centuries. Later prophets quote earlier ones. The writings representing the earlier prophets were in circulation before the later prophets wrote. By about 200 B.C., a body of writings other than the Law was in circulation. However, we must stress, this does not mean that such a body of writings is fixed and settled, either as to its text or as to its extent. Obviously such a book-collection is incomplete until the last book to be written is included. If this is Zechariah, or a part of it, that will be about 135 B.C.
The Writings, the third section, is a collection of different kinds of literature. It began with a small group of writings which grew as time passed. It includes the ‘wisdom literature’ namely Proverbs, Ecclesiastes and Job. There is poetry, the Psalms, the hymn book of the second temple. Psalms came to be significant because of its being used in worship. So the Writings established themselves as having special importance through the use to which they were put, long before the Christian era.
This does not mean that the boundary between the scriptural and non-scriptural books was clearly, formally and decisively drawn. It is usage that provides the basis for more formal recognition. The fact is that collections of writings, which include other books than these, the Law, the Prophets and the Writings, were being used in Jewish communities, for example by the Essenes and at Alexandria. If the Jews were not clear as to the extent and the limits of their canonical literature, how could Christians be clear about it? The debate continued long into the Christian era.12
Meanwhile the Greek culture and language sponsored by the successors of Alexander the Great (who died 323 B.C.) had spread throughout the empire. The international language was Greek, a language used in ordinary human affairs. It was called koine (common) Greek. The Jews who lived in the cosmopolitan centres in the Empire understood Greek and used it. They lost the ability to speak Aramaic. To make the Jewish Scriptures available to this population, a group of scholars translated the Hebrew Scripture into the Greek language. Ptolemy II (285 - 246 B.C.) sponsored them. The result was the Septuagint, sometimes known by the symbol LXX, the Latin term for ‘seventy’. The atmosphere in Alexandria where it was produced was liberal and it may well be that a longer canon was accepted there than elsewhere. There was uncertainty regarding the extent of the canon.
Jerusalem fell in A.D. 70. Jewish leaders felt it imperative to settle the question of the limits of the canon and so to put an end to uncertainty about it. Meanwhile Christian writings were in circulation, and apocalyptic writings were becoming very popular indeed. The so-called Council of Jamnia in A.D. 90 limited the Old Testament canon to the non-Greek books, which they believed were in existence before prophecy had ceased. It ceased, they thought, in the period after the Exile. Since the Law and the Prophets had already been decided, it was a question of fixing the limits of the Writings. The criterion was that the book be in harmony with the Torah.413
Jews who became Christians brought the Septuagint, the Greek version of their Scriptures, with them. Paul knew it well and quoted from it. Gentiles, who accepted the Christian faith, found the Old Testament already in an authoritative position. They accepted its authority and assumed its inspiration. They all knew that Jesus quoted the Old Testament. They knew also that Christian preachers held it in esteem, using it in teaching, counselling and proclamation.
The church thus readily accepted the Old Testament into its life and witness without question. They believed that God had inspired these writings. This understanding of inspiration was in due course applied to the Christian writings themselves. However when the New Testament refers to ‘Scripture’ or to ‘inspiration,’ it has in mind some book or books of the Old Testament.
What was the underlying reason why the canon as a whole, that is to say a certain body of books, was accepted by Christians? To this question there is an historical and a theological answer. Christians achieved community as they read their experiences in the light of the ideas and experiences of the Hebrew community. The new community of Christians thought of itself as in continuity with the older community, the Hebrew people. With the coming of Jesus and of faith in him, something decisive had happened, and now for the first time the language of the Old Testament was applied to Jesus. Christians saw him as the fulfilment of Old Testament hopes. Some of the New Testament writings were written with the Jew particularly in mind, for example Matthew and sections of Romans. ‘Christ’ was itself a key term.
Christians inherited the idea of a holy book. The New Testament books were produced in the context of a community which accepted the Old Testament as a holy book. So the New Testament speaks of ‘scripture.’ The New Testament refers to the book with the words, ‘It is written.’ The New Testament writers see the events which are their central concern as fulfilling what that book, the Old Testament, had said. That is not, of course, a sufficient ground for putting the two collections of books together and treating them as one, as a unity. They could have emerged as two independent collections. Or, since the events of the New Testament were treated as fulfilments of the Old Testament prophecies, the New Testament could have superseded the Old. What was the point of retaining the Old? Why did they not say that the prophecy has been rendered redundant by its fulfilment and dispense with it? Why take the two together as one complete whole? The New Testament believers and writers thought of themselves as part of the ongoing history. They believed their history to be in continuity with the events in the history of the Hebrew people. The God who had acted in that history had now acted in the new event, the event of Jesus Christ. So the earlier history could now be understood in relation to the faith in Jesus Christ which was the unifying feature of the new community. Christians took the Hebrew past as their own past. They found a ‘fit’ between themselves and that Hebrew past, with its developing belief in God.
Once Christians expressed this continuity by adopting the book of the Jews as their own they had to undertake the task of interpreting the Old Testament in a suitable way. For there was much there. Could it, in all of its diversity, be christianised?14
For the writers whose works appear in our New Testament, the only book which could be called ‘Scripture’ was the Old ‘Testament.’ This was their only written source of authority. By the end of the first century there were collections of Jesus’ sayings.15 The epistles of Paul were known and so were the Synoptic Gospels. II Peter is probably the latest book of our New Testament, a pseudonymous book as all the evidence indicates. It informs us that Paul’s writings are being misinterpreted and perverted. This means that they have begun to be taken as Scripture. The crucial passage reads: ‘There are some things in them (that is the Pauline letters) hard to understand, which the ignorant and unstable twist to their own destruction, as they do the other Scriptures.’716 What then are these ‘other Scriptures’?
The Scriptures being accepted are the Old Testament. Then there are the letters of Paul, to which II Peter makes direct reference in this passage.17 The fact that II Peter speaks of these in the plural means that there are many which he knows, including some of the later ones. II Peter alludes to the Gospel of Mark, in the reference to the transfiguration.18 So he knows and probably recognizes the Gospels as Scripture. If II Peter is typical, we have a good idea of the situation at the beginning of the second century. To sum it up then: By around A.D. 100 Christians have accepted
Old Testament books, Paul’s letters, and Gospels.
4 THE WORD ‘CANON’
Now, a brief comment about the word canon. This word, kanon in Greek, had a variety of meanings, and was rather loosely used in early times. It meant a carpenter’s measure or rule, or (like a row of numbers on a measure) a list. A canon was an ideal standard, something which served as a norm. So canonical people or books were those whose names were found on a list. A collection of writings is called a ‘canon,’ for example at Alexandria, because it sets a standard and can serve as a model.
The term canon, when used of ‘Scripture,’ has three distinct meanings. All of them point to a collection of writings taken to have authority, to be unique. The word canon can be used of the books first, as they set the standard; secondly, as they conform to a standard; and thirdly, as they are found on a list.
Canonical
