What is the Bible?
Part 6
The Process of Canonization: Complex,
Convoluted and Contentious
Overview
Trying to summarize
the process of canonization of the biblical texts is much like trying to
successfully put together a jigsaw puzzle, without a picture of the finished
product to go by and while some key pieces have been lost. This is echoed by
respected biblical scholars who, without exception, state something equivalent
to the following:
Canonization,
broadly construed as the process through which the Bible became the Bible, is
only vaguely understood. We do not know exactly how various books were chosen
to be part of the Bible to the exclusion of others, how these books were put
into a particular order, and how their text was established. Since there are no
contemporaneous documents that describe this process, it needs to be
reconstructed from indirect evidence, namely, from the variety of biblical
texts from different periods and places that have survived, and from later
traditions in rabbinic and other sources that discuss canonization.[1]
The reality is that
neither the canon of the Hebrew Bible/Old Testament, nor the canon of the New
Testament, developed in a single moment in time but each “was the result of a
series of decisions made over the course of centuries by leaders
of different religious groups, decisions concerning a variety of works
written by many authors also over the course of centuries”[2]
(emphasis is mine).
Canonization of the
Hebrew Bible and the Old Testament
· In broad terms, the canon
of the Hebrew Bible was “settled” by the end of the 2nd century CE
and includes the 24 books of the Tanak.
· The canon of the Old
Testament (i.e., in Christian Bibles) was not nearly as quickly “resolved.”
o
The books that were included in the Roman Catholic/Orthodox Old
Testament canon were the authoritative scriptures for the majority of
Christians from at least 400 CE to the mid-1600s.
o
These included the 39 books that are basically equivalent to the 24
books of the Hebrew Bible but also included the books of Tobit, Judith, The
Additions to the Book of Esther, Wisdom of Solomon, Ecclesiasticus, Baruch, The
Letter to Jeremiah, The Prayer of Azariah and the Song of the Three Jews,
Susanna, Bel and the Dragon, and 1 & 2 Maccabees.
o
It wasn’t until the Reformation that the status of these “extra” books
were challenged and excluded with the result that Protestant Bibles contain
only the 39 Old Testament books.
· Both the development of
the canons of the Hebrew Bible and the Christian Old Testament were directly
the result of Christian use of the Septuagint—the 3rd–1st
centuries BCE translation of the books of the Hebrew Bible into Greek.
o
Initially, “…the Septuagint was revered by many Jews as the divinely
inspired text, perhaps on par with the Hebrew Scriptures…Within the first
decades of the church…the Septuagint became the church’s Old Testament while it
continued to function as the Bible used by the Jews.”[3]
o
However, in the 2nd century CE, because of the Christian use
of, and influence on, the Septuagint translation, the Jews became distrustful
of it and by the end of the 2nd century CE, “the Septuagint had
passed into the care and keeping of the Christian church.”[4]
o
The earliest Christian copies we have of the “Bible” (i.e., codicies
Sinaiticus, Vaticanus and Alexandricus—from the 4th & 5th
centuies CE) contain all the books of the Hebrew Bible plus the
Deuterocanonical/Apocryphal books in Greek translation, plus the collection of
27 writings that became the New Testament.[5]
Also, toward the end of the 4th century CE, Jerome produced the
standard Latin Translation—known as the Vulgate—which include the
Deuterocanonical books.
o
“At the time of the Reformation, the unique authority of the Latin
Vulgate was challenged by Protestants. The books of the Protestant Old
Testament were translated afresh from the Hebrew canon, which does not include
the additional Greek books...”[6]
The Canonization of
the New Testament
· The New Testament “came
into being over a prolonged period that extended from the second
through the fourth centuries in the West of the Roman Empire and through
the sixth century in the East”[7]
(emphasis is mine).
· However, “by the beginning
of the third century, the contours of the “New Testament” as we know it begin
to emerge.”[8]
· It seems that the key
criteria upon which decisions to include only the 27 books in accepted versions
of the New Testament include:
o
Usage and acceptance in the early church
o
Apostolic authorship or authority
o
Conformity to the proper understanding of Christian doctrine (as
determined by those in power in the church—and formalized by the councils of
bishops)
o
The text’s ability to be applied universally to the church as a whole.
o
But surprisingly to many, “Divine inspiration was not a criterion
for acknowledging a document as scripture. The concept itself [of divine
inspiration] was developing only during the second century and worked, rather,
the other way around”[9]
(emphasis is mine).
Significant Implications
of Canonization
· First, no version of “the
Bible”—Hebrew, Catholic, Orthodox, or Protestant—was pre-packaged by God and delivered
into human hands inerrantly by the Holy Spirit, and thus requiring only their acceptance.
· Second, because these
writings are considered authoritative by many, “these ancient compositions
retain their significance for every Christian in every age and
circumstance…Indeed, [they] define Scripture as prophetic, as speaking for God
to humans in every age.”[10]
· Finally, the goal of
canonization was to establish unity by clearly delineating which writings were
authoritative [later, inspired], yet these writings are diverse in genre,
perspective and opinion. As Johnson correctly notes,
Because
of this irreducible diversity, Christians through the ages have managed to
produce a bewildering variety of institutional structures, theologies,
rituals, and even moralities, all while sincerely claiming to take the New
Testament with utmost seriousness.[11]
What is the Bible?
For Me…
The best thing I did,
fifteen years or so ago, was to take off my “conservative evangelical
apologetics” glasses in order to try to read the biblical texts (as well as
other related ancient texts) for what they are rather than for what I wanted
them to be. I no longer see the diversity and ambiguity of these texts as
something to be either explained away or forcefully “reconciled.” The result is
that I now see the biblical texts, not the inerrant Word of God, but as a
participation and cooperation between God’s revelation and various and diverse
human responses to it. Thus, “…scripture itself bears witness to the early
Israelite and Christian movements as living, breathing, growing, changing
traditions, grappling with the nature of God and what it means to live as God’s
people.”[12]
I was, indeed, spiritually dying on the modernist hill of defending inerrancy.
Now my faith is alive and my excitement for the scriptures revived as I indeed strive
to grapple with the biblical texts in all their diversity, ambiguity and humanness.
[1] Marc Zvi Brettler, “The Canonization of the
Bible,” in The Jewish Study Bible, ed. Michael Fishbane (Oxford: Oxford
Univeristy Press, 2004), 2072.
[2] Michael Coogan, The Old Testament: A Very
Short Introduction (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2008), 8.
[3] Karen H. Jobes and Moises Silva, Invitation
to the Septuagint (Grand Rapids: Baker Academic, 2000), 82.
[7] Michael R. Greenwald, “The Canon of the New
Testament,” in The Jewish Annotated New Testament, eds. Amy-Jill Levine
and Marc Zvi Brettler (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2011), 557.
No comments:
Post a Comment