The Canon of Holy Scripture: History, Heresy, and Hearsay Pt. 1 by Chris White

Nag Hammadi Codex

Following the Second World War, there were two archeological discoveries in the Middle East that sent shockwaves through the scholarly world of Biblical antiquities.  In 1947 and 1949 respectively, the Nag Hammadi Library and the Dead Sea Scrolls were unearthed and brought to light offering insights into Old Testament and heterodox Christianity in the 2^nd Century AD.  While the Dead Sea Scrolls did have some unique material, they were largely manuscripts of the Old Testament books most are familiar with today.  However the Nag Hammadi library was composed mostly of books that are famous today as gnostic gospels such as the Gospel of Thomas and The Apocalypse of Peter.  While these writings were not regarded as authoritative by Christian teachers in ancient times, the Nag Hammadi library enjoys a certain popularity today as certain scholars and writers have praised them as examples of the diversity of Christianity that supposedly existed prior to the orthodoxy of Nicene Christianity which was articulated in 325 AD.  This ‘diversity’ idea is most definitely a minority report among Christian scholars, but because these books were excluded (actually, they were never even up for consideration) from the New Testament, it makes for an interesting subplot of intrigue and cover-up among television documentary makers which is how most people today even know of the Nag Hammadi library.

Now focusing on some obscure ancient writings like the gnostic gospels may seem a bit of a strange way to introduce the topic of the canonicity of scripture, but it goes directly to the point.  For Canonicity is actually a doctrine that answers a direct question:  why these only and not others?  Indeed, why hasn’t there been an effort to increase the size and scope of the Bible especially with new material coming to light?  Well, the answer to that question is a good story and one I intend to tell in several installments.

The Old Testament Canon

Although Malachi is the last book of the English Old Testament, the last actual book that was written was 2^nd Chronicles and this occurred more or less 400 years before the birth of Christ.  During this time period, Israel was a vassal state of Persia which in turn was conquered by Alexander the Great who in turned died giving his control of his entire empire to his generals who duked it out until four controlled most of it.  The general that controlled Israel and Egypt was named Ptolomy and his descendants occupied and controlled this area until the Romans took it 65 years before Christ.

Modern Alexandria

The capitol of the Ptolomaic kingdom was Alexandria Egypt and so Alexandria was a natural place for Jewish people to migrate seeking to improve their fortunes or climb the ladder of government.  By 198 BC there were actually as many Jews living in Egypt as there were in Palestine.  With this, the Alexandrian Jewish community grew and quickly became a center of theological study and intellectual life for the Jewish faith.

With so many Jews living in Egypt (which was a Greek colony) the Hebrew tongue was giving way to the Greek language and this led to the need for a new translation.  What emerged was the Greek translation we know as the Septuagint (LXX).  The Septuagint is so named because it was translated by 70 scholars working separately for 70 days, or at least that is the legend that we are given.  This translation contains the books we know as the Old Testament which means the canon was already a settled issue before the Christian era.

Just an aside, even if Jesus may have read the Hebrew Bible, his apostles who wrote books of the New Testament, largely used the Septuagint version when they quoted the Old Testament and some of the early Christian fathers only accepted the Septuagint and not the Hebrew version because they felt the Jews had tampered with the text to blot out any references to Christ.  Truthfully many of the early Christian teachers   were angry at the Jews for stirring up trouble for the Church and many also could only read Greek anyway.

 Also during this time, there was a famous essay called Baba Bathra

 written by the elders of Israel which lists all the books of the Old

Testament and also names the authors.  Baba Bathra is not the final word  but because of its antiquity, it becomes an important piece of evidence in  showing us the accepted Old Testament books.

 In my opinion, the greatest evidence for the Old Testament canon is the

 person of Jesus Christ.  In Luke chapter 24 Jesus refers to the Old

 Testament as “Moses and the Prophets”.  These were the standard

 categories of the traditional Old Testament.  Also in all of his recorded

 teachings, if he referred to an Old Testament saying, it was always from a

 standard canonical book.  Absent from Jesus’s criticisms of the Jews (of

 which there were many) was anything about the collection of books they

 considered scripture.  His criticism was only regarding their

 interpretations.

After the time of Jesus and towards the end of the first century, there was  a Jewish rebellion against Rome which proved catastrophic for Jerusalem  and the heart of their faith which was the Temple located there.  Shortly after this event in AD 70, the elders of Israel convene what is known as  the Council of Jamnia.  The centerpiece of their agenda was “without a  temple and sacrifice, what shall we do?”  Jamnia decided adherence and  study of the Old Testament would substitute for blood sacrifice until the  day God saw fit to restore the temple.  As part of the Council’s  deliberations, they drew up an official list of their canon which matches the Old Testament as we know it today.  These books they said ‘defile the hands’ meaning they are so sacred, men must ritually wash their hands after touching them.

Flavius Josephus

 Some twenty years later a famous Jewish historian by the name of

 Josephus writes about the books of the Old Testament in a letter called

 Against Apion : “although such long ages have gone by, no one has dared

  to add anything to them, to take anything away from them or change

  anything in them.”

And so to sum up, Christians inherit the Old Testament canon from the Jews.  Historically it was completed and settled before the birth of Christ, and by Christ and his apostles was affirmed and then later confirmed by the Elders of Israel living in the early part of the Christian era.