1.B 01. Attributed Authorship

Attributed Authorship

Third, we will remember that it was the Jewish conviction that all true prophetic inspiration had ceased with Malachi, and that since about 450 B.C. the divine voice was silent. At first sight it would, therefore, appear that any book must be written prior to Ezra to have even a chance of entering into tlie canon. But there is one extremely interesting exception to that. If a book was anonymous, if no one knew who had written it, and, if it had become a book dear to the hearts and minds of people, it was possible that it could be attributed to one of the great figures of the past, and, therefore, could become canonical. That is to say, if a book’s author was known to be after Ezra, it had no hope of becoming canonical. That is what turned the scale against Ecclcsiasticus (in the Apocrypha). There are few who would care to deny that Ecclesiasticus is a very great book, and that it is greater in moral and spiritual power than certain books which gained an entry into the canon, but it had never any hope of entry, because its author was known to be a man called Jesus ben Sirach who had lived not long after 200 B.C. Many of the Writings were written in the fourth and the third centuries B.C., and at least one Daniel in the second century B.C., but their authors were unknown, they were anonymous, and, therefore, it was possible to attribute them to the great figures of the past, and so to make it possible for them to enter the canon. So Ruth was ascribed to Samuel, who was traditionally the author of Judges and the books which bear his name. All the Psalms were ascribed to David. Jeremiah was said to have written both Kings and Lamentations. Proverbs and Ecclesiastes were said to be the work of Solomon. Job was assigned to Moses. Ezra and Nehemiah were the work of Ezra, who was so respected that it was said: "The Tor ah was forgotten by Israel until Ezra went up from Babylon and re-established it." And Ezra had at least a share in the writing of Chronicles. The Song of Solomon might actually be Solomon’s, or at least it was held to belong to the time of Hezekiah. Esther was the work, or at least the editing, of the men of the Great Synagogue. The Writings could only become canonical, because, when their supreme value was realized, they were seen to be anonymous, and could, therefore, be held to be the work of men within the period to which inspiration was said to be confined. This is true even in the case of Daniel. It was well known that Daniel had actually emerged about 165 B.C., but it was held to be the actual work of Daniel, the great figure of the exile. It was thus that it was possible for these books to become canonical at all.

Establishing " The Writings 9 ’ When did they come to be regarded as Holy Scripture? The process was a long one. We must begin by returning to the enigmatic statement about Nehemiah in the admittedly spurious letter at the beginning of 2 Maccabees. There it is said that Nehemiah collected into a library the books about the kings and the prophets, aiii ta ton Dairid, which literally means "the things of David", and which in the context can most naturally mean the books, or the writings, of David (2Ma 2:13). It may be impossible to place very much stress or reliance on that statement, but it may mean that Nehemiah began the whole process by the collection of the Psalms by no means the whole book as we possess it which go under the name of David.

It is when we come to Ecclesiasticus (now in the Apocrypha) that the existence of this third division of Scripture becomes quite clear and certain. Writing in or about 132 B.C. the grandson of the original writer of Bcclcsiastiois, Jesus ben Sirach, wrote a prologue to his Greek translation of his grandfather’s book. There he speaks of the great things handed down to us by the Law and the Prophets and the others who have followed in their steps. He tells how his grandfather gave himself to the study of the Law and of the Prophets and of the other books of our fathers. And he speaks about the Law, the Prophecies, and the rest of the books. He does not use die term Writings; he does not define what these other books are. It is clear that they are not nearly so well defined a body of literature as the Law and the Prophets are; but it is also clear that by the second century B.C. there stands beside the Law and the Prophets a body of literature less well defined than they are, but none the less an essential part of the sacred literature of the Jews. Our next witness comes from the New Testament itself. In Luke’s Gospel we read that the risen Christ told the disciples about the things which must be fulfilled in Him, which were written in the Law of Moses and in the Prophets and in the Psalms (Luke 24:44). Here we see that the Psalms are included in, or perhaps are taken as typical and representative of, a body of sacred literature other than the Law and the Prophets. Once again the existence of the Writings is assured, although their constituent parts are still undefined. When we come to the end of the first Christian century we can call two much more definite witnesses. We have already seen the tradition that Ezra rewrote the whole of the sacred literature; and in that tradition we read that the books which were to be open to all men numbered twenty-four, which by Jewish reckoning is exactly the same number of books as are in the Old Testament (4 Ezra 14:44-46). 4 Ezra (Apocrypha) was written under Domitian about A.D. 90, and here we have proof that by that time the list of the books was settled, and, therefore, the number of the Writings must have been as firmly fixed as the number of books in the Law and in the Prophets. The second witness is Tosephus who wrote about A.D. 100. He says that, unlike the Greeks who have vast numbers of conflicting and mutually contradictory books, the Jews have only twenty-two. He arrives at this number by reckoning Ruth and Judges as one book, and Jeremiah and Lamentations as one book. He goes on to say that tfiere are the five books of Moses, the thirteen books of the Prophets, and four books with hymns, or precepts for practical help for life. He arrives at tliis classification by including Daniel, Job, Chronicles, Ezra-Nehemiah, and Esther with the prophetic books. He then goes on to say: * * There is practical proof of the spirit in which we treat our Scriptures. For although so great an interval of time (since they were written) has now passed, not a soul has ventured either to add, or to remove, or to alter a syllable; and it is the instinct of every Jew, from the day of his birth, to consider these books as the teaching of God, to abide by them, and, if need be, cheerfully to lay down his life for them" (Josephus, Against Apion 1:8). Here is the proof that by the time of Josephus the number of books in the Writings was regarded as fixed and unalterable, because the number of books in Scripture was so regarded.

It remains to see the final step in the actual time process of the making of the Old Testament.

Somewhere about A.D. 90 at Jamnia, which was also called Jabne, and which was near Jaffa and not far from the sea, an authoritative council of the Jewish Rabbis and scholars met, and at that council the books of the Old Testament were at last finally settled, and the number was laid down as we have it to-day. From that time forward, although a scholar here or there might express doubts about this or that book amongst the Writings, there was never any real question or argument about the contents of the sacred Scriptures of the Old Testament. The process which had begun with the emergence of DeuteronQpiy, jn 62 1 B.C. had ended with the Council of Jamnia in A.D. 90. The divine library of the Old Testament had taken more than seven hundred years to assemble.