Searching for a Canon List
Many New Testament passages like II Timothy 3:16 have quite a high regard for Scripture as the word of God. In fact, the overwhelming evidence from the New Testament writers agree with this. The gospels spend much time quoting prophecies to prove Jesus, and saying “it is written” to establish divine authority. The writer to the Hebrews noted that there were a plethora of prophets, to whom God spoke in various ways. There’s just one issue: where is the explanation of which books are Scripture?
This article is from my book, When Humans Wrote Scripture.
Remember, before the widespread use of the codex,[1] after the first century CE, books of the Bible were not bound together, except for some shorter books that would fit in a single scroll. In fact, Bibles containing the entire canon after it was completed were very rare, due to cost and the thickness of parchment (animal skin) or papyrus, until the advent of better paper technology,[2] part of the technological prerequisites for the commercially viable printing press, not to mention a prerequisite for the Reformation and the subsequent Age of Reason, Industrial Revolution, and now our more recent Information Age. Yes, something as seemingly inconsequential as cheaper, thinner paper was largely responsible for such an incredible progression of humanity in the world. Writing was how information was preserved, so that information could be accumulated even as people who learned new information died; and the cheaper writing became, the more available it became to each successive generation, so information continued to snowball (whether it was correct or horrendously flawed, just like the garbage on social media today).
Even by the time of Jesus, we have no evidence that even the wealthiest people had bindings of the entire Hebrew Bible. In other words, no one in the Bible had a Bible, at least not in the sense that we use the term. When we see Jesus reading a passage in synagogue, they did not hand him a “Bible”, but the scroll of Isaiah.[3] Our word for Bible comes from a Greek word for books, and yes it was originally in the plural, not singular as we use it today. The Good Book was originally “Some Good Books”, as William H.C. Propp so hilariously puts it (maybe you had to be there).[4] So how did the ancients keep up with which books they should consider inspired?
Modern scholars make the statement that there was no canon before a few centuries after Christ. However, this statement, without further qualification, is misleading. The ancients certainly had opinions about which books were divine, even though those opinions differed, just like religious people do today, with their various canons.[5] We have a fair amount of evidence of what various individuals thought was inspired long before we find our first canon book list that matches any of the modern canons. We have some evidence within the Bible itself, but a tremendous amount of quotes from the early patristic writers indicate what they viewed as authoritative scripture.
There is, however, a strong argument that the ancients’ concepts regarding inspiration were fairly different than those today, as much of this book examines, including ways in which the ancients often seemed to think it was okay to alter or add to the inspired texts. And they had different concepts regarding who could be inspired as we’ll see later. In other words, many of the traits of the modern conception of canon would not have even made sense for many of the ancients.
But before we get back to that, let’s see what evidence the authors of the Bible give us concerning what they thought was inspired, and we may even discover a few sources that are not in most modern canons….
When the majority of scholars tell us that we don’t have a record of a list of the Hebrew canon until the first or second century CE,[6] this is misleading, for a couple of reasons. Firstly, there are other evidences as to what documents people thought were holy books even without a list. Secondly, projecting some modern ideas of canon onto the ancients is anachronistic.
The Earliest Known Counts of Books and Tripartite Division
Some of the earliest evidences we have for birth of the canon of the 24-book Hebrew Bible are not a list of book names, but a count. Second Esdras (c. 90-96CE) is our first mention of a 24-book canon.[7] Though they are not listed, it seems doubtful that they would have been different books, especially considering the Hebrew affinity for certain numbers, such as those divisible by 12 and 4. This is strong evidence of the antiquity of the canon by the first century CE. Second Esdras, if it’s anything, is a borrower of earlier traditions: it is highly doubtful that the 24-book canon was invented there.
As noted earlier, the 24 books of the Hebrew Bible are the same as 39 books of the Christian Old Testament: the Jewish Bible simply combines several of them. This was quite possibly because of what you could fit on a single scroll. Why have a bunch of little scrolls cluttering up your shelf when all 12 of the shorter prophets would fit onto one? So the Hebrew canon combines 12 of the shorter prophets. The length of the books of Samuel, Kings, and Chronicles seems a likely explanation for why they were split at some point, as well.
| Christian Bible | Jewish Bible Grouping | Christian Bible | Jewish Bible Grouping | |
| Genesis | Genesis | Song of Solomon | Song of Songs | |
| Exodus | Exodus | Isaiah | Isaiah | |
| Leviticus | Leviticus | Jeremiah | Jeremiah | |
| Numbers | Numbers | Lamentations | Lamentations | |
| Deuteronomy | Deuteronomy | Ezekiel | Ezekiel | |
| Joshua | Joshua | Daniel | Daniel | |
| Judges | Judges | Hosea | The Twelve | |
| Ruth | Ruth | Joel | ||
| 1 & 2 Samuel | Samuel | Amos | ||
| 1 & 2 Kings | Kings | Obadiah | ||
| 1 & 2 Chronicles | Chronicles | Jonah | ||
| Ezra | Ezra | Micah | ||
| Nehemiah | Nahum | |||
| Esther | Esther | Habakkuk | ||
| Job | Job | Zephaniah | ||
| Psalms | Psalms | Haggai | ||
| Proverbs | Proverbs | Zechariah | ||
| Ecclesiastes | Sukkot | Malachi |
Josephus (c. 37-100 CE) mentions that the Jews had 22 books,[8] which they “justly believed to be divine”. He also mentions writings since the Persian king Artaxerxes, but that these were not given the same status as the 22-book canon, which no one had dared to add to or remove from. In other words, Josephus not only bears witnesses to an inspired canon, but to a closed one, which had been closed for hundreds of years. And again, let us notice that Josephus also is testifying to a tradition, which was probably much more ancient than he.
Josephus also mentions these three classifications: five books of Moses, containing law and history to the death of Moses, 13 books of the prophets, and four books of hymns and precepts (poetic writings). Significantly, Jesus testifies to a three-fold division in Luke 24:44, which is another first century CE witness. One of the earliest records we have of a threefold division comes from the 132 BCE prologue to Sirach, which mentions the Law, the Prophets, and “the rest of the books”. Sirach and its slightly later prologue, like 2 Esdras, was also a heavy borrower of ancient tradition; to conclude that its testimony to a three-fold division of the canon was beyond a doubt new to that century seems nonsensical, and yet many modern scholars hold to this view, probably most.[9] There is some evidence that there was some fluidity at least down to the first century CE regarding which books fell into which division, with different versions of it being used, Josephus being one, but this does not preclude the current tripartite division from existing well before the 2nd century BCE.
Interestingly, Matthew, another first century CE witness, may have also given us a hint as to the extent of the canon.[10] Similar to Josephus’ remark that the canon was until Artaxerxes, Matthew, via the mouth of Jesus, speaks of God sending prophets who were murdered from Abel to Zechariah, son of Berechiah (ca. 520 BCE), who would have certainly written near the very end of Josephus’ canon. However, this comment may only be suggestive, and not conclusive. Matthew does not state explicitly that Zechariah was the last prophet to write a book that belonged in the Bible. And it raises another issue: we do not actually read of Zechariah, son of Berechiah, being murdered in the Hebrew Bible, but there is another prophet named Zechariah who was murdered hundreds of years before any potential close of the canon.[11] Some manuscripts omit the “son of Berechiah” in Matthew, so this is a manuscript variant.[12] And as we’ll see below, there is some evidence that at least some of the New Testament writers relied on some of those other books that Josephus seemed to reject.
Of course, the question arises, what were Josephus’ 22 books? Were they different from the 24-book canon, or just counted differently? We can certainly tell mostly what books of the canon he had access to, because he references most of them. Some scholars have suggested that there were two of the more disputed books that Josephus was not counting, such as Song of Songs and Ecclesiastes.[13] Others contend that he was grouping them differently.[14] Strong evidence for the latter comes from the fact the he speaks of only 4 works that contain “hymns” and “precepts”, which seems likely a reference to Psalms, Proverbs, Song of Solomon, and Ecclesiastes; and he speaks of 13 prophetic books, while the Rabbinic tradition for the Hebrew Bible counts only 8 prophetic books. Josephus is definitely using a different grouping, and most likely including the books that would be among the most disputed as canonical, based on his count of the poetic works. Based on the fact that Josephus mentions Ruth and Samson (from Judges) together, and Jeremiah with Lamentations, groupings that appear in other ancient writers, Dunkelgrün argues cogently that Josephus’ canon combines these works, giving us the exact same book count, and probably the same book list.
Scrolls in the Desert
The library at Qumran, discovered in the mid-20th century, was compiled from the third century BCE to the first century CE. This library bears witness to all the books of the Hebrew canon except for Esther, possibly because it does not mention God, though scribes made additions to fix this in the Septuagint.[15] Qumran also contained other works that were not included in the Hebrew Bible, such as 1 Enoch and Jubilees, which the New Testament writers also seemed to rely on, explained below.
In other words, though the evidence is not conclusive, it is quite suggestive that the Hebrew canonical list of books had been established for hundreds of years by the time of Jesus, even if other books were also considered scripture, or even deuterocanonical.[16] Whether those 24 books were altered and added to during the Hellenistic period is another matter that we’ll consider below. And the extensive discussion of the dating of Daniel will have to set aside for now, as it was testified to by the group at Qumran, yet modern scholars would put it as being written at the beginning of that community.
Cross Claims to Inspiration
So far we’ve seen some extra-biblical evidence of many ancient writers who supported much if not all of the Hebrew canon, and the probability that it was already pretty old by the birth of Christ. Now we’ll focus exclusively on what the Biblical authors themselves said that might hint at which books were inspired.
Much of the Hebrew Bible outside of the Torah, as well as the New Testament, clearly relies on and considered authoritative much of the Torah. There are several testimonies of prophethood from other books for writing prophets, such as Isaiah.[17] However, there are large swaths of the Hebrew Bible that make absolutely no claim to inspiration, nor are they referenced as authoritative by any other biblical writers before the New Testament. It is not hard to see how many of the Jewish sects and people groups by the time of Christ[18] only considered the Torah canonical, such as the Samaritans and the Sadducees. The Samaritans comprised a sizable population in Palestine in the first century, and the Sadducees were the authorities over the Temple and the Sanhedrin. The Pharisees did accept the present canon, along with an oral tradition that was being written by this time, and would continue to be written for the next few hundred years, and would make modern Judaism what it is today. And we’ve already noted that the community that gave us the Qumran scrolls had almost all of the current Hebrew canon, plus other books. In other words, there was no consensus, and there may have only been a tiny minority who used only the 24 books of the canon that modern Judaism used, if anyone.[19] From this perspective, yes, modern scholars do not go astray when they say that the modern canon had not yet been set; however, if whether a canon can be said to be “established” depends on consensus, then neither do we have one today, unless you count the Catholic one, which is in fact used by the majority of Christians today. Unless your definition of “Christian”, as with some sects even today, depends on your sect’s, and not the common usage of the term.
There are about 10 books in the Hebrew Bible that are not directly quoted in the New Testament, although there are some references to some of these books’ contents. The only large book not quoted is Judges, but Hebrews 11:32-33 does reference its contents. One of the most tenuous references is perhaps to Ecclesiastes, which is pretty much ignored by the New Testament, although Romans 3:10 agrees with Ecclesiastes 7:20 that all have sinned, but that idea is also found elsewhere in the Hebrew Bible. There is a huge debate on whether the gospel of John and Revelation rely on Song of Solomon, but this gets into whether that highly erotic love poem is an allegory for Christ and his bride, a subject that must be saved for another time. For now, I’ll just say if that’s what it was then the ancients could not have understood Song of Solomon for hundreds of years.
The Hebrew Bible itself contains very few cross-testimonies to the inspiration of its own books outside of the Torah.
The New Testament, similarly, makes very few mentions of its own books as Scripture. Inevitably, fundamentalist writers on such testimonies will mention two verses, found in 1 Timothy and 2 Peter. What they normally do not mention is just how little those passages actually tell us. The author of 1 Timothy appears to quote a short passage of Luke, calling it Scripture.[20] The second letter of Peter[21] mentions the writings of Paul as at least containing a divine message given him, but does not give any sort of list of those works. It might seem logical to assume that 2 Peter meant all of Paul’s letters; there are two problems that need to be answered first though (at least from the perspective of modern scholarship): 1) the evidence that Peter did not write either of the books that bear his name, and 2) the evidence that Paul did not write about half of the letters attributed to him, including 1 Timothy. Modern scholars doubt, for instance, that Peter, a Galilean fisherman, could have written the advanced literary, Greek documents that bear his name, and there are differences between the Greek of 1 and 2 Peter; Paul, on the other hand, was highly educated, but there are some noticeable differences between the writing styles and message of some of the letters traditionally attributed to him. What most scholars don’t mention is that whether Peter can write well is essentially a paradigmatic impasse (see appendix): if God gave him divine knowledge to write a message, that could have certainly included the ability to write it. Differences in style and even message, though, are not, but are mostly a topic for another book. We will touch on a few of these when we compare the messages across the New Testament about how believers should act and believe.
[1] A codex was the term for a book bound at one edge, and with stacked pages, like our modern physical book. This alone was a huge technological innovation over the scroll; scrolls could not be skimmed quickly, but had to be unrolled, whereas with a book, you could jump to the spot you wanted to read. A comparable analogy might be the advantage of digital media technologies over the analog tape (You may be old enough to remember having to rewind VHS movies before returning them to the rental store…); now when I want to play a song, I can jump straight to it in the playlist, without having to fast forward a cassette tape; similarly, with a codex, you could jump straight to the chapter you wanted to read, unlike with the scroll. Even more powerful, you could index the information in the book with bookmarkers or an index! And to think, you probably never thought of bookmarks as powerful technological tools. See Seth Lehrer’s TED talk on “The History of Reading”, in which he argues that Christian teaching, such as the interpretation of the Hebrew Bible as allegory of the New Testament, was enabled by the Codex, in which different passages could be referenced and compared far more easily than with scrolls. Even Jesus, the man who walked on water, had to take time to unroll his scroll (Luke 4:17-21). It’s been said that the Bible is the first hyperlinked book in history; the codex made those hyperlinks that much more efficient. In fact, it’s even been hypothesized that Christians were among the most responsible for causing the widespread use of the codex, as their new religion required extensive referencing of Scripture to explain themselves, as we’ll examine further in chapter 8.
[2] The Paper Trail: An Unexpected History of a Revolutionary Invention, by Alexander Monro.
[3] Luke 4:17-21
[4] Reclaiming Jewish History, the International Instituted for Secular Humanistic Judaism, Colloquium ’97. As of this writing, Propp’s lecture is available on Youtube, titled “Origins of the Bible”. He is the only scholar I’ve ever seen who could deliver the topic he did so competently and the audience laugh like he were a comedian instead.
[5] As explained in the introduction.
[6] E.g., Judaism and Christianity in the Age of Constantine, by Jacob Neusner, pp.128-145.
[7] It also mentions 70 more books which are to be kept secret, but were only to be for the wise.
[8] Against Apion, I.37-44.
[9] E.g., When God Spoke Greek, by Timothy Law, p. 49.
[10] Matthew 23:35
[11] 2 Chronicles 24:20
[12] See the next chapter for a discussion of variants.
[13] The Origins of the Canon of the Hebrew Bible, by Juan Carlos Ossandón Widow, pp.42-46.
[14] “The Testimonium Flavianum Canonicum”, by Theodor Dunkelgrün, 2016, International Journal of the Classical Tradition. 23 (3): 252-268.
[15] See below for an explanation of the Septuagint, a Greek translation of the Hebrew Bible.
[16] From the Greek words meaning “second canon”.
[17] 2 Chronicles 32:32
[18] The first time period for which we have significant written, extra-biblical evidence.
[19] In other words, maybe the modern conception of the canon in its entirety may not have existed at all in the ancient world, even until hundreds of years after Christ.
[20] I Timothy 5:18, Luke 10:7
[21] 3:15, 16