Power In His Presence

WHY IS THE HISTORY OF THE CANONIZATION OF THE OLD TESTAMENT FILLED WITH UNCERTAINTIES?

The Old Testament canon was established based on the authority of the Church in matters of faith and practice because it contains divine revelation. The authority is actually God who has authoritatively spoken and directed the Church to recognize those sacred writings. The question of uncertainties re the history of the canonization of the Old Testament cannot be sidelined; these uncertainties arose at the point of determining what type of recognition constitutes canonization. Great scholars have invariably disputed on the question of the inspired books which should be acknowledged as sacred literature with divine authority.

The first five books of the Bible, Genesis, Exodus, Leviticus, Numbers, and Deuteronomy were established as Scripture probably long before any other book and were at one time the canon. As time went by, more books gained recognition until the collection contained nearly all the books of the Protestant canon. Yet there is a vast difference between saying these books belonged to the Bible and that no other book could.

These uncertainties have cropped up based on the diversities of books which was in circulation in addition to the books which was recognized by the Church as inspired. This happened in relation to the Inter-Testamental periods where the pseudepigraphal books were in circulation. The next major piece of evidence to be noted is the Council of Jamnia, which seems to have taken place around 90 AD. This council established and closed the canon authoritatively for nearly all Jews. It has been their canon ever since. Yet it should be noted that the council did not speak for all Jews, there were Jews living in Ethiopia who either did not hear of it or did not accept the decision of Jamnia. To this day they use a different canon than their Palestinian brethren.

The use of the Old Testament Scriptures by the church of Christ has been the subject of some debate from the early church fathers up to the present day. The debate is primarily concerned with the question of what writings are truly in the canon of the Old Testament Scriptures. The word “canon” is from a Greek word that means a “rule” or “standard”; in the second century Christian church it came to be understood as “revealed truth.” Yet for some Christians the “revealed truth” represented more than for others. Augustine is a fine example of this, as he “. . . regarded the church to be the custodian of Scripture and thus may easily have concluded that on matters of the extent of the canon the church had the authority to decide. . .

Augustine seemed to consider church reception to be sufficient warrant for canonical authority; this he gave as the reason for accepting the Maccabean books as canonical.” Initially, it was not as if the canon itself was debated as much as it was looked at differently. Some held that the canon was extensive enough to encompass all the books read in the church for edification, which would include the Apocrypha and sometimes the Pseudipigrapha (anonymous apocalyptic false writings). Others held that the canon was simply that of the Jewish Bible, representing also the Protestant Bibles of today. It was not until the age of the Reformation that the debate began to rage. In 1546 when the Council of Trent made a formal statement that all not accepting the selected Apocryphal writings should be damned, the Protestants retorted with an equally resolute voice.

The question of canonicity is completely valid. If there are disputes about what is Scripture, the validity of faith itself is greatly at stake. For as Beckwith another great bible scholar puts it so well, “. . . with no canon there is no Bible.”

This ambiguity persisted until the time of the Reformation at which time Trent was called upon to make a pronouncement with regard to their status. Trent did not attempt a careful examination of history or archeology, but based it first on the fact that the books were read alongside other sacred books in worship and had been since the beginning, and second the pronouncements of previous councils. In other words, it trusted that the Holy Spirit would be most efficacious in working through the universal practice of reading the books in the Churches, or in authoritative pronouncements accepted by many Churches rather than the individual opinions of Jerome, those following him, or the beliefs of the Hebrews.