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Pythagoras
Guest
Did the Israelites know which books are inspired and which are not? If so, what is their basis?
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Valke2
Guest
There was a body of sages who eventually determined which books to include in the canonized texts. I believe this was completed prior to the buiding of the Second Temple.
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jbuck919
Guest
The idea of inspiration is alien to the time of Jewish assembly of he Hebrew texts. It is a relatively modern idea. It needs to be understood that the Hebrew Bible (lthe Old Testament) is a collection of every important writing of that culture, including several theologically uselss but literarilly important texts. It is in fact an anthology, the only difference being that we know nothing of what might have been excluded from it.
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Fidelis
Guest
This is true. In fact, even as late as the time of Jesus there were disputes over “canonicity,” the Saducee group basically adhering to the Books of Moses (the Pentatuech, the first five books), while the Pharisees allowed for a much wider “canon.” There were additional groups, like the Essenes, that had other variations.
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Pythagoras
Guest
Are there Israelite groups who also adhere to the Aprocrypha books as inspired?
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Todd_Easton
Guest
It is my understanding that the Ethiopian Jews accept all or nearly all of the Deuterocanonical Books of the Old Testament as inspired.
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Valke2
Guest
According to Wikipedia, ALl the Hebrew texts were apparently destroyed in the 17th century. SO they used the Christian “OT”. But from what I’ve read, they did a lot of editing of those texts to eliminated christian practices, text, etc. Because of this, the books of Hanoch, Jubilees, Baruch and the books of Ezra are also held sacred
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NotWorthy
Guest
Jewish leaders had the power of “binding and loosing”, so they held the authority to determine what was part of the sacred texts.
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Malcolm_McLean
Guest
For Ancient peoples, it wasn’t really an issue. Writing was a rare and expensive technology, and for something to be “written” meant it had great status, and was a sacred possession of the tribe.
By the first century, a more literate society had developed, and with it the notion of the “canon”, with the idea that some writings could be outside. The canon of the Jewish Scriptures was decided by the Jewish Council of Jamnia, in the second century. It excluded the deuterocanonical books, or apocrypha, partly because these were seen as too convenient to Christians, partly because they were written in Greek rather than in Hebrew.
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Verita
Guest
According to this article by Steve Ray, that’s not true.
http://www.catholic.com/thisrock/2004/0409fea4.asp
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NotWorthy
Guest
You want to try that link again there, Verita?
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Verita
Guest
Sigh. I have never posted a link here before and I wasn’t really sure how to do it. I’ll try again:
catholic.com/thisrock/2004/0409fea4.asp
Worked this time.
catholic.com/thisrock/2004/0409fea4.asp
Worked this time.
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Valke2
Guest
Here’s the Jewish perspective, more or less.
The Five Books of Moses (Pentateuch) as we have it today was completed around 538 BCE. The Prophets were completed around 323 BCE. Everything else was completed at the latest by the 2nd Century CE.
The Five Books of Moses (Pentateuch) as we have it today was completed around 538 BCE. The Prophets were completed around 323 BCE. Everything else was completed at the latest by the 2nd Century CE.
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vern_humphrey
Guest
The Second Temple, Nerubable’s Temple, was built when Cyrus the Great allowed the Jews to return to Jerusalem after the Babylonian Captifity (late 6th Century, BC.) There were books of the Bible written after that date.
In the time of Christ, the Saducees rejected all but the first five books of the Old Testament (the Pentateuch or Torah.) You note in the gospels whenever Jesus is speaking to Saducees, he quotes only from those five books.
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Valke2
Guest
As I said, some of the books were written well after the 6th century BCE. That the Saducees rejected the other books requires a lot of conjecture, as their history was written by the victors.
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Gottle_of_Geer
Guest
Inspired books are a very late development in the period before Christ. There were inspired prophetic oracles (see Jeremiah 36 for example), but there was no body of inspired literature, recognised as uniquely such - not until Ezra do we get the beginnings of something which approximates to “Holy Scripture” (the Torah was of enormous importance in the period after the Exile, in Second Temple Judaism - and several books eventually accepted by Jews or by Catholics or by both were composed during this period).
So there were sacred texts - yes; but (until very late) texts regarded as “Holy Scripture” in the sense in which Christian dogmatics uses the word, no. The Book of the Law discovered/rediscovered/composed during the reign of Josiah in the 620s could be authoritative as a text setting forth the Law of JHWH, without being “inspired” as a Christian understands the term.Matters are complicated by the fact that a Divine revelation can take the form of a dream, a body of law, a command to act, a literary text, a prophetic oracle, & so forth. All are found in the OT-Tanakh; all have divine authority; none need to be thought of as the work of the Spirit of God. The SoG is as likely to give exceptional strength (see Judges) or to cause a man to behave like a dervish (as Saul did) as to inspire a message.
There were discussions of whether specific writings “defile the hands” (that is, “contaminate” the hands with their “holiness”); the Torah-scroll does so, whereas Ecclesiasticus (= Sirach) does not. IOW, the Torah is (in Christian terminology) canonical, & Sirach is not.
The basis of OT religion was (for most of the period) the cult - one of the features of the history of the period is the tension between local shrines & holy places, & the Jerusalem priesthood. After the division of Israel under Solomon’s successor Rehoboam, matters were further complicated by the rivalry between the kingdom of Judah (which had the prestige of being the kingdom where the Temple was found) & the kingdom of Israel (whose first king Jeroboam did what he could to create a state cult based on ancient traditions common to both kingdoms by installing calves at the shrines of Dan & Bethel; which was vilified as idolatry by his opponents in Judah; so he is regularly described as Jeroboam son of Nebat “who made Israel to sin”. Biblical books can be very one-sided. Then, after the return from Exile, there was friction between the Samaritans and the Jews (the Samaritans have their own edition of the Torah, which has some interesting features; they acknowledge only the Torah as Scripture)
FWIW, in addition to the two Temples in Jerusalem, there has been (& I think is now) a Samaritan Temple on Mount Gerizim; as well as a Jewish Temple in Egypt, which was destroyed in 410 BC, rebuilt, & destroyed in 77 AD.
There was a movement in post-Second Temple Judaism which rejected the Traditions of the Elders, called the Karaites - the Karaite position would have been impossible without a body of writings recognised as “defiling the hands”.
Hope this is some help. The short answer is, “The question is not the right one to ask”. ##
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