The History of the Bible Lecture Notes for Topic 1.0  The Origins of the Old Testament: Moses to Jesus

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Definition 1.1 Composition 1.2 Collection 1.3 Christian Use 1.4 Bibliography

The Old Testament, as we Christians call it, is a complex set of documents whose existence dates back at least two thousand years, and perhaps further. In the first Christian century, Jesus and the apostles would sometimes allude to various passages as an authoritative source of spiritual insight. For the apostles, scripture texts from the Old Testament that could be interpreted to anticipate the coming of the Messiah provided a foundation for their understanding of the mission of Jesus as God's anointed deliverer not just of the Jewish people but for all humanity.

Thus the Old Testament has played a vital role in Christian understanding. The period of its composition and canonization comes pretty much to a close by the end of the first Christian century. To be sure, the finalization of the list of authoritative documents (= the canon of the OT) remained somewhat fluid for about two more centuries both in Jewish and Christian circles. But by the Council of Jamnia toward the end of the first century Jewish attitudes were moving rapidly toward a unified list of documents that would be known as the Hebrew Bible.

This first study will attempt to address the beginning of the Christian Bible with a look at the Old Testament.

How do I learn more?

The answer to the question What is the Old Testament?has many facets.

1.1.1 Definition of "Old Testament." One of the first answers has to be another question: What Old Testament do you mean? Although not every Christian realizes this, several different versions of the Old Testament have existed since before the beginning of the Christian era. During the period when the documents of the Old Testament were coming together as an authoritative list of books of sacred writings, differing listings developed. These lists fall under the label of canon of scripture. The word "canon" simply means "an authoritative list of books accepted as Holy Scripture" (Merriam-Webster Dictionary, mng. 3.a.), and comes from the Greek word "kanon" (oJ kanwvn) which means "rule, standard of measurement."

Additionally, one needs to understand the different labels for the Old Testament. The term "Old Testament" suggests a "New Testament" and thus implies a Christian label for these documents. For Jews who have no "New Testament" a variety of labels will surface in modern Judaism through out the English speaking world. These include "Bible," "Hebrew Bible," or "Tanak." Underneath both Christian and Jewish labels for the Old Testament will be the issue of the authoritative Hebrew language text upon which modern translations are made. Most Jews and most Christians will agree here that the most authoritative Hebrew text is the Masoretic Hebrew text that was originally produced in the Middle Ages by Jewish rabbis. For a variety of reasons, most English translations of the Old Testament will also give consideration to both the Septuagint text and the Latin Vulgate text of the Old Testament when translations are being produced.

1.1.2 Different canons of the Old Testament. Particularly important is the role that the Greek translation of the Old Testament played in this process. Called the Septuagint, this translation of the Hebrew scriptures into Koine Greek in the early second century BCE contained several documents beyond what had usually been found in the Hebrew scripture texts. These documents typically are called the Apocrypha by Protestant Christians, or the Deutero-Canonical Scriptures by Roman Catholics. Since the Protestant Reformation in the 1500s, most Protestant Christian groups do not recognize these dozen or so documents as sacred scriptures. But through the influence of the Latin Vulgate translation of the Bible into Latin in the fourth Christian century, Roman Catholicism, and most eastern Orthodox Churches, accept some version of these documents as sacred scriptures, although normally at a lesser level of importance than the remainder of the Bible, thus the label "Deutero-Canonical" meaning secondarily authoritative. Thus the Old Testament will mean different things to different Christian groups. Judaism, however, has never accepted the Apocrypha as authoritative writings. Their tradition has moved very different directions from Christians regarding sacred writings.

For a very helpful chart listing of these differences, see the charts at Merriam-Webster Collegiate Dictionary online site, reproduced with modifications below.

The content of material in the Hebrew Bible is virtually identical to that in the Protestant Old Testament. To be sure, that material is grouped differently, and often materials divided out into separate books in the Protestant Old Testament is included in a single document in the Hebrew Bible, as the chart -- similar to the one above -- that comes from Tel Aviv University illustrates. The three-fold division of the Hebrew Bible into Law, Prophets and Writings (Hagiographa, meaning 'holy writings') regroups these documents into a different order as well. The Roman Catholic and Eastern Orthodox traditions will have different content largely through the addition of more documents. But in some isolated instances the content of overlapping books will be different. For instance, a longer version of the Book of Esther is found in the RC Old Testament.

In sum, the Hebrew Bible contains 24 books, the Protestant Old Testament contains 39 books, and the Roman Catholic Old Testament including the Deutero-Canonical Books contains 47 books. Different Eastern Orthodox churches will vary from the Roman Catholic number and is usually higher, because they define the listing of the Apocrypha to include a varying number of additional documents. Thus, the dominant Protestant Old Testament equals the Hebrew Bible in content but not in the dividing out of the contents into "books" and in the division of these books into divisions or groups. The Roman Catholic and Eastern Orthodox will come close to one another in content because of the inclusion of some version of the Apocrypha. All of the Old Testament versions -- Roman Catholic, Eastern Orthodox, and Protestant -- will divide out the contents into books, as well as the book names, on the basis of the Septuagint.

1.1.4 Why did these different versions of the Old Testament come about? A significant part of the answer to this question relates closely to topic 1.2 below. But parts of the answer go beyond that topic.

One must never loose sight of the fact that "authorship" as we tend to understand the term has little connection to the process of writing in the ancient world. The composing of official religious documents in that world was mostly a 'group' project, rather than the result of one individual's actions. Physically writing on a writing material was difficult and laborious, as the detailed article in the Jewish Encyclopedia describes. Then, there was the Mt.Everest challenge of making hand written copies of those documents that had been composed. Then copies would be made of the copies. This process would be repeated innumerable times so that each successive generation of copies moved further and further away from the time of the original text composition. For the Hebrew Bible, the role of the Jewish scribe in this process was central. Countless numbers of Jewish men devoted their entire adult life to the copying of the sacred texts. Not until the time of the Masoretes in the Middle Ages did a dominate Hebrew text tradition become the standardized Hebrew text for the Old Testament. It remains so for both Jewish and Christian Bible translators today.

Add to this challenge the deeply held ancient tradition that an orally spoken word was far more powerful than a 'lifeless' written word. This view permeated the ancient world. For the ancient Israelites the oral word had divine associations as well. Remember the creation narratives in Genesis chapters one and two? God "spoke" and things happened. Both the Hebrew and the Greek words for 'spirit' also can mean 'breath.' Thus when God spoke, His spirit became the life creating and life-giving breath that brought the world into being. Thus, the 'recording' of their religious traditions began with oral formation and oral transmission. Only gradually were pieces of that recorded in written form. By the era of the Babylonian captivity in the six century BCE, the written texts of the Hebrew Bible came together in a cohesive collection of documents. The shift of the center of worship from the temple in Jerusalem to the local synagogue played an important role in this.

By the second century BCE, the Jewish people had spread all over the Mediterranean world. This was largely due to the changes in Jewish society brought about by the Babylonian captivity. Because Greek, the Koine form established by Alexander the Great, had become the dominate, universal language of the eastern Mediterranean world, 'dispersed' Jews living outside Palestine gradually adopted Koine Greek as their main language. Increasingly, fewer and fewer spoke Hebrew, or even the modified form Aramaic that they had developed in Babylon. The demand then rose for the Hebrew Bible to be translated into Greek so that they could understand it when scripture texts were read during the weekly Friday evening synagogue sabbath services. Thus the Septuagint came into being around 175 BCE in AlexandriaEgypt. Its use gradually spread across the Dispersion of Jews in the Mediterranean world. The process of copying these manuscripts in different locations and over a period of several centuries gradually produced different manuscript patterns of texts in the LXX, as the Septuagint is commonly designated. Thus different wordings of the Greek text emerged over time. Several text families of the LXX can be traced today. But this pattern is also true with the Hebrew Bible at this period of history.

Because of a number of factors, the dominate texts of the LXX included the additional documents that we call the Apocrypha. Later this played an important role for the Christian Bible. By the fourth Christian century, Western Christianity and Eastern Christianity had begun going their separate directions. Out of Western Christianity came the Roman Catholic Church, while out of Eastern Christianity the various Orthodox Christian churches emerged. In the western Mediterranean Latin increasingly became the exclusive language of the vast majority of people. Christians in that part of the world demanded translations of both the Old and New Testaments into Latin, where they could understand the scripture. A huge number of Latin translations of parts of the Bible began appearing. But the Christian scholar Jerome was the one who had a commanding knowledge of Greek, Hebrew and Latin. By 405 AD he had completed a translation of the entire Bible into Latin. This translation came to be known as the Vulgate. The name 'Vulgate' comes from the "phrase versio vulgata, i.e., 'the translation made public." In regard to the Old Testament, Jerome made the decision to follow the LXX more than the Hebrew texts that he had access to. This meant the addition of the Apocyphra to the Old Testament. Thus, the Greek OT tradition superseded the Hebrew OT tradition at this point and the Apocrypha established itself as a part of the Christian OT. This translation gained widespread popularity in Western Christianity and became the "Bible" for Western Christianity until the Protestant Reformation in the 1500s. It remained the base text for translation into other languages for Roman Catholics until the Divino Afflante Spiritu declaration of Pope Pius XII in 1943. Even for the English Bible, the Vulgate was essentially the base scripture text for translation until the late 1800s with the beginning of the Modern Bible Translation Era.

With the Protestant Reformation in the 1500s came a renewed focus on the Bible as the sole authoritative basis for Christian belief and practice. One of the driving forces of the Reformation all across Europe was the translation of the Bible into the local language, e.g., German, French, English etc. The printing press was in existence by that time and made the copying process infinitely quickly and more accurate. Thus copies of these translations could be made quickly and then circulated widely.

With Protestants, one of the issues regarding the Bible was the matter of the "extra books" in the Latin Old Testament. Since Martin Luther was the first reformer to make a translation of the Bible (into German), his pattern became the model for other reformers in different language settings. Luther chose to reject the Apocrypha and thus did not include these documents in his German translation of the Old Testament. Several factors were the foundation for this decision. Included in them were the fact that these documents were never a part of the Hebrew Bible. Also, some of the critical doctrines of the Roman Catholic Church, such as Purgatory, were based solely on passages in the Apocryphal books of the Catholic Old Testament. Luther did not find that a sufficient basis for either the doctrines or the supposed biblical source for them. Other reformers followed Luther's example and so the Catholic version of the Old Testament was rejected in favor of a return to the Hebrew Bible. But the division of text and the grouping of the remaining books did follow that found in the LXX, along with the LXX/Vulgate book titles.

Thus these different 'versions' of the Old Testament have come about over centuries and remain largely in place today among the different Jewish and Christian traditions. In the English Bible, the early translations of the Bible through the King James Version included the Apocrypha mostly because of the Church of England orientation of most of these translations. Even the King James Version contained the Apocrypha through the 1800s, when it began loosing its association with the Church of England.

How do I learn more?

1.2.1 Definitions. When we say, "who wrote that book?" normally we have in mind the individual responsible for the composition of the content of a book.  The Merriam-Webster online dictionary defines "author" in one of two ways: "1 a : one that originates or creates : SOURCE <software authors> <film authors> <the author of this crime>b capitalized : GOD 2 : the writer of a literary work (as a book)." Very naturally then we are seeking a modern based answer when that question becomes "who wrote that book of the Bible?"  The problem we encounter in trying to find an answer to this question is that the ancient world, especially the world of the Old Testament, didn't think in the modern terms of author. Thus our question is attempting to press down onto the scripture a question that it isn't prepared to answer.

Given this dilemma, how can we find an answer to the issue of where did these documents come from? Quite obviously someone had to do some writing at some point for this material to come into written expression. The challenge is to frame the question in such a way so that it fits the material we have to explore. Otherwise, no meaningful answer is possible. If the modern definition of "author" won't work very well when probing ancient sources, then what term will work better? Probably, compositional history is the label that will enable us to find legitimate answers about the origin of the written documents in the Old Testament.

1.2.2Compositional History.  The assembling of the documents in the Old Testament into the Hebrew Bible occurred in phases. First was the oral stage; then the compositional stage; finally the collecting stage. As mentioned above, the ancient world was focused mostly on oral transmission of ideas. For us who live in the modern world after the invention of the printing press, the idea of preserving one's heritage by passing it down orally from one generation to the next may seem somewhat strange, as well as risky. We have all played the game "gossip" where in a room of people sitting in a circle someone whispers something to the person sitting next to them. Once that process has gone around the circle, the fun is to see how much the original expression has changed by the time it gets to the end of the circle. But when scholars began studying oral traditions of various cultures, the realization came that the heart of that tradition remained very stable, although parts would undergo changes. Very importantly, when changes can be traced, one motivating factor for these was the sincere desire to adapt the tradition to fit the contemporary situation. Since God's Word was seen as a "living word" with ongoing relevancy, modification of details to re-apply the tradition was a natural part of that preservation of the vital, dynamic aspect.

Another part of the orality pattern is the ability of an orally focused culture to memorize material. Anthropology has affirmed from modern, primitive tribal groups with no written language that such cultures have much greater ability to commit ideas to memory than folks in the modern world.  We have become so dependent on visual sources of ideas in written form that our memorizing skills have significantly diminished. Just remember back to those teachers in school who "wanted you to memorize the whole book" for test day, and how hard it was to do that. One of the requirements for a first century Pharisee was to commit to memory the entire text of the Old Testament! But not only that, he had to add to it the oral body of scribal interpretation of that OT text as well. This material had to be so deeply embedded in his memory that he could recall from memory as part of it and correctly quote it orally. And then offer a persuasive oral interpretation of it.

Barry Bandstra (Reading the Old Testament) provides a helpful summary of this process for the Old Testament:

Many groups and individuals were responsible for handing down the material contained in the Old Testament and for giving the individual books their final shape. Most remain nameless to this day. Even the books of identifiable prophets such as Isaiah and Amos were not entirely written by those men. The books are collections of their sayings, which anonymous editors gathered together and annotated.

        Much of the material that eventually was included in the Hebrew Bible started out as folktales, songs, and religious liturgies. The common people inherited these stories and passed them on from one generation to the next by word of mouth. Oral tradition, as it is called, was the source of many of the stories that have survived about Israel's ancestors and early history. Priests and highly trained scribes, typically employed by the king, were virtually the only ones able to read and write. They were responsible for gathering materials from oral and written sources, organizing them, and compiling them into books. Probably the earliest that any books were written down was around 950 B.C.E. during the reign of Solomon, the king of Israel at its golden age.

The Hebrew Bible took centuries to shape. After individual books were completed, they were joined into collections of books. The earliest collection was the Torah. It was given its overall shape sometime during the Babylonian exile and was accepted as authoritative by 400 B.C.E. The Torah was followed by the Prophets, which was finalized around 200 B.C.E. After the Writings were added to these, the Tanak was completed around 100 C.E., as reflected in a conference of rabbis meeting at Jamnia. Though the process was in fact much more complicated than the above summary implies, the Hebrew Bible as we know it today became a fixed collection after a long period of growth and development.

Because of its complexity we won't get into an analysis of the details. But, it is an example of how the Jewish scribes sought to bring together traditions of their religious heritage into written expression at the end of the OT era.

How do I learn more?

1.3.1 The process of canonization in Christianity.As mentioned at the beginning, this term, “canonization,” simply means the process of adopting a set of writings as sacred scriptures. For Christians, this has two aspects. At the beginning of the Christian era, the Jewish heritage and orientation of Jesus and the apostles meant following patterns of treating as sacred writings those commonly used in the Judaism of that time. In the centuries following the first one, the documents describing the ministry of Jesus, early Christian leaders and their writings gradually came to be regarded as sacred scriptures along side those of the Old Testament. By the time when canonization of scriptures reached a finalized stage in the fourth century AD Christians looked upon the Old Testament largely from a Greek speaking perspective, more than a Hebrew or Aramaic perspective. This pretty much meant that the documents in the Septuagint were regarded as sacred scriptures.Although many early Christian leaders and groups played a role in this process, three individuals not only discussed it at length but also offered their opinions about what should and should not be regarded as authoritative scripture. 

1.3.1.1Origen, one of the Church Fathers, lived and served the church from AlexandriaEgypt in the early 200s of the Christian era. He developed quite a following of believers there until doctrinal differences with other Christian leaders forced him to relocate in Caesarea in 231 AD. According to some of his peers, he produced some 6,000 writings before his death around 250 AD. “These fall into four classes: text criticism; exegesis; systematic, practical, and apologetic theology; and letters; besides certain spurious works.” Unfortunately, most of those writings have been lost, and are not available today. 

In regard to the Old Testament, Origen’s most important work was the Hexapla, which was a project designed to line up at least six versions of the Old Testament scriptures in parallel columns so that later texts in other languages could be compared to the base Hebrew text in the far left column. Primarily Hebrew and Greek texts were contained in this work. The existing text of the LXX were occasionally modified by Origen in order to bring it into closer conformity to the Hebrew texts. Only a few fragments of this massive project have survived to our day. Origen’s purpose was to clear up large amounts of confusion existing in his day about the actual wording of the Septuagintal text of the Old Testament, since substantial versions of the Greek text were floating around at that time. The impact of his work was to stabilize the Greek text of the Old Testament and lay a foundation for Jerome a couple of centuries later when Jerome produced the Latin translation of the entire Bible known as the Vulgate.

1.3.1.2Eusebius, another Church Father, lived and also served in Caesarea in the early 300s, about a century after Origen. One of his major contributions was his Ecclesiastical History. In regard to the Hebrew scriptures, Eusebius, along with Pamphilus, continued to revise the Septuagint text by building on the work of Origen. By this point in Christian tradition, the unfortunate anti-Semitism that plagued early Christianity had pushed interest in the Hebrew text of the Old Testament to the back burner, while the Greek text became the central focus of attention.

1.3.1.3 Jerome, who lived from about 347 to 420 AD, built on the foundation of earlier Christian leaders and accomplished something no one had been able to do up to this point in time. He produced a unified Latin translation of both the Old and New Testaments called the Vulgate.

Among other duties he undertook the revision of the text of the Latin Bible on the basis of the Greek New Testament and the Hebrew Old Testament, in order to put an end to the marked divergences in the current western texts. Prior to Jerome's translation, all Old Testament translations were based on theSeptuagint. Jerome chose, against the pleadings of other Christians including Augustine himself, to use the Hebrew Old Testament instead of the Septuagint.

The commission to translate the Bible into Latin determined the course of his scholarly activity for many years, and is his most important achievement. His translation of the Bible from Greek to Latin was called the Vulgate (vulgar) because it was in the common, or vulgar, tongue of the people. He undoubtedly exercised an important influence during these three years, to which, outside of his unusual learning, his zeal for ascetic strictness and the realization of the monastic ideal contributed not a little.

This translation brought a unified biblical text to Christianity in the western Mediterranean world and helped pull Christianity there into Roman Catholicism. In this region where Latin was more commonly used than Greek, this Latin translation of the Bible became the "King James Version" for the next thousand years. Gradually, Greek and Hebrew studies diminished in the Church and attention was focused almost exclusively on the Vulgate as the biblical source for understanding Christianity. Although Jerome attempted to go back to the Hebrew text for the Old Testament, the influence of the Septuagint on his translation is strong, especially in the inclusion of the Apocryphal documents as a part of the text. Thus, the Roman Catholic canon of the Old Testament reaches back to these roots and remains the official list of authoritative scriptures through our time.

Thus, in early Christian tradition the process of collecting the documents of the Old Testament into an authoritative list traversed through the Hebrew text through the Greek text and finally into the Latin text. At this final stage, the collection become set and has remained so through our day in Roman Catholic tradition.

1.3.2The process of canonization in Judaism. Jewish attitudes and approaches went a different direction. The composition of their religious heritage into written expression and the collection of that material found its impetus with Ezra-Nehemiah at the close of the Old Testament era in the Restoration, when Jewish people began trickling back to Judah fromBabylon. The period of Exile began in 597 BCE with the first invasion of Palestine by the Babylonians. But for Judaism the path toward a collection of authoritative, divinely inspired scriptures is less clear, and the issues of inspiration etc. did not play as important a role as in Christianity. The Wikipedia article on “Biblical Canon” effectively summarizes this zig-zagging path well:

The Jews recognize the twenty-four books of the Hebrew Bible as the Tanakh. Evidence suggests that the process of canonization of the Tanakh occurred between 200 BCE and 200 CE. The first suggestion of a Jewish canon comes in the 2nd century BCE. The book of 2 Maccabees, itself not a part of the Jewish canon, describes Nehemiah (around 400 BCE) as having "founded a library and collected books about the kings and prophets, and the writings of David, and letters of kings about votive offerings" (2 Macc 2:13). The book also suggests that Ezra brought the Torah back from Babylon to Jerusalem and the Second Temple as described in Nehemiah 8. Both I and II Maccabees suggest that Judas Maccabeus likewise collected sacred books. They do not, however, suggest that the canon was at that time closed; moreover, it is not clear that these sacred books were identical to those that later became part of the canon.

Additional evidence of a collection of sacred scripture similar to portions of the Hebrew Bible comes from the book ofSirach (dating from 180 BCE and also not included in the Jewish canon), which includes a list of names of great men in the same order as is found in the Torah and the Nevi'im (Prophets), and which includes the names of some men mentioned in the Ketuvim (Writings). Based on this list of names, some scholars have conjectured that the author, Yeshua ben Sira (Joshua son of Sirach) had access to, and considered authoritative, the books of Genesis, Exodus, Leviticus, Numbers, Deuteronomy, Joshua, Judges, Samuel, Kings, Isaiah, Jeremiah, Ezekiel, and the twelve minor prophets. His list excludes names from Ruth, Song of Songs, Esther, Daniel, and Job, suggesting that he either did not have access to these books, or did not consider them authoritative. In the prologue to the Greek translation of ben Sirach's work, his grandson mentions both the Torah and the Nevi'im, as well as a third group of books which is not yet named as Ketuvim (the prologue simply identifies "the rest of the books"). Based on this evidence, some scholars have suggested that by the 2nd century BCE the books of the Torah and Nevi'im were considered canonical, but that the books of the Ketuvim were not.

The Septuagint (LXX) translation of the Hebrew language Bible into Koine Greek, probably in the 1st and 2nd centuries BCE, provided a text for the Greek speaking world and was used by the writers of the New Testament. In this text (actually scrolls rather than a book) the Torah and Nevi'im are established as canonical, but again, Ketuvim have not yet been definitively canonized (some editions of the Septuagint include, for instance I-IV Maccabees or the 151st Psalm, while others do not include them, also there are the Septuagint additions to Esther, Jeremiah, and Daniel and 1 Esdras).

The Dead Sea scrolls discovered at caves near Qumran refer to the Torah and Nevi'im and suggest that these portions of the Bible had already been canonized before 68 CE. A scroll that contains all or parts of 41 biblical psalms, although not in the same order as in the current Book of Psalms, and which includes eight texts not found in the Book of Psalms, suggests that the Book of Psalms had not yet been canonized.

In the first century, Philo Judaeus of Alexandria discussed sacred books, but made no mention of a tripartite division of the Bible; however, in De vita contemplativa^[2], a disputed text, v.25, is stated: "studying ... the laws and the sacred oracles of God enunciated by the holy prophets, and hymns, and psalms, and all kinds of other things by reason of which knowledge and piety are increased and brought to perfection." Significantly, Philo quotes extensively from the Hebrew canon, including parts of the Ketuvim, but never from its apocrypha. Josephus refers to sacred scriptures divided into three parts: the five books of the Torah; thirteen books of the Nevi'im, and four other books of hymns and wisdom. The number of 22 books mentioned by Josephus does not correspond to the number of books in the current canon. Some scholars have suggested that he considered Ruth part of Judges, and Lamentations part of Jeremiah. Other scholars suggest that at the time Josephus wrote, such books as Esther and Ecclesiastes were not yet considered canonical.

Significantly, Josephus characterizes the 22 books as canonical because they were divinely inspired; he mentions other historical books that were not divinely inspired and that therefore do not belong in the canon.

The first reference to a 24-book Jewish canon is found in 2 Esdras 14:45-46, which was probably written in the first half of the second century:

"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." RSV

The "seventy" might refer to the Septuagint, apocrypha, or mystical works.

The Pharisees also debated the status of these extra-canonical books; in the 2nd century, Rabbi Akiva declared that those who read them would not share in the afterlife (Sanhedrin 10:1).

The Mishnah, compiled by the second century, describes some of the debate over the status of some books of Ketuvim, and in particular whether or not they render the hands "impure". Yadaim 3:5 calls attention to the debate over Song of Songs and Ecclesiastes. The Megillat Taanit, in a discussion of days when fasting is prohibited but that are not noted in the Bible, mentions the holiday of Purim. Based on these, and a few similar references, Heinrich Graetz concluded in 1871 that there had been a Council of Jamnia (or Yavne in Hebrew) which had decided Jewish canon sometime in the late 1st century (c.70–90). This became the prevailing scholarly consensus for much of the 20th century. However, from the 1960s onwards, based on the work of J.P. Lewis, S.Z. Leiman, and others, this view increasingly came into question. In particular, later scholars noted that none of the sources actually mentioned books that had been withdrawn from a canon, and questioned the whole premise that the discussions were about canonicity at all, asserting that they were actually dealing with other concerns entirely.

Today, there is no scholarly consensus as to when the Jewish canon was set.

Thus each religious tradition has taken its own distinctive path toward bringing the materials of the Old Testament together into a collection of sacred scriptures.

How do I learn more?

1.4.1 The Bible of Jesus and the apostles:How did Jesus and the apostles refer to and use the Old Testament?
One of the first Christian expressions of using the Old Testament scriptures comes from what we observe in the New Testament. The pattern of use by Jesus and the apostles sets the agenda for subsequent Christian attitude and usage.A variety of terminology will surface both in the gospels reflecting Jesus’ usage.One of Jesus’ favorite terms was “the law and the prophets.” He used this some six times. This reference plays off the threefold division of the Hebrew Bible: law, prophets, and writings. Referring to the first two divisions was a common way at that time of referring to all three divisions. In addition to these six references, three more places – Acts 13:15, 28:23; Rom. 3:21 – reflect this way to designating the Old Testament. The Romans 3:21 reference indicates that the apostle Paul could occasionally use this designation as well. A more common reference to the Old Testament is the use of the term “scripture” translating the Greek word grafh; (graphe) or its plural “scriptures” (grafai;; graphai). Literally, this Greek word means “writing,” or “writings.” This word shows up some 52 times in the New Testament as a reference to the Old Testament.Inherent in both these sets of references is a recognition of the special place these writings occupied as authoritative sources of understanding of God’s will for His people. 

Other terms can refer to the OT, but often they go back to either the Gospel message about Jesus or the words taught by Jesus. For example, the word of the Lord, (from the Greek oJ lovgo" tou' kurivou) means either the word from Jesus or the word/message about Jesus, although the Greek phrase is found in the Septuagint designating a message coming from God through the messenger to God's people. Or sometimes directly to the targeted person(s). 1 Peter 1:25 illustrates this:  "but the word of the Lord endures forever. That word is the good news that was announced to you."At the stage of the NT, this will always refer to an oral or spoken message about Jesus, rather than anything written down. The phrase Word of God, as used in the NT, has similar meanings. 

The use of the Old Testament by Jesus and the apostles includes either citing it directly or alluding to its ideas numerous times. Most of these are taken from two sections: the Law and the Prophets. But a fair number come from the Psalms in the third Writings division of the Hebrew Bible. Overwhelmingly the wording of the OT reference in the NT can be traced back to one or the other of the major manuscripts of the Septuagint, the Greek text of the Old Testament. This is not surprising since the New Testament was written in Greek and it would have been more natural to use a Greek text of the Old Testament. Joel Klavesmaki has provided a online helpful chart of the OT quotes in the New Testament with a comparison of the LXX and the Masoretic Text; all in English translation for the non-specialist to read for a feel of what is taking place.

In trying to sense the attitude of early Christians toward the OT, one should look at several aspects. First, the overt statements about the Old Testament in some of the references to it. There is a sense of the permanency of the OT scriptures, as reflected in John 10:35, "and the scripture cannot be annulled."Perhaps one of the key texts reflecting Jesus' attitude toward the Old Testament is Matthew 5:17-20:

Do not think that I have come to abolish the law or the prophets; I have come not to abolish but to fulfill. 18For truly I tell you, until heaven and earth pass away, not one letter, ^F32 not one stroke of a letter, will pass from the law until all is accomplished. 19 Therefore, whoever breaks ^F33 one of the least of these commandments, and teaches others to do the same, will be called least in the kingdom of heaven; but whoever does them and teaches them will be called great in the kingdom of heaven. 20For I tell you, unless your righteousness exceeds that of the scribes and Pharisees, you will never enter the kingdom of heaven.

The followers of Jesus in the first century reflect a similar respect and high regard for the Old Testament as well, as 2 Tim. 3:16-17 in its reference to the OT as scripture declares: "16 All scripture is inspired by God and is ^F9 useful for teaching, for reproof, for correction, and for training in righteousness, 17 so that everyone who belongs to God may be proficient, equipped for every good work." For a detailed treatment of this passage in print or online, see my article "Inspiration" in the Encyclopedia of Early Christianity. 

The OT texts, especially the prophetic passages, became a major source for interpreting who Jesus was as the fulfillment of the promised Messiah in the Old Testament, as the Wikipedia Christian view section in the article on "Messiah" describes:

Christianity emerged in the first century C.E. as a movement among Jews (and their Gentile associates and converts) who believed Jesus of Nazareth to be the Messiah; the very name of 'Christian' refers to the Greek word for 'Messiah' (Cristov" Khristos). Although Christians commonly refer to Jesus as the "Christ" instead of "Messiah", in Christian theology the two words are synonymous.

Christianity claims that Jesus is the Messiah that Jews were expecting. John 1:41-42 The first thing Andrew did was to find his brother Simon and tell him, "We have found the Messiah" (that is, the Christ). 42 And he brought him to Jesus. However, the Christian concept of the Christ/Messiah is fundamentally different than the Jewish and Muslim (Shafaat, 2003) concepts because many Christians believe Jesus claimed to be God (cf. John 10:37-38; 14:7-11; 17:5; 17:11 and the following):

John 10:30 (NIV) I and the Father are one.

John 10:33 (NIV) "...you, a mere man, claim to be God..."

John 14:9b (NIV) "Anyone who has seen me has seen the Father."

In Christian theology, the Christ/Messiah serves four main functions (Ankerberg & Weldon, pp. 218-223):

·He suffers and dies to make atonement before God for the sins of all humanity, because God's justice requires that sins be punished. See, e.g., Isaiah 52:13-53:12 and Psalm 22, which Christianity interprets as referring to Jesus.

·He serves as a living example of how God expects people to act.

·He will establish peace and rule the world for a long time. See Nicene Creeds of 325 and 381 C.E.; Revelation 20:4-6: (NIV) "…They came to life and reigned with Christ a thousand years. 6 … they will be priests of God and of Christ and will reign with him for a thousand years." (seeMillennialism).

·He is the God of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob and he came to earth as a human. John 1:1-2,14a: 1. In the beginning was the Word and the Word was with God and the Word was God. 2. He was with God in the beginning. 14a The Word became flesh and made his dwelling among us.

In the New Testament, Jesus often referred to himself as 'Son of Man' (Mark 14:61b-62; Luke 22:66-70), which Christianity interprets as a reference to Daniel 7:13-14 (NIV):

In my vision at night I looked, and there before me was one like a son of man, coming with the clouds of heaven. He approached the Ancient of Days and was led into his presence. 14 He was given authority, glory and sovereign power; all peoples, nations and men of every language worshipped him. His dominion is an everlasting dominion that will not pass away, and his kingdom is one that will never be destroyed.

Because Christians believe that Jesus is the Messiah, and that he claimed to be the Son of Man referred to by Daniel, Christianity interprets Daniel 7:13-14 as a statement of the Messiah's authority and that the Messiah will have an everlasting kingdom. Jesus' use of this title is seen as a direct claim to be the Messiah.

Jesus offered no denial when others identified him as the Messiah and successor of King David (Mark 8:27-30, 10:47-48, 11:7-10); his opponents accused him of such a claim (Luke 23:2), and he is recorded at least twice as asserting it himself directly (Mark 14:60-62, John 4:25-26).

Christianity interprets a wide range of biblical passages in theOld Testament (Hebrew scripture) as predicting the coming of the Messiah (see Christianity and Biblical prophecy for examples), and believes that they are following Jesus' own explicit teaching:

·He said to them... "Did not the Christ/Messiah have to suffer these things and then enter his glory?" And beginning with Moses and all the Prophets, he explained to them what was said in all the Scriptures concerning himself." (Luke 24: 25-7, NIV)

·Then he opened their minds so they could understand the Scriptures. He told them, "This is what is written: The Christ will suffer and rise from the dead on the third day, and repentance and forgiveness of sins will be preached in his name to all nations, beginning at Jerusalem. (Luke 24:45-47, NIV).

·The book of Matthew repeatedly says, "This was to fulfill the prophecy …". See (the concept of) Messianic prophecy.

Christianity believes many of the Messianic prophecies were fulfilled in the mission, death, and resurrection of Jesus, and seeks to spread throughout the world its interpretation that the Messiah is the only Saviour, and that Jesus will return in the Second Coming to fulfill the rest of Messianic prophecy.

1.4.2 The Bible of early Christianity: When did the Bible become the Old and New Testaments?
For Jesus and the apostles living in the first Christian century, "Bible" meant the Old Testament as far as it had developed by that point in time as a collection of authoritative scriptures. By the middle of the first Christian century, the "word(s) of the Lord," when it referred to the teachings of Jesus rather than words about Jesus, i.e., the Gospel, was considered authoritative, although the label "scripture" would hardly be appropriate. Primarily, because the teachings of Jesus were still mostly in oral form at that point. The written gospel accounts did not come into existence until beginning in the 60s of the first century. Acts 20:35 illustrates this through Paul's mentioning a teaching of Jesus that is not contained in any of the four gospels: "In everything I did, I showed you that by this kind of hard work we must help the weak, remembering the words the Lord Jesus himself said: 'It is more blessed to give than to receive.'"  Most scholars believe that by the end of the first Christian century efforts were beginning to be made to collect together early writings of the apostles. The commonly understood pattern is that the writings of the apostle Paul came together first, followed by the gospels, then Acts as a kind of bridge between "gospel" and "apostle." Next, the "other apostles," first in a threefold grouping and expanded eventually into a sevenfold grouping. Lastly, came the book of Revelation. This process will take until the fourth century to stabilize itself into a consistent canonical list and sequence of listing. So early Christians did not possess "the Bible" until four hundred years after Christ. The primary unifying factor in this was Jerome's Latin Vulgate in the early 400s. The Vulgate with both testaments would remain "the Bible" for Christians in the west until the Protestant Reformation in the 1500s.

Of course, for Jewish people the Bible has never become the Old and New Testaments.

1.4.3 The Impact of the Protestant Reformation: What role did the European Reformers have on our Old Testament?

With the "protests" of Martin Luther in the early 1500s against the abuses he observed as a priest in the Roman Catholic Church of his day, there came eventually serious questioning of which foundations were proper for Christians to base their convictions on. The pragmatic tendencies of most Catholics in Europe in the 1500s was to believe whatever the priest said was true. While the Latin Vulgate would be faithfully read at Mass each week, most of the laity did not understand Latin and thus did not understand anything being read. They were dependent on the parish priest to tell them what the Bible was saying. Very few priests by this point in time could do serious interpretation of the Vulgate text. Their interpretation was mostly what they had been trained to understand and what was the official interpretation coming out of the Vatican in Rome. With the pope understood to be the official interpreter of God's will for the church, whatever he said was true was considered as true. His words needed very minimal grounding in scripture before they were considered authoritative.

In scattered places over Europe individual priests who studied the scriptures seriously were aware that inconsistencies between the voice of scripture and that of the pope were quite prevalent. But few dared raise questions about this. Luther was not one of the quiet ones. Largely, because his intense spiritual struggles over his sense of guilt left him desperate to find relief and peace. When his bishop at the University of Wittenberg where he was teaching advised him to study Romans and Galatians he came to the conclusion that salvation is "justification by faith alone apart from works of law" as set forth in these two letters of Paul. Increasingly this put him at odds with the official position of the church and the pope.

For Luther the clear principle of salvation found in scripture contradicted the teaching of the church. Which one is to be believed? Luther opted to go with scripture as the sole authority for faith and practice. The pope and the church must stand under the authority of scripture, not the other way around. Thus was born a foundational stand of what would become Protestant Christianity from this time forward. The Bible must be the exclusive basis for determining God's will for His people. One of his major subsequent contributions that would strengthen his position was the translation of the Bible, mostly the Vulgate, into the German language of his day. This got the scriptures into the hands of the laity who now could read and understand what the Bible was saying directly, instead of being dependent on a priest's interpretation of it. Even if they didn't read themselves, when they heard it being read they could understand what was being read. This launched the modern Bible translation movement and played an enormously important role in opening the door for a translation of the Bible into English.

Although this stance on the exclusive authority of the Bible will take many different shapes and tones, it remains a key identifying mark of a Protestant Christian church over against Roman Catholic and Eastern Orthodox churches. To be sure, these other two groups do not reject the authority of the Bible. Rather, its authority is subjected to that of either the pope or that of the patriarchal leaders of a given Eastern church. Thus, in Protestantism especially the study and understanding of scripture stands in a central place for Christians seeking to faithfully follow Christ.
 

1.4.4 The relationship of the Old and New Testaments: Does the New Testament override the Old Testament?

Another issue surfaced for Luther in regard to the scriptures, and has prompted an ongoing discussion even into our day. Luther's reading of Paul's "justification by faith alone apart from works of Law" pushed him to the conclusion that "Law" stands in tension with "faith." What is the proper relationship between Law and Gospel? Often defined as OT verses NT. Does the "new" replace the "old"? Jesus' parable of new wineskins frequently opened the interpretive door for debate (Mt. 9:17):

"Neither is new wine put into old wineskins; otherwise, the skins burst, and the wine is spilled, and the skins are destroyed; but new wine is put into fresh wineskins, and so both are preserved."

17 Do not think that I have come to abolish the law or the prophets; I have come not to abolish but to fulfill. 18 For truly I tell you, until heaven and earth pass away, not one letter, not one stroke of a letter, will pass from the law until all is accomplished. 19 Therefore, whoever breaks one of the least of these commandments, and teaches others to do the same, will be called least in the kingdom of heaven; but whoever does them and teaches them will be called great in the kingdom of heaven. 20 For I tell you, unless your righteousness exceeds that of the scribes and Pharisees, you will never enter the kingdom of heaven.

A specific formulation of the distinction of Law and Gospel was first brought to the attention of the Christian Church by Martin Luther (1483-1546), and laid down as the foundation of evangelical Lutheran biblical exegesis and exposition in Article 4 of the Apology of the Augsburg Confession (1531): "All Scripture ought to be distributed into these two principal topics, the Law and the promises. For in some places it presents the Law, and in others the promise concerning Christ, namely, either when [in the Old Testament] it promises that Christ will come, and offers, for His sake, the remission of sins justification, and life eternal, or when, in the Gospel [in the New Testament], Christ Himself, since He has appeared, promises the remission of sins, justification, and life eternal." ^[3]. The Formula of Concord likewise affirmed this distinction in Article V, where it states: "We believe, teach, and confess that the distinction between the Law and the Gospel is to be maintained in the Church with great diligence. . ."^[4]

Martin Luther wrote: "Hence, whoever knows well this art of distinguishing between Law and Gospel, him place at the head and call him a doctor of Holy Scripture."^[5] Throughout the Lutheran Age of Orthodoxy (1580-1713) this hermeneutical discipline was considered foundational and important by Lutheran theologians. Carl Ferdinand Wilhelm Walther (1811-1887), who was the first (and third) president of the Lutheran Church - Missouri Synod, renewed interest in and attention to this theological skill in his evening lectures at Concordia Seminary, St. Louis 1884-85.^[6]

Where have Baptists stood on this issue? Given the diversity of Baptist viewpoints, an answer to this question is not easy to find. The answer to some degree has to be determined more by official statements than anything else. One source is the various editions of the Baptist Faith and Message that date from 1845 to 2000. Below is a listing of the section on "Scriptures" beginning with the 1925 edition:

1925 BFM
We believe that the Holy Bible was written by men divinely inspired, and is a perfect treasure of heavenly instruction; that it has God for its author, salvation for its end, and truth, without any mixture of error, for its matter; that it reveals the principles by which God will judge us; and therefore is, and will remain to the end of the world, the true center of Christian union, and the supreme standard by which all human conduct, creeds and religious opinions should be tried.

1963/1998 BFM
The Holy Bible was written by men divinely inspired and is the record of God's revelation of Himself to man. It is a perfect treasure of divine instruction. It has God for its author, salvation for its end, and truth, without any mixture of error, for its matter. It reveals the principles by which God judges us; and therefore is, and will remain to the end of the world, the true center of Christian union, and the supreme standard by which all human conduct, creeds, and religious opinions should be tried. The criterion by which the Bible is to be interpreted is Jesus Christ.

2000 BFM
The Holy Bible was written by men divinely inspired and is God's revelation of Himself to man. It is a perfect treasure of divine instruction. It has God for its author, salvation for its end, and truth, without any mixture of error, for its matter. Therefore, all Scripture is totally true and trustworthy. It reveals the principles by which God judges us, and therefore is, and will remain to the end of the world, the true center of Christian union, and the supreme standard by which all human conduct, creeds, and religious opinions should be tried. All Scripture is a testimony to Christ, who is Himself the focus of divine revelation.

A final issue that Luther raised and has consequently impacted Protestantism significantly has to do with the definition of the Old Testament. We discussed that issue at the outset of this presentation. Luther saw the Catholic Church's use of the apocryphal documents as providing a "scriptural" foundation for some of the doctrines that he strongly objected to. One of those was the concept of purgatory. Also he noticed that the Hebrew Bible had never included these writings as sacred material. This, among other motivations, led him to the conclusion that the Apocrypha in the Septuagint and the Vulgate had no divine inspiration and thus should not be counted as a part of the Old Testament. In the Luther Bibel translation these documents are not included.

Gradually this became the standard among Protestant churches. The Apocrypha has not been counted as sacred scriptures in most of these traditions. The Anglican Church struggled more with this than other groups, simply because of its close ties conceptually to the Roman Catholic Church. Consequently, the Apocrypha remained a part of the English Bible until the 1800s. This meant the King James Version contained the Apocrypha from the original printing in 1611 until the middle 1800s, although it was not considered on the same level as the other material in the Old Testament.

How do I learn more?

Check the appropriate Bibliography section in Cranfordville.com