I. Canonical Dignity Of Holy Scripture

I. CANONICAL DIGNITY OF HOLY SCRIPTURE[1158]
[1158] See the literature on the history of the Old Test. canon in Strack, art. “Kanon des A. T.,” in Herzog’s Real-Encycl. vol. vii. 2nd ed. (1880) p. 450 sq.; and in Schmiedel, art. “Kanon,” in Ersch and Gruber’s Allgem. Encyclopädie, § 2, vol. xxxii. (1882) p. 335 sq.
THE fact most essentially conclusive for the religious life of the Jewish people during the period under consideration is, that the law, which regulated not only the priestly service but the whole life of the people in their religious, moral and social relations, was acknowledged as given by God Himself. Its every requirement was a requirement of God from His people, its most scrupulous observance was therefore a religious duty, nay the supreme and in truth the sole religious duty. The whole piety of the Israelite consisted in obeying with fear and trembling, with all the zeal of an anxious conscience, the law given him by God in all its particulars. Hence the specific character of Israelitish piety during this period depends on the acknowledgment of this dignity of the law.
The age of this acknowledgment may be determined almost to the day and hour. It dates from that important occurrence, whose epoch-making importance is duly brought forward in the Book of Nehemiah, the reading of the law by Ezra, and the solemn engagement of the people to observe it (Nehemiah 8-10). The law, which was then read, was the Pentateuch in essentially the same form as we now have it. Isolated passages may have been subsequently interpolated, but with respect to the main substance, these need not be taken account of. Henceforward then the law given by God through Moses was acknowledged by the people as the binding rule of life, i.e. as canonical. For it is in the very nature of the law that its acceptance eo ipso involves the acknowledgment of its binding and normative dignity.[1159] Hence this acknowledgment was from that time onwards a self-evident assumption to every Israelite. It was the condition without which no one was a member of the chosen people, or could have a share in the promises given to them. “He who asserts that the Thorah is not from heaven (אין תורה מן השמים), has no part in the future world.”[1160] It is however in the nature of the thing that this notion should, as time went on, be held with increasing strictness and severity. While its original meaning was only that the commands of the law were in their entirety and in their details the commands of God, the assumption of a divine origin was gradually referred to the entire Pentateuch according to its whole wording. “He who says that Moses wrote even one verse of his own knowledge (מִפֶּי עַצְמוֹ) is a denier and despiser of the word of God.”[1161] The whole Pentateuch was thus now regarded as dictated by God, as prompted by the Spirit of God.[1162] Even the last eight verses of Deuteronomy, in which the death of Moses is related, were said to have been written by Moses himself by means of divine revelation.[1163] Nay at last, the view of a divine dictation was no longer sufficient. The complete book of the law was declared to have been handed to Moses by God, and it was only disputed, whether God delivered the whole Thorah to Moses at once or by volumes (מְגִלָּה מְגִלָּה).[1164]
[1159] Comp. Wellhausen, Geschichte Israels, i. 2 sq., 425 sq.
[1160] a Sanhedrin x. 1.
[1161] Bab. Sanhedrin 99a.
[1162] See in general, Joh. Delitzsch, De inspiratione scripturae sacrae quid statuerint patres apostolici et apologetae secundi saeculi (Lips. 1872), pp. 4-8, 14-17.
[1163] Baba bathra 15a (lat. in Marx, Traditio rabbinorum veterrima de librorum Vet. Test. ordine atque origine, Lips. 1884, p. 23). Philo, Vita Mosis, iii. 39 (ed. Mang. ii. 179). Joseph. Antt. iv. 8. 48.
[1164] Gittin 60a.
After the law and as an addition to it, certain other writings of Israelite antiquity, the writings of the prophets and works on the older (pre-exilian) history of Israel, attained to similar authority. They were for a long time respected and used as a valuable legacy of antiquity, before their canonization was thought of. Gradually however they appeared beside the law as a second class of “sacred Scriptures,” and the longer their combination with the law became customary, the more was its specific, i.e. its legally binding dignity, and therefore its canonical validity, transferred to them. They too were regarded as documents in which the will of God was revealed in a manner absolutely binding. Lastly, at a still later stage there was added to this body of the “prophets” (נביאים) a third collection of “writings” (כְּתוּבִים), which gradually entered into the same category of canonical Scriptures. The origin of these two collections is quite veiled in obscurity. The most ancient testimony to the collocation of both collections with the Thorah is the prologue to the Book of Wisdom (second century B.C.).[1165] We cannot, however, determine from it that the third collection was then already concluded; on the other hand, it is very probable that in the time of Josephus the canon had already assumed a lasting form, and indeed the same which it has to this day. Josephus expressly says, that there were among the Jews only twenty-two books acknowledged divine (βιβλία … θεῖα πεπιστευμένα); that all the others were not esteemed of equal credit (πίστεως οὐχ ὁμοίας ἠξίωται). He does not, indeed, separately enumerate them, but it is very probable that he means by them the collected writings of the present canon, and these only. For the Fathers, especially Origen and Jerome, expressly say, that the Jews were accustomed so to count the books of the present canon as to make their number twenty-two.[1166] It was only with respect to certain books, especially the Song of Solomon and the Book of Ecclesiastes, that opinion was not yet quite decided in the first century after Christ. Yet in respect of these also the prevailing view was already that they “defile the hands,” i.e. are to be regarded as canonical books.[1167] It cannot be proved of other books than those of our present canon, that they was ever reckoned canonical by the Palestinian Jews, although the Book of Wisdom was so highly esteemed that it was some times cited “in a manner only customary in the case of passages of Scripture.”[1168] It was only the Hellenistic Jews who combined a whole series of other books with those of the Hebrew canon. But then they had no definite completion of the canon at all.
[1165] Prologue to Wisdom: Πολλῶν καὶ μεγάλων ἡμῖν διὰ τοῦ νόμου καὶ τῶν προφητῶν καὶ τῶν ἄλλων τῶν κατʼ αὐτοὺς ἠκολουθηκότων δεδομένων, ὑπὲρ ὧν δἐον έστὶν ἐπαινεῖν τὸν Ἰσραὴλ παιδείας καὶ σοφίας κ.τ.λ.
[1166] Joseph. contra Apion. i. 8: Οὐ γὰρ μυριάδες βιβλίων εἰσὶ παρʼ ἡμῖν ἀσυμ· φώνων καὶ μαχομένων, δύο δὲ μόνα πρὸς τοῖς εἴκοσι βιβλία, τοῦ παντὸς ἔχοντα χρόνου τὴν ἀναγραφήν, τὰ δικαίως θεῖα πεπιστευμένα. Καὶ τούτων πέντε μέν ἐστι τὰ Μωϋσέως, ἃ τούς τε νόμους περιέχει καὶ τὴν τῆς ἀνθρωπογονίας παράδοσιν μέχρι τῆς αὐτοῦ τελευτῆς. Οὗτος ὁ χρόνος ἀπολείπει τρισχιλίων ὀλίγον ἐτῶν. Ἀπὸ δὲ τῆς Μωϋσέως τελευτῆς μέχρι τῆς Ἀρταξέρξου τοῦ μετὰ Ξέρξην Περσῶν βασιλέως ἀρχῆς οἱ μετὰ Μωϋσῆν προφῆται τὰ κατʼ αὐτοὺς ποαχθέντα συνέγραψαν ἐν τρισὶ καὶ δέκα βιβλίοις. Αἱ δὲ λοιπαὶ τέσσαρες ὕμνους εἰς τὸν θεὸν καὶ τοῖς ἀνθρώποις ὑποθήκας τοῦ βίου περιέχουσιν. Ἀπὸ δὲ Ἀρταξέρξου μέχρι τοῦ καθʼ ἡμᾶς χρόνου γέγραπται μὲν ἕκαστα, πίστεως δὲ οὐχ ὁμοίας ἠξίωται τοῖς πρὀ αὐτῶν διὰ το μὴ γενέσθαι τὴν τῶν προφητῶν ἀκριβῆ διαδοχήν. Jerome in his Prologue galeatus to the Books of Samuel (Opp. ed. Vallarsi, ix. 455 sq.; see the passage, e.g. in Gfrörer, Jahrh. des Heils, i. 237 sq., and in the introductions of De Wette, Bleek and others) gives the following enumeration as that customary among the Jews: (1-5) Pentateuch; (6) Joshua; (7) Judges and Ruth; (8) Samuel; (9) Kings; (10) Isaiah; (11) Jeremiah and Lamentations; (12) Ezekiel; (13) twelve minor prophets; (14) Job; (15) Psalms; (16) Proverbs; (17) Ecclesiastes; (18) Song of Solomon; (19) Daniel; (20) Chronicles; (21) Ezra and Nehemiah; (22) Esther. The same enumeration, but in a somewhat different order (and with the omission of the twelve minor prophets, which must however be an oversight of the transcriber), is given by Origen in Eusebius’ Hist. Eccl. vi. 25 (in which the designation Ἀμμεσφεκωδείμ for the Book of Numbers, which is generally left unexplained, is nothing else than חוֹמֶשׁ פְּקוּדִים, Joma vii. 1; Sota vii. 7; Menachoth iv. 3). It can consequently be hardly doubtful, that Josephus also takes this enumeration for granted, and intends by his 5 + 13 + 4 = 22 books our present canon. The four books containing “hymns of praise to God and rules of life for men,” are the Psalms and the three Books of Solomon. That 1 Chron. and 2 Chron. formed, as early as the time of Christ, the closing books of the canon, may be inferred from Matthew 23:35 = Luke 11:51, where the slaying of Zachariah is mentioned as the last murder of a prophet. Chronologically viewed the death of Urijah, Jeremiah 26:20-23, was later, but according to the order of the canon the assassination related in 2 Chronicles is certainly the last.
[1167] Jadajim iii. 5: “All holy Scriptures, even the Song of Solomon and Ecclesiastes, defile the hands.” R. Judah says: The Song of Solomon defiles the hands, but Ecclesiastes is doubtful. R. Joses says: Ecclesiastes does not defile the hands, and the Song of Solomon is doubtful. R. Simon says: Ecclesiastes is among the points on which the school of Shammai decides in a manner to lighten, the school of Hillel in a manner to aggravate difficulty. R. Simon ben Asai said: I have received it as the tradition of the seventy-two elders, that on the day that R. Eleazar ben Asariah was named president, it was decided that the Song of Solomon and Ecclesiastes defile the hands. R. Akiba said: No, no. Never has any one in Israel affirmed that the Song of Solomon did not defile the hands. For no day in the history of the world was ever of so great importance as that on which the Song of Solomon appeared in Israel. For all other scriptures are holy, but the Song of Solomon the holiest of all. If there was any dispute, it was respecting Ecclesiastes. R. Johanan, son of Joshua, the son of B. Akiba’s father-in-law, said: As ben Asai has declared, so was it disputed and eo decided. Edujoth v. 3: R. Simon (according to R. Ismael) says: In three cases the school of Shammai decided in a manner to lighten, the school of Hillel to aggravate difficulties. According to the school of Shammai, Ecclesiastes does not defile the hands; the school of Hillel says: It defiles the hands, etc. Hieronymus, Comment. in Ecclesiast. xii. 13 (Opp. ed. Vallarsi, iii. 496): “Aiunt Hebraei quum inter caetera scripts Salomonis quae antiquata sunt nec in memoria duraverunt et hic liber obliterandus videretur eo quod vanas Dei assereret creaturas et totum putaret esse pro nihilo et cibum et potum et delicias transeuntes praeferret omnibus, ex hoc uno capitulo meruisse auctoritatem, ut in divinorum voluminum numero poneretur.” See in general, Bleek, Theol. Stud. und Kritik. 1853, p. 321 sq. Delitzsch, Zeitsch. für luth. Theol. 1854, pp. 280-283. Strack, art. “Kanon des A. T.’s,” in Herzog’s Real-Encycl., 2nd ed. vii. 429 sq. Weber, System der altsynagogalen paläst. Theologie, p. 81.
[1168] S. Zunz, Die gottesdienstlichen Vorträge Juden, p. 101 sq. Against the canonical authority of the Book of Wisdom, see Strack in Herzog’s Real-Encycl. vii. 430 sq. It is quite a mistake to think we have a right to infer with Movers (Loci quidam historiae canonis Vet. Test. illustrati, 1842, p. 14sq.), and after him with Bleek (Stud. u. Krit. 1853, p. 323), from those passages in Josephus (Antt. Preface, § 3, x. 10. 6, xxii. 11. 2; contra Apion. i. 1. 10) in which he states generally that the Holy Scriptures (τὰ ἱερὰ γράμματα, αἱ ἱεραὶ βίβλοι) were his authorities for his whole history, that he also regarded such of his authorities as did not belong to the Hebrew canon as “holy Scriptures.” For these were chiefly heathen authorities. Geiger too can scarcely be right when he insists on regarding as among such “holy scriptures,” which according to Shabbath xvi. 1 might not be read on the Sabbath day, the apocryphal books (Zeitschr. 1867, pp. 98-102). For by these are probably meant, as Jewish expositors also, declare, the Kethubim (of these only the five Megilloth were used in the public worship of the synagogues, and these only on special occasions during the year). See Kisch, Monatsschr. für Gesch. und Wissensch. des Judenth. 1880, p. 543 sqq.
Notwithstanding the combination of the Nebiim and Kethubim with the Thorah, they were never placed quite on a level with it. The Thorah always occupied a higher position as to its religious estimation. In it was deposited and fully contained the original revelation of the Divine will. In the prophets and the other sacred writings this will of God was only further delivered. Hence these are designated as the “tradition” (קַבָּלָה, Aramaean אַשְׁלֶמְתָּא), and cited as such.[1169] On account of its higher value it was decided that a book of the law might be purchased by the sale of the Holy Scriptures, but not Holy Scriptures by the sale of a book of the law.[1170] In general, however, the Nebiim and Kethubim participate in the properties of the Thorah. They are all “Holy Scriptures” (כִּתְבֵי הַקֹּדֶשׁ);[1171] with respect to them all it is determined, that contact with them defiles the hands (so that they may not be touched inconsiderately, but with reverent awe).[1172] They are all cited by essentially the same formulas. For although special formulas are sometimes used for the Thorah, yet the formula, which most frequently occurs, שֶׁנֶּאֱמַר, “for it is said,” is applied without distinction to the Thorah and the other Scriptures;[1173] as also in the sphere of Hellenism (comp. the N. T.), the formula γέγραπται and the like.[1174] Nay the Nebiim and Kethubim are sometimes quoted as “the law” (νόμος).[1175] And there is perhaps nothing more characteristic of the full appreciation of their value on the part of the Jews, than the fact that they too are not first of all to Jewish conviction didactic or consolatory works, not books of edification or history, but also “law,” the substance of God’s claims upon His people.
[1169] In the Mishna, Taanith ii. 1, a passage from Joel is cited with the formula: “in the tradition he says” (בקבלה הוא אומר). Comp. in general, Zunz, Die gottesdienstlichen Vorträge der Juden, p. 44. Herzfeld, Gesch. des Volkes Jisrael, iii. 18 sq. Joh. Delitzsch, De inspiratione scripturae sacrae, p. 7 sq. Taylor, Sayings of the Jewish Fathers (Cambridge 1877), p. 120 sq.
[1170] Megilla iii. 1.
[1171] Shabbath xvi. 1; Erubin x. 3; Baba bathra i. 6, fin.; Sanhedrin x. 6; Para x. 3; Jadajim iii. 2, 5, iv. 5, 6.
[1172] Edujoth v. 3; Kelim xv. 6; Jadajim iii. 2, 4, 5, iv. 5, 6.
[1173] So e.g. to adduce citations from the Kethubim only: Berachoth vii. 3 (Psalms 68:27), Berachoth ix. 5 (Rth_2:4), Pea viii. 9 (Proverbs 11:27), Shabbath ix. 2 (Proverbs 30:19), Shabbath ix. 4 (Psalms 109:18), Rosh hashana i. 2 (Psalms 33:15). In these the quotation is always introduced by the formula שנאמר. But this very formula is also by far the most frequent in quotations from the Nebiim and the Thorah. Comp. the list of scriptural quotatations in Pinner, Uebersetzung des Tractates Berachoth (1842), Introd. fol. 21b.
[1174] See in general on the formulas of citation, Surenhusius, βίβλος καταλλαγῆς (Amstelodami 1713), pp. 1-36. Döpke, Hermeneutik der neutestamentlichen Schriftsteller (1829), pp. 60-69. Pinner, Ubersetzung des Tractates Berachoth, Introd. fol. 21a, 22a. Job. Delitzsch, De inspiratione scripturas tacrae, p. 4 sq. Comp. also Strack, Prolegomena critica in Vet. Test. (1873), p. 60 sqq.
[1175] Romans 3:19; 1 Corinthians 14:21; John 10:34; John 12:34; John 15:25.