P
patrick457
Guest
I’d like to add this to the last post.
Just to nitpick the ‘Jews’ section a bit (John, I hope you don’t mind
):
In the book, Law points out a rather important distinction we need to keep in mind: ‘canon’ is not the same thing as ‘scripture’. As he says, “there can be no canon without scripture, but scripture can exist without a canon.” What the references in the Mishnah refer to is an issue of ‘scripture’, not an issue of ‘canon’ - which was apparently how they were misread in the 19th century. Assuming that those references were really historical, the Rabbis simply affirmed that the two books are sacred, because some were disputing whether these two books really ‘defile the hands’ at all: Song of Songs are love poems that almost border on the erotic, Ecclesiastes is too skeptical and cynical in tone. Not exactly what you might expect a ‘sacred’ work to be.)
“In the 3rd century BC, the Torah (the first five books of the Bible) were translated into Greek, probably in Alexandria in Egypt. A legend - dating about a century after this translation was probably made - claims that this translation was made by seventy-two Hebrew scholars from Jerusalem who were commissioned by the Greek king of Egypt to make a translation of the Jewish Law for his library. Then, between the period 2nd-1st century BC (and later), translations of other biblical books into Greek were also made by different people in different places. Early Christians who used these Greek translations usually applied the term ‘version of the seventy’ (after the seventy-two translators of the Torah) to the translations they used, which is where we derive the term ‘Septuagint’ (LXX) from. (From Latin versio septuaginta.)”
A bit more wordy, but IMHO more accurate.
I’ll also suggest dropping or at least rephrasing the phrases “It was the Old Testament Bible of the first century Christians” (because that kinda makes people think that there was already a ‘Bible’ and a fixed OT canon, so maybe something like: “It was the Scriptural text used by most early Christians” - or even allowing for ‘Bible’: “It was the ‘Bible’ of most early Christians” - I say ‘most’, because the Syrian Christians had their own version of the OT that is not derived / totally similar to the Greek), and “Jesus quoted from it” (= “The NT authors - Matthew, Mark, Luke, John, Paul, Peter, etc. - quoted from and alluded to it” - the words of Jesus in the NT are not tape recordings, so we don’t know if Jesus did quote the verses in the way the gospels make it appear).
Again, just my humble suggestions.
Just to nitpick the ‘Jews’ section a bit (John, I hope you don’t mind
):- “The Hebrew Canon of the majority of today’s Jews is the canon that was settled upon by a group of Rabbis meeting in Jamnia [Javneh] in 90 AD.” That there was this ‘council’ in Yavneh in AD 90 that fixed the canon of Scripture is really a 19th century theory based on some obscure references in the Mishnah, which do not even speak of the biblical canon at all, but of the sacred status of two books: Song of Songs and Ecclesiastes. (Cf. DavidFilmer’s post on another thread.)
In the book, Law points out a rather important distinction we need to keep in mind: ‘canon’ is not the same thing as ‘scripture’. As he says, “there can be no canon without scripture, but scripture can exist without a canon.” What the references in the Mishnah refer to is an issue of ‘scripture’, not an issue of ‘canon’ - which was apparently how they were misread in the 19th century. Assuming that those references were really historical, the Rabbis simply affirmed that the two books are sacred, because some were disputing whether these two books really ‘defile the hands’ at all: Song of Songs are love poems that almost border on the erotic, Ecclesiastes is too skeptical and cynical in tone. Not exactly what you might expect a ‘sacred’ work to be.)- “The Septuagint, which means seventy, ( LXX ) is the Greek translation of the Old Testament which was completed in Alexandria, Egypt in about 100 BC. It was begun by a group of seventy-two Hebrew scholars from Jerusalem that were sent to Alexandria to provide the Jews of the Dispersion with a copy of the scriptures in their language.”
“In the 3rd century BC, the Torah (the first five books of the Bible) were translated into Greek, probably in Alexandria in Egypt. A legend - dating about a century after this translation was probably made - claims that this translation was made by seventy-two Hebrew scholars from Jerusalem who were commissioned by the Greek king of Egypt to make a translation of the Jewish Law for his library. Then, between the period 2nd-1st century BC (and later), translations of other biblical books into Greek were also made by different people in different places. Early Christians who used these Greek translations usually applied the term ‘version of the seventy’ (after the seventy-two translators of the Torah) to the translations they used, which is where we derive the term ‘Septuagint’ (LXX) from. (From Latin versio septuaginta.)”
A bit more wordy
, but IMHO more accurate.I’ll also suggest dropping or at least rephrasing the phrases “It was the Old Testament Bible of the first century Christians” (because that kinda makes people think that there was already a ‘Bible’ and a fixed OT canon, so maybe something like: “It was the Scriptural text used by most early Christians” - or even allowing for ‘Bible’: “It was the ‘Bible’ of most early Christians” - I say ‘most’, because the Syrian Christians had their own version of the OT that is not derived / totally similar to the Greek), and “Jesus quoted from it” (= “The NT authors - Matthew, Mark, Luke, John, Paul, Peter, etc. - quoted from and alluded to it” - the words of Jesus in the NT are not tape recordings, so we don’t know if Jesus did quote the verses in the way the gospels make it appear).
Again, just my humble suggestions.