THE CANON OF THE OLD TESTAMENT
THE CANON OF THE OLD TESTAMENT
The Old Testament relates God's Creation of the world and our first parents Adam and Eve, his covenants with Abraham and the patriarchs of Israel, Moses' reception of the Ten Commandments, and the prophecies of the Messiah. There are over 100 Messianic prophecies in the Old Testament.
The Old Testament is Hebrew Scripture or Tanakh, and is composed of the Law or Torah, the Prophets or Neviim, and the Writings or Ketuvim. The three-fold division of Hebrew Scripture was evident at the time of Jesus, who referred to "The Law of Moses and the Prophets and the Psalms [Luke 24:44]." The Old Testament was composed in Hebrew, except for the following written in Aramaic - Genesis 31:47, Jeremiah 10:11, Ezra 4:8-6:18 and 7:12-26, and nearly half of the Book of Daniel 2:4-7:28.
The writings of the Old Testament were preserved in three languages - Hebrew, Aramaic, and Greek, and have been passed on to us mainly through 4 manuscripts: the Greek Septuagint from Alexandria; the Masoretic Hebrew text; the newly discovered Dead Sea Scrolls of the Essenes; and the Targums, Old Testament Books translated into Aramaic. The differing traditions have led to the disparity found in the Old Testament canons among modern religions.
The diversity of language and manuscripts may be traced to the Diaspora, the dispersion of the Jewish people to the nations outside of Palestine. The major dispersion occurred during the period known as the Babylonian Exile, when the Jews were deported following the invasion by King Nebuchadnezzar of Babylon. The first deportation occurred in 597 BC following his first invasion, and the second major deportation to Babylon occurred following the destruction of the Jerusalem Temple in 587 BC. Many Israelites also fled to Egypt and flourished there. Following the arrival and Hellenistic influence of Alexander the Great in 332 BC and the founding of the city of Alexandria, they readily adopted the Greek language.
The oldest surviving translation of Hebrew Scripture is the Greek Septuagint, which was undertaken by Jewish scholars in Alexandria in the third century before Christ (BC). The Greek codices arranged the books in a different way than Hebrew Scripture, by placing the Pentateuch and the Historical Books first, then the poetic and wisdom books, and then the prophets. The Greek Septuagint Old Testament was in circulation at the time of Christ, and was widely read. In fact, the majority of Old Testament quotations in the Greek New Testament are from the Greek Septuagint Old Testament, primarily from Psalms, Isaiah, Genesis, Exodus, Leviticus, Deuteronomy, and the Book of the Twelve. For example, when Jesus read Isaiah (61:1-2) in the synagogue at Nazareth (Luke 4:16-19), he followed the language of the Greek Septuagint. The early Christian Churches referred to the Septuagint as their source of Scripture. The Orthodox Churches have retained the Septuagint for their canon of the Old Testament to the present day!
The canon of Hebrew Scripture developed in stages. The Law was known as Scripture as early as II Kings 22:8ff. The Prophets were considered Scripture by the end of the second century BC (Daniel 9:2; ll Maccabees 2:13, 15:9; Sirach 49:10). While the Psalms were uniformly accepted, the final books of the Writings took time to be clearly defined. It is now known with the discovery of the Dead Sea Scrolls that the Writings often varied with each religious sect.
Following the Roman destruction of the Jerusalem Temple in 70 AD, the rabbinical school of the Pharisees in Jamnia (also known as Jabneh or Yavneh) became a center of religious thought. Faced with the affinity of the early Christians for the Greek Septuagint, they affirmed the books traditional to Judaism. Jamnia used 4 criteria to determine which books should be retained for the canon of Hebrew Scripture: the book had to conform to the Pentateuch; it could not have been written after the time of Ezra (circa 400 BC); it had to be written in Hebrew; and it had to be written in Palestine. Jamnia accepted 11 books less than the Greek Septuagint Old Testament.
The following canon was definitively established for Judaism by the second century AD. The Law contains the Pentateuch of Moses. The Prophets include the Former Prophets that are part of the Historical Books, the Major Prophets, and the Prophets of the Book of the Twelve. The Writings comprise a body of wisdom literature, history, poetry, and songs. The Masoretic Hebrew Text developed from the eighth through tenth century AD reflected the following Hebrew canon.
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JUDAISM
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Law
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Prophets
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Writings
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Genesis
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Joshua
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Psalms
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Exodus
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Judges
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Proverbs
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Leviticus
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Samuel
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Job
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Numbers
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Kings
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Song of Songs
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Deuteronomy
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The Twelve
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Ruth
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Isaiah
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Lamentations
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Jeremiah
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Ecclesiastes
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Ezekiel
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Esther
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Daniel
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Ezra-Nehemiah
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Chronicles
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The 24 Books of Judaism are equivalent to the 39 Books common to all Christian Old Testaments, for Samuel, Kings, Chronicles, and Ezra-Nehemiah are split into two parts in the Christian canons, and the one Book of the Twelve Minor Prophets is split into twelve books, one for each prophet. The above table lists the Book of Daniel with the Prophets, as found in the Dead Sea Scrolls, instead of the Writings, as found in the Masoretic texts.
St. Jerome translated both Old and New Testaments into Latin; he completed the translation of the New Testament into Latin in 384, and the Old Testament in 405. St. Jerome translated from both Greek and Hebrew manuscripts of the Old Testament and noted the difference between the larger canon of the Greek Septuagint and the shorter Hebrew canon, and called those books comprising the difference the "hidden or secret books," or the Apocrypha. The difference between the two canons consists of the Books of Tobias (Tobit), Sirach, Baruch, Wisdom, First and Second Maccabees, and Judith, as well as the Greek portion of Daniel, which includes the story of Susannah, Bel and the Dragon, and the Prayer of the Three Young Men; and portions of Esther. The Eastern Orthodox Churches also include Esdras, Three Maccabees, the Letter of Jeremiah (Chapter Six of Baruch), and the Prayer of Manasseh, as well as Psalm 151. Four Maccabees and the Psalms of Solomon are inconsistently found in original manuscripts.
As the Greek Septuagint was the accepted version of the Old Testament for Christianity at that time, Jerome translated 46 books that were affirmed as divinely inspired for the Old Testament canon at the Councils of Hippo (393) and Carthage (397). The Latin Vulgate Bible published by St. Jerome served as the standard Bible for Western civilization for over 1000 years.
Tobias (Tobit) emphasizes the importance of prayer in our daily lives; parental respect, angelic intercession, fasting, and almsgiving for the expiation of sins, as noted in the Archangel Raphael's speech in Tobias 12:9. Second Maccabees, in addition to its historical value, affirms the theology of martyrdom and resurrection of the just (7:1-42), intercessory prayer of the living for the dead (12:44-45), as well as intercessory prayer of the saints for those still on earth (15:12-16). The Book of Wisdom is witness to the trend in late post-exilic Jewish thought that looked forward to life after death. Immortality is a reward of the just (3:1-4:19).
Martin Luther in his 1534 translation considered the Apocryphal books "good for reading" but not part of inspired Scripture. The King James Bible of 1611 included the Apocrypha but in a separate section. While there are no direct quotations in the New Testament from the Apocrypha, there are also no direct quotations from other Old Testament books, such as Judges, Ruth, Esther, Ecclesiastes, Nahum, Obadiah, or Haggai.
The discovery of the Dead Sea Scrolls of the Essenes, a conservative religious sect, has shed new light on Hebrew Scripture. Every book of the Old Testament was found in the Dead Sea Scrolls except for the Book of Esther. It is important to note that the Dead Sea Scrolls do include 3 books written in Hebrew which had been considered part of the Apocrypha - Tobias (or Tobit), Sirach, and the Letter of Jeremiah (Chapter six of Baruch), as well as Psalm 151 of David. The Dead Sea Scrolls include previously unknown Scripture, such as the Book of Jubilees, a commentary on Genesis and Exodus; the Rule of the Community; and the War Scroll, a Book about the final battle between the sons of light and the sons of darkness. While the Dead Sea Scrolls raise questions about the traditional canon, they do confirm much of our knowledge about Hebrew Scripture. An intact scroll of Isaiah was found, completely identical to our present Book in the Bible, and is roughly 1000 years older than any previous manuscript!
In summary, modern Christianity reflects the lack of uniformity found in the canon of the Old Testament, for Catholics and Eastern Orthodox continue to refer to the Greek Septuagint as Old Testament while Protestants chose the Masoretic Text of the Hebrew canon. The following reflects the
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CHRISTIANITY
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ORTHODOX
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CATHOLIC
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PROTESTANT
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Pentateuch
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Pentateuch
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Pentateuch
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Genesis
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Genesis
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Genesis
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Exodus
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Exodus
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Exodus
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Leviticus
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Leviticus
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Leviticus
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Numbers
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Numbers
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Numbers
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Deuteronomy
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Deuteronomy
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Deuteronomy
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Historical Books
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Historical Books
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Historical Books
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Joshua
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Joshua
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Joshua
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Judges
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Judges
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Judges
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Ruth
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Ruth
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Ruth
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I Samuel
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I Samuel
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I Samuel
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II Samuel
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II Samuel
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II Samuel
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I Kings
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I Kings
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I Kings
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II Kings
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II Kings
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II Kings
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I Chronicles
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I Chronicles
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I Chronicles
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II Chronicles
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II Chronicles
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II Chronicles
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I Esdras
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Ezra
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Ezra
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Ezra
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Nehemiah
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Nehemiah
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Nehemiah
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Tobit
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Tobit
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Judith
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Judith
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Esther
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Esther
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Esther
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Maccabees I
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Maccabees I
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Maccabees II
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Maccabees II
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Maccabees III
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Wisdom Books
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Wisdom Books
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Wisdom Books
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Job
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Job
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Job
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Psalms (151)
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Psalms (150)
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Psalms (150)
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Prayer of Manasseh
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Proverbs
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Proverbs
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Proverbs
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Ecclesiastes
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Ecclesiastes
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Ecclesiastes
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Song of Songs
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Song of Songs
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Song of Songs
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Wisdom
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Wisdom
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Sirach
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Sirach
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Prophets
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Prophets
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Prophets
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Isaiah
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Isaiah
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Isaiah
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Jeremiah
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Jeremiah
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Jeremiah
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Lamentations
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Lamentations
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Lamentations
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Baruch
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Baruch
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Letter of Jeremiah
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Ezekiel
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Ezekiel
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Ezekiel
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Daniel
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Daniel
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Daniel
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Hosea
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Hosea
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Hosea
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Joel
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Joel
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Joel
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Amos
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Amos
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Amos
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Obadiah
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Obadiah
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Obadiah
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Jonah
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Jonah
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Jonah
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Micah
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Micah
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Micah
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Nahum
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Nahum
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Nahum
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Habakkuk
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Habakkuk
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Habakkuk
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Zephaniah
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Zephaniah
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Zephaniah
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Haggai
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Haggai
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Haggai
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Zechariah
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Zechariah
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Zechariah
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Malachi
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Malachi
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Malachi
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50
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46
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39
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THE BIBLE