The other day I was perusing books in a local library and came across one titled The Food Processor Bible. I stopped and thought to myself, “What might the author mean by associating “Bible” with a cookbook? We all know what the author meant; The author was telling the reader that this is a definitive text on using the food processor in cooking. Instead of letting the book become a classic on the topic, the author has decided to make it a classic by adding the word “Bible,” referencing it as an elevated text, an authoritative text for cooking with a food processor. But the Bible is more than an elevated text to be coopted by publishers to make a few more sales, it is canon. What do we mean by canon? I’ll give you a hint, we aren’t talking about those forged war machines that launch injurious balls through the air.
The Greek word ‘canon’ has a simple meaning: it means “a rule or
measuring rod.”[1] But we would be mistaken to
view it as a rule in the sense that parents might tell their children to “stop
hitting each other,” or “say please.” It meant instead in it’s original context
a particular rule for measurement, a standard if you will like a 12-inch ruler.
For example when we use a ruler we can be assured that eight-inches on one
ruler is the same as eight-inches on another. This idea of a standard of
measurement is something similar to what we mean of the Bible when we refer to
it as canon.
Throughout church history the Christian Scriptures have been received in
this sense, as canon, a measurement of truth. But what do we mean by this? We
mean two things by acknowledging the Bible’s canonicity:
First the Scripture is canon in the sense that it is the standard of the
Church’s faith and doctrine. Or as Thomas Aquinas put it and the Westminster
Confession later reiterated, Scripture is the standard “rule of faith and
life.”[2]
Fundamental to the Christian understanding of canon is the inherent authority
contained within Scripture as the word of God—the standard for the life of the
Christian.
Second the Scripture is canon as regards the precise written works that are to
be considered as canon, as authoritative for the life of the Christian. Or in
essence, those books which were truly inspired by God as authoritative, the 66
books of both the OT and NT. Canon is the list of books received as Holy
Scripture, i.e. that which God has revealed for His glory and our good. And it
is this point in particular that gave rise to the need for a Christian canon.
The Need For a Canon
In the early church, a
need arose over which books or texts were to be considered as Scripture for the
followers of Jesus Christ. An example from the 2nd Century AD
reveals the need for a clearly defined canon. A man by the name of Marcion
believed that “God the Father of Jesus [was] not the same as Jehovah, the God
of the Old Testament.”[3] This led
Marcion to claim that the Hebrew Scriptures were not to be considered as
Christian Scriptures since they depicted a separate God from that of Jesus’
Father. Marcion’s challenge “required a response, and thus the church at large
began to compile a list of sacred Christian writings.”[4] Thus the
need for a Christian canon grew out in many respects from claims trying to pin
down what Christians should consider as Scripture.
The need for a canon
was a Christian problem because they needed to define which texts were
authoritative. Thus in the 4th C. AD we see the first real use of
the word “canon” with regards Christian Scripture by the great Bishop of
Alexandria, Athanasius.[5] But
before we journey to the process of how the Hebrew Bible came to be the
Christian Old Testament, we must first build the foundation for why a written
text was needed at all.
A Preserved Canon
Another way for us to think about canon is to think about how God revealed
who He is and therefore who we are, particularly the process by which this
revelation was recorded. If God spoke to humanity clearly, then the words He
spoke and inspired were worthy of being preserved for all generations to hear
and know the revelation of God Himself. There is no greater Author whose words
are to be preserved than that of the Almighty God.
The Israelites knew this truth and recognized that “if revelation was to
be preserved, it needed to be written down.”[6]
In an age where the retention of the spoken word far exceeded our current
ability to do so, they still valued God’s words enough to write them down. This
process of writing down God’s revelation is part of the process of
“canonization.”
We see in many places in the OT the Israelites desire to record the
divine word of God, not as a human word, but as Holy Scripture, the rule of
faith and practice for all of God’s people. In Exodus God commands Moses to
write down His words: “Then the Lord said to Moses, ‘Write this as a memorial
in a book and recite it in the ears of Joshua” (Exodus 17:14). Then at the end
of the Pentateuch we have Moses’ obedience to God’s command recorded for us,
“When Moses had finished writing the words of
this law in a book to the very end, Moses commanded the Levites who carried the
ark of the covenant of the Lord, ‘Take this Book of the Law and put it by the
side of the ark of the covenant of the Lord your God, that it may be there as a
witness against you. For I know how rebellious and stubborn you are…assemble to
me all the elders of your tribes and your officers, that I may speak these
words in their ears and call heaven and earth to witness against them.”
(Deuteronomy 31:24-28)
We see clearly here that Moses had written the words of the law, the
first of three divisions in the Hebrew Bible, our Old Testament. Not only did
he record it, but we see an active role that it is to play in the life of God’s
people, it is to ‘witness’ to them, inform them if you will for how God has
designed them to live. It has functional authority because it is God’s word.
Further on in the history of Israel, we see King Josiah use the preserved
word of God as functionally authoritative, as Holy Scripture for the lives of
God’s people:
“And the king went up to the house of the
Lord, and with him all the men of Judah and all the inhabitants of Jerusalem
and the priests and the prophets, all the people, both small and great. And he
read in their hearing all the words of the Book of the Covenant that had been
found in the house of the Lord.” (2 Kings 23:2)
Still later the Prophet Isaiah picks up this same emphasis in God’s
desire for His word, “And now, go, write it before them on a tablet and
inscribe it in a book, that I may be for the time to come as a witness forever”
(Isaiah 30:8). Or similarly the prophet Jeremiah writes, “Thus says the Lord,
the God of Israel: Write in a book all the words that I have spoken to you”
(Jeremiah 30:2).
But we must ask “What primarily is the purpose of recording the written
word of God?” Psalm 102 clearly spells it out for us: “Let this be recorded for
a generation to come, so that a people yet to be created may praise the Lord”
(Psalm 102:18). So God’s revelation was clearly written down to be preserved that
His people, a people like you and me who constitute one of the “generation[s]
to come,” would know the prescribed purpose and subsequent conduct for their
lives. It was written for our benefit. Therefore John Frame clearly states, “At
every stage of Israel’s history, there was a canon, a definite body of divine
writings, that spoke to the nation and its individuals with supreme authority.”[7]
And if, against Marcion’s claims as we noted earlier, the Hebrew Bible was the
same God of the Christians, then it deserved to be in the Christian canon.
The Canonization of
the Old Testament
Those who penned the words of God saw the incredible importance of
recording and preserving the authoritative divine word of God. The words were
Holy because the Author of them was Holy. However what may have been considered
as canon for some throughout history might not have been for others (Marcion
et. al.). There is a process by which books of the Bible come to be understood
as canon, as an authoritative rule for their lives. This process is called canonization, the process by which
certain books were chosen as God’s word and others not.
The canonization of the OT is complex. It does not nearly have the same
historical record to its reception as canon as the NT did perhaps because there
was much less debate and division over which texts should be classified as
Scripture. But for Christians today it is important to know something of how
the 39 books of the OT came to be considered as canon.
THE WITNESS OF JESUS AND THE APOSTLES
One of the primary
means of distinguishing the canon of the OT would be to have a clear divine
word from God on whether or not the text is itself Scripture. We have this
luxury. Jesus, the God-man, clearly attests to us that the OT is Scripture. There
can be no higher authority than His endorsement of the Hebrew Scriptures. In
Luke’s Gospel Jesus speaks to the content of the Hebrew Scriptures,
“And
beginning with Moses and all the Prophets, he interpreted to them in all the
Scriptures the things concerning himself.” (Luke 24:27)
“Then
he said to them, ‘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 and the Prophets and
the Psalms must be fulfilled.’ Then he opened their minds to understand the
Scriptures…” (Luke 24:44-45)
Clearly then we see
that Jesus relegated the Law of Moses (the first five books of the Bible, also
known as the Torah), the Prophets, and the Psalms as Scripture. By referencing
the Psalms, Jesus most likely was not excluding other books contained within
the Writings section of the Hebrew
Bible. Instead He was referring to the first book of the last part of the
Hebrew Bible which “could be referred to simply as ‘the Psalms.’”[8] Jesus
also speaks of the breadth of the OT when He states that it existed “from the
time of Abel (from Genesis, the first book of the OT) to the time of Zechariah
(a contemporary of Malachi, the final book of the OT).”[9] So it is
clear that Jesus had a particular work in mind when He spoke of it as
Scripture. There was no dispute in His mind to the content of the OT canon.
We also have testimony
of Jesus’ apostles referencing the Hebrew Bible as Scripture. For example Peter
in Acts 1:16 preaching to the brothers said, “Brothers, the Scriptures had to
be fulfilled, which the Holy Spirit spoke beforehand by the mouth of David
concerning Judas, who became a guide to those who arrested Jesus.” Or the
Apostle Paul later in letter to the Roman Christians, “For what does the
Scripture say? ‘Abraham believed God and it was counted to him as
righteousness’” (Romans 4:3).[10]
Thus the Apostles referred to the same
Hebrew Bible as Scripture.
Therefore if we knew
what texts Jesus and the Apostles considered as OT canon we would have a
decisive word. Jesus referred to the Hebrew Bible as Scripture, so we can
clearly know which books He regarded as Scripture by knowing which were
accepted at that time by the Jews and “this is a point about which there is no
reasonable doubt. The Jewish canon of the Old Testament included all the books
and no others, which Protestants now recognize as constituting the Old
Testament Scriptures.”[11] Both
“Christ and his Apostles referred to the sacred writings of the Jews—the volume
which they regarded as divine—as being what it claimed to be, the Word of God.”[12]
THE HEBREW SCRIPTURES
So then, by Christ’s
own witness and that of His Apostles, we have a clear declaration of what
constitutes the canon of the OT by knowing what the Jews considered to be their
Scriptures (the term OT wasn’t introduced until Origen in the 3rd c.
AD). The Jews would have considered their Scripture as being divided in three
parts,[13] as Jesus
already has alluded to.
The Law: First the Hebrew Bible would have
contained the Law—Torah, also known
as the Pentateuch, comprising the five books of Moses (Genesis, Exodus,
Leviticus, Numbers, Deuteronomy).
The Prophets: The second portion
of the Hebrew Bible would have been the Prophets—Nevi’im, divided with former (Joshua, Judges, Samuel, Kings) and
latter prophets (Isaiah, Jeremiah, Ezekiel, and the book of the twelve
prophets, also known as the minor prophets).
The Writings: The third portion
would have been considered the Writings—Kethuvim
(Psalms, Proverbs, Job, Song of Songs, Ruth, Lamentations, Ecclesiastes,
Esther, Daniel, Ezra-Nehemiah as one book, and Chronicles).[14]
Given these three
portions of the Hebrew Bible, we count 24 books. But when we separate Samuel,
Kings, and Chronicles into two each, as well as separate Ezra and Nehemiah, and
count each of the minor prophets as one, we get our 39 books of the Old
Testament that Protestants claim as canon today.
It is worth noting at
this point, that even some of Jesus’ greatest opponents still held the same
Scriptures as He did. Opponents like the Pharisees for example held the same
Hebrew Scriptures as canonical in the same way Jesus held them, “they never
disagreed about what texts could be authoritatively cited. Evidently, then, we
should identify the OT canon as consisting of those books acknowledged by the
Jews in the time and place of Jesus’ earthly ministry.”[15] It is
of great importance then to note that the Hebrew Bible of Judaism “is virtually
identical to the Christian Old Testament [today] with a few organizational
exceptions…books are in a different order…and sometimes they combine two books
into one.”[16]
This is of great weight to knowing what we consider to be the authoritative OT
Scripture, the OT canon.
WRITINGS AND CHURCH COUNCILS
Another means of
distinguishing the canon of the OT is to see what ancient writers and councils
would have said regarding the OT. For the Christian these historical
attestations would be supporting material, since Christ has already given the
decisive understanding of what we should consider Scripture.
Josephus, the famous
Jewish historian (AD 37-AD 100), attests to 22 books being in the Old
Testament, which most likely refers to the same 24 books of the Hebrew Bible
with “Ruth being counted as an appendix to Judges and Lamentations to
Jeremiah.”[17]
It is important to have the word of a historian, one without a theological
agenda, to verify the texts of the OT seeing as they recorded facts to be preserved.
Another man, Philo of Alexandria (20 BC-AD 50), was a prominent Jew at the
time. He wrote much and from his writings we can be encouraged that the books
he considered to be canonical are the books included in the Hebrew Bible.
However not all ancient
witness includes the same books we would consider as the OT. Melito, Bishop of
Sardis (2nd C. AD), wrote a list of OT books to a friend and
included all those in the traditional Hebrew Bible except for Esther, one of
two books not to mention God (the other being Song of Solomon). The great
Athanasius, the Bishop of Alexandria (4th C. AD), also omitted
Esther from the OT canon. We also have others who have added other books to the
OT such as Origen who at one time added a book, the Letter of Jeremiah.
To bring the story of
Esther’s inclusion to an end, we travel to AD 363, where a council was held in
Laodicea. It is here that the council recognized Esther as being part of the OT
canon. A Greek Father named Amphilochius, also includes Esther in the canon sometime
in the 4th C. AD.
THE APOCRYPHA
There are many other
texts that have sometimes throughout church history been associated with the OT
canon. We call these books the Apocrypha.
The Apocrypha, which originally
meant “hidden” as regards to their authority, are those texts which were
written between the two testaments, they are intertestamental. They are sort of
a “second category of Old Testament books.”[18] However
a distinction was drawn between them and the Hebrew Bible. It was the Latin
father Jerome that coined this term speaking primarily of those texts which
“may not be used for the establishment of doctrine, but…retain great ethical
value which makes them suitable for reading the course of Christian worship.”[19] Jerome
enshrined these texts in his Latin translation of the OT from the Septuagint
(the Greek OT).
Many have wrestled
throughout Christian history regarding what kind of authority to render to
these books. We see that during the reformation period Martin Luther kept the
Apocrypha in his German Bible as an appendix. Ulrich Zwingli’s Zurich Bible did
not contain the Apocrypha and instead published them in a separate book
altogether. For these reformers the move was partially in response to the
Catholic Church’s insertion of these texts as canon. The Catholic church found
within the Apocryphal books certain support for it’s otherwise unbiblical
doctrines, things such as purgatory, indulgences, and works salvation. In 1546
the Council of Trent (a Catholic council), canonized the Apocrypha defining the
OT as “those Old Testament works contained in the Greek and Latin Bibles.”[20] And we
have already seen that both the Septuagint and Vulgate included the Apocrypha,
unlike the Hebrew Bible.
The Westminster
Confession of Faith speaks to the Apocrypha, whose “books are not divinely
inspired and are not part of the canon of Scripture. They therefore have no
authority in the church of God and are not to be valued or used as anything
other than human writings.”[21] This is
a clear protestant position on the Apocrypha, building on orthodox
understanding of the Apocrypha through the centuries.
The history of the
canonization of the OT is not quite as clear-cut as we make it here. But for
sake of understanding some of the overall process of how the OT came to be
canon it is helpful to give a brief summary of some of the particulars.
The Old Testament Today:
Closed
For Protestants today
the OT canon is complete. We have a clear list as to which texts are included
as authoritative, as a rule for faith and practice for the Christian.
Ultimately the formation of the canon did not come down to certain individuals
and their well argued and written reasons, nor to councils and their
discussion, but to the will of God as He orchestrated it’s reception. The texts
were not chosen, but received primarily because they were already recognized as
authoritative in the worshipping community.
As a recognized canon
of God’s word to His people, we recognize the 39 books as a closed canon, the
same closed canon the Jews recognize as their Scriptures today. Nothing is
added to or taken from it. Already we see this principle in the conclusion to
the Law, “You shall not add to the word that I command you, nor take from it,
that you may keep the commandments of the Lord your God that I command you”
(Deuteronomy 4:2). The same principle bears divine authority on the canon of
the OT. Josephus’s account as a historian attests the same principle of a
closed canon, “Although such long ages have now gone by, no one has dared to
add anything to [the Hebrew Bible], to take away anything from them, or to
change anything in them.”[22]
Therefore, when we
pick up our Bible today, we can be assured of the orthodoxy of the books
contained within the OT. They are those books which Jesus Himself claimed to be
a divine word from God, claimed to be Scripture, canon for the life of the
Christian. They deserve an authoritative place in our lives, the place of
canon.
[1] F.F. Bruce, The Canon of Scripture (Downers Grove:
Intervarsity, 1988), 17.
[2] Westminster Confession of Faith
1.2 and F.F. Bruce, The Canon of
Scripture, 18 fn. 5.
[3] Justo L. Gonzalez, The Story of Christianity: Volume 1—The
Early Church to the Dawn of the Reformation (New York: HarperCollins,
1984), 61.
[4] Ibid., 62.
[5] New Bible Dictionary, ed. I. Howard Marshall, A.R. Millard, J.I.
Packer, D.J. Wiseman (Downers Grove: InterVarsity, 2003), 165.
[6] Understanding Scripture, ed. Wayne Grudem (Wheaton: Crossway 2012),
77.
[7] John Frame, The Doctrine of the Word of God
(Phillipsburg, NJ: P&R, 2010), 135.
[8] Bernhard Anderson, Contours of Old Testament Theology
(Minneapolis: Fortress Press, 1999), 7.
[9] Mark Driscoll, A Book You’ll Actually Read On The Old
Testament (Wheaton: Crossway, 2008), 30.
[10] All
references to “Scripture” in the NT refer to the Jewish Scriptures, except
for the mention in 2 Peter 3:16 which refers to “the other Scriptures,” most
definitely in reference to NT documents that had been received and recognized
as Scripture. For further detail see Bruce Metzger, The New Testament: Its Background, Growth, and Content (Nashville:
Abingdon, 2003), 309.
[11] Charles Hodge, Systematic Theology, vol. 1 (Peabody:
Hendrickson, 2008), 153.
[12] Ibid., 152.
[13] The Hebrew Bible most likely was
organized into these three sections by 165 BC when Judas Maccabaeus “collected
all the books that had been lost on account of the war which had come upon us,
and they are still in our possession” (2 Maccabees 2:14).
[14] For detail see F.F. Bruce, The Canon of Scripture, 29.
[15] John Frame, The Doctrine of the Word of God, 135.
[16] Mark Driscoll, A Book You’ll Actually Read On The Old
Testament, 29.
[17] F.F. Bruce, The Canon of Scripture, 33.
[18] Ibid., 93.
[19] Ibid., 93.
[20] Alister McGrath, Christian Theology: An Introduction (Malden,
MA: Blackwell Publishers, 2001), 160.
[21] See the Westminster Confession
of Faith 1.3.
[22] F.F. Bruce, The Canon of Scripture, 23.
.jpg)