Why We Believe

The Hebrew Canon

The word “canon” comes from the Greek word kanon which refers to a measuring rod or standard. The English “cane” is derivative. Thirty-nine books making up the Hebrew Scriptures and a handful of apocryphal books from the inter-testament period that were disputed up to the time of the reformation were already recognized and in use.

The Hebrew canon of scripture is divided into three parts: (a) the Law (Torah), (b) the Prophets (Nebhi'im), (c) the Writings (Kethubi'im) which included the poetic books, the five rolls (Megilloth), and historical books.

According to F. F. Bruce, the Qumran commentators, the Pharisees (rabbinic tradition) and the Sadducees were in substantial agreement as to the limits of Hebrew Scripture.¹ All agreed that the authoritative books were the ones essentially “canonized” during Ezra’s reforms in 458 B.C.E. The Rabbis, and more particularly the school of Hillel recognized a three-part arrangement discussed during the period between the first (70 C.E.) and second (132 C.E.) Jewish wars against the Romans and recorded as a baraitha in the Baba Bathra tractate of the Babylonian Talmud.² Following the destruction of the Temple in 70 C.E. at the so-called council of Jamnia, the Rabbis discussed and recognized as already authoritative the books we presently have as part of the Protestant and Jewish Old Testament canon.

The Witness of Jesus and the Apostles

In the New Testament, Jesus and the apostles were clear on how they arrived at what they regarded as authoritative.³ Even though we cannot be certain whether or not the same set of books regarded today as canonical and authoritative were the same as that in the first century, there is evidence that Jesus recognized the same three-fold division of authoritative scripture as the Rabbis: the arrangement began with Genesis and ended with 2 Chronicles.⁴ In Luke 11:50f and Matthew 23:35, Jesus refers to the blood of the prophets from Abel (Genesis) to Zechariah son of Jehoiada (2 Chronicles 24:20-22).⁵ In Luke 24:44, Jesus voices implied acceptance of the threefold division of the Old Testament.

Christians look at Jesus’ approach to Scripture, and then the way the apostle’s approached Scripture as standard in identifying first what is authoritative, then in developing a hermeneutic for that authority. Jesus and the apostles would often, but not exclusively, use a form of “it is written” to precede a quote from what they determined to be Scripture. As it turns out, Jesus and the apostles used this approach to quote from many of the books of the Old Testament that Protestants and Jews regard today as authoritative, but would not use this approach to quote from non-authoritative writings.

Jesus in Matthew 4:4-10 (Luke 4:4-10) quotes from Deuteronomy and the Psalms as authoritative, and again quotes from Zechariah as authoritative in Matthew 26:31. Peter quotes from the Psalms in this manner in Acts 1:20, James in Acts 15:15 quotes from Amos 9 in this manner, and in Acts 23:5 Paul quotes from Exodus 22 following this same pattern. Paul uses the phrase to refer to Habakkuk 2 in Romans 1:17, Isaiah and Ezekiel in Romans 2:24, Psalms, Ecclesiastes and again Isaiah in Romans 3, and Genesis in Romans 4:17. Other Old Testament books of the present canon referred to in the New Testament in this manner are Malachi, 1 Kings, Jeremiah, 2 Samuel, and Leviticus.⁶

Another way Jesus and the apostles would point out what was authoritative was to refer to a document as “scripture” (in the Septuagint, Daniel 9:2 tais biblois with reference to Jeremiah, or ba sēperim “by means of the Scriptures” canonical books;⁷ in the New Testament tais graphais or [ta] hiera grammata “the writings/the holy Scriptures”). Jesus used this terminology to identify Psalms in Matthew 21:42, and Exodus in Matthew 22:29, as authoritative. Paul in Romans 15:3, 4 identified the phrase “it is written” with Psalm 69:6, calling it Scripture. James referenced Leviticus as “scripture” (graphē) in James 2:8.

The apostles and even Jesus might refer to some writings found at Qumran that were later regarded as non-canonical (for example, Tobit in Matthew 7:12 and Luke 6:31⁸ and Enoch in Jude 14) without referencing them as “Scripture,” or employing the designation “it is written.” Sometimes the New Testament writers would refer, in a non-authoritative manner, to documents of which we do not have an extant copy (“The Assumption of Moses” allegedly quoted by Jude in v. 9).⁹

Extra-biblical Evidences

(a) Ecclesiasticus prologue (130 BC). Again, acceptance of a three-fold division.

(b) Josephus “Contra Apion” 1:8—reference from Moses to Artaxerxes. Artaxerxes was in power in Persia when Malachi was written. Malachi was the last book in the Hebrew canon time wise.

(c) So-called Council of Jamnia (70 AD)—At this council, some cast doubt upon certain books questioning whether or not they should be in the canon. The questioned books were: Proverbs, Ecclesiastes (not orthodox enough to some Pharisee’s taste), Song of Solomon (too racy), and Esther (did not have the name of God in it). In the end, all books were firmly acknowledged to be scripture.

(d) Eusebius (c. 300 AD) – A letter from Melito traveling in Spain lists every book in the Bible except for Esther.

Old Testament Apocrypha - Reasons why these were rejected:

(a) In “Contra Apion” 1:8, Josephus says that books written after Malachi are not to be considered authoritative.

(b) They are inaccurate historically and geographically.

(c) They teach doctrines contrary to other accepted scripture

(d) The Holy Spirit does not bear witness of them as powerful and

(e) They resort to artificial subject matter and style unlike canonical books.

The so-called Council of Jamnia did not recognize the apocrypha, neither did Jerome (340 – 420 AD) or many Roman Catholic scholars up until the Council of Trent where a few books were accepted as a polemic gesture against the Protestants. Jesus and the New Testament writers never quoted from the Apocrypha in an authoritative, “It is written…” manner.