The Collection of the Old Testament Scriptures - The Canon

I. The Meaning of the Word "Canon"

A. The word "canon" comes from the Greek word kanon, which in turn comes from the Hebrew word kaneh, meaning a reed or measuring rod, i.e., a norm or rule. It came to mean a rule of faith and eventually a catalogue or list. Thus, it refers to the collection of the 39 books of the O.T. and the 27 of the N.T.

II. The Completion of the Canon

A. The testimony of Ezra and Nehemiah
1. Moses' writings - Ezra 3:2; 6:18; 7:6; Neh. 13:1
2. Joshua - Neh. 9:24-25
3. Judges - Neh. 9:26-27
4. Samuel and Kings - Ezra 9:7; Neh. 9:32-35; 12:45
5. Chronicles - Neh. 12:23
6. David's writings - Neh. 12:24, 45-46
7. The prophets - Ezra 5:1; Neh. 9:30-32
B. The testimony of Josephus (1st century) - Against Apion I-8: "For we have not an innumerable multitude of books among us, disagreeing from and contradicting one another (as the Greeks have) but only twenty-two books, which contain the records of all the past times; which are justly believed to be divine, and of them, five belong to Moses, which contain his laws, and the traditions of the origin of mankind till his death. This interval of time was little short of three thousand years; but as to the time from the death of Moses till the reign of Artaxerxes king of Persia, who reigned after Xerxes, the prophets, who were after Moses, wrote down what was done in their times in thirteen books. The remaining four books contain hymns to God, and precepts for the conduct of human life. It is true, our history has been written since Artaxerxes, very particularly, but has not been esteemed of the like authority with the former by our forefathers, because there has not been an exact succession of prophets since that time; and how firmly we have given credit to those books of our own nation is evident by what we do; for during so many ages as have already passed, no one has been so bold as either to add anything to them or take anything from them, or to make any change in them; but it becomes natural to all Jews, immediately and from their very birth, to esteem those books to contain divine doctrines, and to persist in them, and, if occasion be, willingly to die for them."
1. Ezra came up from Babylon to Jerusalem in the seventh year of Artaxerxes
- Ezra 7:1, 8
2. Nehemiah followed Ezra to Jerusalem in the twentieth year of Artaxerxes
- Neh. 2:1, 5-6
C. The testimony of the Council of Jamnia (A.D. 70) - This council was made up of the Jewish rabbis that met at the time of the fall of Jerusalem and confirmed that the Old Testament canon consisted of the 39 books in our Bible.

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III. The Arrangement of the Canon

A. The Hebrew arrangement
1. The Law (Torah) - 5 Books - Genesis, Exodus, Leviticus, Numbers, Deuteronomy
2. The Prophets (Nebhiim) - 8 Books
a. The former prophets - Joshua, Judges, Samuel, Kings
b. The latter prophets - Isaiah, Jeremiah, Ezekiel, the Twelve
3. The Writings (Kethubhim) - 11 Books
a. Poetical books - Psalms, Job, Proverbs
b. Five rolls (Megilloth) - Ruth, Song of Songs, Ecclesiastes,
Lamentations, Esther
c. Historical books - Daniel, Ezra-Nehemiah, Chronicles
B. The Greek or Septuagint (LXX) arrangement
1. The Law - 5 books - Genesis through Deuteronomy
2. History - 12 books - Joshua through Esther
3. Poetry or experience - 5 books - Job through Song of Solomon
4. Prophets - 17 books - Isaiah through Malachi
C. The Apocryphal Books
1. 1 Esdras (150 B.C.)
2. 2 Esdras (A.D. 100)
3. Tobit (2nd cent. B. C.)
4. Judith (2nd cent. B.C.)
5. Additions to Esther (100 B.C.)
6. The Wisdom of Solomon (A.D. 40)
7. Ecclessiasticus, or Wisdom of Sirach (180 B.C.)
8. Baruch (A.D. 100)
9. The Letter of Jeremiah
10. The Prayer of Azariah and the Song of the Three Young Men
11. Susanna
12. Bel and the Dragon
13. The Prayer of Manasseh (2nd cent. B.C.)
14. 1 Maccabees (1st cent. B.C.)
15. 2 Maccabees (1st cent. B.C.)
D. The Reasons for rejecting the Apocryphal books
1. Philo, Alexandrian Jewish philosopher (20 B.C.-A.D. 40), quoted the Old Testament prolifically and even recognized the threefold division, but he never quoted from the Apocrypha as inspired.
2. Josephus (A.D. 30-100), Jewish historian, explicitly excludes the Apocrypha, numbering the books of the Old Testament as twenty-two. Neither does he quote these books as scriptures.
3. Jesus and the New Testament writers never once quote the Apocrypha although there are hundreds of quotes and references to almost all of the canonical books of the Old Testament.
4. The Jewish scholars of Jamnia (A.D. 70) did not recognize the Apocrypha.
5. No canon or council of the Christian church for the first four centuries recognized the Apocrypha as inspired.
6. Many of the great Fathers of the early church spoke out against the Apocrypha, for example, Origen, Cyril of Jerusalem, Athanasius.
7. Jerome (340-420), the great scholar and translator of the Vulgate, rejected the Apocrypha as part of the canon. He disputed across the Mediterranean with Augustine on this point. He at first refused even to translate the Apocryphal books into Latin, but later he made a hurried translation of a few of them. After his death, and literally "over his dead body," the Apocryphal books were brought into his Latin Vulgate directly from the Old Latin Version.
8. Many Roman Catholic scholars through the Reformation period rejected the Apocrypha.
9. Luther and the Reformers rejected the canonicity of the Apocrypha.
10. Not until A.D. 1546, in a polemical action at the Counter Reformation
Council of Trent, did the Apocryphal books receive full canonical status by the Roman Catholic Church.
E. The Distinction between the Canon and other books
1. The Book of the Wars of the Lord (Num. 21:14)
2. The Book of Jasher (Jash. 10:13; 1 Sam. 1:18)
3. The Book of the Acts of Solomon (1 Kings 11:41)
4. The Book of Nathan the Prophet (1 Chron. 29:29)
5. The Book of Gad the Seer (1 Chron. 29:29)
6. The prophecy of Ahijah the Shilonite (2 Chron. 9:29)
7. The Visions of Iddo the Seer (2 Chron. 9:29)

IV. The Transmission of the Old Testament Text

A. The Hebrew Massoretic Line.
1. The date of existing MSS. - 10th century A.D.
2. The number of existing MSS. - Over 700 in Hebrew in comparison with the N.T. which has over 5000 in Greek.
3. The quality of existing MSS. - Although the quantity of the Massoretic MSS. are small, the quality is good. There are very few variants in the text since all of them are descendants of one text type which was established about A.D. 100.

B. The Greek Septuagint (LXX) Line
1. The date of existing MSS. - 2nd, 4th and 5th centuries A.D.
2. The number of existing MSS. - three main uncial MSS. of the LXX are (B) Vaticanus; (S) Sinaiticus; (A) Alexandrinus, plus over 1500 miniscules and
over 700 papyri.
3. The quality of existing MSS. - It is a known fact that the Hebrew text from which the LXX was translated was different in many respects from the Masoretic text.
a. The Massoretic text had a Palestinian origin whereas the Hebrew text underlying the LXX had an Egyptian origin.
b. The LXX text from the time of the birth of Christ to Origen (A.D. 250) experienced much corruption due to arbitrary alterations, interpolations, omissions and mistakes. It was because of this that Origen did the work to produce the Hexapla, a six volume edition of the Hebrew Text and the LXX text plus four translations to improve the LXX to read as close as possible to the Hebrew.
c. Codex Vaticanus (B) has largely escaped the influence of the Hexapla revisions of Origen. This is regarded as the best MSS. of the LXX. Dated A.D. 325.
d. The editions of the LXX with a textual apparatus include: the Gottengen edition, the Cambridge edition by H.B. Swete, and the Alfred Rahlfs edition.
e. The LXX became a substitute for the Hebrew Bible. The Eastern church (Greek Orthodox) use the LXX as their official Bible. The Western church (Roman catholic) after the 5th century changed the LXX to the Latin Vulgate.
C. The Samaritan Pentateuch Line
1. The date of existing MSS. - 11th Century
2. The number of existing MSS. - There are 6,000 variant readings in the Samaritan Pentateuch from the Massoretic text.
3. The quality of existing MSS. - The value of the Samaritan Pentateuch is that it represents a different tradition and line of transmission of the Hebrew Text than the Massoretic. The 6,000 variants in reading from the Massoretic text do not alter the stability of the Massoretic text, because the differences are minor matters of grammar and idiom.

D. The Dead Sea Scroll Line. (Since 1947)
1. The date of the existing MSS. - 168 B.C. to A.D. 233
2. The number of the existing MSS. - Hundreds
3. The quality of the existing MSS. - the DSS manuscript of Isaiah dates 125 B.C. which is 1000 years better in date than the existing Massoretic text. The Isaiah scrolls found completely confirm the accuracy of the Massoretic text over the LXX. The DSS copy of Isaiah is word for word identical 95% to the Massoretic text