collection, some of which may reasonably be
assumed: Genesis to Deuteronomy, Joshua to Kings plus other prophetic books,
and at least part of the poetry and wisdom literature (David and Solomon?). One
wonders, however, on what basis Leiman boldly asserts that Josephus included the
precise books of the later Hebrew biblical canon identified later in the Talmud.7
However, nothing clearly identifies the books in Josephus’ list with the books
that later obtained a permanent position in the Jewish Bible, namely the Tanak.
His list also does not reflect the later tripartite biblical canon in its organization,
though it may have included all or most of the books in it. Leiman appears to work
backwards from the later fixed collection first identified in the second century and
even later when such matters were of more interest to both Judaism and the early
Christian church. Many of the HB books may be inferred from how Josephus
refers to or cites various HB scriptures throughout his other writings, notably in
his Antiquities of the Jews 1–11, but it is difficult to establish exact parallels in
order and content with the later HB. Josephus’ divisions of the twenty-two books
differ considerably from the threefold division that later obtained prominence in
Judaism, especially in regard to the contents of the Writings.
Zevit acknowledges the difficulty of finding room in Josephus’s list for Song of
Songs and Lamentations. He states perceptively:

Scholars usually try to squeeze all books of the extant canon into these numerical references
[in Ag. Apion 1.39–40]. It appears to me, however, that since most of the essay Against Apion
is concerned with the issue of whether or not the Jews possess authentic, accurate historical
records written in terms that a contemporary historian may appreciate, Josephus is referring to
historical compositions exclusively. The 13 books were Joshua, Judges, Ruth, 1 and 2 Samuel,
1 and 2 Kings, 1 and 2 Chronicles, Daniel, Ezra, Nehemiah, and Esther. The four books tacked
on at the end were Psalms, Proverbs, Job, and Ecclesiastes. Prophetic books, i.e., Isaiah,
Jeremiah, Ezekiel, the Twelve, would have contributed nothing to his argument at this stage of
its development in the essay and were not implicit in his enumeration. So too, Canticles and
Lamentations were ignored.8

6
This is a Jewish expression of the sanctity and holiness of the texts in question and stems from
the admonition in Deut 4:2 mentioned earlier.
7
Leiman, Canonization of the Hebrew Scripture, 32–33.
8
Z. Zevit, “The Second–Third Century Canonization of the Hebrew Bible and Its Influence on
Christian Canonizing,” in van der Kooij and van der Toorn, eds., Canonization and Decan-oniza-
tion, 140 n. 20.
346 THE FORMATION OF THE BIBLICAL CANON, VOLUME I

Specifically the books indicated or implied in Josephus’ Against Apion apology

are difficult to establish with any certainty, but from this listing and citation of
scriptures in Antiquities, some things can be discerned. Steve Mason has conveni-
ently listed scriptures that Josephus refers to in those texts and I list them here
because they indicate most of what Josephus likely intended when he spoke of his
scriptures. Mason lists not only the texts, but also their sequence in Josephus from
Jewish Antiquities (A.J.):

A.J. 1: Gen 1–35

A.J. 2: Gen 36–48; Exod 1–15
A.J. 3: Exod 16–49; Exod/Lev/Num conflated for the summary of laws
A.J. 4: Num 14–36; Deuteronomy, conflated with Exod/Lev/Num
A.J. 5: Joshua, Judges, Ruth, 1 Sam 1–4
A.J. 6: 1 Sam 5–31
A.J. 7: 2 Sam 1–24; 1 Kgs 1–2 conflated with 1 Chr 1–29; David is a singer and musician (7.305)
A.J. 8: 1 Kgs 1–2 conflated with 2 Chr 1–18; Solomon composed 1,005 volumes of odes/songs
and 3,000 volumes of parables (8.44)
A.J. 9: 2 Chr 9–31 conflated with 2 Kgs 1–17, Jonah, Zech 14:5, and Neh 2
A.J. 10: 2 Kgs 18–24 conflated with 2 Chr 32–36, Isa 38–39, Ezek 1, 12, and some biographical
passages (rearranged) from Jeremiah (a lament by Jeremiah is also mentioned; 10:78); Dan
1–8. Isaiah and Daniel wrote “books” – plural (10.35, 267)
A.J. 11: 1 Esdras, perhaps conflated with Ezra (though generally preferring 1 Esdras); Nehemiah,
Haggai and Zechariah mentioned; Esther (including “Greek additions” B-E)9

How reliable are Josephus’ comments about the scope of the Jewish biblical canon
at the end of the first century CE? Since he claims that “the exact succession of
prophets” ceased with Artaxerxes son of Xerxes, whom he elsewhere identifies
as Ahasuerus from the book of Esther (Ant. 11.184), it is understandable why he
concludes his biblical canon as early as he did, namely, in the time of Artaxerxes.10
Does Josephus’ accounting of these matters in Against Apion reflect what was
actually believed among most Jews at the end of the first century or was it an
emerging view that had not yet gained widespread acceptance among the Jews?
Scholars not infrequently point to the numerous inconsistencies in what Josephus
has to say about the scriptures in Judaism, noting that he appears to have favored
Pseudo-Aristeas (Letter of Aristeas) and 1 Maccabees.
Satlow suggests that Josephus never actually focused on the canon of Scripture,
that is a fixed collection of writings, before his time in Rome when he met with
Roman intellectuals. He indicates that Josephus certainly would have known
of other books circulating among the Jews in Palestine at that time, given his
knowledge of the Essenes, but now in Rome he “would have been exposed to a
more limited set of Jewish ‘scriptures’ than he had encountered in Judea.”11 He
notes that the gift of the “holy books” that Titus gave to Josephus after the fall of

9
Mason, “Josephus and His Twenty-Two Book Canon,” 122.
10
This point is made by Leiman, “Josephus and the Canon of the Bible,” 51.
11
Satlow, How the Bible Became Holy, 245.
TEXTS REFLECTING AN EMERGING BIBLICAL CANON 347

Jerusalem was likely the first time that he had possessed a copy of those books and
that over the next two decades he worked his way through them and that his notion
of authoritative scriptures “evolved and grew as a response to his participation in
these circles [Roman intellectual circles].”12
There is much to commend Josephus’ obvious apologetic tone of this passage
as he seeks not only to rebut Apion, but also all attempts to deny the antiquity
of the Jews and their sacred literature. Leiman concludes here that Josephus was
contending for the accuracy of the Bible as reliable history and not as sacred
Scripture.13 In fact, Josephus’ comment that “no one has ventured either to add, or
to remove, or to alter a syllable” is simply without justification since “it is incon-
ceivable that Josephus was unaware of the wide range of textual divergency that
characterized the Hebrew, Greek, and Aramaic versions of Scripture current in first
century Palestine.”14 His considerable familiarity with the Essenes, which would
include their broad collections of Jewish religious texts, would also dispel any
limitation of the Jewish scriptures to twenty-two books. Also, although Josephus
says that no Jew would change anything in the text of scripture, Mason points to
Josephus’ own considerable inconsistency here since he himself regularly made
changes in the text of the scriptures.15
How do we account, then, for such exclusive language about the contents and
inviolability of the Hebrew Scriptures in Josephus? Leiman observes that this
rhetoric has parallels in classical historiography and that Josephus need not be
taken literally.16 And in a later period, Maimonides (d. 1204) and Joseph Albo
(fifteenth century) made similar statements in an apologetic context.17 Feldman
questions Josephus’ reliability even more than Leiman, noting several examples
of his exaggerations and his bent toward propaganda, especially in the defense of
Judaism.18 After reviewing Josephus’ prejudices and inaccuracies, he concludes: “he
is far from infallible.”19 He adds that Josephus appears to be quite reliable in matters
of topography and geography of the land of Israel and in matters of economics,
but he is nonetheless a propagandist in regard to the defense of Judaism against
the pagan intellectuals of his day.20 Silver also agrees that Josephus is not always
reliable and concludes from the Against Apion text that it reveals Josephus’ wish
more than the actual state of affairs regarding the biblical canon current in his day.21

12
Ibid., 247.
13
Leiman, “Josephus and the Canon of the Bible,” 51–52.
14
Ibid., 52.
15
Mason, “Josephus and His Twenty-Two Book Canon,” 126–27.
16
Leiman, “Josephus and the Canon of the Bible,” 52–53.
17
Ibid., 53.
18
Feldman, “Introduction,” in Feldman and Hata, eds., Josephus, the Bible, and History, 17–49,
gives several examples from Josephus to substantiate this point.
19
Ibid., 46–47.
20
Ibid., 47.
21
Silver, Story of Scripture, 134.
348 THE FORMATION OF THE BIBLICAL CANON, VOLUME I

Barr asks whether Josephus actually acknowledged a tripartite biblical canon.

Even if the number of books found in Josephus’ list is the same as in the present
Jewish canon, the division of books in the Prophets and Writings clearly differs,
possibly indicating that Josephus did not have a tripartite canon, but rather a
two-part canon (Law and Prophets) which is characteristic of all first-century
collections, save the one exception in Luke 24:44 noted earlier.22 Mason agrees
stating that it does not appear that Josephus was arguing for a biblical canon in
this disputed text and adds that if one reads the rest of Josephus’ writings, no
one would conclude that he showed any interest in a closed biblical canon, and
certainly not a tripartite biblical canon. He does think, however, that the text in
question limits the sacred books to those written before Artaxerxes.23 Similarly,
Cross claims that Josephus “not infrequently over-stated his case in propagan-
dizing a Greek-speaking audience,” but grants that Josephus himself believed that
the scope of the HB was a fixed entity in his day.24
Although Leiman claims that Josephus faithfully reported a standardized
biblical canon that could be verified by any Roman reader of his time, he also
recognizes Josephus’ propensity for exaggeration and nevertheless claims: “Even
if one allows for exaggeration on Josephus’ part, he could hardly lie about the
extent or antiquity of the canon; any Roman reader could inquire of the nearest
Jew and test the veracity of Josephus’s statement.”25 This test of veracity sounds
plausible enough, but assumes that the “nearest Jew” would have known the
contents of the biblical canon and that all Jews would have agreed on the matter.
There is no evidence that the scope of the Jewish Scriptures was widely known or
even discussed in the first century CE before the time of Josephus and 4 Ezra. We
have shown earlier that Josephus’ perspective was not likely popular in Palestine
in the first century CE, though the broad and undefined category of “prophets” was
known along with the Pentateuch as Jewish Scripture.
What evidence exists that all Jews everywhere accepted the same books in their
collection of sacred Scriptures? Were it true that all Jews everywhere agreed on
the precise number and identity of the books that made up their Scriptures, one
can only wonder why at the end of the second century CE Melito the bishop of
Sardis could not find sufficient awareness of the scope of the Scriptures in his own
community, when it had one of the largest synagogues and Jewish communities
in that part of the ancient Greco-Roman world. Why did he feel the need to make
a lengthy journey to the East (probably Jerusalem) to obtain this information?
Had every Jew known the scope of their scriptures at that time, Melito could have
simply crossed the road and asked the “nearest Jew,” but he made a long trip to
the East to clarify the matter. If, therefore, the number and books in the Jewish
Scriptures were long settled for all Jews everywhere, and if the early Christians

22
Barr, Holy Scripture, 55.
23
Mason, “Josephus and His Twenty-Two Book Canon,” 125–26.
24
Cross, From Epic to Canon, 205.
25
Leiman, Canonization of the Hebrew Scripture, 34.
TEXTS REFLECTING AN EMERGING BIBLICAL CANON 349

had received a biblical canon endorsed by Jesus, why would a well-known and
distinguished bishop at the end of the second century not have known the number
or specific books in the church’s OT Scriptures? If Melito did not know the
contents of the Jewish canon, how certain can we be that any Roman citizen could
have verified Josephus’ comments about the extent of the HB by asking the nearest
Jew? That Jew might well have responded that the Scriptures were comprised of
the Law and Prophets, but it is unlikely that “any Jew” could have listed all of
the books in the second part of this collection. As we have seen already, Melito’s
collection of OT scriptures was not the same as the twenty-two-book or twenty-
four book canons that emerged among the Jews in the latter part of the second
century CE.
This is not to say that most surviving Jewish religious leaders from the first
century (mostly Pharisees) rejected the Law of Moses, the Prophets, or books that
later comprised the Writings as their Scriptures. Not at all, but so far as we can
tell, and based on the Judaean Desert discoveries and the NT writings, most of the
books in the later Law, Prophets, and Writings were already highly valued in the
religious life of Jewish communities in the first century CE, but we do not know
if the later Tanak books alone were in the categories Josephus names. The doubts
noted above suggest questions about the status of Song of Songs and Ecclesiastes,
Esther, and Ezekiel, but also Wisdom of Solomon and Sirach continued well into
the second and third centuries CE. Books from all three of the later categories
were revered for their sacredness, inspiration, and authority in both Jewish and
Christian religious communities, but we cannot conclude from the surviving
evidence that only these books, or a tripartite biblical canon, existed for all Jews
at that time.
If a tripartite biblical canon, such as we see in the later listing of the Jewish
Scriptures in b. Baba Bathra 14b (see text in the next chapter) was in existence at
the end of the first century, it is not clear from the sources that remain from that
period and cannot be demonstrated from any known earlier sources. Since the
early Christians received from their Jewish siblings their first sacred scriptures,
and since they continued to use and cite several other books as Scripture in the
second century and later, some of which became a permanent part of the biblical
canons for Roman Catholics and Orthodox Christians, it is difficult to say that
Josephus’ list in Ag. Apion 1.37–43 carried the day or was even well known in the
first century CE. Nevertheless, it appears that an emerging tripartite biblical canon
was well on its way shortly thereafter.
Mason observes that Josephus’ statement about prophecy having ceased in Israel
(“because of the failure of the exact succession of the prophets”) is the only way
that we know that Ag. Apion 1.37–43 refers to a fixed biblical canon, especially
since Josephus cites the Letter of Aristeas and 1 Maccabees in the same manner
that he cites other biblical material as prophetic literature.26 Josephus, it appears,

26
Mason, “Josephus and His Twenty-two Book Canon,” 126.
350 THE FORMATION OF THE BIBLICAL CANON, VOLUME I

is out of step with other contemporary open-ended or fluid Jewish scripture collec-
tions in the first century. It is not clear whether the residents at Qumran made
a distinction between writers before and writers after Artaxerxes (i.e., the Ezra
tradition), though some there may have reflected on a time when prophecy ceased
(e.g., see above discussion of 1QS 9:10–11 but also 1QHa 20.11–12 in Chapter 5
§§ V and VI for examples of this). The same is true in early Christianity, as we
see with the welcome of Sirach and other examples cited earlier, about their use
of apocryphal and pseudepigraphal writings.
The freedom of the Jews at Qumran to add to or change the biblical texts also
suggests that there was no universally accepted text of the scriptural literature in
the first century CE. Mason agrees with Rudolf Meyer that Josephus’ fixed biblical
canon was not a widespread first-century Jewish perspective, but rather an “inner-
Pharisaic view” that could only have come to prominence after 70 CE.27 Since he
elsewhere also refers to thirteen prophets,28 it is clear that Josephus himself limited
the number of prophets who were authoritative among the Jews:

As for the prophet [Isaiah], he was acknowledged to be a man of God and marvelously
possessed of truth, and, as he was confident of never having spoken what was false, he wrote
down in books all that he had prophesied and left them to be recognized as true from the event
by men of future ages. And not alone this prophet, but also others, twelve in number, did the
same, and whatever happens to us whether for good or ill comes about in accordance with their
prophecies. (Ant. 10.35, LCL, emphasis added)

Josephus appears to be ahead of his time in terms of limiting the number of books
in the Jewish sacred collection to twenty-two. Since there are no other clear
parallels before him to this position, where did he get this view?
Cross suggests a possible Babylonian origin for Josephus’ view on the scope
of the Jewish Scriptures at the end of the first century.29 During the Hasmonean
era, many Diaspora Jews returned to their homeland from Syria, Babylon, and
Egypt, bringing with them a variety of textual traditions of the Hebrew Scriptures.
He observes that Hillel, the most creative and influential teacher of his day,
immigrated from Babylon to Israel in the first century BCE, and successive
generations of his students developed the “proto-rabbinic text” (first century CE)
and a rabbinic recension (second century CE) of the Hebrew Bible.30 To quell
the confusion resulting from multiple textual traditions, the Tannaitic schools of

27
Ibid., citing R. Meyer, “Bemerkungen zum literargeschichtlichen Hintergrund der Kanontheorie
des Josephus,” in Josephus-Studien: Untersuchungen zu Josephus, d. antiken Judentum u. d. Neuen
Testament: Otto Michel z. 70. Geburtstag gewidmet, ed. Otto Betz, Klaus Haacker and Martin
Hengel (Göttingen: Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht, 1974), 285–99, here 290.
28
Josephus mentions at least fifteen prophets in his writings, so he may have coupled some of them
together when he says “thirteen.”
29
Cross, From Epic to Canon, 213–18.
30
This so-called Pharisaic-Hillelite recension became the parent of the ninth-century CE Masoretic
Text.
TEXTS REFLECTING AN EMERGING BIBLICAL CANON 351

Hillel and Shammai developed rules of interpretation and discussed a fixed text
of Scriptures. This emphasis on fixing the text perhaps also prompted the rabbis –
sometime between the Jewish revolts (i.e., between 66 CE and 132 CE) – to prefer
the common Aramaic script (sometimes called “Assyrian” in ancient sources) over
the Paleo-Hebrew script.31
Unlike other Jewish sects of the day (e.g., Essenes, Hellenistic-Jewish commu-
nities in Alexandria and Palestine, Samaritans, and Jewish-Christians), the Pharisaic
tradition of Hillel was interested in a fixed text and canon of Scriptures,32 and,
according to Cross, Josephus’ Pharisaic tradition led him to adopt this tradition
that had its origins in Hillel.33 Cross suggests that Josephus’ understanding of the
Hebrew Scriptures had a Babylonian origin. This origin appears to have support
in the Babylonian Talmud. It reads: “When the Torah was forgotten in Israel, Ezra
came up from Babylon and established it; and when it was once again forgotten,
Hillel the Babylonian came up and reestablished it” (b. Sukkah 20a). A Babylonian
origin for the rabbinic recension of the Hebrew Bible makes sense given Hillel’s
homeland and his significant influence on Pharisaism in first-century Palestine.
Even though Hillel and the Babylonian baraita (e.g., b. Baba Bathra 14b–15a)
are two primary examples of Babylonian influence on Israel, according to Cross
the Babylonian Jewish community repeatedly “developed spiritual and intel-
lectual leaders who reshaped the direction of Palestinian Judaism and defined its
norms.”34 If Cross’ suggestion is correct, the Pharisaic biblical canon – Josephus’
biblical canon – may plausibly be dated between the destruction of Jerusalem
in 70 CE and the end of the first century when Josephus wrote Against Apion
and Jewish Antiquities. Contra Josephus, however, this “canon and text did not
immediately supplant other traditions or receive uniform acceptance even in
Pharisaic circles.”35

31
The Paleo-Hebrew script survived from pre-exilic times, was revived during the Maccabean
revolt against the Seleucid Empire, and was subsequently used on official Jewish seals and coins. It
continued to be used at Qumran and is found in the manuscript tradition behind the Septuagint, in
the divine name in manuscripts written in the Aramaic script, and in inscriptions found in the temple
area in Jerusalem. The Mishnah contains a proscription against using a script other than Aramaic:
“The [Aramaic] version that is in Ezra [4:8–7:18] and Daniel [2:4–6:28] renders the hands unclean.
If an [Aramaic] version [contained in the Scriptures] was written in Hebrew, or if [Scripture that is
in] Hebrew was written in an [Aramaic] version, or in Hebrew script, it does not render the hands
unclean. [The Holy Scriptures] render the hands unclean only if they are written in the Assyrian
character, on leather, and in ink” (m. Yadayim 4.5, quoted from H. Danby, The Mishnah [Oxford:
Oxford University Press, 1933; repr., 1992], 784).
32
Cross, From Epic to Canon, 215, argues that the fixation of the biblical text and the stabilization
of the biblical canon were bound together in the canonical process.
33
Ibid., 221–25.
34
Cross, From Epic to Canon, 217–18.
35
Ibid., 225.
352 THE FORMATION OF THE BIBLICAL CANON, VOLUME I

In fact, some early Christians and Jews were open to other books produced in
Israel after Ezra’s time (including the Apocrypha and Pseudepigrapha), but they
had little impact on Jews living in Babylon during the last two centuries BCE and
the first century CE. The result is that the Jews at Qumran and the early Christians
who had more in common with the Pharisees in the land of Palestine, had a longer
list of sacred writings that originated on Palestinian soil and not in the Diaspora.
On the other hand, the influence of Babylonian Jews likely played a significant
role in the shorter list of Scriptures later adopted by rabbinic Judaism in the second
century.

II. 4 EZRA 14:19–48

4 Ezra (ca. 90–100 CE)36 is a pseudonymous Jewish writing that was highly
regarded by the early Christians who added material to the book and accepted it as
sacred scripture and used it in their worship and instruction in the second century
CE.37 The book contains an important reference to a collection of sacred books
among the Jews and deals with the question of why God delivered his people
into the hands of their enemies.38 The writer explains how Ezra miraculously
recovered the Scriptures of Israel following the return of the Jews from Babylon
through divine inspiration. The passage begins with Ezra’s appeal to God for help
in recovering the law of God, which included not only a collection of twenty-four
books to be read by all Jews, but also an additional collection of seventy sacred
writings reserved for those who were “wise among your people” (14:46). This
passage gives a clear statement on the sacredness of both collections of writings.
In 4 Ezra’s seventh vision we read:

36
The identity of 4 Ezra (also called 2 Esdras and “Apocalypse of Ezra”) is quite confusing to
biblical students and scholars alike. Bruce Metzger (in OTP 1:517) explains: “The treatise identified
in Latin manuscripts as 4 Ezra (Esdrae liber IV) comprises chs. 3–14 of an expanded form of the
book traditionally included among the Apocrypha of English Bibles under the title 2 Esdras.” In
addition, modern scholars frequently identify portions of 4 Ezra as 5 Ezra (= 4 Ezra 1–2) and 6
Ezra (= 4 Ezra 15–16). The confusion becomes even more challenging when the titles given to
these works in ancient versions (especially the Septuagint and Vulgate) are compared with those in
modern English Bibles. For helpful tables that clarify the relationship of the ancient Ezra material,
see F. F. Bruce, Canon of Scripture, 47 n. 11; and Patrick Alexander et al., The SBL Handbook of
Style for Ancient Near Eastern, Biblical, and Early Christian Studies (Peabody, MA: Hendrickson,
1999), 167.
37
4 Ezra must be interpreted carefully because of its mixture of Christian and Jewish writings: a
Christian introduction (4 Ezra 1–2) and epilogue (4 Ezra 15–16) were added to the original Jewish
core text (4 Ezra 3–14), which was written around the end of the first century (ca. 85–95 CE) and
possibly in the early part of the second century CE.
38
See Metzger in OTP 1:520–21.
TEXTS REFLECTING AN EMERGING BIBLICAL CANON 353

“If then I have found favor with you, send the holy spirit into me, and I will write everything
that has happened in the world from the beginning, the things that were written in your law, so
that people may be able to find the path, and that those who want to live in the last days may
do so.”
He [God] answered me and said, “Go and gather the people, and tell them not to seek you
for forty days. But prepare for yourself many writing tablets, and take with you Sarea, Dabria,
Selemia, Ethanus, and Asiel – these five, who are trained to write rapidly; and you shall come
here, and I will light in your heart the lamp of understanding, which shall not be put out until
what you are about to write is finished. And when you have finished, some things you shall
make public, and some you shall deliver in secret to the wise; tomorrow at this hour you shall
begin to write.”
Then I went as he commanded me, and I gathered all the people together, and said, “Hear
these words, O Israel. At first our ancestors lived as aliens in Egypt, and they were liberated
from there and received the law of life, which they did not keep, which you also have trans-
gressed after them. Then land was given to you for a possession in the land of Zion; but you and
your ancestors committed iniquity and did not keep the ways that the Most High commanded
you. And since he is a righteous judge, in due time he took from you what he had given. And
now you are here, and your people are farther in the interior. If you, then, will rule over your
minds and discipline your hearts, you shall be kept alive, and after death you shall obtain mercy.
For after death the judgment will come, when we shall live again; and then the names of the
righteous shall become manifest, and the deeds of the ungodly shall be disclosed. But let no one
come to me now, and let no one seek me for forty days.”
So I took the five men, as he commanded me, and we proceeded to the field, and remained
there. And on the next day a voice called me, saying, “Ezra, open your mouth and drink what
I give you to drink.” So I opened my mouth, and a full cup was offered to me; it was full of
something like water, but its color was like fire. I took it and drank; and when I had drunk it, my
heart poured forth understanding, and wisdom increased in my breast, for my spirit retained its
memory, and my mouth was opened and was no longer closed. Moreover, the Most High gave
understanding to the five men, and by turns they wrote what was dictated, using characters that
they did not know. They sat forty days; they wrote during the daytime, and ate their bread at
night. But as for me, I spoke in the daytime and was not silent at night.
So during the forty days, ninety-four books were written. And when the forty days were ended,
the Most High spoke to me, saying, “Make public the twenty-four books that you wrote first,
and let the worthy and the unworthy read them; but keep the seventy that were written last, in
order to give them to the wise among your people. For in them is the spring of understanding,
the fountain of wisdom, and the river of knowledge.” And I did so. (NRSV, emphasis added)

There are obvious similarities between this passage and the Letter of Aristeas.
Both focus on the miraculous origin of the Scriptures and the divine activity
involved in their translation or preservation. Also, the similarities between Ezra
and Moses is also clear: God speaking directly to him and calling his name twice
from a bush and both Ezra and Moses standing when God spoke to them, and their
response, “Here I am” (14:1–3; cf. Exod 3:1–4), as well as the period of forty days
for the time of revelation from God (14:44 cf. Exod 24:18 and 34:28). As with
Josephus, the author of 4 Ezra does not identify the particular books in his twenty-
four-book collection or those in the additional seventy-book collection, but it is
likely that the former included most of the books mentioned in Josephus, if not
the same as those in Ag. Apion 1.38 but following the Greek alphabet number. The
seventy others, or many of them, are probably among those that are now identified
354 THE FORMATION OF THE BIBLICAL CANON, VOLUME I

as apocryphal and pseudepigraphal texts, and they “are reserved for the wise.”
This passage also shows that for the pseudonymous author of this text, the Spirit’s
activity had not ceased in Israel and that its activity was not limited to the twenty-
four-book canon of later Rabbinic tradition and that revelation and prophecy had
not ceased, as we see in the “seventy.”39
While this is the first known time the number twenty-four was used in reference
to Jewish sacred Scriptures (14:44–45), this is also the first mention of the seventy
others and they raise considerable scholarly debate.40 They were also a result of
the inspiration given to Ezra and were reserved for the wise among them. The first
time the twenty-four books are identified and listed is in b. Baba Bathra 14b and
the second time is in b. Ta’an 8a, though not the number itself. The listings include
of the Prophets and Writings plus the “book of Moses.”
Both Josephus and the author of 4 Ezra speak of a limited collection of sacred
books at the end of the first century CE.41 It is highly probable but by no means
certain that by the time 4 Ezra was written the twenty-four-book collection included
the Law of Moses at its core (4 Ezra 14:22, 30) and most, if not all, of the Prophets
and Writings. Also, it appears that the twenty-four books were already settled, but
the mention of the seventy others was to commend them for acceptance also. Most
of those sacred writings likely formed the Jewish Scriptures for most first-century
Jews, though we cannot be certain about this until the specific books are identified
later in the mid-to-late second century. The twenty-four are settled and identified
by 150–180 CE in the b. Baba Bathra 14b–15a text, but the seventy are never
identified. The number twenty-four, like the twenty-two for Josephus, was based
on the number of letters in the Hebrew alphabet and the books were configured
and combined in various ways that allowed others to be included in that number
if deemed necessary and some to be excluded. Both numbers reflected the divine
origin of the corpus of the writings that were available to all persons. It could well
be that 4 Ezra’s reference to the “twenty-four” books are what that author already
acknowledged as widely accepted Jewish scriptures and the “seventy” were what
he hoped would also be included among them.

39
Satlow, How the Bible Became Holy, 261, 267.
40
For a helpful summary of the numbers in the passage as well as their identity, see Michael E.
Stone, 4 Ezra, Hermeneia (Minneapolis: Fortress, 1990), 437–42, plus his discussion of inspiration
on 119–20; see also his introduction to ch. 14 on 410–13; and Satlow, How the Bible Became Holy,
260–62, 267. According to 14:21, “the law” referred to all of the Jewish sacred scriptures. Satlow
adds that “the rabbis had an expansive understanding of ‘Torah’. For these rabbis, ‘Torah’ meant the
divine will, how it is that God wants his people to behave” (267). See also Timothy Lim’s similar
discussion of this passage in Formation of the Jewish Canon, 49–50.
41
It is interesting that in his De mensuris et ponderibus 5, Epiphanius of Salamis (315–403) lists
twenty-two books and seventy-two “apocryphal” books that combine to make up the same number
of 94 books that we see in 4 Ezra. He does not mention 4 Ezra, but appears familiar with the 94,
which is only mentioned elsewhere in 4 Ezra 14:44.
TEXTS REFLECTING AN EMERGING BIBLICAL CANON 355

Earlier we saw that neither of these numbers, twenty-four or twenty-two, are

the actual number of books included in the HB, but both were reached by several
various combinations of books to arrive at these holy numbers among the Greeks
and the Jews. Since the specific books are not identified in either Josephus or by
the author of 4 Ezra, their precise identity is still uncertain, and we are unsure
about the status of Sirach in either collection, though Sirach continued to be
widely accepted as scripture among some Jews for centuries.
The author of 4 Ezra distinguishes between the twenty-four books that everyone
can read and the seventy books that are reserved for “the wise among your people”
and adds that in the “seventy” is found “the spring of understanding, the fountain
of wisdom, and the river of knowledge” (14:46–47). It is easy to surmise that the
seventy books were also held in equally high esteem for some first-century Jews
along with the twenty-four books since this text indicates that all ninety-four
books were received by Ezra through the presence of the Holy Spirit at the same
time and place (14:22) and over a forty-day period (14:23, 36, 42, 44, 45).42 The
division between the twenty-four and the seventy books parallels later distinc-
tions between canonical and apocryphal (or deuterocanonical) writings that were
read for catechetical and devotional purposes. Barton argues that the author here,
while acknowledging the widespread acceptance of the twenty-four, claims inspi-
ration also for the seventy that were reserved “for the wise.” This was his way to
promote the divine inspiration of additional books as well as make the case for
their antiquity.43 He concludes: “The theory that Ezra had been told to conceal
it [the seventy books] was part of the fiction by which it could be promoted as
hidden lore from the remote past. The fiction enables the author to claim the most
superlative authority for works which had not been known to past generations, by
invoking a divine decision which had led to their being hidden.”44
Earlier in 4 Ezra, the author claims that God interpreted Ezra’s dream saying:

This is the dream that you saw and this is its interpretation. And you alone were worthy to learn
this secret of the Most High. Therefore write all these things that you have seen in a book, put
it in a hidden place; and you shall teach them to the wise among your people, whose hearts you
know are able to comprehend and keep these secrets. (4 Ezra 12:36–38)

42
The number forty in the Bible typically focuses on the presence and activity of God: forty days
of flooding on the earth (Gen 7:17), Moses on Mount Sinai for forty days (Exod 24:18), the children
of Israel in the wilderness for forty years (Exod 16:35), Elijah on Mount Horeb for forty days (1
Kgs 19:8), Jesus’ temptation in the wilderness for forty days (Mark 1:13), and post-resurrection
appearances of Jesus for forty days (Acts 1:3). Stone lists the possibilities for identifying the “70”
other books, noting that some rabbis and modern scholars believed that this was a reference to the
tractates of the Mishnah or the Jewish Oral Law. But that is highly improbable. For a discussion of
this see Stone, 4 Ezra, 441.
43
Barton, Oracles of God, 64–66, 283 n. 71.
44
Ibid., 283.
356 THE FORMATION OF THE BIBLICAL CANON, VOLUME I

The pseudonymous author claimed divine inspiration not only for the twenty-
four, but also for his own book, like the seventy books mentioned in 14:46 – or
perhaps his own book was one of the “seventy.” The author of this work would
no doubt have known the tradition that prophecy had ceased and hence chose to
imitate Ezra, a well-known figure from the past who lived before the cessation
of prophecy began in order to defend probably the inspiration of his book and
that of the other apocryphal and pseudepigraphal books. Because several of the
apocryphal and pseudepigraphal books were identified with biblical figures who
preceded Moses, the author may have thought that the seventy had more authority
than even the books attributed to Moses.
There is no way to know with certainty whether the collection referred to in
4 Ezra included Esther, Ruth, Lamentations, Ezekiel, Ecclesiastes, or Song of
Songs, the books more commonly disputed in the rabbinic tradition, nor whether
Wisdom of Solomon and Sirach were excluded. It is best to be cautious about the
scope of 4 Ezra’s twenty-four-book canon or what was in the seventy since no
evidence allows for specificity. Nothing prior to the second century CE identifies
the books that made up the sacred writings in any of the sects of Judaism at the
turn of the era. Some of the books in 4 Ezra’s “seventy” books probably overlap
with the wider collection of books discovered at Qumran, some of which circu-
lated in some early Christian churches, but nothing specific can be said about the
4 Ezra collection. Of course, since the books are not identified in 4 Ezra, this is in
large measure guesswork. However, 4 Ezra does illustrate a late first century move
toward a restricted collection of sacred scriptures in Palestine.

III. JUBILEES 2:23–24

In earlier treatments of Josephus’ twenty-two-book canon I suggested that
Josephus might have drawn on an earlier source that emphasized the number
twenty-two. However, the earliest known manuscript of Jubilees45 (Jub. 2:23–24)
discovered at Qumran does not mention twenty-two sacred books in connection
with the number of the nation’s sacred writings. It reads as follows:

There were twenty-two chief men from Adam until Jacob, and twenty-two kinds of works
were made before the seventh day. The former is blessed and sanctified, and the latter is also
blessed and sanctified. One was like the other with respect to sanctification and blessing. And
it was granted to the former that they should always be the blessed and sanctified ones of the
testimony and the first law just as he had sanctified and blessed the sabbath day on the seventh
day. (Jub. 2:23–24, OTP 2:57)

45
According to O. S. Wintermute in OTP 2:43–44, the earliest possible date for this book is around
161–140 BCE.
TEXTS REFLECTING AN EMERGING BIBLICAL CANON 357

There is nothing specific in the above original text of Jubilees about a twenty-two-
book biblical canon, but in a late fourth- or fifth-century quotation of Jubilees,
Epiphanius of Salamis, On Weights and Measures (ca. 315–403 CE), cites this
book and refers to a twenty-two-book collection of Jewish Scriptures along with
several other important twenty-two number groupings in the Jewish traditions. The
relevant part of the Epiphanius text reads as follows: “As there were twenty-two
letters and twenty-two books and twenty-two chief men from Adam until Jacob,
so twenty-two kinds of works were made before the seventh day” (emphasis
added). R. H. Charles suggested that Epiphanius had recovered the original text
of Jubilees and argued that he drew directly on an early form of Jubilees to justify
his own twenty-two-book OT canon.46
Beckwith suggests that, according to Eusebius, Origen knew the twenty-two-
book tradition referred to in Jubilees. He cites Eusebius who wrote: “Now while
expounding the first Psalm he [Origen] set forth the catalogue of the sacred
Scriptures of the Old Testament, writing somewhat as follows in these words:
‘But it should be known that there are twenty-two canonical books, according
to the Hebrew tradition; the same as the number of the letters of their alphabet’”
(Eusebius, Hist. eccl. 6.25.1–2). Beckwith’s assertion that Epiphanius cited an
earlier form of the text of Jubilees is, of course, difficult to prove, but it supports
his view that Origen knew this tradition from Jubilees and he argues that it is “hard
to believe that so learned a man as Origen was ignorant of the book [of Jubilees].”47
Beckwith supports his conclusion by referring to similar wording in the Epiphanius
text found in two late sources: Symeon Logothetes (a tenth-century CE manuscript
in Constantinople) and George Syncellus (ca. 800 CE).48 These three textual tradi-
tions could be dated as early as the first century BCE or CE, and if so they might
well suggest that there was a twenty-two-book canon notion in the second century
BCE. However, because of the many “ifs” that have to fall into place before
this scenario is taken seriously, we must be cautious. The major problem with
Beckwith’s position is the difficulty of situating the notion of a fixed scriptural
canon some 200 or 250 years before anyone else was talking about the matter!
VanderKam is more likely correct in his challenge of Beckwith when he
asserts that the earliest Qumran text of Jubilees has in it nothing about twenty-
two books. More to the point, he adds that there is no space in the Qumran text
for these words, which are also lacking in the earliest Ethiopic manuscripts. He
concludes: “The simple fact is that no text of Jubilees – whether Hebrew, Syriac,
or Ethiopic – contains these words.”49 Although it is possible that Josephus used
an unknown early source for numbering his twenty-two-book biblical canon, we
cannot prove this from a textual variant in Jubilees recovered from Epiphanius in

46
Ibid., 2:57 n. y; Beckwith, Old Testament Canon, 237–40, and R. H. Charles, The Book of
Jubilees or the Little Genesis (London: Oxford University Press, 1902), lxxvii–lxxx.
47
Beckwith, Old Testament Canon, 263 n. 9.
48
Ibid., 236–37.
49
VanderKam, Revelation to Canon, 18–19.
358 THE FORMATION OF THE BIBLICAL CANON, VOLUME I

the late fourth or early fifth century CE. It seems more reasonable to assume an
imprecise understanding in both Judaism and early Christianity about the scope
of their biblical canons at the end of the first century CE. However, Josephus’
awareness that each book of Homer’s Iliad and Odyssey is divided into twenty-
four parts following the number of letters in the Greek alphabet is more likely to
be the source of Josephus’ twenty-two book list following the Hebrew alphabet.
He adopted this pattern to show the superiority of the Jewish scriptures and that
they were complete in his twenty-two book collection by various book combina-
tions that for him were superior to the books represented in the Greek alphabet
(Homer). It is obvious from the first part of Against Apion, where he shows
considerable awareness of Homer, that he chose to contrast the Jewish Scriptures
with Homer and employed the letters of the alphabet to make the comparison and
contrast. Since a comparison of Judaism with Homer is a part of the context of
Against Apion, it is not an unreasonable suggestion.
Josephus’ canon consciousness, that is, his notion of a limited collection of
Jewish scriptures, tied to the number of books in the Hebrew alphabet, appears
to have emerged first in Judaism in the late first century CE. This emergence,
however, does not necessarily reflect a widespread acknowledged biblical canon
for first-century Jews, but it may reflect an emerging Pharisaic biblical canon that
takes root at that time and gains widespread acceptance among rabbinic Judaism
later. However, no one else makes Josephus’ point in the same way at the end of
the first century, but as we have seen, the widely known use of the Greek alphabet
in sacred Greek texts also likely influenced the author of 4 Ezra. Further, as we
saw earlier, the way that Josephus’ scripture collection is divided does not fit easily
with the later tripartite canon of the later HB. His aim of tying the number of the
Jewish Scriptures to the number of letters in the Hebrew alphabet appears to be
drawn from the Hellenistic precedent of Homer’s writings identified by the number
of letters in the Greek alphabet. Earlier, this practice can be seen in the division of
some of the Psalms by letters in the Hebrew alphabet, especially Ps 119, which is
structered around the 22 letters of the Hebrew alphabet. This may be the precedent
for Josephus’ selection of the number twenty-two for the number of sacred books
for the Jews books to include, and probably the most overlooked parallel.

IV. THE BRYENNIOS CANON

A strange list of twenty-seven canonical HB books occurs in a Greek manuscript
dating ca. 1056 CE that was copied in transliterated Greek reflecting Aramaic
and Greek names of the HB books.50 It was discovered in 1875 and is commonly

50
This list is reproduced by Leiman, Canonization of the Hebrew Scripture, 43, who follows
Jean-Paul Audet, “A Hebrew-Aramaic List of Books of the Old Testament in Greek Transcription,”
JTS 1, no. 2 (1950): 135–54, here 136. See also discussions of this list in F. F. Bruce, Canon of
Scripture, 71–72; and Beckwith, Old Testament Canon, 188–90.
TEXTS REFLECTING AN EMERGING BIBLICAL CANON 359

known as the “Bryennios Canon.” The original form of the list may date between
the late first and early second centuries CE, but possibly later if some scholars are
correct. If the list has earlier roots, this would be a specific list of sacred books
close in time to the listing of sacred books in b. Baba Bathra 14b (Chapter 11
§II.A), and would suggest that a broader Jewish community (Jewish-Christian?)
had come to an agreement on the scope of their scriptures. The Bryennios list,
also identified as the “Jerusalem MS,” has twenty-seven books, but the books are
essentially the same as the twenty-four books in the HB biblical canon, though
not coupled the same way. It is similar to but less polished than the late fourth- or
early fifth-century CE list produced by Epiphanius and since Epiphanius follows
a later traditional order of books, Bryennios quite possibly antedates it.51 Little
is known of this text’s background, but because it closely matches the contents
(though not the order) of books in the second-century Hebrew Bible (b. Baba
Bathra 14b), several scholars believe that it has a Jewish origin, perhaps from the
first half of the second century. Oddly, the names in the list are in both Aramaic
and Greek, with several misspellings in the transliterations. As noted above, the
Bryennios Canon also has a strange sequence of books. We cannot be sure if some
modifications were made in this text that appeared later in its transmission, but its
contents appear to be at home in the early to middle second century CE. The list
is as follows:

Genesis 1–2 Chronicles

Exodus Proverbs
Leviticus Ecclesiastes
Joshua Song of Songs
Deuteronomy Jeremiah + Lamentations
Numbers the Twelve
Ruth Isaiah
Job Ezekiel
Judges Daniel
Psalms 1–2 Esdras52
1–2 Samuel Esther
1–2 Kings

The list has several anomalies in it such as the break up of the books of the
Pentateuch, putting Joshua after Leviticus and before Deuteronomy, followed by
Numbers, and Ruth and Job following Numbers and disconnected from Judges,
and other peculiarities. While it appears to be a Jewish canon list, it could well

51
Because of the significant overlap in Aramaic and Greek transliterations, translation of the
names, and in several other parallels, Audet contends that Epiphanius’ lists in his De Mensuris et
Ponderibus 3–5 and 22–23 are quite similar to the Bryennios list, but not dependent on it. Both, he
suggests, depend on a common earlier source.
52
An explanation of the adoption of these writings that were first produced in Hebrew and
subsequently translated into Greek is discussed in Audet, “Hebrew-Aramaic List,” 150–54. He
acknowledges “there is no satisfactory explanation of the origin of Greek Esdras…” (151).
360 THE FORMATION OF THE BIBLICAL CANON, VOLUME I

be a Jewish Christian list since it is unlikely that the rabbis would have divided
the Pentateuch in the way done here. Beckwith may well be right that, although
many date this document in the late first or early second century CE, it is probably
later and reconstructed in the Christian community.53 Beckwith includes a helpful
diagram of the three canon lists of Epiphanius along with the Bryennios manuscript
showing the several parallels in the lists, e.g., Isaiah following the Twelve (Minor
Prophets) in all four lists and all four end with 1 and 2 Esdras and Esther. If the
dating is as it seems to be, namely early second century CE, this list appears to
support an early Jewish listing of the Jewish Scriptures that is roughly similar to
that which later obtained canonical status among the Jews. See the parallels with
Epiphanius in Chapter 9 §V.A.7.

V. 1 ENOCH: A CHALLENGING EXCEPTION

In his fairly detailed discussion of the closure of the canon, Beckwith argues
that Jews from the second century BCE distinguished in practice and theory
between the OT canonical books and the later apocryphal and pseudepigraphal
books. He insists that only the canonical OT Scriptures were those believed by
the various Jewish sects of that day – including Jesus and his earliest followers –
to be inspired by God and sacred Scripture. His argument that apocryphal and
pseudepigraphal writings were not accepted as inspired Scripture by either the
Jews or the Christians forces him to find a way to interpret Jude’s citation of
1 En. 1.9. He does not establish a clear understanding of how noncanonical
writings were used or cited in the NT, but rather he distinguishes between
accepting a text as authoritative and accepting it as Scripture acknowledging that
on occasion the canonical and apocryphal texts appear to be cited similarly.54 He
is less convincing, however, when discussing the use of or reference to apocryphal
and pseudepigraphal literature in the developing Christian communities. For
example, in his discussion of Jude’s citation of 1 En. 1:9 and probably also Jude’s
use of the Assumption of Moses (Jude 14–15), Beckwith argues that Jude saw this
literature merely as edifying, but not as sacred Scripture.55 However, his reasoning
does not show an awareness of how prophetic literature was understood in
antiquity or how Jude appealed to 1 Enoch as one who has “prophesied.” Prophets
who are inspired by the Spirit prophesy. Jude bases his warning of judgment on the
reliability and inspiration of 1 Enoch. Is there any example of a writing classified

53
Beckwith, Old Testament Canon, 188–92. Audet, “A Hebrew-Aramaic List of Books,” suggests
that the list probably depends on a Syrian Targum in the first half of the second century CE, and not
a Jewish Christian source, but that presents problems in trying to account for Esdras A and Esdras
B in a Jewish listing. It is more likely that it depends on an early Jewish list that may have found its
way into a Jewish-Christian text.
54
Beckwith, Old Testament Canon, 16–19, and especially 389–400, where he acknowledges the
apparent “authoritative” use of this noncanonical literature in the early church fathers.
55
Ibid., 401–5.
TEXTS REFLECTING AN EMERGING BIBLICAL CANON 361

as prophetic that was not considered divinely inspired Scripture? That is what
Scripture is.56 Beckwith concludes that “if Jude had selected two such edifying
stories from books which he may even have regarded as otherwise unedifying, this
would neither have impugned his own authority nor have conferred authority upon
the pseudonymous apocalypses from which he drew.”57 However, on the contrary,
when Jude claims that Enoch prophesied, he at the same time also conferred
authority on a later recognized pseudonymous document, namely, 1 Enoch.
Beckwith and other scholars have a reluctance to acknowledge that the NT writers
appealed to or made use of pseudonymous writings (i.e., the Pseudepigrapha) to
understand and present their case about the Christian faith, but the fact remains
that Jude used 1 Enoch to argue his case for right living. It is appropriate here to
list some of the prominent uses of and references to 1 Enoch as scripture in early
Christianity that show how the book is used, not simply as illustrative material,
but also as sacred Scripture.58

A. Enoch in Patristic Literature59

1.  Ep. Barnabas 4:3 (ca. 130–150 likely from Alexandria) has parallels with
1 En. 89:61-64 and 90:17 making use of the scriptural formula “it was
written, as Enoch says” (Grk. οὗ γέγραπται, ὡς Ενὼχ λέγαι); see also
Ep. Barnabas 16:4–6 that has a summary of 1 En. 89:56 (see also 89:57–74)
and 91:13.
2.  Apocalypse of Peter (ca. 100–110, possibly Egypt) 2–8 (1 En. 108:7–9;
106:2, 10; 61:9–11; 53:3).
3.  Odes of Solomon (ca. 100–125, Northern Israel or Syria). The Odist seems
to have had some familiarity with several Jewish noncanonical writings as

56
Davies, Scribes and Schools, 164–65, acknowledges the sacred status of 1 Enoch and concludes,
“The Enoch writings are a distinct, continually evolving corpus which would readily define on
my terms as a canon. The final fivefold structure has been suggested as an imitation of the Mosaic
canon… Like an early collection of Daniel stories, Enoch is an Aramaic canon.”
57
Beckwith, Old Testament Canon, 405.
58
The following examples, both positive and negative references to 1 Enoch, are in McDonald,
“Parables of Enoch in Early Christianity,” 357–61.
59
The following collections of parallels in word and thought are familiar to most Enoch scholars
and are found listed variously in H. J. Lawlor, “Early Citations from the Book of Enoch,” Journal
of Philology 25 (1897): 164–225; R. H. Charles, ed., The Apocrypha and Pseudepigrapha of the
Old Testament, 2 vols. (Oxford: Clarendon, 1913), 2:163–85; R. H. Charles, The Book of Enoch
(Oxford: Clarendon, 1912); Emil Schürer, History of the Jewish People in the Age of Jesus Christ,
rev. ed. (Edinburgh: T. & T. Clark 1986), 3:250–68; J. C. VanderKam, “1 Enoch, Enochic Motifs,
and Enoch in Early Christian Literature,” in The Jewish Apocalyptic Heritage in Early Christianity,
ed. James C. VanderKam and William Adler (Assen: Van Gorcum; Minneapolis: Fortress, 1996),
33–101; and Gabriele Boccaccini who discusses the role of the Parables and their influence in
early Christianity in his “Finding a Place for the Parables of Enoch within Second Temple Jewish
Literature,” in Enoch and the Messiah Son of Man: Revisiting the Book of Parables, ed. Gabriele
Boccaccini (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 2005), 263–89.
362 THE FORMATION OF THE BIBLICAL CANON, VOLUME I

well as with some early Christian apocryphal writings. As in the case of

NT writings, except for Jude 14, the Odist never directly cites or quotes by
name or as “scripture” any apocryphal or pseudepigraphal literature, and the
several parallels suggest that the Odist was familiar both with the canonical
Psalms and several Old Testament books, including also 1 Enoch as well
as the Palms of Solomon (cf. Ps. Sol. 14 and Ode 11:12, 16, 18 and 38:17;
see also Ps. Sol. 15 and Ode 37:2 and 41:16; Ps. Sol. 18:12–14, cf. Ode
16:13). In the case of 1 Enoch, it is possible that 1 En. 48:1–10 influenced
the description in Ode 30 of a living spring (of wisdom) and an exhortation
for all who are thirsty to come and drink. (Compare also 1 En. 48:2–10 with
Ode 36:1–3.)60 On the other hand, it is also possible that the Odes influenced
the subsequent author of the Ascension of Isaiah.61
4. Justin Martyr’s (ca. 100–165, Neapolis near Samaria, Ephesus, Rome)
1 Apologia 2:5 likely depends on 1 En. 7; 8:9; 15:8, 9.62
5. Tatian (ca. 110–72, Rome and Antioch), Oratio adv. Graecos 18.20 (cf.
1 En. 8:3; 6:6; 15:8, 9) likely also used the Watcher story with parallels in
1 En. 6–16 calling demons angels.
6. Athenagoras (fl. ca. 170–180, Athens), Legatio pro Christianis 24, 25 (cf.
1 En. 6, 7, 13:5; 15:3, 8, 10; 60:15–21).
7. Minucius Felix (late second or third century, North Africa), Octavius 26
(1 En. 8; 15:8–12; 16:1; 19:1).
8. Irenaeus (ca. 130–200, Bishop of Lyons), Adv. Haer. 1.2.1 (1 En. 10:13–14);
1.8.17 (1 En. 7:1; 8:1); 4.16.2 (1 En. 12:4–6; 13; 14:3–7; 15; 16); 4:36.4
(1 En. 10:2); 4.58.4 (1 En. 7:1); 5.28.2 (1 En. 15:3; 99:7; 19:1); 5.5.1, plus 1.15.6
(1 En. 8:1; cf. 10:8); Adv. Haer. 4.36.4 draws on 1 Enoch re: angelic
rebellion. Adv. Haer. 4.16.2 (cf. 1 En. 12.13, 6ff., 10). See also 4.36.4 where
Irenaeus understood Gen 5:21–24 and 6:1–4 in light of 1 Enoch.
9. Clement of Alexandria (ca. 150–215), Eclogae prophetarum 2.1, 53; 3.456
(1 En. 19:3); 3.474 (1 En. 8:2–3); Strom 3.9 (1 En. 8; 16:3).
10. Tertullian (ca. 160–225, Carthage), Apol. 22 (cf. 1 En. 15:8, 9); De cultu
feminarum 1.3.1 (1 En. 8:1, 3); 2.10 (1 En. 8:1); De Idolatria 4, 15 (1 En.
19:1; 99:6–7); 9 (1 En. 6; 14:5), 15; De Virg. Veland. 7 (1 En. 6; 14:5; see
also De Anima 50).
11. Hippolytus (ca. 170–236, Rome), De Christo et Antochristo 43–47; Or. adv.
Graecos (cf. 1 En. 22:3; 21:1).

60
See J. H. Charlesworth, “Odes of Solomon,” OTP 2:732–33, for a description of these parallels.
61
Ibid. Charlesworth draws attention to four comparisons, namely, compare Asc. Isa. 4:6 with Ode
38:10 which focuses on the Deceiver imitating the Beloved; compare also Asc. Isa. 7:10 with Ode
34:4 in its cosmological perspective; compare Asc. Isa. 9:12–18 with Ode 22:1 on the identification
of the “Beloved” and references to crowns and garments; and finally compare Asc. Isa. 11:2–5 with
Ode 19:8f. on the lack of needing a mid-wife and the Ascension of Isaiah claiming that in the birth
of Jesus, Mary had no pain.
62
I owe this observation to George Nickelsburg, “Enoch,” ABD 2:516.
TEXTS REFLECTING AN EMERGING BIBLICAL CANON 363

12. Zosimus of Panopolis (d. 418, bishop of Rome from 417) quoted in
Syncellus (ca. 800 CE, Chronography 1, 1, 42 (cf. 1 En. 6–8). 1 Enoch is
mentioned several times in the surviving fragments of this Western work.
13.  Gospel of Nicodemus 25 (= Acts of Pilate, ca. fourth cent., though possibly
rooted in second-cent. traditions instead of 1 Enoch).
14.  History of Joseph the Carpenter (fourth–fifth cent., Egypt), 30–32.63
15. Julius Africanus (ca. 237–40, Nicopolis, Edessa, Alexandria), Chronographia
(1 En. 7:1; 8:1, 2, 3; 10:1ff.).
16. Origen (ca. 185–254, Alexandria and Caesarea), Contra Celsum 5.52, 54–55;
De Principiis 1.3.3; 4.4.8; 4:35 (cf. 1 En. 21:1; see also In Numeros homilia
28.2; and In Johannem 6.42). Origen initially accepted 1 Enoch as scripture
(see De Princ. 1.3; 4.35), but later rejected the Enochic writings. The
earlier acceptance implies that Enoch was regularly read in some churches.
After his death, orthodox writers seldom referred to Enoch for more than
two centuries, though Lactantius and Eusebius in the fourth century are
the primary exceptions. It is not certain when the Enochic writings were
specifically excluded as scriptural documents by name, but after Origen
there are few positive citations of the Enochic literature in church literature,
although 1 Enoch has continued as Scripture in the Ethiopian biblical canon.
17.  Sixty Books. 1 Enoch is listed in the second place of some twenty-five
apocryphal (rejected) writings in the Catalogue of Sixty Canonical Books
(seventh cent. CE) and it stands first in the apocryphal (rejected) section in
the Stichometry of Nicephorus (ca. mid-ninth century CE). The listing of
this book as late as the seventh and ninth centuries, even in a rejected or
apocryphal listing, suggests that the Enochic writings were still welcome in
some Christian communities even at that late date. Why else would books be
listed as rejected books if no one was still using them? We should note that
the survival of the Parables only in the Ethiopian Ge’ez language and only
partially or fragmentarily in Greek after the fourth century CE suggests that
the document largely ceased functioning in the Greek-speaking Christian
communities as a sacred or canonical text at the latest in the fourth century,
and possibly in the third following Origen. On the other hand, the fact that
1 Enoch is still listed in these late listings of sacred and apocryphal books
suggests its continuing history in the ancient churches.
18.  Acta SS. Perpet. et Felic. 7, 8, 12 (cf. 1 En. 22:9; 14:8–17; see possibly also
24:3–4).
19. Commodian (ca. 250, Africa and Palestine), Instructiones 1.3 (1 En. 6.1,
2; 14:5; 1:9; 13:2; 10:4 ff.; 12; 7:2; 8:1; 19:1; 15:6; 19:1). His works were
deemed apocryphal in the Decretum Gelasianum (ca. 492–96).
20. Cyprian (ca. 250, d. 258), De Hab. Virg. 14 (cf. 1 En. 8:1ff.).

63
I owe this observation to Elliott, ed., Apocryphal New Testament, 111–17.
364 THE FORMATION OF THE BIBLICAL CANON, VOLUME I

21. Pseudo-Cyprian (mid- to late third century, Carthage), Ad Novatianum (1 En.

1:9) which uses the scriptural designation: “sicut scriptum est” suggesting
that 1 Enoch was on par with other canonical Scriptures.
22.  Clementine homilies (fourth cent.) 8:12 (cf. 1 En. 6:1–19:1).
23. Lactantius (ca. 320), Inst. 2.14; 3.15 (cf. 1 En. 14:5–7; 69:4; 7:1; 54:6;
15:8–11; 16:1; 19:1); 4.27; 5.18 (1 En. 19:1); 7.7 (1 En. 22); 7.16 (1 En.
80:2); 7.19 (1 En. 90:19; 91:12; cf. 54 and 63); 7.24 (1 En. 10:17ff.); 7.26
(1 En. 48:9).
24. Anatolius (bishop of Laodicea, ca. 310, and teacher of Lactantius, d. ca.
282) referred to by Eusebius (Hist. eccl. 7:32.19) (cf. 1 En. 72:6–8, 31, 32);
but in his Disputations 2.17 rejects the book of Enoch.64

By the fourth century CE, 1 Enoch is largely rejected as a scriptural book, but
not completely. Even where it is rejected as scripture, the rejections suggest that
some Christians were still reading the book. Beckwith’s view of 1 Enoch does not
appear reflective of the views of it in the early churches where many accepted it as
Scripture, including Jude. Beckwith does not show familiarity with how 1 Enoch
was used and cited in early Christianity for the first three centuries especially and
in isolated places thereafter. If Jude only used 1 Enoch as illustrative material to
make a point and not as sacred literature, it is remarkable that the early church
fathers, including Irenaeus, Tertullian, and initially Origen did not realize it.
Again, his comments were confusing since Jude appeals to 1 En. 1:9 as a prophetic
text to establish his argument in Jude 14.65
Jude clearly cites 1 Enoch as a prophetic text stating that “Enoch…prophesied,”
namely, he cited it as a Spirit-led text and as sacred Scripture. By most definitions
of Scripture, this is a reference to sacred Scripture. If Jude thought the passage was
spoken through prophecy, he also saw it as inspired and as Scripture. It is special
pleading to suggest otherwise. If a widely accepted closed biblical canon of
Scriptures had existed among Jews in the first century that looked like the current
HB canon, namely a fixed twenty-two-book or twenty-four-book Hebrew biblical
canon, why did the earliest Christians and early church fathers not recognize it?
Even as late as the end of the second century CE, Tertullian cited 1 Enoch as
Scripture – and based his doing so on Jude’s acceptance of the book as Scripture.
He is aware that some do not accept it as Scripture, but cites Jude as evidence that
it is. He writes:

64
These parallels and citations and several more are included in Lee Martin McDonald, “The
Parables of Enoch in Early Christianity,” 357–61.
65
Brevard S. Childs. Biblical Theology of the Old and New Testaments: Theological Reflection
on the Christian Bible (Minneapolis: Fortress, 1993), 62, similarly dismisses this reference stating:
“The New Testament does not cite as Scripture any book of the Apocrypha or Pseudepigrapha. (The
reference to Enoch in Jude 14–15 is not an exception.).”
TEXTS REFLECTING AN EMERGING BIBLICAL CANON 365

I am aware that the Scripture of Enoch, which has assigned this order (of action) to angels, is
not received by some, because it is not admitted into the Jewish canon either. I suppose they
did not think that, having been published before the deluge, it could have safely survived that
world wide calamity [the flood], the abolisher of all things. If that is the reason (for rejecting
it), let them recall to their memory that Noah, the survivor of the deluge, was the great grandson
of Enoch himself…

But since Noah in the same Scripture has preached likewise concerning the Lord, nothing at
all must be rejected by us that pertains to us; and we read that “every Scripture suitable for
edification is divinely inspired [2 Tim 3:16].” By the Jews it may now seem to have been
rejected for that (very) reason, just like all the other (portions) nearly which tell of Christ. Nor,
of course, is this fact wonderful, that they did not receive some Scriptures that spoke of Him
whom even in person, speaking in their presence, they were not to receive. To these considera-
tions is added the fact that Enoch possesses a testimony in the Apostle Jude. (On the Apparel
of Women 1.3, adapted from ANF, emphasis added)

Jerome in the early fifth century CE speaks of the problem that some had in
accepting Jude as scripture because Jude cited 1 Enoch as scripture, but eventually
the problem was overcome in the church. Jerome writes: “Jude, the brother of
James, left a short epistle which is reckoned among the seven catholic epistles,
and because in it he quotes from the apocryphal book of Enoch it is rejected by
many. Nevertheless by age and use it has gained authority and is reckoned among
the Holy Scriptures” (Lives of Illustrious Men 4, ANF). The issue here is not
whether Jude cited 1 Enoch, but rather how he cited it, and from the perspective
of the early church fathers, it appears that he cited it as Scripture. The arguments
against Jude’s use of 1 Enoch as scripture are special pleading and depend on
preconceived notions of canon later imposed on the NT and early church fathers.
The Enoch tradition was also quite strong at Qumran and was likely accepted
there in a scriptural manner. VanderKam shows that, in each of the five sections
of 1 Enoch, Enoch saw visions, dreams, heavenly visions, heavenly tablets, and
various other heavenly phenomena and claims that all such activity had divine
origins. In 1 Enoch, God is the source of the revelations given to Enoch (1 En.
10:1–11:2; 14:1, 24; 15:1–16:3; 37:4; 39:2; 45:3–6; 55:1–2; 62:1; 63:12; 67:1;
90:22; 105:1–2; 106:19) and the source for the heavenly tablets (1 En. 81:1–2;
93:1; 103:2; 106:19; 107:1). VanderKam concludes that the Enochic compositions
“were presented as the true record of divine or celestial disclosures made to the
antediluvian sage” and he notes that 1 Enoch is a regular member of the canonical
lists of the Abyssinian church.66 It is clear that the positive opinions about 1 Enoch
at Qumran were also shared by others in the early church, and this suggests a
wider recognition of the work as scripture than what one isolated text in the NT
might suggest.

66
VanderKam, Revelation to Canon, 24–26.
366 THE FORMATION OF THE BIBLICAL CANON, VOLUME I

Leiman and Beckwith both produced fairly detailed and impressive discussions
of the OT biblical canon and they included a significant body of relevant data for
their investigations.67 Both scholars are well informed and provide useful infor-
mation on the origins of the biblical canons of Judaism and the earliest Christian
community, but they have not given an adequate acknowledgment of how or why
some Jews, namely the Essenes and those in the Diaspora, as well as many early
Christians, made use of a larger body of noncanonical literature in their worship,
apologetic, and instruction. Further, their evidence for a fixed biblical canon that
looks like the current HB and Protestant OT canons prior to the time of Jesus
is unconvincing. Their arguments, though plentiful, detailed, and multifaceted,
are frequently based on no more than arguments from silence or later notions or
perspectives imposed backwards on earlier texts and contexts. Beckwith seems
unaware of references in early Christian literature to several books in the nonca-
nonical literature and especially its significant place among the Dead Sea Scrolls.
VanderKam makes four specific criticisms of Beckwith’s and Leiman’s handling
of canon issues: (1) their questionable use of sources, especially their interpre-
tation of Nehemiah’s founding of a library and Judas Maccabeus’ collecting sacred
books in 2 Macc 2:13–15; (2) Leiman’s view that the prophetic section of the HB
canon was closed in the fifth century BCE and that 1–2 Chronicles were placed
in the Writings because the prophetic canon was closed then; (3) Beckwith’s view
that the number of sacred books was already fixed in the second century BCE;
and (4) Beckwith’s method of explaining away impressive evidence that at least
some Jewish writers considered more than twenty-two books to be scriptural.
Essentially, VanderKam concludes that Beckwith and sometimes Leiman tend to
read their texts anachronistically and try to make what later obtained in Judaism
and later in Protestant Christianity a reality before the time of Jesus.68
Even though there is evidence that many of the books that later formed the
rabbinic HB canon were long recognized as Scripture in Jewish and Christian
communities of faith, there is no evidence for a fixed tripartite canon among the
Jews in the time of Jesus or before, or any time before the mid- to late second
century CE. It is likely that what later obtained canonical status in Judaism and
in Protestant Christianity was a reduced version of what was in place as sacred
texts even earlier than the time of Jesus. It does appear that many other books
besides these were present and appealed to both by Jews and the early Christians
as scripture, but in time that collection was reduced in size rather than expanded.
Beckwith claims that the noncanonical writings at Qumran were merely inter-
pretations of, or commentary on the canonical literature and not a part of the fixed
Scriptures of Judaism at that time. He writes: “It is probably no coincidence that
the revelations to which the Qumran community laid claim were revelations of

67
Leiman, Canonization of the Hebrew Scripture; Beckwith, Old Testament Canon.
68
VanderKam, Revelation to Canon, 19–27.
TEXTS REFLECTING AN EMERGING BIBLICAL CANON 367

the true meaning of the Mosaic Law.”69 While a number of texts at Qumran can
be identified as “Rewritten Scripture,” as noted above, still the evidence that all
of these texts are simply commentary on the canonical texts is unconvincing, as
VanderKam has shown in above comments.
Davies identifies four important factors that were common among the books
accepted as sacred Scripture at Qumran: the presence of multiple copies, the
citation of the contents of a writing as authoritative, the extent to which a text has
been fixed (or not fixed), and the extent to which a writing generated interpretive
literature (commentaries and interpretations of particular texts).70 In the first
instance, as we showed earlier, multiple copies of manuscripts of noncanonical
writings often outnumber copies of several of the canonical books found at
Qumran. For example, there are in the case of 1 Enoch (twelve copies), Jubilees
(fourteen), Tobit (five), Sirach (two), and Epistle of Jeremiah (one). On the other
hand, examples from the canonical texts often are fewer in number. For example,
Joshua (three copies), Judges (four), 1–2 Samuel (four), 1–2 Kings (three),
Proverbs (one), Ezra (partial manuscript), Nehemiah (none), Ecclesiastes (two),
Esther (none), and 1–2 Chronicles (one). The so-called noncanonical texts are in
several cases more plentiful than a number of the canonical texts.
What is needed to substantiate Beckwith’s claims for an early biblical canon,
and what we do not have from the surviving ancient sources, is a clear statement
from Jews in the time before or during the first century CE on the contents of their
collection of sacred scriptures. The first identification of the Jewish Scriptures
that comprise the HB is in the middle to late second century CE (b. Baba Bathra
14b, discussed in Chapter 11 §III.A), and there we find no evidence that the
same listing of sacred texts was also the view of the Diaspora Jews. The ancient
Christian sources also never discuss the question of a closed biblical canon before
the third and fourth centuries, though as we saw earlier, Melito of Sardis produced
the first Christian list of the OT books (ca. 170–180), but it was not the same
exactly in content or order. For the most part, Jews and Christians showed little
interest in cataloging, numbering, or archiving their own sacred Scriptures before
the end of the first century as we saw above in Josephus and the author of 4 Ezra.
Arguments for a fixed collection of Scriptures in the first centuries BCE and CE
are inferential in nature and without specific demonstration.
Beckwith’s argument that there is no reference to an OT canon because it was
already settled is unconvincing and also an argument from silence that flies in
the face of allusions to, parallels with, and citations of noncanonical literature
in Jewish and early Christian writings. Since there are no Jewish or Christian
references to a biblical canon in the time of Jesus or before, it seems clear that

69
Beckwith, Old Testament Canon, 360 (emphasis his), in his fuller discussion of the noncanonical
literature at Qumran sees it as merely “interpretation” of the canonical literature (360–66).
70
Davies, Scribes and Schools, 154. There is overlap here with Ulrich’s list noted earlier in Chapter
3 §II.
368 THE FORMATION OF THE BIBLICAL CANON, VOLUME I

such matters were not of significant concern at that time. While the literary
community likely had an idea of what writings they counted as scripture, and
that included especially what later included the Law and a prophetic corpus,
there are no lists that identify what books comprised the Prophets or statements
that say “these books and no more” in any ancient documents. Because of this,
there is no evidence that the books that eventually comprised Law, Prophets, and
Writings were the only recognized sacred writings in the first centuries BCE and
CE. We have seen that other religious texts were also circulating among Jews and
Christians and occasionally they were cited in a scriptural fashion.
If the issue of deciding which religious books were sacred Scripture had been
settled before the birth of Jesus, as some suppose, and if Jesus had given to his
disciples a fixed collection or list of sacred Scriptures, as some contend, it seems
reasonable that some evidence from the time of Jesus would have been left behind.
However, there is no evidence that affirms the existence of a fixed collection of
scriptures nor what books comprised it at that time, but if it did, the notion that
the followers of Jesus somehow lost it also seems like special pleading since they
nowhere mention such a canon anywhere in the NT or early Christianity.
In an old but enduring contribution to canonical studies, Reuss (1891) argued
that the question of the biblical canon depends on a theory of inspiration that
simply was not present or even an issue for the apostles and their immediate disci-
ples.71 By the middle of the second century CE, some Jews began to group their
Scriptures into the three now common divisions: Law, Prophets, and Writings.
The first known such listing is in the b. Baba Bathra 14b text (see discussion
in Chapter 11 §III). However, the contents of the Writings were apparently not
fully settled for all Jews in the initial stages of the rabbinic period and the earliest
rabbinic texts regularly identify their Scriptures as Law and Prophets and some
of those texts reflect uncertainty about some books placed in the Writings. Before
the second century CE all literature that was deemed sacred and inspired was also
acknowledged as prophetic Scripture and identified either as Law or Prophets or
among the Law and Prophets. There is evidence that writings eventually placed
in the third division of the HB (e.g., Job, Daniel, and Psalms) were sometimes
referred to as prophetic literature. The book of Acts, for example, acknowledges
writings attributed to David as Scripture (1:16; 2:25–31, 34–36) and David is
called a prophet. Qumran exhibits a similar sentiment:

And David, son of Jesse, was wise, a luminary like the light of the sun, learned, knowl-
edgeable, and perfect in all his paths before God and men. And to him YHWH gave a wise and
enlightened spirit. And he wrote psalms: … The total was four thousand and fifty. He composed
them all through the spirit of prophecy which had been given to him from before the Most High.
(11QPsa 27.2–4, 10–11, García Martínez, Dead Sea Scrolls Translated, 309, emphasis added)

71
Reuss, History of the Canon, 9.
TEXTS REFLECTING AN EMERGING BIBLICAL CANON 369

In a later rabbinic text, Job is called a prophet when Job and the time when he
lived is identified:

Seven prophets prophesied to the heathen, namely Balaam and his father, Job, Eliphaz the
Temanite, Bildad the Shuhite, Zophar the Naamathite, and Elihu the son of Barachel the
Buzite… So too Job [is included because] he prophesied to the heathen. But did not all the
prophets prophesy to the heathen? – Their prophecies were addressed primarily to Israel,
but these addressed themselves primarily to the heathen. (b. Baba Bathra 15b, ed. Soncino,
emphasis added)

This fits well with 1 Chr 25:1 that claims that David prophesied through music.
The collection of prophets was still vague throughout most of the first century
CE and, as argued earlier, that collection appears to have included all of sacred
literature except for the Law and as we see above this includes also Psalms and
Job. In the second century CE, the term “prophets” was used occasionally for all
of the OT Scriptures. Justin, for example, describes reading Scripture in early
Christian worship when the people are gathered: “The memoirs of the apostles or
the writings of the prophets are read, as long as time permits” (1 Apol. 67, ANF,
emphasis added). No one suggests that Justin rejected the Law or the Writings in
this statement since he often refers to texts in both.
Since both Jews and Christians believed that God inspired all Scripture, all
of it therefore was prophetic. We should not, therefore, be surprised to see that
books that were eventually placed among the Writings later were earlier referred
to as prophetic books and classified among the Prophets. Because of the diversity
of literature in the Writings, however, it appears, as noted earlier, to have been
something of a “catch all” collection. Eventually, with the exception of Sirach, all
of the disputed books in the rabbinic literature found their place in the third part
of the tripartite Jewish biblical canon.72

V. THE EMERGING SCRIPTURAL CANON

As we have seen, early Christianity had a larger collection of Scriptures than those
adopted later in rabbinic Judaism and Protestant Christianity. Childs suggests that
the evidence of a larger collection of sacred texts came when the early churches
lost the scope of their sacred Scriptures, as it became more and more Gentile in its
composition. When the early churches began using the Greek translation of the HB,
he claims, they lost sight of the original contents of its Bible.73 This memory loss,
if there was such a loss, must have taken place rather early, since the NT writers
themselves cite from so-called non-canonical writings in the Greek translation

72
Jones, Formation of the Book of the Twelve, 64–68, also makes this argument about the prophetic
nature of all sacred literature.
73
Childs, Biblical Theology, 63.
370 THE FORMATION OF THE BIBLICAL CANON, VOLUME I

of their Scriptures and this reflects a broader use of ancient religious texts than
exist in the current biblical canons. Beckwith acknowledges that at a later time a
distinction can be found between the Christian OT canon and the HB of Judaism,
but this, he claims, took place only after the breach between the church and the
synagogue when Christians expanded the OT canon because “their knowledge
of the original Christian canon was becoming blurred.”74 The evidence that he
presents to support this claim, however, is unconvincing and lacks precision at
critical points as we have seen. The likelihood that the biblical canon of the early
Christians became “blurred” and that they somehow forgot the boundaries of their
own holy Scripture, if it were known, is unthinkable and without support.
Given the high regard that the early churches had for their Scriptures, the
thought that the identity those Scriptures, had the church known it, was lost is
most unlikely. Would any generation of Christians, Jewish or Gentile, forget
something that important that Jesus had handed on to them? If he had, one would
think that somewhere in the NT writings, most of which are certainly first century
CE, that someone would have said something about it. The teaching of Jesus
was the most important authority for the church – he was and is the Lord of the
church – and had he said something about the contours of a scripture canon it
would be remarkably unusual for his disciples to forget it or lose sight of it. The
burden of proof lies with Childs, Beckwith, Ellis, and others who say that Jesus
left behind an endorsed biblical canon and the early Christians forgot it or lost it.
Childs, of course, acknowledges that the OT Scriptures of the emerging second-
century church is not the same as the HB biblical canon, but his explanation of
how it happened is strange. That the followers of Jesus would have lost the list
of canonical books that he handed on to his disciples is a surprising response to
the fact the early Christians adopted a larger collection of Scriptures than the
collection of their later Jewish siblings, the rabbis in the later first and second
centuries. Given the high priority on the words of Jesus from the beginning of the
church (1 Cor 7:10), if Jesus had given a list of sacred books to his disciples, it
would be quite remarkable if no one remembered it. However, there is no evidence
in the NT that suggests that Jesus handed on to his disciples such a list. As noted
earlier, had Jesus passed on to his disciples a biblical canon, it is also remarkable
that Melito, bishop of the church in Sardis did not know what was in it. How
could he not have known something that important and yet be a bishop in a major
church? Childs’ assumption that the rabbinic Scripture canon was the same in the
first century before the Christians separated from their Jewish siblings cannot be
demonstrated nor that the early Christians lost awareness of a fixed biblical canon
that was circulating among them.

74
Beckwith, Old Testament Canon, 339–408.
TEXTS REFLECTING AN EMERGING BIBLICAL CANON 371

A better explanation for the wider biblical canon in the early church is that the
earliest Christians accepted a loosely defined collection of scriptures that they
inherited from their Jewish siblings before their separation from the synagogue.
That collection was not clearly defined at the time of the Christians’ separation
from Judaism beginning around 62–66 CE through to 132–135 CE. It was instead
in the late first and second centuries when the rabbis narrowed their sacred
collection to the books that are now in the HB, but at that time not all of the rabbis
were in agreement. The biblical canon in the time of Jesus was not as sharply
defined as it later became for the Jews. The other writings that informed the early
Christians included several of the noncanonical writings discovered at Qumran
that likely included some of the so-called seventy referred to by the author of
4 Ezra 14:45–46.
The obvious suggestion from the above is that the biblical canon in the time
of Jesus and before was not sharply defined, even though the Law and an
imprecise collection of prophets were widely received as authoritative Scriptures
in synagogues and early churches, including several other Jewish religious texts.
But why were such matters of little concern or interest to the earliest Christians
and the Jews in Late Second Temple Judaism? Is it because such matters had
already been settled long before, as some contend, or could it be that such matters
were simply not anyone’s special concern or interest at that time?
All of the Jewish religious texts that enabled the churches to communicate effec-
tively their faith in Jesus as the Christ were received and used in their formative
stages.75 Some of those writings were initially in a canon 1 stage of development
and were eventually rejected (e.g., 1 Enoch, Testaments of the Twelve Patriarchs,
and for some Wisdom of Solomon, and Sirach), but not by all and obviously not
soon. Some of the writings were later rejected because they did not continue to
address the ever-new issues and changing social conditions facing the Jews or the
churches.

75
David A. deSilva makes a convincing case that Jesus, his siblings, and early Christianity also
learned from several extra-canonical religious texts. See his Jewish Teachers of Jesus.
 CHAPTER 11

SCRIPTURE IN THE RABBINIC

TRADITION (90–550 CE)

After the destruction of Jerusalem and its Temple in 70 CE, a new era began for
the Jews from the rubble of their homeland. The Temple had been destroyed along
with their sacrificial system and the high priesthood. All that was meaningful to the
nation had been lost and the most important question among the surviving religious
leaders was how could the nation and its religious heritage survive such devastation.
The question was no longer “Why?” but rather, “What next?” How could Judaism
survive without a temple, sacrifices, and priesthood? Of the major Jewish religious
sects of the first century, namely Essenes, Sadducees, Pharisees, and followers of
Jesus, the Pharisees and the synagogue had a greater influence on the subsequent
religious heritage of the Jews following 70 CE (see discussion of these religious
sects in Chapter 7 §IV). The Pharisees were more popular and influential among
the people perhaps because of their significant involvement in the synagogues and
commitment to the Jewish Scriptures, especially the Jewish Scriptures that gave them
an edge in what survived the first-century disasters. Again, they were not the only
members of religious sects to survive the devastation of 66–70 CE (technically after
73 with the fall of Masada), but they were in the majority who formed the meeting
at Jamnia (Yavneh, also spelled Javneh, or Jabneh) to focus on the nation’s future
and how its devotion to Yahweh would manifest itself. This surviving expression
of the Pharisees was significantly informed by the Tannaitic1 oral traditions
that began in the early first century CE and were collected starting near the end of
the second century and put into their final form by Judah the Prince in the early
third centuries. Once the 63 tractates of the Mishnah were finished, almost immedi-
ately they began to be interpreted by the Amoraim2 and those interpretations were

1
Tannaim is the plural noun from the Aramaic “tanna” meaning “one who teaches” or “repeats
traditions.” This community began with Hillel and Shamm’ai (ca. 50 BC–30 CE) and possibly
earlier. The last of the Tannaim is Judah ha Nasi in the early third century CE.
2
Amora’im is a plural noun from the Aramaic “amora” meaning “speaker” or “interpreter,” and
the name given to the rabbinic interpreters of the Mishnah, the collection of tannaitic traditions from
roughly from 220 CE.
SCRIPTURE IN THE RABBINIC TRADITION (90–550 CE) 373

placed in two Talmudim, one from Babylon called the Bavli (siglum, b.) and the
other from the Land of Israel called the Yerushalmi (siglum, y.). Traditions not
included in the Mishnah were placed in the Tosefta.3
The relative silence about a well-defined collection of Scriptures among the
Pharisees, Essenes, and Sadducees in the first century CE began to change in the
early rabbinic period, namely in the late first and second centuries. The absence
of interest in a closed biblical canon earlier appears to emerge by the middle to
late of the second century CE for some rabbinic sages. There was never a time
when the rabbinic sages formed a council to deliberate the scope of their biblical
canon,4 but what emerged was by tradition and regular practice of reading certain
sacred texts in the synagogue. While there was no Jewish council to decide such
matters, there was an initial debate among some rabbis over the sacredness of
several books that eventually formed the HB. Over time debate declined and
eventually was silenced before the end of the rabbinic period. There were excep-
tions to the rabbinic biblical canon, especially whether Esther, Song of Songs,
Ecclesiastes, Ezekiel, and Sirach were among the Jewish sacred Scriptures. The
later Karaite Jews rejected all of the additional books beyond the Torah and
accepted only the Laws of Moses, but their views did not eventually carry the day.
It is not clear whether the rabbinic sages had much influence with the Diaspora
Jews regarding the scope of their Scriptures until well into the eighth or ninth
centuries (I will return to this topic below), but no later than the ninth century, the
rabbinic HB canon held sway among the majority of Jews in antiquity.
It is not uncommon today for scholars to speak of the second-century CE and
later canon developments as if they were also present in the early to middle first
century CE. But the available evidence does not support that notion. Second-
century rabbinic traditions did not emerge in the same multi-sectarian Jewish
context in which the early church was born. First-century Judaism had a Temple, a
sacrificial system, a priesthood, and a homeland that was at some peace until 66–70
CE despite Roman rule. That was not the case after 70 CE and in the following
centuries. It is therefore regularly taken with some suspicion when biblical
scholars assume that what was true in the second century and later was also true in
the first. In the first century, there is no evidence that anyone was talking about the
parameters of the Jewish Scriptures until the end of the first century and that was
not a universal focus. The absence of considerable interest in a closed collection
of Scriptures before the middle to late second century among the Jews suggests
a significant rabbinic influence on the shape of the Jewish biblical canon. Earlier
scholars argued that rabbinic Judaism and the Mishnaic tractates regularly reflect

3
A more complete discussion of Mishnah and Tosefta are in §III.A and also §IV.A and B below.
4
Zevit, “Second–Third Century Canonization,” 152, suggests that the canonization of the HB was
not complete until after the formation of the Mishnah and Tosefta were accepted as closed texts by
the followers of Judah the Prince (ca. 250–300 CE).
374 THE FORMATION OF THE BIBLICAL CANON, VOLUME I

first-century CE Judaism, but that cannot be true for all such expressions since the
times are significantly different as we saw above. This is especially true in regard
to the emergence of a HB canon.
As we noted earlier, one well-known assumption that has largely been dispelled
is that the religious leaders in Palestine who survived the destruction of the Jewish
temple disaster in 70 CE gathered together at a place called Jamnia to determine
the shape of their biblical canon, including the final part of their tripartite biblical
canon. Since that view is no longer sustainable, scholars have tended to move
earlier in their assessments of the formation of the HB or later. I will explore the
evidence for both positions in the rabbinic tradition and explore some of the more
relevant texts commonly cited for the various positions, but because of space, all
of those texts cannot be included here, but only listed.5

I. MYTH OF THE COUNCIL AT JAMNIA

Following the loss of the Jewish temple and its cultus, Rabbi Johanan ben Zakkai
requested permission from the Romans to establish a religious academy at Jamnia.
According to tradition (b. Rosh HaShanah 31a–b), this gathering of religious
leaders (perhaps something like a Sanhedrin) met first at Jamnia in the last decades
of the first century CE. Subsequently (ca. 135 CE) the gathering moved to Usha,
then to Shefara’am, then to Beth She’arim, then to Sepphoris (where the Mishnah
was put into its final form under the direction of Judah the Prince ca. 200–220),
and finally to Tiberias, where most of the Palestinian Talmud (the Yerushalmi, y.)
was finally formed.
For more than a century, biblical scholars taught that the Jews officially closed
the third part of their biblical canon, the Writings, at a supposed Council at Jamnia,
a small town located about thirty miles west and slightly north of Jerusalem (2 Chr
26:6; 1 Macc 5:58; Josephus, Ant. 12.308). At Jamnia, so the argument went,
Jewish religious leaders met and determined the final shape of the HB. It is not
the case, however, that those religious leaders who gathered together (there was
no “council” as such) at Jamnia around 90 CE made a final or binding decision
about the scope of their biblical canon.6 Debate continued among the sages over
the sacredness and scriptural status of some of their sacred books long after the

5
Readers are encouraged to consult the many cited rabbinic texts to sense the strength or weakness
of the arguments presented here. I am mindful of Jacob Neusner’s chiding of scholars who cite texts
without including them in their arguments and so I will include several of these relevant texts, but it
is not possible to include all of them in this limited format. See his Rabbinic Literature and the New
Testament: What We Cannot Show, We Do Not Know (Valley Forge, PA: Trinity Press International,
1994), 10–15.
6
The pivotally important work of Jack P. Lewis has largely changed scholarly views on this
matter. See his “What Do We Mean by Jabneh?”; “Jamnia (Jabneh), Council of,” ABD 3:634–37;
and “Jamnia Revisited.” Lewis’ research on this matter effectively ended the Jamnia hypothesis.
SCRIPTURE IN THE RABBINIC TRADITION (90–550 CE) 375

gathering at Jamnia. Some sages questioned whether certain books did or did not
“defile the hands.” The debates continued only in regard to a few of the books
in the third part of the HB and there appears to have been no questions about
the holiness and scriptural status of the books that comprised the Law and the
Prophets.
It does not appear that there was any group of religious leaders speaking
on behalf of all Jews regarding religious matters whether inside or outside of
Palestine at the end of the first century CE, and likely even later. Without question,
the majority of Jewish religious leaders who survived the devastations of the first
century were Pharisees who held a majority position on the scope or parameters
of the Jewish Scriptures. After the Jamnia hypothesis was abandoned, scholars had
to rethink the time when such matters on the scope of the HB canon were made.
Most rabbinic scholars today agree that there never was a council-like decision
about the scope of their biblical canon, but eventually a decision was made that
was welcomed by most Jews on the books that comprised their acknowledged
Scriptures. Some scholars contend that decisions on the shape of the HB canon
were made well before the Jamnia gathering, but others place them much later.
Most agree now that the gathering at Jamnia appears to have settled little or
nothing regarding the shape the Hebrew Scriptures, so the debate over when such
matters were eventually settled continues.
The notion about a Jamnia council decision was especially attractive to scholars
since no other prior time could be found in late Second Temple Judaism when
a significant decision was made about the scope of the Hebrew biblical canon.
Likewise, no known council after that made any decision about it either. No
evidence supports that any formal action was taken on the scope of the HB
Scriptures at Jamnia, and that conclusion is largely accepted today.7 Nevertheless,
the scope of the Hebrew biblical canon within Judaism appears to have been
largely settled for some rabbis by the middle to late second century CE, and by
the fourth century it was largely a settled matter for most Jews living under the
influence of rabbinic Judaism in Palestine. This consensus came largely from
widespread use and broad consensus rather than by council decisions. As we
will see below, some Jewish scholars have concluded that the matter was not
completely settled for all Jews, especially for those in the Diaspora, until well into
the eighth or ninth centuries, and for Karaite Jews even later as we will see below.
It has been suggested that the Jamnia Hypothesis was “a myth of Christian
scholarship,” but Aune has helpfully shown how the idea actually emerged instead
in Jewish scholarship. He traces this view to an 1871 publication by Jewish
historian Heinrich Graetz, who probably depended on Baruch Spinoza’s Tractatus
theologico-politicus (1670). Both Spinoza and Graetz held that the Hebrew

7
For further discussion of the refutation of the Jamnia hypothesis, see Leiman, Canonization of
the Hebrew Scripture, 120–24; Lewis, “Jamnia Revisited,” 159–62; and idem, “Jamnia (Jabneh),
Council of.”
376 THE FORMATION OF THE BIBLICAL CANON, VOLUME I

Scriptures were defined for the Jews late in the Second Temple period by the
Pharisees who acted as a “council” that made the final decisions about their biblical
canon.8 It was then assumed, based on m. Yadayim 3:59 and other rabbinic texts
(t. Yadayim 2:14; b. Megillah 7a; b. Sanhedrin 100a; and b. Shabbat 13b; 30a–b),
that a gathering or college of the sages led by Rabbi Eleazar ben Azariah met at
Jamnia and issued its decision about the Jewish biblical canon. Because it is now
widely recognized that these and other passages cited from rabbinic literature do
not support the Jamnia Hypothesis, scholars no longer find the hypothesis viable.
After the tragic events surrounding the destruction of the temple in Jerusalem
(66–70 CE) and the Bar Kokhba rebellion (132–135 CE), the influence of
messianic literature (i.e., literature that held out the hope of a coming messianic
leader who would free Israel from foreign oppression) rapidly declined.10 The
Jewish religious teachers who met at Jamnia after the destruction of Jerusalem
were largely asking how a religious faith that was once based on a temple and
sacrificial cult could survive without these institutions.11 At this time, some Jews
began to focus on the holiness or scriptural status of some of their sacred books
and their religious traditions more than on the earlier religious institutions. In
addition, the emergence of Christianity within Judaism, with its strong focus upon
apocalyptic and messianic literature, may have influenced the Jewish religious
community in Palestine to reject apocalyptic literature and the Jewish Christian
community altogether. Although that may have been a factor, more probably
it was the apocalyptic fervor among the Jews that inspired the second-century
messianic movement that resulted in a second national rebellion against Rome
(ca. 132–135 CE) and the second national disaster that led to barring them from
entering Jerusalem and to the renaming of Jerusalem, their holy city, as Aelia
Capitolina. This most likely encouraged surviving rabbinic elements of Judaism
to minimize or disregard most apocalyptic texts in their sacred Scripture collec-
tions. This is understandable and, interestingly, by the end of the second century
this was also true of early Christianity. A few apocalyptic expressions survived in
early Christianity, especially the book of Revelation, but earlier two other major
Christian Apocalypses were also quite popular among the Christians, namely

8
D. E. Aune, “On the Origins of the ‘Council of Javneh’ Myth,” JBL 110 (1991): 491–93. For
a helpful and more detailed discussion of this, see also the more recent examination of Shaye J. D.
Cohen, The Significance of Yavneh and Other Essays in Jewish Hellenism, TSAJ 136 (Tübingen:
Mohr Siebeck, 2010).
9
This text and others from this tractate are included in Chapter 2 §II above.
10
For further discussion of the disagreement, about the influence of messianic notions on Second
Temple and rabbinic Judaism, see J. Neusner, Messiah in Context: Israel’s History and Destiny
in Formative Judaism (Philadelphia: Fortress, 1984), and C. A. Evans, “Mishna and Messiah ‘in
Context’: Some Comments on Jacob Neusner’s Proposals,” JBL 112 (1993): 267–89.
11
James A. Sanders, Canon and Community: A Guide to Canonical Criticism (Philadelphia:
Fortress, 1984), 9, claims that this was one of Judaism’s most important issues following the destruc-
tion of Jerusalem in 69–70 CE.
SCRIPTURE IN THE RABBINIC TRADITION (90–550 CE) 377

Shepherd of Hermas and the Apocalypse of Peter. Those fell into disfavor and
were not included in the Christian biblical canon and Revelation itself had a rocky
reception for several centuries.
During the period of self-definition and reassessment after 135 CE, a more
conservative rabbinic biblical canon appears to have obtained widespread recog-
nition in those communities with the strongest rabbinic influence, namely from
Israel to Babylon. From that time on, there was a minimal apocalyptic focus in the
nation (e.g., the book of Daniel and Isa 24–26). The Bar Kokhba rebellion and its
consequences for the nation probably had the greatest impact on Jewish rejection
of that literature. The messianic movement that led to the rebellion against Rome
in 132–135 CE was almost certainly influenced by the apocryphal and pseude-
pigraphal literature current in Palestine in the first century CE. After the defeat
of this second Jewish rebellion against Rome, apocalyptic literature was less
likely viewed as inspired Scripture (see, for example, the relative absence of such
literature or views about it in the Mishnah).12 Some questions remain about Jewish
abandonment of most apocalyptic and messianic literature and why more of it was
not incorporated into the Jewish biblical canon given its earlier popularity in the
first century, but, again, the disaster of 132–135 CE that ended the Bar Kokhba
rebellion seems to be the most likely explanation. Sanders claims that following
the destruction of the Temple in 70 CE, at the conference in Jamnia (ca. 70–90
CE) the new leaders, mostly Pharisaic, understood that Rabbinic Judaism was
broad enough to include many expressions of Judaism “as long as the emphasis
was on obedience to and living lives of Torah without resort to eschatological
misadventures; it firmly believed that such divine interventions had ceased with
the demise of prophecy in the Persian period.” He concludes: “what remained
of early Jewish apocalyptic or eschatological vision was largely lodged in the
early Christian movement.”13 That minimizing of eschatological beliefs, with the
occasional emergence of apocalyptic movements as in the Montanist movement
in the late second century, was also generally true of second-century and later
developing early Christianity.

12
Christians were also heavily influenced by the apocalyptic and messianic fervor present in the
land of Israel in the first century CE (see Mark 13; Matt 24; Acts 1:6–7; 1 Thess 4:13–5:11; and the
book of Revelation). However, Christians who had focused on Jesus as the long-expected Messiah
who would soon return, began to rethink this part of their earlier belief as time went on when Jesus
had not returned and most or all of his disciples (apostles) had died, as we see the challenges to
that earlier belief implied in 2 Pet 3:3 and 3:8–10. For helpful discussions of the presence and
influence of apocalyptic messianic notions in Judaism and early Christianity, see J. J. Collins, ed.,
Encyclopedia of Apocalypticism, Vol. 1: The Origins of Apocalypticism in Judaism and Christianity
(New York: Continuum, 1998), especially chapters by J. J. Collins (129–61), J. C. VanderKam
(193–228), D. C. Allison (267–302), M. C. de Boer (345–83), and D. Frankfurter (415–53). See
also VanderKam and Adler, eds., Jewish Apocalyptic Heritage; and A. Yarbro Collins, ed., Early
Christian Apocalypticism.
13
J. A. Sanders, “Judaism: Early Judaism 580 BCE–70 CE.” James Sanders forwarded this forth-
coming article to me in draft form.
378 THE FORMATION OF THE BIBLICAL CANON, VOLUME I

Again, the so-called Council of Jamnia did not stabilize or settle the shape of the
HB canon as we see in several continuing debates throughout the rabbinic period
about whether certain writings noted earlier “defiled the hands.”14

II. THE WRITINGS AND THE TRIPARTITE

HEBREW BIBLE CANON
The third part of the Jewish Scriptures that form the Tanak is collectively
identified as the Writings (Heb., ‫ )כתובים‬or Hagiographa (Greek, “holy writings”)
and includes some religious texts with a historical orientation (1–2 Chronicles,
Ezra–Nehemiah, Ruth, Esther), some that are poetic and wisdom literature (Job,
Proverbs, Ecclesiastes, Psalms, Song of Songs, Lamentations), and one that
is prophetic, if not apocalyptic (Daniel). The Writings are often dated in post-
exilic times, the claim being that they reflect on Israel’s earlier history and God’s
divine activity in their nation with the offer of hope to the Jewish nation in their
challenging times when they are no longer in control of their nation and are living
under foreign control. However, as noted, some of the Writings may date much
earlier as in the case of the Royal Psalms (Pss 2, 18, 20, 21, 45, 72, 101, 132, 144:1–
11 and likely also Ps 89). The Royal Psalms focus on aspects or ideology of king-
ship and reflect Israel’s earlier history. Ruth, Job, and perhaps also several of the
Proverbs, also are reflective of pre-exilic times (e.g., Prov 25:1 speaks of kings).
As a collection, the Writings appear to lack the cohesion in terms of genre
found in the Law and Former Prophets or Latter Prophets and some scholars
have posited that the Writings even appear to be something of a “hodgepodge” or
“catch all” collection of sacred texts that do not fit easily together. Hancock, for
example, suggests that in many cases the authors appear to believe that God is no
longer acting as God did in pre-exilic times. She adds that Ezra–Nehemiah and
Chronicles were not included among the Prophets because of their belief that God
was no longer acting the same way as in pre-exilic times and subsequently, in the
thinking of the scribes and leaders of the Jewish people, there was a perceived
need to establish a new division of their Scriptures.15
Several scholars who argue for a more coherent pattern and order of the Writings
challenge the above view and make arguments for a rationale for their order. For
example, Steinberg and Stone reject the conclusion that there is no perceived
order.16 Stone also rejects this “catch-all” depiction contending for a coherent
pattern in the Ketubim, but most scholars have concluded that what unites the

14
For a discussion of the origin and the use of this term see Chapter 2 §II above and also m. Kelim
15:6 and t. Yadayim 2.19–20.
15
Rebecca S. Hancock, “Canon, Hebrew Bible,” in Coogan, ed., The Oxford Encyclopedia of the
Books of the Bible, 1:87–96, here 89.
16
See a collection of scholars who hold to this view in Steinberg and Stone, eds., The Shape of the
Writings.
SCRIPTURE IN THE RABBINIC TRADITION (90–550 CE) 379

collection most is its focus on the earlier activity of God and the earlier divinely
inspired writings, especially Torah.17 Seitz also rejects the “catch all” depiction of
the Writings, but acknowledges that as it stands the Writings “derive their logic,
canonically, from being external to, independent of, but in loose association with,
not one another, but the individual books or mature arrangements of the Law and
the Prophets. Any association they have with one another within the Writings…
is a much weaker form of relationship.”18 He acknowledges that the Writings “are
a diverse collection” yet concludes that “the internal logic of the Writings is not
associative but serial” and later acknowledges the “haphazard character” of the
Writings that lends them to “migration” to other locations in the OT Scriptures,
such as we see in their varied locations in the LXX or Christian OT Scriptures and
in the MT tradition.19
Seitz’s subsequent attempt to make the collection of Writings more coherent
appears to be special pleading, but he defends the location of Daniel among
wisdom literature and acknowledges how Ruth, the Chronicles, Ezra–Nehemiah,
and Esther could be relocated among the historical section that we see in the
Christian OT canon. Nevertheless, he still claims that their function is best under-
stood in the current Tanak sequence. He acknowledges that the Ketubim have
migrated in the Christian Bibles, and concludes that this “does not deny that there
is stability, but this stability does not preclude shuffling and migrating.” Oddly, the
diversity among the Writings makes it unnecessary for the NT to “refer to them as
a distinct canonical unit in order for them to be fully a part of a stable ‘OT,’ albeit
in shifting orders.”20 This assumes, of course, the unity of the Writings during the
time of the production of the NT writings, but, as we have shown earlier, presently
that cannot be established. The First Scriptures of the NT are simply “Law and the
Prophets” and there is no attempt to “migrate” works from an established order of
Ketubim to a new order in the Christian OT. The same is true for the majority of
the early rabbinic sages with only one exception, namely b. Baba Bathra 14b that
we will examine below. It appears that the rationale for the order of the Writings
is a modern invention that is not prominent or even present in antiquity. With the
large variety of orders in the Writings from antiquity, it is difficult to press the
logic of one particular order and moreover why it only becomes an important
factor in modern scholarship.
This raises the question for Seitz of whether the Christian fourfold or quadri-
partite order of the OT is inappropriate and he answers that it is not, but maintains
that the full meaning of the Writings are best understood within the tripartite
Tanak “when the fundamental logic and grammar of the tripartite structure has

17
Stone, Compilational History of the Megilloth. For a similar view, see also Christopher R. Seitz,
The Goodly Fellowship of the Prophets: The Achievement of Association in Canon Formation,
Acadia Studies in Bible and Theology (Grand Rapids: Baker Academic, 2009).
18
Seitz, The Goodly Fellowship of the Prophets, 99–100.
19
Ibid., 106–9.
20
Ibid., 109–19, the final quote is on 119.
380 THE FORMATION OF THE BIBLICAL CANON, VOLUME I

been grasped…”21 This, like the arguments posited by Stone, fails to explain
why no one in antiquity came up with his argument for the current order of the
tripartite canon of the HB, and especially the particular order advanced by Seitz
and Stone. Their view does not reflect the fact that the history of the transmission
of the Writings has numerous arrangements of the Ketubim, that they admit are
present in the surviving manuscripts, including one that places the megilloth
immediately after Torah.22 It remains unclear why the arrangement or order of
the Writings makes so much sense to modern scholars when their arrangement
varied so much in antiquity and the majority of ancient rabbis did not make a
coherent argument for their order. No ancient writer makes the claims that some
moderns make about the arrangement of the books in the Writings, certainly not
the authors of the Writings. Such arguments only appear in modern scholarship
but are absent in both the ancient rabbinic sages and the early church fathers who
are also silent about the rationale for either a tripartite or quadripartite division
of the HB or OT Scriptures. Brandt acknowledges correctly “the books attributed
to the ‘Writings’ in the Jewish Bibles seldom appear in a unified collection. A
historical reason for this may be that the ‘Writings’ were not yet considered a
fixed canonical concept in those circles propagating the reception of the Jewish
Bible in early Christianity.”23 He concludes that the order of the Writings was not
established prior to the separation of the church from the synagogue (ca. 62–135
CE). As noted already, it makes little sense for the church to adopt all of the Jewish
Scriptures in the present Tanak, but not its order if that order was circulating
among the Jews in Palestine before the Jewish and Christian separation. Steinberg
and Stone try to make their case for a tripartite Jewish biblical canon based on
their interpretation of the Prologue to Ben Sira (Sirach), the Dead Sea Scrolls,
the New Testament (especially Luke 11:49–51 and 24:44), Josephus (Ag. Apion
1.37–43), 4 Ezra 14, b. Baba Bathra 14b, and the order in the Leningrad Codex.
These texts, however, as we have already seen, do not in themselves (except
b. Baba Bathra 14b) argue for the formation of a tripartite Jewish biblical canon
as they suppose and those texts do not support the classical current form or order
of the Tanak or the order of the Writings.24
Some scholars conclude that what characterizes the Writings is its focus on the
earlier activity of God and earlier divinely inspired writings, especially Torah.
Perhaps, the Writings were isolated as later books that simply did not fit the earlier

21
Ibid., 123.
22
Peter Brandt draws attention to this divergence in surviving manuscripts and Jewish traditions
in his “Final Forms of Writings: The Jewish and Christian Traditions,” in Steinberg and Stone,
eds., Shape of the Writings, 59–85, especially 61–67. He correctly observes and acknowledges that
especially within the Christian OT, but also in the rabbinic tradition within the Writings that Ruth
and Song of Songs can be interchanged, and so can Job and Proverbs, as well as Ecclesiastes and
Lamentations. He also notes correctly the variable locations of the Chronicles.
23
Ibid., 83.
24
See Steinberg and Stone, “The Historical Formation of the Writings,” here 3–4.
SCRIPTURE IN THE RABBINIC TRADITION (90–550 CE) 381

two categories and formed something of a “different” collection, but it may also
be that they formed a bridge between the Law and the Prophets on the one hand
and the later rabbinic sacred texts on the other, especially the Mishnah and its
gemara (the two Talmudim) that explained the significance of the earlier collec-
tions.25 By themselves, the Writings collectively, however, do not have a coherent
historical or sequential pattern like the books that form the Torah (or books of the
Tetrateuch), or the Former Prophets and somewhat in the Latter Prophets.
The third part of the tripartite Hebrew Bible canon (Tanak) is complex without
a simple explanation for its formation in antiquity. As noted, the Writings tend to
encourage faithfulness to Yahweh for a devastated people who have lost control
of their country and their temple with its sacrifices, and the Jews who survived
the devastation and were living in the diaspora under foreign powers. The people
who survived the devastation of the collapse of all of their securities can in the
Writings find hope for those who faithfully return to Yahweh, e.g., Daniel and
implied in Esther. The emphasis in the Writings is placed on the past activities
of God as affirmation that God will care for his people in their times of distress.
The focus on the past emphasizes that faithful obedience to Yahweh and to their
sacred Scriptures (Ps 119) will provide guidelines for divine favor and hope for
deliverance. It further does not follow, as Steinberg and Stone claim, that those
who oppose their arguments for the order of the Writings argue that the Writings
were not recognized as scriptural texts before they were put into their current
order in the Tanak. This notion does not appear to see how many of the Writings
functioned as scriptural texts and were cited as Scripture before they were
separated from the prophetic corpus and placed in the Ketubim in the Tanak. They
were unquestionably welcomed as “prophetic” scriptural texts before the forma-
tion of a tripartite HB canon. The following examples will illustrate this point.
At Qumran, the Essene Jews viewed both Daniel and Psalms as prophetic liter-
ature. This is also true in the NT, as we saw earlier. Daniel, Psalms, and also Esther
underscore the Divine presence and activity among the Jewish people even after
they earlier had failed to obey God’s divine commandments and consequently
suffered great loss. The Writings offer commentary on the Law and the earlier
prophetic texts and bring encouragement and hope to the Jewish people as they
face their present post-exilic circumstances. Because of their focus on the earlier
acts of God and earlier prophetic admonitions, the Writings may anticipate later
notions that prophecy had ceased in Israel and the hope that the Spirit would one
day return. Some exilic texts suggest that because of Israel’s failure the activity
of God is no longer present as in the past and a new day lies before them if there
is a renewal of obedience to God (Jer 31:31–34; Ezek 36:26–27; 37:1–14). This
notion of the cessation of prophetic activity is first presented to the people during
the Hasmonean Dynasty (ca. 165–160 BCE; cf. 1 Macc 4:45–46; 9:27; 14:41). See
the earlier discussion of this in Chapter 5 §V above.

25
Morgan makes this argument in his Between Text and Community.
382 THE FORMATION OF THE BIBLICAL CANON, VOLUME I

Daniel, a Jewish story with prophetic and apocalyptic visions, was later placed
among the Writings, but it was understood as one of the prophets in the first
centuries BCE and CE, especially at Qumran, in the New Testament, Josephus,
and the early church fathers who regularly place Daniel among the Major Prophets
(Isaiah, Jeremiah, and Ezekiel) with the exception of Jerome.
At Qumran, Daniel is clearly acknowledged as a prophet. For example: “it is
[…a]s is written in the book of Daniel, the prophet” (Martinez and Tigchelaar
trans., 1:355), referring to Dan 12:10 and 11:32 (4Q174 1–3.ii.3). Anderson and
Barton have shown that at Qumran the phrase “as it is written in the book of the
prophet Daniel” appears multiple times.26 In the NT, Jesus refers to Dan 11:31
and 12:11 with the words, “as was spoken by the prophet Daniel” (Matt 24:15).
Josephus also regularly referred to Daniel as a prophet who prophesied (Josephus,
Ant. 10:245–46, 249) and even claimed that he was “one of the greatest of the
prophets” (Ant. 10:266) who authored several books and “was wont to prophesy
future things, as did the other prophets” (10:267). Josephus may be referring also
to the later additions to Daniel now in the LXX.
Even in the second century CE, when introducing Dan 7:24 and subsequently
7:7–8, the author of the Epistle of Barnabas (4:4) begins: “For also the prophet
says…” Later in the rabbinic tradition Daniel was designated a prophet among the
prophets Haggai, Zechariah, and Malachi.

“Moreover, he spoke thus even of Daniel, who was greater than he. And whence do we know
that Daniel was greater than he? From the verse, And I Daniel alone saw the vision: for the
men that were with me saw not the vision; but a great quaking fell upon them, so that they fled
to hide themselves. ‘For the men that were with me saw not the vision’: now who were these
men? – R. Jeremiah – others say R. Hiyya b. Abba – said: Haggai, Zecharia and Malachi.”
(b. Sanhedrin 93b, Soncino trans.)

Similarly, in y. Megillah 2.2a Daniel is placed alongside of Jeremiah and praised

among the prophets. That text reads: “And may mortal men [such as Jeremiah
and Daniel] cut these [titles of praise] out of the prayer to God? Said R. Isaac bar
Eleazar, ‘The prophets knew full well that their God is honest, and they were not
going to flatter him’ ” (y. Meg. 2.2a, Levy and Neusner trans.).27 It appears that
Daniel was placed among the Writings for the first time in the mid- to late second-
century baraita text b. Baba Bathra 14b (ca. 150–180 CE), but the residents of
Qumran, the NT writers, Josephus, most early church fathers, and even some
rabbinic sages regularly placed Daniel among the Prophets.
If the Prophets were closed before Daniel was written, it is not clear why
first- and second-century Jews and Christians referred to Daniel as a prophet and
included or associated that book with prophetic literature. Collins observes that
Daniel and the Psalms were both viewed as prophetic literature in the Qumran

26
See Anderson, “Canonical and Non-Canonical,” 151. See also Barton, Oracles of God, 40–42.
27
Barton, Oracles of God, 36.
SCRIPTURE IN THE RABBINIC TRADITION (90–550 CE) 383

pesharim (commentaries) and apart from them, none of the other Ketubim had
pesharim written to interpret them.28 Flint concludes that Daniel and Psalms were
viewed as prophetic texts at Qumran and observes that Daniel was often intro-
duced with the words: “As it is written in the book of Daniel the Prophet” (4Q174
2:3), and he cites 11QPsa 27:2–11 noting that after numbering David’s compo-
sition the author concludes “All these he composed through prophecy which was
given him from before the Most High.”29
This all raises the question of when Daniel and the Psalms were separated from
the prophetic corpus and included in the Writings and more importantly whether
the Writings as such were a fixed collection before the second century CE. The
notion that prophecy had ceased was apparently a later dogma read back into the
earlier period after Rabbinic Judaism gained a leading place in Judaism at the
end of the first century or at the beginning of the second. According to Sanders,
this tradition did not appear to take widespread hold until the late first and second
centuries CE.30 The Ketubim reflect little awareness of God’s intrusion into history
after the beginning of the Persian Period, and this can be seen in later Jewish
interpretations of Daniel. It is likely and coincidental that the Ketubim were
not stabilized into a fixed collection separated from the Prophets until well into
the second century CE. It appears that a belief emerged that God had departed
from acting in history in ways that God had acted earlier and so Jews withdrew
from political and cultural history until relatively recently. They began to live in
closed communities by themselves – until the Jüdische Wissenschaft period in
mid-nineteenth century.31
Perhaps, as suggested earlier, due to the catastrophic disaster that happened in
the Bar Kochba rebellion, an apocalyptic and messianic movement that rebelled
against Roman occupation of the Land of Israel, Jews turned away from their
earlier focus on apocalyptic. The book of Daniel is the only exception among
many apocalyptic texts circulating in Palestine that was finally included in the HB.
It may be, as some have suggested, that instead of the apocalyptic aspects of the
book (chs. 7–12), the later rabbinic focus on the book was on Dan 1–6 that was
welcomed as edifying stories that encouraged those going through the challenges
from foreign empires dominating and controlling the life of their people whether
in their homeland or in the diaspora. In other words, Daniel was welcomed in
the rabbinic tradition because of its message that God would see the Jewish
people through their persecutions and oppression. This is similar to the rest of the
Ketubim, the majority of which focus on a strong belief in God’s earlier activity
in the nation that offers hope in the future for those oppressed. References to the

28
Collins, Seers, Sybils and Sages, 14.
29
Peter Flint, “Noncanonical Writings in the Dead Sea Scrolls: Apocrypha, Other Previously
Known Writings, Pseudepigrapha,” in Flint, ed., The Bible at Qumran, 80–123, here 116–17.
30
J. A. Sanders, “Issue of Closure in the Canonical Process,” 258.
31
Ibid.
384 THE FORMATION OF THE BIBLICAL CANON, VOLUME I

cessation of prophecy were known among the second century BCE Jews, as we
saw above, but not all Jews of that period believed that prophecy and the presence
of the Spirit were absent from the Jewish people, as we saw in the Qumran and
early Jewish Christian writings (Chapter 5 §VI).
The books whose sacred status was most questioned by some late first-, second-,
and third-century rabbinic sages include Song of Songs, Ecclesiastes, Esther, and
Sirach, all of which are or would have been placed among the Writings. Ezekiel,
as we will see below, was also challenged because of the difficulty of harmo-
nizing it with the Pentateuch. Sirach was quite popular among the Jews and early
Christians, but was finally not included in the Jewish Scriptures and debates over
its sacredness continued among the rabbinic sages well into the fourth century
CE. Because of such debates, it is difficult to determine the stabilization of the
third part of the Tanak before the second century CE at the earliest. The divisions
or categories of Josephus’ sacred Scriptures in Ag. Apion 1.37–43 do not parallel
any other known collection of Jewish Scriptures, but, along with 4 Ezra 14:44–47,
they point to a fixed collection for some Jews by the end of the first century.
However, the specific books in Josephus’ collection are not disclosed at that time
nor do we know whether only the books in his collection were widely accepted
at that time. While the number of books in those collections appear fixed, namely
twenty-two or twenty-four, in neither case do those numbers reflect the actual
number of sacred books in the HB canon. It is not certain whether the inclusion of
Sirach would have changed either of the special numbers, twenty-two or twenty-
four, since in all cases those numbers were only possible by combining books.
That question is not addressed in rabbinic discussions of the number twenty-four,
though the use and citation of Sirach as scripture continued among them for more
than 200 years after the divine number (24) was selected. Those numbers were
chosen because of their significance in identifying the sacredness of the Scriptures
by using the letters of the Hebrew or Greek alphabets, but not because of the
specific books in them until after the emergence of the b. Baba Bathra 14b text for
some Jews. The later debates over the sacred status of some of the disputed books
without reference to the sacred number demonstrate this point.
As we saw earlier, evidence of the inclusion of the Writings among the Prophets
before the second century CE can be seen in 4 Maccabees (ca. 40–54 CE).32 Its
author tells the story of a mother informing her children about their father (18:10)
who “taught you the law and the prophets” after which she refers to incidents or
texts in the Pentateuch, Daniel, Isaiah, David (“he sang to you songs of the psalmist
David” 18:15), Proverbs, and Ezekiel, and in that order. This suggests, of course,
that Daniel, David (“the psalmist”), and Proverbs were all viewed as prophetic
literature and not separated from the Prophets by the author of 4 Maccabees.

32
It is difficult to date 4 Maccabees, but that a Diaspora Jew wrote it during the mid-first century
CE is likely. For a rationale for this dating see Hugh Anderson, “Fourth Maccabees,” ABD
4:452–54.
SCRIPTURE IN THE RABBINIC TRADITION (90–550 CE) 385

Throughout the first century CE there was no distinction between the Writings
and the Prophets for most Jews. That separation appears to have begun later in
the second century. Likewise, it is not clear whether in the first century CE all of
the books in the Ketubim were acknowledged as Scripture. Later rabbinic disputes
about some of the Writings (Song of Songs, Ecclesiastes, and Esther) appear to
reflect uncertainty about their status. Some of the rabbinic debates about the status
of Song of Songs, Ecclesiastes, and Esther are also reflected in some of the early
church canonical lists that exclude them (see examples in Appendix A below).
Another important question about the Writings has to do with their place and
order of books. Since the LXX, which was followed by the Christians, does not
follow the sequence or division of books of the Tanak, we must ask whether
the Christians invented the sequence of Law, history, poetry and wisdom, and
prophets or whether they inherited it. Since we have no evidence of the tripartite
divisions in the HB canon before the middle to late second century CE, and since
the Christians adopted the Jewish Scriptures circulating among the Jews in the
first century before their separation from their Jewish siblings, it is not clear when
the four-fold division of those Scriptures adopted by the Christians first appears.
The Christians produced the primary Septuagint or LXX manuscripts that have
survived antiquity and they did not adopt the HB tripartite order or divisions.
For the most part, the early Christians did not follow the tripartite division of
the Jewish Scriptures. Did the Christians, who accepted the Scriptures of their
Jewish siblings, choose to accept the same sacred books circulating among the
Jews in the first century before their separation but not the tripartite division or
did they simply inherit the collections in the order that is reflected in the surviving
manuscripts and canon catalogues? The most important and most complete LXX
manuscripts, primarily Codices Vaticanus, Sinaiticus, and Alexandrinus, do not
follow the HB tripartite order and divisions. Although the codices Sinaiticus and
Alexandrinus do end with some of the Writings, the sequence is not exactly like
the Tanak. For example, Daniel follows Ezekiel in Alexandrinus and both Ezekiel
and Daniel are missing (fragmented gap in the manuscript) in Sinaiticus,33 but both
are missing among the Prophets and are not among the Writings. Jerome, who was
heavily influenced by Jewish interpreters, offers the closest parallel to the Tanak
order, but even there it is not exactly the same order. Ruth is combined with Judges
and Lamentations with Jeremiah (Preface to the Books of Samuel and Kings), but
in his other listing, Jerome places Daniel among the prophets and follows Ezekiel.
Ruth also follows Judges (see Jerome, Ep. 53.8). Again, while the order in most
Christian catalogues and manuscripts follows a modified quadripartite order,
this does not necessarily indicate that the manuscripts and catalogues follow a
Christian division, but that the order in the Christian manuscripts may have been
inherited from earlier Jewish scribes, probably from the Diaspora.

33
Most of the Pentateuch, Former Prophets, and Ezekiel and Daniel are missing in this manuscript,
but Daniel is not among the Writings in it.
386 THE FORMATION OF THE BIBLICAL CANON, VOLUME I

The order and sequences of the books in the Tanak vary in the history of the
reception and identification of the Writings. In the lists and manuscripts that have
survived antiquity, the Ketubim are in different sequences in the lists of Christian
OT Scriptures. Isodore, Bishop of Seville (ca. 600), for example, includes the
Writings among the Former Prophets and Latter Prophets. No Christian list of
the LXX OT Scriptures replicates exactly the HB Tanak listing or ordering of
the Writings. Although Origen, Jerome, and Codex Sinaiticus and also Codex
Alexandrinus have some overlap with the Ketubim in terms of the placement of
these books, namely putting some of the Ketubim toward the end of their lists,
none have exactly the same order that we find in the Writings. The order in the
Jewish lists of Scriptures (see Appendix §A.1) also varies and Jerome reflects the
closest parallel to the order in the HB Scriptures.
There is nothing inappropriate in the Tanak divisions or the sequence of books in
it, though unlike in the Law and Prophets, there is little rationale for the common
sequence in the Writings. If the popular understanding is correct that the Prophets
are commentary on the Law and that the Writings are reflective of the activity
of God in the Law and Prophets, why would the Christians object to this pattern
or sequence of books if they had known of it when they separated from their
Jewish siblings? There is little in it that challenges the Christian proclamation and
tradition even though the quadripartite order is more conducive to the Christian’s
two Testaments. It is interesting that many, if not most, Christian seminaries teach
the Old Testament using the Tanak divisions as a model to follow in their study
of the Old Testament. However, if the early Christians inherited the order of their
OT Scriptures from the LXX, how did the authors of the LXX arrive at the order
or sequence commonly adopted in Christian Bibles? It may be that the Christians
reordered their OT Scriptures, namely ending with the Twelve and Malachi at the
end to allow for the anticipation of a fulfillment motif that points to the coming of
Elijah (Mal 4:5–6). In Matthew, the next book in the Christian Bible, the role of
Elijah is fulfilled in John the Baptist (Matt 11:7–15), who announces Jesus’ special
role in the plan of God. However, that order of the HB Scriptures would not be
inappropriate for first-century BCE and CE Diaspora Jews, who were looking
for a coming messianic figure, as well as for Jewish Christians, if both were
concerned about the future kingdom and activity of God and messianic activity.
Sanders has shown that the two different orders in the HB and Christian OT reflect
an important theological difference in how the collection can be interpreted,34 but
does the logic of the sequence of the books in the LXX derive from a Christian
theological perspective or from an earlier perspective of Diaspora Jews who may
have had a similar theological perspective?

34
J. A. Sanders, “‘Spinning’ the Bible.” He argues that the difference in the divisions and sequence
is not accidental, but makes an important statement about the distinctions between Jewish and Chris-
tian orders of the same Scriptures. See also idem, “Stabilization of the Tanak.”
SCRIPTURE IN THE RABBINIC TRADITION (90–550 CE) 387

F. F. Bruce may be right in suggesting that the order in the Septuagint may not
have been something created by the Christians, but rather one of several arrange-
ments among Jews in the Diaspora before and during early Christianity. The
transmitters of the LXX themselves may have tried to order the historical books
in the Writings within the historical order of the Former and Latter Prophets.
He reminds us that the current order in English Bibles derives from the Latin
Vulgate that is closer to the LXX than the HB.35 Modern publications of the LXX
generally follow the order of books in Codex Vaticanus, but several LXX codices
differ from that order suggesting that the sequence was not a major concern in
the Christian communities and that the sequence varied in different locations and
historical contexts.
In the Christian OT, Ruth follows Judges and is followed by the Samuels. The
Chronicles, Ezra–Nehemiah, and Esther generally follow the Former Prophets,
and Daniel, which was viewed as prophetic literature at Qumran and in the NT,
generally follows Isaiah, Jeremiah, and Ezekiel and comes before the Twelve, but
sometimes the Twelve come before the Major Three or Four with Daniel at the
end of the Four. The Poetic and Wisdom literature generally follows the historical
books and the OT collection concludes with the Latter prophets. Diaspora Jews
may have adopted a different and earlier sequence in their LXX translation
than the order followed in the Tanak. The early Christians, who adopted the
LXX as their first collection of Scriptures, may have inherited an earlier order
and sequence of books that was present in the LXX that they adopted. This, of
course, is speculation, but the lack of primary evidence to the contrary leaves that
possibility open. Since the emphasis on apocalyptic literature was minimized in
Rabbinic Judaism following the two Jewish rebellions against Rome (66–73 and
132–135 CE), it is possible that the change in the divisions from Law and Prophets
to Law, Prophets, and Writings was a result of those two national disasters. The
notion of the cessation of prophecy that was emphasized in rabbinic Judaism was
not as uniformly pronounced in the various Jewish sects in the first centuries BCE
and CE.
Since several of the Writings are cited as Torah or Law or included among
the “prophets” in the NT, and since the tripartite Tanak distinctions are not
found in Jewish literature before the middle to end of the second century CE (b.
Baba Bathra 14b) and the Tanak divisions are not obvious in Qumran literature,
NT literature, or in Josephus, it seems obvious that those distinctions were not
functional in the first century CE. Again, since the Jewish Scriptures were all
transmitted in individual rolls or scrolls, it is difficult to find consistency in order
or sequence until the rabbis begin to make use of the codex centuries later.
There is insufficient evidence available that allows scholars to trace the
acceptance of all of the documents later included in the Writings, but that is not
evidence that they were not welcomed among the Jewish Scriptures at an earlier

35
See F. F. Bruce, Books and the Parchments, 81–82.
388 THE FORMATION OF THE BIBLICAL CANON, VOLUME I

time. Although copies of some of the Ketubim are among the Dead Sea Scrolls,
apart from Daniel and Psalms, the rest are fewer in number and several of the
others are not cited as Scripture in the Qumran literature, in Philo, in the NT
literature, or in Josephus (e.g., Ezra–Nehemiah and Esther). Among the most
commonly recognized and cited texts among the Writings are Psalms, Daniel, the
Chronicles, and Proverbs, but, if the Dead Sea Scrolls are suggestive of a sacred
status, all of the Writings except Esther were discovered there and probably recog-
nized as Scripture as well.
The formation of the third part of the tripartite Hebrew Bible canon is complex
and an explanation for its existence is missing in antiquity. As noted above, most
of the Writings are post-exilic, but not all. Ruth is likely pre-exilic since the
circumstances in it reflect a time when there was no problem for Israelite men
taking Moabite wives. The commands against intermarriage (Num 25:1–9) are
either ignored or reflect a later period in Israel’s history. Ruth does not have a
polemical tone that defends the marriage of foreign women or that espouses such
practices that were later condemned in the post-exilic period (Ezra 10:6–17; Neh
13:23–27).36
Returning now to the origin of the tripartite biblical canon, since the Christians
adopted the Septuagint (LXX) as their first Scriptures and the surviving copies
of it do not follow the divisions or sequence of books in the Tanak, we ask again
whether the Christians invented the sequence now in the Christian OT or whether
they inherited it? The sequence of Law, history, poetry and wisdom, and prophets
is certainly the order of most Christian manuscripts and lists or catalogues of the
Christian OT, but where did that order come from? The LXX manuscripts that
contain all or the majority of the OT books have survived in Christian manuscripts
that also contain NT books, as in the cases of Codices Vaticanus, Sinaiticus,
and Alexandrinus from the fourth and fifth centuries. Codices Sinaiticus and
Alexandrinus end with some of the Writings (not all), but in neither case is the
sequence the same as the Tanak. In these manuscripts, Daniel follows Ezekiel
in Alexandrinus and both Ezekiel and Daniel are missing in Sinaiticus, but the
gap where they would fit is among the Latter Prophets, not among the Writings.
But again, this does not indicate that either of these manuscripts is necessarily
following a Christian sequence. In Sinaiticus, Chronicles, 2 Esdras, and Esther
are located in the same place as they are in most Christian lists, and Lamentations
follows Jeremiah. In Codex Alexandrinus, Daniel follows Ezekiel and Esther
follows Daniel. The point here is that no known LXX collection replicates exactly
the Tanak order, but the books that comprise the Writings are all included and
scattered throughout the LXX OT books, though the poetic and wisdom books are
generally grouped together.

36
I am following here the arguments in Collins, Introduction to the Hebrew Bible (2nd ed.),
550–51.
SCRIPTURE IN THE RABBINIC TRADITION (90–550 CE) 389

In the NT, the vast majority of the citations of the Scriptures are from the LXX,
though citations attributed to Paul may come equally from the Hebrew or the
Greek.37 He was certainly familiar with the LXX and also the Hebrew Scriptures,
but the majority of the early Christians chose to adopt as their Scriptures the LXX.
After the inclusion of all of the OT books in one codex collection it was
possible from the fourth century CE onward to have more uniformity in the
order of the OT canon, though later for the HB which began to make use of the
codex in the eighth or ninth century. The factors related to order and sequence
would likely be considerably more significant later than earlier. This does not
detract from the fact that there was a widespread (not unanimous) agreement on
the order of the Torah or Pentateuch before the invention and use of the codex.
This is also likely in regard to the Former Prophets (Joshua to Kings) due to the
obvious chronological development manifest in it. While the Major Prophets
generally follow in the manuscripts with Isaiah, Jeremiah, Ezekiel, that is not
always the case nor is their place before the Minor Prophets (the Twelve) which
sometimes appear before the Major Prophets (does this reflect some chrono-
logical priority of Amos and Hosea being written before Isaiah?). Although the
collection of the Twelve was settled much earlier (by the early second century
BCE at the latest; cf. Sir 49:9–10), the other HB books were not collected in a
single volume or codex until much later and the chronological or logical order is
not as apparent as in the above-mentioned books. The lack of stabilization here is
reflected in the numerous variations in the order of the Writings in the surviving
manuscripts and history of transmission. Because there may have been “seams”
that brought the earlier collections together in some order, this is not apparent in
the Writings despite arguments that jump from one collection (Torah) to another
(Writings).38 Such attempts regularly prove to be modern attempts to impose
on ancient documents an order that is not apparent either in the documents or
books themselves or argued by others from that era. In other words, this appears
to be anachronistic thinking that attempts to find a more logical argument for a
particular formation of the Ketubim.

37
Lim makes a good case for this in his Formation of the Jewish Canon, 165–66. He observes
that Paul’s citations of the Jewish Scriptures both are consistent with the LXX (58 times) and the
MT (41 times). He correctly observes that Paul does not always use the usual introductory scriptural
formulae and also observes, “but when he does use them, he is almost invariably citing texts that
would later be included in the canon” (171).
38
Steinberg and Stone, “Historical Formation of the Writings,” 36–52. The appeal to b. Baba
Bathra 14b to order the books that comprised the Jewish Scriptures is not convincing or reflective
of the rest of the rabbinic tradition in the second through the fourth centuries. They acknowledge the
considerable lack of uniformity in the order in the Writings but contend that there is a logical order
that predates the Masoretes, and include with that assessment many instances of “probably,” “may,”
“possibly,” and others that reflect the uncertainty of their position.
390 THE FORMATION OF THE BIBLICAL CANON, VOLUME I

Returning to the point here, it not at all clear that the quadripartite order in the
Christians’ OT canon is later than that of the current tripartite HB canon or that
the Christians themselves made decisions about how their first Scriptures were
ordered, or whether the grouping and sequence they followed in some modified
ways was something they inherited. There is no evidence that any of the early
church fathers made a case for their particular ordering of the books in their OT
as opposed to the books in the HB. If the order in the surviving LXX manuscripts
were a Christian invention that was opposed to the order in the Tanak, one would
think that some church father would have made a point of acknowledging this
difference, but no one does. Given how the Scriptures were transmitted by the
Jews, namely in rolls generally containing one or two books per roll, whether in
Palestine or in the Diaspora, it is not surprising that different sequences in the
books can be found in antiquity. Therefore, it should not be surprising if various
Diaspora communities that read the LXX Scriptures also had different orders in
their books.

III. THE BIBLE IN THE RABBINIC TRADITION

A. b. Baba Bathra 14b

One of the most important ancient Jewish texts that lists for the first time the books
that comprise the HB canon is b. Baba Bathra 14b, a baraita, an early tannaitic
tradition (written sometime before 200 CE, perhaps as early as 150–180 CE) that
is preserved in the Talmudim, but not in the Mishnah. A baraita (or baraiyta) is a
tannaitic text that appears in the later Talmud, but written earlier. This baraita was
not included in the Mishnah, and may have been excluded from it, but it gained
recognition and was later included in the Babylonian Talmud (the Bavli). For
our purposes, this highly significant baraita that may have originated in Babylon
perhaps also circulated in Palestine in the second century CE. The ending of this
text in b. Baba Bathra 14b and the beginning of 15a identifies the specific books
and their order or sequence that comprise the Jewish Scriptures in the second
century CE. Because this text lists for the first time the identity of the books that
came to comprise the Jewish Scriptures it is obviously quite significant.
Regardless of the place of origin of this tannaitic text, it clearly identifies the
books that comprised what some tanna believed was the scope of the Jewish
Scriptures – in other words, this is clearly a biblical canon! Its purpose was not
to make a formal statement on the formation of a biblical canon, but rather to
address the order or sequence of books in the Jewish Scriptures as well as matters
of authorship. Nevertheless it lists all of the books that were included in the
Tanak (the Pentateuch is listed as the Law or books of Moses in 14a and 15a).
It is doubtful whether all rabbis at this time (ca. 150–200 CE) accepted all of
the books in this list, as we see in some challenges in the Mishnah, Tosefta, and
SCRIPTURE IN THE RABBINIC TRADITION (90–550 CE) 391

two Talmudim,39 but for the one(s) who comprised this list, it was obviously a
complete listing of the books that comprise the Jewish Scriptures.
Although Timothy Stone suggests that I have misread the b. Baba Bathra 14b
text and assume that it was an early canonical list instead of a delineation of the
sequence and placement of the books in the HB,40 this text is both. It is the first
listing of the books in the Prophets and Writings, but also in the context of 14a
and with 15a where the Law of Moses is identified, the missing first part of the
Tanak in 14b would be quite surprising if it were not assumed by this text’s author.
There was no time in the history of the Jews from the fifth century BCE and
following where the Law of Moses was not in the place of priority and prominence
among the sacred writings of the Jews, as we have already seen. The 14b passage
obviously assumes the Law (see the context where it is placed in 14a and 15a),
but here it only identifies the books that were acknowledged as sacred Scriptures
in the Prophets and Writings, as well as their order and authors. The Pentateuch
was already long established and recognized. If this is not a biblical canon in the
sense of a fixed collection of recognized sacred Scriptures, then not much else
in antiquity is, and nothing else in the rabbinic tradition comes as close as this
to identifying the specific books that comprised its Scriptures. Were these books
acknowledged as Scripture earlier? Yes, of course, but there are no lists of sacred
Scriptures earlier than this one. Stone cannot show in earlier texts which books
were so identified, or where or when such recognition took place, but he agrees
that eventually such recognition took place.
We must be clear that what one rabbinic sage wrote does not necessarily imply
that all Jewish sages of the same period agreed with what was said. There was
considerable agreement in the rabbinic literature on the majority of books that
comprise the HB canon, but also disagreement. What is characteristic of much of
the rabbinic literature is its openness to a debate of most of the important issues
facing the Jewish religious leaders at that time. Not unusually in those texts, when
one rabbi makes an argument in favor of something another takes an opposing
view. It is refreshing to see that not all religious leaders agreed on every point or
argument in antiquity.

39
Lim, Formation of the Jewish Canon, 181, concludes that this source shows that the Rabbinic
Scripture canon was already closed when it was written, but I think it important to qualify this and
say rather that the Rabbinic Scripture canon was closed for those who produced this list. At that
point, it is not clear that all or even most rabbis accepted all of the books in this list, but it does reflect
the view of its author(s) and certainly of later rabbis. The fact that this baraita was not included in
the Mishnah suggests, at least, that it was not as popular yet among the framers of the Mishnah. The
continuing fluidity of views on the scope or shape of the Rabbinic canon can certainly be seen in the
sequence of the books in various surviving manuscripts as well as in debates over the sacredness of
several of the books in it. That took much longer.
40
See his Timothy Stone “The Biblical Canon According to Lee McDonald,” EuroJTh 18, no. 1
(2009): 55–64, here 57.
392 THE FORMATION OF THE BIBLICAL CANON, VOLUME I

Their tent was intentionally large enough to include many expressions of

Judaism. The focus was less on right belief than on right living and activity. Their
sacred literature, however, was restricted to Law, Prophets, and Writings, but not
in the same way that Christians later acknowledged them. For Jews a broader
notion of Torah emerged that included the Oral Torah, namely, those oral tradi-
tions passed on in the Jewish communities in the first and second centuries, as
a way of life more than a way of faith.41 The focus in this text is strangely on a
rationale for the order of books within the Jewish Scripture canon, but also to
some extent on the authorship and identity of the sacred books especially in 15a,
but also in 14b names are mentioned not so much as authors but as the identity of
the books that are recognized as Jewish Scripture. For the first time also the now
common tripartite HB canon is specifically identified and the books that comprise
each part are also identified. The book or books of Moses are assumed at the
beginning of this text (see 14a) and at the end (14b and 15a where Joshua writes
the last eight verses of the Pentateuch). The text reads as follows:

Our Rabbis taught: The order of the Prophets is, Joshua, Judges, Samuel, Kings, Jeremiah,
Ezekiel, Isaiah, and the Twelve Minor Prophets. Let us examine this. Hosea came first, as it
is written, God spake first to Hosea. But did God speak first to Hosea? Were there not many
prophets between Moses and Hosea? R. Johanan, however, has explained that [what it means is
that] he was the first of the four prophets who prophesied at that period, namely, Hosea, Isaiah,
Amos and Micah. Should not then Hosea come first? – Since his prophecy is written along with
those of Haggai, Zechariah and Malachi, and Haggai, Zechariah and Malachi came at the end of
the prophets, he is reckoned with them. But why should he not be written separately and placed
first? – Since his book is so small, it might be lost [if copied separately]. Let us see again. Isaiah
was prior to Jeremiah and Ezekiel. Then why should not Isaiah be placed first? – Because the
Book of Kings ends with a record of destruction and Jeremiah speaks throughout of destruction
and Ezekiel commences with destruction and ends with consolation and Isaiah is full of conso-
lation; therefore we put destruction next to destruction and consolation next to consolation.
The order of the Hagiographa is Ruth, the Book of Psalms, Job, Prophets [Proverbs?],
Ecclesiastes, Song of Songs, Lamentations, Daniel and the Scroll of Esther, Ezra and
Chronicles. Now on the view that Job lived in the days of Moses, should not the book of Job
come first? – We do not begin with a record of suffering. But Ruth also is a record of suffering? –
It is a suffering with a sequel [of happiness], as R. Johanan said: Why was her name called
Ruth? – Because there issued from her David who replenished the Holy One, blessed be He,
with hymns and praises.
Who wrote the Scriptures? – Moses wrote his own book and the portion of Balaam and Job.
Joshua wrote the book which bears his name and [the last] eight verses of the Pentateuch.
Samuel wrote the book which bears his name and the Book of Judges and Ruth. David wrote the
Book of Psalms, including in it the work of the elders, namely, Adam, Melchizedek, Abraham,
Moses, Heman, Yeduthun, Asaph,

[The first part of Folio 15a continues the previous sentence from 14b]

41
Sanders, “Judaism.” I will say more about this below.
SCRIPTURE IN THE RABBINIC TRADITION (90–550 CE) 393

and the three sons of Korah. Jeremiah wrote the book which bears his name, the Book of Kings,
and Lamentations. Hezekiah and his colleagues wrote…Isaiah, Proverbs, the Song of Songs
and Ecclesiastes. The Men of the Great Assembly wrote…Ezekiel, the Twelve Minor Prophets,
Daniel and the Scroll of Esther. Ezra wrote the book that bears his name and the genealogies
of the Book of Chronicles up to his own time. This confirms the opinion of Rab, since Rab
Judah has said in the name of Rab: Ezra did not leave Babylon to go up to Eretz Yisrael until
he had written his own genealogy. Who then finished it [the Book of Chronicles]? – Nehemiah
the son of Hachaliah.
The Master has said: Joshua wrote the book which bears his name and the last eight verses of
the Pentateuch. This statement is in agreement with the authority who says that eight verses in
the Torah were written by Joshua, as it has been taught: [It is written], So Moses the servant of
the Lord died there. (b. Baba Bathra 14b–15a, trans. Soncino)

This collection of books is the same that finally obtained canonical status in
rabbinic Judaism, though the sequence found here is different from others and
this is the only place where Chronicles is in last place and attributed to both Ezra
and Nehemiah.42 Even after the writing of this text there was considerable debate
and discussion over the books on the fringes of the biblical canon, that is, some of
the Ketubim or Writings. Since this tradition is classified as a baraita dating from
the late Tannaitic period and was not included in the Mishnah, it is suggestive to
conclude that the text was not as popular among the rabbis when it was produced
(ca. 150–180 CE) and it had not yet received widespread rabbinic approval by the
time of the closure and codification of the Mishnah around 200–220 CE.43 Hence
it is difficult to argue that this text reflects a popular view among rabbinic Jews in
the second century CE, but was not included in the Mishnah. This accords with the
second century CE story about Bishop Melito of Sardis who traveled to the East
to learn which books belonged in the OT. What he discovered (from the Jews or
fellow Christians?) is not exactly the same as the books in the current HB biblical
canon or in this baraita.
Although it may not have been a popular view at the time the author of b. Baba
Bathra 14b–5a wrote it, this text is very important for canonical research since
it is the first listing of the twenty-four books that eventually formed the contents

42
The only exception is that 1–2 Chronicles comes at the end of the Jewish collection instead of
preceding the book of Ezra, as in the Protestant and Catholic Old Testament canon and this is true
in the Orthodox OT canons but Chronicles and the Esdras are separated by the Prayer of Manasseh.
The repetition of 2 Chr 36:22–23 = Ezra 1:1–4 is not really necessary since these two passages are
sequential in Christian Bibles. If, however, 1–2 Chronicles originally fell at the end or even the first
place in the biblical canon, such repetition would serve to link these books with Ezra, which was
some distance away. The current form of the Protestant biblical canon brought them together (cf. a
similar link in Prov 25:1, which identifies those who copied and presumably circulated the proverbs
of Solomon).
43
A still helpful discussion of the primary texts that reflect the rabbinic tradition about the doubted
books in the rabbinic literature is Wildeboer, Origin of the Canon of the Old Testament, especially
5–46 and 114–52. See also a useful collection of Dead Sea Scrolls references and rabbinic sources
cited in Talmon, Text and Canon of the Hebrew Bible, especially 424–42.
394 THE FORMATION OF THE BIBLICAL CANON, VOLUME I

and groupings of the HB and how they were combined to form that number (the
number itself is not mentioned here). F. M. Cross, as noted earlier, suggests that
this tradition came from Babylon by Hillel who introduced it to the Pharisees who
heavily influenced the scope of the biblical canon.44 The books in this rabbinic
biblical canon were also welcomed among the early Christians, but the rabbinic
division and order of the sacred Scriptures in a tripartite biblical canon was not
followed in most of the Scripture collections in early Christianity or in subsequent
Jewish orders of Scriptures either.45 There is no evidence that the early Christians
knew the tripartite division that characterized later rabbinic Judaism, but there
is evidence that later church fathers were aware of it, especially Jerome. They
were aware of the twenty-two books that comprise the Jewish Scriptures, but the
earliest Christians appear unaware of the tripartite divisions in the HB canon. It
appears that the Christians eventually acknowledged as Scripture all of the books
that were included in the HB canon, but most of them also included other books as
well. As in rabbinic Judaism, there were also questions among the church fathers
over the status of Song of Songs, Esther, and Ecclesiastes for several centuries.
Because this rabbinic text reflects the views that eventually obtained acceptance
in rabbinic Judaism, it cannot be easily dismissed. While it does not reflect how
the early Christians appropriated the books that formed their OT Scriptures, most
Christians eventually accepted all of the books in the tripartite HB canon, but
many of them also accepted more than that. This list is significant because it is
the earliest record of the books that were accepted as sacred Scripture among the
Jews and most early Christians.

B. Torah
More than 40 percent of the citations of biblical texts discovered at Qumran were of
various portions of the Torah. The Law had the place of priority in the Scriptures of
Second Temple Judaism, whether in Philo, Qumran (4QMMT), early Christianity,
or later in rabbinic Judaism. According to the Talmud, only Torah scrolls could
not be divided for inheritance purposes, though scrolls of other holy books could
be divided at an appropriate seam and under certain conditions.46 Torah scrolls
were kept separate from scrolls of the Prophets and Writings. Initially, they were

44
Cross, From Epic to Canon, 205–29.
45
As we saw above, Jerome is the primary exception and he largely followed the HB order, but did
not identify his Scriptures by the names Law, Prophets, and Writings. He simply listed the books in
the broad sequence found in the tripartite HB canon. This suggests that the separation of Christians
from Judaism came before the HB canon was formed into the three distinct parts. However, some
early church fathers from the East and two prominent Uncial manuscripts from the fourth and fifth
centuries (Codices Sinaiticus and Alexandrinus) generally followed the order of a tripartite biblical
canon, but not completely.
46
Silver, Story of Scripture, 162.
SCRIPTURE IN THE RABBINIC TRADITION (90–550 CE) 395

placed in a tevah (“chest”),47 but by the fifth century CE, Torah scrolls were kept
separately inside an ark in the prayer room behind a curtain (parochet), which
recalled the curtain in front of the holy of holies in the temple.48 A rabbi could not
lay any other scroll on top of the Torah. Only the five scrolls of Moses were read
completely each year in the synagogue.49 Eventually the Megilloth (Song of Songs,
Lamentations, Ruth, Ecclesiastes, Esther) were also read on special occasions,
but that was not true for the other books of the Tanak. Torah clearly had priority
among the Scriptures in the rabbinic tradition and was acknowledged as the most
authoritative of the Jewish Scriptures. All Scriptures after the Torah received their
authority from the Torah and were viewed in relation to it. The rabbis believed that
the Prophets, for example, interpreted the implications of the Torah for the people.
As we will see below, even the Mishnah tractates were called the “Oral Torah.”
The Torah in its broadest sense prevails in all such discussions of authority
within Judaism and, according to Sanders and Johnson,50 also in early Christianity.
A change took place regarding the formation of the Torah for the rabbis when they
included not only the written Torah, but also the “Oral Torah,” that is, the tradition
that accompanied it. Sanders explains that eventually not only the Pentateuch was
Torah, but also the whole of divine revelation whether written or oral:

The unifying factor among them [Jews in the Rabbinic period] was a concept called Torah,
God’s will for their lives. “Torah is Judaism and Judaism is Torah.” That equation has to be
understood not only for Early Judaism but also for Rabbinic Judaism. Even so, its interpreta-
tions have always adapted to the needs of on-going communities of Jews that find their identity
and life-style in recital of the Pentateuch and its rabbinic derivatives. Torah is usually meant in
its broad sense, not just Law [Pentateuch] or even just Scripture, but the whole development of
traditions that grew out of the need to adapt to ever-changing circumstances and problems in
continuing attempts to live lives of Torah wherever they settled.51

Sanders adds that in Rabbinic Judaism, “living a life of Torah was a Jew’s vocation,
and the focus was on Torah as law or lifestyle.” He adds that the “Oral Torah was
the brilliant, necessary adaptation of the concept of Torah as obedience (not faith)
to how to live in closed communities, in but not of the Greco-Roman world.”
He contrasts this expression of Judaism with the other surviving expression of
Judaism, namely Christianity that saw Jesus the Christ as the “New Torah” – the
incarnate authority of God. According to Sanders, the Christians rearranged their
“First Testament” in their copies of the Septuagint by putting the prophetic corpus

47
The tevah is also called a bimah (“platform or pulpit,” derived from Gk. βημα), which sat in the
center of the synagogue and had a desk for reading the Torah scroll. A platform for reading the Torah
is mentioned in Neh 8:4.
48
Silver, Story of Scripture, 162.
49
Ibid., 160–72
50
J. A. Sanders, Torah and Canon, 121; and L. T. Johnson, The Writings of the New Testament:
An Interpretation, rev. ed. (Philadelphia: Fortress, 1999), 612–13.
51
J. A. Sanders, “Judaism: 580 BCE–70 CE.”
396 THE FORMATION OF THE BIBLICAL CANON, VOLUME I

at the end of that collection because they believed that it foretold and anticipated
the Christ and formed a bridge to their new collection of Scriptures, the New (or
Second) Testament. The prophets connected the divine story that began in Genesis
and through the history of their First Testament to the “Torah incarnate” even
Jesus the Christ.52 As noted above, it is difficult to find evidence that the Christians
themselves arranged the order of their OT, but certainly the current order of the
Christian OT is conducive to a useful connection between the two Testaments.
In contrast to the Qumran and Sadducean forms of Early Judaism, which
developed application of Torah to new problems through re-reading and re-inter-
preting Scripture,53 Rabbinic Judaism developed a second Torah called Halachah
or “Oral Torah,” which in effect was to replace written Torah in Scripture. Oral
Torah was also viewed as part of the revelation to Moses on Mt. Sinai, but kept
in oral form rather than written down like Scripture. It was eventually codified in
writing as Mishnah (200 CE) and Talmud Bavli (sixth cent. CE). Torah, whether
written or oral, includes haggadah (stories) as well as halachah (laws) in many
forms.54 Schiffman concludes that “in Tannaitic texts, the fixed Torah is a funda-
mental assumption, as is the idea of two Torahs – oral and written…”55 Torah,
as that which encompasses all of Jewish sacred literature and its oral traditions
initiated by the Tannaitic community, is not clear in the findings at Qumran, nor
that all Jews in late Second Temple Judaism agreed either on the scope of the HB
or that the oral traditions of the Tannaitic community were included in Torah.
Schiffman makes a defendable claim that by 200 CE Torah began to include all
sacred Jewish traditions, namely the whole of the HB, the Mishnah, and eventually
its interpretation in the Amoraic literature.56

C. Noncanonical Books
In regard to the noncanonical and heretical books, Sid Leiman has supplied
several Rabbinic sources that refer to the books that “defile the hands” (i.e., those
that are inspired by God) and those that do not, as well as what to do with the
latter. I cite two of them here that are helpful in understanding later views toward
writings that were not included in the HB.

But the following have no share in the world to come: he who maintains that the resurrection
is not intimated in the Torah, or that the Torah was not divinely revealed, and an Epicurean.
(m. Sanhedrin 10:1)

52
Ibid.
53
J. A. Sanders, ibid. cites here Lawrence Schiffman, The Halachah at Qumran (Leiden: Brill,
1975).
54
J. A. Sanders, “Judaism.”
55
Lawrence T. Schiffman, “The Term and Concept of Torah,” in Finsterbusch and Lange, What Is
Bible?, 173–91.
56
Ibid., 183.
SCRIPTURE IN THE RABBINIC TRADITION (90–550 CE) 397

R. Akiba (110–135) adds: one who reads the outside books such as the books of Ben Sira
[Sirach] and the books of Ben La’aga. But he who reads the books of Homer and all other books
that were written from then on, is considered like the one who is reading a secular document,
for it is written: And furthermore, my son, beware of making many books, and much study of
them is a weariness of flesh (Eccl. 12:12). Hence, casual reading is permissible but intensive
study is forbidden. (y. Sanhedrin 28a)

R. Akiba (110–135) adds: one who reads the outside books etc. A Tanna taught: This means the
books of the heretics [literally, Sadducees57]. R. Joseph (290–320) said: It is also forbidden to
read the book of Ben Sira…. (b. Sanhedrin 100b)

If the issue of the canonicity of the HB was settled before the time of Jesus, we must
ask why debate about which books could be read in public (i.e., during worship)
continued during the formation of the Talmud?58 Since the reading of Scripture
in worship and catechetical instruction in the synagogue implies its sacredness
and authority for a believing community, any action restricting public reading of
a document also suggests that the restricted document was not viewed as sacred.
The primary exception to this, of course, is the reference in 4 Ezra 14:46–47 to
the “seventy” books that were reserved for the wise and not to be read in public
(this text was discussed earlier in Chapter 10 §II). Examples of the biblical books
excluded by some rabbis from public reading include the following:59
Ecclesiastes (m. Yadayim 3:5; b. Berakhot 48a; b. Shabbat 100a; Ecclesiastes Rabbah 1:3; 11:9;
Leviticus Rabbah 23; Avot of Rabbi Nathan 1; cf. Jerome on Eccl. 12:14)
Esther (m. Megillah 4:1; b. Megillah 7a; b. Sanhedrin 100a; cf. t. Megillah 2:1a; 2 Macc 15:36;
Josephus, Ant. 11.184–296)60
Ezekiel (b. Shabbat 13b; b. Hagigah 13a; b. Menahot 45a; cf. Jerome, Epistle 53.8,61 and Sir
49:8)
Proverbs (b. Shabbat 30b)
Ruth (b. Megillah 7a)
Song of Songs (m. Yadayim 3:5; m. Eduyyot 5:3; t. Sanhedrin 12:10; t. Yadayim 2:14;
b. Sanhedrin 101a; b. Megillah 7a)

57
Since the Sadducees likely did not survive the destruction of Jerusalem and its Temple in large
numbers, “Sadducees” here may be a designation that refers to Judeo-Christians and possibly also
the writings of Gentile Christians and their New Testament writings (cited from Soncino trans. of b.
Sanh. 100b, note 6).
58
E. Oikonomos, “The Significance of the Deuterocanonical Writings in the Orthodox Church,” in
Meurer, ed., The Apocrypha in Ecumenical Perspective,” 19, raises this point.
59
For other examples, see Lewis, “Jamnia Revisited,” 154–57.
60
As we saw earlier, some of the early Christians also questioned the authority of Esther and
some would not read it in their worship services. A helpful listing of those early church fathers
who rejected or minimized the use of Esther can be found in Dunne, Esther and Her Elusive God,
96–100. He also includes rabbinic references to its absence or rejection in synagogal use. I have
noted some of these exceptions in the canonical lists in Appendix A.
61
The Jerome reference is noted in Dunne, Esther and Her Elusive God, 155.
398 THE FORMATION OF THE BIBLICAL CANON, VOLUME I

The difference between the biblical canons of Jews and Christians may be seen in
their religious debates. When Christians were in dialogue with Jews, they regularly
cited only the Jewish Scriptures (HB books); but when they were involved in their
own worship services and teaching ministries, Christians used a larger collection of
OT Scriptures. Origen, for example, justified his use of deuterocanonical/apocryphal
literature by appealing to early figures who did the same: Jesus (Matt 23:29–36),
Stephen (Acts 7:52), and Paul (whom Origen thought might have written Heb
11:37). On the other hand, he also followed the narrower Jewish biblical canon when
in discussion with Jews. He explained: “We follow the practice of not ignoring the
books which they [i.e., the Jews] accept as genuine. In discussion with the Jews, we
do not bring forward what is not contained in their copies, but use in common with
them the [books] which they recognize, even when they are not recognized in our
books.”62 Silver concludes from this that “even as late as the early Talmudic period,
there were still debates about whether certain scrolls should be included or excluded
from a collection that had not yet been named or defined.”63 The Qumran sect,
for example, had no clearly defined Psalter – at least not one like what eventually
obtained canonical status as we see in its many variations (e.g., the added refrain in
Ps 145 and the inclusion of Pss 151A, 151B, 152, 153, 154, and 155).
It is not clear whether the majority of Jews in Palestine accepted the Scriptures
(and the theology) of the Pharisees in the first centuries BCE and CE. A Judaism
that was “defined by holy texts” was only beginning to emerge during this
period,64 and the precise boundaries of that collection were not yet established. We
cannot maintain, therefore, that the sacred writings at Qumran were the same as
those of most other Jews in Palestine in the first century CE. The same could be
said of the list in b. Baba Bathra 14b. It was what eventually obtained canonical
status, but it is not certain that it reflected a majority view when it was written.
Finally, while such questions are of particular interest to scholars today, the Jewish
sages of the first and second centuries CE apparently were not interested in those
matters at that time.

D. Sirach and the Rabbinic Canon

Sirach is a concrete example of fluidity in the rabbinic Scriptures. It is quoted or
cited as Scripture many times in rabbinic literature (b. Hagigah 13a; y. Hagigah
77c; b. Yebamot 63b;65 Genesis Rabbah 8:2b; b. Bava Qamma 92b),66 but

62
Quotation is of Jerome from Oikonomos, “Significance of the Deuterocanonical Writings,” 20.
63
Silver, Story of Scripture, 135.
64
Ibid., 136.
65
This text cites Sirach by name and quotes Sir 26:1–3 with the introduction, “It is written in the
book of Ben Sira…” (emphasis added).
66
M. H. Segal, Sefer Ben-Sirah ha-Shalem (Jerusalem: Bialik, 1953), lists some eighty-five cita-
tions of Sirach in rabbinic literature through the tenth century CE. For instance, in the last of these
texts, Baba Qamma (or Kamma) 13a, has a series of scriptural citations including one from Sirach
SCRIPTURE IN THE RABBINIC TRADITION (90–550 CE) 399

eventually it was rejected within rabbinic Judaism. What these examples suggest,
of course, is that the Scripture canon of the rabbinic tradition was not as firmly
settled during or at the end of the first century CE as some have argued. Sirach
may be “the exception that proves the point,” as is sometimes argued to establish
an early date for the fixing of the HB canon, but that is not necessarily the case
for some rabbinic sages. There is no question that Sirach was a popular text for
centuries among the Jews and its status was likely not finally settled for all rabbis
in the first three or four centuries of the common era, though broad agreement on
its status was reached toward the end of the rabbinic period. The number of sacred
books, twenty-four, was likely settled earlier through various combinations of
books and much sooner than the scope or parameters of the books in the HB. It is
true that few exceptions to the twenty-four books that now make up the HB can be
cited in the rabbinic tradition, but the frequent citation of Sirach still suggests that
the contours of the HB were not as firmly fixed as some scholars have suggested.
Fragments of Sirach were found at Qumran (Sir 6:20–31; 51:13–19, 30) and
at Masada (Sir 39:27–32; 40:10–44:17), which raises the obvious question of
whether Sirach was a part of the Scriptures of these communities. It is difficult
to draw firm conclusions about the scriptural status of Sirach at that time and one
scholar questions whether Sirach was simply a liturgical text used in worship
or actually included in a recognized canon of Scriptures that validated points of
worship and practice in daily living.67 However, the debate over its status in the
rabbinic period suggests that some Jews welcomed it as a scriptural book early
on. Whatever the case, some Jews in Late Antiquity, especially in the first few
centuries of the rabbinic period, cited Sirach as Scripture and it is difficult to
separate this book from other scriptural collections at that time.
Regardless of its later canonical status, Sirach appears to have functioned
as Scripture among some Jews and later among the Christians who read it and
afforded it a special scriptural status. Leiman maintains strangely that although the
Tannaim and the Amora’im venerated Sirach, they did not receive it as a canonical
book. He adds that when sectarian Jews (Christians?) included Sirach in their
biblical canons, Rabbi Akiba banned the book from being read. Leiman acknowl-
edges that the later Amoraim rabbis cited the book as Scripture, but added that
this may be either because Akiba gave only his own private opinion on the status
of the book. He adds that because the portions of Sirach were quoted as Scripture
those texts did not come from Sirach, but were quotations cited from memory that

which the author places in the Hagiographa (Writings): “It is stated in the Pentateuch as written,
So Esau went unto Ishmael; repeated in the prophets, as written, And there gathered themselves
to Jephthah idle men and they went out with him; mentioned a third time in the Hagiographa,
as written: Every fowl dwells near its kind and man near his equal…” (Sir 13:5, Soncino trans.,
emphasis added). The passage cites a series of scriptural texts and includes the Sirach text among
the Hagiographa (Writings).
67
See Gilbert, “The Book of Ben Sira,” 85–87.
400 THE FORMATION OF THE BIBLICAL CANON, VOLUME I

were formulated before the Akiba ban.68 This is, of course, unconvincing. Leiman
acknowledges that Sirach was cited as Scripture, and he gives twelve examples of
this in rabbinic literature. For example: “Simeon b. Shetah from the (first century
BC) answered him: It is written in the book of ben Sira” (see y. Berakhot 11b;
y. Nazir 54b; Genesis Rabbah 91:3; Ecclesiastes Rabbah 7:11; and b. Berakhot
48a; emphasis added); and “As it is written in the book of Ben Sira” (Tanhuma,
tractate Hukkat 1, emphasis added).69 That the continued use of Sirach as Scripture
in rabbinic Judaism continued well into the fourth century points to its significant
influence within the Jewish community despite Akiba’s rejection of it in the
early second century. After him it is clear that others recognized Sirach as sacred
Scripture before it was finally withdrawn.

E. The Use of Scripture in Rabbinic Judaism

The Mishnah tractates’ use of Scripture has been described by David Kraemer as
highly complex, especially “assertive, even aggressive, and sometimes radical.”
By aggressive, he means that the rabbis were willing to override the intention of
the biblical text in favor of their own.70 This approach often led rabbis to adopt
not the simple or obvious meaning of a text of Scripture, but instead make the
text support their own agenda and reflect their own social contexts. They seldom
focused on extended passages of Scripture or on a broad range of Scriptures,
but instead interpreted mostly only a few words here and there.71 The rabbis’
willingness to change the obvious meaning of the text to something other than the
text’s normal meaning is not without parallel in antiquity and, as we saw earlier,
it has parallels in the NT itself (e.g., Eph 4:8 citing Ps 68:18).
Of the Mishnah’s sixty-three tractates Avot has more references to specific
Scripture texts than the others, but there is little detail in those references. This is
considerably different from the Jews at Qumran who regularly cited the Law to
support their various practices and also provided pesharim commentaries on sev-
eral of their prophetic Scriptures, including Psalms and Daniel. Philo and Josephus
regularly make reference to their sacred Scriptures, but often in ways unlike what
we find in the Mishnah. The NT writers also make frequent use of Scripture texts,
citing the OT regularly in support of various teachings and practices in the early
church. The Christians inherited this practice of “writing with Scripture”72 from

68
Leiman, Canonization of the Hebrew Scripture, 92–102.
69
Ibid., 92–97, 100. See also 185 notes 441–52 for Leiman’s list of twelve examples of references
to Sirach in a scriptural manner.
70
David Kraemer, “The Reception of the Bible in Rabbinic Judaism: A Study in Complexity,”
Journal of the Bible and Its Reception 1, no. 1 (2014): 29–46, here 37.
71
Ibid., 29 and 30–38.
72
This phrase comes from Neusner and Green, Writing with Scripture, 1–2, in which Neusner
claims that the early Christians and Jews in the same period did not write about Scripture so much
as they wrote with Scripture to express their thoughts.
SCRIPTURE IN THE RABBINIC TRADITION (90–550 CE) 401

late Second Temple Jewish practices. The rabbis accepted the authority of their
Scriptures and even defined their boundaries, but nonetheless they had an unusual
approach to them and often appear to have given priority to the oral tradition
(“Oral Torah”) reflecting Tannaitic interpretations of the Scriptures. There appears
to have developed within the rabbinic tradition, especially among the writers of
the Mishnah, a new understanding of their Scriptures. Kraemer observes that the
reading of Scripture was significantly different in the early Christian and rabbinic
communities and these differences led to the profound differences in subsequent
expressions of Judaism and Christianity.73
The two Talmudim (Yerushalmi and Bavli) not only support the interpretations
and claims of the Mishnah, but also frequently add Scripture references in a manner
that is more familiar to those who write with Scripture.74 If the rabbinic sages
wrote prescriptions for living without the significant aid of or reference to their
Scriptures, one cannot help but wonder about the notion of Scripture in the period
of the Tannaim (i.e., the first two centuries CE). Lightstone raises an important
question about how the very circle of leaders, supposedly those responsible for
fixing the final boundaries of the Hebrew biblical canon, was also responsible for
the Mishnah that had so very little to do with those Scriptures. He observes that
the Jewish scriptural canon and the Mishnah both reflect the social institutions and
experiences of the second century CE.75 What kind of cultural context took place
that could not only define the boundaries of the Jewish Scriptures, but also then
largely (not completely) ignore them when producing the writings in the Mishnah
that would be used for ordering daily living?
Among the most significant assumptions of the rabbinic sages was the recog-
nition of the inspired status of their written Scriptures, but they also concluded
that the written Torah was not the only revelation from God. Their actions suggest
that they concluded that divine revelation came in the form of an Oral Torah that
not infrequently in practice was superior to the written Torah. This can be seen
in the late classical rabbinic period, as we see in the Bavli, when the Oral Torah
sometimes took priority over the written Torah. For example, in the following
Bavli text we see not only the brevity of the portions of a text cited from Scripture,
but also the priority given to the Oral Torah:

73
Ibid., 30 n. 1.
74
J. Neusner, “Rabbinic Judaism in Late Antiquity,” in Judaism: A People and Its History, ed.
R. M. Seltzer (New York: Macmillan, 1989), 75–76. In regard to the religious texts that we will
examine, there remains some debate about the dating of the rabbinic period and also final formation
of the Talmud. Most scholars date the completion of the Babylonian Talmud at around 550 CE, but
David Weiss Halivni, The Formation of the Babylonian Talmud, trans. by Jeffrey L. Rubenstein
(New York: Oxford University Press, 2013), contends that a collection of ancient rabbinic scribes
that he calls “Stammaim” (Heb., “anonymous ones”) were redacted with additions to the Talmudic
texts from the late sixth to the late eighth century CE. He argues that these Stammaim (they are
actually later called Saboraim (“reasoners”) regularly supplemented and reorganized the proto-Tal-
mudic oral traditions finally committing them to writing in the Babylonian Talmud around 770 CE.
75
Lightstone, Society, the Sacred, and Scripture, 68.
402 THE FORMATION OF THE BIBLICAL CANON, VOLUME I

R. Eleazar said: The greater portion of the Torah is contained in the written Law and only the
smaller portion was transmitted orally, as it says, Though I wrote for him the major portion
of [the precepts of] my law, they were counted a strange thing [Hosea 7:12]. R. Johanan on
the other hand, said that the greater part was transmitted orally and only the smaller part is
contained in the written law, as it says, For by the mouth of these words [Exod 24:27]. But what
does he make of the words, “Though I write for him the major portion of my law”? – This is a
rhetorical question: Should I have written for him the major portion of my law? [Even now] is it
not accounted a strange thing for him? And what does the other make of the words, “For by the
mouth of these words”? – That implies that they are difficult to master. R. Judah b. Nahmani the
public orator of R. Simeon b. Lakish discoursed as follows: It is written, Write thou these words
[Exod 24:27], and it is written, For according to the mouth of these words [Exod 24:27]. “What
are we to make of this?” – It means: The words which are written thou art not at liberty to say
by heart, and the words transmitted orally thou art not at liberty to recite from writing. A Tanna
of the school of R. Ishmael taught: [It is written] These: [Exod 24:27] these thou mayest write,
but thou mayest not write halachoth. R. Johanan said: God made a covenant with Israel only
for the sake of that which was transmitted orally, as it says, For by the mouth of these words I
have made a covenant with thee and with Israel [Exod 24:27]. (b. Gittin 60b, Epstein trans.)76

When the rabbis focus on their written Scripture, they regularly do so, as noted
above, in small bits and pieces, as in their interpretation of a few words of a verse,
a word, or even part of a word.77 More importantly, it appears that the rabbis
consciously decided against the obvious reading of a Scripture text in favor of
their own traditions. In m. Hagigah, the rabbis show awareness that some of their
laws were based on a weak scriptural foundation. They explain it thusly:
[The rules about] release from vows hover in the air and have naught to support them; the
rules about the Sabbath, Festal-offerings, and Sacrilege are as mountains hanging by a hair,
for [teaching of] Scripture [thereon] is scanty and the rules many; the [rules about] cases
[concerning property] and the [Temple-] Service, and the rules about what is clean and unclean
and the forbidden degrees, they have that which supports them, and it is they that are the essen-
tials of the Law. (m. Hagigah 1:8, Danby trans., 212–13)

Kraemer cites m. Bava Metzia 3:1 that overturns the teaching of Exod 22:6–12 as
evidence of the Mishnah authors’ willingness to overrule the Torah’s distinction
in favor of their own, which appears to contradict the clear meaning of the written
Torah.78 See for example:
R. Kahana objected to Mar son of R. Huna: But this refers to the words of the Torah? – A verse
cannot depart from its plain meaning, he replied. R. Kahana said: By the time I was eighteen
years old I had studied the whole Shas, yet I did not know that a verse cannot depart from its
plain meaning until to-day. What does he inform us? – That a man should study and subse-
quently understand. (b. Shabbat 63a, Soncino trans.)

76
I have included the Scripture texts referred to in the text in brackets since they are not in the
translator’s notes.
77
Kraemer, “Reception of the Bible in Rabbinic Judaism,” 32–33 offers several examples of this
in rabbinic writings, including a text from Leviticus Rabbah 2:2.
78
Ibid., 35–38. He offers further examples of this in the Talmud, e.g., b. Shabbat 63a; b. Yebamoth
11b; and b. Yebamoth 24a.
SCRIPTURE IN THE RABBINIC TRADITION (90–550 CE) 403

Similarly, see the reference to Deut 24:4 and how the rabbis dealt with the question
of a woman remarrying after divorce:
The question, however, arises on the view of the Rabbis: Does the Scriptural text, despite
the fact that the Rabbis had applied the expression “uncleanness” to the sotah,79 also bear its
ordinary meaning, or since it was once torn away [from its ordinary meaning] it must in all
respects so remain? Others say: According to the Rabbis no question arises, for since the text
has once been torn away [from its ordinary meaning] it must in all respects so remain. (b.
Yebamoth 11b, Soncino trans.)

Finally, when dealing with teaching about levirate marriage (cf. Gen 48:6; Deut
25:5–6), we read:
The question, however, arises on the view of the Rabbis: Does the Scriptural text [Gen 48:6],
despite the fact that the Rabbis had applied the expression “uncleanness” to the sotah, also
bear its ordinary meaning, or since it was once torn away [from its ordinary meaning] it must
in all respects so remain? Others say: According to the Rabbis no question arises, for since the
text has once been torn away [from its ordinary meaning] it must in all respects so remain. (b.
Yebamoth 24a, Soncino trans.)

Kramer cites David Havlivni’s conclusion that “rabbinic deviation from simple
meaning is a historical fact.”80 Kraemer prefers instead to say that rabbinic
readings of Scripture “may contradict the simple [literal] meaning entirely,
but context matters, so context will determine one meaning even when other
readings may ignore it.” This practice, he claims, allowed the rabbis to “have
their cake and eat it too.”81 Later in the midrashim (interpretations) of the Hebrew
Scriptures, we do not find straight forward and simple interpretations of the intent
of Scripture, but rather the rabbis’ attempt to write “with Scripture,” often to
expand on Scripture’s original intent. Kraemer concludes that almost none of the
midrashim are “bona fide interpretations, for the rabbis are rarely interested in
asking what Scripture actually means.” He offers examples from the midrashim
to illustrate this point, one from Sifri Deuteronomy (ch. 34), then Genesis Rabbah
and Leviticus Rabbah.82 The rabbis through the sixth century were willing to read
against Scripture and give priority to their own agendas. Kraemer concludes that
throughout Rabbinic Judaism the authority of Scripture was in name only and the
authority always rested with the interpreter. While scriptural authority was always
recognized in principle, it was the rabbis who had authority relative to Scripture.83
A well-known exception to this practice was the later Maimonides (1135–1204),

79
Sotah is the Mishnah tractate dealing with a woman caught or taken in adultery.
80
Ibid., 37; cf. David W. Halivni, Peshat and Derash: Plain and Applied Meaning in Rabbinic
Exegesis (New York: Oxford University Press, 1991), 8.
81
Kraemer, “Reception of the Bible in Rabbinic Judaism,” 37–38.
82
Ibid., 39–42.
83
Ibid., 45.
404 THE FORMATION OF THE BIBLICAL CANON, VOLUME I

born in Spain but who lived most of his life in Egypt, and who generally preferred
the literal or plain meaning of the scriptural texts (Hilkhot Ned. 12.1).
By contrast with this free departure from what was believed to be the original
intent of Scripture, the early Christians had a different view of the authority of the
written text. If Scripture (or Jesus) said it, that settled the matter (Matt 5:17–19; 1
Cor 7:10, 25; 11:23; cf. 2 Thess 3:6, 12; 2 Tim 3:16–17), and the goal of Christian
living was to please the Lord (1 Cor 7:32; Col 3:15–17). All Christian beliefs and
practices were rooted in their Scriptures (e.g., Matt 21:5, 16; 1 Cor 15:3–4, 54–55;
1 Pet 2:6–8; 3:6, 10–12). However, as we have seen, there are parallels with the
Qumran and Rabbinic traditions that show changes in the biblical text from their
original meaning (e.g., Matt 2:15, cf. Hos 11:1). Given this context, which is not
unlike what we see in 4QMMT and Philo, Life 3.25, and elsewhere among the
Jews of late Second Temple Judaism, how could there have been a time in Judaism
when a rabbi could simply say, “Here is the way I see it” – with the obvious impli-
cation, “And so should you”? How could there be any rabbinic “writing without
Scripture” as Neusner describes it?84 I conclude from the rabbinic practice of
changing the text to meet and face contemporary circumstances that notions of
the interpretation of Scripture were not as clearly defined in the Tannaitic period
as they were in the later Amoraic period. However, even then when the rabbis
set out to support much of the Mishnah’s teachings with scriptural references it
is generally not what those wanting a plain meaning of the biblical text might
want. Both of the Talmuds added scriptural support from a recognized canon of
Scripture for the teachings in the Mishnah. The primary exception to how this
canon turned out appears to be their use of Sirach.

F. Outside Books and Christian Gospels

One cannot speak of “outside books” without first having some idea of what
is acknowledged as Scripture and included in a fairly well-defined and stable
collection. Such references begin to appear around 130 CE. An example of this is
in the following text:

But the following have no share in the world to come: he who maintains that the resurrection
is not intimated in the Torah, or that the Torah was not divinely revealed, and an Epicurean.
R. Akiba (110–135) adds: one who reads the outside books, and one who whispers a charm
over a wound and recites: I will not bring upon you any of the diseases that I brought upon the
Egyptians, for I the Lord am your healer (Ex. 15:26). (m. Sanhedrin 10:1)85

84
Neusner and Green, Writing with Scripture, 24–42.
85
Leiman, Canonization of the Hebrew Scripture, 86, gives several other examples of the exclusion
and rejection of “outside” books.
SCRIPTURE IN THE RABBINIC TRADITION (90–550 CE) 405

The practice of excluding certain books from being read or brought into one’s
home for study assumes some notion of a closed canon of Scriptures, at least for
the one who speaks of “outside books.” What is not certain is whether all Jews
at this same time acknowledged the same books for inclusion or exclusion. The
practice merely suggests that there were no fixed canons of books in Judaism
during the first century CE.
Another factor emerged when some rabbis were defining the scope of their
Scriptures, and it may have influenced decisions about the scope of the Rabbinic
Scripture canon, namely, the popularity of the Christian Gospels. George Foot
Moore suggested long ago that during the Judeo-Christian conflicts in the second
and third centuries CE, some rabbis forbid fellow Jews from reading the Christian
Gospels. Moore contends that a decision about the extent of the Jewish biblical
canon was made in part due to the rise of “Christian heresy and the circulation of
Christian writings” in the Jewish community in Palestine.86 The Jewish polemic
against the Christians and their writings continued vigorously well into the second
and third centuries, but when Christianity became less of a threat to Judaism
hostilities toward Christians diminished. Rabbinic concern about the influence
of the Gospels on Jewish people appears to have subsided considerably in the
effective separation of the Jewish Christians from the synagogue.87
Some Jews (many?) viewed the early Christians’ lack of participation in the
Bar Kokhba rebellion against Rome (132–135) as treason, and the influence of
the Jewish-Christians and their participation in synagogues declined rapidly in
Palestine after that. In the quest to determine which books were sacred among the
Jews, after the separation of the Christians from the synagogues, Christians no
longer had a voice in the matter.
During this time of hostility, Moore argues “the attempt authoritatively to
define the Jewish canon of the Hagiographa begins with the exclusion by name
of Christian Scriptures.”88 Citing two Tosefta texts he claimed that rabbinic refer-
ences to the Gospels suggest the influence of the Christian Gospels in the forming
of the rabbinic biblical canon. The Gospels were included among heretical texts
that are to be burned.89 These texts are as follows:

The books of the Evangelists [‫ ]הגליונים‬and the books of the minim [heretics] they do not save
from a fire. But they are allowed to burn where they are, they and the references to the Divine
Names which are in them. R. Yosé the Galilean says, “On ordinary days, one cuts out the refer-
ences to the Divine Name which are in them and stores them away, and the rest burns.” Said R.

86
G. F. Moore, “The Definition of the Jewish Canon and the Repudiation of Christian Scriptures,”
in Leiman, ed., Canon and Masorah of the Hebrew Bible, 101–2. See also in the same volume J.
Bloch, “Outside Books,” in Leiman, ed., Canon and Masorah of the Hebrew Bible, 202–23.
87
Moore, “Definition of the Jewish Canon,” 122–23. See examples of these early hostilities
between Jews and Christians in McDonald, “Anti-Judaism in the Early Church Fathers.”
88
Moore, “Definition of the Jewish Canon,” 125.
89
Ibid., 99–125. I will return to this issue in the summary in Chapter 13.
406 THE FORMATION OF THE BIBLICAL CANON, VOLUME I

Tarfon, “May I bury my sons, if such things come into my hands and I do not burn them, and
even the references to the Divine Name which are in them. And if someone was running after
me, I should go into a temple of idolatry, but I should not go into their houses [of worship].
For idolaters do not recognize the Divinity in denying him, but these [Christians] recognize the
Divinity and deny him.” (t. Shabbat 13:5 A–F, Neusner, Tosefta, 405)

See also:

The Gospels [‫ ]הגליונים‬and heretical books do not defile the hands. The books of Ben Sira and
all other books written from then on, do not defile the hands. (t. Yadayim 2:13, emphasis added)90

Moore’s reasoning is that it was not until the rabbinic sages began to declare
Christian books as heretical that they also began the delimitation processes that
led to their fixed list of sacred books. Notions about the outside and heretical
books, he suggests, began at that time. His views have not gone uncontested,91 but
Moore’s observations still deserve consideration since it is difficult otherwise to
pinpoint a time when rabbis deliberated which books actually “defile the hands”
and which are heretical and do not defile the hands.

G. The Cairo Genizah

In 882 CE, King Ahmed Ibn Tulun of Egypt demanded from Michael, the 56th
Coptic Patriarch, a large sum of money to pay for the king’s military adventures.
In order to raise the money, the patriarch had to sell some land and a church in
Cairo. The church was sold to some Jews, who transformed it into a synagogue.
Over the centuries, the Jews stored a large number of worn out manuscripts and
printed books in a back room of the synagogue called a genizah.92 The room
and the manuscripts in it were discovered by accident following a renovation in
1890. In this storage room, or genizah, a large host of valuable manuscripts was

90
Leiman, Canonization of Hebrew Scripture, 47, 86, 87, 93, 109. He offers several other instances
of books that “defile the hands,” a reference to sacred texts, and other rabbinic texts that reflect the
sacredness or lack thereof of various ancient texts, whether Sirach, Eldad and Medad (or Modad),
Esther, Ezekiel and others (86–124). Also, the emphasis may be a reference to the time of the
believed cessation of prophecy, namely after ca. 180 BCE.
91
See, for example, Leiman, Canonization of the Hebrew Scripture, 190–91 n. 511; and Childs,
Biblical Theology, 61.
92
The term genizah comes from a Hebrew and Aramaic term meaning “to store, or “to hide” and
by extension it was used in reference to a special storage place in synagogues for old books or manu-
scripts that contained the sacred name of God. The oldest text to speak of the genizah is found in m.
Shabbath 16:1, which says: “In no matter what language they [the Holy Scriptures] are written [if
they become unfit for use] they require to be hidden away… Whither should they be taken for safety?
To an alley-way that is no thoroughfare” (Danby trans.). This follows a Jewish custom of depositing
in a special place literature that contained the name of God lest the name of God be profaned when
the writings were worn out or discarded. From time to time, Jews would also consecrate a place and
bury these documents in the ground.
SCRIPTURE IN THE RABBINIC TRADITION (90–550 CE) 407

discovered that show which texts informed that Jewish community’s faith and
order. Fortunately for modern scholarship’s sake, the documents in the Cairo
Genizah were undiscovered for many centuries and some of those texts are fairly
well preserved.
This collection of well over 200,000 fragments discovered in this genizah
contains various ancient books, including texts now identified as biblical and
non-biblical texts. Many of these documents are now located in the Bodleian
Library at Oxford University and many also are stored at Cambridge University,
but some of the fragments are in Leningrad and the Jewish Theological Seminary
in New York. Smaller collections of some of the fragments are located in
London, Paris, Manchester, Geneva, Vienna, Budapest, St. Petersburg, New York,
Philadelphia, Washington, Jerusalem, and in a few private collections besides.
More importantly, among the manuscripts found in the Cairo Genizah were
fragments of the Damascus Document (sometimes also called the Zadokite
Document or CD) that was also found at Qumran among the Dead Sea Scrolls.
The genizah contained multiple copies of the Hebrew text of Sirach, along with
Aquila’s Greek translation of the Bible. The date for many of the documents in
the Cairo Genizah is uncertain since the Jews brought an undetermined number
of those manuscripts into their newly acquired synagogue in 882 CE. In the dry
arid climate of Egypt, manuscripts could have endured for hundreds of years and
some of the manuscripts discovered in the Cairo Genizah date earlier than the
acquisition of their new synagogue. Some of the side benefits from the collection
included acquiring a large number of historical and geographical details that had
previously gone unnoticed.
A significant attempt to digitize these manuscripts is currently under way by
the Friedberg Genizah Project (http://www.genizah.org/TheCairoGenizah.aspx),93
which is publishing all of the fragments and documents found in this collection
along with catalogue entries and bibliographic references. Along with versions of
the Bible in Aramaic, Hebrew, and Arabic, copies of some apocryphal, pseude-
pigraphal, and Talmudic writings, some biblical and extra-biblical writings were
also found in the genizah. Many of these manuscripts and fragments have yet to
be fully edited, documented, and made available to the public, but significant work
on them continues.
Much of this often fragmented literature was not included in the HB. It is difficult
to know from what has been found which texts were believed to have a recognized
scriptural status. Multiple copies of some of the so-called noncanonical books may
reflect their acceptance as sacred books by the Jews in Cairo. Much more study is
needed here, but it is not possible to conclude from the genizah findings that the
Cairo Jews accepted only the sacred writings that were earlier recognized by the
rabbis in the second and later centuries CE. In Talmudic literature, there are many

93
See also the following web sites: http://www.jewishvirtuallibrary.org/jsource/History/Genizah.html;
http://www.bbc.co.uk/dna/h2g2/A10358868; http://www.ifla.org/IV/ifla66/papers/058–145e.htm.
408 THE FORMATION OF THE BIBLICAL CANON, VOLUME I

references to both canonical and heretical literature being withdrawn, but that
which was preserved in the genizah also included the holy names that had been
cut out of the so-called heretical literature. Writings put into a genizah were not
necessarily those that were withdrawn from among books of a canonical status,
with perhaps one exception that we see in b. Shabbath 13b where Ezekiel was
spoken of as “hidden” or “withdrawn.”

Rab Judah said in Rab’s name: In truth, that man, Hananiah son of Hezekiah by name, is to be
remembered for blessing: but for him, the Book of Ezekiel would have been hidden [withdrawn],
for its words contradicted the Torah [Ezek. 44:31; 45:20]. What did he do? Three hundred
barrels of oil were taken up to him and he sat in an upper chamber and reconciled them.94

It appears that heretical books were typically burned after cutting out the divine
names or sacred material (texts) found in those documents. This helps explain why
there were so many fragments in the Cairo Genizah, but what about the canonical
status of the documents found within it? We cannot say for sure whether some
of the apocryphal and pseudepigraphal texts in the collection were considered
inspired and canonical, but some were apparently highly prized, especially in
the case of Sirach since multiple fragments of this book were found there. For
certain there were sacred and holy books placed there by the Qara’ites,95 the Jews
in whose synagogue the documents were found, but what was the scope of their
biblical canon? It is difficult to say with certainty, although the later and highly
influential Maimonides, noted above, generally followed the rabbinic tradition and
apparently held to the same fixed collection of books in the HB, but he came to
Cairo considerably later after some earlier manuscripts were placed in the Cairo
Genizah. Maimonides may not necessarily reflect what was affirmed as Scripture
in Egypt centuries earlier.

IV. RABBINIC WRITINGS

A. Mishnah and Related Writings

We noted earlier that the primary schools of biblical interpretation that flourished
in the first century CE were those of Hillel, a Jewish lawyer from Babylonia (ca.
50 BCE–10 CE), and Shammai, his contemporary from Palestine. Shammai and
his teachings were more popular in Israel before the destruction of Jerusalem in

94
See also b. Shabbat 13b, b. Hagigah 13a, and b. Menahot 45a that tell this same story.
95
The Qara’ites, or Karaites, date from roughly the eighth century CE and remain to this day.
They were a small group in the land of Israel until ca. 1099 during the Crusade period. They did not
support many of the views of the Rabbinic Jews regarding marriage and divorce, and on calendar
issues or how they celebrate Sabbath. Other issues continue to separate them as well such as the
removal of shoes during prayer and not wearing the tefillin.
SCRIPTURE IN THE RABBINIC TRADITION (90–550 CE) 409

70 CE, but after that Hillel’s interpretation prevailed and became foundational for
surviving Judaism of the late first and second centuries CE. Those who followed
Shammai’s teachings after 70 CE tended to be strict and elitist, while Hillel’s
teachings were generally more liberal, patient, and popular with the people.96
Many of the teachings of Hillel were passed on to his best-known pupil in the
first century CE, Rabban Gamaliel, the teacher of the Apostle Paul (Acts 22:3; cf.
5:34–35), and of whom it was said, in typical rabbinic praise for a well-known
teacher, that when he died “the glory of the Law ceased and purity and abstinence
died” (m. Sotah 9:15, Danby, 306). After Gamaliel, and following the destruction of
Jerusalem and the temple, Johanan ben Zakkai took the lead in the reorganization
of Judaism. He and other religious leaders had to deal with the major problems
facing Judaism, especially how Judaism, which had previously been inextricably
bound to the temple cultus before 70 CE, could continue when the Temple was
destroyed and it sacrificial cultus was no longer possible. How could the Jews
maintain their identity and survive without the Temple and its sacrificial system?
Zakkai was instrumental in the reorganization of Israel’s religious life through a
rabbinic assembly that met at Jamnia (Yavneh) around 90 CE. After Zakkai, rabbis
Eliezer and Gamaliel II were prominent, but the latter had a less tolerant attitude
toward the Christian community than did his grandfather (Gamaliel mentioned in
Acts 5:33–39). In the twelfth of his “Eighteen Benedictions” Gamaliel II intro-
duced a curse on all heretics, including Christians:

For the apostates let there be no hope, and the dominion of arrogance [Rome] do Thou speedily
root out in our days; and let the Nazarenes [Christians] and the heretics perish as in a moment,
let them be blotted out of the book of the living and let them not be written with the righteous.
Blessed art Thou, O Lord, who humblest the arrogant!97

Rabbi Akiba was the leading rabbinic figure around 120–140 CE, and he recog-
nized and had supported the claims of Simeon ben Kosibah (also known as
Simon bar-Kokhba) to be the king and messiah. Kosibah led an uprising against
Rome in 132–135 CE, seeking to make the Jewish state independent from Roman
rule, but the result was an overwhelming defeat of the Jews and the death of
Kosibah. Following Kosibah’s death, Hadrian evicted the Jews from Jerusalem
and renamed the city Aeolia Capitolina. After that, the Jews saw Kosibah as a liar
who had committed sins worthy of death. He was later called “ben Kozeba” (son
of a “lie”), a play on words speaking of his deceit of the people.98

96
Koester, Introduction to the New Testament, 1:227–29, 383–85, 390.
97
Ferguson, Backgrounds of Early Christianity, 543–44. Ferguson notes that the words “and let
the Nazarenes” is contested as an original part of the Benedictions, but it is not out of keeping with
the kinds of comments said about early Christians by the Jews on other occasions. See McDonald,
“Anti-Judaism in the Early Church Fathers,” 245–49.
98
See y. Ta’anit 4:68d–69b; Lamentations Rabbah 2:4; and b. Gittin 57a–58a. Christian sources
call Kosibah a bandit and murderer but also a worker of miracles. See also Eusebius, Hist. eccl.
410 THE FORMATION OF THE BIBLICAL CANON, VOLUME I

After the death of Rabbi Akiba, Rabbi Meir (ca. 140 CE) began the process of
codifying the oral traditions that were viewed as a “hedge” around the law (cf. m.
Avot 1:1) and guarded its proper implementation in the lives of the Jews in Palestine
(it does not deal with Diaspora Jewry). That codification was completed under the
direction of Judah the Prince around the end of the second century, around 220
CE, and called the Mishnah. The Mishnah was essentially the codification of the
Halakah (from Heb. ‫הלך‬, “to walk”) that focused on how to conduct oneself (i.e.,
walk), according to the law with its various legal implications. It focused primarily
on the legal aspects of keeping the law. As the Christians needed another Testament
to complete the sense of their OT, the Jews also sensed a need for the Mishnah and
its interpretations to complete their understanding of how to live the Torah. The
Mishnah became in practice the second canon of the Jews and was so important
that whole traditions of interpreting it developed. When a rabbi commented on the
Mishnah, his commentary was called “Gemara” (from Heb. ‫גמר‬, “to complete”).
Mishnah and Gemara were combined to create the two Talmuds: the Palestinian
(or Jerusalem/Yerushalmi) Talmud and the Babylonian (or Bavli) Talmud. The
latter was more extensive and more conservative than the one produced in Galilee.
Even though the Babylonian Talmud comments on fewer Mishnaic tractates than
does the Palestinian Talmud (36½ versus 39), the Babylonian Talmud (b. or Bavli)
is almost four times as long as the Palestine version (y. or Yerushalmi). Another
major rabbinic document is the Tosefta (“supplement”), a collection of interpreta-
tions much of which is contemporary with the Mishnah but excluded from it; it is
sometimes called baraita (“external”) and does not have the status of the Mishnah.
Finally, midrashim are rabbinic commentaries on Scripture.
This literature, most of which was produced long after the time of Jesus
and the origins of early Christianity, has significance for understanding early
Christianity and its sacred literature. Because the Mishnah is the codification
of an oral tannaitic tradition that partially overlapped the time of Jesus, in some
instances traditions in the Mishnah may be prior to his ministry. A discerning eye
can sometimes see in the Mishnah background material for understanding Jesus’
teachings on, for example, the Sabbath (see tractate Shabbat), vows (Nedarim),
and oaths (Shevu’ot). Other Mishnaic parallels provide background on Jesus’
teachings on marriage and divorce and the two greatest commandments.99
All Rabbinic literature in its current form dates from the end of the second
century CE to the beginning of the Middle Ages (550–600). It may, in many
instances, reflect traditions from the time of Jesus and before, but caution must
be exercised in using it. The reader could be easily misled by thinking that the

4.6.1–4, who describes this second rebellion against Rome led by “a certain Bar Chochebas” (liter-
ally, son of a star”) who is the same as Kosibah or Kochbah, and describes his death as “the penalty
he deserved” (4.6.3).
99
See E. Ferguson, Backgrounds of Early Christianity, 3rd ed. (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 2003),
461–69, for a more complete discussion of this topic.
SCRIPTURE IN THE RABBINIC TRADITION (90–550 CE) 411

circumstances described in the Mishnah, and especially in the later Talmudim,

were present much earlier in late Second Temple Judaism, but that is seldom a
reasonable conclusion.100
The Mishnah was written in Hebrew and has six orders (sedarim) that include
sixty-three tractates (massekhot):101
1. Zeraim (“seeds”)
Berakhot (“benedictions”)
Pe’ah (“gleanings”)
Demai (“produce not certainly tithed”)
Kil’ayim (“diverse kinds”)
Shevi’it (“seventh year”)
Terumot (“heave offerings”)
Ma’aserot (“tithes”)
Ma’aser Sheni (“second tithe”)
Hallah (“dough offering”)
Orlah (“fruit of young trees”)
Bikkurim (“firstfruits”)

2. Mo’ed (“set feasts”)

Shabbat (“Sabbath”)
Eruvin (“Sabbath limits”)
Pesahim (“Passover”) S
Heqalim (“shekel dues”)
Yoma (“Day of Atonement”)
Sukkah (“tabernacles”)
Yom Tov or Betzah (“festivals”)
Rosh HaShanah (“new year”)
Ta’anit (“days of fasting”)
Megillah (“scroll of Esther”)
Mo’ed Qatan (“midfestival days”)
Hagigah (“festival offering”)

3. Nashim (“women”)
Yevamoth (“sisters-in-law”)
Ketubbot (“marriage deeds”)
Nedarim (“vows”)
Nazir (“Nazirite vow”)
Sotah (“suspected adulteress”)
Gittin (“bills of divorce”)
Qiddushin (“betrothals”)

100
For helpful discussions of rabbinic literature, see C. A. Evans, Noncanonical Writings and New
Testament Interpretation (Peabody, MA: Hendrickson, 1992), 97–148; J. Neusner, The Rabbinic
Tradition About the Pharisees Before 70, 3 vols. (Leiden: Brill, 1971); idem, “The Formation of
Rabbinic Judaism: Yavneh (Jamnia) from A.D. 70–100,” in Aufsteig und Niedergang der römischen
Welt: Geschichte und Kultur Roms im Spiegel der Neueren Forschung, Principat, ed. W. Haase
(Berlin: de Gruyter, 1979), 2:3–42.
101
For useful abbreviations of this and other rabbinic writings, see Leaney, Jewish and Christian
World, 230–36; and Alexander et al., SBL Handbook of Style, 79–81.
412 THE FORMATION OF THE BIBLICAL CANON, VOLUME I

4. Neziqin (“damages”)
Bava Qamma (“first gate”)
Bava Metzi’a (“middle gate”)
Bava Batra (“last gate”)
Sanhedrin (“Sanhedrin”)
Makkot (“stripes”)
Shevu’ot (“oaths”)
Eduyyot (“testimonies”)
Avodah Zarah (“idolatry”)
Avot (“fathers”)
Horayot (“instructions”)

5. Qodashim (“hallowed things”)

Zevahim (“animal offerings”)
Menahot (“meal offerings”)
Hullin (“animals killed for food”)
Bekhorot (“firstlings”)
Arakhin (“vows of valuation”)
Temurah (“substituted offering”)
Keritot (“extirpation”)
Me’ilah (“sacrilege”)
Tamid (“daily whole offering”)
Middot (“measurements”)
Qinnim (“bird offerings”)

6. Teharot (“cleanliness”)
Kelim (“vessels”)
Ohalot (“tents”)
Nega’im (“leprosy signs”)
Parah (“red heifer”)
Teharot (“cleannesses”)
Mikwa’ot (“immersion pools”)
Niddah (“menstruant”)
Makhshirin (“predisposers”)
Zavim (“they that suffer a flux”)
Tevul Yom (“he that immersed himself that day”)
Yadayim (“hands”)
Uqtzin (“stalks”)

B. Targums (pl. = Targumim)

Targums are important resources of information for interpreting and establishing
the text of the HB Scriptures. The Aramaic word Targum (Heb. ‫ )תרגם‬roughly
means “to translate” and, by extension, “to interpret.” These writings are loose
or free translations, and even extended paraphrases, of the Hebrew Scriptures
into Aramaic, the language of the Jewish people following their return from exile
in Babylon. As we saw earlier, when the Jews returned from Babylon under the
leadership of Ezra and Nehemiah (ca. 450–400 BCE), the language they spoke
SCRIPTURE IN THE RABBINIC TRADITION (90–550 CE) 413

was Aramaic, but their sacred Scriptures were in Hebrew. When the Law of Moses
was read to them, it needed to be translated from Hebrew into Aramaic to make
its meaning clear: “So they read from the book, from the law of God, with inter-
pretation. They gave the sense, so that the people understood the reading” (Neh
8:8, emphasis added).
At first the targums were performed orally by a meturgeman (“translator”), but
eventually a written Aramaic translation was produced (see y. Meg. 1.11) and in
the synagogues the Hebrew text was read twice and the Aramaic read once (b. Ber.
8a). The Jewish Targums range from careful Aramaic translations of the Hebrew
Scriptures (Targum Onkelos) to interpretive paraphrases and even commentary as
in the Targum on the Song of Songs. They date as early as the first century BCE.
In fact, three or four of them were found at Qumran and date to the first century
BCE or early first century CE,102 but most of them are from the rabbinic period
(second century CE to late sixth century CE). Targums were prepared for all of
the books of the Hebrew Bible with the exceptions of Ezra–Nehemiah and Daniel,
but since large portions of those texts are already in Aramaic, it may not have been
deemed necessary to translate them. Most of the Targums were produced after
the separation of the Christians from the Jews in the early second century CE.
Scholars are divided over the relevance of these works for understanding the New
Testament, but there is a growing interest in them and the tide may be shifting in
terms of their relevance for biblical research.103
There are four primary targumim on the Hebrew Scriptures and a fragmented
targum on the Pentateuch: (1) Targum Onkelos (or possibly Aquila, second
century CE, possibly from Babylon) that is the official targum of the Pentateuch;
(2) Targum Yerushalmi, a translation of the Torah (also known as Targum
Pseudo-Jonathan); (3) Targum Jonathan on the Torah (attributed to Yonatan
ben ‘Uzzi’el; b. Meg. 3a) that also covers the Prophets and part of the Writings
or Hagiographa; and (4) Targum Neophyti 1 that covers part of the Torah. There
is also a fifth fragmentary targum on the Pentateuch. There are also targums on
the five scrolls (the so-called Megillot = Song of Songs, Ruth, Lamentations,
Ecclesiastes, and Esther) and Targum Sheni on Esther. Most of the Palestinian
targums are periphrastic and include homiletical interpretations. Those from
Babylon (Onkelos) are more literal.104

102
More specifically, 4Q156 (= 4QtgLev) preserves Lev 16:12–15, 18–21; 4Q157 (= 4QtgJob)
preserves Job 3:5–9(?); 4:16–5:4; and 11Q10 (= 11QtgJob) preserves Job 17:14–42:11. A fourth
possible Targum is 6Q19 (= 6QtgGen?), which preserves Gen 10:20. These texts are completely
independent of the later Targums and were brought to my attention by C. A. Evans in personal
correspondence.
103
C. A. Evans, Ancient Texts for New Testament Studies, 185–215, has a useful listing and
summary of the various targumim and the recent debates about their relevance for New Testament
studies.
104
Daniel Sperber, “Targum,” in Werblowsky and Wigoder, eds., Oxford Dictionary of the Jewish
Religion, 675–76.
414 THE FORMATION OF THE BIBLICAL CANON, VOLUME I

The targums have different styles of translation and most of them, especially
the targums on the Writings, date from the Middle Ages and probably after the
time that Onkelos became the dominant Targum on the Pentateuch. The targums
provide little help in establishing the text or the books that comprise the HB
Scriptures because they emerge for the most part after the establishment of the
Masoretic text and because they are so free in their translations that they are
generally not useful in pointing to a Hebrew Vorlage.
For our purposes, however, although all but three books are translated and
interpreted in the targums, there is no single Targum that translates all of the
Scriptures in the Hebrew Bible. Onkelos covers the Pentateuch, but no Targum
covers all of the books of the HB, including the Hagiographa or Writings. This
cannot be accounted for by arguing that the various attempts at producing targums
were coordinated somehow and each covered a designated portion of the Hebrew
Scriptures. It is not clear what this information says about the status of the biblical
canon among the Jews during this period, but they do reflect Torah’s priority in
Jewish notions of sacred Scripture during the rabbinic period.
Even though most Targums are paraphrastic (Targum Onqelos is the most
literal), they provide valuable information about the early Jewish understanding of
their Scriptures and occasionally reflect remarkable parallels with the NT Gospels
and some letters. Neusner suggests that the earliest Targums may even be used to
reconstruct the Aramaic dialect that Jesus spoke,105 and observes that the Targums
and the Gospels avoid anthropomorphic (i.e., representing God in human form)
and anthropopathic (i.e., ascribing human emotions to God) language. They also
share similar views about this world and the world to come, resurrection, the Son
of Man, a coming day of judgment, a Father in heaven, and heaven (paradise)
itself. They also frequently offer similar interpretations of the Hebrew Scriptures
and, as a result, scholars often use both to interpret each other.106
The dating of the Targums is disputed, but Jewish tradition claims that some of
them go back to the time of the Jews returning from Babylon under the leadership
of Ezra (Neh 8:8, see b. Megillah 18b and Genesis Rabbah 36:8). Most of the
known Targums date from the second to fifth centuries CE. The tradition that they
started with Ezra is probably legendary, but as noted above some Targums do
predate Christian times.
There are no Targums on noncanonical books, but since they date for the most
part from the second century CE and later, when some rabbis had stabilized their
biblical canon, this is understandable. Most of the Targums are of the Pentateuch
(Neofiti I, Pseudo-Jonathan, Onqelos, Fragmentary Targum, Cairo Genizah
Fragments, and the Toseftot), but there is one on the Prophets, traditionally called

105
See Jacob Neusner, “Targums in the New Testament,” in Dictionary of Judaism in the Biblical
Period: 450 BC to 600 CE, ed. Jacob Neusner (New York: Macmillan, 1996), 2:616.
106
Ibid.
SCRIPTURE IN THE RABBINIC TRADITION (90–550 CE) 415

Targum Jonathan. There is no official Targum on the Writings, but Targums were
prepared for all of these books except, as noted earlier, for Daniel, Ezra, and
Nehemiah perhaps because they are written partially in Aramaic.
Since most of the Targums date mostly after the establishment of the Masoretic
Text of the Hebrew Scriptures, their value for establishing the canon of the HB is
marginal. By the time most of them were produced, the rabbis had already made
decisions about the scope of their HB. However, the lateness of a Targum on the
Writings may indicate a late development in the universal acceptance of their
sacredness, or in the lateness of their being placed on an equal canonical footing
with the Prophets. This is all speculative, of course, but suggestive.

V. CONCLUSION

The notion of a biblical canon was not current in the time of Jesus or before though
there were at that time some recognized, closed, and stable collections of Hebrew
Scriptures welcomed as Scripture, certainly the Pentateuch and the Twelve, but
possibly others. Further, it is likely also that most of the books that now comprise
the HB collection of Prophets were welcomed as sacred Scripture by the early first
century, by many Jews as well as Christians, but it was not until the mid-second
century CE when these books were specifically identified. As we have seen, in the
first century CE all scriptures that were not in the Law or Pentateuch were under-
stood as part of a prophetic corpus commonly known as “prophets.” Books earlier
classified in that prophetic collection were later separated in the second century
into Prophets and Writings. We saw that Daniel, which was initially welcomed
as a prophetic book despite its being the last written book to be included in the
HB, was later placed among the Writings in the rabbinic tradition, but not in the
Christian tradition.
Leiman has listed a number of rabbinic references to the Jewish Scriptures
including those that refer to the whole of the Scriptures by the designation Law or
Torah (‫)תורה‬, those that refer only to Torah and the Prophets/Nebi’im (‫)נביאים‬, and
those that refer only to Nebi’im and Ketubim (‫ )כתובים‬that suggests that the two are
equal in sanctity. References to the HB books that include all three designations,
namely Law or Torah (‫)תורה‬, Nebi’im (‫)נביאים‬, and Ketubim (‫)כתובים‬, are rarer,
but do exist. This, of course, suggests that Law or Law and the Prophets were the
most common designations throughout the rabbinic tradition. Leiman also refers
to the other familiar designations for the Jewish Scriptures that include Homashin
(‫)חומשין‬, Mikra (‫)מקרא‬, Kabbalah (‫)קבלה‬, Sepherim (‫)ספרים‬, and others.107

107
Leiman, Canonization of the Hebrew Scripture, 56–67.
416 THE FORMATION OF THE BIBLICAL CANON, VOLUME I

The primary evidence for a closed biblical canon of HB Scriptures among the
Jews comes first in the Rabbinic traditions from the second century CE (b. Baba
Bathra 14b–15a) and later, though the specific number of sacred books is found
earlier at the end of the first century CE in Josephus (twenty-two) and the author
of 4 Ezra (twenty-four). Because those numbers in both instances are arrived at
by combinations of books, it is best to see that they represent sacred numbers
that represent that which is complete and perfect as well as divine rather than the
specific books involved until the second century CE. It is best also to be cautious
about attributing later conclusions of the rabbis to the first century BCE and
CE. There is no evidence that either the late Second Temple Jews or the early
first-century Christians were concerned about the scope of their biblical canons.
Had canon formation been an important issue then, one would think that evidence
would have been left behind indicating that interest.
In terms of how the biblical canon emerged for Judaism, I find Barton’s reference
to T. S. Eliot’s analogy to English literature helpful. Eliot observes that a canon
of English literature was acknowledged by all to “constitute the essential corpus
of classics.” However, as new books with a demonstrated stature were written,
they were immediately placed in relationship to the existing canon. Barton adds
that if the new books were really classic pieces, they had the power to change the
canon, “altering the relationships between the existing works and creating a new
equilibrium in which every previous work takes on a new tinge of meaning.”108
This is not unlike what happened with the classics in the Alexandrian pinakes
discussed earlier. Also, this sort of ever-new inclusion seems to have occurred as
the prophetic collection gradually increased in size and new books were recog-
nized and added to the well-established “classics” of the Torah. Likewise for the
early Christians, the NT writings caused a new sense of canon to emerge in which
the older “classics” (their OT) were no longer read in the same way; the earlier
books were still canon, but viewed in a different manner (eschatologically and
christologically) and because new “classics” (e.g., Gospels and Paul especially)
were now being seen as highly important to the early churches, they too were
added to the earlier sacred collection.
This parallel has certain limitations, but what seems apparent is that Torah was
always at the core or heart of Jewish sacred Scripture, and everything else formed
around it, either by clarifying it or fulfilling it, but always in close proximity to
it. Whenever other literature was added to the collections of sacred texts, the
older canonical books were viewed in a new way. As the Torah thus expanded
beyond the Law of Moses to include the prophetic writings that were later divided
into Prophets and Writings, each new expansion brought a redefinition of Torah
and indeed canon. Early Christianity emerged as this redefinition process was

108
Barton, People of the Book?, 32.
SCRIPTURE IN THE RABBINIC TRADITION (90–550 CE) 417

taking place in which certain books of the Writings were considered sacred and
holy and some were simply not as useful in worship and teaching (e.g., perhaps
Ecclesiastes, Song of Songs, and Esther).
The early church’s canonical processes began with their recognition of most
of the books that now comprise the HB canon and the Protestant OT canon, but
other books besides (the apocryphal or deuterocanonical writings). This collection
began to expand when they recognized the value of some of their own writings in
their instruction and mission (the Gospels and Paul’s letters especially). During
the early Christians’ separation from Judaism, the collection of recognized
scriptures in the first century CE are unclear around the edges or fringes of their
scriptural collections, but not on the majority of the writings that they accepted.
The early Christians, like some of the rabbinic sages, had questions, doubts, and
some ambiguity over some books in their scriptural collections. Their lack of
interest in a fixed biblical canon in the first century CE and before can be seen in
the emergence of a new collection of sacred texts that began to be recognized as
Scripture in the mid- to late second century. Also, there are no known discussions
of a formal recognition of a fixed collection of sacred books (HB or NT) in any of
the surviving literature of that period or in the early centuries of the church.
This is similar to their Jewish siblings who showed little interest in a fixed
collection of sacred Scriptures until the second century CE. If the early church
was born with a fixed biblical canon in its hands, it nowhere identifies it, but
does shows considerable allegiance to the Law and the not so clear collection of
“prophets.” It has been suggested that the early Christians’ lack of reporting such
a collection of sacred books was because it was so well known that it was unnec-
essary for Jews or Christians to list its contents in the first century CE.109 This, of
course, is an argument from silence and there is no evidence that such a biblical
canon was well known at that time.
It is preferable to say that the notion of a fixed Jewish biblical canon only
begins to emerge at the end of the first century CE for the Jews and much later for
the Christians and that the process was completed later for both. The rabbis who
shaped the Mishnah and the two Talmudim are the same ones who gave shape to
final form of the HB canon. These rabbis included in their sacred Scripture collec-
tions the books that they believed were written before, during, or shortly after
the time of Ezra and Nehemiah or with the deaths of the last classical prophets.
According to Lightstone, “the shape and character of the rabbinic canon bears a
homological relationship with the shape and character of sacred space on earth,
the ‘Restored Jerusalem’ of the returnees, and with sacred time, from Creation
to ‘Restoration.’ So Scripture begins with the ‘Torah of Moses’ and ends with its

109
So argue Ellis, Old Testament in Early Christianity, 50, 125–38 and Beckwith, Old Testament
Canon, 22–25.
418 THE FORMATION OF THE BIBLICAL CANON, VOLUME I

realization under Ezra and Nehemiah.”110 Although this understanding does not
fit all of the facts “on the ground,” namely how the Jews appropriated the rest of
its Scriptures, it is especially appropriate to the social context and experience of
rabbinic Judaism during and after the late second century CE.
As noted earlier, had there been a clearly defined biblical canon earlier, one
would think that at least some statement saying so would have survived from that
time whether Jewish or Christian. The listing of such books in the late second
century CE came either because of the concern over apocalyptic literature that led
to the downfall of their nation or, as we saw above, some Jews were influenced
by reading some of the Christian books, especially the Gospels, as Moore noted
above. If a biblical canon had existed before then, it is doubtful that it could have
been lost or blurred both in Judaism of Late Antiquity and also in early Christianity
at the same time. It is highly unlikely that the two primary surviving religious sects
of Judaism, rabbinic Judaism and early Christianity, could have appealed to its
sacred literature in support of the foundation of their life and ministries, and yet
both lost the scope or boundaries of those Scriptures had they been known in the
first centuries BCE and CE.
In regard to the rabbinic tradition, the processes leading up to canonization
allowed for variance of opinion about the makeup of the sacred collection and
about which books defiled or did not defile the hands. Scholars arguing for an
early closure of the Jewish biblical canon generally minimize rabbinic texts that
cast doubts on the sacredness of some books that were eventually included in the
HB canon. However, such discussions and debates among the rabbis are hardly
understandable if all canonical issues had been settled earlier. Interestingly, no
early traditions are appealed to by rabbinic sages when they begin to list the
contents of their Scriptures in the second century CE and later.
In sum, the evidence in support of a clearly defined biblical canon in the first
centuries BCE and CE is not convincing. The theory of an early tripartite HB
canon leaves unresolved the differences over the twenty-two or twenty-four books
in its canon, the origin of the third part of the Tanak, the influence of a larger Greek
Bible, and the relevance that the Dead Sea Scrolls bring to this discussion.

110
Lightstone, Society, the Sacred, and Scripture, 63. Lightstone’s larger discussion deals with the
notion of Scripture in Judaism as a closed system (59–70), especially the social context in which
Judaism defined its Scriptures (67–70). See also idem, “Formation of the Biblical Canon.”
 CHAPTER 12

ANCIENT ARTIFACTS AND THE

STABILIZATION OF THE JEWISH
SCRIPTURES*

Without question, the most commonly gathered evidence for the canonization
processes are the ancient lists or catalogues dating from the second century CE
well into modern times, but also from various testimonies whether Jewish or
Christian. There are other important witnesses as well that include what books
were actually in the surviving ancient biblical manuscripts, what books are in the
oldest translations of the Jewish and Christian Scriptures, and what texts of those
books, along with the numerous variants in them, were employed in establishing
a widely accepted text of the biblical books. In this chapter I will examine several
ancient artifacts and their relevance for our understanding of the formation of the
biblical canon. We begin here with the contents of the manuscripts.

I. HEBREW BIBLE AND OLD TESTAMENT MANUSCRIPTS:

WHAT IS IN THEM?

The number of surviving ancient biblical manuscripts is estimated to be less than

one percent of all the ancient documents that were produced,1 but the ones that
have survived have an important story to tell and may well be among the most
important and influential sources. The manuscripts often tell an important story
unnoticed in canon studies, namely, what books they include or do not include and
the text in them. The surviving manuscripts reflect important canonical formation
data that allow us to make decisions about significant junctures in the canonical

* Portions of the contents of this chapter were earlier published in Lee M. McDonald, Forgotten
Scriptures: The Selection and Rejection of Early Religious Writings (Louisville, KY: Westminster
John Knox, 2009). I have abbreviated much of the earlier publication and updated it here with
permission from Westminster John Knox.
1
Larry Hurtado, The Earliest Christian Artifacts: Manuscripts and Christian Origins (Grand
Rapids: Eerdmans, 2006), makes this observation, namely, about 1% of over 500,000 manuscripts
produced in antiquity in the early Christian centuries (pp. 24–25).
420 THE FORMATION OF THE BIBLICAL CANON, VOLUME I

processes, including the fluidity in the ancient biblical canons in regard to which
books functioned as Scripture in which locations. This should not be surprising
since we have already observed that Jews in the Late Second Temple period and
the earlier followers of Jesus (through the third century CE) made use of a variety
of Jewish religious texts that were eventually omitted from the later fixed biblical
canons of both Rabbinic Judaism and Christianity. Some of the less familiar books
among the ancient manuscripts that have survived mostly in the dry deserts of
Egypt or the Jordan valley, include books that are now designated apocryphal or
pseudepigraphal literature. Most of these ancient books survive in single volumes,
but some of them, especially the books of the Law of Moses and the Twelve, were
often placed in one volume or scroll, though not always in the same sequence that
is now well established. We begin here with the text of the HB Scriptures.

A. Witnesses to the Hebrew Text of the HB

The following are among most important manuscripts that have survived antiquity
and are used in producing the Biblica Hebraica editions of the Hebrew Bible,
especially the Nash Papyrus, Ben Asher Aleppo Codex, and the Leningrad Codex.
The manuscripts that deserve special attention here include:2

1.  The DJD Texts. Biblical and so-called non-biblical manuscripts discovered

in the Judaean Desert at Qumran, Masada, Naḥal Ḥever, and Murabba‘at in
1947 and following are among the most important finds for establishing the
earliest text of the Hebrew Bible. Chief among these manuscripts are the
Isaiah Scroll from Cave 1 (1QIsa), the Habakkuk Commentary from Cave 1
(1QpHab), and the Psalms Scroll from Cave 11 (11QPsa), but these are only
a few of the highly significant manuscripts for establishing the earliest text
of the HB in other HB books. Most of these finds and their significance were
discussed above in Chapters 7, 8 and 10 above.
2.  Nash Papyrus (Pap. Nash; pl. 6). This is a papyrus sheet that contains a
damaged copy of the Decalogue (Exod 20:2–17) and partly Deut 5:6–21
with the Shema‘ from Deut 6:4–9 appended. It dates probably from the
Maccabean period, possibly middle to late second century BCE. It may be
the earliest known HB manuscript.
3.  The Cairo Genizah Fragments. This collection is discussed above (Chapter
11, §2.G). Of the over 200,000 fragments of sacred texts that were stored in
this genizah3 in the Ben Ezra Synagogue in Cairo, Egypt, there are biblical
and non-biblical fragments written in Hebrew, Aramaic, Greek, Samaritan,
and Arabic that most apparently date from the fifth century CE and later.

2
I am largely following here the texts listed by Würthwein, Text of the Old Testament, 2nd ed.,
30–38; and Emanuel Tov, Textual Criticism of the Hebrew Bible, 3rd ed., rev. and exp. (Minneap-
olis: Fortress, 2012), 23–115.
3
See Chapter 11 n. 89 above for its meaning.
ANCIENT ARTIFACTS AND THE STABILIZATION OF THE JEWISH SCRIPTURES 421

They contain not only fragments of the biblical books, but other texts as
well, including several copies of the Hebrew and Aramaic texts of Tobit
and Sirach and the Damascus Rule (similar to the Damascus Document
discovered at Qumran). Many of these fragments have not yet been studied
or published, but besides their value for textual criticism, it appears that the
presence of multiple copies of nonbiblical books in this collection suggests
that earlier there may have been a broader scripture collection for Jews in
Cairo than what we see in the Rabbinic Scripture canon.
4.  Ben Asher Manuscripts. These manuscripts date from the mid- to late
eighth century to the mid-tenth century. The Ben Asher family produced
their biblical manuscripts with vowel pointing and accents following what
is now known as the Masoretic text of the HB. The most important of these
manuscripts are the Aleppo and Leningrad Codices. Codex Cairensis (C),
according to its colophon,4 contains the Former and Latter Prophets and
was produced by Moses ben Asher in 895 CE. It came into the possession
of the Karaite Jewish community in Cairo. The Aleppo Codex (pl. 21)
originally contained the complete HB, but it is now missing Gen 1:1–Deut
28:26 and from Song 3:12 to the end (it omits Ecclesiastes, Lamentations,
Esther, Daniel, Ezra, and Nehemiah). Subsequently, photographs of Deut
4:38–6:3, Gen 26:37–27:30 and 2 Chr 37:7–36:19 have been found in
different volumes and are stored in a folio at the Hebrew University Library
in Jerusalem.
5.  Codex Leningradensis (or Leningrad Codex; L; pl. 24) is a witness to the
oldest surviving Ben Asher text (the Aleppo text) and, according to its
colophon was copied in 1008 CE from the exemplars of Aaron ben Moses
ben Asher. This is the oldest complete codex of the books that comprise
the Hebrew Bible and it is a representative of the Masoretic Text (MT)
containing all of the textual and marginal notations that enable scholars
to reconstruct the history of the textual transmission of the HB. Both of
these manuscripts have the vowel pointing and accents that follow the
Tiberian school of Masoretes. In 1998 a beautiful facsimile of this codex
was published5 and the codex remains one of the most important witnesses
to the MT of the HB.
6.  The Petersburg Codex of the Prophets (VP). This manuscript, dates to
915–16 CE and shows better than any other manuscript the Babylonian
pointing system. It contains Isaiah, Jeremiah, Ezekiel, and the Minor

4
A colophon (Greek kolophon = “finish” or “end”) is usually a note at the end of a book indicating
the date and location of the production, and sometimes the identity of the scribe who produced the
manuscript with details that the scribe thought important to communicate to readers. Many ancient
manuscripts have them.
5
The Leningrad Codex: A Facsimile Edition, D. N. Freedman, gen. ed. (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans;
Leiden: Brill, 1998).
422 THE FORMATION OF THE BIBLICAL CANON, VOLUME I

Prophets (the Twelve). It used the Eastern (Babylonian) signs, but followed
the Western tradition in its consonantal text and pointing. The absence of
Daniel suggests that the codex is following the Tanak order of the HB books.
7.  The Erfurt Codices. These three codices were used in the BHK (or BH
for Biblica Hebraica) edition of the HB and are known as the Erfurtensis
1, 2, and 3. They were housed in the Prussian State Library in Berlin (Ms
Orient. 1210/11, 1212, 1213), but are now in the national Library of Prussian
Cultural Properties. E1 (Erfurtensis 1) contains the HB Scriptures, Targums,
and the large and small Masora (Masoretic notes). E2, dating from the
thirteenth century CE, contains the Hebrew HB Scriptures, Targum Onkelos,
and the large and small Masora. E3, the most important of these codices,
dates before 1100 CE and contains the HB Scriptures, large and small
Masora, and two extracts from Okhla weOkhla.6
8.  Lost Codices. A number of codices have been lost, but were referred to in
earlier notes. These include Codex Severi (Sev), Codex Hillel (Hill), Codex
Muga (cited in Ms. 4445 and in the Petersburg Codex), Codex Jericho, and
Codex Yerushalmi. Aside from the earlier notes in the BH nothing is known
about these codices.

These textual witnesses to the MT are frequently different from the texts of the
biblical books at Qumran. Emanuel Tov has aptly said of them, “There are many
differences in reading between the individual Qumran texts, or, phrased differently,
these texts reflect many variants vis-à-vis M [Masoretic Text].”7 These numerous
variants are mostly minor, easily corrected, and often involve spelling errors. They
did not go unnoticed by the ancient rabbis who set about ways to fix them, even
though they were often unsuccessful in their many attempts. Some changes in the
text, however, were obviously intentional and those are more challenging to fix
and may not have been noticed by copiers if there were no errors in spelling and
the text made sense to the copier. The well-known post-Talmudic tractate, Soferim,
set a precedent for correcting errant scriptural texts by following the testimony of
the majority of manuscripts. This tradition is attributed to a third-century rabbi,
but it may ultimately derive from a Late Second Temple (pre-70 CE) era. The text
is as follows:

6
In the famous Rabbinic Bible of 1524/25 CE published by Rabbi Jacob ben Chayyim, the rabbi
used a medieval collection of notes called Okhla weOkhla that begins with an alphabetical list of
words occurring only one time in the Scriptures. It derives its name from the Hebrew letters in 1 Sam
1:9 and Gen 27:19.
7
Tov, Textual Criticism of the Hebrew Bible, 111. In personal communication with me, following
a comment I made in a lecture about there being between 200,000 to 400,000 variants in the New
Testament manuscripts, Emanuel Tov shared with me that there were some 900,000 variants in the
surviving Hebrew manuscripts!
ANCIENT ARTIFACTS AND THE STABILIZATION OF THE JEWISH SCRIPTURES 423

Said Rabbi Shimon ben Laqish: Three scrolls were located in the Temple court, Sefer “M‘wn,”
Sefer “Z‘twty,” [and] Sefer “Hy’.”
In one they found written m‘wn ’lhy qdm, “the dwelling place of the ancient God,” and in two
they found written m‘wnh ’ihy qdm (Deut 33:27); and they established [the reading in the] two
and invalidated [the reading in the] one.
In one they found written wyslh ’t z‘twty bny ysr’l, “and he sent the youths of the Israelites,”
and in two they found written wyslh ’t n‘ry bny ysr’l (Ex. 24:5); and they established [the
reading in the] two and invalidated [the reading in the] one.
In one they found “she” spelled hy’ eleven times, and in two they found it spelled hw’ eleven
times; they established [the reading in the] two and invalidated [the reading in the] one (Soferim
6:4: Three Scrolls in the Temple Court).8

More than fifty years ago, M. H. Segal proposed that the origins of the Masoretic
Text (MT) began following the cleansing and dedication of the Temple during
the reign of Judas Maccabee (1 Macc 2:23–41). Segal observes that because of
Antiochus IV’s destruction of copies of the Jewish Law (1 Macc 1:56–57), a
need for more copies of the law was necessary and Judas Maccabees employed
scribes to produce them (see earlier discussion of 2 Macc 2:13–15). He claims that
this was the logical time when the scribes would be more likely to initiate some
consistency in the text when they copied new scrolls.9 This, he argues, can be seen
in the differences between two different copies of the Isaiah Scroll discovered at
Qumran, namely 1QIsaa and 1QIsab.10 The first of these texts is earlier and has
several corrections in it that are reflected in the later MT text. From this Segal
deduces that 1QIsaa is the older text – which he concludes was rescued by the
Jews during the Seleucid Dynasty’s destruction of Jewish sacred books. The
more recent text, he claims, parallels the later MT text adopted by the rabbis in
the second century CE. Later, he argues, the correctors of biblical scrolls during
the Talmudic period, harmonized them with the MT.11 A Talmudic text refers to
the numbering of the letters and words of the Torah and Psalms and this appears
to support a stabilized text of the Hebrew Scriptures since to count the letters of
words in the scriptures implies a relatively fine fixed text. The text in question
reads:

8
This translation is from Levy, Fixing God’s Torah, 6. Of notable interest is his quote on p. 97
of a certain Rabbi Joel Sirkes (1561–1640) who says of this procedure, “In regard to an error in the
word ha-hi’ that is written with a yod in place of the waw [i.e., which should be spelled hhw’ but is
spelled hhy’ and modifies a feminine noun], not one person in the world who has a brain in his head
would agree to take out another [scroll] because of an error of this sort”!
9
M. H. Segal, “The Promulgation of the Authoritative Text of the Hebrew Bible,” JBL 72 (1953):
35–47.
10
Segal actually uses the earlier DSS identification of DSIa and DSIb. I have changed them here
to conform to the current references.
11
Segal, “The Promulgation of the Authoritative Text of the Hebrew Bible,” 38. He cites evidence
of such correctors in the following Talmudic text: “Rabba bar Hanah reported in the name of R.
Hohanan that the correctors of biblical books in Jerusalem received their wages out of the apportion-
ment from the fund of the shekel-chamber in the Temple” (b. Ketuboth 106a, trans. Segal).
424 THE FORMATION OF THE BIBLICAL CANON, VOLUME I

For this reason were the ancients called sopherim [= scribes], because they used to number all
the letters of the Torah. For they used to say the waw… (Lev 11:42) marks the end of half the
words of the Torah… (Lev 13:33) marks the end of half the verses of the Torah the ‘ayin… (Psa
80:14) marks the end of half the Psalms in respect of the letters; … (Psa 78:38) marks its half
in verses. (b. Qiddushin 30a, trans. by Segal)

This source assumes a letter-perfect text of the Torah available to the scribes and
also an exact replica of the original Torah. According to Levy, the rabbis believed
that copies of the Torah were made from a single correct copy, but this is nowhere
to be seen or substantiated in the actual copies that have survived.12 However,
Segal acknowledges that no complete stabilization of the text of the Hebrew Bible
ever existed stating “[W]e have conclusive evidence, both internal and external,
that for a long time in the age of the sopherim the text was in a fluid condition,
and that scribes were not tied to a standard text.”13 Aware of the fluidity of the
text during this time, he posits that the stabilizing of the biblical texts that began
following Judas Maccabees became more stable in the second century CE and
later under the direction of the rabbis. He supports this with a further Talmudic
text that appears to refer to an official text of the Torah known as “The Book of
the Temple Court” copied by the king of Israel (y. Sanhedrin 2.6).14
Finally, Segal suggests that during the destruction of the Temple in Jerusalem
an official copy of the Torah was taken to Rome and that this is likely the copy
that was returned to the Jews by Alexander Severus (222–235 CE) who also was
responsible for the building of a synagogue for the Jews in Rome. In support of
this, he cites an Aramaic midrash (interpretation) that states: “This is one of the
words which were written in the Torah which came out of Jerusalem in captivity,
and went up to Rome and was stored in the synagogue of Severus.”15 He also cites
the testimony of Josephus who claims that the Roman Emperor had such a copy
of the Jewish Law and that when the Temple was destroyed, Vespasian and Titus
took the Law of the Jews among their spoils of the war. “After these, and last of
all the spoils, was carried a copy of the Jewish Law” (Josephus, Wars 7.150, LCL).
Later Josephus states that Vespasian “laid up the vessels of gold from the temple
of the Jews, on which he prided himself; but their Law and the purple hangings of
the sanctuary he ordered to be deposited and kept in the palace” (Wars 7.161–62,
LCL).16

12
Levy, Fixing God’s Torah, 8.
13
Segal, “The Promulgation of the Authoritative Text of the Hebrew Bible,” 39.
14
Ibid., 43–44. That text reads: “And he writes for himself a scroll of the Torah (Deut. 17:18) – for
his own use, that he not have to make use of the one of his fathers, but rather of his own [T. San. 4:7].
And they correct his scroll by comparing it to the scroll of the Temple courtyard, on the authority
of the Sanhedrin of seventy-one members” (trans. Jacob Neusner, The Jerusalem Talmud, emphasis
added).
15
Ibid., 45–46.
16
A useful listing and description of the relevant manuscripts and codices, along with their contents,
are in Paul D. Wegner, The Journey from Texts to Translations: The Origin and Development of the
ANCIENT ARTIFACTS AND THE STABILIZATION OF THE JEWISH SCRIPTURES 425

B. Early Christian Old Testament Manuscripts

The most valuable Christian biblical manuscripts for establishing the earliest form
of a Christian biblical text (see a discussion of the biblical text in §III below) are
the Greek papyrus manuscripts that date from the second to roughly the seventh
centuries CE. These texts often inform us about the social context of the time they
were produced, including the theological and apologetic challenges facing the
churches. These texts also regularly reflect the early forms of NT texts circulating
in the Christian churches, but in regard to the Old Testament, besides the Jewish
HB manuscripts and the extra-biblical manuscripts mentioned above, there are
almost no Greek OT manuscripts before the fourth century and those are Christian
OT manuscripts. However, we can discern from the quotations and citations of
some OT texts in them the form and text of the biblical text at early stages, as we
see in the NT manuscripts but also in OT quotes from the LXX in the early church
fathers who also followed the LXX text.
For knowing what books were in the ancient manuscripts, the papyrus
manuscripts are of less value since they often contain only one book or seldom
more than a few, but the later parchment uncial manuscripts (fourth–ninth century
CE) that have survived regularly contain multiple books in one codex. There
are occasionally multiple books in the papyrus codices, indeed, of the currently
128 NT papyrus manuscripts that have survived antiquity, all are fragmented
and only 14 have more than one book in them. This changes with the parchment
manuscripts, that is, the majuscules or uncial manuscripts of the fourth century and
later. These manuscripts were produced at a time when it was possible to include
all of the books of the Christian Bible in one volume of some 1500 or more pages
and consequently they allow us to determine with more certainty which books
informed the faith of the churches at that time. Occasionally they include not only
books in the HB canon, but others as well. When we examine these manuscripts
canonically, we look first to see what books or “other books” are in them, what the
books say in matters of interest to canon formation, and then to the text of biblical
books they employ. Was the biblical text accidentally or deliberately changed and
can we determine why? Why are additional books added or some deleted in these
collections? Some of the manuscripts have several of the so-called apocryphal
books in them. Some of the best-preserved uncial manuscripts from the fourth
century and later include both the OT and NT books in them, but sometimes not
exactly the books that we have in Christian Bibles today. The papyrus manuscripts
are much more valuable in establishing an earlier form of the biblical text than in

Bible (Grand Rapids: Baker Academic, 1999), 185–205. He also includes not only the Samaritan
Pentateuch, but also the LXX and the major Christian OT manuscripts. The above manuscripts are
Jewish and give a glimpse of the status of the biblical and nonbiblical texts in their earliest recov-
erable condition.
426 THE FORMATION OF THE BIBLICAL CANON, VOLUME I

which books were included in the biblical canon, but in a few cases, the papyrus
manuscripts even offer valuable early evidence for identifying the books that
informed the faith of the early Christian churches. We will now look briefly at the
contents of some of these manuscripts.

1. Early Papyrus Manuscripts. Bastian van Elderen has listed and summarized
several early collections of Christian scriptures that included Christian Old
Testament Scriptures.17 Their value is tempered by the fact that these collections
are quite fragmentary and do not tell the whole story from their generation. The
first of these collections that includes both OT and NT books is the famous Chester
Beatty papyri that were found in the Nile Valley and purchased by Chester Beatty
in the 1930s. Most of this collection is housed in Dublin at the Chester Beatty
Library and Museum of Oriental Art in Dublin, but some pages of the collection
are located at the Hatcher Library of the University of Michigan in Ann Arbor,
Michigan. They were found in the vicinity of At’fih (ancient Aphroditopolis) on
the east side of the Nile near Fayyum.
Van Elderen lists the various books in the Chester Beatty collection of OT
books as follows: Genesis, Numbers, Deuteronomy, Isaiah, Jeremiah, Ezekiel and
Esther, Daniel, Ecclesiasticus (Sirach), Enoch, and a homily by Melito.18 He added
that these various manuscripts are combined in a single codex dating from around
200 CE to the fifth century and several of them predate by almost 150 years the
earliest known uncial parchment biblical manuscripts of the middle to late fourth
century.19 The NT books will be listed and discussed in Chapter 20 §III.
The other more significant collection of ancient Christian OT manuscripts is the
Bodmer Papyri Collection. In the early 1950s a large and impressive collection of
Greek and Coptic manuscripts was discovered in Upper Egypt that was acquired by
Martin Bodmer. They are included in the Bodmer Library which published some
of these texts in 1954, namely two rolls (scrolls) containing the Iliad (Books 5 and
6), then the rest were published periodically over a number of years. They are now
housed in six locations (the Chester Beatty Library in Dublin, the Palau-Ribes
Collection in Barcelona, Duke University, the Vatican Library, the University of
Mississippi, and the University of Cologne, Germany). It is not clear that all of
these papyri are from the same collection since they include many non-Christian
and non-Jewish ancient texts. Among the OT books, or fragments of books, in
this collection are: Genesis (Coptic), Exodus (Coptic), Deuteronomy (Coptic),
Joshua (Coptic), Psalms (several manuscripts in Greek), Proverbs (Coptic),
Song of Songs (Greek), Isaiah (Coptic), Jeremiah (Coptic) including Lamentations

17
Bastiaan van Elderen, “Early Christian Libraries,” in The Bible as Book: The Manuscript Tradi-
tion, ed. John Sharpe and Kimberly Van Kampen (London: The British Library; Newcastle, DE: Oak
Knoll, 1998), 45–59, here 46–47.
18
Ibid.
19
Ibid., 47.
ANCIENT ARTIFACTS AND THE STABILIZATION OF THE JEWISH SCRIPTURES 427

(Coptic), Epistle of Jeremiah (Coptic), Baruch 1–5 (Coptic), Daniel (Coptic),

Daniel (Greek), Jonah (Coptic), Susanna (Greek), Tobit (Coptic), 2 Maccabees
(Coptic), and the 11th Ode of Solomon (Greek).20 These manuscripts were
produced from the beginning of the fourth century CE to around the seventh
century by members of the Pachomian monastery and they were buried in the
vicinity of Jebel Abu Mana in the seventh century during their decline.

2. Uncial Biblical Manuscripts. The most important Christian OT manuscripts

were produced in the fourth and fifth centuries, namely codices Vaticanus (B,
02), Sinaiticus (‫א‬, 01), and Alexandrinus (A, 03).21 What makes them highly
significant is that for the first time in the fourth and fifth centuries the technology
for producing books or codices had advanced sufficiently to make it possible to
include more than 1600 pages in one parchment volume. This allowed the church
to include for the first time all of its OT and NT Scriptures in one volume. While
the precise date, place of origin, and function of these manuscripts are not known,
they remain the oldest witnesses to the state of the LXX biblical text in the fourth
and fifth centuries CE and they were produced professionally with considerable
care. They not only contain the so-called biblical books, but also some of the
so-called apocryphal books that served as sacred scriptures in the communities
that had them. These manuscripts are important resources for reconstructing the
earliest biblical text of the LXX dating from the fourth and fifth centuries. The OT
books in each of these major manuscripts are as follows:

Codex Vaticanus (ca. 350 CE): Genesis, Exodus, Leviticus, Numbers, Deuteronomy, Joshua,
Judges, Ruth, 1–4 Kingdoms, 1–2 Chronicles, 1–2 Esdras, Psalms, Proverbs, Ecclesiastes,
Song of Solomon, Job, Wisdom, Sirach, Esther, Judith, Tobit, the Twelve (Hosea–Amos–
Micah–Joel–Obadiah–Jonah–Nahum–Habakkuk–Zephaniah–Haggai–Zechariah–Malachi),
Isaiah, Jeremiah, Baruch, Lamentations, Epistle of Jeremiah, Ezekiel, Daniel. [Note also the
order of these books.]

Codex Sinaiticus (ca. 350–400 CE): Genesis…22 Numbers…1 Chronicles, 2 Esdras, Esther,
Tobit, Judith, 1 Maccabees, 4 Maccabees, Isaiah, Jeremiah, Lamentations…, Joel–Obadiah–
Jonah–Nahum–Habakkuk–Zephaniah–Malachi, Psalms, Proverbs, Ecclesiastes, Song of Songs,
Wisdom of Solomon, Prologue to Sirach, Wisdom of ben Sirach, Job.

20
I will survey the NT books in this collection in Chapter 20 §IV.
21
The numbers attached to these manuscripts do not suggest their date, but rather the order of their
discovery or what was perceived as their significance. Most of the uncial manuscripts do not contain
all of the books of the Bible and most are fragmentary containing only a few books and sometimes
only one. These first three manuscripts are considered the most important biblical manuscripts from
the fourth and fifth centuries because all were produced to include all of the received sacred texts at
that time.
22
The elliptical dots reflect the places where the manuscript is fragmentary or missing.
428 THE FORMATION OF THE BIBLICAL CANON, VOLUME I

Codex Alexandrinus (fifth century CE): Genesis, Exodus, Leviticus, Numbers, Deuteronomy,
Joshua, Judges, Ruth, 1–4 Kingdoms, 1–2 Chronicles, Hosea–Amos–Micah–Joel–Obadiah–
Jonah–Nahum–Habakkuk–Zephaniah–Haggai–Zechariah–Malachi, Isaiah, Jeremiah, Baruch,
Lamentations, Epistle of Jeremiah, Ezekiel, Daniel, Esther, Tobit, Judith, 1–2 Esdras, 1–4
Maccabees, Psalms, Odes of Solomon, Job, Proverbs, Ecclesiastes, Song of Solomon, Wisdom
of Solomon Wisdom of ben Sirach.23

There is value in the papyrus manuscripts of OT texts, but it is limited because,

although they are often earlier than the later uncial parchment biblical manuscripts,
they are all fragmentary and seldom contain more than one or two books. They
do not tell us the larger story that the later uncial or majuscule manuscripts tell,
namely all of the other books that informed the faith of the earliest Christian
communities in the fourth and fifth centuries, but they do reflect some of them.
The papyrus manuscripts are more valuable in establishing an earlier form of the
biblical text than in showing which sacred books informed the early Christian
churches. Few OT manuscripts predate the fourth century CE, despite the fact that
the Jewish Scriptures formed the core scriptures of the earliest Christian churches.

II. THE MASORETES AND THE SURVIVING

HEBREW BIBLE TEXT

It is well known that as the rabbinic tradition began to emphasize the stabilization
of the biblical text, a group of scribes adopted a text of the HB Scriptures that
they believed was the earliest text of their Scriptures, but before them, there was
little attention or emphasis given to the accuracy of the text of those Scriptures. It
is helpful that these early transmitters and copiers of the HB Scriptures made use
of various signs and notes that enable them to preserve a careful transmission and
sounding of the text of the Hebrew Scriptures.
Their name comes from the Hebrew masoret, which means “that which is handed
down” or “tradition.” Their name is likely a reference to “those who hand down”
the sacred texts. In the technical sense, the Masorah refers to the apparatus for the
writing and reading of the biblical text. The Masoretic Text (MT) is based on the

23
Observe the order or sequence of these books in these three major manuscripts. The variety
shows that at this time (fourth and fifth centuries CE) the order of the biblical books had not yet
been settled in the churches. Codex Sinaiticus broadly follows the Tanak sequence of books, but
nevertheless has several of the Ketubim earlier than the prophets, namely the Chronicles, 2 Esdras,
and Esther. Presumably Daniel was placed after Lamentations. Such a popular book would not have
been omitted on purpose. The same is true of Ezekiel. After 1 Chronicles and after Lamentations
there is fragmentation of the manuscript and it is likely that Daniel was placed after Lamentations
following Ezekiel. Daniel was regularly included among the prophets in Christian Bibles as we see
in the other two Christian OT manuscripts. Similarly, much is made of the parallels between Codex
Alexandrinus and the Tanak, but as in Codex Sinaiticus, several books in the HB Writings are in the
usual Christian order and all of the Writings are not at the end. We will say more about this below.
ANCIENT ARTIFACTS AND THE STABILIZATION OF THE JEWISH SCRIPTURES 429

biblical text that was “handed down” over the centuries by the various schools of
the Masoretes. However, there appears to be no consensus on the full meaning of
Masorah. Some suggest that the term, which is used in Aboth 3.14, comes from
the famous Rabbi Aqiva who spoke of “The tradition is a fence around the Law”
(Danby trans., 452). Some witnesses translate this text “masoret seyag la-tora,”
meaning, “masoret is a fence around the Torah.”24 The Masoretes may have begun
their work as early as ca. 500 CE, but more likely around 700–800. Of the three
Masoretic communities – the Palestinian, the Babylonian, and the Tiberian – the
latter had the greatest impact on the preservation of the text of the Hebrew Bible.
Their pointing of the Hebrew Bible itself probably does not date much before
650–750 CE, since nothing is said about pointing the Hebrew text of scripture in
the Babylonian Talmud (completed ca. 550–600 CE). The Masoretes preserved
the consonantal proto-Masoretic text which has its origins perhaps in the first
century BCE, but they added the vowel points and accents in the text. The most
important texts that survived from their work are the Aleppo (900–950 CE) and
the Leningrad (1008 CE) manuscripts – that are highly significant in establishing
the earliest possible text of the Hebrew Bible.25 Their work will be referred to
often in what follows.
While the primary focus on canonization in antiquity had to do with which
books comprise the sacred Scriptures, it became obvious to the rabbinic sages that
stabilization of the biblical text was also an important factor in their preservation
of their biblical canon. At least four scriptural text-types were discovered among
the Dead Sea Scrolls and later the necessity of a “canonical” text was seen as
critically important so the rabbis adopted various steps or procedures to insure the
accuracy of their sacred texts and generally followed the MT. The later emphasis
on the stabilization of the text was long considered important (e.g., Deut 4:2),
but there was little attention given to it until the later Rabbinic Era. The Greek
version of Jeremiah, for example, lacks some 2700 words that are in the HB
text of Jeremiah. It is probable that the shorter LXX text is based on an earlier
antecedent text (Vorlage) of the Hebrew Scriptures that is closer to an original text
than the later longer MT of Jeremiah. In another example of textual fluidity, the
text in 1 Sam 10:27 was often confusing in regard to the identity of Nahash since
nothing was said about him earlier in 1 Samuel, but recently because of a text of
1 Samuel discovered at Qumran, the identity of Nahash has been established and
four sentences were added in the NRSV at the end of v. 27. The NIV translation
has placed them partly at the beginning of 11:1 and in a footnote at the bottom of
that page.

24
For this explanation, see Levy, Fixing God’s Torah, 14.
25
For a more detailed description of the Masoretes and the manuscripts they produced, see Würth-
wein, Text of the Old Testament, trans. E. F. Rhodes, 2nd ed. (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1995),
28–38.
430 THE FORMATION OF THE BIBLICAL CANON, VOLUME I

Several such examples reflect developments in the textual history of the HB

and textual scholars generally recognize the instability and fluidity in the HB text
until the invention of the printing press, despite numerous Masoretic attempts at
textual stabilization. The text of the HB varies considerably from the LXX and
this is regularly noticed by students who compare the NT’s quotations of the LXX
with the Hebrew or even English translations from the MT. Würthwein has noted
that Daniel and Job are among the freer or less literal texts and translations in the
HB and also that the text and the order or sequence of the HB books varied for
centuries. Likewise, he observes that the LXX is not so much a single version, but
rather a “collection of versions made by various writers who regularly differed
greatly in their translation methods, their knowledge of Hebrew, their styles,
and in other ways.”26 While the collections of scriptures among the Jews and
Christians overlap considerably, they often differ in terms of book titles, number
of books, arrangement or order, and in their text. There is often overlap in the text
of the books themselves in the HB and LXX, but there are also significant differ-
ences as well.
Wegner summarizes several well-known steps involved in copying the HB
manuscripts in later Rabbinic tradition noting the meticulous care with which the
rabbis handled and copied their Scriptures. These include:

1. Only parchments made from clean [i.e., kosher] animals were allowed; these
were to be joined together with thread from clean animals.
2. Each written column of the scroll was to have no fewer than forty-eight and
no more than sixty lines whose breadth must consist of thirty letters.
3. The page was first to be lined, from which the letters were to be suspended.
4. The ink was to be black, prepared according to a specific recipe.
5. No word or letter was to be written from memory.
6. There was to be the space of a hair between each consonant and the space of
a small consonant between each word, as well as several other spacing rules.
7. The scribe must wash himself entirely and be in full Jewish dress before
beginning to copy the scroll.
8. He could not write the name Yahweh with a newly dipped brush, nor even
take notice of anyone, even a king, while writing this sacred name.27

Obviously, numerous variants continued in the HB manuscripts, perhaps over

900,000 as noted earlier, until they were reproduced by the printing press, even
as we saw with conscious and diligent efforts to preserve the most accurate text
possible. It is very difficult to avoid simple unintentional errors that crop up in
the transmission of any handwritten text and that was the case in copying the

26
Ibid., 53–54.
27
Wegner, Journey from Texts to Translations, 172. He largely depends here on F. G. Kenyon, Our
Bible and the Ancient Manuscripts, rev. A. V. Adams (New York: Harper & Brothers, 1958), 78–79.
ANCIENT ARTIFACTS AND THE STABILIZATION OF THE JEWISH SCRIPTURES 431

text of the HB Scriptures. Rabbinic efforts at producing a consistent biblical

text, however, were generally better than similar attempts in the early Christian
manuscripts, but none of them, Jewish or Christian, were perfect and countless
variants continued in both traditions of copying sacred texts until the invention of
moveable type and the printing press. Most are easily identified and often were
corrected in the production of subsequent copies.
No HB or LXX text is completely stable or consistent in its transmission, but the
LXX text of the Pentateuch is generally considered more reliable and consistent
than in other parts of the LXX. It also appears that each book in the Pentateuch
was translated by a different translator, or group of translators.28 The study of the
variants in the texts often allow scholars to see the textual history of the HB and the
LXX, and often also the social context in which the variants emerged, especially
in the intentional variants. Textual scholars generally acknowledge the instability
in the HB and OT texts, despite careful Masoretic attempts at stabilization. The
church’s OT manuscripts were not initially as carefully prepared as later in the
fourth century when more professional copiers were employed when the church
had greater finanicial resources to afford professional copiers. While variants
continued after that, they were fewer in number but never gone completely.
As we have seen earlier, the Amoraim rabbis established a tripartite biblical
canon, the Tanak (Law, Prophets, and Writings), but the majority of Christians
followed a four or five part OT canon (Pentateuch, History, Poetry and Wisdom,
and Prophets). The Protestants who recognize the value of the Apocrypha, generally
include these books between the OT and NT books in a separate collection in
their English translations, as in the first King James Bible. The Revised Standard
Version and the New Revised Standard Version are unlike the Roman Catholic and
Eastern Orthodox versions that include the Apocryphal/Deuterocanonical books
among and throughout their other OT books (see Appendix B). This inclusion of
the apocryphal/deuterocanonical books among the other OT books can be seen
also in the oldest uncial manuscripts of the Greek Old Testament (the LXX),
namely Codex Vaticanus, Codex Sinaiticus, and Codex Alexandrinus.

III. THE SEARCH FOR THE EARLIEST TEXT

The search for the original text of the Hebrew Scriptures involves a careful
investigation of a number of ancient sources including what can be found in the
“Proto-Masoretic Texts,” Masoretic text (MT), Septuagint (LXX), Samaritan
Pentateuch (SP), the Aramaic Targums, Old Latin (L), Latin Vulgate (V), Syriac
Peshitta (S), and the Dead Sea Scrolls (DSS). Add to this the other biblical and

28
Würthwein, Text of the Old Testament, 53–54, supports this view and suggests that the rest of the
LXX is something of a Greek Targum of the Hebrew Scriptures. It is often a very loose translation,
but occasionally it is more precise and more literal.
432 THE FORMATION OF THE BIBLICAL CANON, VOLUME I

nonbiblical texts discovered in the Judaean Desert, and several other ancient trans-
lations, especially Coptic, Ethiopic, Armenian, and Arabic Versions.29 Our focus
on the text of Scripture begins with an old and likely impossible task, namely
establishing an “original” text of the books of the HB. Establishing the earliest and
most reliable text of the Hebrew Scriptures is a significant challenge that only a
few scholars have the expertise to accomplish. Fortunately, these capable scholars
have labored diligently and long to produce an earlier and more reliable text of the
HB and LXX than was possible before and this allows for more reliable and often
more readable translations.
The most important text editions of the HB include the Biblica Hebraica, edited
by Rudolf Kittel (known as the BH or the BHK), and first published in 1905–1906,
then subsequent editions were produced in 1912 and 1937. Subsequently that text
has been revised and published as the Biblica Hebraica Stuttgartensia (BHS,
1969–77 with subsequent editions and printings through 1997). The BHS reflects
the last hand of the Leningrad Codex (1008 CE), the oldest HB manuscript
fashioned after the Aleppo Codex (see comments about this Codex below). The
BHS is currently the most complete Hebrew biblical text available, although
additional work is well underway to produce another HB text that reflects not only
the Aleppo and Leningrad texts, but is also informed by the text-critical work of
several Dead Sea Scrolls scholars and the LXX and other sources. The new text
being prepared in Israel by the Hebrew University is called the Hebrew University
Bible (HUB)30 or Hebrew University Bible Project (HUBP), which is still a work
in progress, though some books have already been published, namely Isaiah,
Jeremiah, and Ezekiel,31 and more are on the way that will likely be published by
the time this volume is published.
This new text is based partially on what is left of the earlier Aleppo Codex. The
Hebrew script of that manuscript was produced in 930 CE by Shlomo Ben Boya’a
and the vowel pointing, cantillation marks, and the Masoretic textual notes were
supplied by the famed Aharon Ben Asher. He was not the first Masorete, but
was universally acknowledged by the Jews as the best expert on the Hebrew
text, and the recognized “Master”! The Ben Asher family produced biblical texts
that included the vowel pointing and various scribal notes. The best known of
these texts are the Cairensis Codex, the Aleppo (A) Codex, and the Leningrad
Codex (Codex Leningradensis, L; pl. 24). The Aleppo Codex, however, the
most important of all Hebrew manuscripts, was seriously damaged in Aleppo,

29
The value and content of these texts and translations are described in Würthwein, Text of the Old
Testament (2nd ed.), 10–106.
30
The goal of this edition and what sources inform it are described and summarized helpfully in
Tov, Textual Criticism of the Hebrew Bible, 357–59.
31
The work on this work has begun but it is not yet finished. The earliest portions already completed
include The Hebrew University Bible: The Book of Isaiah, ed. Moshe H. Goshen-Gottstein and The
Hebrew University Bible: The Book of Jeremiah, ed. C. Rabin and S. Talmon (Jerusalem: Magness,
1995, 1997); and now also Ezekiel.
ANCIENT ARTIFACTS AND THE STABILIZATION OF THE JEWISH SCRIPTURES 433

Syria during an anti-Jewish riot on November 29, 1947 in reaction to the United
Nation’s decision to partition Palestine and form the Jewish state. The Aleppo
synagogue was destroyed along with numerous sacred manuscripts that were
seriously damaged or destroyed, including the partial destruction of the famous
Aleppo Codex, the most cherished and celebrated manuscript of the Hebrew Bible
produced in Tiberias in Israel in 930 CE. It contained invaluable notes on the text
of the books in the HB. This text is also known as the “Crown of Aleppo” and was
equivalent to the New Testament textus receptus (the standard “received text”) for
the Hebrew Bible. The manuscript was initially feared completely lost, but it was
partially recovered and 294 pages of the original codex have survived and those
pages are now in Jerusalem.32 It is currently missing Gen 1:1–Deut 28:26 (only
the last eleven pages of the Pentateuch remain) along with the books from Song of
Songs 3:12 to the end, including Ecclesiastes, Lamentation, Esther, Daniel, Ezra,
and Nehemiah. Most of it was not available to the editors of the BHS, but what
remains is now being used in the emerging HUB edition, along with the Leningrad
Codex, the DSS, variants of the LXX, rabbinic literature, medieval manuscripts,
pointing, accents, and other helps for those wanting an accurate and up-to-date
biblical text.33

IV. THE TEXT OF THE HEBREW SCRIPTURES

We have already observed that of the thousands of biblical manuscripts that have
survived antiquity, no two are exactly alike. The majority of variants are simple
errors that can be easily corrected, but some of the variants were intentional. The
scribes who made intentional changes in the texts likely thought in most cases that
they had clarified the meaning of the biblical text for their generation or subse-
quent generations of Jews. After the stabilization of the books that were included
in the HB, it appears that there was no significant focus on textual stabilization
for several centuries. That began to change first of all in the concerted efforts of
the rabbinic tradition carried on by the Masoretes and only subsequently later
in the churches. In the third century, as noted earlier Origen made an attempt at
stabilization of the HB/OT text, but it apparently did not have as much influence
initially as he would have hoped. Text critical scholars continue to work even now
on establishing the earliest and most reliable text of the HB Scriptures.34

32
The text and the history of this manuscript and its description are now available online at www.
aleppocodex.org.
33
For a brief history of this famous text, see the recent article by Yosef Ofer, “The Shattered
Crown: The Aleppo Codex 60 Years After the Riots,” BAR 34, no. 5 (2008): 39–49, and the summa-
rizing description in Würthwein, The Text of the Old Testament, 42–44.
34
As noted above, the work on this entirely new project has begun but is not yet finished. The
earliest portions already completed include Goshen-Gottstein, ed., The Hebrew University Bible:
The Book of Isaiah, in Rabin and Talmon, eds., The Hebrew University Bible.
434 THE FORMATION OF THE BIBLICAL CANON, VOLUME I

Regarding the many changes in the HB texts, Reinhard Müller (et al.) recently
suggested that successive scribes “updated the texts to accord with the changed
historical and social circumstance and with new religious concepts.”35 After
producing a number of examples of expansion or changes that were made to the
text in various transmissions of the HB Scriptures, these scholars conclude that:
“In many cases the text was so substantially changed by the later editors that the
original meaning was greatly altered. This undermines any attempt to use the final
texts for historical purposes.” Using the book of Ezra as an example, he and his
colleagues claimed that “it is very probable that several editors made changes to
Ezra’s profession, and some of this editorial activity is preserved in the textual
witnesses…”36 As we will see below, the same thing is true in regard to the NT
manuscripts. Ehrman is probably correct when he concludes that at times the
scribes or transmitters of the biblical texts took the text before them and put it “in
other words” in order to make it clear or changed it in order to support prevailing
views at a later date.37

A. The Biblical Texts and the Discoveries at Qumran

Eugene Ulrich has raised several important questions that need answering before
firm conclusions can be made about the fixing or stabilizing of the biblical text
in its modern canonical sense. While these questions focus on the standardizing
of the biblical text, his questions are also suitable for the books that go into the
biblical canon as well. Ulrich asks:

1. What are the available data for determining the nature and characteristics of
the scriptural texts in the first century BCE and first century CE?
2. Even if we have the proper data, are we looking at them through the correct
interpretive lenses?
3. Since “standard biblical text” normally refers to the MT, what was the MT?
What would be an adequate description of it? Was there such a thing as “a/
the standard text”? If so, was the MT the standard text?
4. Was there an identifiable group of leaders in the first century BCE and
the first century CE who knew the variety of texts, and were those leaders
[scribes?] concerned about the diversity of textual forms, selected a single
form, had the authority to declare a single form to be the standard text,
and succeeded in having that standard text acknowledged by a majority of
Jews?38

35
Reinhard Müller, Juha Pakkala, and Bas ter Haar Romeny, eds., Evidence of Editing: Growth
and Change of Texts in the Hebrew Bible (Atlanta: Society of Biblical Literature, 2014), 1.
36
Ibid., 220.
37
Ehrman, Orthodox Corruption of Scripture, 274–80.
38
Ulrich, “The Qumran Biblical Scrolls – The Scriptures of Late Second Temple Judaism,” in Lim,
ed., Dead Sea Scrolls in Their Historical Context, 67–87, here 69–70.
ANCIENT ARTIFACTS AND THE STABILIZATION OF THE JEWISH SCRIPTURES 435

Ulrich also asks whether at the turn of the era, there was sufficient cohesion in
Judaism and sufficiently acknowledged leadership to make it conceivable that a
majority of Jews recognized and used a standard text?39 That seems doubtful and
there is nothing thus far to suggest it.
Further evidence for the lack of a fixed or stabilized biblical text in the Late
Second Temple period can be seen in the so-called Rewritten Scriptures at Qumran,
e.g., the Rewritten (or Reworked) Pentateuch (4QRPa-e [4Q158; 4Q364–7]).40 As
we noted briefly in Chapter 7, this designation began with Vermes’ “Rewritten
Bible,” that has been replaced with “Rewritten Scripture,” since there was no
known Bible at Qumran if we mean by it that there was a fixed collection of
Jewish Scriptures at that time. The designation, “rewritten Scripture,” refers to the
act of “rewriting” a biblical text. It also acknowledges the value of an antecedent
text and that there was no fixed biblical text during the last two centuries BCE
and the first century CE when a group of Essenes lived at Qumran. Other desig-
nations such as “reworked Bible”41 and “parabiblical texts”42 are still used by
some scholars to address the same practice at Qumran of “extending” the sacred
scriptures to more recent and relevant texts through their re-writing or re-working.
Kristin De Troyer has shown that the rewriting of sacred texts extended not only to
what we now call non-biblical books, but also to the biblical books such as Esther,
Joshua, and 1 Esdras where extensive rewriting took place.43
Yigael Yadin argues convincingly that the Temple Scroll was venerated as the
Torah of the Essenes who held it to be equal in importance to the traditional
Torah.44 He observes that the so-called Tetragrammaton, the four letters Y-H-W-H
that form the unpronounced name of God (Yahweh) in the Hebrew Scriptures,
is replaced in the Temple Scroll with the personal pronouns “I” or “me.” For
example, Num 30:3 in the Temple Scroll states: “When a woman vows a vow to
me,” replaces the traditional Torah: “When a woman vows a vow to the LORD.”45
Yadin’s point is that the author presents the law as if it came directly from God

39
Ibid.
40
For a careful discussion of the use of rewritten or reworked biblical texts, see the recent
Crawford, Rewriting Scripture in Second Temple Times; and also George J. Brooke, “Rewritten
Bible,” EDSS 2:777–81 and see also his “The Rewritten Law, Prophets, and Psalms”; and Devorah
Dimant and Rheinhard G. Kratz, eds., Rewriting and Interpreting the Hebrew Bible: The Biblical
Patriarchs in the Light of the Dead Sea Scrolls, BZAW 439 (Berlin: de Gruyter, 2013).
41
See Esther G. Chazon, Devorah Dimant, and Ruth A. Clements, eds., Reworking the Bible:
Apocryphal and Related Texts at Qumran, STDJ 58 (Leiden: Brill, 2005).
42
See Daniel K. Falk, The Parabiblical Texts: Strategies for Extending the Scriptures Among the
Dead Sea Scrolls, LSTS 63 (London: T&T Clark, 2007). See my review of this volume in RBL
07/2008.
43
See her Rewriting the Sacred Text: What the Old Greek Texts Tell Us About the Literary Growth
of the Bible, Text-Critical Studies 4 (Leiden: Brill, 2003).
44
Yadin, “Temple Scroll.” See also his most extensive work that remains the standard resource on
the book, The Temple Scroll.
45
Yadin, “Temple Scroll,” 168.
436 THE FORMATION OF THE BIBLICAL CANON, VOLUME I

rather than through Moses. The author(s) of the Temple Scroll rewrote or reworked
the original text of the Torah and the result is the production of another sacred text
apparently equal in its sacredness status with the earlier Torah. Yadin has observed
that the square Aramaic script is also used in the Temple Scroll to write the name
of God, just as it is in the other biblical books. This is probably a further indication
that the people at Qumran viewed this scroll as Scripture. Again, this lengthy scroll
was copied at Qumran more times than Isaiah. This led Yadin to the conclusion
that “the Temple Scroll was, for the Essenes, a holy canonical book on par, for
them, with the other books of the Bible.”46 As noted earlier, there also existed at
Qumran a common practice of altering and changing the biblical text, that did not
seem to violate the Essenes’ understanding of the sacredness of the texts they were
examining, copying, or editing. It appears that at Qumran, the sacred texts were
“on the way” to being perfected and it was not deemed inappropriate to alter or
clarify their meaning to bring them more into harmony with what was believed in
the Essene community. As we observed in Chapter 11, this is similar to the way
that later rabbis felt free to modify the biblical texts.
The Mosaic command that forbids adding to or taking from the sacred texts in
Deut 4:2 was repeated later in Deut 12:32, and this prohibition became the standard
for how Jews and later Christians acknowledged the sacredness and inviolability
of sacred literature and the necessity of maintaining its inviolability (cf. Let.
Aristeas §311; cf. Rev 22:18–19). However, the Essene community and later
Rabbinic Jews, as well as later Christian scribes, changed or altered their sacred
texts to make them more relevant to their hearers or readers. This re-working or
re-writing of sacred texts is evidence that the process of the formation of Scripture
(textual stabilization) was underway at Qumran.
Those who were involved in this process were likely unaware that they were
doing anything inappropriate, but rather they were anxious to clarify the message
of their Scriptures and make them more clear and relevant to their communities.
They obviously did not view this practice as something that took away from the
holiness of the text.47 The fact that the formation of scriptural texts was still in
process at Qumran, makes an examination of the dating of a fixed text of the
Scriptures more complicated. Falk provides a useful introduction to the variety of
ways that scholars have identified the multiple texts at Qumran and the difficulty
of finding appropriate terminology to describe them. After explaining them, he
opts for the more generalistic term, “Parabiblical,” to describe what was taking
place.
It is not always clear whether there was a fine distinction between the sacredness
recognized in the manuscripts of biblical writings and those now referred to
as “rewritten scriptures.” The transcribers of both show at times considerable

46
Ibid., 172.
47
Falk, Parabiblical Texts, 152–53.
ANCIENT ARTIFACTS AND THE STABILIZATION OF THE JEWISH SCRIPTURES 437

freedom in changing sacred texts. Scholars continue to debate this matter,48

and Brooke recognizes the growing discomfort over using such categories to
describe the literature and textual productions at Qumran.49 Snyder has divided
these re-written texts into three categories, namely those that lightly rework the
Pentateuch (4QReworked Pentateuch or 4QRP); the more profoundly altered
works (Genesis Apocryphon and Jubilees); and finally, those books that have
substantial debt to the biblical idiom and are loosely related to the sequence of
biblical narrative (Temple Scroll and Hymns or Hodayot).50
Similarly, Silver draws attention to the remarkable freedom that scribes at
Qumran exercised in altering the order and wording of the Psalms, even to the
point of adding the refrain “Praised be the LORD and praised be his name forever
and ever” after each verse of Ps 145. They also changed the script, spelling,
grammar, and content of the two scrolls of Isaiah found in Cave 1. He posits that
at the time of the writing of the Qumran scrolls, there were no agreed formal
methods for the presentation of sacred writings, and so the practice of changing
the text extended to books that eventually were not accepted into the HB canon
as well as those that were. Silver shows how the Essenes at Qumran deleted or
added sentences and words within the texts and made many other changes as
well and claims that matters such as word division, syntax, and spelling appear
to have been of little concern to the scribes at Qumran. Silver concludes that
in pre-rabbinic times the Law, Prophets, and Psalms carried a large degree of
authority in the Qumran community, but they had not yet attained the same status
given to Scripture by the later rabbinic schools that copied every letter and word
as accurately as possible.51 The notion of an inviolable Scripture was neither
uniformly understood nor followed by the Essenes in the first century CE.
There is no evidence that the Qumran Covenanters handled their sacred texts
differently than other Jewish sects, including the early Christians, in the first
centuries CE. Tov, whose work supports and advances Silver’s conclusions,
observes that the scribes at Qumran often incorporated their thoughts about the
biblical text into the new version of the text that they produced. He contends that:
“in the newly created text scribes and readers inserted sundry changes, which are
recognizable because the limitations of the ancient materials and the rigid form

48
Again, see Falk’s useful discussion of these categories in the introduction to his work in ibid.,
1–25.
49
For a more substantial discussion of this topic, see Brooke, “Rewritten Law, Prophets, and
Psalms”; more recently, Brooke, “Between Authority and Canon: The Significance of Reworking the
Bible for Understanding the Canonical Process,” in Chazon, Dimant, and Clements, eds., Reworking
the Bible, 85–104; Jozsef Zsengeller, ed., Rewritten Bible After Fifty Years: Texts, Terms, or Tech-
niques? A Last Dialogue with Geza Vermes (Leiden: Brill, 2014); and Dimant and Kratz, eds.,
Rewriting and Interpreting the Hebrew Bible.
50
H. Gregory Snyder, Teachers and Texts in the Ancient World: Philosophers, Jews and Chris-
tians, Religion in the First Christian Centuries (London: Routledge, 2000), 151–89.
51
Silver, Story of Scripture, 136–41.
438 THE FORMATION OF THE BIBLICAL CANON, VOLUME I

of the manuscript did not allow them to hide the intervention.”52 Levy adds to
this that the notion of establishing the original text of the Hebrew Bible is flawed
from the beginning because there was no established text at that time. He explains
that “the popular assumption that no changes were ever introduced into copies
of the Bible during rabbinic times or under rabbinic auspices simply does not
accord with the facts” and adds that during the time of the rabbinic period “no
single, authorized, and officially registered Bible text (or Torah text) existed, and
therefore it is meaningless to claim that Jews either did or did not alter it.”53
While there is considerable stability in some aspects of the ancient text of the
HB, there was still no stable authorized text of the Torah in place in the first
centuries BCE and CE. The biblical text was hardly more stable earlier, even if
there are common characteristics in many of the DSS manuscripts, which are
sometimes referred to as the “proto-Masoretic” text, that support the later MT.
Levy calls this the accepted scholarly notion of a fixed consonantal text by the
first or second century CE. Emanuel Tov adds that notations and changes in the
various texts had little to do with whether they were biblical or non-biblical texts:

Very little distinction, if any, was made between the writing of biblical and non-biblical texts.
For example, the scribe who wrote 1QS, 1QSa and 1QSb, as well as the biblical 4QSamc and
some of the corrections in 1QIsaa (e.g., at col. 33:7), employed the same system and notations
throughout all five texts (including the use of four dots for the Tetragrammaton). In addition,
1QS and 1QIsaa also share three unusual marginal signs, which were probably inserted by the
same scribe.54

Tov goes on to say that in some cases scribes appear to distinguish the biblical
texts from the non-biblical texts by writing on only one side of the parchment for
biblical texts and on both sides for non-biblical texts. He adds that the biblical
texts were almost exclusively written on parchment and only a few on papyrus,
and those on papyrus sheets were probably for personal use. Finally, Tov notes that
a special arrangement was devised for writing poetical sections in only the biblical
books – and this included Sirach.55 The implication that Sirach was recognized as
a scriptural text is not inconsequential and fits with early Christianity’s acceptance
of it as Scripture and several of the initial rabbinic sages doing the same, as we
have seen above.
The text of the Jewish Scriptures existed for centuries only in a consonantal
text, but later (between 650–750 CE, and perhaps by no later than 700 CE) the
Masoretic scribes, or Masoretes, noted earlier developed a system of preserving
the text of the Hebrew Bible. This included preserving the consonantal text of the

52
E. Tov, “Scribal Practices and Physical Aspects of the Dead Sea Scrolls,” in The Bible as a Book,
ed. J. L. Sharpe and K. Van Kampen (London: Oak Knoll, 1998), 424.
53
Levy, Fixing God’s Torah, 4.
54
Tov, “Scribal Practices and Physical Aspects,” 425.
55
Ibid., 426.
ANCIENT ARTIFACTS AND THE STABILIZATION OF THE JEWISH SCRIPTURES 439

Scriptures with the now familiar vowel points and accents in the text to insure
correct sounding of the words and to preserve as carefully as possible the textual
tradition that they had received. There were three Masoretic textual systems that
developed over time, namely the Palestinian, Babylonian, and Tiberian systems.
By the sixteenth century, the Tiberian system came to be accepted as the most
authoritative.56 While the Sopherim (or scribes) wrote out the consonantal text
of the Hebrew Scriptures, the Nakdanim (the “pointers”) added the vowel points
to the text, and the Masoretes added the marginal and final notes to the text.
Sometimes the same person added the points, marginal and endnotes, as in the case
of the Leningrad Codex where one person (Samuel ben Jacob) performed all three
functions. The most famous of the Masoretes were Ben Naphtali and Ben Asher.
Before the discovery of the Dead Sea Scrolls, modern biblical scholars knew the
text of the Hebrew Bible/Old Testament primarily through the Masoretic Text
(MT), the Samaritan Pentateuch (SP), and the often-supposed Hebrew “Vorlage”
of the Septuagint translation,57 though the latter was generally discounted in terms
of its importance.
As a result of new discoveries in the Judaean Desert (especially the DSS at
Qumran) and elsewhere, such as the Cairo Genizah, the textual history of the HB
has become much more complex and attempting to discern the earliest text of
the biblical manuscripts is more challenging than before when the MT had little
credible competition. Widespread appeal was made to the MT of the Hebrew Bible
which today is largely based on two major Hebrew manuscripts, the Aleppo and
Leningrad codices.
Tov explains that it is not altogether clear why the MT text was adopted and
others fell to the wayside, but over time it simply became the most popular
Hebrew text of the Tanak. However, as a result of the discovery of the Dead Sea
Scrolls and several important Christian manuscripts of the Old Testament writings,
modern textual critics’ of the HB have begun to shift their focus from the singular
authority of the MT to three ancient witnesses to the text of the Hebrew Scriptures,
namely the Proto-Masoretic Text (P-MT), the Old Greek (Septuagint/LXX), and
the Samaritan Pentateuch (SP), as well as the Dead Sea Scrolls (DSS). These texts
are now employed eclectically to establish the earliest and most reliable text of
the HB. As we saw earlier, Tov has suggested that at times the LXX and the SP
likely depend on an earlier form of the Hebrew text than does the MT. This does
not suggest in any way that the MT has been abandoned, but only that in some
cases the LXX and the SP may be based on an earlier form of the text, an earlier
Vorlage. Because the LXX and SP are at times significantly different from the MT

56
Jacob Neusner, “Masorah,” in Neusner, ed., Dictionary of Judaism in the Biblical Period: 450
BCE to 600 CE, 2:415.
57
Vorlage (German term = an antecedent, model, or proto-type). Here and throughout this chapter
Vorlage is a technical term that refers to the earlier Hebrew text that the translators of the LXX used
to produce their translation of the Torah/Pentateuch.
440 THE FORMATION OF THE BIBLICAL CANON, VOLUME I

text of the HB and are often in harmony with one another, the question naturally
emerges which text is more reliable, the MT or the SP and LXX? This raises the
important question for laity today, namely which text is “canonical” for both
synagogue and church? The answer may lie in an eclectic text that occasionally
prefers the SP when it lines up with the LXX against the MT, but more often the
MT is the likely choice.
Some, of the scrolls discovered at Qumran – not all – have close affinities to
the MT and are commonly called “proto-Masoretic” manuscripts. According to
Scanlin, the DSS generally confirm the stability of the MT and thereby advance
the antiquity of the Hebrew text by around 1000 years, but these discoveries in
the Dead Sea region also confirm that the LXX along with the SP are at times a
significant textual base for recovering the earliest text of the HB. The DSS also
show that the scrolls are a reliable source for early textual variant readings of the
biblical texts.58 Tov, after noting the wide variety of textual variants in the DSS,
cautions scholars about putting too much trust in them. It is unclear why the MT
received such high priority in the later rabbinic tradition and also what each of
the books discovered at Qumran meant to the Essene sect that resided there. The
collection could be called a library if that simply means a collection of religious
books, but Tov reminds us that there is no clear statement on their role in that
community for over two hundred years and how difficult it is to characterize the
collections of manuscripts found in the caves.59

B. Early Stages of Textual Stabilization of the HB/OT

We have noted earlier that of the thousands of biblical manuscripts that have
survived antiquity no two are exactly alike. While some in the rabbinic tradition
observed the problem of multiple variants in their sacred texts, initially they found
no consistent means of controlling the growth of textual variants. Knowledge of
these errors or variants in the biblical texts, and rabbinic concerns about them, can
be seen in the following:
According to b. Eruvin 13a: “R[abbi] Meir said: When I came to R. Ishmael [to study Torah],
he asked me, ‘My son, what is your occupation?’ I replied, ‘I am a scribe.’ He said, ‘My son,
be careful in your work, for your work is sacred. Should you omit or add a single letter, you
will find yourself destroying the entire world, all of it.’”

According to Genesis Rabbah 9:5, 20:2, and 94:9: “In the Torah scroll of R. Meir there was
found written not ‘And behold, it was very (meod) good’ (Gen 1:31), but ‘And behold, death
(mot) was good’; not ‘And He made for Adam and for his wife garments of skin (’or)’ (Gen
3:21), but “Garments of light (or)’; not ‘The sons of Dan: Hushim’ (Gen 46:23), but ‘The son
of Dan: Hushim’.”

58
Harold P. Scanlin, “Text, Truth and Tradition: The Public’s View of the Bible in Light of the
Dead Sea Scrolls,” in Herbert and Tov, eds., Bible as Book, 295–96.
59
Tov, Textual Criticism of the Hebrew Bible, 94–97, and 100–102.
ANCIENT ARTIFACTS AND THE STABILIZATION OF THE JEWISH SCRIPTURES 441

According to y. Taanit 1:64a: “In the scroll of R. Meir they found written, instead of ‘The
burden of Dumah’ (Isa. 21:11), ‘The burden of Roma [Rome]’.”

Again, according to b. Ketubbot 19b, “A scroll of a book of Scripture that has not been
corrected, R. Ammi said, may be kept for thirty days. From then on, it is forbidden to keep it,
for Scripture says, ‘Let not wrong dwell in thy tents’.”60

Further, the care with which rabbis intended the Torah to be copied can be seen
in the following admonition from a post-Talmudic tractate:
Books may not be thrown about from one place to another, nor may they be treated disre-
spectfully. A man is required to have a scroll of Torah written with good ink, a good quill, by
competent scribes, on good sheets of parchment made out of the hides of deer. He is then to
wrap it in beautiful silks, in keeping with “This is my God, and I will glorify Him” (Exod. 15:2;
see Soferim 3).

There was obviously a rabbinic awareness of the many variants in the biblical
texts otherwise no admonitions would have been written on how to transmit the
biblical texts without considerable awareness of the problems in the transmission
of them. Again, however, no consistent implementation of textual stabilization of
the biblical texts took place among the Jews of the Second Temple period or in
Judaism of Late Antiquity for several centuries until around 500–550 CE.
We cannot be certain when early attempts at a stabilized text of the consonants
in the Jewish Scriptures began, but they appear to have begun with the broad
recognition of the problem of multiple variants in Scripture texts during the
rabbinic tradition of the second or third century CE. Even after awareness of the
problem, the variants continued. I should note that even after the invention of the
printing press textual variants continued even in printed Bibles, but there were
much fewer of them when multiple identical copies were made.
The early Christians did not initially recognize or deal with the problem of
textual variants in their OT Scriptures. The first church father to address this
issue in a significant way, as noted above, was Origen in the third century who
acknowledged the difficulty that multiple textual traditions in the church’s sacred
scriptures posed for the churches. His response was to prepare his famous Hexapla
to address the textual variants in the Hebrew HB and the church’s Greek OT.
He prepared an edition of the HB/OT Scriptures with six parallel columns, each
containing one of the textual traditions circulating in the churches and among the
Jews at that time. The first column was a Hebrew text of the Jewish Scriptures,
the second was a transliterated Hebrew text in Greek script, the third was the
Greek translation of Aquila, the fourth was Symmachus’ Greek translation of the
Hebrew text, the fifth was likely Origen’s own Greek translation – or possibly
one of the various surviving texts of the LXX circulating in the area where he
lived. The sixth column contained mostly the Greek translation of Theodotion,

60
These examples are taken from the translations of Bialik and Ravnitzky, Book of Legends, 448.
442 THE FORMATION OF THE BIBLICAL CANON, VOLUME I

with the exception of the Psalms, and possibly another translation for the Minor
Prophets.61 The Hexapla was Origen’s attempt to bring some stabilization to the
text of the church’s scriptures. It highlights the variety of textual traditions of the
HB/OT books circulating among Jews and Christians in the mid-third century.
Unfortunately, there were not many after Origen who could carry on his legacy
and bring greater consistency in the transmission of the biblical text.

C. The Masoretic (MT) Tradition

The Masoretes described above produced a biblical text that was finalized in
the Middle Ages and is easily identified by its inclusion of vowel points in the
Hebrew text and the notes in the margins, but their consonantal text has roots in
the so-called earlier “proto-Masoretic” text that dates back to the first century BCE
and possibly earlier, perhaps to the Maccabean period (ca. 150 BCE). The conso-
nantal Hebrew text that the Masorah (or Masoretes) of the Middle Ages pointed
enabled subsequent generations to sound out the words of the text as well as
provide safeguards for preserving the text of the Hebrew Bible. The earlier rabbinic
sages were anxious to preserve the consonantal text of the Jewish scriptures, but
they provided no written tradition of symbols to indicate the pronunciation of the
Hebrew text and nothing about the later pointing of the text is mentioned in either
of the two Talmuds (pl., Talmudim), namely, the Yerushalmi (Jerusalem/Tiberias,
completed ca. 400 CE) or Bavli (Babylonian, completed ca. 550–600 BCE). This
suggests that the pointing of the Hebrew text originated with the later Masoretes
sometime between 600 and 750 CE, perhaps around 700 CE. The text that the
Masoretes preserved has many antecedents and the best-known antecedent is, of
course, the “proto-Masoretic” text found hidden in caves near Qumran.
Before the discovery of the Dead Sea Scrolls between 1947 and 1956, and their
subsequent publication, knowledge of the text of the Hebrew Bible was dependent
almost completely upon the Masoretic textual tradition or text. The DSS discovery
brought textual scholars 1000 years closer to the Jewish Scriptures than was
possible before and what was found there reflected both greater stability especially
in the text of the Pentateuch, but also instability and fluidity in the early texts of
the Hebrew Scriptures. Biblical scholars recognized long ago the many differ-
ences between the texts of the MT and the LXX, but they regularly favored the MT
text of the Jewish Scriptures. That began to change, however, after several years
of careful analysis of the DSS. Several scholars now suggest that in a number of
instances the LXX may be dependent upon an earlier antecedent (Vorlage) of the
text of the Hebrew Scriptures than the MT.62 Scholars now commonly speak of a
“proto-Masoretic” text among the DSS that reflects considerable consistency with

61
Schürer, History of the Jewish People in the Age of Jesus Christ, 3.1: 480–81.
62
Emanuel Tov discusses this carefully and convincingly in his “Status of the Masoretic Text.”
ANCIENT ARTIFACTS AND THE STABILIZATION OF THE JEWISH SCRIPTURES 443

the later MT, but at times, however, some Qumran texts are often similar to the SP
and LXX and occasionally they may reflect an earlier text than the MT.
An examination of multiple copies of the same books at Qumran demonstrates
the high degree of textual fluidity in the sacred scriptures at that time which is also
true in regard to the “proto-Masoretic” texts at Qumran. The DSS documents are
an invaluable resource in textual criticism’s aim of establishing the earliest and
most reliable text of the Hebrew Bible, but given the complex history of the text
of the Jewish Scriptures that reflects several traditions of textual transmission,
few scholars think now that they can establish an “original” text of the HB.
Nevertheless, because of the discoveries at Qumran and elsewhere in the Judaean
Desert, they are much closer now than was possible earlier.
Besides the DSS, other major resources for establishing the earliest text of
the books of the Hebrew Scriptures include the LXX, Samaritan Pentateuch, the
Aramaic Targums, as well as the Syriac Peshitta, Old Latin, and Latin Vulgate
translations. The major manuscripts that have been most influential in establishing
the HB text to the present have been the Aleppo and the Leningrad Codices,
the Targums, plus the earliest major Greek uncial manuscripts produced by the
Christians, especially Codices Vaticanus, Sinaiticus, and Alexandrinus. A number
of other manuscripts are also helpful in various places in both the OT and HB.
While none of these sources have the same text, and sometimes do not have the
same books, they are nevertheless invaluable resources for establishing the text of
the HB and OT.
Emanuel Tov has recently challenged the priority given to the MT and contends
that it does “not reflect the ‘original text’ of the biblical books.” He adds:

One thing is clear, it should not be postulated that M [Masoretic Text] better or more frequently
reflects the original text of the biblical books than any other text. Furthermore, even were we
to surmise that M reflects the “original” form of Scripture, we still have to decide which form
of M reflects this “original text,” since M itself is represented by many witnesses that differ in
small details.63

Tov acknowledges the value of the LXX because it likely derives from and
preserves an earlier text of the Hebrew Bible, albeit in Greek. Unambiguously, he
concludes: “when comparing the LXX evidence with that of the other sources, we
found that beyond the MT, the LXX is the single most important source preserving
redactionally different material relevant to the literary analysis of the Bible, often
earlier than MT.”64
Because of the rather early date of the Greek translation of the Hebrew Scriptures
(Tov dates the LXX to ca. 275–150 BCE), he argues that its translators likely made

63
Tov, Textual Criticism of the Hebrew Bible, 9–12 with many examples on pp. 12–17. His
argument is based on the mistakes, changes, and corrections in the various textual witnesses to the
MT. He concludes that if one chooses the MT, one should also ask which form of the MT and why.
64
Tov, “The Nature of the Large-Scale Differences,” 121.
444 THE FORMATION OF THE BIBLICAL CANON, VOLUME I

use of a text of the HB not shared by those who later embraced the MT. He adds that
the MT may have its roots in the Maccabean period, but that is difficult to prove
and still debatable. Tov concludes that the data in the LXX is an integral part of
the transmission of the Bible as a whole and, therefore, “in the literary analysis of
the biblical books, equal attention should be paid to Hebrew and Greek evidence,
as well as to any other ancient source. This analysis thus involves the Qumran
biblical texts in Hebrew, and possibly even evidence relating to rewritten biblical
compositions dating to the Second Temple period.”65 He cites four instances where
the Hebrew Vorlage of the LXX is shorter than the MT and likely is earlier in
origin. These include the book of Jeremiah, which is some fifteen percent shorter
both in the LXX and in 4QJerb,d in its number of words, verses, and pericopes,
and the material is sometimes arranged differently. Tov calls this likely an earlier
edition of Jeremiah. Secondly, he cites the LXX of Ezekiel which is between four
and five percent shorter than the MT, the Syria Peshitta, the Targums, and the
Latin Vulgate. His third example is the LXX of 1 Sam 16–18 which is forty-five
percent shorter than the MT and other editions of the HB, and notes further that the
inhabitants of Jerusalem in the LXX of Nehemiah 11 (2 Esd 21) is much shorter
than the MT, S T V in vv. 25–35 and that list is different from the parallel in
1 Chr 9. He cites also a number of other differences between the LXX and the MT
with other versions that are not always shorter, but simply different and possibly
earlier.66 Tov concludes from this that his own intuition tells him “that more often
than not the LXX reflects an earlier stage than MT both in the literary shape of
the biblical books and in small details.”67 Elsewhere Tov concludes that there was
no standardization of the text of the Hebrew Bible in Second Temple Judaism and
that the likely reason the MT triumphed over other texts from that period is that the
only organized group of Jews who survived the destruction of the Second Temple,
the Pharisees, adopted it.68 Ronald Hendel, writing as editor in chief of the Oxford

65
Ibid., 121–22, 142.
66
Ibid., 127–39. Tov makes it clear that those who produced the LXX used none of the MT manu-
scripts and he shows how at times the DSS manuscripts are sometimes closer to the text of the LXX
than to the MT.
67
Ibid., 143 n. 64. Natalio Fernandez Marcos agrees substantially on the variations in the texts of
the Hebrew Bible present in Second Temple times. He states that many of the LXX variants with the
MT may go back to the Hebrew Vorlage of the LXX which Marcos claims “is earlier than the stan-
dardization of the consonantal text” which, he suggests, began in the second century with the rabbis.
See his useful discussions in Septuagint in Context, 76, and also his discussion of the transmission
and textual history of the LXX on 191–236.
68
Tov, Textual Criticism of the Hebrew Bible, 195. See also his collection of comparisons between
the LXX and the MT in his, The Greek and Hebrew Bible: Collected Essays on the Septuagint
(Leiden: Brill, 1999), 31–40; and also in his later discussion of how the Qumran Scrolls contribute
to a greater understanding of the LXX on 285–300. He observes that less than five percent of the
biblical texts discovered at Qumran reflect the Vorlage of the LXX and that the Hebrew scrolls from
which the LXX was translated in Egypt have not been found at Qumran, despite some of the simi-
larities here and there in a few of the manuscripts. He adds, “since many, if not most, of the biblical
ANCIENT ARTIFACTS AND THE STABILIZATION OF THE JEWISH SCRIPTURES 445

Hebrew Bible project (OHB), is similar in that the OHB project’s aim was not to
establish a definitive text of the HB, but rather “to approximate in its critical text
the textual ‘archetype,’ by which I mean the ‘earliest inferable textual state”69 and
he later concludes that “in the case of the Hebrew Bible I find it difficult to define
what the ‘original’ means, since each book is the product of a complicated and
often unrecoverable history of composition and redaction.”70 As we will see in the
New Testament section below, the goal of recovering the “original” biblical text
still has some advocates, but many text-critical scholars have largely abandoned
that as a goal of their discipline and instead are seeking the earliest recoverable
text and how to account for the many variants in the surviving texts. The same
appears true for the HB and LXX original texts.
Of the more than 900 to 1000 documents discovered at Qumran, all of the
biblical books are represented except Esther, but, as we saw earlier, many other
sectarian and non-sectarian religious books were also discovered in the caves near
Qumran. It is difficult to distinguish between the biblical and non-biblical books
there since biblical and nonbiblical texts were placed side by side and generally
with no obvious distinguishing marks or comments that set one collection of
books (biblical) apart from the others. In some cases, as noted by Tov above,
some biblical books were copied only on one side and in the wider Aramaic
script, but that was not always true. Indeed, our use of the words “biblical” and
“non-biblical” to identify Qumran writings is anachronistic, and those terms were
later imposed on ancient religious texts, but it is not easy to distinguish differences
in their initial use or function in antiquity.
We do not have anything like a Bible at Qumran and there are no indications that
there was a fixed sacred collection at that time. Emanuel Tov correctly concludes,
I think, that “the texts from the Judean Desert show that very little distinction, if
any, was made between the writing of biblical and non-biblical texts and more
generally, of sacred and non-sacred texts.”71 Similarly, Talmon claims that “the
Covenanters [at Qumran] did not consider their assemblage of biblical writings
a closed canon of Holy Writ…” and he goes on to note the weakness of all such
arguments that depend on anachronistic assumptions about the threefold catego-
rization (Tanak) of the Holy Scriptures at that time. He concludes that “Qumran
literature evinces not only an ‘open-ended biblical canon’, as is argued, but rather
gives witness to what I have termed a ‘living Bible’, still in status nascendi.”72
Talmon argues that the evidence at Qumran points to the fact that there was an

texts of the third and second centuries BCE were unique, they should be sought only in Egypt itself,
even though they were originally imported to Egypt from Palestine” (300).
69
Ronald Hendel, “The Oxford Hebrew Bible: Prologue to a New Critical Edition,” VT 58 (2008):
324–51, here 330.
70
Ibid., 332.
71
Tov, “The Biblical Texts from the Judean Desert,” 143.
72
Shemaryahu Talmon, “The Crystallization of the ‘Canon of Hebrew Scriptures’,” in Herbert and
Tov, eds., Bible as Book, 5–20, here 11.
446 THE FORMATION OF THE BIBLICAL CANON, VOLUME I

“open-ended biblical canon” that evidences a “living Bible” that he argues is

true not only in regard to the books, but also in regard to the text of the literature
discovered there.
The Jews at Qumran did not consider that their collections of writings comprised
a form of a closed biblical canon. Talmon contends that while the fall of Judah to
the Romans and the destruction of the Temple led to a fixation of the Scriptures
of some Jews, those events had no effect upon the Covenanters at Qumran since
they ceased to be a community before these events occurred. Those writings
nevertheless led to a better understanding of the crystallization of the canon of
the Jewish scriptures. While some of Talmon’s conclusions may be challenged,
he is doubtless correct that there was no fixed biblical canon at Qumran. His
conclusion is significant: “the Qumran biblical scrolls and documents do not offer
any decisive new evidence pertaining to the crystallization of a closed canon of
Hebrew Scriptures, worded in a fixed or essentially standardized text.”73
Some scholars try to distinguish between biblical and nonbiblical books in the
DSS books, even suggesting, as we saw earlier, that the non-canonical writings
were essentially nothing more than commentary on the biblical writings,74 but
VanderKam has shown the weakness of that position when he asks what biblical
books address the issue of the calendar, an essential feature at Qumran and
reflected in 1 Enoch?75 1 Enoch is clearly not a commentary on other biblical
books, despite overlap in subject matter from time to time.
Scholars are becoming more aware that notions of canon were simply not
present before or during the time of Jesus, including at Qumran, even though
there were various collections of sacred books circulating among the Jews that
were recognized as sacred texts and eventually included in what later became the
HB. VanderKam agrees but also emphasizes that these collections were not fixed
or closed sacred collections and also that other religious texts at that time were
indistinguishable from the biblical books in early Judaism.76
The LXX was Scripture for the earliest Christians and also for many Second
Temple and Late Antiquity Jews living both in Palestine and in the Diaspora, but,
like the HB, the LXX was still in a fluid state well into the first century CE and
later. Whatever initially comprised the sacred writings of Jews in the first centuries
BCE and CE, the texts of those writings were quite fluid along with the books that
comprised those collections.

73
Talmon, “Crystallization,” 10–12, and 15. See also his Text and Canon of the Hebrew Bible,
419–42.
74
Beckwith, The Old Testament Canon, 274–77.
75
James VanderKam offers a careful critique of Beckwith, as well as Leiman, Canonization of the
Hebrew Scripture, 120–24, in his From Revelation to Canon, 11–30.
76
VanderKam, From Revelation to Canon, 17.
ANCIENT ARTIFACTS AND THE STABILIZATION OF THE JEWISH SCRIPTURES 447

It took several more centuries for the Jews of the diaspora to accept the
Rabbinic sages’ boundaries on their scriptural collection.77 After the canonization
process of recognizing sacred books was essentially over for most Jews, there
was a significant focus on the specific text of the sacred books. The witness from
the surviving Jewish and Christian biblical manuscripts suggests that a wider
collection of sacred texts was circulating among Jews and Christians with consid-
erable fluidity in late Second Temple Judaism and in early Christianity.

D. The Sequence of Biblical Books

The history of the instability and fluidity of the text and books in the Hebrew
Scriptures in the centuries before, during, and after the first century CE is matched
by the instability in the sequence of books. We can see this in a comparison of
the MT sequence of the Twelve with the sequence of those books in the LXX and
4QIIa. Jonah is in the last position in that collection, but not in the MT or the later
HB. The difference in sequence of the Twelve in the MT and the LXX suggests
that the collection and its sequence was not fixed much earlier than the end of the
first century CE, but it also implies redactional activity involved in the formation
of the collection that extended from the time when the earliest documents were
gathered into a collection sometime around 225 BCE.78 J. K. Elliott, in reference to
this variance in the order of the Twelve Minor Prophets in the HB and LXX, notes
that the Latin and English translations generally follow the Hebrew order. He adds
that the Greek Esther and Hebrew Esther vary considerably in their texts, that Job
is one sixth shorter in the LXX than in the Hebrew, and that there are considerable
differences between the Hebrew texts and the Greek texts of Joshua, 1 Samuel,
1 Kings, Proverbs, and Jeremiah.79
These variations in the sequence of books, coupled with the fluidity of the
text and variations in the books that comprise the HB, point to the fluidity of the
canonization processes of the HB books in the first century CE and later. The
development of the codex that eventually allowed for the inclusion of all of the
books of the OT in one volume contributed to greater stability in the sequence of
the biblical books after the fourth century CE. This was especially true in the order
of Genesis through the Kings in the manuscript traditions, but after that the order

77
Edrei and Mendels argue this case in their “A Split Jewish Diaspora.”
78
Various views on the formation of the Twelve Books or Minor Prophets are discussed in Jones,
Formation of the Book of the Twelve, 1–42. See also the more recent collection of studies on this
topic in Albertz, Nogalski, and Wöhrle, eds., Perspectives on the Formation of the Book of the
Twelve. In the latter volume, see especially for our purposes the articles by Roy E. Garton, Martin
Hallaschka, Mark Leuchter, and Russell Fuller.
79
J. Keith Elliott, “Manuscripts, the Codex, and the Canon,” JSNT 63 (1996): 117–19.
448 THE FORMATION OF THE BIBLICAL CANON, VOLUME I

varies considerably in both Jewish and Christian manuscripts.80 For example,

in the cases of Job and Daniel, the following sequences in the ancient Christian
sources reflect considerable instability. See, for instance, the following locations
of Job:

1. In the HB: Psalms, Job, Proverbs.

2. This is the same as the baraita, b. Baba Bathra 14b, which offers an expla-
nation for putting Job, believed to be written by a person in the days of
Moses, after Psalms (namely, you do not begin a section “with a record of
suffering”).
3. In Codex Leningrad (L), in the Writings the sequence is Psalms, Proverbs,
Job (different from Christian Bibles). This is the same in the current HB.
4. In the Aleppo manuscript, the sequence is: Psalms, Proverbs, Job (no Song
of Songs in this ms).
5. In the LXX, the sequence is Psalms, Ps 151, Ode 12 (or Prayer of
Manasseh), Proverbs, Ecclesiastes, Canticles, Job (with the additional books
inserted, the sequence is still Psalms, Proverbs, and Job).
6. The Roman Catholic Bible has the sequence of Job, Psalms, Proverbs
7. The Protestant Bible has Job, Psalms, Proverbs
8. The Eastern Orthodox: Psalms, Job, Proverbs
9. Codex Vaticanus: Psalms, Proverbs…Job (“…” = other books between the
books)
10. Codex Sinaiticus: Psalms, Proverbs…Job
11. Codex Alexandrinus: Psalms, Proverbs…Job
12. Melito of Sardis: Psalms, Proverbs…Job
13. Origen: Psalms, Proverbs…Job
14. Athanasius: Psalms, Proverbs…Job
15. Cyril of Jerusalem: Job, Psalms, Proverbs81

In regard to the book of Daniel, despite its later date, its place, as we saw earlier,
was among the prophetic corpus initially, as was the Psalms, including all sacred
writings except the Torah. This, as we saw earlier, changed in the second century
CE when the prophetic Scriptures were separated into Prophets and the Writings
in the HB. The following sequences can be seen in Jewish and Christian sources:

80
See Swete, Introduction to the Old Testament in Greek, 200–214. Check for lists of Greek OT
books. See also H. P. Rüger, “The Extent of the Old Testament Canon,” Bible Translator 40 (1989):
301–8 for lists of OT books. See also, H. St. J. Thackeray, The Septuagint and Jewish Worship, 2nd
ed. (London: Oxford University Press, 1923).
81
See the various locations of Job in the collections or catalogues in the OT lists in Appendixes A
and C below.
ANCIENT ARTIFACTS AND THE STABILIZATION OF THE JEWISH SCRIPTURES 449

1. HB: Esther, Daniel, Ezra–Neh, 1–2 Chronicles

2. LXX: Ezekiel, Epistle of Jeremiah, Susanna, Daniel, Bel and the Dragon
3. In b. Baba Bathra 14b, Daniel is near the end of the Writings: Daniel,
Esther, Ezra–Nehemiah, and 1–2 Chronicles
4. Orthodox: Epistle of Jeremiah, Ezekiel, Daniel + Prayer of Azariah, Song of
Three Young Men, Susanna, Bel and the Dragon.
5. Roman Catholic: in the middle of the final part of the OT (Prophetic
collection), the sequence = Baruch (includes Epistle of Jeremiah), Ezekiel,
Daniel + Prayer of Azariah, Song of Three Young Men, Susanna, Bel and
the Dragon
6. Protestant: Isaiah, Jeremiah, Lamentations, Ezekiel, Daniel (in the Major
Prophets section)
7. Codex Aleppo: Esther, Daniel, Ezra/Nehemiah
8. Codex Leningrad: Daniel, Ezra, Nehemiah, 1–2 Chronicles
9. Vaticanus: Jeremiah, Baruch, Lamentations, Epistle of Jeremiah, Ezekiel,
Daniel
10. Sinaiticus: Daniel is missing in the fragmented text, but it probably came
after Lamentations and Ezekiel and somewhere before Joel.
11. Alexandrinus: (not at end) Epistle of Jeremiah, Ezekiel, Daniel, Esther
12. Melito: Daniel, Ezekiel, Esdras
13. Origen: Daniel, Ezekiel, Job, Esther
14. Athanasuius: Jerermiah, Baruch, Lamentations, Epistle of Jeremiah, Ezekiel,
Daniel
15. Cyril: Jeremiah/Baruch/Lamentations/Epistle of Jeremiah, Ezekiel, Daniel

The location of Daniel is in various places in the manuscripts, but Daniel is often
near Ezekiel and in the proximity of the Epistle of Jeremiah. Its multiple locations
in the earliest traditions illustrate the variable sequences in the Hebrew Scriptures,
the Christian OT manuscripts, and the church fathers. This may be due to Daniel’s
earlier history of circulating in a single scroll or in a scroll with a smaller number
of books, especially Ezekiel, though probably others as well.
The stabilization of the text and the development of the codex appear to have
begun some developing agreement in the sequence of the books in the Christian
OT. The books, their sequence, as well as the text of the Clementine Latin OT were
fixed as the official Vulgate of the Roman Catholic Church in 1592. Throughout
the long history of the canonization of the biblical books, however, the sequence
of books and their text varied until advances were made in book technology,
including the introduction of the printing press.
450 THE FORMATION OF THE BIBLICAL CANON, VOLUME I

E. The Greek Translation of the HB Scriptures

I have discussed this translation in several places previously, especially in Chapter
6, but I will only summarize here the relevant elements for our focus on the text
of the LXX. The practice of diaspora Jews82 who, for the most part, read their
Scriptures in Greek is important for understanding the text of the HB and the
OT. The Jewish religious books that were translated into Greek were generally
received as sacred scripture by Jews in the diaspora, and subsequently also by
Christians. As we saw earlier, various Greek translations of the Jewish scriptures
besides the LXX were also used in Jewish worship from the second century CE in
the diaspora, and possibly before the LXX as we saw in the Letter of Aristas, and
eventually the LXX contained more books than those that were later included in
the Hebrew Bible.83
According to Edrei and Mendels, a case can be advanced that diaspora Jews
included in their sacred Scriptures books that are now called apocryphal and
pseudepigraphal writings. They add that the “Bible” of Jews living in the diaspora
during Second Temple Judaism, especially in the west, was generally the LXX or
the Old Greek Scriptures and that it took several centuries longer for Jews in the
diaspora to accept the scriptural text and canon constructed by the rabbinic Jews.84
While most Jews from Palestine and those in the east as far as Babylon
generally accepted the later Rabbinic traditions that limited the sacred collection
to the books that now comprise the HB and the Protestant OT canon in a different
sequence, this was not the case for Jews in the western part of the Roman Empire
until several centuries later. It appears that there was something like a “continental
divide” between the Jews in the east and those in the west. Jews living in Palestine
and eastward to Babylon were different from those living in the western diaspora
(west of Palestine) with the possible exception of Jews living in Egypt. We cannot
demonstrate that Jews living in the western part of the Roman Empire even knew
of the rabbinic traditions, whether the Mishnah, various Midrashim, or either of
the two Talmudim which were all in Hebrew or Aramaic, languages foreign to
the Jews in the west. Those works were not translated for them, so they could not
have had much effect on them. There was no known rabbinic school (yeshiva) in
the west until centuries later also and the rabbinic traditions that were produced in
Hebrew and Aramaic were not translated into Greek or Latin, the languages of the
majority of Jews in the west.

82
The term diaspora (Greek = “dispersion” or “scattered abroad”) was first used as a reference to
Jews living in exile in Babylon (Jer 28:6; 2 Chr 36:20), but eventually was used in reference to Jews
who lived outside of the Land of Israel. Among the rabbis, the Hebrew term galut (exiles) was used
often with theological implications and also in a negative sense of those exiles living in captivity
outside of the Israel, but more generally, it was simply a reference to Jews living outside of the Land
of Israel (see, e.g., Jas 1:1 and 1 Pet 1:1).
83
Schürer, The History of the Jewish People in the Age of Jesus Christ, 3.1: 478–79.
84
For a helpful discussion of this, see Arye and Mendels, “A Split Jewish Diaspora.”
ANCIENT ARTIFACTS AND THE STABILIZATION OF THE JEWISH SCRIPTURES 451

Jews in the western diaspora generally regarded respectfully the decisions of the
Patriarchs in leadership over the Jews in Palestine following the destruction of the
Temple in 70 CE, but again, there were no Jewish schools or yeshivot in the west
that taught the traditions of the Rabbinic Sages and there is little evidence that the
leaders from the east made more than sporadic and infrequent trips to visit Jews in
the west. Those in the east were committed to the oral traditions (or “Oral Torah”)
and those in the west were committed to the biblical traditions that they derived
from the LXX Scriptures that contained not only the books of the HB, but also
several apocryphal books that had been rejected by the rabbinic Jews in the east,
especially in Babylon. According to Edrei and Mendels, it took several centuries
longer for Jews in the western diaspora to accept the scriptural text and canon
constructed by the rabbinic Jews.85
Occasionally, well-known Christian teachers such as Jerome of Bethlehem
and Cyril of Jerusalem were influenced by their Jewish neighbors and opted for
the narrower parameters of the HB, but that was not the case for the majority of
the early Christians. As we have shown, the textual witnesses from the surviving
Christian biblical manuscripts suggest that a broader collection of sacred scrip-
tures was circulating among the Jews before the narrower emergence of the
rabbinic HB.
There are many Greek manuscripts that support much of the text of the OT
Greek Scriptures, but the most important of these are the great codices, Vaticanus
(ca. 350–75), Sinaiticus (ca. 375–400), and Alexandrinus (ca. 450–500). These
manuscripts, as we see in Appendices A and B, included the full collection of the
Christian OT and NT Scriptures in one volume. The advance in codex technology,
along with the fact that more professional scribes were producing the manuscripts
in the fourth century and later, doubtless contributed to a greater stability of the
text and the order or sequence of the books in the OT and NT for Christians,
though both order and sequence varied after that.
The Hebrew manuscripts show considerable textual fluidity well into the era of
the Masoretes and some even later. Most of the textual variants are simple spelling
errors, accidental omissions, or occasional sloppy copying, but occasionally the
earlier manuscripts also contain intentional changes that reflect a scribe’s attempt
to make the biblical text more relevant or understandable to a later generation
and to clarify the meaning of some words that may have not been understood
by contemporary readers or hearers. This was also true in the so-called extended
rewritten texts at Qumran discussed earlier.
It is likely that no “original” scriptural texts were available to Jews or Christians
as they later produced multiple copies of their scriptures. Text-critical scholars
continue to sort through these variants in order to establish the best and most
reliable texts of the Jewish and Christian scriptures. The rabbinic choice to adopt
the MT text of the Jewish Scriptures and the later editorial work by the Masoretic

85
Ibid.
452 THE FORMATION OF THE BIBLICAL CANON, VOLUME I

scribes on the MT biblical manuscripts brought considerable stability to the HB

text, but the matter of establishing an “original” text of the Scriptures will likely
never be settled given the oral transmission of much of the biblical traditions in
their earlier stages and the fluidity of the text from its earliest to later stages.86
As a result of the renewed interest in the textual history of the LXX, important
advances in our understanding of the development of the HB text have also
been made. This has already resulted in new translations of the LXX as well
as in increased attention given to the LXX by commentators on HB and OT
Scriptures.87 The most frequently cited text of the Septuagint today is the
Rahlfs-Hanhart Septuagint,88 which is based largely on the uncial manuscripts
of Vaticanus, Sinaiticus, and Alexandrinus, but also on a few other uncial and
minuscule manuscripts from the fifth to the tenth centuries,89 including ten ancient
versions of the Greek text.
Among the surviving manuscripts and various versions, we mentioned the two
libraries, Chester Beatty and Bodmer collections above, that date from roughly
the late second to the seventh centuries CE. These libraries or collections of
Christian Scriptures advance considerably our understanding of the text of the OT
in an earlier period and they also include several apocryphal and pseudepigraphal
texts that informed the faith and life of some early Egyptian churches. These
manuscripts have been assigned identity numbers in the Rahlfs register of Greek
Old Testament manuscripts.90
All of this raises the question, “Which text of the Scriptures is the final authority
for synagogues and churches today?” Most biblical scholars continue to appeal to
the MT as the most stable text of the HB that is also the foundation for the OT
part of Christian Bibles today, though not of the Greek OT Scriptures that were
“the Bible” for the earliest Christians and cited more than 90% of the time in
the NT citations of the Jewish Scriptures. However, as we have seen, text critics
have shown that textual stability was not present in the first centuries BCE and
CE whether in manuscripts at Qumran, the Samaritan Pentateuch, the MT, or the
LXX. The surviving biblical manuscripts reflect considerable textual fluidity in
the books that were recognized as sacred scripture.

86
See, for example, Carr, Formation of the Hebrew Bible; idem, Writing on the Tablet of the Heart;
and Veltri, Libraries, Translations, and “Canonic” Texts.
87
See the recently published A New English Translation of the Septuagint, ed. Albert Pietersma
and Benjamin G. Wright (New York: Oxford University Press, 2007).
88
Alfred Rahlfs and Robert Hanhart, eds., Septuaginta, rev. ed./Editio altera (Stuttgart: Deutsche
Bibelgesellschaft, 2006). Robert Hanhart revised slightly the 1935 edition prepared by Alfred Rahlfs
that was initially published by the Privileged Württemberg Bible Society in Stuttgart, Germany.
89
The uncial manuscripts include the Ephraemi Rescriptus (C), Cottonianus (D), Ambrosianus (F),
Colberto-Sarravianus (G), Purpureus Vindobonensis (L), Coislinianus (M), Marchalianus, Vat. Gr.
2125 (Q), Veronensis (R), Turicensis (T), Venetus (V), Freer Mss (W). The minuscule manuscripts
most frequently appealed to include 393, 911, 1098, and 2013.
90
Van Elderen has a helpful summary of this collection of manuscripts in his “Early Christian
Libraries.”
ANCIENT ARTIFACTS AND THE STABILIZATION OF THE JEWISH SCRIPTURES 453

V. OTHER TRANSLATIONS OF HEBREW

AND OLD TESTAMENT SCRIPTURES91
Besides the Greek translations discussed earlier in Chapter 6 §§I and II, and
the Targums that frequently were more like expanded paraphrases of the HB
Scriptures, there were other translations of the Jewish HB books and Christian
OT books that emerged in the second century CE. These translations often tell us
what books were circulating among Jews and Christians in the Diaspora as well as
their fidelity to the texts of the HB and Greek OT Scriptures. Some of the earliest
translations include the following:

A. Syriac Versions
The Greek translations of the HB Scriptures initiated other translations of the
Jewish Scriptures for Diaspora Jews that were subsequently also adopted by
Christians. Among these translations that were prepared initially by Jews and
subsequently welcomed by the Christians, the Syriac versions were popular in
communities close to Palestine. The Syriac version of the HB scriptures was
probably begun by the Jews for their communities in Syria, but in time those
translations were taken over by the Christians. Some of the Jews who prepared
the initial translation eventually became Christians and their work became the first
Scriptures of the Christians in the region of Syria and subsequently in surrounding
areas. Antioch, Syria, possibly the third largest city in the Greco-Roman world,
had a very large Jewish population and eventually a fairly substantial Christian
population. In time the number of Jews there became a minority as the church
increased in size mostly through Gentile conversions.
In the second century CE, and possibly earlier, some Jews translated the Hebrew
Scriptures into Syriac and these scriptures became known as the Syriac Peshitta.92
Eventually some of the Jews who began this project were converted to Christianity
and later (by ca. 200 CE) many of the Christian Scriptures were also added to
the earlier Jewish collection of translated HB Scriptures. The conversion of some
Jews to Christianity may have come as a result of the rift between the Jews in
Syria and the leaders in rabbinic Judaism in the second and third centuries, but
that is uncertain. After their conversion to the Christian faith, the Jews brought
their Peshitta translation of the Hebrew Scriptures with them into their new faith
and the Christians welcomed it and added to it also their Christian Scriptures.93

91
I am especially indebted here to Bruce M. Metzger, The Bible in Translation: Ancient and
English Versions (Grand Rapids: Baker, 2001).
92
The word Peshitta (Syriac = “simple” or “common”) is the term given to the collection of Jewish
and Christian scriptures in the Syriac language.
93
This view was advocated by M. P. Weitzman, The Syriac Version of the Old Testament: An
Introduction (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1999), 1. Metzger also makes a similar
observation in his The Bible in Translation, 26–29.
454 THE FORMATION OF THE BIBLICAL CANON, VOLUME I

Subsequently the Christians largely oversaw the continuing transmission and

preservation of these scriptures. The whole of the Peshitta for both the OT and NT
was not completed much before the fourth or fifth century.
Metzger adds that while the origin of the Syriac Bible is “shrouded in uncer-
tainty,” the affinities to the Aramaic Targums suggest a strong Jewish influence
on the translation of the Pentateuch.94 The surviving Syriac manuscripts show
considerable variety in the books included in the OT portion of the Syriac Bible,
as well as in their order or sequence. In some manuscripts, after the Pentateuch,
the order of the books is Joshua, Judges, Job, Samuels, Kings, Proverbs,
Ecclesiasticus (Sirach), Ecclesiastes, Ruth, and Song of Songs. In other Syriac
biblical manuscripts Ruth, Esther, Judith, and Susanna are placed together in the
Book of Women. We will discuss the New Testament books in the Syriac trans-
lation later. At the beginning of the sixth century, the Philoxenian version, named
after bishop Philoxenus from Mabbug (Hierapolis), included the NT books.95
In 616 CE, Thomas of Harkel significantly revised the Philoxenian version. At
roughly the same time, Paul, the Jacobite bishop of Tella in Mesopotamia, made
a translation of the Septuagint from Origen’s fifth column which is also important
because it is both a fairly accurate translation and preserves, unlike other transla-
tions copied from the Hexapla, the critical editorial symbols mentioned earlier
that had their origin in Alexandria.96 In time, some six versions of the Syriac Bible
were translated from the LXX following the “fifth column” in Origen’s Hexapla.
Subsequently, another version of the Syriac Bible emerged that was called the
Christian Palestinian Aramaic version using the Aramaic language similar to the
language used in Palestine in the early Christian centuries.97

B. Latin Versions
Around the end of the second century CE, Latin versions of the OT and some
NT writings began to emerge especially in North Africa. It is well known that
Tertullian, at the end of the second century, quoted from some OT and NT writings
in Latin. As Metzger observes, various early Latin translations were not merely
translations of the Greek into Latin, but often they provided opportunities for
considerable expansion of the biblical texts.98
The early Latin versions were translated from the Greek LXX, but in the
fifth century Jerome translated the Old Testament Scriptures from the Hebrew
text into Latin and, although personally he rejected the apocryphal books in the

94
Metzger, The Bible in Translation, 26.
95
Ibid., 28. Their NT included initially included only twenty-two books (until ca. 500–510 CE).
They regularly omitted 2 Peter, 2–3 John, Jude, and Revelation.
96
Ibid., 28–29.
97
Ibid., 25–29.
98
Ibid., 30.
ANCIENT ARTIFACTS AND THE STABILIZATION OF THE JEWISH SCRIPTURES 455

LXX, he nevertheless bowed to pressure and included them in his translation, but
without giving careful attention to them. The translations of the apocryphal books
are inferior to the others. The earlier expansionist tendencies and the multiple
variants in translations are highlighted and disparagingly discussed in Augustine’s
comments about the diversity of texts in the Latin Bible. At the close of the fourth
century, he wrote:

Those who translated the Scriptures from Hebrew into Greek can be counted, but the Latin
translators are out of all number. For in the early days of the faith, everyone who happened to
gain possession of a Greek manuscript [of the New Testament] and thought he had any facility
in both languages, however slight that might have been, attempted to make a translation.
(Augustine, On Christian Doctrine 2.16)

Scholars today have discovered some three families of Latin translations repre-
sented by Cyprian (the African text), Irenaeus (the European/Gaul text), and
Augustine (the Italian text). As a result of a confusion in Latin texts, Pope
Damascus asked Jerome (Hieronymus) in 383 CE to produce a uniform Latin
text of the Scriptures. He was reluctant at first but then proceeded to translate
from the Hebrew text of the HB for the OT and the Greek for the NT. This work
took fourteen years to produce (390–404 CE) and most or perhaps all of it was
translated in Bethlehem and with the linguistic (Hebrew) aid of a converted Jew
from Syria and later a Jewish Rabbi in Bethlehem. Jerome’s translation, as he had
expected, met initially with considerable opposition in the churches and it took
several centuries before it became the standard text for all Latin churches and it
remained that way with several recensions for nearly a thousand years. He largely
ignored or rushed through the translation of the apocryphal books (especially
Tobit and Judith) since he was not interested in them and he did not give them
the same careful attention or time that he gave to the books in the Hebrew Bible.

C. Coptic Versions
In the continuing progression in the development of the Egyptian language, Coptic
emerged with a strong dependence upon the letters of the Greek alphabet. The
Egyptian Christians wrote this native language using the twenty-four letters in the
Greek alphabet, as well as seven additional signs taken over from the Egyptian
language, to express sounds that were not present in the Greek language. The liter-
ature that emerged in Coptic is almost exclusively religious and includes versions
of the Bible as well as the apocryphal books of the OT and NT, including legends
of the apostles, lives and martyrdoms of saints, and other so-called non-canonical
texts. These additional texts were not put in a separate collection, but were mixed
among the rest of the sacred scriptures of the Egyptian churches.
456 THE FORMATION OF THE BIBLICAL CANON, VOLUME I

Around the beginning of the fourth century, possibly sooner, Coptic translations
began that eventually included some six dialects (Sahidic,99 Boharic, Achmimic,
sub-Achmimic, Middle Egyptian or Oxyrhynchite dialect, and Fayyumic). It
appears that most, if not all, of the Old Testament books were included in these
translations, but also other non-canonical books including Ps 151. Occasionally
the Coptic versions show a preference for the Latin versions, but that is not
unusual since the Greek scriptures were first translated into Latin in the North
African churches.

D. Armenian Versions
The Armenian people are known for their pride in being the first “Christian
nation,” that is, when Christianity was brought to Armenia near the end of the
third century by Gregory the Illuminator (257–331), who was of royal lineage,
he was able to convert Tirides I, king of Armenia, who subsequently sent out a
herald to all of his subjects to adopt the Christian faith and be baptized. The call
was successful and the Armenian people converted to the Christian faith, and by
the early fifth century, the Christian OT and NT Scriptures were translated from
the Syriac into the newly established Armenian language. Mesrop (ca. 361–439
CE) created the thirty-six-letter Armenian alphabet around the year 405–406 and
he used some twenty Greek letters. He set out to translate the Scriptures with
the help of others that he recruited for the task and the first OT book translated
was the book of Proverbs. The NT and subsequently the rest of the OT books
were finished between 410 and 414 CE. The earliest dated surviving Armenian
biblical manuscript is from 887 CE and from a survey of the other surviving
manuscripts, it appears clear that the Armenians included in their OT Scriptures
also the History of Joseph and Asenath, Testaments of the Twelve Patriarchs, The
Book of Adam, The History of Moses, The Deaths of the Prophets, Concerning
King Solomon, A Short History of the Prophet Elias, Concerning the Prophet
Jeremiah, the Vision of Enoch the Just, and The Third Book of Esdras (= chs.
3–14 of Second Esdras). Their New Testament also included the Epistle of the
Corinthians to Paul and the Third Epistle of Paul to the Corinthians, which is
similar to the early Syriac biblical canon.100 I will say more about 3 Corinthians

99
Some of the most important manuscript finds in Egypt, such as the Chester Beatty collection
now in Dublin and the Martin Bodmer collection now in Cologny-Geneva, are in the Sahidic Coptic
dialect.
100
A helpful history and survey of the books that were included in the Armenian Bibles is the
collection of articles in Vahan S. Hovhanessian, ed., The Canon of the Bible and the Apocrypha in
the Churches of the East, Bible in the Christian Orthodox Tradition (New York: Lang, 2012). See
also my September 27, 2013 review of this book in RBL (http://www.bookreviews.org/bookdetail.
asp?TitleId=8951).
ANCIENT ARTIFACTS AND THE STABILIZATION OF THE JEWISH SCRIPTURES 457

in the New Testament in Chapter 20 §IV. Metzger has observed that the Armenian
manuscripts also include many colophons with notes on a broad range of topics
that are especially interesting to biblical and text-critical scholars.101

E. Ethiopic Version
The Ethiopian translation of the Bible is one of the more fascinating if not puzzling
translations. It includes some “81 books,” but it is not always clear which “81”
are intended since the surviving manuscripts vary in their contents. The notion of
a biblical canon, that is, a fixed collection of sacred books, was more fluid in the
Ethiopian churches than elsewhere and they have the largest Christian biblical
canon known today.
In his Ecclesiastical History (1.9), Rufinus (ca. 345–410), church historian and
translator as well as monk, claims that the mission to Ethiopia began during the
reign of Constantine (ca. 330 CE) with two young men, Frumentius and AEdesius,
who preached the Gospel in Aksum, the capital then of Ethiopia. The principal
works in the Ethiopian canon are the Sinodos and Fetha Nägäst. Sinodos is a
collection of material attributed to the apostles and early church councils and
it contains lists of its sacred scriptures. Fetha Fägäst is the canon law of the
churches and it cites Sinodos as its primary source. Both sources have lists of their
scriptural books.
There are two main lists of sacred scriptures in the Sinodos. Their Old
Testament includes, besides the books in the Protestant OT canon, Judith, Tobit,
1–2 Maccabees, Wisdom of Solomon, Ecclesiasticus, and Pseudo-Josephus. There
appear to be two primary Old Testament canons in this translation:

The Broader OT canon includes: Octateuch – besides the Pentateuch, Joshua, Judges, and Ruth
(8 books), Judith (1), Samuel and Kings (4), Chronicles (2), 1 Esdras and the Ezra Apocalypse
(2), Esther (1), Tobit (1), Maccabees (2), Job (1), Psalms (1), books of Solomon (5), Prophets
(16), Ecclesiasticus (1), Pseudo-Josephus (1); Jubilees and Enoch are to be included in the
number (by counting Samuel and Kings as only 2 books). This comes to a total of 46 books in
the Old Testament collection.

The Narrower OT canon is listed in the Prayers of the Church and is the list printed in the
large Ge‘ez and Amharic diglots and it includes the widely accepted Protestant OT books
and separates into two books the Proverbs 1–24 (Messale) from Proverbs 25–31 (Tägsas), so
the number here is forty and then it adds fourteen other books that include: Enoch, Jubilees,
Wisdom, 1 Esdras, Ezra Apocalypse, Judith, Tobit, Ecclesiasticus, Baruch, “the rest of
Jeremiah,” book of Susanna, “the rest of Daniel,” and 1 and 2 Maccabees. This comes to a total
of 54 books.102

101
Metzger, The Bible in Translation, 42.
102
This data comes from R. W. Cowley, “The Biblical Canon of the Ethiopian Church Today,”
Ostkirchliche Studien 23 (1974): 318–23.
458 THE FORMATION OF THE BIBLICAL CANON, VOLUME I

The earliest Ethiopian biblical manuscripts that have survived are from the
fourteenth century. The Ethiopian Christians were separated from the rest of
the Christian world for almost 1000 years following the triumph of the Moslem
religion in their part of the world. If what they have now had been received
before the separation from other Christians – and there is no certainty here – then
they have a fair claim to an early Christian collection of sacred books and their
collection should be taken seriously if we are interested in the formation of the
ancient church’s scriptures.
Besides these versions, Metzger goes on to discuss the Gothic version that
rejected Samuel and Kings. He also discusses the Georgian, Arabic, Old Slavonic,
and Nubian Versions, but for our purposes, the ones described above already make
the point that the various books included in the ancient biblical canons and transla-
tions varied for several centuries, though the core books, Law and the Prophets,
were generally included, though the sequence in them often varied.103

VI. CONCLUSION
We have looked briefly at the importance of the ancient biblical manuscripts, their
text, and the early translations of them. No examination of the processes of canoni-
zation is complete without some understanding of the importance and relevance of
these ancient artifacts. The text of the Jewish and Christian scriptures throughout
the history of transmission of the biblical texts was fluid. This is especially so in
the early centuries when scribes not only made simple blunders in transmitting
the sacred texts, but they also edited and occasionally intentionally changed the
scriptural texts to make them more relevant to current and later readers. Scribes,
copiers, and translators of various levels of competence made accidental and often
intentional changes in the biblical texts and their intentional changes often reflect
the historical and social contexts of the communities that produced and used them.
The manuscripts with intentional changes in them regularly became the models for
subsequent transmissions and so subsequent scribes passed on those changes and
likewise made their own changes in their copies of the sacred texts. Long after a
limited number of sacred books were acknowledged as sacred scripture, and listed
in fixed collections of biblical books (canons), the texts of those books remained
fluid. There were some parameters, however, and completely false statements
about the biblical stories could not have survived if they did not cohere with the
core traditions handed on in the synagogues and churches. Scribes and copiers
did not take unusual liberties to make fanciful changes in their sacred texts, nor
did they change who did or said what or the results of such activities. No one
would have said that Moses had five, eight, or thirteen commandments. The Ten
Commandments were pretty well settled and no changes would have occurred that
made the biblical stories unrecognizable.

103
Metzger, The Bible in Translation, 38–51.
ANCIENT ARTIFACTS AND THE STABILIZATION OF THE JEWISH SCRIPTURES 459

With the technological developments in the codex by the fourth century, the
possibility of including all of the biblical books in one volume made it easier to
see what books comprised the various biblical canons emerging in that era. Before
then, there was little stability of the text, or sequence of the books that comprised
the OT. Most of the catalogues of Christian scriptures occur during and after the
fourth century when churches could see more clearly what was included in their
sacred collections. Although some identification of the books in the HB scriptures
began to emerge in the second century CE (see lists in the Bryrennios catalogue
and in Melito of Sardis in Appendix A), but especially in the third, fourth, and
fifth centuries CE. In practice, both Diaspora Jews and Christians continued to
read other books alongside the HB books for centuries. There would have been no
need to have the stated prohibitions against reading those additional books later if
no one had been reading them!
The surviving manuscripts reflect several other books that informed early
Christian faith besides those in the HB. Despite this, the majority of books that
now comprise the HB and OT collections were fairly stable early on (by the
second century CE) and those books in the HB and in the Christian OT codices
comprised the majority of books in both Jewish and Christian sacred collections.
Most of the books in the HB were fairly well recognized and were forming a
stable collection before the end of the first century CE, yet some others were still
read in Jewish and Christian services of worship. That may explain why some of
them were the latest collection to find a separate and stable place in the HB. There
was never any doubt about the Psalms, but there was some doubt expressed about
some of the books in the third part of the HB, especially Song of Songs, Esther,
Ecclesiastes, Ezekiel, and Sirach as we have shown earlier.
The fluidity of the text of the biblical literature was not weighed as heavily as
which books were included as sacred Scripture. The stabilization of the text took
much longer than the recognition of which books comprised sacred Scripture.
Chapman has a valid point when he chides those who argue from a fluid text to
the conclusion that a biblical canon did not yet exist. He believes that the canon
of Moses and the Prophets preceded the textual stability, and I agree, but I am not
convinced with his related arguments. He correctly concludes that “canonicity
is not necessarily dependent upon the stabilization of a particular text, although
these two processes are clearly joined in some way.”104 He is also correct to say
that there were connections between the stability of the scriptural texts and canon
formation, but it is not always clear what that connection is!
Again, there is no doubt that fixed collections of Scriptures existed well before
the first century CE (especially the Pentateuch and the Twelve Minor Prophets,
and perhaps the Former Prophets), but the exact parameters of the rest of the

104
See Chapman, “How the Biblical Canon Began,” 48–49. Although I agree with his conclusion,
I am not convinced that he has clarified the matter much since he leaves the relationship between
canon and text open (49). He correctly sees, however, that at Qumran and in much of the first century
CE there was no fixed text or a fixed list of canonical books. Ibid.
460 THE FORMATION OF THE BIBLICAL CANON, VOLUME I

Prophets cannot be determined before the second century CE when the books that
comprise it are for the first time listed. We cannot show, however, that this first
list was precisely the same collection that was operative in the first century CE or
before. The early church separated from Judaism before there was a widespread
agreement on the scope of the HB and that best explains the differences between
the later collection HB books and the more expanded Christian OT books. Jerome
provides the primary example of a Christian canon following the general pattern
of the HB tripartite biblical canon, but it is not exactly the same as we have shown
since some of those books appear earlier in the historical section (Ruth follows
Judges and Lamentations is placed after Jeremiah) and he does not use the Tanak
names for those three parts in his listing of the Christian OT books.105
Today biblical scholars of all persuasions regularly find value in studying the
so called nonbiblical texts since they often aid considerably in our understanding
of the earliest known biblical texts. They also shed light on the context and devel-
opment of both Jewish and Christian traditions and the Bibles that informed their
faith then and even now.
More books than those in the current Jewish and Christian Bibles initially
informed the faith and religious life of the ancient Jewish and Christian commu-
nities. This was especially true in the eastern churches that never had a Council
of Trent, that is, a council to determine the scope of their sacred scriptures. Some
canon scholars assume that what took place in the western churches was also
true in the eastern churches, but that was not the case. There was considerable
overlap, but never complete agreement on canon decisions made in the Catholic
and Orthodox churches, though Catholics, Orthodox and Protestant Christians
all agree on their acceptance of all of the HB books, though not their order as
we have seen. The ancient manuscripts and lists of sacred scriptures from the
East reflect both agreement and disagreement on the scope of their churches’
OT biblical canon. Many Eastern churches, for example, continued to offer a
rationale for continuing to use the Prayer of Manasseh because, according to the
Didascalia, it implies that repentance opens “the doors of salvation”106 and this
suggests a parallel in David’s failure in 2 Sam 12:1–13. Though there we do not

105
Chapman, “How the Biblical Canon Began,” 29–52, seems to be saying that the biblical texts
were acknowledged as canonical – which apparently means religiously authoritative scripture –
before they were placed into their various divisions. That appears likely, though the recognition of
the Torah always had the place of priority throughout Second Temple Judaism in any of the collec-
tions that survived antiquity.
106
See Daniel A. Ayuch, “The Prayer of Manasses,” in Hovhanessian, ed., Canon of the Bible, 7–20,
here 12. Similarly, Slavomir Caplo in the same volume (21–28) defends the use of the Testament of
Solomon (TSol) in the pseudepigraphal collection in the Judgment of Solomon (JSol) in the Eastern
churches. His conclusion suggests that the presence of the JSol among canonical writings in the Paris
and Vatican manuscripts indicates that JSol, which includes TSol, was once considered a biblical
book. This book illumines an often untold story of the formation of biblical canons in Eastern
churches. It clarifies how and sometimes why some non-canonical books continued to circulate in
ANCIENT ARTIFACTS AND THE STABILIZATION OF THE JEWISH SCRIPTURES 461

see the word repentance, the notion is there and it is subsequently seen in Ps 51
that is traditionally attributed to David. Christians have never fully agreed on the
scope of their OT scriptures, so a debate will continue over the parameters of the
OT canons as well as on the elusive scriptural texts of the books that comprise the
Christian OT canons. There is, however, far more that overlaps in the OT canons
of Catholic, Protestant and Orthodox churches than what does not.
In our next chapter I will offer not only some summaries of the arguments thus
far on the formation of the HB and OT, but also some possibilities for future
inquiry.

churches for centuries after church councils fixed the boundaries of the biblical canon. It also makes
clear that western council decisions about the scope of the biblical canon had little influence in the
east. I will return to this important contribution later when I focus on the formation of the NT canon.
 CHAPTER 13

THE FORMATION OF THE HEBREW

BIBLE AND OLD TESTAMENT:
A SUMMARY

Understanding the complex issues surrounding the origins and formation of the
HB and OT canons continues to be challenging, as we have seen, and several
issues remain unresolved due to a lack of adequate ancient sources that clarify
those issues. I will focus here on some of the areas yet to be resolved including
the definition of canon and the appropriate criteria involved in the selection
processes, including how best to approach canon formation. Finally, for the sake
of completeness, I will include a summary and discussion of D. N. Freedman’s
twenty-three-book HB canon with its arguments and weaknesses.

I. THE HEBREW BIBLE AND OLD TESTAMENT CANON

We have seen that Jews of late Second Temple Judaism and the earliest Christians
were not focused on the notion of a biblical canon. Both communities were
significantly informed and influenced by a broad collection of Jewish Scriptures,
but there was no concerted effort to establish the boundaries of their Scripture
collections before the second century CE for the Jews and even later for the
Christians. It is highly unlikely that Jesus held to a biblical canon that looked like
the later rabbinic canon and even more unlikely that he passed it on to his disciples
who subsequently lost sight of it. He more than likely recognized many if not most
of the books that currently comprise the HB canon, but probably also more. Melito
of Sardis was the first Christian who became interested in the specific books that
formed what was beginning to be called an Old Testament. Subsequently some
church fathers showed an interest in such matters, especially Origen in the third
century, but generally it was not a topic of interest for most church fathers until the
fourth century CE. Origen, as we saw, was also open to citing as Scripture more
than the HB books.
THE FORMATION OF THE HEBREW BIBLE AND OLD TESTAMENT: A SUMMARY 463

The examples shown earlier demonstrate the Jewish interest in identifying the
number of books in their biblical canon initially with the number of letters in the
Hebrew alphabet, to reflect their completion and divine origin, but later adopted
the number twenty-four instead that reflected the letters of the Greek alphabet
following the model of Homer’s writings. The ordering of the HB canon into a
tripartite collection influenced some church fathers, as in the cases of Jerome and
Cyril who opted more for the Jewish biblical canon than other church fathers, but
this did not reflect the opinion at that time of the majority. That Melito, a leading
bishop at the end of the second century, had to travel from Sardis to resolve
questions regarding the scope of the church’s Old Testament Scriptures, suggests
that the matter had not yet been settled in the churches and evidently not in
synagogues in the diaspora since the synagogue was quite large in Sardis. Some in
the rabbinic Jewish community at that time had lingering doubts about the scope
of their biblical canon and some rabbis questioned the sacredness of a few books,
especially Ezekiel, Song of Songs, Esther, Ecclesiastes, and Sirach. Such debates
continued for centuries among some rabbis and church fathers.
Because of the lack of definition in the scope of the HB and OT biblical canons
in the first centuries BCE and CE that we saw from an examination of the DSS
at Qumran, the frequent use of or parallels to noncanonical writings in the NT
and the early church fathers, and disputes among second-century and later rabbis,
there was no obvious fixed biblical canon in late Second Temple Judaism or in
early Christianity. That some canonical and noncanonical writings were disputed
both by Jews and Christians for centuries suggests that the biblical canon was
understood differently initially from how it was understood in subsequent periods.
There is little doubt that the core books in the HB and Christian OT scriptures
were cited as scriptural texts in most Jewish and Christian communities. Disputes
over some books (canonical and noncanonical) continued for centuries, but that
did not seem to have been the case in regard to the traditions and theology in early
Christianity.1 Silver concludes essentially the same thing in the Jewish commu-
nities of Late Antiquity, but since the Jews read through the Torah once a year in
the synagogue, there was never any doubt in the minds of the faithful about what
was at the core of Judaism – it was Torah. He explains:

The ordinary Jew probably knew that the Exodus story was central, and the story of Samson
and Delilah less so, since he rehearsed the Exodus deliverance every Passover, and heard about
Samson only on the occasional visit of a wandering storyteller or professional reader. If he
thought about it, as he probably did not, he might have sensed that there must be some grada-
tions of authority among the scrolls. But he probably never saw all the scrolls finally included
in the Hebrew Scriptures, and certainly never in one place, bound together, and designated as
scripture.2

1
See Barton, People of the Book?, 30–31.
2
Silver, Story of Scripture, 132.
464 THE FORMATION OF THE BIBLICAL CANON, VOLUME I

Satlow is also correct in saying that few Jews before 100 CE would have
considered fixing their scriptures into a biblical canon of sorts, though the average
among them would be broadly familiar with texts read to them in synagogues.
He writes: “I doubt that most Jews would have given much thought to whether
particular texts were ‘really’ scripture or not. If you heard the public recitation
from a scroll of oracles or stories that were ascribed to a revered prophet whose
name you recognized, as long as the contents did not overtly challenge your
preconceptions of what should be in such a text, why doubt its authenticity?”3
He concludes: “This is why prior to the second century CE, nobody thought to
create a ‘closed canon,’ a definitive list of specific books that should be considered
‘scripture’.”4

II. CONCERNS ABOUT AN AMBIGUOUS BIBLICAL CANON

Whether Jewish religious leaders in antiquity accepted or rejected or were at least

informed by apocryphal writings does not appear to have been an issue during
Second Temple Judaism. During that time, however, the Law of Moses/Torah
formed that scriptural core of sacred literature for the Jews along with a corpus
of prophetic books that were later divided into the now traditional Prophets and
Writings, and other books were also read, studied, and cited as sacred texts well
into the first century CE. Not everyone agreed on the whole collection of the
Writings, but there was little doubt about a wide acceptance of the core books
in that collection, namely Ruth, Psalms, Daniel, Proverbs, 1–2 Chronicles, Job,
Proverbs, and Ezra–Nehemiah. However, as we saw, some rabbis and early church
leaders expressed doubts about the sanctity of some books in that collection,
especially Song of Songs, Ecclesiastes, and Esther. These perhaps may be
considered “fringe” books in the early Scripture collections.5
The HB and Greek OT, including some apocryphal and pseudepigraphal liter-
ature, informed the faith and theology of some Jewish sects in the late Second
Temple period as well as also several NT and early church writers. Whether
other ancient religious books should be included in a Jewish or Christian biblical
canon was not at all a consuming question until the late first century CE for some
Jews, and later for others. There is no evidence of a precisely defined collection
of sacred books until the end of the first century CE for some Jews (Josephus and
the author of 4 Ezra) and no evidence of such interest until the end of the second
century CE for the Christians (Melito). Such issues only began to be important
questions for some Christians in the late second and third centuries, mostly in

3
Satlow, How the Bible Became Holy, 244.
4
Ibid.
5
Barton speaks of this “fringe” in People of the Book?, 30–31.
THE FORMATION OF THE HEBREW BIBLE AND OLD TESTAMENT: A SUMMARY 465

reference to the NT writings, but it became a more important matter in the fourth
and fifth centuries when all of the church’s scriptures (OT and NT) could be
included in one codex volume. It does not appear initially that questions about
which books could be read in churches or synagogues were discussed at all or were
important in those communities. It is unlikely, as we saw earlier, that most church
leaders would have known enough about the shape or scope of their Scriptures
in the early centuries to know how to answer questions about the canonization of
those Scriptures. Scholars now consider many ancient religious texts and the way
they elucidate the historical and social contexts of the period when the biblical
canon was formed, but it is not clear how many church leaders or rabbinic sages
would have been sufficiently informed to know how to respond to questions about
such matters or questions. Few would have access to read or know all of the books
that later became their biblical canon. It appears that Jesus was familiar with many
later disputed texts (1 Enoch, Wisdom of Solomon, Sirach, and others), but cites
mostly books in the undisputed Law and Prophets. Because of this, the ancient
“noncanonical” religious texts should likely merit more attention than has been
given to them in the past.
The authoritative Scriptures of several first-century Jewish sects doubtless had
an impact on which Scriptures the earliest followers of Jesus adopted as their
own. They also stayed within the broad pale of first-century Judaism until they
were no longer welcomed in that community (initially 62–66, but no later than
135 CE). The Scriptures that the early Christians inherited from their first-century
Jewish siblings were more refined in later rabbinic contexts and those subsequent
definitions had little impact on the emerging churches in the second century
and later. Interestingly, Childs suggests that the Christian canon was necessarily
different from that of Judaism of Late Antiquity because:

At the outset, it is crucial to recognize that the Christian understanding of canon functions
theologically in a very different way from Judaism. Although the church adopted from
the synagogue a concept of scripture as an authoritative collection of sacred writings, its
Christology shaped its basic stance toward its canon. The authority assigned to the apostolic
witnesses derived from their unique testimony to the life, death, and resurrection of Jesus
Christ. Similarly, the Old Testament functioned as Christian scripture because it bore witness
to Jesus Christ.6

I agree, but would also add that the collection of Scriptures that the early Christians
adopted came from first-century Jewish sects from which they emerged. This is
surely correct and similar to James Sanders’ distinction between the Christian OT
(or FT) that is rooted in a different hermeneutic (see Chapter 1 §IX, “Excursus on
‘First Testament’ or Old Testament,” above). However, the criteria employed by
the rabbinic sages to define their sacred Scriptures are not clear, since the date of
composition (no later that the Persian period), no books after the absence of the

6
Childs, Biblical Theology, 64.
466 THE FORMATION OF THE BIBLICAL CANON, VOLUME I

prophetic gift and the Holy Spirit among them, or no books not written in Hebrew
or Aramaic, do not answer all of the questions raised by the books that were
included. There is no doubt, however, that the early Christian community anchored
its new faith in Jesus the Christ in their Old Testament Scriptures, but, as Childs
noted above, they accomplished this through their christological interpretation of
the Scriptures that had already been a recognized authority among them. However,
as we have stressed above and below, their interpretation of those Scriptures did
not occur before their encounter with Jesus. Paul, for instance, knew his scriptures
well, but did not conclude that Jesus was the Messiah until after his experience
with the risen Christ on the Damascus Road. Like his fellow Jewish believers who
followed Jesus, they began their Christian faith in their encounter with the risen
Christ after the event of Easter and subsequently anchored their faith in their new
interpretation of their Jewish Scriptures. In the words of Lee Barrett:

There is no obvious inference from the Old Testament that Jesus was the Messiah, for the pattern
of Jesus’ life, death, and resurrection was a break with all pre-Christian messianic expectations.
The ability to construe the ancient Hebrew texts christologically is a leap of hermeneutical
imagination possible only after the interpreter has already come to faith in Christ.7

Barrett adds, “Paul’s unanticipated encounter with Christ led him to reinterpret
his religious history.”8 I agree with this and would add that Paul also reinter-
preted his sacred Scriptures. This new christological interpretation of the Hebrew
Scriptures began with their encounter/experience with Jesus, and not with the
traditional Jewish interpretations of those Scriptures. That does not lead to a
weak Christology, as I will argue below, but it clarifies how that Christology first
emerged and was subsequently interpreted in light of the church’s Old Testament
Scriptures.
The various combinations of HB books employed to stay within the limits of a
twenty-two-book or twenty-four-book canon apparently did not make much sense
to the church, so they did not follow it, though in the NT we do see a reference
to the Greek alphabet in the reference to God and Jesus as the “alpha and omega”
(Rev 1:8; 22:13). Karl Rahner correctly observes that the HB canon was not
complete when the early Christians separated from Judaism and concludes that
it should not be surprising “that the Church also completed the definition of the
OT canon, and did not take over from the synagogue a ready-made and as such
binding canon.”9 The independence of the early Christians in their understanding
of Jesus and their scriptures was in part present from their beginning, namely
they approached them with a christological hermeneutic. The earliest Christians

7
Lee C. Barrett, Review of David Crump, Encountering Jesus, Encountering Scripture, Interpre-
tation 69, no. 1 (2015): 105–6.
8
Ibid.
9
Quoted from Stendebach, “Old Testament Canon,” 37.
THE FORMATION OF THE HEBREW BIBLE AND OLD TESTAMENT: A SUMMARY 467

generally accepted all of the books in the present HB canon, but others also. As
we have seen, some early church fathers questioned the inclusion of Ecclesiastes
and Esther, but many of them also accepted as scriptural texts books that were
not later included in the HB or in the later Protestant biblical canon. Before their
separation from Judaism, some early Christians had also welcomed as Scripture
some of the apocryphal and pseudepigraphal literature that rabbinic Jews and later
Christians rejected. It appears that the second- to the fourth- and fifth-century
churches appear to have made independent decisions on the scope of the sacred
literature that informed their faith. Later church council attempts to bring unity
on such matters was not fully successful, though subsequently independent larger
communities eventually did agree on the shape of their biblical canons as we see
in the Catholic, Eastern and Russian Orthodox, Protestant, and Ethiopian OT
canons, even if they were not exactly the same OT canons.

III. CRITERIA FOR ESTABLISHING A HEBREW BIBLICAL

CANON

We asked earlier what criteria were employed first by the Jews and subsequently
by the Christians to establish their HB and OT canons? As noted, it is not clear
whether the matter was settled by date (i.e., no document written after the time of
Ezra) or by language (i.e., no document not written first in Hebrew and Aramaic),
by location (i.e., no document written outside of the land of Israel),10 or how
significant the anonymity of authorship was in determining the final conclu-
sions.11 Is it possible that a book’s canonicity was more specifically related to its
theological conformity to Torah, or to its usefulness in Jewish liturgy, or even to its
perceived moral content? Perhaps, as Silver has suggested, the matter was settled
in some cases on the basis of size. He explains: “the decision to include or exclude
[was] sometimes made for reasons as superficial as a scribe finding empty space
available at the end of a scroll he had just copied, and filling it with something he
liked.”12 It is not clear, however, what arguments he has to support this suggestion.
The criteria that some scholars have suggested in regard to the writings
discovered at Qumran may not be far from the reality of some of the criteria that
were eventually employed in the final selection of the books that comprised the
Hebrew Bible. While there was obviously a collection of Scriptures circulating

10
See S. Z. Leiman, “Inspiration and Canonicity: Reflections on the Formation of the Biblical
Canon,” in Jewish and Christian Self-Definition, Vol. 2: Aspects of Judaism in the Graeco-Roman
Period, ed. E. P. Sanders, A. I. Baumgarten, and A. Mendelson (Philadelphia: Fortress, 1981),
61–63, for specific citations of Jewish consideration of these matters.
11
For a discussion of authorship and anonymity in the canonization process, see Wyrick, Ascension
of Authorship.
12
Silver, Story of Scripture, 134.
468 THE FORMATION OF THE BIBLICAL CANON, VOLUME I

at Qumran, identifying which texts among the larger collection were viewed
as Scripture is challenging and a final answer cannot at present be given. It is
likely, based on citations and multiple copies of manuscripts found among the
Dead Sea Scrolls, that at the very least Torah, Isaiah, the Twelve, Psalms, Isaiah,
and Daniel were all viewed as sacred Scripture, but, as we saw, there were also
multiple copies of other books that were not later included in the HB canon.
Ulrich’s six criteria listed earlier in regard to the Qumran scrolls may be helpful
in understanding why some books were included in the HB canon. He suggested
in sum the following conditions: (a) whether a document is listed or identified in
a collection of Scriptures, namely in a canonical listing of books; (b) whether a
book is identified in a stated part of a collection as in the Law and the Prophets (c)
whether a book is explicitly quoted as Scripture, that is, whether scriptural citation
formulae are used in citing a particular book, such as “as the scripture says,” or
“it is written;” (d) whether multiple copies were made of a book; (e) whether a
commentary was written on a book; and (f) whether a book was translated into
vernacular languages.13 His criteria are helpful in suggesting a broader recognition
than what later was accepted in the HB, and he posits that if most of these condi-
tions were true of a document that its scriptural status at Qumran was most likely.
There is no clear means of applying these criteria to all of the books that were
finally included in the HB, but some of them are suggestive.
Canon scholars often make use of these kinds of criteria, but, as Ulrich acknowl-
edges, they are only suggestive and not determinative of the scriptural status of
the Qumran writings. He goes on to show that criterion (a) is not applicable to
all of the documents at Qumran, but that (b) is obviously in place since all books
identified as among the Law and the Prophets are recognized as sacred Scripture.
In regard to item (c), he also states that Isaiah and the Minor Prophets are quoted
nine times, Pentateuchal books without Genesis and Ezekiel are cited 1 to 5 times,
Psalms and Daniel are cited 2 times, and Jeremiah, Proverbs, and Jubilees are
cited one time each. He adds that the Former Prophets and the rest of the Ketubim
are never cited except for one time in the prophetic oracle in 2 Sam 7. Item (d)
is also illustrative, namely that among the books with multiple copies are Psalms
(36), Deuteronomy (30), Isaiah (21), Genesis (20), Exodus (17), Jubilees (14),
Leviticus (13), 1 Enoch (12 or 20?), Minor Prophets (8), Daniel (8), Numbers (7),
Jeremiah and Ezekiel (6), Tobit (5), Former Prophets and the Writings (four or
fewer copies, which are fewer in number than the Temple Scroll, Community Rule,
the Damascus Document, the Hodayot, and the War Scroll). For (e), Ulrich notes
that only the Torah and the Prophets (specifically, Isaiah, the Minor Prophets, and
Psalms) have commentaries written on them. Finally in regard to translations (f),
only Torah and possibly 1 Enoch were translated into Greek and only Leviticus
and Job were translated into Aramaic (Targums). A Greek translation of the Minor

13
Ulrich, “The Jewish Scriptures,” 116.
THE FORMATION OF THE HEBREW BIBLE AND OLD TESTAMENT: A SUMMARY 469

Prophets was discovered at Naḥal Ḥever. Ulrich concludes from all of this and
the translated texts that it is clear that Torah and Prophets, including Psalms and
Daniel, were recognized as Scripture. He adds that Job and Proverbs might also
qualify and that the rest of the books were “known” to the Qumran covenanters,
but may or may not have been acknowledged as Scripture.14 Apart from the
Psalms and Daniel, however, there is little evidence that the residents of Qumran
recognized the rest of the Writings as Scripture with the likely exception of the
Temple Scroll. Again, while these criteria were discussed in regard to the literature
discovered at Qumran, we cannot be certain that the later rabbis employed them in
order to determine the precise scope of the Hebrew Bible.
As others have recognized, in some cases there appears to be no qualitative
difference between books that made it into the Jewish biblical canon and those
that did not. For example, based on content alone, a better case could be made
for including Sirach and the Wisdom of Solomon instead of Ecclesiastes or Song
of Songs. By similar reasoning, why Esther, that never mentions the name of
God, was included while Jubilees and various Testaments of the Patriarchs were
excluded is unknown. Ultimately, the books finally included were found by the
Jewish community to be useful in defining and shaping its faith, life, and identity
at a given period of time. It is difficult to be more precise than that.
In regard to the canonical text of the HB Scriptures, Sanders has observed that
while there were always limits on how much change in the text could take place
without objection, the sacred texts in subsequent generations often took on new
meanings that the original authors never intended.15 A text could hardly continue
as an authoritative document if it was not perceived to have some relevance to the
people. To bridge the gap between the text and succeeding generations, method-
ologies or hermeneutics were employed to make the biblical texts relevant to
contemporary believers who were facing ever-new circumstances, for whom it was
believed that the Scriptures would continue to be relevant for succeeding genera-
tions. In this regard, Sanders speaks of the “hermeneutic triangle” that allows for
the continuing relevance of the sacred texts, namely, “the tradition or text being
cited, the new situation being addressed, and the hermeneutic by which the old was
adapted to speak to the new.”16 Hermeneutics played a significant role in allowing
the ancient texts to have a continuing relevance for both Jews and Christians.
Before those hermeneutics were developed, some texts simply could not continue
to meet the test of relevance and so they fell into disuse and were no longer copied
for church use (e.g., Eldad and Modad). The continuing adaptability and relevance
of the biblical literature in new and changing contexts demonstrated its usefulness,
but some texts ceased having a relevant function and no longer contributed to the

14
Ibid., 116–17.
15
J. A. Sanders, “Scrolls and the Canonical Process,” 17–19.
16
Ibid., 12.
470 THE FORMATION OF THE BIBLICAL CANON, VOLUME I

religious life of the nation, as in the case of the “lost books” mentioned earlier
(Chapter 4 §II). Some of the apocryphal and pseudepigrapha books were useful
for a while and cited in several contexts, but eventually and perhaps for various
reasons were no longer were copied or transmitted. Some were even denounced
in the later church catalogues of scriptural and rejected texts.
One of the common ways of continuing the relevance of a text was to employ
allegory to focus not on the text’s plain or obvious meaning, but rather to seek
in it a more spiritual meaning that symbolized different aspects of the text and
reflected the community’s sacred traditions. The book of Esther, that never
mentions God, appears to be essentially a historical reflection of the time when
Jews were in captivity in Babylon. The book has regularly been allegorized in
antiquity and even today to make it relevant. Perhaps the best-known example of
allegorical or spiritual interpretation in the HB has to do with traditional inter-
pretations of the Song of Songs, which, contrary to its most obvious meaning,
is regularly allegorized to make the text relevant to current situations. The book
was originally produced as a non-theological volume that closely parallels Near
Eastern poetry celebrating human love. This understanding of the book led to
voiced questions about its acceptance in both Jewish and Christian biblical
canons and some communities of faith today simply ignore the book altogether.
It was not referred to or cited in the NT or in Josephus’ writings and Jews and
Christians seldom referred to it in antiquity except in arguments for its sanctity
as we saw earlier. When the romance and sexual aspects of the book (e.g., 7:7–9)
are no longer spiritualized to represent the love between Yahweh and Israel (or
church),17 the text is generally ignored. The rabbis were prone to allegorize the
book early on and make the female in the book represent either the house of
Torah study, Moses, Joshua, an individual woman, a local court, the Sanhedrin, a
group of righteous Jews, the Jewish community in the Diaspora in Syria, or more
commonly the community of Israel as a whole. According to the Mishnah, during
a celebration on the Day of Atonement the daughters of Jerusalem wore white
raiment that had been immersed (i.e., to make them ceremonially clean), and they
went forth to dance in the vineyards. The rabbis then cited Song 3:11 as follows:

Likewise it saith, Go forth ye daughters of Sion, and behold king Solomon with the crown
wherewith his mother hath crowned him in the day of his espousals and in the day of the
gladness of his heart. In the day of his espousals – this is the giving of the Law; and in the day
of the gladness of his heart – this is the building of the Temple. May it be built speedily, in our
days! Amen. (m. Ta’anit 4:8, Danby, Mishnah, 201)

17
Rabbi Akiba in the second century CE is reportedly the first to spiritualize the message of the
Song of Songs based on a Talmudic interpretation (y. Sheqalim 6:1) of perhaps m. Yadayim 3:5.
Hananiah nephew of Joshua is said to relate the praise of the man’s body in Song 5:14 to the Ten
Commandments and their interpretation in rabbinic discussion; see Carr, “Song of Songs as a Micro-
cosm,” 175 n. 5.
THE FORMATION OF THE HEBREW BIBLE AND OLD TESTAMENT: A SUMMARY 471

Likewise, in the Tosefta we see:

Similarly you say: Under the apple tree I awakened you (Song 8:5), said the Holy Spirit. Set
me as a seal upon your heart (Song 8:6), said the congregation of Israel. For love is strong as
death, jealousy is cruel as the grave (Song 8:6), said the nations of the world. (t. Sotah 9:8,
Neusner, Tosefta, 875)18

The early church fathers Hippolytus and Origen reinterpreted Song of Songs
to refer to the love between Christ and the church and also the love between God
and an individual person. For example, in Origen’s commentary on Song of Songs
2:5, we read:

If there is anyone anywhere who has at some time burned with this faithful love of the Word
of God; if there is anyone who has at some time received the sweet wound of him who is the
chosen dart, as the prophet says: if there is anyone who has been pierced with the love-worthy
spear of his knowledge, so that he yearns and longs for him by day and night, can speak of
naught but him, would hear of naught but him, can think of nothing else, and is disposed to no
desire nor longing nor yet hope, except for him alone, if such there be, that soul then says in
truth: “I have been wounded by charity.”19

Allegorizing this and other books allowed for their continued acceptance in
both the synagogue and the church, but careful historical-critical approaches to it
have led some clergy to ignore it altogether. Since open discussions of sexuality,
which a literal rendering of the text suggests, is often viewed as out of place in
Jewish synagogues and Christian churches, the book is frequently ignored. Carr
concludes that because of the allegorizing of Song of Songs both the synagogue
and church have functionally decanonized it and seldom refer to it.20
It is not clear why Sirach and Wisdom of Solomon were excluded but Esther,
Ecclesiastes, and Song of Songs included. Their continued use and ability to
be reinterpreted in relevant ways for succeeding generations must have had
some influence on what finally comprised the HB. There were, as we have seen,
questions and even debates among the rabbis about the sanctity of some of the
books, mostly from Sirach, Song of Songs, Ecclesiastes, Esther, Ruth, and Ezekiel.
Most of the Jewish religious leaders who survived the destruction of the Temple
were Pharisees and consequently they had a more significant role in influencing
the decisions made about the parameters of the HB/Tanak. For them, these issues
were largely settled by the middle to the end of the second century CE, though

18
Carr also shows others examples of allegorizing of the Song of Songs in b. Shabbat 88; b. Yoma
75a; b. Sukkah 49b; and b. Ta’anit 4a. See a complete list in ibid., 175–76.
19
Translation from R. P. Lawson, The Song of Songs: Commentaries and Homilies (Westminster:
Newman, 1957), 198; cited by Carr, “Song of Songs as a Microcosm,” 178.
20
Carr, “Song of Songs as a Microcosm,” 184–85. He goes on to speak of the “recanonization”
of the book in the postmodern and post-critical world in which each interpreter reads the text for
himself or herself and in which the stigma formerly attached to discussions of sexuality no longer
exists (185–88).
472 THE FORMATION OF THE BIBLICAL CANON, VOLUME I

occasionally discussions of the sanctity of some of the Ketubim continued. The

most commonly posited criteria for the canonization of the books in the HB
summarized earlier include the following:

1.  Date. As we saw earlier, during the Hasmonean period the issue of antiquity
became an important factor in determining the scope of the Jewish scriptures
and it was believed that the time of prophecy within the nation had ended.
The date for this cessation of prophecy and Spirit activity in the nation
varies in Jewish tradition, but most agreed that at some point it stopped.
Often it was thought that prophecy ceased sometime shortly after the middle
of the fifth century BCE, or even the middle of the fourth century BCE,21
but there was more agreement on the view that prophecy had stopped than
on when it stopped.
2.  Authorship. The importance of anonymity for determining a books’ canon-
icity. Anonymity appears to be a late addition to the criteria for acceptance.22
3.  Language. A canonical book had to have been written in Hebrew, though it
was acceptable if parts were written in Aramaic (e.g., Daniel, Isaiah). This
became an important criterion for approval among the rabbis. Translations of
texts that originated in Hebrew (1 Maccabees) were often not acknowledged
as sacred by the rabbis and some rejected the LXX translation altogether.
4.  Adaptability. More than any others, James Sanders has made the case for
the ability of a religious text to be adaptable to ever changing circumstances.
When a text was no longer considered relevant, it ceased being read and was
either rejected or ignored.
5.  Stability and flexibility. Like the previous criterion, some level of standardi-
zation and stability of a book was essential, but it also had to have sufficient
flexibility to have new applications to ever new and changing circumstances.

Unlike the contracting Jewish canon of Scriptures, the Christian collection of OT

books appeared to stay largely the way it was received before the separation of
the early Christians from Judaism. By the end of the fourth century, nothing more
was added, but before that widespread use, as in the case of the Deuterocanonical
or Apocryphal writings, was a key factor in continuing church acceptance (see a
discussion of this below in Chapter 22 §II). By the middle of the fourth century
it was clear that a majority of churches were rejecting writings believed to
be pseudonymous (1 Enoch), but such writings continued to be read in some
churches much later than the council decisions. The early Christian OT canon
with its inclusion of several apocryphal books better represents what writings were
viewed as Scripture in late Second Temple Judaism and in the early churches. The
church’s collection of sacred scriptural texts was probably also the same or similar

21
See the earlier discussion on the cessation of prophecy.
22
Wyrick, Ascension of Authorship.
THE FORMATION OF THE HEBREW BIBLE AND OLD TESTAMENT: A SUMMARY 473

for many of its Jewish siblings (the Essenes and Pharisees especially) before the
later more restricted canon of rabbinic Judaism. Unlike some adherents of Judaism
in the first centuries BCE and CE, the early Christians did not believe that the
age of prophecy had ceased, but rather it had just begun anew in the outpouring
of the Spirit in John the Baptist’s ministry, Jesus’ ministry, and on the Day of
Pentecost. This belief made it easier for the Christians to acknowledge some of
the apocryphal and pseudepigraphal literature as inspired Scripture along with at
a later time also several Christian religious texts (the NT and others).
The process of canonization for some rabbinic Jews may have been largely
finished by the end of the first century to the middle of the second century CE,
but the Jewish Scriptures that the Christians began to call their “Old Testament”
Scriptures were still a loosely formed collection by 170–180 CE which we see in
Melito of Sardis who traveled to the East to gain an understanding of the scope
of the church’s OT books. However, there is no evidence at that time of a formal
council decision made within Judaism or the churches about the scope of their
scriptures at that time. The disputes about some of the books in the Writings in
Judaism of Late Antiquity and in early Christianity were not settled in the second
century. In Melito’s list, for example, Esther and the Twelve are omitted. The
Twelve are probably absent by accidental omission, but that is not likely the
case in regard to Esther that was disputed among second-century rabbis and not
included in several early church catalogues.
Melito’s sequence or order of books also does not follow the later and now more
usual Tanak order and neither does an earlier antecedent, namely the Bryennios
list (see Appendix A) that is clearly a Jewish catalogue. The presence of three
different orders of the Jewish Scriptures in the second century (Tanak, Bryennios,
and Melito) suggests that the Scriptures of rabbinic Judaism and their order was
not yet a settled matter for most Jews and Christians in the second century. It
is also not clear how normative any list and its order were for the majority of
Jews in the second century, especially those in the Diaspora. The Tanak canon,
as Sundberg showed earlier, had an impact on some in the Christian church after
the third century, especially Jerome who wrongly considered it to be the canon of
Jesus and of the apostles.23 It appears that only in the last decades of the second
century was the question of acknowledging the scope of the OT canon beginning
to emerge in some Christian communities. This inquiry into the specific First
Scriptures of the church may have come as a response to Marcion who rejected
the Jewish Scriptures altogether, but that is not clear, and perhaps also because
they were rejected by some gnostic Christians, but there is uncertainty about that.
Robert Grant suggests that this development of rejecting the Jewish Scriptures
probably led the orthodox churches to evaluate not only their acceptance of the
OT Scriptures, but also their NT Scriptures as well.24 There is no question that the

23
Sundberg, Old Testament of the Early Church, 154.
24
Grant, “New Testament Canon,” 300.
474 THE FORMATION OF THE BIBLICAL CANON, VOLUME I

second-century churches were using the Scriptures that they inherited from their
Jewish siblings, but the specific scope and order of those Scriptures were not a
settled issue in the second century either by all Jews or Christians.
Long ago, Samuel Sandmel perceptively noted that public acclaim was an
essential feature in the canonical processes and concluded that: “canon (is) a
logical development, but also determined by fortuitous circumstances…canon
only reflects sanctity which a given era chanced to assign to a given number of
books. The books themselves are in part much more important and in part much
less important than the act of canonization.”25
Jerome’s and Cyril’s (of Jerusalem) preference for the books in the Jewish
biblical canon alone for their OT Scriptures, that is, the HB Tanak, appears to
have been a minority position in the church in their time except in Palestine where
both men lived. Jerome clearly adopted not only the books in the Jewish canon,
but also the tripartite order as we see in his Prologus in libro Regnum;26 however,
Jerome’s list is not exactly like it since he counted Ruth with Judges and was not
consistent on where to place Lamentations. The acceptance of only the books in
the Hebrew Bible did not prevail until later in the Protestant OT canon.27 However,
the Apostolic Fathers, those Christian authors closest to the time of the NT, often
quote and refer or allude to several noncanonical books, including 2 Maccabees,
Judith, Tobit, Sirach, Wisdom of Solomon, 2 Esdras, and 1 Enoch – but not
generally the canonical books of Ruth, Ezra, Nehemiah, Lamentations, Obadiah,
Micah, or Haggai.28 We could add to that also Ecclesiastes, Esther, and Song of
Songs. It appears that more writings than those included in the later and current
HB canon informed the second-century churches, and this raises the question of
whether today Christians should at least be informed by the same literature that
informed the first generations of Christians, even if they do not include them in
their Bibles or liturgical readings in churches.
As we will see below (Appendices A and C), few of the Christian canon lists are
identical.29 There is certainly widespread approval and reception of the majority
of the HB books, but often others also. This points to the diversity of opinion
about such matters in the early Christian communities. The citation and presence
of noncanonical literature in early Christian communities, as well as in the early
stages of rabbinic Judaism (Sirach), leads to the conclusion that canonical issues
were not firmly settled by the time of the separation of Christianity from Judaism

25
Samuel Sandmel, “On Canon,” CBQ 28 (1966): 189–207, here 206. I found this quote in S.
Talmon, Text and Canon of the Hebrew Bible, 431.
26
The English translation is Preface to the Books of Samuel and Kings.
27
Athanasius’s Thirty-ninth Festal Letter lists for the first time the twenty-seven books of the NT,
but he also lists a larger OT canon than Protestants accept, i.e., he adds Baruch and the Epistle of
Jeremiah. We can only wonder why Protestants generally ignore Athanasius’ OT canon but assume
the validity of his NT canon!
28
This observation is from Jeffery, “Canon of the Old Testament,” 40.
29
See also Sundberg, Old Testament of the Early Church, 58–59.
THE FORMATION OF THE HEBREW BIBLE AND OLD TESTAMENT: A SUMMARY 475

or well into the second century CE. The use of the alphabetic numbers twenty-two
(Hebrew) or twenty-four (Greek) to identify the Jewish Scriptures seen in various
combinations of books, as noted above, appears to focus more on their sacredness
than on the specific identity and number of the books. It is interesting that when
some of the Writings were disputed among the rabbis later, no one mentioned how
the presence or absence of those disputed books would affect the sacred number
of the collection. Neither the twenty-two or twenty-four book canons have exactly
those numbers of books in them.
Lightstone perceptively argues that several traditional assumptions about the
formation of the Hebrew biblical canon are untenable, interfere with an advance
in our understanding of canon formation, and are incapable of proof, namely:
(1) the equation of the Law of Moses or Torah with the Pentateuch;30 (2) the linear
model of the growth of the canon in three separate phases; (3) that there was a
universal normative Judaism in Late Antiquity that essentially paralleled Pharisaic
Judaism of the pre-70 CE days in the land of Israel; (4) that there was a normative
first-century CE biblical canon similar to the canon of Late Antiquity; and (5) that
there was a so-called Council of Jamnia similar to later church councils in which
bishops supposedly decided the scope of a biblical canon.31 I agree with Lightstone
that only when these traditional assumptions have been set aside can there be an
open avenue for a needed reassessment of the canon issues and questions.32
Dulles also rightly concludes that “if the apostles ever certified a list of biblical
books (a most unlikely hypothesis), their testimony was not appealed to or
apparently not remembered during the disputes about the canon in subsequent
centuries.”33 It is much easier to believe that such a tradition was not passed on
in the church than to believe that it was lost or not remembered or so well known
that it did not have to be stated as some scholars contend. There is no trace of
such a canon in the first century CE similar to Melito’s list in the East in the late
second century.

IV. ISSUES OF CANON, CHRISTOLOGY, AND BIBLICAL

INTERPRETATION

I will clarify here some misunderstood descriptions of my understanding of

the formation of the biblical canon and how the early church approached their
understanding of Jesus. First, nearly all scholars agree that there came a time
when there was no more debate about the scope or contents of the HB canon or

30
Lightstone here follows the conclusions of J. A. Sanders in Torah and Canon.
31
Lightstone, “Formation of the Biblical Canon.”
32
Ibid., 142–43.
33
A. Dulles, “The Authority of Scripture: A Catholic Perspective,” in Scripture in the Jewish and
Christian Traditions, ed. F. E. Greenspahn (Nashville: Abingdon, 1982), 35.
476 THE FORMATION OF THE BIBLICAL CANON, VOLUME I

in separate communities of the church over the scope of their OT canon. At some
point that was a finished issue among Jews and also among the Christians, even
if the Christians as a whole have never fully agreed among themselves on the
scope of their OT. It was settled, however, in their separate communities, namely
Roman Catholic, Protestant, Orthodox, and Ethiopian, but they all agreed on the
acceptance eventually of all of the HB books. Although Jews and Christians in
their respective communities of faith came to a conclusion on this matter, they did
not do so all at the same time or in the same way! I have addressed the latter issue
at length above, but precisely when the matter was settled is not clear. It was not
settled by council decisions since as we have and will see in Part 3, even when
council decisions were made on the scope of the Christian Bible, some Christians
essentially ignored their decisions or they did not know the council decisions and
continued to read some rejected books in their worship (1 Enoch, Shepherd of
Hermas, the Diatessaron, and so on). Scholars also generally agree that the matter
was not settled for the Jews at some representative council decision at Jamnia or at
any subsequent council deliberations such as we find in the Christian community.
There was never a Jewish council that decided the issue of the scope of the HB.
Three primary questions that biblical canon scholars have to answer or examine
today have to do with when this recognition of the scriptural status of a text took
place, by whom, and what were the circumstances that led to it. There came a
time when a majority of Jewish religious leaders agreed on the scope of their
sacred Scriptures and the same was true among Christians largely as a result of
widespread use and broad acceptance rather than something imposed downward
from church councils. Generally, by the fourth and fifth centuries CE, there was
broad but never complete agreement on the closure and scope of the OT canon.
My focus has been on when the matter was settled in those communities of faith,
not so much on when some writings that later formed a closed or fixed collection
were first functioning as authoritative religious texts in those communities.
In a recent article, Chapman also agrees that there came a time came when
there was a closure to the HB, that is, when sacred books were no longer added
or taken away (decanonized). However, he suggests that somehow I think that
everyone in antiquity had to agree on the full scope of the HB before a standard
or fixed biblical canon could be recognized. I do not know of anyone who holds
that view, and universal agreement never took place among all the Jews, whether
among the Diaspora Jews, those living in Palestine, or later among the Karaite
Jews. Of course, we have already observed, all churches have never fully agreed
on the scope of their OT canon. That only means that various elements of the
church at large, that is a majority, agreed on the scope of their OT Scriptures
even though I acknowledge that the church universal has never in principle or in
practice agreed on all of the same books. As we will see later, that is true among
the early Christians and for many centuries in regard to their NT canon. Chapman
acknowledges this lack of universal agreement, but nonetheless suggests that by
the canonization of the HB by those who hold to my view somehow they all had to
THE FORMATION OF THE HEBREW BIBLE AND OLD TESTAMENT: A SUMMARY 477

agree on all the contours of the HB biblical canon.34 I have dated the canonization
of the HB for some rabbinic Jews around the middle of the second century CE,
which is where we see specifically the books that comprise the first identified HB
canon. Although there was likely a move toward a fixed collection by the end of
the first century, as we saw in Josephus and the author of 4 Ezra, for others this
took place even later during the rabbinic period when we see some debate among
the rabbinic sages over some of the books that now comprise the HB canon. This
recognition of the limits of the OT canon took place among most Christians in the
fourth and fifth centuries, but there was never complete agreement by all, even
though the three major expressions of Christianity today have at least agreed on
the books that now comprise the HB biblical canon.
Again, complete agreement is seldom ever the case in any decisions from
antiquity or the present in regard to major issues facing the churches, but, never-
theless, there came a time when a majority of Jewish leaders agreed on the scope
of the present HB and there was a time when Catholics, Protestant, and Orthodox
Christians each agreed on their respective OT collections as well. The evidence
I have presented suggests that there never was complete agreement in antiquity.
Most people recognize that the leaders of any religious community seldom speak
for all of the members of that community, and that is certainly the case in regard
to canon formation.
More interesting is Chapman’s challenge that somehow I put the biblical canon
at odds with the church’s commitment to Jesus as the Christ. After affirming
that the Old Testament was from its earliest years the church’s Bible, he says:
“Precisely for this reason, it is a grave mistake when McDonald and others
attempt to portray the biblical canon as somehow in competition with the church’s
commitment to Jesus.”35 I have no idea how he arrived at this conclusion nor how
he saw in my or others’ work a “competition” between the church’s beliefs and its
biblical canon. While Chapman and I disagree over whether the HB, as we now
have it, was completed before the church began, more importantly I regularly
acknowledge that the transformative experience of the early church did not start
with an exegesis of the biblical texts that the church inherited from their Jewish
siblings, but rather with their encounter with Jesus and later with the risen Christ
in the church’s proclamation. Christian faith historically came before there was
a “Bible” and it did not come as an exegesis of the ancient scriptures, but first
it began with an encounter with Jesus or later the risen Jesus. Subsequently they
anchored their beliefs about him in their interpretations of their sacred Scriptures.
The early followers of Jesus did not begin their relationship with Jesus as the
Christ based upon their scriptural investigations, as we saw in the example of Paul
who had earlier already examined the Scriptures and had not yet come to faith in

34
See Chapman, “Second Temple Jewish Hermeneutics”; “Canon, Old Testament”; and “The
Canon Debate.”
35
Chapman, “What Are We Reading?,” 346–47.
478 THE FORMATION OF THE BIBLICAL CANON, VOLUME I

Jesus as the Christ, but rather on the basis first of all of Jesus’ deeds and words.
Their understanding of him as the one who fulfilled their Scriptures came later, not
before. It was only after their encounter with Jesus that they acknowledged him
as the one who fulfilled all of the scriptural prophecies about a coming Messiah.
Jesus himself had to explain to his disciples from the Scriptures his identity and
mission (again Luke 24:27 and 44). They did not come to this conclusion during
an exegesis of their scriptures before their encounter with him or before his later
explanation of his identity and mission to them. That is not unlike today. Few
people who follow Jesus came to their faith in him as a result of their study of the
Old Testament Scriptures, but rather through the proclamation about him that later
was anchored in the church’s scriptures.
After the resurrection of Jesus, many of the scriptures that his disciples had
learned from him, and even perhaps before learned in their synagogue training
about a messianic figure, supported their belief in him. Paul claims that the identity
of Jesus as the Son of God was declared in his resurrection (Rom 1:3–4). Jesus’
identity was not arrived at through the disciples’ independent study of the HB
Scriptures before they met Jesus. As noted above, Paul’s journey in the Christian
faith did not come from his earlier exegesis of Scripture that he learned from
one of the most respected rabbis of that day, but rather it began on the Damascus
Road encounter with the risen Christ. Understandably, the early Christians wanted
to support every aspect of their faith about Jesus with their authoritative sacred
scriptures. Using the popular hermeneutical methodologies current in their time
(pesher exegesis described earlier), they interpreted their scriptures in keeping
with what they had experienced in Jesus’ life, ministry, death, and resurrection.
This is neither a weak Christology nor an escape from the authority vested in
the church’s earliest scriptures. I think the problem here lies in Chapman putting
the cart before the horse. Paul did not conclude from his earlier studies of the
scriptures under Gamaliel that Jesus was the Christ. This simply did not happen,
as Paul himself says, before his overwhelming encounter with the risen Christ.
After that, and not before, it all came together for him and he then brought the
Scriptures he had learned earlier to bear on his proclamation of Jesus as the Christ
and in his understanding what had happened to him. Chapman’s analysis of my
or others’ position here does not represent either my understanding of Christology
and Scripture or that of others with similar views who claim that Christology
began with an encounter with Jesus and subsequently this encounter was rooted
in his followers’ understanding of their sacred scriptures.
In the NT the early followers of Jesus had both a christological and an escha-
tological understanding of the sacred scriptures. There can be no doubt that NT
Christology began with an encounter with Jesus who remarkably impacted his
early hearers and they subsequently, at his encouragement (John 5:39), searched
their sacred scriptures for clarification of his identity and mission. Because the OT
books were significantly important both to Jesus and his followers, and because
THE FORMATION OF THE HEBREW BIBLE AND OLD TESTAMENT: A SUMMARY 479

of his life-changing impact on his followers, they were driven to their sacred scrip-
tures to interpret their impressions of him through a Jewish interpretation of their
sacred texts. There is no way to make the case that the NT’s view of Jesus is first of
all derived from an exegesis of the OT texts. Christian faith and its christological
understanding were finally rooted in an exegesis of the Scriptures, but they did
not begin there. Jesus was a notable charismatic preacher and teacher, as well as
a healer, and people were drawn to him not first from their understanding of their
scriptures, but rather from what they heard about him and from him and from what
they saw in his deeds. Chapman’s understanding of the NT’s teaching about Jesus
from an Old Testament perspective is difficult to sustain from historical-critical or
exegetical investigations of the Hebrew Scriptures themselves. His own awareness
of the variety of Jewish interpretations of HB texts that are significantly different
from the interpretations of the early Christians of the same texts should make that
clear. I am unaware of how this can constitute for Chapman a flawed or failed
NT Christology. Whatever was believed to be true about Jesus was also believed
to have biblical support and hence the often-creative exegesis (pesher) interpre-
tations about him are found in the NT (Matt 2:15; cf. Hos 11:1; or Matthew’s
citation of Isa 7:14, in the LXX and not the HB) that are not easily derived from
a careful exegesis of those HB/OT texts.
In their broader collection of sacred scriptures, the early Christians sometimes
had more similarities with the Qumran Covenanters than with those of the
Pharisaic rabbinic tradition, but the latter eventually won the day in Judaism of
Late Antiquity. However, when Christianity emerged it had significant parallels
with both Jewish sects in Palestine in the first century CE, especially in regard to
the books they adopted or recognized as Scripture. Some of the similarities the
early Christians had with the Essenes may be nothing more than that both commu-
nities shared many widespread aspects of Judaism in Palestine in their day, but
some of the parallels with the residents of Qumran may have come from Essenes
who later became followers of Jesus. They may well have brought their under-
standing of Scripture with them into the Christian church and influenced some of
the early Christians. However, following the death of James, the brother of Jesus,
the early Christians began separating themselves from their Jewish siblings in
62 CE. This took place before the shape of the scriptural canon was settled for the
Jews. At that time there was more fluidity on the edges of the Jewish Scriptures
and also in the collections of the earliest Christians. Both the Essenes and the early
Christians appear to have acknowledged a broader collection of sacred scriptures
than what the later rabbinic sages recognized. Although some Jewish Christians
remained in their Jewish communities and continued to attend Jewish synagogues
long after 62 CE, that largely ceased following the Bar Kokhba rebellion of
132–135 CE because the Jewish Christians did not support that rebellion, which
was a messianic movement, since doing so would have undermined their acknowl-
edgment of Jesus as Messiah.
480 THE FORMATION OF THE BIBLICAL CANON, VOLUME I

From approximately 90–150 CE, a sharper definition of the scope of the HB

became more significant to some Jews. Earlier the highly influential teacher
among the Pharisees, Hillel, who came to Palestine from Babylon, may have
introduced the notion of a limited collection of HB books that eventually obtained
canonical status. F. M. Cross, as we saw earlier, makes the suggestion that the
books that Hillel recognized as scripture were fewer in number than those recog-
nized by the Essenes and that before Hillel the Pharisees in Palestine may have
had a larger canon of scriptures, but that Hillel’s influence led them to limit their
books to the twenty-two books, the number of letters in the Hebrew alphabet that
Josephus listed by category or genre.36
After the destruction of the Temple in 70 CE, the religious leaders gathered
together at Jamnia (Yavneh) to discuss first and foremost how Judaism could
survive without its Temple and sacrifices. Some of the early discussions focused
on the holiness of some of the sacred books, namely Song of Songs and
Ecclesiastes (m. Yad. 3.5), but there was no official decision made on the whole
scope of the HB then or there. This dialogue and debate continued among later
rabbis and included questions about several other books that are now in the HB,
especially Esther, Ezekiel, and Ecclesiastes, but also about a book that was not
finally included, namely Sirach. Eventually and without any council decision,
the rabbinic Jews agreed on the full scope of the Scriptures, but not immediately.
Soon, however, they also accepted what came to be called the Oral Torah, which
was the oral teachings circulating among the Jews in the first and second centuries
CE that were codified in the Mishnah and subsequently interpreted by the gemara
that resulted in the two Talmudim. These traditions also functioned as sacred
writings among the Jews, much like the New Testament eventually functioned as
Scripture among the early Christians.

V. A TWENTY-THREE-BOOK BIBLICAL CANON

David Noel Freedman has argued that the major components of the Hebrew
Scriptures, the “Primary History” made up of the Pentateuch and the books of
Joshua through 2 Kings, were completed (canonized?) in Babylon before the
return from exile in 538 BCE.37 The rest of the HB, he contends, was completed
by the time of Ezra and Nehemiah, with the exception of the book of Daniel that
he places in the second century BCE (165).38 He also proposes that the original
Hebrew biblical canon was a twenty-three-book collection (i.e., without the book
of Daniel). That canon, he claims, was consciously determined along symmetrical

36
Cross, From Epic to Canon, 217–18. The Jews in Babylon were evidently more conservative in
their recognition of their sacred scriptures.
37
Freedman, “Earliest Bible,” 29. See also idem, “Symmetry of the Hebrew Bible.”
38
“Symmetry of the Hebrew Bible,” 86.
THE FORMATION OF THE HEBREW BIBLE AND OLD TESTAMENT: A SUMMARY 481

lines in the late fifth or early fourth century BCE (he is not dogmatic about the
date).39 Because there is a rather evenly balanced symmetry in the two major parts
of the HB, he concludes that the editor/collector put these parts together with
such a balance in mind. More specifically, the Torah (79,983 words) and Former
Prophets (69,658 words) together have roughly 150,000 words (actually precisely
149,641) compared to a similar number in the combined Latter Prophets (71,852
words) and Writings (78,085 words, precisely 149,937). Without the book of
Daniel, Freedman claims that the two parts of the Hebrew Scriptures are quite
balanced, which demonstrates for him that the specific intention of scribes in the
time of Ezra–Nehemiah was to develop a well-balanced collection of Scriptures.40
Freedman acknowledges that certain other books may have been late (Esther
and Ecclesiastes), but this does not alter his picture by much or his conclusions at
all. He is convinced that “without Daniel, the rest of the Hebrew Bible as we have
it reflects a symmetry that is astonishingly exact” and he goes on to say that this
balance is “as exact as is likely in literary productions rather than mathematical
ones.”41 He adds that “if we consider numerical symmetry an important factor,
then there is really no choice: there was only one moment when the Bible and
the Hebrew alphabet [when it included twenty-three letters] coincided and all
the editorial factors were present. It was precisely in this period (post-exilic,
Babylonian and Persian).”42
The symmetry extends, he claims, to various collections within the Bible as
well. The five books of the Torah are in balance with the five major Writings
(Ketubim) – Chronicles (which comes first in the Writings in both the Aleppo
Codex and Leningrad Codex), Psalms, Job, Proverbs, and Ezra–Nehemiah – and
the five Megilloth (Ruth, Song of Songs, Ecclesiastes, Lamentations, and Esther).
The four books of the Former Prophets (Joshua, Judges, 1–2 Samuel and 1–2
Kings) are balanced by the four books of the Latter Prophets (Isaiah, Jeremiah,
Ezekiel, and the Twelve [the Minor Prophets were always counted as a single book
by Jews in antiquity]).
This symmetrical collection of twenty-three books, Freedman claims, was
possible during only one period of Israel’s history: the postexilic Persian era when
the Hebrew alphabet was augmented to twenty-three characters because sin and
shin, two forms of the Hebrew letter ‫ש‬, for a time were believed to be separate
characters. Freedman claims in support for his proposal the somewhat mangled

39
Freedman, “Symmetry of the Hebrew Bible.” I am grateful to the late Professor Freedman for
his several letters of correspondence with me in which he clarified his position. We did not agree
on his proposal and I have yet to resolve some of the problems that his proposal presents, but his
suggestions are bold, interesting, and worth exploring, even if at the end of consideration they are
not convincing.
40
Freedman believes that the final editors of the Hebrew biblical canon, without the addition of
Daniel, were probably Ezra and Nehemiah. Ibid., 105–6.
41
Ibid., 94.
42
Ibid., 104.
482 THE FORMATION OF THE BIBLICAL CANON, VOLUME I

acrostics in Pss 25 and 34 that attempt to align their twenty-three lines with the
twenty-two letters of the Hebrew alphabet. By contrast, each section of Ps 119
begins with a successive letter of the twenty-two-character Hebrew alphabet.
According to Freedman, the near-perfect symmetry of the twenty-three-book
HB canon and the twenty-three-character alphabet coincided only between 450
BCE and 350 BCE. Later attempts to establish a twenty-two-book canon based
on the twenty-two-letter Hebrew alphabet resulted in Ruth being moved from the
Writings to the Former Prophets and Lamentations being moved from the Writings
to the Latter Prophets. On the other hand, he claims that the HB contains twenty-
four books only when the book of Daniel is included.43
Although Freedman offers a unique suggestion and supplies some helpful
information on the development of the Hebrew alphabet, the difficulties with
his proposals are several and obvious. First, it is interesting that this amazing
symmetry, which Freedman found with the aid of a computer, was not noticed
earlier within the rabbinic tradition. If the symmetry of the Bible was intended to
teach something about the Bible, no tradition of antiquity tells of this remarkable
feature. If it was important to the scribes and priests in the early stages of the
formation of the Hebrew Bible to categorize the HB books in terms of size and
balance in proportions, this notion never appears in any ancient rabbis or early
church fathers. Why is this twenty-three-book biblical canon never mentioned
anywhere in antiquity and only discovered in the twentieth century? This silence
is puzzling if the ancient scribes intended this balanced symmetry. Why did it take
some 2,400 years to discover this phenomenon? Second, where is the evidence for
the addition of the book of Daniel to an already fixed form of the HB in the second
century BCE? Third, if the matter of the scope of the Jewish Scriptures was settled
sometime between 450 and 350 BCE, how could the first-century CE Jewish
sects, including Jesus and his followers, have lost sight of its already firmly fixed
biblical canon if the matter had been settled in the intertestamental period? They
are familiar with and cite other non-HB books and so do the Essenes at Qumran.
Fourth, for those who contend that the church was born with a fixed biblical canon
in its possession and that the early Christians either lost or disregarded it, why is
there no evidence for the existence of this Scripture canon anywhere in the time
of Jesus? Fifth, if the books that comprised the HB canon were fixed in the fifth
or fourth century BCE, how is it that only the Torah was translated into Greek
when the LXX was produced in the third century BCE in Egypt? Why did it take
at least another hundred years to have a complete Greek translation that included
the Prophets and Writings? Finally, why is there no obvious attempt to correlate
the books of the HB with the alphabet until the end of the first century CE (as in
Josephus and possibly an early edition of Jubilees) if that canon already existed
centuries earlier?

43
Ibid., 103–4.
THE FORMATION OF THE HEBREW BIBLE AND OLD TESTAMENT: A SUMMARY 483

Freedman’s proposal is new and intricately detailed in argumentation, but since

no evidence from Second Temple Judaism or later Rabbinic Judaism supports it,
its credibility is difficult to affirm. Freedman’s unique approach to this subject is
nevertheless valuable because it provokes critical thinking about the origins of
the Bible, even if his overall thesis falls short of demonstration and widespread
recognition. If his dating of the emergence of such a collection were not so early,
one might concede some of his point that an individual (or individuals) formed
the Hebrew Scriptures into a finely tuned symmetrical pattern, but the date – no
later than 350 BCE – is a major part of his thesis. Although focus on the Hebrew
alphabet is important in the early development of the HB canon in the end of
the first century CE and later, this interest is difficult to date before Josephus.
Some Christians in the East picked up on this association with the alphabet, but a
twenty-three-book canon is never mentioned in Judaism of Late Antiquity or in the
patristic era among the church fathers and no one mentions a twenty-three-letter
alphabet in conjunction with a biblical canon.

VI. SUMMARY

From the late first century to the middle of the second century CE, the beginning
of the stabilization of a biblical canon was beginning to emerge for some Jews.
Most of the books themselves had already gained widespread acceptance as sacred
texts before that, but a stabilized collection found widespread acceptance in the
ensuing centuries. Much of this stabilization for the second century and later
rabbis had to do for some with the elimination of some popular religious books
(e.g., Sirach and Wisdom of Solomon) and the acceptance of some disputed books
(Ecclesiastes, Song of Songs, Esther, and Ezekiel) that had circulated widely in
Palestine in the first centuries BCE and CE and subsequently also among the early
Christians.
The Jews in late Second Temple Judaism, including the Christians who were a
small Jewish sect at the time, all had authoritative scriptures that influenced their
lives, identity, and mission, but this collection of scriptures was not yet a complete
collection. They generally called that collection the Law and the Prophets. The
Law and the Prophets (and whatever was included in the latter category at that
time) were certainly the sacred scriptures for the early Christians and their Jewish
contemporaries. We simply do not know the boundaries of the Prophets until much
later when those scriptures start to be identified by name in the second century and
the books that later formed the Writings were separated from the prophetic corpus
and were identified in b. Baba Bathra 14b. At roughly the same time Melito of
Sardis (ca. 170 CE) identified a similar, but different collection of books that he
called OT books.
484 THE FORMATION OF THE BIBLICAL CANON, VOLUME I

This understanding of the emergence of a HB canon toward the end of the first
century became clearer for rabbinic Jews in the second century and subsequently
for Christians in the second and third centuries. This is also more reflective of
the social context of rabbinic Judaism during and after the second century CE.
Had there been a clearly defined biblical canon in the third or second century
BCE, or earlier as some have argued, one would think that at least somewhere a
statement to that effect would have been found, but it has not. Only well-known
names of collections, such as the Law or the Law and the Prophets, the Twelve
(Minor Prophets), and David or “psalms” are mentioned, but the listing of the
books in those collections is first seen in the late second century CE when there
was an emerging concern over defining precisely the limits of Scripture in rabbinic
Judaism.
There are no references to the limits or contents of a fixed HB canon until the
end of the first century CE in the literature that has survived antiquity and there
only the odd categories are mentioned in Josephus or the number of the books
in Josephus and 4 Ezra. It is difficult to be precise about what comprised the
prophetic corpus in the first century BCE and CE, though that collection probably
included all or most of the books that now comprise the Prophets and Writings,
but possibly also others as well, including some of what we now call noncanonical
writings (especially Sirach and possibly also Wisdom of Solomon). Again, if we
assume that such a definitive list of Scripture had been known in the time of Jesus
or before, we are at a loss to know what led to its loss in Late Second Temple
Judaism and in early Christianity. On the other hand, when such lists began to
appear in rabbinic Judaism and in early Christianity in the second century CE, we
see many parallels in content, but also some differences both in their order and
in some of their contents. Later in the fourth and fifth centuries, the contents in
the surviving catalogues of sacred scriptures overlap considerably, but seldom are
there exact parallels in the books included or in their order.
There are too many unanswered questions if we assume that a fixed biblical
canon existed in the third or second century BCE, as many scholars continue to
argue. In fact, the later debates among the rabbis over the sacredness of some
books now in the HB is not understandable if the issue had clearly been settled
long before for the Jews. How could such a presumed collection be passed
on generation after generation with no one specifying its contents if specific
contents and their order were important to the Jews and Christians of that period?
Interestingly, the rabbinic sages do not appeal to any early traditions about the
contents of a fixed list of sacred Scriptures. Similarly, none of the early church
fathers report or claim that Jesus handed over to his disciples a fixed collection of
sacred Scriptures, as some modern scholars contend.
In sum, the evidence supporting a well-defined biblical canon of the HB books
in the first centuries BCE and CE is not convincing. The theory of an early Hebrew
canon leaves too many issues unresolved. What do we say about the many other
religious and non-sectarian writings circulating in Palestine in the first century
THE FORMATION OF THE HEBREW BIBLE AND OLD TESTAMENT: A SUMMARY 485

CE that were cited as Scripture by the early church fathers, or even in the NT
itself (e.g., Jude citing 1 Enoch as Scripture)? Some noncanonical books were
cited as scripture by several early church fathers, and it appears, as we have seen,
that some of them also informed the teachings of Jesus and several NT and early
church writers as well.
There was clearly considerable use of the Pentateuch, several of the Former and
Latter Prophets, and some (not all) of the Writings throughout Second Temple
Judaism and in the NT and early Christianity. Recognition of the sacred status of
these writings appears clear. In late Second Temple Judaism, especially from the
third century BCE to the middle of the first century CE other religious texts were
also produced and were highly valued by some Jews and later by some Christians.
Although the matter of which books comprised their sacred scriptures was
largely settled for many rabbinic sages by the middle to end of the second century
CE, this was not necessarily the case for all or most Jews living inside or outside
of Palestine. The early Christians, as we saw, never fully agreed on the scope of
their OT scriptures, but they eventually welcomed all of the scriptures that now
comprise the HB, and many accepted other religious texts as well that were not
included in the HB. While most in the Protestant tradition accept as Scripture only
the HB books in their OT though not in the same order or sequence, some in the
Protestant churches do read the Deuterocanonical/Apocryphal books and some
of the Protestant Bibles now include them between the OT and NT Scriptures.
Roman Catholic and Orthodox Christians also acknowledge the sacredness of
the HB books, but also include several so-called apocryphal or deuterocanonical
books as well in their OT Scriptures.
APPENDICES
 APPENDIX A:
ANCIENT LISTS OF HEBREW BIBLE
AND OLD TESTAMENT SCRIPTURES

INTRODUCTION

The following collection of Scripture lists or catalogues reflects the status of the
canonization of the Bible in various periods in antiquity. These HB and OT lists
are the best known examples of catalogues and codices that identify the books
in the HB/OT canons in antiquity. They suggest considerable agreement but not
completely on the scope of the books that comprise the Jewish Scriptures and
the Christian OT into the Patristic period and later. Some of the lists of the Old
Testament of the Christians follow broadly but not completely the order of the
books of the Hebrew Bible (Tanak). The usual ending of current OT canons is
with the Twelve Minor Prophets that end with Malachi, but that model is rare
well beyond the Patristic period. The variations in order suggest that the sequence
of the books, aside from the priority given to the Pentateuch, was not a major
concern in the church fathers who passed on the tradition of the transmission of
their First Scriptures. Readers will see that for the purpose of getting all of the lists
and footnote comments on the same page that the books are listed not on separate
lines as usual, but together separated by a comma.
Both the Old and New Testament collections in the major majuscule or uncial
manuscripts show greater stability in sequence or order, but for centuries there
was considerable variability in the books, though in the Old Testament the
Pentateuch is almost always in first place and in the New Testament the Gospels
regularly have the place of priority.1 In the Old Testament lists, the most common
Apocryphal/Deuterocanonical writings included are Wisdom of Solomon and

1
Additional lists of OT scriptures can be found in Swete, Introduction to the Old Testament in
Greek, 198–214; Wildeboer, The Origin of the Canon of the Old Testament; Ryle, The Canon of the
Old Testament, 129–77; Reuss, History of the Canon of the Holy Scriptures; A. Sundberg, The Old
Testament of the Early Church. For the New Testament lists, see Souter, The Text and Canon of the
New Testament, 147–220; D. J. Theron, Evidence of Tradition (Grand Rapids: Baker, 1957); and
F. F. Bruce, The Canon of Scripture; Metzger, The Canon of the New Testament, 305–15;
Hahneman, The Muratorian Fragment, 132–35; and Holladay, Critical Introduction to the New
Testament, 871–80 in the expanded CD attached. Additional lists are found in these sources, but the
ones I have listed are illustrative of the point I want readers to see, namely the significant parallels
in the lists as well as the differences and occasional additional books.
490 THE FORMATION OF THE BIBLICAL CANON, VOLUME I

Wisdom of Jesus ben Sirach followed by Baruch, Epistle of Jeremiah, and 1–2
Esdras. After the fourth century we also see Tobias, Judith, 1–2 Maccabees and
sometimes 4 Maccabees or 1–4 Maccabees. Also, although in modern Bibles the
Twelve (Minor Prophets) are regularly placed after Isaiah, Jeremiah, Ezekiel, and
Daniel, in most of the ancient lists from the fourth to the sixth century they appear
before the larger prophetic books. This may suggest that the Twelve were fixed
earlier than the other prophetic books. As we saw earlier (Chapter 5 §II), Sirach
mentions the Twelve as a fixed collection quite early. This notwithstanding, the
vast majority of books in the Christian OT canon are those in the Hebrew Bible,
but not exclusively. Initially, most of the OT lists include the HB books, but
often add Baruch and Epistle of Jeremiah, but later (fifth century and following)
others, such as Tobit, Judith, 1–2 Esdras (taking the place of Ezra–Nehemiah),
1–2 Maccabees and Wisdom of Solomon and Sirach are added. By the Council of
Trent, all of these are included. Esther is missing from several earlier canon lists,
but later it is included in all of them.2

2
I have appreciated the help of Edmond L. Gallagher in this revision of the following canon
catalogs. I have benefited from his and John Meade’s forthcoming work The Biblical Canon Lists
from Early Christianity: Texts and Analysis (Oxford: Oxford University Press [scheduled 2017]).
APPENDIX A 491

1. Jewish Lists of Sacred Books or Reflections

of Jewish Lists in Christian Texts

Bryennios2 Epiphanius3 b. Baba Bathra 14b4 Origen5 Jerome8

Jerusalem MS,
Gen, Exod, Gen, Exod, (Pentateuch Gen, Exod, 1st order
Lev, Josh, Lev, Num, assumed in 15a) Lev, Num, Gen, Exod,
Deut, Num, Deut, Josh, Prophets: Deut, Josh, Lev, Num,
Ruth, Job, Job, Judg, Josh, Judg, Judg, Ruth, Deut
Judg, Pss, Ruth, Pss, Sam, 1–2 Kgs, 1–4 Kgs, 2nd order
1–2 Sam, 1–2 Chr, Jer, Ezek, Isa 1–2 Chr, Josh, Judg,
1–2 Kgs, 1–4 Kgs, The Twelve: 1–2 Esd, Ruth, 1–4 Kgs,
1–2 Chr, Prov, Eccl, Hos, Amos, Pss, Prov, Isa, Jer,
Prov, Eccl, Song, Mic, Hag, Eccl, Song, Ezek,
Song, The Twelve, Zech, Mal (The Twelve The Twelve
Jer (+Lam), Isa, Jer, (rest not listed) omitted)6 3rd order
The Twelve, Ezek, Dan, Ruth, Pss, Isa, Jer/ Job, Pss,
Isa, Ezek, 1–2 Esd, Esth Job, Eccl, Lam/Ep Jer, Prov, Eccl,
Dan, 1–2 Esd, Song, Lam, Dan, Ezek, Song, Dan,
Esth Dan, Esth, Job, Esth 1–2 Chr,
Ezra, 1–2 Chr (outside of 1–2 Esd,
these are the Esth
Maccabees)7

3
This list likely dates ca. 100–150 CE. It was discovered in Jerusalem (MS 54 fol. 76ro) and dates
from 1056 CE. Its uniqueness of order and number of books (27) has parallels with b. Baba Bathra
14b regarding the books listed, but its order and number of books are unique among the ancient lists.
See especially the strange order of the Pentateuch and the placement of Ruth and Job before Judges,
and Psalms before 1–2 Samuel.
4
On Weights and Measures 22–23 (ca. 374–77, Salamis, Cyprus). There are several parallels
between this list and the Bryennios list. Epiphanius apparently modified this Jewish catalogue with
longer titles. Epiphanius indicates that the twenty-seven books are counted as twenty-two reflecting
the Jewish accounting of Scripture books by combinations to read the holy number.
5
This early Jewish list comes from a baraita (ca. 150–180 CE) that was not included in the
Mishnah.
6
Eusebius, Hist. eccl. 6.25.2 (ca. 320–25, Caesarea, Palestine). This is not Origen’s catalogue, but
a Jewish list he learned in Palestine. Since he has earlier mentioned the 22 books of the Hebrews,
absence of the Twelve here is either Origen’s or Eusebius’ error. The order does not follow the
Tanak order (Law, Prophets, Writings) which is instructive for a third-century list.
7
Books in parentheses are omitted from this source, but most agree this omission was accidental
and the Twelve were most likely intended.
8
The Greek here is ἔξω δὲ τουτων ἐστί τὰ Μακκαβαικα (= “but outside of these are the
Maccabees”).
9
Jerome, Preface to the Books of Samuel and Kings (ca. 394, Bethlehem, Palestine) or Prologus
in libro Regnum. His list is similar to the Tanak order that places Daniel and Lamentations among
the Writings, but Ruth is combined with Judges instead of placed in the 3rd order (Writings) and
Lamentations is combined with Jeremiah.
492 THE FORMATION OF THE BIBLICAL CANON, VOLUME I

2. Second- to Fourth-Century Old Testament Lists

Melito9 Mommsen List12 Hilary13 Athanasius15 Laodicea Council, Cyril17

Canon 6016
Gen, Exod, Gen, Exod, Five Books Gen, Exod, Gen, Exod, Gen, Exod,
Num, Lev, Num, Lev, of Moses Lev, Num, Num, Lev, Lev, Num,
Deut, Josh, Deut, Josh, Josh, Deut, Josh, Deut, Josh, Deut, Josh,
Judg, Ruth, Judg, Ruth, Judg/Ruth, Judg, Ruth, Judg, Ruth, Judg/Ruth,
1–4 Kgs, 1–4 Kgs, 1–4 Kgs, 1–4 Kgs, Esth, 1–4 Kgs, 1–4 Kgs,
1–2 Chr, 1–2 Chr, 1–2 Chr, 1–2 Chr, 1–2 Chr, 1–2 Chr,
Pss, Prov, 1–2 Macc, 1–2 Esd, 1–2 Esd, 1–2 Esd, 1–2 Esd
Wis,10 Eccl, Job, Tobit, Pss, Prov, Pss, Prov, Pss, Prov, Esth, Job,
Song, Job, Esth, Jud, Eccl, Song, Eccl, Song, Eccl, Song, Pss, Prov,
Isa, Jer, Pss (+Ps 151), The Twelve, Job, Job, Eccl, Song,
The Twelve, Isa, Jer, Isa, Jer/ The Twelve, The Twelve, The Twelve,
Dan, Ezek, Dan, Ezek, Lam/Ep Jer, Isa, Jer/ Isa, Jer, Isa, Jer/
Ezra (Esdras) The Twelve Dan, Ezek, Bar/Lam/ Bar, Lam, Lam/Ep Jer/
(Esther is Job, Esth, Ep Jer, Ep Jer, Ezek, Bar, Ezek,
omitted)11 [Tobit], Ezek, Dan Dan Dan
[Judith]14 (Esther
omitted)

10
Eusebius, Ecclesiastical History 4.26.14 (ca. 320–25, Caesarea, Palestine).
11
Scholars debate whether “wisdom” here is an alternate for “Proverbs” but others contend that it is
a reference to Wisdom of Solomon. The Greek is Σολομῶνος Παροιμίαι ἡ καὶ Σοφια. The popularity
of Wisdom of Solomon (Wisdom) among some early Christians suggests this refers to Wisdom of
Solomon and not to Proverbs.
12
Books in parentheses are omitted from this source.
13
The Mommsen list (ca. 359), sometimes called the Cheltenham catalogue.
14
Hilary, Prolog. in Lib. Ps. 15 (ca. 350–65, Poitiers).
15
Hillary adds that some include Tobit and Judith in order to reach the number 24.
16
Athanasius, Festal Letter 39.4 (ca. 367, Alexandria, Egypt).
17
Canon 60 of the Laodicean Council is generally considered a late attachment to the Council
record that originally ended with canon 59. This list in canon 60 was probably added after Athana-
sius (ca. 367) or even following the councils at Hippo and Carthage since it parallels them closely
except for the absence of Revelation. It is preserved in Swete, Introduction to the Old Testament in
Greek, 209.
18
Cyril of Jerusalem, Catech. 4.35 (ca. 394, Bethlehem, Palestine).
APPENDIX A 493

3. Fourth- to Fifth-Century Old Testament Lists

Epiphanius18 Epiphanius19 Gregory21 Amphilochius23 Jerome24

Gen, Exod, Gen, Exod, Gen, Exod, Gen, Exod, Gen, Exod,
Lev, Num, Lev, Num, Lev, Num, Lev, Num, Lev, Num,
Deut, Josh, Deut, Job, Deut, Josh, Deut, Josh, Deut, Job,
Judg, Ruth, Pss, Prov, Judg/Ruth, Judg, Ruth, Josh, Judg,
Job, Pss, Eccl, Song, 1–4 Kgs, 1–4 Kgs, Ruth, 1–2 Sam,
Prov, Eccl, Josh, Judg/ 1–2 Chr, 1–2 Chr, 3–4 Kgs,
Song, 1–4 Kgs, Ruth, 1–2 Chr, 1–2 Esd, Job, 1–2 Esd, Job The Twelve,
1–2 Chr, 1–4 Kgs, David (Pss), Pss, Prov, Isa, Jer,
The Twelve The Twelve, Eccl, Song, Eccl, Song, Ezek, Dan,
Isa, Jer/Lam/ Isa, Jer, Prov, The Twelve, The Twelve, Pss, Song,
Ep Jer/Bar, Ezek, Dan, Isa, Jer, Ezek, Isa, Jer, Ezek, Proverbs?,25
Ezek, Dan, 1–2 Esd, Dan Dan, Esth Esth, 1–2 Chr,
1–2 Esd, Esth (Esther Ezra–Neh
Esth [Wisdom] omitted)22
[Sirach]20

19
Against Heresy 1.1.6-8 (ca. 374–77 [Migne P.G. xli, 213], Salamis, Western Syria).
20
On Weights and Measures 4 (ca. 374–77 [Migne P.G. xliii, 244], Salamis, Western Syria).
21
Uncertainty remains about Wisdom and Sirach, but they are listed separately from the others.
22
Gregory of Nazianzus, Carm. 1.12.5 (ca. 390, Cappadocia, Asia Minor).
23
He indicates that some include Esther, Tobit, and Judith.
24
Bishop Amphilochius of Iconium, Iambi ad Seleucum 2.51–88 (ca. 396), published in Gregory
of Nazianzus, Carm. 2.7 (P.G. 37.1593).
25
Jerome, Ep. 53.8 (ca. 394 Bethlehem, Palestine). Notice again that Jerome follows somewhat,
but not precisely the HB/Tanak order, but here places Daniel after Ezekiel.
26
Although he does not mention Proverbs and Ecclesiastes by name, he likely included them since
he states: “Solomon, a lover of peace and of the Lord, corrects morals, teaches nature, unites Christ
and the church, and sings a sweet marriage song to celebrate that holy bridal.”
494 THE FORMATION OF THE BIBLICAL CANON, VOLUME I

4. Fourth- to Sixth-Century Old Testament Lists27

Augustine27 Carthage28 Rufinus29 Pseudo- Pseudo-

Chrysostom30 Chrysostom31
Gen, Exod, Gen, Exod, Gen, Exod, Gen, Exod, Gen, Exod,
Lev, Num, Lev, Num, Lev, Num, Lev, Numm Lev, Num,
Deut, Josh, Deut, Josh, Deut, Josh, Deut, Josh, Deut, Josh,
Judg, Ruth, Judg, Ruth, Judg/Ruth, Judg, Ruth, Judg, Ruth,
1–4 Kgs, 1–4 Kgs, 1–4 Kgs, 1–4 Kgs, 1 Kgs (1 Sam),
1–2 Chr, 1–2 Chr, 1–2 Chr, Esdr, Prov, 2 Kgs (2 Sam),
Job, Tobit, Job, Pss, 1–2 Esd, Sir, Eccl, 1–2 Kgs,
Esth, Jud, 1–5 Sol, Esth, Isa, Song, 1–2 Chr,
1–2 Macc, The Twelve, Jer, Ezek, Ten Prophets(?), 1–2 Esd,
1–2 Esd, Isa, Jer, Dan, Ruth(?), Esth, Tobit,
Pss, Prov, Ezek, Dan, The Twelve, David (Pss) Jud, Job,
Song, Eccl, Tobit, Jud, Job, Pss, (Esther omitted) Wis, Prov,
Wis, Sir, Esth, 1–2 Esd, Prov, Eccl, Sir, Isa,
The Twelve, 1–2 Macc Song Jer, Ezek,
Isa, Jer, Dan,
Dan, Ezek The Twelve
(to Nahum)
(Psalms absent)32

27
Note: “Pseudo-” in the names below does not refer to a pseudonymous text purposefully written
in another’s name, but rather to works mistakenly attributed to well-known figures and later found
not to be that person’s work. The authors of such documents are unknown.
28
Augustine, De Doct. Christ. 2.13 (ca. 395, Hippo Regius, North Africa). 1–4 Kgs = 1–2 Sam and
1–2 Kgs
29
Council of Carthage (397 CE), canon 26; it is likely that its “five books of Solomon” (noted here
as “1–5 Sol.”) = Prov, Eccl, Song, Sirach, and Wisdom of Solomon, or possibly Psalms of Solomon,
but this is uncertain.
30
Rufinus, Comm. in Symb. Apost. 35 (ca. 404, Rome).
31
This text comes from ca. 500 and is cited in Syn. script. sacr. praef. in Migne, P.G. lvi.513ff.
Cited in Swete, Introduction to the Old Testament in Greek, 205.
32
Ca. 500–550, cited in Syn. script. sacr. praef. in Migne, P.G. lvi.317–86.
33
Leaving Psalms out here was very likely an error.
APPENDIX A 495

5. Sixth- and Seventh-Century Old Testament Lists

Pseudo- Cassiodorus34 Isidore35 Isidore36 Isidore37

Athanasius33
Gen, Exod, Gen, Exod, Five books of Moses Gen, Exod, Gen, Exod,
Lev, Num, Lev, Num, History Lev, Num, Lev, Num,
Deut, Josh, Deut, Josh, Josh, Judg, Deut, Josh, Deut, Josh,
Judg, Ruth, 1–4 Kgs, Ruth, 1–4 Kgs, Judg, Ruth, Judg, Ruth,
1–4 Kgs, 1–2 Chr, 1–2 Chr, Tob, 1–4 Kgs, 1–4 Kgs,
1–2 Chr, Pss, Prov, Esth, Jud, 1–2 Chr, 1–2 Chr,
1–2 Esd Wis, Sir, 1–2 Esd, Job, Pss, 1–2 Esd,
Pss of David, Eccl, Song, 1-2 Macc Prov, Eccl, Tob, Esth
Prov, Eccl, Prophets: 16 prophets: Song, Isa, Jud, 1–2 Macc,
Song, Job, Isa, Jer, Isa, Jer, Jer, Ezek, Isa, Jer,
Twelve Prophets: Ezek, Dan, Ezek, Dan, Dan, Ezek, Dan,
Hos, Amos, The Twelve The Twelve The Twelve The Twelve,
Mic, Joel, Job, Tobit, Ezra/Neh, Job, Pss,
Obad, Jonah, Esth, Jud, Wis, Sir, Prov, Eccl,
Nah, Hab, 1–2 Esd, Jud, Tobit, Song, Wis,
Zeph, Hag, 1–2 Macc 1–2 Macc Sir, Lam Jer
Zech, Mal,
Isa, Jer,
Ezek, Dan,
Maccabees: (4)
Ptolemaika
Psalms and
Odes of Solomon
(Esther omitted)

34
Ca. 500. Cited from Syn. scr. sacr. (Migne, P.G. xxviii.283ff.).
35
Flavius Cassiodorus (ca. 551–554), De inst. Div. litt. 14. He presents three lists. The first two are
from Jerome and Augustine lists and then he presents his own that is similar to theirs but not exactly.
36
Isidore, Bishop of Seville, In Libros Veteris ac Novi Testamenti Prohoemia (ca. 600) and De ord.
libr. s. scr. See Swete, Introduction to the Old Testament in Greek, 212.
37
Isodore’s Etymologiae 6.1.6 in which he identifies the Hebrews’ list in the Tanak order, but then
adds that the church also accepts Wisdom, Sirach, Judith, Tobit, and 1–2 Maccabees. See his similar
list though in a different order in 6.2.1–36.
38
Isodore’s De ecclesiasticus officiis 1.11, namely, after Genesis to Chronicles, the order is
1–2 Esdras, Tobit, Esther, Judith, 1–2 Maccabees, Isaiah, Jeremiah, Ezekiel, Daniel, The Twelve,
Job, Psalms, Proverbs, Ecclesiastes, Song of Songs, Wisdom, Sirach, Lamentations of Jeremiah.
496 THE FORMATION OF THE BIBLICAL CANON, VOLUME I

6. Fourth- to Ninth-, and Sixteenth-Century Old Testament Collections39

Council of Council of Apostolic Canons Stichometry of Council of Trent

Rome (382)/ Carthage (419) (canon 85)40 Nicephorus41 (1546)
Decretum
Gelasianum39
Gen, Exod, Gen, Exod, Gen, Exod, Gen, Exod, Gen, Exod,
Lev, Num, Lev, Num, Lev, Num, Lev, Num, Lev, Num,
Deut, Josh, Deut, Josh, Deut, Josh, Deut, Josh, Deut, Josh,
Judg, Ruth, Judg, Ruth, Ruth, 1–4 Kgs Judg, Ruth, Judg, Ruth,
1–4 Kgs, 1–4 Kgs, 1–2 Chr, 1–2 Sam, 1–2 Sam,
1–2 Chr 1–2 Chr, 1–2 Esd, 1–2 Kgs, 1–2 Kgs,
Pss (150), Job, Pss, Esth, 1–3 Macc, 1–2 Chr, 1–2 Chr,
Prov, Eccl, Five books of Job, Pss, 1–2 Esd, 1–2 Esd,
Song, Wis, Solomon (Prov, Prov, Eccl, Pss, Prov, Tobias,
Sir, Isa, Eccl, Song, Song, Eccl, Song, Jud, Esth,
Jer/Lam, Wis, Pss. Sol.) Twelve Prophets, Job, Wis, Job, Pss,
Ezek, Dan, The Twelve, Isa, Jer, Sir, Esth, Prov, Eccl,
Hos, Amos, Isa, Jer, Ezek, Dan, Jud, Tob, Song, Wis,
Mic, Joel, Ezek, Dan, (Outside: Sirach) Hos, Amos, Ecclus (Sir),
Obad, Jonah, Tob, Jud, Mic, Joel, Isa, Jer,
Nah, Hab, Esth, Ezra/Neh Obad, Jonah, Bar, Ezek,
Zeph, Hag, 1–2 Macc Nah, Hab, Dan,
Zech, Mal, Zeph, Hag, The Twelve:
Job, Tobias, Zech, Mal, Hos, Joel,
1–2 Esd, Esth, Isa, Jer, Amos, Obad,
Jud, 1–2 Macc Ezek, Dan, Jonah, Mic,
1 Macc Nah, Hab,
Zeph, Hag,
Antilegomena42 Zech, Mal,
and 1–2 Macc
Apocrypha43

39
The lists shown thus far are illustrative of the similarities in the OT canon as well as some
diversity in books and their order. Other such lists are in Swete, Introduction to the Old Testament
in Greek, 201–14.
40
This listing is found essentially in two places, namely the one attributed to Damasus at the
Council of Rome in 382 and the other in the Decretum Gelasianum, attributed to Gelasius I (d. 19
November 496).
41
Canon 84–85. Ca. 600.
42
Ca. 850. Listed in Swete, Introduction to the Old Testament in Greek, 208–9, 346–47.
43
Books listed as Antilegomena (= not canonical include): 1–3 Maccabees, Wisdsom, Sirach,
Psalms and Odes of Solomon, Esther, Judith, Susanna, Tobias. Apocrypha: Enoch, Testaments of
the Patriarchs, Prayer of Joseph, Testament of Moses, Assumption of Moses, Abraham, Eldad and
Modad, Book of the Prophet Elias, Book of the Prophet Zephaniah, Book of Zacharias, father of
John, Pseudepigrapha of Baruch, Habakkuk, Ezekiel, and Daniel.
APPENDIX A 497

7. Important Biblical Manuscripts with Old Testament Collections44

Vaticanus (B) Sinaiticus (‫)א‬ Alexandrinus (A) Claromontanus (D),

Fourth cent.44 Fourth cent.45 Fifth cent. Fifth–sixth cent.49
Gen, Exod, Lev, … Gen, Exod, Lev, Gen, Exod, Lev,
Num, Deut, Josh, Gen … Num, Deut, Josh, Num, Deut, Josh,
Judg, Ruth, 1–4 Kgs, Num … Judg, Ruth, 1–4 Kgs, Judg, Ruth,
1–2 Chr, 1–2 Esd, 1 Chr … 1–2 Chr, 1–4 Kgs, Pss of David,
Pss … 2 Esd, Esth, The Twelve: Prov, Eccl, Cant,
Prov, Eccl, Song, Tob, Jud, Hos, Amos, Mic, Wis, Sir,
Job, Wis, Sir, 1, 4 Macc, Isa, Joel, Obad, The Twelve:
Esth, Jud, Tob, Jer, Lam, … Jonah, Nah, Hab, Hos, Amos, Mic,
The Twelve: Joel, Obad, Jon, Zeph, Hag, Zech, Joel, Obad, Jonah,
Hos, Amos, Nah, Hab, Zeph, Mal Nah, Hab, Zeph,
Mic, Joel, Hag, Zech, Mal, Isa, Jer, Bar, Hag, Zech, Mal
Obad, Jonah, Pss, Prov, Eccl, Lam, Ep Jer, Ezek, Isa, Jer, Ezek,
Nah, Hab, Song, Wis, Dan, Esth, Tob, Dan, 1–3 Macc,
Zeph, Hag, Prologue to Sir, Sir, Jud, 1–2 Esd, Jud, Esd, Esth,
Zech, Mal Job 1–4 Macc, Pss,47 Job, Tobias
Isa, Jer, Bar, (most of the Ps 151,48 Job, Prov,
Lam, Ep Jer, Pentateuch, Former Song, Wis, Sir
Ezek, Dan Prophets, Ezekiel and
Daniel are missing)46

44
Besides the above, a collection known as the Sixty Books, which refers to the canonical books,
lists besides the usual OT books several apocryphal and pseudepigraphal books without the stichoi
(or lines) as follows: Adam, Enoch, Lamech, Patriarchs, Prayer of Joseph, Eldad and Modad,
Testament of Moses, Psalms of Solomon, Apocalypse of Elias (Elijah), Vision of Esaias (Isaiah),
Apocalypse of Sophonias, Apocalypse of Zacharias, Apocalypse of Esdras.
45
The elliptical marks (“…”) indicate losses or omissions in the manuscripts.
46
Notice that Codices Sinaiticus and Alexandrinus and also Rufinus’ list above broadly follow the
Jewish order in the Tanak (Law, Prophets, Writings), possibly reflecting a Palestinian origin, while
Vaticanus and Claromontanus follow the usual Christian order of Law, History, Poetry and Wisdom,
and Latter Prophets. Both Codex Sinaiticus and Alexandrinus follow only roughly the HB/Tanak
sequence. In Sinaiticus, Chronicles, 2 Esdras, and Esther (plus Tobit, Judith, and 1 and 4 Maccabees)
are before the Latter Prophets and the rest of books in the Writings are listed last. Similarly, Codex
Alexandrinus has the books in the Hebrew Writings earlier as in the listing of Daniel after Ezekiel
and Ruth and the Chronicles in the usual places in Christian Bibles.
47
The absence of these books is only because of the fragmentation of the manuscript, not because
they were purposefully excluded.
48
Inserted before the Psalms is a letter of Athanasius to Marcellinus about the Psalter and a
summary of the contents of the Psalms by Eusebius.
49
After the Psalms, there are a number of canticles extracted from other parts of the Bible and
outside of the Bible.
50
This codex does not contain all of these books, but only a manuscript of Paul’s letters. This list
is inserted between Philemon and Hebrews.
 APPENDIX B:
CURRENT LISTS OF HEBREW BIBLE
AND CHRISTIAN OLD TESTAMENT
SCRIPTURES

1. Modern Scriptures – Hebrew Bible and Old Testament Biblical Canons51

Jewish Protestant Roman Catholic

Torah/Law Pentateuch Pentateuch
Gen, Exod, Num, Lev, Deut Gen, Exod, Num, Lev, Deut Gen, Exod, Num, Lev, Deut

Prophets: Former History History

Josh, Judg, 1–2 Sam, Josh, Judg, Ruth, 1–2 Sam, Josh, Judg, Ruth, 1–2 Sam,
1–2 Kgs 1–2 Kgs, 1–2 Chr, Ezra, 1–2 Kgs, 1–2 Chr, Ezra
Neh, Esth Neh, Tobit, Jud, Esth (with
Prophets: Latter additions), 1–2 Macc
Isa, Jer, Ezek, Poetry/Wisdom
Job, Pss, Prov, Eccl, Song Poetry/Wisdom
The Twelve Job, Pss, Prov, Eccl, Song,
Hos, Joel, Amos, Obad, Prophets Wis, Sir
Jonah, Mic, Nah, Hab, Isa, Jer, Lam, Ezek, Dan,
Zeph, Hag, Zech, Mal Hos, Joel, Amos, Obad, Prophets
Jonah, Mic, Nah, Hab, Isa, Jer, Lam, Bar + Ep Jer,
Writings Zeph, Hag, Zech, Mal Ezek, Dan + additions,
Pss, Prov, Job Hos, Joel, Amos, Obad,
Jonah, Mic, Nah, Hab,
The Five Scrolls Zeph, Hag, Zech, Mal
Song, Ruth, Lam,
Eccl, Esth
Dan, Ezra, Neh, 1–2 Chr

51
The following lists are modified from those provided in Coogan, ed., The Oxford Encyclopedia
of the Books of the Bible, 1:xii–xv.
APPENDIX B 499

Greek Orthodox Russian Orthodox Ethiopian

Pentateuch Pentateuch Octateuch
Gen, Exod, Num, Lev, Deut Gen, Exod, Num, Lev, Deut Gen, Exod, Num, Lev,
Deut, Josh, Judg, Ruth
History History
Josh, Judg, Ruth, Josh, Judg, Ruth, History
1–2 Kgs (= 1–2 Sam), 1–2 Kgs (= 1–2 Sam), 1–2 Sam, 1–2 Kgs,
3–4 Kgs (= 1–2 Kgs), 3–4 Kgs (= 1–2 Kgs), 1–2 Chr, Pr. Man.,
1–2 Par (1–2 Chr), 1–2 Par (1–2 Chr), Jub, Enoch, Ezra–Neh 1–2,
Pr. Man., 1 Esd, Pr. Man, 2 Esd (= 1 Esd), 2 Ezra and Ezra Sutuel
2 Esd (= Ezra–Neh), Tobit, 3 Esd (= 2 Esd), Neh, Tob, (= 1 Esd and 2 Esd 3-14),
Jud, Esth (with additions), Jud, Esth (with additions), Tob, Esth (with additions),
1–2–3 Macc 1–2–3 Macc 1–2–3 Macc, Job,
Pss + Ps 151
Poetry/Wisdom Poetry/Wisdom
Pss + Ps 151, Job, Prov, Pss + Ps 151, Job, Prov, Eccl, Books of Solomon
Eccl, Song, Wis, Sir Song, Wis, Sir Messalë (Prov 1–24),
Täagas (Prov 25–31), Wis
Prophets
Prophets Hos, Joel, Amos, Obad, Prophets
Hos, Joel, Amos, Obad, Jonah, Mic, Nah, Hab, Zeph, Isa, Jer, Bar, Ep. Jer.,
Jonah, Mic, Nah, Hab, Zeph, Hag, Zech, Mal, Isa, Jer, Lam, Ezek, Dan + additions,
Hag, Zech, Mal, Isa, Jer, Bar, Lam, Ep. Jer., Ezek, Hos, Amos, Mic, Joel, Obad,
Bar, Lam, Ep. Jer., Ezek, Dan (with additions) Jonah, Nah, Hab, Zeph,
Dan + additions Hag, Zech, Mal

Sir
Pseudo-Josephus
 INDEX OF REFERENCES
(for Volume 1)

Genesis Exodus 24:3 41

1–35 346 1–15 346 24:4 61
1:1 338, 421, 3:1–4 353 24:5 423
433 3:6 255, 337 24:7 32
1:27 337 4:19 65 24:8 337
1:31 440 7:1 338 24:9–31:18 45
2:7 56 12:10 338 24:9–14 56
2:24 337 12:46 338 24:9 201
3:21 440 14:21 338 24:12 61, 63
4:1 337 15 132 24:13 201
4:7 338 15:2 441 24:18 353, 355
4:10 289 15:26 404 24:27 402
4:24 337 16–49 346 25:22 45
5:21–24 362 16:4 338 26:37–27:30 421
6–7 337 16:15 338 27:19 422
6:1–4 362 16:35 355 28:30 338
7:17 355 20 50, 267 29:37 44, 337
10:20 413 20:1–17 45 30:29 44, 337
12–50 150 20:2–17 420 31:18 61
17:10–12 338 20:3–6 49 32:1 211
19 337 20:7 337 32:15 61
19:1 255 20:12–16 311, 337 32:32–33 40
19:15 255 20:12 337 32:32 61
21:17 338 20:13–14 50 33:11 338
21:19 338 20:13 150, 337 34:1 41, 61
26:5 64, 150 20:14 150, 337 34:4 41
26:19 338 20:17 150 34:6 338
28:12 255, 338 20:21 245 34:11–16 67
32:1 255 20:22–23:33 45 34:11 131
32:24–26 126 21:12 337 34:15–16 53
36–48 346 21:17 337 34:27 41, 61
37–50 161 21:24 337 34:28 353
40:55 338 22:6–12 402
46:23 440 22:27 338 Leviticus
48:6 403 23:20 337 6:20–30 44
48:22 338 24:1 201 11:42 424
24:3–7 127 13–14 337
24:3–4 63 13:33 424
INDEX OF REFERENCES 501

14:2–32 337 4:12 338 24:4 403

16:12–15 413 4:13 41, 61 24:16 338
16:18–21 413 4:38–6:3 421 25:4 61, 72
17:10–14 338 5 267 25:5–6 403
19:2 337 5:6–21 420 26:5–9 113
19:12 337 5:16–20 311, 337 27:4–5 266
19:18 337 5:17 337 27:12 338
20:10 338 5:18 337 27:26 338
23:36 338 5:28–29 245 28:26 421, 433
23:40 338 6:1–9 133 29–31 37
24:9 337 6:4–9 420 30:4 337
24:16 338 6:4–5 337 30:6 338
24:17 337 6:6–9 61 30:20 285
24:20 337 6:13 337 31:1–2 170
6:16 337 31:26 127
Numbers 7:1–5 53, 67, 131 31:29 170
5:12 338 7:1–2 315 32:39 37, 285
6:1–3 50 8:1 133 33:27 423
9:12 338 8:3 337 34:1 46
11:26–30 60 8:11 133
11:26 314 9:10 61 Joshua
12:2 338 10:4 41 1:1–9 51
12:8 338 10:13 133 1:7–9 52
14–36 346 11:1 134 1:7–8 127
14:23 338 11:8 134 1:8 50
16:5 311 11:13 134 7:19 339
16:28 338 11:29 338 8:30–35 51
21:8 338 12:1 134 8:31 127
21:14 103, 128 12:5 338 8:32–34 127
24:15–17 245 12:32 45, 203, 248, 10:12–13 103, 128
25:1–9 388 315, 316, 17:4 51
27:21 338 436 22:5 51
28:9–10 337 13:1 45 23:6 50
30:3 247, 435 13:2 337 23:16 50
33:8–11 245 13:12–15 315 24 113
17:7 338 24:25–27 50
Deuteronomy 17:18 61, 424 24:26 51
1:16 338 18:15 338
1:35 338 18:18–19 245 Judges
2:14 338 18:20–22 181, 189 2:17 51
3:27 46 19:15 337 3:4 50, 51
4:1–2 133 19:18 338 6:8–10 50
4:2–8 61 20:16–18 315
4:2 13, 45, 67, 21:22 297 1 Samuel
72, 74, 91, 21:23 338 1:9 422
105, 248, 22:9 44 2:6–7 37
315, 316, 22:22–24 338 5–31 346
345, 429, 23:22 337 5:1–12 44
436 24:1 337 9:9 129
502 INDEX OF REFERENCES

1 Samuel (cont.) 14:29 128 17:27 127

9:11 129 15:7 128 17:34–40 151
9:18 129 15:23 128 17:37 127
9:19 129 15:31 12816:5 17:43 127
10:27 429 128 18:13–20:19 147
11:1 429 16:14 128 18:20 66
12:7–8 151 16:20 128 19:15 339
12:8 104, 125 16:27 128 19:19 339
12:14–16 50 17:1 337 20:20 128
12:14–15 51 19:8 355 21:8 61, 127, 151
12:24 50 22:39 128 21:17 128
13:13–14 51 22:45 128 21:25 128
13:13 50 22–23 123, 130,
15:3 22 2 Kings 133
15:24 50, 51 1–17 346 22:1 95
16–18 444 1–2 346 22:3–23:25 51
21:2–7 337 1:1–16 167 22:3–13 61, 66
1:18 128 22:3–8 186
2 Samuel 2:11 167 22:8–20 151
1–24 346 5 337 22:8–13 125
1:18–27 103, 128 5:7 339 22:8–10 270
6:2–8 43 8:23 128 22:8 32, 127, 133
6:6–15 44 10:16 339 22:10 32
7 468 10:31 61, 127, 151 22:11 127
7:12 339 10:34 128 22:14 189
12:1–15 50 12:18 128 23:1–3 49, 178
12:1–13 460 13:8 128 23:2 32
12:9 50, 150 13:12 128 23:21 32
12:14 50 14:6 61, 127, 151 23:24–27 151
13:25 339 14:15 128 23:24–25 61
15–19 236 14:18 128 23:24 127, 133
22 66, 147 14:25 339 23:25 127
23:1–7 66, 278 14:28 128 23:28 128
24:11 129 15:6 128 24:5 128
15:11 128 24:18–25:30 147
1 Kings 15:15 128 25:8–17 12
1–2 346 15:21 128 25:27–30 53
1 236 15:26 128
2:1–3 150, 151 15:31 128 1 Chronicles
2:2–3 53 15:36 128 1–29 346
2:3 61, 127, 150 16:19 128 9 444
5:31 128 17:13 23, 24, 49, 9:21 128
8:12–13 LXX 128 53, 61, 67, 9:29 103
8:12–13 103 127, 130, 12:15 103
10 37 131, 133, 13:9–10 43
10:4 337 151, 157, 13:22 103
10:13 337 164, 273 15:3–4 404
11:41 128 17:26–27 151 15:3 64
14:19 128 17:26 127 15:4 64
INDEX OF REFERENCES 503

15:54–55 404 29:25 129, 131 9:9–12 131

16:8–22 147 30:16 61 9:10–15 53, 67
16:23–33 147 31:3 131 9:10–11 52, 64, 153,
16:34–36 147 32–36 346 157
16:40 61, 64, 127, 32:32 64, 129, 131, 9:10 153
131 157 9:11 53
17:1 129 33:18 128 10:1–5 264
20:34 103 33:19 128 10:2–3 51, 52
21:9 129 34:1–7 49 10:3 153
22:12 61 34:1 95 10:6–17 388
24:3 252 34:14–35:27 51
24:7 176 34:14–16 133 Nehemiah
25:1–3 171 34:24 133 1–2 499
25:1 369 35:12 131 1:5–9 153
26:22 103 35:25 129, 130 2–4 271
27:24 129 35:26 61 2 346
29:29 103, 128, 36:20 450 4:2 264
129, 131 36:22–23 292, 393 6:7 52, 53
32:32 103 36:23 132 6:14 52, 53
33:19 103 37:7–36:19 421 7:73–9:38 264
8–10 51, 52, 131
2 Chronicles Ezra 8:1–9 52
1–18 346 1:1–4 12, 156, 191, 8:1–8 51, 52, 67,
6:16 61 292, 393 116, 131
9–31 346 1:1 131 8:1 61
9:29 128, 129 1:2–4 132 8:3–8 204
11:7–10 22 3:2 52, 61, 153 8:3 51
12:1 61 3:4 52, 131, 153 8:4 395
12:15 128 4:8–7:18 351 8:5–8 57, 153, 178
13:22 128, 129 4:15 129 8:8–12 67
15:3 64 5:1–2 52, 53, 131, 8:8 413, 414
15:12 129 157 8:9–15 153
16:11 128 5:1 23, 52, 67, 8:13–14 52
20:34 128 269 8:14–17 52, 131, 153
23:18 61, 131 5:2–6:18 12 8:18 52, 153
24 290 6:18 52 9 52, 131
24:14–21 270 6:19–22 52, 131, 153 9:1–3 67
24:20–23 291 7:2 252 9:3 52, 153
24:20–22 288, 290, 7:6 52, 61, 153 9:6–31 104, 126
337 7:10 52, 153 9:6 52, 131
24:20–21 287, 288 7:11–28 155 9:7–8 52, 131
24:20 287, 291 7:11–26 52 9:9–11 52, 131
24:22 289 7:12–26 132 9:12–22 52, 131, 153
24:25 288 7:12 52, 153 9:12–21 52, 131
24:27 128, 130 7:21 52 9:13–15 126
25:4 133 7:24 156 9:13–14 153
26:6 374 7:25–26 155 9:13 52
26:22 128, 131 7:25 52 9:14 52
27:7 128 7:26 52 9:16 153
504 INDEX OF REFERENCES

Nehemiah (cont.) 6:6–12 147 63:2 339

9:23–25 52, 131, 153 6:9 309, 337 66:18 339,
9:23 52 8:3 309, 337 67:19 316
9:26–37 52, 131 8:4–6 331 68:18 108, 316,
9:26 52, 53, 153 9 66 331, 400
9:29 52, 153 12:2 162 69:4–9 309
9:30 52, 53, 153, 14 147 69:5 339
189 15:2 339 69:10 339
9:32 52, 53 18 66, 126, 147, 69:21–29 315
9:34 153 378 70 147
10:2 157 19:7–14 51, 127, 132 71:13 315
10:28–29 153 19:7–10 157 72 66, 126, 378
10:28 52 19:11 162 74:9 180
10:29 52 20 66, 126, 378 78 132
10:32 52, 131, 153 21 66, 126, 378 78:24 339
10:34 52, 153 22 309 78:38 424
10:36 52 22:1 309 78:71 339
11 444 22:2 309, 337 80:2 339
11:25–35 444 22:19 339 80:14 424
12:1 157 22:23 339 82:6 64, 188, 310,
12:12 157 24:4 309, 337 339
12:23 129 25 85, 224, 342, 85:11 339
12:34 157 482 89 126, 282,
12:39 339 25:5 339 378
12:44 52, 153 31:6 309, 337 89:4 339
13:1–2 52, 131, 153 31:10 339 89:27 339
13:1 153 32:2 339 90 173
13:3 52 33:6 339 91 173
13:10–14 156 34 85, 224, 342, 92:16 339
13:15–22 52, 131, 153 482 94:11 331
13:23–27 388 35:16 339 95:7 339
13:25 52, 131, 153 35:23 339 96:1–13 147
37 85 101 378
Job 37:11 309, 337 105:1–15 147
3:5–9 413 40:8 300 105:1–2 45
4:16–5:4 413 40:11 339 105:15 132
17:14–42:11 413 40:13–17 147 106:1 147
24:13–17 339 41:10 339 106:47–48 147
31:8 339 45 66, 378 107–150 51
37:5 339 48:3 309 108:1–5 147
50:14 309 108:7–13 147
Psalms 51 461 109 22
1–89 173 51:7 339 109:6–25 315
1 127, 320 51:14 337 109:30 339
1:2 132 51:18–19 132 110 66, 126
2 66, 126, 378 53 147 110:1 309, 337
2:2 339 57:7–11 147 111 85
2:7 339 58 22 112 85
INDEX OF REFERENCES 505

118:20 339 Ecclesiastes 34:4 337

118:22–23 309, 337 11:5 339 35:4 339
118:26 309, 337 12:14 166, 225, 35:5–6 337
119 51, 66, 85, 397 36–39 147
127, 132, 37:20 339
157, 216, Song of Songs 38–39 346
224, 342, 2:5 471 40–66 159
358, 381, 3:11 470 40–55 51
482 3:12 421, 433 40:1–11 37
119:142 339 7:7–9 470 40:3 339
122:1 339 40:9 339
132 66, 378 Isaiah 42:8 339
132:16 339 1–33 159 42:24 133, 150
144 66, 126 1:1 103, 129 43:10 339
144:1–11 378 2:2–4 147 43:13 339
145 85, 248, 398, 2:3 339 43:19 339
437 5:1–2 337 45:19 339
145:19 339 6:1 339 46:1 46
150 496 6:9–10 337 46:10 339
151 10, 135, 140, 6:10 339 52:13 339
142, 278, 6:16 37 53:7 339
398, 448, 7:14 221, 479 53:10–12 337
456, 492, 8:1–2 291 53:12 337
497, 499 8:2 291 54:13 339
152 140, 398 8:6 339 55:1 339
153 141, 398 8:14–15 337 57:4 339
154–55 278 8:23 339 58:6 337
154 141, 398 9:2 339 58:11 339
155 141, 398 11–15 37 60:1 339
11:2 339 60:3 339
Proverbs 12:3 339 61 279
1–24 499 13:10 337 61:1–2 337
1–9 51 14:13 337 64:3 311
1:23–33 319 14:15 337 65:5 44
1:28 339 21:11 441 66:1 337
3:1 64 23 337 66:14 339
3:18 285 24–27 159
6:20 64 24–26 377 Jeremiah
8:22 339 24:1–27:13 252 1:5 339
15:8 339 26:17 339 2:8 61, 133
15:29 339 26:19 252 2:13 339
18:4 339 28:11–12 188 5:4–5 61, 133
24:22 339 28:11 64 6:16 337
25–31 499 28:16 37 7:11 337
25:1 378, 393 29:13 337 8:8–9 57, 179
28–29 51, 150 31:4–9 37 8:8 133
30:4 339 32:15 337 9:13–14 57, 179
31:10–31 85 34–39 159 9:13 133
506 INDEX OF REFERENCES

Jeremiah (cont.) 36:25–27 339 9:24–27 180

9:23 57, 179 36:26–27 177, 180, 9:27 277, 283,
11:19 339 381 337
13:16 339 36:27 296 11 283
16:11 133 37:1–14 253, 381 11:31 161, 283,
17:21 339 37:14 180, 296 337, 382
18:1–11 113 37:24 339 11:32 382
25:11–12 63 37:25 339 12:1–2 253
25:11 131 37:26 31 12:10 382
26:3–4 130 37:27 339 12:11 161, 280,
26:4–6 23, 24, 273 39:15 64 283, 337,
26:4–5 157 39:29 180 382
26:4 133 40:5–8 78
26:16–18 23, 130 40:46 252 Hosea
26:18 106, 157 43:11–12 133, 150 2:11–13 50
26:20–23 288 44:5 150 2:14–15 37
28:6 450 44:19 44 4:1–11 50
29:10 51, 63, 131 44:31 408 4:6 49, 61, 66,
29:26 114 45:20 408 104, 150
30:10–11 37 47:1–12 339 4:18 339
31:2–6 37 6:1 37
31:18–19 37 Daniel 6:2 339
31:31–34 32, 37, 381 1–8 346 6:6 337
31:31–33 133 1–6 161, 283, 6:7 50
31:31–32 32 383 7:12 402
31:31 31 1 283 8:1 50, 150
32:23 133 1:2 339 10:8 337
44:10 61, 133 2–7 283 11:1 65, 404, 479
44:23 133 2:4–7:28 283 12:2–6 49, 104
45:1–5 131 2:4–6:28 351 12:2–4 126
52 147 4:26 280 14:1–2 37
6:5 150
Lamentations 6:8 150 Joel
1–4 85 6:12 150 2:28–29 177, 180,
6:15 150 296
Ezekiel 7–12 283, 383 4:13 337
1 346 7:7–8 382
3:24 150 7:13 161, 262, Amos
12 346 277, 300, 1:3–3:1 126
13:9 180 337 2:4 49, 50, 61,
14:14 162 7:24 382 66, 104, 125,
14:20 162 7:25 150 150
15:1–8 339 8–12 283 2:6–16 49
26–28 337 9:2 51, 63, 131, 2:6 49
29:3 162 157, 269 2:9–11 113, 126
33:10–11 37 9:5–10 131 2:10 125
34:11–16 339 9:10–11 150 2:12 50
34:23 339 9:11 61 3:1–2 113
36:24–27 37 9:13 61, 150 4:10–11 113
INDEX OF REFERENCES 507

5:1–6:14 49 7:12 106, 131, 5:2 339

5:25 113 150, 189, 5:4 339
7:1–9:15 49 273 5:5 305, 309,
9:7 113 9–14 156, 159, 337, 340
9:11 113 265 5:8 309, 337
9–11 159 5:17–19 404
Obadiah 9:9 337, 339 5:17 187
1:12–14 339 9:13 265 5:18 55, 314
12–14 159 5:20 259, 260
Jonah 12:10 339 5:21–48 314
2:1 337 13:2–6 180 5:21 315, 337
3:5–9 337 13:7 337, 339 5:27 315, 337
14:5 346 5:28 339
Micah 14:8 339 5:31 315, 337
3:8 106 5:32 71
3:12 23, 130, 157 Malachi 5:33 309, 315,
5:1 339 1:6 339 337
4:1–3 147 1:8 156 5:34–35 337
6:8 37 3:1 72, 156, 337 5:35 309, 337
6:15 339 3:8–12 156 5:38 315, 337
7:6 337 3:23–24 337 5:43–48 315
3:23 339 5:43 315, 337
Habakkuk 4:4–6 167 5:48 337
1:4 150 4:4 156 6:7 339
4:5–6 4, 166, 386 6:9 339
Zephaniah 5–6 5 6:10 339
3:4 150 12:12 337 6:12 302, 339
3:13 339 6:13 339
3:14 339 N T 6:14 302
3:15 339 Matthew 6:19–20 302
1:23 221 6:20 339
Haggai 2:4–6 257 6:23 339
1:1–4 12 2:5 47 6:26 340
1:1 252 2:13–15 48 6:29 337, 339
1:12 12 2:15 65, 404, 479 6:33 339
2:1–4 12 2:17 47 7:3–5 302
2:9 339 2:20 65 7:6 62
2:11–13 44 2:23 47 7:12 187, 310,
3:3 47, 72 339
Zechariah 3:7 252, 260 7:23 309, 337
1:1 287, 291 3:16 72 8:4 337
1:4 188 4:4–10 64 8:11 339
1:5 339 4:4 337, 340 8:21 339
4:9 12 4:7 337 9:13 337
5:34–37 182 4:10 337 9:27 280
6:15 12 4:14 47 9:36 339
7:7 188 4:15 339 9:38 339
4:17 280 10:10 72
5:1 339 10:15 337
508 INDEX OF REFERENCES

Matthew (cont.) 16:12 252 23:27 260

10:16 339 16:18 340 23:29–36 398
10:22 339 16:22 339 23:30 337
10:28 339 16:27 303, 304, 23:31–35 304
11:2–6 28 339 23:32 286
11:4–6 297 17:1–5 72 23:34–35 286, 293
11:5 337 17:3–4 4 23:35 268, 286,
11:7–15 296, 386 17:3 5 287, 290,
11:7–14 296 17:9–13 4 291, 293,
11:10 337 18:10 339 308, 337
11:13–14 4, 5 18:16 337 23:38 339
11:13 179 18:22 337 23:39 309, 337
11:14 339 19:3–12 261 24 26, 377
11:21–22 337 19:4 337 24:8 304
11:21 337 19:5 337 24:15 161, 162,
11:22 339 19:8 337 277, 280,
11:23–24 337 19:18–19 337 283, 337,
11:23 337, 340 19:18 337 339, 382
11:25–30 308 19:21 302 24:16 339
11:25–28 305, 308, 19:28 303–305, 24:24 337
340 307, 340 24:26–27:37–39 304
11:25 339 20:2 339 24:29 337
11:28 339 20:26–28 302 24:30 337
11:29 337, 339 20:28 337 24:31 337
11:31 280 21:1 337 24:37–39 337
12:3–4 337 21:5 404 24:39 337
12:4 337, 339 21:12 340 24:43 72
12:5 337 21:13 337 25:31 303–305,
12:8 303 21:16 309, 337, 307, 340
12:41 337 404 25:35 339
12:42 337 21:33 337 25:36 339
13:3 339 21:42 59, 64, 309, 26:13 305, 340
13:5 339 337 26:24 303, 340
13:6 340 21:44 337 26:28 32, 337
13:14–15 337 22:13 340 26:31 337
13:37–43 305 22:14 339 26:38 339
13:39 305, 339, 22:23–32 252, 255 26:54 64
340 22:29 59, 64 26:56 59, 64
13:41–42 303 22:30 302 26:64 337, 340
13:44 339 22:32 337, 339 27:24 339
14:1 72 22:34–40 261 27:25 289
15:1 259 22:37 337 27:43 339
15:4 337 22:39 337 27:46 309, 337
15:8–9 337 22:43 63 28:19–20 75
16:1 252 22:44 309, 337 28:19 29
16:4 337 23:12 302 29:19 107
16:6 252 23:17 337 34:15 337
16:11 252 23:19 337
INDEX OF REFERENCES 509

Mark 14:24 32, 337 9:8 339

1:2 64, 72, 337 14:49 47, 64 9:26 304
1:10 72 14:62 161, 262, 9:28–35 72
1:13 355 277, 300, 9:46–48 302
1:44 337 309, 337 10:7 72
2:16 259 15:28 47 10:12 337
2:25–26 337 15:34 309, 337 10:13–14 337
2:28 303 16:9–20 16, 21 10:15 337
4:12 337 10:17 339
4:29 337 Luke 10:19 339
6:14 72 1:1–4 73, 147 10:21–22 308
7:1 259 1:5–23 291 10:21 339
7:10 337 1:17 339 10:25–37 265
8:31 337 1:19 339 10:27 337
8:38–9:1 304 1:42 339 11:4 302
8:38 304 1:51–53 37 11:31 337
9:2–7 72 1:52 339 11:32 337
9:12–13 337 1:59–80 289 11:48–51 286
9:35 302 1:67–79 291 11:49–52 304
10:5 337 2:1–2 260 11:49–51 293, 380
10:6 337 2:11 340 11:49 64, 293, 308
10:7–8 337 2:14 340 11:51 268, 286,
10:11–12 71 2:23 64 287, 337
10:19 311, 337 2:29 339 12:16–21 302
10:22 302 3:4 72 12:16 340
10:42–44 302 4:4 337 12:19–21 305
10:45 337 4:8 64, 337 12:19 305, 339
11:1 337 4:12 337 12:20 339
11:17 337 4:16–20 187, 257 12:27 337
11:25 302 4:17 3, 279, 310 12:33 302
12:1 337 4:18 337 13:27 309, 337,
12:10–11 309, 337 4:21 47, 64 339
12:10 64 5:21 259 13:29 339
12:18*27 252 4:25–26 337 13:35 309
12:18–27 252, 255 4:27 337 14:11 302
12:24–27 255, 257 5:14 337 14:13 339
12:24 64 6:3–4 337 15:2 259
12:25 302, 303 6:4 337 15:12 339
12:26 337 6:5 303 16:6 296
12:29–30 337 6:12 339 16:9 340
12:31 337 6:24 305, 340 16:18 71
12:36 63, 309, 337 6:35 339 16:23 339
13 26, 377 6:36 337 16:26 303, 305,
13:8 304 7:10 29 339, 340
13:14 162, 337 7:12 29 17:11–12 337
13:24–25 337 7:22 337, 339 17:14 337
13:26–27 304 7:27 337 17:22–37 304
13:26 337 7:35 293 17:26–27 337
510 INDEX OF REFERENCES

Luke (cont.) 24:49 337 4:20 338, 339

18:7 339 24:50 339 4:22 339
18:10–14 302 24:53 339 4:36 339
18:14 302 4:37 339
18:20 337 John 4:48 339, 340
18:22 302 1:1–3 303 5:2 339
19:10 304 1:1 338 5:5 338
19:29 337 1:2 339 5:10 339
19:44 339 1:3 339, 340 5:17 338
19:46 64, 337 1:9 340 5:18 339, 340
20:9 337 1:14–18 303 5:21 339
20:17 309, 337 1:14 339, 340 5:22 340
20:18 337 1:17 338, 339 5:30 338
20:27 252 1:21 338, 339 5:35 339, 340
20:35–36 302 1:23 339 5:37 338
20:37 337, 339 1:29 339 5:39 59, 64, 114,
20:42–43 309, 337 1:32 339 332
21:24 339, 340 1:41 339 5:44 339
21:25–26 337 1:45 188, 310 5:46 338
21:25 339 1:46 339 6:21 339
21:27 337 1:47 339 6:31 339
21:28 340 1:49 339 6:32 338
22:20 31, 32 1:51 338 6:35 340
22:37 337, 340 2:5 338 6:45 339
22:69 309 2:11 339 6:49 338
23:46 309, 337 2:17 309, 339 6:53 338
24:4 339 2:22 64 7:2 338
24:7 478 3:5 339 7:18 339
24:25–27 49, 54 3:8 340 7:22 338
24:27 63, 64, 149, 3:12 340 7:34 339
161, 171, 3:13 338–40 7:37 338, 339
172, 187, 3:14 338 7:38 64, 339, 340
188, 281, 3:19 340 7:39 179, 296
309 3:20 339 7:42 64, 339, 340
24:32 59, 63, 64 3:21–22 179 7:49 338
24:44 49, 54, 59, 3:21 339, 340 7:51 338
149, 151, 3:27 340 7:52 339
161, 163, 3:29 339, 340 7:53–8:11 16
164, 171–74, 3:35 339 8:3 338
187, 188, 4:1 179 8:5 338
268, 271, 4:4–12 265 8:7 338
277, 278, 4:5 338 8:12 339
280–82, 4:9 339, 340 8:21 338
284–86, 292, 4:10 338, 339 8:28 339
310, 332, 4:11 338 8:32 339
348, 380, 4:14–15 179 8:34 338
478 4:14 339 8:40 339
24:45 63, 64 4:19 265 8:44 339, 340
INDEX OF REFERENCES 511

8:46 339 15:19 339 2:46–47 49

8:52 339 15:25 339, 340 4:1 252, 253
8:53 339, 340 15:26 179, 296 4:6 253
8:58 339 16:7–15 296 4:25–26 49
9:1–12 48 16:7–14 179 4:25 172
9:4 339 16:13 339 4:33 73
9:7 339 16:21 339 5:17 252, 253
9:24 339 16:22 339 5:30 298
9:29 338 16:32 339 5:33–39 409
9:31 339 17:3 339, 340 5:34–35 409
9:34 339 17:12 47, 64, 339 5:34 259, 260
10:3 339 17:17 339 6:1–3 200
10:4 339 18:20 339 6:4 73
10:9 339 18:22 338 7:2–53 113
10:11 339 19:22 46 7:42 64
10:16 339 19:24 47, 64, 339 7:52 398
10:20 340 19:28 47, 64, 339 8:32–33 49
10:22 335, 339, 19:31 338 8:32 64
340 19:36 64, 338 8:35 64
10:33 338 19:37 64, 339 8:37 16
10:34 64, 188, 338, 20:9 64 10:34 310
339 20:17–22 179 10:39 298
10:35 64 20:17 339 11:30 84
10:36 339 20:22 296, 340 13:15 310
11:50 339 20:28 339 13:27 310
11:51 338 20:30–31 306 14:23 84
11:54 339 21 16 15:15 64
12:13 338, 340 21:16 339 16:13 232
12:15 339 16:16 232
12:26 340 Acts 17:2 64
12:27 339 1:3 355 17:11 64
12:29 338, 339 1:6–7 377 17:28 67, 215, 299,
12:34 339 1:8 179, 296 307
12:38 339 1:16 47, 63, 64, 18:24 64
12:40 339 172, 368 18:28 64
12:41 339 1:20 172 20:17 84
13:18 64, 188, 339 2:1–36 179 21:18–25 316
13:19 339 2:4–36 179 22:2–3 260
14:1 338 2:5–11 191 22:3 259, 263,
14:15–26 179 2:14–21 296 409
14:15 339, 340 2:17–36 114 23:6–10 255
14:16–17 296 2:17–21 49, 296 23:6–8 252
14:26 296 2:25–31 368 23:6 263
14:27 339 2:25–28 49 23:9 259
15:1 340 2:30 172, 281 26:5 259
15:6 339 2:34–36 368 26:14 215
15:9–10 340 2:34–35 49 28:23 187, 310
15:15 338 2:42 49, 73, 115
512 INDEX OF REFERENCES

Romans 2:9 64, 311 11:3 311

1:2 62, 64 3:19–20 331 11:14 311
1:3–4 478 4:14–5:5 72 11:22 263
1:17 64 5:9 147 12:2 311
1:18–3:20 308 6:12–16 332 13:10 72
1:18–21 335 7:10–12 70
1:19–32 262 7:10 29, 70, 71, Galatians
1:23 301 370, 404 1:6–9 189
1:24–32 311 7:12–16 72 2:21–5:6 315
2:4 262, 301 7:21–24 22 2:21 315
2:23–24 295 7:25 70, 404 3–4 30, 235
2:24 64 7:32 404 3:8 63, 64, 188
2:28–29 315 7:40 69–71 3:13 298
3:4 64 9:7–10 332 3:15–22 116
3:10–19 310 9:9 64 3:22 63, 64
3:10 64 9:10 47, 61, 64 4:30 63, 64
3:21 310 9:14 29 5:12 71
4–8 30 10:1–11 113 5:22 215
4 235 10:11 47, 62 6:16 79, 94
4:3 63, 64 11:17 71
4:17 64 11:23–25 29, 71 Ephesians
4:22–24 61 11:23 404 4:8 108, 316,
4:23 47 11:25 31, 32 331, 400
5:12–21 295, 311 11:26–34 71 4:11 184
7:7 311 12:4–11 184 5:14 64
7:12 62 12:28 184 5:19 274
8:36 64 14:20–22 332 5:22–33 22
9:13 64 14:21 64, 188 5:22–31 22
9:17 63, 64 14:33–36 22 6:5–9 22
9:33 64 15:3–8 115
10:11 63, 64 15:3–5 48 Philippians
10:14–21 332 15:3–4 59 1:1–3:1 16
10:15 64 15:33 215 2:9–11 304
11:2 63, 64 23–27 52 3:2–4:23 16
11:8 64 24:3 52 3:4–6 263
11:26 64 3:5 258–60
12:6 184 2 Corinthians 4:3 40
12:19 64 3:6 32 4:4 215
14:10–13 332 3:12–18 331
14:11 64 3:12–16 47 Colossians
15:3 64 3:14 32, 188 1:15 335
15:4 47, 61, 64 3:15 32 3:15–17 404
15:9 64 5:1–5 311 3:22–4:1 22
15:21 64 5:4–5 297 4:16 59, 147
16:26 47, 63 6:14–7:1 235
10–13 147 1 Thessalonians
1 Corinthians 10:13 79 4:13–5:11 377
1:14 71 10:15 79 4:13–17 22
1:16 71 10:16 79 5:21 189
INDEX OF REFERENCES 513

2 Thessalonians James 1:11 74

3:6 404 1:1 191, 450 1:19 40, 46
3:12 404 1:13–15 306 2:17 46
1:17 311 3:20 22, 304
1 Timothy 1:19 334 3:21 304
2:9–15 22 2:8 64 4:4 84, 223
2:14 311 2:14–26 316 4:7–10 84
5:1 84 2:23 63, 64 4:10 84, 223
5:17–18 332 3:6–12 306 5–6 40
5:17 84 4:1–8 306 5:1–4 303
5:18 29, 64, 72 4:5 64, 136, 311 5:1 40
5:1–6 306 5:3 40
2 Timothy 5:8 84, 223
2:7 215 1 Peter 6:1–17 40
2:15 49 1:1 191, 450 6:11 304
2:19–20 311 1:6–7 334 8 40
3:14–17 49 2:6–8 404 8:1–10:11 40
3:15 62, 332 2:6 64 10 40
3:16–17 404 3:6 404 11:16 84, 223
3:16 64, 365 3:10–12 404 14:13 46
4:13 3 19:4 84, 223
2 Peter 19:16 46
Titus 1:16–18 72 20:12 40
1:12 67, 215, 307 1:20 64 20:15 40
2:4 311 21:6 84, 224, 342
Hebrews 3:3 377 22:2 311
1:1 295 3:6 311 22:7–9 74
1:2–3 54 3:8–10 377 22:13 84, 224, 342,
1:3 301, 311, 3:10 72 466
335 3:15–16 75, 97 22:18–19 13, 40, 72,
1:6 311 3:16 64, 72 74, 91, 203,
2:6–8 331 248, 314,
3:5–19 113 1 John 436
3:7 63 5:7–8 16
8:5–8 31 A /D -
8:7–12 315 Jude C B
8:8 31 14–15 104, 360, 1 Esdras
8:13 31 364 2:36–37 312
9:1 31 14 20, 54, 295,
9:8 63 301, 306, 2 Esdras
9:15 31 307, 311, 3–14 140, 456,
9:24 7 362, 364 499
10:1–14 315 6:42 313
10:7 262, 300 Revelation 21 444
10:15 63 1:3 74
11:35 335 1:8 84, 224, 342, 3 Ezra
11:37 398 466 1:3 339
12:24 31 1:10–11 74
1:10 74
514 INDEX OF REFERENCES

4 Ezra 4:10 312 15:11 312, 340

1–2 352 4:15 339 16:13 340
1:37 340 4:17 339 16:26 340
3–14 352 5:15 339 17:2 340
4:8 339, 340 7:10 339 18:14–16 340
4:33 312 7:17 339 18:15 340
6:25 339 11:9 339
7:11 339 12:8–9 302 Sirach
7:14 339 12:9 312 1:1 168
7:36 339 12:15 339 1:30 302
7:77 339 14:4 339 2:11 312
8:3 339 3:18 302
8:41 339 Judith 4:1 311
12:36–38 355 11:19 339 5:11 334
14 212, 213, 13:18 339 6:20–31 399
324, 354, 16:17 339 7:5 302
380 7:8–9 302
14:1–48 269 Wisdom of Solomon 13:15 169
14:1–3 353 1:14 312 15:11–20 306
14:19–48 341, 352 2:13 339 16:21 340
14:21 213, 272, 2:16 339, 340 17:26 311
354 2:18–20 339 19:16 306
14:22–48 223 2:23–24 311 22:27 306
14:22 272, 354, 2:24 339, 340 24:19 308
355 3:5–7 334 24:21 340
14:23 355 3:7 339 24:23 32
14:30 354 3:9 339, 340 24:33 165
14:36 355 5:4 340 24:40 340
14:42 355 5:22 339 24:43 340
14:43–47 166 6:18 339, 340 26:1–3 398
14:44–47 25, 105, 151, 7:11 339 28:2–5 302
213, 384 7:25–26 311 28:12–16 306
14:44–45 324, 354 7:25 301, 335 29:9–12 302
14:44 353–55 7:26 335 38:34–39:3 165
14:45–46 135, 138, 8:8 339, 340 38:34–39 164
225, 263, 9:1 339, 340 39:1–3 132, 273
272, 371 9:16 340 39:6 165
14:45 226, 230, 11:15 301 39:27–32 399
355 11:23 301 40:10–44:17 399
14:46–47 355, 397 12–15 262 44–50 164, 167
14:46 356 12:5–7 312 44–49 134, 148,
15–16 352 12:10 312 160
12:12 312 44:1–50:24 164
Tobit 13:1–9 335 44:3 273, 283
2:2–3 339 14:22–31 311 44:16–50:21 132
3:17 339 15:1–5 262, 301 44:19 340
4:3 339 15:1 339 46:1–6 166
4:6–11 302 15:3 339, 340 46:13–47:11 166
4:6 339, 340 15:8 339 47:12–49:3 166
INDEX OF REFERENCES 515

48:10 166, 167 27:6 339 12:17 339

48:20–25 166 28:18 339 14:41 176, 179,
48:23–25 132 29:10 339 296, 381
49:1 132 31:15 339
49:6–7 166 33:1 339 2 Maccabees
49:8–10 132, 166 35:22 339 1:1 269
49:8 166 37:2 339 1:18 271
49:9–10 157, 164, 40:15 339 2:13–15 175, 268,
389 44:19 339 270–73, 366,
49:10 166 48:10 339 423
49:11–12 132 48:24 339 2:13 278, 282
49:13 132, 271, 50:20 339 2:15 272
273, 283 50:22 339 2:16–18 175
50:25–26 340 50:25 339 3:26 339
50:27 165 51:1 339 7 328
51:1 308 51:23 339 7:9 334
51:12 252 7:11 334
51:13–30 278 Susanna 7:14 334
51:13–19 399 46 339 7:23 334
51:23 308 7:29 334
51:26 308 1 Maccabees 7:36 334
51:30 399 1:1–4 191 8:17 339
1:20–62 175 8:23 62
Baruch 1:54–57 270 10:3 339
3:29 340 1:54 339 10:18 335
4:1 339 1:56–57 32, 272, 423 14:6 260
4:37 339 1:56 175 15:9 158, 272
2:21 339 15:36 397
Prayer of Azariah 2:23–41 423
15 296 2:28 339 P
2:29–38 260 1 Enoch
Letter of Jeremiah 2:42 260 1:9 20, 295, 301,
6:24 339 3:6 339 306, 307,
6:28 339 3:60 339 311, 360,
7:14 339 4 175 363, 364
7:32–35 339 4:45–46 176, 179, 5:7 305, 340
9:8 339 381 6–16 362
10:14 339 5:58 374 6–8 363
11:19 339 4:59 335, 339, 6 307, 362
13:17 339 340 6:1–19:1 364
14:10 339 5:15 339 6:1 363
20:30 339 7:12–13 259 6:2 363
23:1 339 7:12 260 6:6 362
23:4 339 9:27 176, 179, 7 362
24:19 339 381 7:1 362–64
24:21 339 9:39 339, 340 7:2 363
24:40 339 10:7 340 8 362
24:43 339 10:29 339 8:1 110, 307,
25:7–12 339 12:9 62 362, 363
516 INDEX OF REFERENCES

1 Enoch 22:9 305, 340, 72–82 244

8:2–3 362 363 72:1 244
8:2 363 24:3–4 363 81:1–2 365
8:3 307, 362, 37:4 365 89:56–74 361
363 38:2 303, 340 89:56 312
8:9 362 39:2 365 90:19 364
10:1–11:2 365 39:4 340 90:22 365
10:1 363 45:3–6 365 91:12–17 246
10:2 362 46:3–5 303 91:12 364
10:4 363 48:1–10 362 91:13 361
10:8 362 48:2–10 362 93 246
10:12 363 48:2–4 305 93:1 365
10:13–14 362 48:2 303 94:7–8 306
10:17 364 48:7 303 94:8 305, 340
12:4–6 362 48:9 364 96:5 306
12:6 362 48:10 303 96:8 306
12:10 362 49 305 97:7–8 306
12:13 362 51:1 302 97:8–10 305, 340
13:2 363 51:2 340 97:8–9 302
13:5 362 51:3–5 303 99:6–7 307, 362
14:1 365 51:4 302 99:7 362
14:3–7 362 52:4 303 103:2 365
14:5–7 364 53:3 361 103:4 305, 340
14:5 307, 362, 54:6 364 105:1–2 365
363 55:1–2 365 106:10 361
14:8–17 363 60:15–21 362 106:19–107 361
14:24 365 61 307 106:19 365
15 362 61:2–5 303 106:2 361
15:1–16:3 365 61:8 304, 340 107:1 365
15:3 362 61:9–11 361 108:7–9 361
15:6–7 302, 303 62–63 305
15:6 363 62 307 2 Baruch
15:8–12 362 62:1 365 18:9 340
15:8–11 364 62:2–5 304 39:7 340
15:8 307, 362 62:2 340 85:3 179
15:9 307, 362 62:14–15 304
15:10 362 63:10 340 4 Maccabees
16 362 63:12 365 3:13–19 339
16:1 340, 362, 65:9–10 304 7:19 339
364 66:1–2 304 7:21 95
16:3 362 67:1 365 13:14 339
18:3 362 69:4 364 13:15 339
19:1 307, 362–64 69:27–29 305 13:17 339
19:3 362 69:27 340 16:25 339
21:1 362, 363 70–71 305 17:20 340
22 364 72:6–8 364 18:10 285, 384
22:3 362 72:31 364 18:11–19 285
22:9–10 303 72:32 364 18:15 387
80:2 364
INDEX OF REFERENCES 517

Apocalypse of Moses 308–311 207 17:26 340

9:3 311 308–310 204 17:29 340
14:2 311 309–310 203 17:30 340
17:1 311 309 204 17:32 340
19:3 311 310–11 206 18:6 340
31 311 310 203, 204 18:10 340
36:3 311 311 203, 248, 18:12–14 362
37:5 311 436
313 56, 204 Testament of Joseph
Ascension of Isaiah 314 205 17:8 302
11:34 311 316 203, 204
317 204 Testament of Naphtali
Jubilees 2:3 95
2:23–24 216, 226, Life of Adam and Eve
342, 356 9:1 311 Testament of Simeon
6:29–35 244 13–14 311 3:2–5 306
6:29–31 244 28:2 311 4:4 306
23:1 245 4:7–8 306
Lives of the Prophets
Letter of Aristeas 15:6 291 D S S
1 203 23 291 1QHa
2 95 20.11–12 181
3 56, 203, 204 Martyrdom of Isaiah 20.11–12 350
5 56, 203, 204 3:13–4:22 141
9–10 89 1QIsa
10 56, 204 Odes col. 33.7 438
15 56 11:12 362
30–31 203, 205, 11:16 362 1QS
206 11:18 362 3.6–8 181
30 56, 203 12 448 5.1–3 236
31 56 16:13 362 5.2 252
38 56 30 362 5.7–10 236
45 203 36:1–3 362 5.9 252
51 56 37:2 362 9.10–11 181, 350
121 203 38:17 362
122 56, 204 41:16 362 1QSa
127 56 I, 6–7 246
131 56 Psalms of Solomon
139–155 204 1:5 340 4Q174
139 56 4:2–3 302 1–3.ii.3 382
142 203 5:3 340 2.3 162, 383
144 56, 204 5:9 340 2.4 283
155 61, 202, 204 7:1 340
168 61, 204 7:6 340 4Q379
176–77 56 14 362 22 7–15 245
176 56, 203, 204 15 362
179 56, 204 16:5 340 4Q410
277 56 17:21 340 1 7–9 181
307 56 17:25 340
518 INDEX OF REFERENCES

4Q417 P On the Life of Moses

I, I 16 246 On the Life of Abraham 1.277 182
61 62 2.25–44 56
4QMMT 2.26–44 60
103 171 On the Cherubim 2.27–44 203
104 171 27 182 2.30–31 203
107 171 2.31–33 203
109–114 173 On the Preliminary Studies 2.32–40 202
109–113 173 34 62 2.37–40 207
109–111 173 90 62 2.37 203, 204
111 171 2.187 184
86–103 170 On the Decalogue 2.191 182
91 171 8 62
95 171 37 62 J
B 21–22 253 Jewish Antiquities
Allegorical Interpretation 1–11 345
4QTest 2.3 93, 214 3.1.7 270
21–23 245 3.233 95 5.1.17 270
7.305 346
11Q5 Hypothetica 8.44 346
XVIII, 3–6 305, 340 11 235 10.4.2 270
10.35 346, 350
11QPsa On the Migration of 10.49 95
27.2–11 162, 383 Abraham 10.78 346
27.2–4 36 35 182 10.245–46 161, 382
27 171 10.249 161, 382
27 lines 6–10 171 That Every Good Person 10.266–67 283
27.10–11 368 Is Free 10.266 161, 382
27 line 11 171 75–87 235 10.267 161, 346,
382
11QPs154 On the Special Laws 11.183–85 271
18.3–6 308 1.214 62 11.184–296 397
2.104 62 11.184 346
11QTa 2.134 62 12.12–118 204
LXIV 297 3.1.1–6 182 12.265 176
3.1.1 182 12.308 374
11QTS 4.61 211 13.171–73 258, 259
54.8–18 181 13.171 252
60.21–61.5 181 On the Contemplative Life 13.173 252
3.25–29 273 13.288–98 259
CD 3.25 274, 404 13.293 252
II, 17–19 246 3.28–29 274 13.296–98 252
X, 6 246 13.297 255, 257
XIII, 6–8 246 On the Virtues 13.399–423 259
XVI, 2–4 245 217–19 182 17.41–45 259
17.41 259
Damascus Document 18.4 260
4.1–5 252 18.11–13 259
INDEX OF REFERENCES 519

18.11 252 Jewish War Hagigah

18.12–22 258 1.110–14 259 1:8 402
18.15–16 259 1.110 259
18.16–17 252, 254, 2.119–66 258 Kelim
255, 257 2.119–61 235 15:6 43, 63, 378
18.18–22 235 2.119 252
18.23 260 2.162–66 259 Mo’ed Qatan
20.199 252 2.162 259 3:4 63
20.261 63 2.164–65 252
20.97–98 182 2.164–166 252 Megillah
3.311–13 184 2.165 257 1:8 63
8.408 182 3.351–53 182 4:1 187, 397
3.352 343
Against Apion 3.399–408 182 Nedarim
1.6–46 231 3.400–402 182 4:3 66
1.9–46 91 4 290
1.10–13 212 4.162–313 260 Parah
1.12–13 197 4.334–35 290 10:3 63
1.13 209 4.335–43 290
1.19 197 4.335–343 291 Rosh HaShanah
1.21 212 4.343 290 4:6 187
1.37–46 196 6.286 182, 184
1.37–43 25, 55, 151, 6.300–309 182, 184 Shabbat
197, 261, 7.148–50 186 16:1 63, 279, 406
263, 281, 7.150 424
341, 344, 7.161–62 424 Sanhedrin
345, 349, 10:1 111, 166,
380, 384 M 256, 396, 40
1.37–41 296 Avot
1.38–43 261 1:1 410 Sotah
1.38 353 3:14 429 9:15 409
1.39–40 345 5:6 46
1.39 216, 224 5:21 66 Ta’anit
1.40–41 177, 182 4:2, 68a 66
1.40 158, 292 Baba Batra 4:8 470
1.41 180 1:6 63
1.42 55 Yadayim
1.183–204 154 Bava Metzi’a 2:12–13 43
2.174 95 3:1 402 3:2–5 43
3:2 63
Life Eduyyot 3:5 42, 43, 63,
10–12 258, 259 5:3 43, 225, 397 139, 166,
10–11 252 225, 397,
190–96 259 Eruvin 480
191 259 10:3 63 4:6 43, 63, 231,
418–19 270, 343 256
419 186 Gittin 5:14 470
4:6 63
520 INDEX OF REFERENCES

B T Gittin Shabbat
Avot 1:5 265 13b 139, 166,
4:4 169 24:27 402 225, 376,
57a–58a 409 408
Baba Batra 14a 111
12a 180 Hagigah 14a–b 43
13b 282 13a 139, 166, 28a 397
14a 183, 294, 225, 398, 30a–b 376
390–92, 398 408 30a 139
14a–15b 226, 272 30b 166, 225,
14b–15a 393 Ketubbot 397
14b–15a 223, 294, 106a 316, 423 63a 402
322, 351, 88 471
354 Megillah 93b 382
14b 25, 45, 55, 3a 161, 283, 100a 139, 166,
58, 110, 148, 413 225, 376,
187, 230, 7a 41, 43, 111, 397
261, 281, 139, 166, 100b 397
284, 286, 225, 376, 101a 397
294, 324, 397 115a 222
349, 354, 8b–9a 222
359, 368, 9a 41 Sanhedrin
380, 382, 15a 162 11a 180, 183
387, 390–92, 18b 414 65b 183
448, 449, 90b 256, 282
483, 491 Megillah 91b 64
15a 218, 294, 3a 94a 161, 283
390–92, 491 7a 100a 42, 43, 111,
15b 369 139, 225
98b 169 Menahot
45a 139, 166, Sotah
Bava Metzi’a 225, 408 11a–b 179
112a 169 48a 162, 180
Mo’ed Qatan 48b 162, 183
Bava Qamma 5a 64
92b 135, 166, Sukkah
169, 38 Niddah 20a 351
4:1 264 49b 471
Bekhorot
7:1 265 Pesahim Ta’anit
68a 256 4a 471
Berakhot 113b 169 8a 223, 225,
8a 413 354
48a 397, 400 Rosh HaShanah
22b 265 Yebamot
Eruvim 31a–b 374 11b 402, 403
13a 440 24a 402, 403
63b 398
INDEX OF REFERENCES 521

Yoma Megillah 11:9 397

9b 180, 183 2:1a 225, 397 12:11–12 223
21b 180, 183 12:11 225
29a 41, 43, 111 Parah 12:12 225
75a 471 3:7 256
Exodus Rabbah
J T Rosh HaShanah 21:7 169
Berakhot 2:12G 187 47:1 65
11b 400
Shabbat Genesis Rabbah
Hagigah 13:1:A–B 62 8:2b 398
72b 282 13:5 406 9:5 440
77c 398 20:2 440
Sanhedrin 36:8 222, 414
Megillah 4:7 424 73:12 169
1:8 41 12:10 397 91:3 400
1:11 413 94:9 440
2:2a 382 Sotah
1:71–72 41 9:8 471 Lamentations Rabbah
73d–74a 282 13:2–4 183 2:4 409
13:2–3 183
Nazir 13:3 183 Leviticus Rabbah
54b 400 2:2 402
Yadayim 16:4 282
Sanhedrin 2:13 406 23 397
2:6 424 2:14 43, 376, 397
10:1, 28a 231 2:19–20 378 Song of Songs Rabbah
28a 166 2:19 42, 43 1:10 §1 65
3 135, 166, 4:11 223
Sheqalim 169
6:1 470 Mekilta
M 14 41
Sotah Avot of Rabbi Nathan
9:13, 24b 183 1 397 Numbers Rabbah
18a 43 1:3 135 13:16 223
14:4 223
Ta’anit Bemidbar Rabbah 14:18 223
1:64a 441 13:16 225 18:21 223
4:68d–69b 409 14:4 225
4:69a:56 291 14:18 225 Seder Olam Rabbah
18:21 225 30 179
T
Hagigah Deuteronomy Rabbah Sifra Deuteronomy
3:35 253 1:1 222 34 403

Kelim Ecclesiastes Rabbah Sifre

5:8 43, 280 1:3 397 306 256
7:11 400
522 INDEX OF REFERENCES

Sir Ha-Shiram 60.1 312 Gospel of Thomas

4:11 225 63.2 69 52 84, 186, 323,
324
Soferim Massekhet 2 Clement
1 222 11.2–4 60, 312 N T
11.7 312 A
Soperim 13.2 312 P
1:8 41 Acta SS. Perpet. et Felic
2:4 280 Barnabas 7 363
3 441 4.3 20, 361 8 363
6:4 423 4.4 161, 382 12 363
12.1 312
Tanhuma, Hukkath 16.5 20, 312 Apostolic Constitutions
1 169, 400 2.22.12–14 314
Didache
Tanhuma Ki Tissa 1.6 312 Clementine Homilies
60 65 5.2 312 8.12 364
10.3 312
Tanhuma, Mikketz Gospel of Nicodemus
10 169 Shepherd of Hermas 25 363
Vision
Tanhuma, Va-Yishlah 2–4 314 Protevangelium of James
8 169 2.3 60 23.1–3 289, 291
7.4 136
T 2.4.2 84 C A
Lamentations 2.4.3 84 C W
2:20 291 Abercius
Ignatius Vita Abercii
O R W To the Magnesians 76 70
Hilkhot Nedarim 2.1 84
12:1 404 3.1 84 Aeschines
6.1 84 Against Ctesiphon
Sepher Torah 7.1 84 88 87
2:3–4 280 199–200 83
To the Philadelphians
A F 7.1–2 70 Aeschlyus
1 Clement Eumenides
3.4 312 Polycarp 1014–15 215
7.2 95 To the Philippians
7.5 312 6.3 332 Anatolius
23.3–4 60 10.2 312 Disputations
27.5 312 2.17 364
43.1 63 Martyrdom of Polycarp
45.2 62 22.3 15 Aratus
47.3 69 Pheanomena
53.1 62 N H C 5 215, 307
55.4–6 312 Apocalypse of Peter
57.3 319 2–8 361
INDEX OF REFERENCES 523

Aristotle Stromata Panarion

Politics 1.22.148 207 1.1.6–8 493
3.8.2 1284a 14–15 1.149.3 207 1.1.8.6 322
215 3.9 362 8.6.1 322
6.15.125 96
Athanasius 15.5.85 33 Euripides
Epistulae festales Bacchae
39.3–4 321 Commodian 794–95 215
39.4 492 Instructiones
1.3 363 Hecuba
Athenian Politics 602 87
4 212 Cyprian
De habitu virginum Eusebius
Augustine 14 363 Historia ecclesiastica
City of God 3.9.5 33
15.14 220 Cyril of Jerusalem 3.24.2 96
Catechesis 3.25.1–7 96
Contra adversarium legis et 4.35 321, 492 3.25.1 33
prophetarum 3.25.3 96
2.4.14 186 Demosthenes 3.25.6 96
18.18 87 3.25.7 21
De doctrina christiana 18.296 87 4.6.1–4 410
2.13 328, 494 4.6.3 410
2.8.26–29 329 Diogenes Laertius 4.15.47 15
2.16 455 Lives 4.20.3 318
26–27 319 10.27 83 4.22.9 318, 319
27 319 10.30 83 4.26.12–13 318, 319
Letter 10.31 83 4.26.12 96
71 208 4.26.13–14 188, 310,
Epictetus 317
Bishop Amphilochius of Dissertationes 4.26.14 33, 492
Iconium 1.28.28 87 5.8.11–15 207
Iambi ad Seleucum 2.11.13 83 5.8.11–14 208
2.51–88 493 2.11.20 83 5.28.13 96
2.23.21 83 6.12.3–6 68
Cicero 6.13.3 95
Epistulae ad Atticum Epimenides 6.16.1–4 220
16.7.3 209 Ion 8 6.25 314
215 6.25.1–2 320, 357
De oratore 6.25.1 96, 217
3.34.137 210 Epiphanius 6.25.2 491
Weights and Measures 6.25.3 96
Clement of Alexandria 3–5 359 7.32.19 364
Eclogae prophetarum 4 493
2.1 362 22–23 152, 322, Praeparatio evangelica
2.53 362 359, 491 8.1.8 208
3.456 362 8.2.1 208
3.474 362
524 INDEX OF REFERENCES

Flavius Cassiodorus 5.5.1 362 3.15 364

De inst. Div. litt. 5.28.2 362 4.27 364
14 495 5.18 364
Isidore of Seville 7.7 364
Gregory of Nazianzus De ecclesiasticus officiis 7.19 364
Carmen 1.11 495 7.24 364
2.7 493 7.26 364
1.12.5 493 Etymologies
6.1.6 495 Menander
Heraclitus 6.2.1–36 495 Thais
Allegoriae 6.3.3–4 211 Frag. 218 215
1.2 62
Jerome Minucius Felix
Hilary of Poitiers Commentary on Matthew Octavius
Prologue in the Book of 22.31–32 256 26 362
Psalms 23.35 290
15 328, 342, Origen
492 Epistles Against Celsus
53.8 284, 288, 1.49 256
Hippolytus 322, 385,
De Christo et Antochristo 493 Commentarii in evangelium
43–47 362 Joannis
Lives of Illustrious Men 2.34.199–201 185
Refutation of All Heresies 4 365 5.4 33
7.22.4 6 10.28 33
John of Damascus
7.25.25.3 6 De Fide Orthodoxa Commentarium in
7.26.7 6 4.7 318 evangelium Matthaei
10.18 289
Homer Justin
Iliad 1 Apology Commentarium series in
2 195 1.31 207 evangelium Matthaei
6 196 2.5 362 25 288, 289
7 196 64–67 59
24 196 Contra Celsum
Dialogue with Trypho 5.52 363
Irenaeus 11.7–12 189 5.54–55 363
Adversus haereses 16.2 116
1.9.4 95 27.2–4 116 De Principiis
3.21.2 207 46.5 116 1.3 363
3.30 316 67 369 1.3.3 363
1.15.6 362 72.1 312 2.1.5 314
1.2.1 362 78 207 4.4.8 363
1.8.17 362 120.5 312 4.11 33
4.16.2 362 4.35 363
4.28.1–2 32 Lactantius
4.36.4 362 Divinarum institutionum Letter to Africanus
4.58.4 362 libri VII 8 320
5.2 256 2.14 364 13 314, 320
INDEX OF REFERENCES 525

14 288 1.162 93
De praescriptione
Homily Strabo haereticorum
18 314 Geography 36 332
6.2.8 215
In Johannem 13.1.54 212 Adversus Praxean
6.42 363 15 33
Suetonius
In Numeros homilia Grammaticus Victorinus
28.2 363 8 85 Commentary on Apocalypse
15 86 4.3 84
Plutarch 22 86 4.7–10 84
Solon
17 Vespasian Zosimus of Panopolis
212 4.5 343 Chronography
1, 1, 42 363
Ps.-Aristotle Tacitus
Rhetoric to Alexander Histories H B C
1420a 88 5.13 343 Aleppo Codex
pl. 21 421
Ps.-Tertullian Tatian
Carmen Adv. Marc Oratio adversus Graecos Leningrad Codex
4.198–210 224 18.20 362 pl. 24 421, 432

Quintilian Tertullian Pap. Nash

Orator’s Education Against Hermogenes pl. 6 420
10.1.24–26 88 22 316
10.2.1–3 87 Q
Apology Surah
Rufinus 18.5–9 208 57.22 40
Commentarius in symbolum 19.5–9 208
apostolorum 22 307, 362
35 329, 494
De Idolatria
Ecclesiastical History 4 307, 362
1.9 457 9 307, 362
7 307, 362
On the Creed 15 307, 362
38 329
De anima
Seneca 50 307, 362
Epistles
89.11–12 83 De cultu feminarum
1.3 365
Sextus Empiricus 1.3.1 307, 362
Pros Logikous 2.10 307
2.3 87
De virginibus velandis
Pyrrhoniae hypotyposes 7 362
 INDEX OF AUTHORS
(for Volume 1)

Abegg, M. G. 173, 234, 237–40, 245, 297 Beyer, H. W. 78, 83, 96

Achtemeier, P. J. 78 Bialik, H. N. 65, 441
Adler, W. 137, 377 Bishop, S. 127
Aland, K. 26, 320, 335 Blenkinsopp, J. 158, 159, 180
Albertz, R. 167, 447 Bloch, J. 405
Alexander, P. H. 352, 411 Blomberg, C. L. 27
Alexander, P. S. 58 Boccaccini, G. 361
Allert, C. D. 107 Bokedal, T. 74, 79
Allison, D. C., Jr. 289, 307, 308 Boring, M. E. 195
Anderson, G. A. 161 Bowley, J. E. 181, 182
Anderson, G. W. 136, 283, 382 Brandt, P. 380
Anderson, H. 127, 255, 384 Brenton, L. C. L. 221
Anderson, P. N. 338 Brooke, G. J. 182, 191, 234, 240, 297, 298,
Anderson, R. T. 265, 266 435, 437
Arnold, C. E. 22, 195 Broshi, M. 251
Aslanov, C. 194 Broyde, M. J. 110
Audet, J. P. 359 Bruce, F. F. 110, 127, 149, 243, 254, 256,
Aune, D. E. 84, 182–84, 223, 234, 236, 376 268, 277, 287, 291, 320, 322, 323, 329,
Avery-Peck, A. J. 11 333, 334, 352, 358, 387, 489
Ayuch, D. A. 460 Brueggemann, W. 150
Baker, H. A., Jr. 94 Burns, G. L. 112
Bush, F. W. 268
Bar-Ilan, M. 46
Barnstone, W. 206 Campbell, J. G. 242
Barr, J. 47, 51, 66, 73, 101, 125, 128, 163, Campenhausen, H. von 73, 330
188, 331, 348 Caplo, S. 460
Barrett, L. C. 466 Carr, D. M. 13, 24, 31, 45, 61, 66, 122, 125–
Barton, J. 81, 161, 166, 185, 188, 271, 275, 27, 150, 176–78, 197, 452, 470, 471
279, 284, 285, 294, 295, 311, 331, 355, Carson, D. A. 306
416, 463, 464 Chadwick, O. 335
Bauckham, R. 136, 138, 144 Chapman, S. B. 23, 48, 64, 77, 101–103,
Beale, G. K. 306 124, 126, 131, 150, 156, 256, 258, 273,
Beckwith, R. T. 20, 149, 223, 224, 243, 255, 459, 460, 477
277, 280, 286, 287, 299, 300, 323, 324, Charles, R. H. 202, 357, 361
342, 357, 360, 361, 366, 367, 370, 417, Charlesworth, J. H. 11, 136, 138, 144, 181,
446 214, 234, 266, 307, 338, 362
Berger, K. 195 Chazon, E. G. 435
Bernstein, M. J. 171 Childs, B. S. 47, 364, 369, 406, 465
INDEX OF AUTHORS 527

Chilton, B. 11 Ewert, D. 268

Clements, R. A. 435 Exum, J. C. 190, 214
Clines, D. J. A. 190, 214
Cohen, S. J. D. 376 Falk, D. K. 435–37
Collins, A. Y. 255 Farley, E. 46
Collins, J. J. 50, 124, 133, 150, 162, 167, Feldman, L. H. 347
234, 242, 272, 282, 283, 377, 383, 388 Ferguson, E. 409, 410
Collins, N. L. 200, 205 Ferna’ndez Marcos, N. 202, 219, 220, 444
Collins, R. F. 71 Fiedler, L. A. 94
Colpe, C. 195 Finkelberg, M. 82, 193, 194
Coogan, M. D. 122–24, 126, 127, 265, 498 Finsterbusch, K. 3
Cook, J. 222, 239 Fitzmyer, J. 234, 236, 238
Cook, L. S. 179, 183 Flint, P. 162, 172, 173, 175, 234, 238, 240,
Coomber, M. J. 124 242, 245, 297, 383
Cowley, R. W. 457 Folkert, K. W. 107
Crawford, S. W. 239, 240, 435 France, R. T. 308
Cross, F. M. 55, 80, 234, 243, 254, 263, 264, Freedman, D. N. 159, 292, 421, 480–82
297, 348, 350, 351, 394, 480 Friedman, S. 110
Funk, R. W. 78, 336
Danby, H. 351
Darshan, G. 194, 215 Gallagher, E. L. 28, 96, 217, 286–88, 290,
Daube, D. 194 318, 320, 490
David, N. 243, 251 García Martínez, F. 171, 181, 236, 238, 239
Davies, P. R. 11, 46, 90, 97, 125, 134, 154, Garton, R. E. 167
236, 239, 244, 278, 361, 367 Georgi, D. 94
Davies, W. D. 289 Gerhardsson, B. 70
Davila, J. R. 129, 136, 138, 144 Gerstenberger, E. S. 124
deSilva, D. A. 70, 141, 298, 302, 306, 371 Gilbert, M. 323, 399
De Troyer, K. 191, 251, 435 Goshen-Gottstein, M. H. 432, 433
Deines, R. 260 Grabbe, L. L. 153
Delamarter, S. 337 Graham, W. A. 39, 40, 83
Dimant, D. 435, 437 Grant, R. M. 6, 312, 314, 317, 473
Dombrowski, B. W. W. 170 Green, R. P. H. 329
Dulles, A. 475 Green, W. S. 262, 263, 400, 401, 404
Dunn, J. D. G. 28, 30, 73, 105, 116 Greenspoon, L. 239
Dunne, J. A. 219, 397 Greer, R. A. 330, 331
Gross, A. 237
Edrei, A. 12, 447, 450, 451 Guillory, J. 30, 92, 94
Ehrman, B. D. 10, 11, 17, 77, 319, 434 Gundry, R. H. 287
Eichhorn, J. G. 286
Eisenman, R. 170 Haar Romeny, B. ter 434
Elledge, C. D. 234, 237 Haelst, J. van 142
Elliott, J. K. 135, 289, 363, 447 Hahneman, G. M. 489
Ellis, E. E. 68, 149, 153, 174, 184, 275, 277, Halivni, D. W. 401, 403
314, 417 Hallberg, R. von 94
Enns, P. 291 Hancock, R. S. 378
Evans, C. A. 14, 22, 141, 172, 195, 234, 236, Hanhart, R. 452
237, 255, 285, 293, 297, 298, 307, 308, Hanson, J. S. 261
376, 411, 413 Harrington, D. J. 170, 310
528 INDEX OF AUTHORS

Harrison, C. 268 LaSor, W. S. 268

Helyer, L. R. 176 Lampe, G. W. H. 96
Hendel, R. 445 Lange, A. 3, 39, 243, 245, 246, 251
Hengel, M. 82, 84, 164, 190, 202, 208, 221, Law, T. M. 56, 196, 319
224, 276, 342 Lawlor, H. J. 361
Hennecke, E. 96 Lawson, R. P. 471
Higgins, A. J. B. 338 Layton, B. 46, 47
Hofius, O. 21 Leaney, A. R. C. 5, 6, 73, 201, 411
Holladay, C. 489 Lee, K.-J. 155
Holmes, M. W. 15, 17, 98 Leiman, S. Z. 4, 43, 109, 149, 162, 169, 183,
Hoover, R. W. 336 187, 225, 268, 270, 271, 276, 277, 281,
Horsley, R. A. 261 282, 310, 322, 345–48, 358, 366, 375,
Horst, P. W. van der 92 400, 404, 406, 415, 446, 467
Houston, G. W. 15 Lesky, A. A. 90, 215
Hovhanessian, V. S. 8, 456 Leuchter, M. 167
Hubbard, D. A. 268 Levison, J. R. 183
Hubbard, R. L. 27 Levy, B. B. 316, 423, 424, 429, 438
Hull, R. F., Jr. 11 Lewis, J. P. 41, 42, 330, 374, 375, 397
Hunt, A. W. 236 Lieberman, S. 194
Hurtado, L. W. 419 Lightfoot, J. 288, 289
Hutchinson, R. J. 315 Lightstone, J. N. 134, 149, 152, 163, 401,
418, 475
Jacobs, M. R. 178 Lim, T. H. 43, 52, 55, 56, 58, 131, 133, 150,
James, M. R. 142, 144 153, 155, 156, 172, 174, 176, 188, 204,
Jarick, J. 191 223, 234, 242, 250, 262, 271, 287, 289,
Jeffery, A. 180, 474 301, 318, 323, 354, 389, 391
Jeremias, J. 21 Lohse, E. 5
Jobes, K. H. 202 Luijendijk, A. 145
Johnson, L. T. 395 Luz, U. 289
Jones, B. A. 158, 166, 167, 369, 447
Jonge, H. J. de 142 MacDonald, D. R. 195
Magness, J. 233
Kahle, P. E. 167, 206, 207 Mason, S. 344, 346–50
Kalin, E. R. 319, 320 McDonald, L. M. 21, 28, 78, 103, 129, 130,
Käsemann, E. 26 190, 195, 197, 214, 274, 275, 296, 305,
Kee, H. C. 137 318, 325, 338, 361, 364, 409, 419, 456
Keener, C. S. 22 McLay, R. T. 202
Kelsey, D. H. 46 Mendels, D. 12, 447, 450, 451
Kenyon, F. G. 430 Metzger, B. M. 8, 18, 21, 27, 78, 95, 96,
Klein, W. W. 27 137, 313, 352, 453, 454, 457, 458, 489
Koester, H. 5, 201, 409 Meyer, R. 179, 350
Kooij, A. van der 116, 287 Milik, J. T. 161, 238
Kraemer, D. 109, 400, 402, 403 Montague Rhodes, J. 325, 327
Kraft, R. 10 Moore, C. A. 219
Kratz, R. G. 435, 437 Moore, C. F. 85
Krodel, G. 10 Moore, G. F. 289, 405
Kruger, M. J. 69, 70, 73, 74, 107 Morgan, D. F. 285, 381
Kugel, J. L. 330, 331 Müller, R. 434
Kümmel, W. G. 47, 281 Müssner, F. 338
INDEX OF AUTHORS 529

Nagy, G. 199, 210, 217, 218 Rüger, H. P. 448

Neusner, J. 11, 20, 99, 248, 262, 263, 374, Rutgers, L. V. 328
376, 400, 401, 404, 411, 414, 424, 439
Newman, J. H. 127 Saldarini, A. J. 253, 254, 261
Nicholson, E. W. 123 Salvesen, A. 196
Nickelsburg, G. 362 Sanders, E. P. 233, 234
Niehoff, M. R. 194, 195 Sanders, J. A. 4, 24, 29, 37, 38, 54, 59, 81,
Nigosian, S. A. 142 92, 99, 100, 104, 105, 111–15, 117, 123,
Nissinen, M. 164, 181 126, 154, 173, 250, 251, 264, 278, 282,
Nogalski, J. D. 167, 447 294, 295, 336, 376, 377, 383, 386, 395,
396, 469, 475
Oepke, A. 135, 136 Sandmel, S. 184, 474
Ofer, J. 433 Sarna, N. M. 94, 135, 146, 147, 163, 166,
Oikonomos, E. 397, 398 344
Satlow, M. L. 57, 145, 178, 346, 347, 354,
Page, H. R. Jr. 124 464
Pakkala, J. 155, 434 Sawyer, J. F. A. 93, 213
Panayotov, A. 136, 138, 144 Scanlin, H. P. 440
Parmenter, D. M. 39 Schaff, P. 334
Patte, C. M. 234 Schiffman, L. 171, 238, 396
Paz, Y. 194 Schmidt, D. D. 7
Peels, H. G. L. 286 Schnabel, E. J. 17, 259
Pentiuc, E. J. 8 Schneemelcher, W. 96
Perrin, N. 84 Schniedewind, W. M. 44–46, 64, 270
Person, R. F., Jr. 178 Schrenk, G. 47, 60
Pfann, S. A. 239 Schürer, E. 361, 442, 450
Pfeiffer, R. H. 86, 89, 90, 158, 198, 215, 227 Schwartz, B. J. 34
Pietersma, A. 452 Schwartz, D. R. 174
Pirie, P. W. 90, 215 Segal, M. H. 398, 423, 424
Plaks, A. 230 Seitz, C. 379, 380
Plisch, U. 185, 186, 324 Seow, C. L. 164
Porter, S. E. 215, 229 Shanks, H. 66
Porton, G. G. 256 Sheppard, G. T. 100
Powrey, E. B. 336 Shires, H. M. 221, 331, 332
Prinsloo, W. S. 51 Shutt, R. J. H. 202, 203
Purvis, J. D. 266 Silva, M. 202
Silver, D. J. 53, 248, 316, 347, 394, 395,
Qimron, E. 170 398, 437, 463, 467
Smith, J. Z. 107
Rabin, C. 432, 433 Smith, M. 80
Rahlfs, A. 452 Snyder, H. G. 437
Rajak, T. 195, 204 Souter, A. 8
Ravnitzky, Y. H. 65, 441 Sperber, D. 413
Reed, S. A. 239 Stackert, J. 123
Regev, E. 253 Stanton, G. N. 238
Reuss, E. W. 228, 284, 314, 318, 368, 489 Steinberg, J. 101, 307, 378, 380, 389
Ritner, R. L. 164 Stemberger, G. 253
Roberts, C. H. 320 Stendahl, K. 75
Robinson, J. A. T. 338 Stendebach, F. J. 329, 335, 466
530 INDEX OF AUTHORS

Stern, D. 231 Veldhuis, J. 230

Stone, M. E. 354, 355 Veltri, G. 211–13, 452
Stone, T. J. 77, 101, 307, 378–80, 389, 391 Vermes, G. 136, 239
Stroker, W. D. 21 Von Wahlde, U. C. 338
Strugnell, J. 170
Stuhlmacher, P. 284, 307, 308, 310, 311, Waltke, B. K. 266
313, 329, 340 Wasserstein, A. 12
Sundberg, A. C., Jr. 99, 152, 180, 201, 228, Wasserstein, D. J. 12
473, 474, 489 Wegner, P.D. 424, 425, 430
Suter, D. W. 137 Weitzman, M. P. 453
Swete, H. B. 223, 325, 448, 489, 494–96 Wellhausen, J. 123, 290
Wevers, J. W. 5, 201, 219
Talmon, S. 41, 249–51, 393, 432, 433, 445, Wildeboer, G. 162, 393, 489
446, 474 Williams, R. R. 330
Thackeray, H. St. J. 448 Wintermute, O. S. 356, 357
Theron, D. J. 33, 489 Wise, M. 170
Tigchelaar, E. J. C. 181, 236, 239 Witt, A. 215
Toit, J. du 122 Wöhrle, J. 167, 447
Toorn, K. van der 30, 116 Wright, B. G. 452
Tov, E. 17, 222, 238, 239, 246, 249, 266, Würthwein, E. 294, 420, 429–33
267, 420, 422, 432, 438, 440, 442–45 Wyrick, J. 45, 199, 210, 467, 472
Trebolle Barrera, J. 238, 268, 278, 279, 293
Tzoref, S. 251 Yadin, Y. 247, 435, 436
Yee, G. A. 124
Ulrich, E. 35, 77, 80, 81, 94, 106, 108, 164,
173, 234, 238, 240, 245–47, 266, 278, Zahn, M. M. 325
297, 434, 435, 468, 469 Zetzel, J. E. G. 90, 215
Zevit, Z. 345, 373
Van Elderen, B. 426, 452 Zuntz, G. 202
VanderKam, J. C. 11, 12, 20, 88, 90, 165,
175, 226, 234, 238, 239, 242, 244, 245,
357, 361, 365, 366, 377, 446