The Jerusalem Canon vs. the Alexandrian

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Hi.

I was wondering if someone could help me understand a few things.

I have a lot of questions focusing on the OT canon and, ultimately, the Protestant Bible’s exclusion of certain books of the OT.

First of all, could someone clarify for me why the Jews of Jesus’ time, shortly after his death, met in Jamnia for the purpose of removing OT books. Wasn’t the OT canon decided long, long before then??? I understand they weren’t Christians, but Jews who rejected Christ, and that they were concerned that there were no Hebrew texts of the disputed OT books. Yet, they discovered some of those (if not all?) among the Dead Sea Scrolls…wouldn’t they have known of their existence then? And why would they not choose to have them ‘transcribed’ into Hebrew, considering they were the Word of God? Why choose to eliminate them altogether? Was there something in them that they didn’t like? Seems odd to me.

Also, who among the Reformers decided to agree with the Jamnian Council in Jerusalem? Was it Luther? Did they have a meeting, or did Luther make the original decision, only to be later supported by others? And on what grounds did they make that decision. Was it simply because they rejected everything Catholic? Was there more to it? Were there things in the OT books which they rejected that went against their newly formed theology and doctrines?

Also, isn’t it true that, in the NT, there are quoted references made by Jesus, to the OT…and some of those references are to chapter/verse contained within the books removed? If so, how do modern Protestants deal with that?

Thank you
 
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Rae:
Hi.

First of all, could someone clarify for me why the Jews of Jesus’ time, shortly after his death, met in Jamnia for the purpose of removing OT books. Wasn’t the OT canon decided long, long before then???
Thank you
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No the Canon was not authoritatively decided.

The Sadducee’s, for example, only held that the Pentateuch was Canonical. All the other books were valuable books that told good lessons, but not Scripture.

There where other Pharisetical\Rabbinical schools that held that only the Pentateuch and the Prophetical Books were Canonical. Others, like the Psalms and Proverbs were not. They were held in high esteem for their traditional value, but were the words of David and Solomon and other men, not of God.
 
Okay, that answers part of my questioning. So, the Canon was not decided yet. When did the Jewish population decide a Canon? And what do current Jews have in the Torah? Do they follow the Canon decided by those in Jamnia?

Also, on what basis did the Jews of that Jamnia council decide against the 7 books? What was the reasoning? Does anyone know?

I still have questions regarding, ultimately, WHY the Protestant reformers chose the Jerusalem canon over the Alexandrian, especially since Jesus and the Apostles quoted from the 7 books which were rejected! If Jesus referred to them, why, oh why, would the Protestants use the other canon? If the Apostles and the early Church continued to use the Alexandrian Canon, which was settled in the fourth century, clear until the 16th century, on what grounds did Protestant reformers decide to use the Jerusalem Canon? Was it doctrinal problems within them?

I know that Luther would’ve rejected the Book of James, Revelation, and parts of others if it weren’t for strong recommendation against, by his own fellow reformers…and that was based on doctrinal issues that didn’t jive with his own beliefs.

Was it out of sheer rejection of anything Catholic (just to be different and rebellious), or were there doctrinal problems presented within the 7 OT books, as well, that also caused Luther discomfort?

I can’t understand why he would choose the Canon used by the Jews who rejected Christ, rather than that of the early Christians.

Thanks for any further information!
 
Also, on what basis did the Jews of that Jamnia council decide against the 7 books? What was the reasoning? Does anyone know?
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Likely because they only existed in Greek, and the Council in question was most interested in preserving/shaping a unique Jewish identity founded in Hebrew and Aramaic. Remember, this is shortly after the destruction of the Second Temple, and a time of major social unrest among Jews. There was a huge culture war going on, and for better or worse, this Council thought one answer was to cut out as much “outside” influence as possible. This isn’t to say that those books were not Jewish in origin, as they obviously were. They could only be found in Greek, however, and how do you enforce a strong Palestine-centered identity when you are using the Greek language in your Scripture? Prior to this time it wasn’t a deciding factor in Judaism, and Jewish Scripture was determined by subject matter and not language of origin (and some Jews, such as the Sadducees, rejected much of the now-canon Jewish Scripture, while others seem to have had a canon that is larger than the Catholic one today). Christians used the “Greek Canon” because it was perfectly acceptable when Christ started out, and it was easily spread to a wider cultural audience.

Interestingly enough, while the “Hebrew Canon” was decided upon at this Council, a standardized version of it (there were many different copies with slight differences in content and style) wasn’t developed for another 600 years or so. By that point the Septuagint (Greek Version) had been around for nearly 1,000 years, and was used by the Catholics as the foundation of the Old Testament translations.

As for why the reformers abandoned over 1700 years of Old Testament scholarship, I believe there were a lot of factors, including doctrinal disagreements and a mistaken idea that the “Greek” version was somehow less true than the then-current Jewish Canon.
 
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Ghosty:
Interestingly enough, while the “Hebrew Canon” was decided upon at this Council, a standardized version of it (there were many different copies with slight differences in content and style) wasn’t developed for another 600 years or so. By that point the Septuagint (Greek Version) had been around for nearly 1,000 years, and was used by the Catholics as the foundation of the Old Testament translations.

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Isn’t this just a theory? I’ve seen other Catholics totally, flat-out deny the canon was established at Jamnia. And, the JPS translation Tanakh also denies that the canon was established at this point. Just wondering.

Peace…
 
The only reason that I can see Catholics or Jews deny that a canon was established at Jamnia is because, to my knowledge, there wasn’t a formal list of books set down, but rather a criteria of what books could be accepted (leading to the Tanakh). Another reason could be that the canon isn’t universal, but is rather definative for the Pharisees and their “descendants”, including the European Jewry. This “canon” was not in any way binding on all Jews, as can be seen with the Ethiopian Jews who use the Septuagint, but instead represents a cultural enforcement by a certain strand of Judaism that happened to predominate in later years.

I’m not sure why Catholics would argue against the Council of Jamnia being the time and place that the Pharisees “settled” the debate of what was Jewish Scripture. Perhaps they are simply arguing that the Septuagint had been settled centuries before, which is in fact true. As for Jews who argue that it wasn’t the place that the “canon” was settled, I can only imagine that they are either speaking in more general terms, since some Jews still use the Septuagint today, and are accepted as Jews, or they believe that the Hebrew “canon” had been established earlier, to which I would respond that there’s little evidence of that, and much evidence to the contrary, i.e. the Sadducees.
 
Jaminai was not a real council for all Jews that is why catholcs deny Jamina as being a real Jewsih councils you have a few Rabbis that’s all.
For instance the Jews of the Essenes the Ethopian Jews and the Christian Jews were not envited or represented to the council and all are authentically Jews but all have a different OT than the Rabbinial Jews all three Jewish groups I mentioned have the dueterocanicals as scripture.
For the most part the early Christians considered the Septugient as their OT no questions asked and while the NT list varied the first 400 years constantly most agreed on the books of the OT because the Septugient had decided the issue for them.
Only later when Jerome disagree with the earlier tradition and preferred the Jewsih canon was their a different opinion of significance. Since prots like to point to the earliest years of christianity as the purest form then the first 300 years of the church tells us the larger Greek canon is more consistent with the canon the apostles had than the canon Jerome and Luther favored.
 
Incidently, Jerome later clarified that he didn’t mean that the non-Hebrew works were not Scripture, just that they weren’t as widely accepted as authentic by Jews. He made a number of references to the Deuteros as being inspired.
 
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