Exploring the Origins of the Bible: Canon Formation in Historical, Literary, and Theological Perspective (Acadia Studies in Bible and Theology) [Paperback]

So, how was the canon formed? For the Old Testament, we have a striking lack of information on the subject. Only a small number of scholars believe there was consensus on the Old Testament canon before the end of the 1st century AD.

Yet, at the same time, it is clear that common to all Jews was a belief that "revelation...from God" (p 92) to Jews was basic and given in both oral and written form. "A number of scholars have studied the global shape of the Hebrew Bible and detected substantial evidence for larger canonical redactions, which join these streams of revelation into one channel--an integrated whole" (p 98).

A great deal has been learned recently, especially after the findings at Qumran. At Qumran, "the Scriptures are referred to...as 'the law and the prophets' denoting the two canonical divisions" (p 106), although other Second Temple Jews refer to other divisions.

One interesting point is how well educated--well, downright saturated--Paul was in the Old Testament. "He cited the Septuagint probably from a combination of memory, some form of crib sheet with important texts written out, and by finding and quoting from locally available scrolls or copies of particular biblical books that belonged to the translation-tradition that we refer to as 'the Septuagint'" (p 132). In almost every other line of his epistles you can find some reference to the Old Testament. (Amazing to think that there are still people trying to argue Paul was influenced by Hellenization).

As far as the New Testament "The Greek collection has determined the canon of the church into the present day in both the Orthodox Church"(p 138) and the Catholic Church. Martin Luther decided to leave out a number of books that had been part of the New Testament for over a thousand years. He reverted back to the canon suggested by Jerome.

Craig Evans, who is always good, has a terrific essay on the "Apocryphal Jesus". He is certainly correct in his criticisms of the "Gospel of Thomas", which, after the in depth critique by Perrin, is clearly shown to be from the late half of the 2nd century. For one thing, Thomas draws from Luke too obviously.

"We need to take a hard look at the Gospel of Thomas, especially as it relates to Syrian tradition", (p 154) is how Evans politely states. After all, "Perrin is not only able to explain the order of the whole of Thomas in reference to catchwords, he is able to show in places the Gospel's acquaintance with the order and arrangement of Tatian's Diatessaron". So much for early strands and the Jesus Seminar.

And as for "Secret Mark" and the Morton Smith hoax, it is a huge piece of mud sticking to the Jesus Seminar forever. That it took in anybody now strikes most scholars as the single most embarrassing moment for biblical studies in the last century. Even worse than Crossan and the "Gospel of Peter".

First off, it is important to mention that this is not a "book" in the traditional sense. It is a collection of academic articles, and as such, a selection of them will be reviewed instead of the "book" as a whole, since it really does not exist. It starts off with a short essay by Craig Evans, introducing the contents of various versions of the Bible. Scholars and serious students can skip over this section, since there is likely to be nothing for them here, although for the absolute beginner this is an excellent section that brings up the topics of the Septuagint (hereafter, LXX), apocrypha, the Masoretic tradition, and the Samaritan Pentateuch, as well as some introduction to Hebrew terminology and a few brief notes on the Syriac tradition and the Latin Vulgate. I discuss three of the articles briefly below:

The first article is by Emanuel Tov, one of the heaviest hitters in Jewish historical scholarship today. In it, he discusses the differences between the LXX and the Masoretic texts. His goal is to determine whether particular problem passages are more accurately preserved in the LXX or the Masoretic tradition by examining how free the LXX translation is, whether there are presence of Hebraisms, or external evidence. He applies this to a number of case studies in the Old Testament, and comes to some interesting results, ultimately arguing that the LXX is just as important to the study of scripture as the Masoretic texts, as they both represent different stages of the tradition. My only criticism is that this is the first article, which seems a little strange because it can be rather complex at times, and yet the traditional reader will have only just experienced Evans' rather basic introduction. For a book that claims to appeal to beginners and scholars alike, this is a bit of an odd choice.

The second article is by the also-renowned J.H. Charlesworth dealing with the formation of the canon. He discusses the origin of the term and how the canonization of the Hebrew Bible came about, suggesting that it was a long and drawn-out process. He touches on a wide variety of topics, including the origin of different canons of various Christian churches, and works that were on the fringe of canon. Given his expertise in that particular field, his insight is appreciated, and he argues for the necessity of the use of apocryphal and Pseudepighraphal works, as they can provide us with a lot of information about trends and concerns in periods not covered by the Bible. On top of that, some are simply excellent literature, Charlesworth argues.

Evans' article is a very typical one for him, as he is doing little more than attacking the views of some scholars that he disagrees with. He claims that the purpose of the article is to assess whether apocryphal gospels are of any use in the study of the historical Jesus. It quickly becomes apparent that he is targeting particular scholars in each of the texts that he examines, but this does not detract from the article at all. On the contrary, it is a very good read and has the sense of being in the battlefield of the particular debate, one that Evans seems to be winning. He dicusses the Gospel of Thomas, the fragment that may be the Gospel of Peter mentioned by Irenaeus (although N.T. Wright disagrees with him on this particular topic, they agree that the text does not tell us anything about the historical Jesus), the Egerton papyrus, and Secret Mark. Each of these discussions is lively and fascinating, and demonstrate why Evans is considered to be on the top of the field.

There are five more articles in this book, and minus one, I learned a lot from all of them and they were all interesting. G. Wooden discusses how the LXX was used in the early church and what affect it had on canon. S. Dempster talks about the tripartite Jewish canon, and how it came to be. S. Porter discusses the effects of Paul's writing on canonization in the early church. All of these articles are well-worth reading, and are geared for a serious audience. If it has a fault, it is that there is no paper on the later canonization of the New Testament and Christian Bible, but given the quality of work contained within, I fully recommend these papers.

This is a great book exploring the creation and pulling together of the Bible as we know it as well as the importance of the Septuagint (Greek O.T.) to our understanding of inspiration.

As widely disparaged as it sometimes is, it is surprising that Jesus and the inspired authors of the N.T. chose to quote from the Septuagint more than half the time when there is a difference with the Hebrew O.T. and upwards to 94% of the time if we include every reference whether in agreement with the Hebrew or not. Didn't they know better? What's more, Jews in the first century believed the Greek O.T. translation was as inspired and authoritative as the original. Interesting as the Greek used was poor, just as the New Testament was written in a grocer's, crude greek spoken on the street rather than an older, classical Greek.

This book definitely discusses first century struggles and views of inspiration as well as our own, which are very different as a result of our critical, scientific, and modern technology, the internet and the printing press. It also gets into what books were included in the N.T. as well as left out such as the Shepherd of Hermas, 1-2 Clement and the Psalms of Solomon. As someone who has already read these and a number of other later, sometimes gnostic texts, it is interesting that the church was still considering, praying over and and reserving judgement on a number of them, allowing them to be used in services but not committing to their inspiration. Same holds true with reservations on including 1-2 Peter, Hebrews, Revelation, Jude, and in some instances the pastoral letters. This was a process and while it may unsettle some, the openness and honesty with which the church dealt with letters and teachings before condemning or using texts should inspire us that they were not censoring or being rash but seriously seeking light in a time before all the writings were in. This plus the difficulty of access and communication before printing or the phone when transcribing was so phenomenally expensive causes one to understand a bit more the challenge why things took as long as they did.

We should be grateful to live when we do, with access to resources and a great text as close to the original manuscripts as we are likely to get and worlds closer than most older documents in existence.

Most of us have libraries that would be the center of the learned world back in the day, rivaling kings and universities.

It should be noted that the Orthodox Study Bible (on sale through Amazon) includes the O.T. version of the Septuagint although it also harmonizes and sometimes relies on the Hebrew text...This is it's own discussion but it is an accessible version for someone looking for a readable version of the Septuagint today as used in the Eastern church.

This is not a beginner's guide to the Bible. It is easy to read however and all earnest students will find something of interest whether they agree with a little or a lot.

The book is written as a series of articles/lectures from April 2006 dealing with: The Septuagint, Writings outside the canon, the Torah, the role of the Septuagint in the formation of the canon, the Apocryphal Jesus, Paul and the process of canonization and Wherein lies authority? as well as Canon and Theology: What is at stake?

Contributors include:
James H. Charlesworth
Stephen G. Dempster
Craig A. Evans
Lee Martin McDonald
Stanley E. Porter
Emanuel Tov
Jonathan R. Wilson
R. Glenn Wooden