Constructing the Testaments

The concept that the Bible is the undisputed word of God assumes the Bible is sacred. The Bible, of course, is an object. To hold any object as sacred is idol worship. Like all idol worship, this leads to dogma. It separates one from the living God. As I realized that Bible worship is idol worship, I came to ask:

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	Canonizing the Old Testament Canonizing the New Testament Canonization After the Middle Ages	A Note on Canonization Effects of Canonization The Living Bible

Literally, Bible means little books.

The Bible as scripture, or sacred volume, is a library. Included in this library are books of history, law, poetry and stories. Each of these books (with a few exceptions, like the Psalms of David) tell several stories and, therefore, are libraries themselves.

As you know, the books in the Bible are divided in two great categories, the Old Testament and the New Testament. The Old Testament is the scripture of the Jewish religion and the New Testament is the scripture of the Christian religion. How did these books come to be the sacred writings for their religions? Why were some books included and others were not? When did the Jews and the Christians agree to their Testaments?

Well, dear reader, we can not cover these three questions in very much depth in this little flier. These questions have had hundreds of entire books written about each one of them. But we can get some dates and some understanding. To do so we must look at what it is to canonize.

The word canon is rooted in the Greek word kanõn. Originally a measuring rod, the word came to mean lists of the genuine article. There were kanõn of officials and kanõn of festivals. Some 150 years after Christ there began to appear kanõn, or lists, of what books were read in churches at public worship. These lists of books came to have the value of scripture and then came to be accepted as the authority for instruction and for settling disputes.

Meanwhile a powerful Jewish sect had made a list of its own.

The Bible, then, is a collection of books that have been canonized according to these standards:

Several factors made it difficult to canonize the Old Testament:

1. A major difficulty was time. The stories of Israel were passed on by word of mouth for hundreds and hundreds of years before they were written down. During an 800-year span parts of these stories became parts of books [footnote 1]. For 700 years these books were rewritten, adding more complete or different versions of the stories to suit the needs of the times or the authors [footnote 2]. These books, each filled with libraries of information, were completed at different times - ranging from Amos (about 700 BC) to Esther, Daniel, and Books 4 and 5 of the Psalter (during the 100's BC).

2. Another difficulty in canonizing the Old Testament was language. After the Exile, Aramaic became the every day language of the Jewish people (Christ taught in Aramaic) while those living in Egypt and elsewhere spoke Greek. Hebrew was relegated to the language of law and literature, much as Latin is in our society. While most of the books being considered for the Old Testament were in Hebrew, some words, phrases, and even entire portions of these books were in Aramaic. Meanwhile there were Latin translations in Northern Africa to consider.

3. Another difficulty was the different cultures of Judaism, each with an interest in their stories and traditions becoming part of the sacred text. By the time of Christ these cultural differences were primarily reflected in the Alexandrian Canon and the Palestinian Canon.

Time, language and culture - these were three major difficulties in deciding what was and what was not Old Testament scripture. But there was yet another difficulty; Judaism included many rival sects.

King Solomon had established the Zadokite line as priests, which had been usurped by priests who had been appointed for bribes. Also, the Maccabean revolt (2nd Century before Christ) established the Hasmonean dynasty of Jewish rulers, who combined political and religious authority and espoused a blend of Hellenism and Judaism. In response to these changes, many sects arose with rival ideas - much as many Protestant churches arose from Catholicism during the Reformation. Some of these sects were the Sadducees, who favored the priests, and the very strict Essenes. The Hasidims, the Zealots, the Sacarii, the Boethusians, and, after Christ, the early Christians were all Jewish sects looking to canonize Scripture to their understanding. The most powerful and exclusive Jewish sect at the time were the Pharisees, who were associated with the rabbis. Rabbis were graduates of Palestinian academies who had studied the Torah (the first five books of the OT). They were not priests. Rabbi means my teacher. Rabbis were appointed scholars and expounders of the law. Synagogues throughout Judaism appointed the rabbi of their choice to be their expert on religious law.

Between time, language, cultures and sects, it's a wonder the Jews ever agreed on a common scripture. But a major influence from outside the Jewish community forced the issue. This influence came from the Roman Empire in the person of Titus Flavius Vespasianus. Titus was appointed to command the Roman forces of the Jewish War in 67 AD.

One of the first things Titus did was to give Rabban Johanon ben Zakkai permission to form a Jewish academy at the port city of Jabneel. Johanon was a Pharisee. At his academy, Johanon reserved the title Rabban (literally our master) for the rabbinic head of the Academy.

At the time, the temple in Jerusalem was the center of Jewish life. All priestly functions were carried out at the temple, as were most political intrigues and cultural developments. To resolve the Jewish War, Titus sacked the temple in 70 AD. There was an exodus of Jewish echelon searching for a new home. With it's academy, Jabneel was attractive to these people. Also, when the Sanhedrin (high court) escaped from Jerusalem, it settled in Jabneel and was replaced by the Beth Din. Soon Jabneel became the spiritual and intellectual capitol of Jewish life.

In 90 AD Rabban Johanon called a council specifically to hash out what was and what was not Scripture. The town's name had changed by this time and the event is called the Council of Jamnia. It was the first time the complete Old Testament, as we know it, was officially sanctioned. That must have been an interesting meeting of minds!

One thing is for sure: the Pharisees, under the leadership of Rabban Johanon, took the day. Rabbinic Judaism has been just about the only game in town from that day to this. The Christians were the only other Jewish sect to survive the fall of Jerusalem.

In many ways canonizing the New Testament was much easier than canonizing the old Testament. For one thing, it was all in Greek. Greek was the common language of the Roman Empire and the stories, notes and letters of the Christian era were all originally written in Greek.

Another way the New Testament was easier to canonize was the time frame. Only 360 years after Christ's crucifixion the New Testament was pretty well in the form we know it today.

Even so, 360 years is a long time. Here are some highlights:

For most of the first 100 years AD, the stories of the disciples were oral traditions. Brief recollections of the life and teachings of Christ were first written in accounts like the Passion narrative. Then more complete documents were written that became the source of our Gospels (the stories of the original disciples). Most written accounts of the life of Christ came during the later part of the first century, two to four generations after Christ's life.

In the mid-2nd Century, Justin Martyr described Sunday service in Rome. This is the earliest reference to the use of New Testament books as a regular church ritual.

About that time, Marcion issued a canon in which he omitted what books did not suit the purpose of proving his views on Christ. Marcion is today labeled a heretic.

Also during the mid-2nd century Valentinus listed the books of the New Testament, complete with a system of referencing them. The system was so fantastic that it distorted the texts.

For the next eight generations, the listings went on.

Then, three hundred years after Christ, the Roman Empire again set the stage for the canonization of scripture. This time the Roman was an emperor named Flavius Valerius Constantinus, or Constantine the Great.

Constantine did four things that led to the canonization of the New Testament:

First, he united the Roman world as one empire that recognized toleration for all religions. This he accomplished by 323.

Second, Constantine solidified the Christian church by calling a worldwide (ecumenical) council at Nicaea in 325. He ran this council to settle a church dispute that was threatening to divide the Empire. [footnote 3] To this day, the Nicene Creed is the basic doctrine of most Christian churches.

Third, he moved the capitol of the empire from Rome to the ancient Greek city of Byzantium, which came to be known as Constantinople, today's Istanbul.

And, finally, Constantine hired a man to make fifty copies of a book. This book was the collection of Christian texts to be used in the fifty churches of Constantinople.

Constantine commissioned these copies from the most recognized scholar of Christian literature in the Empire: Bishop Eusebius of Caesarea, the capitol of Palestine.

Bishop Eusebius was widely read and had the advantage of the great library of Caesarea, also known as the Library of Pamphilus. But Eusebius was more than well read. He had cultivated a fair and judicious mind and saw that definite answers are not always possible. When considering which texts should be included in an official collection of church writing, he came up with three lists:

1. The Acknowledged. These were texts that everyone agreed were the genuine article. [footnote 4]

2 The Disputed. These were texts Eusebius thought should be admitted to scripture although others disagreed. [footnote 5]

3. The Spurious. These were texts he considered illegitimate. [footnote 6]

Eusebius was a careful and considerate scholar - very likely the best of his time. Whether he was right or wrong, one fact remains: it was he who was commissioned by Constantine to compile the Christian texts for the churches of Constantinople. It was he who decided what was to be included in the books for these churches, and he decided what was to be left out.

He included those texts he considered Acknowledged and those he considered Disputed. He left out the texts he considered Spurious. The resulting book was the canon of Eusebius.

Scribes copied this book fifty times, and what a magnificent job they did! Entirely lettered on vellum [footnote 7], these copies remain today as beautiful examples of the scribe's art. Being the official text of the churches of Constantinople - and Constantinople being the Capitol of the Roman Empire - these books took on the value of Scripture. This was about 330 AD.

Fluctuations in canon since then have been very slight. A few other canons were: Cyril of Jerusalem omitted Revelation (about 340); the Festal Letters of Athanasius added the Apocalypsi attributed to John and the New Testament first became all the books we know today (367); Bishop Amphilochius of Iconium came out with a catalog of Bible books in which he omitted Revelation, which he considered spurious (after 394); the New Testament of Epiphanius, which corresponds to the current New Testament (403). In the West, Augustine judged texts by how they were received by the individual churches. The authority of the texts depended on the influence of the church. He only considered the New Testament (430).

Since 430 AD there have been great upheavals and changes in the Christian church. Here is a very brief look how some of these considered the canon:

The Renaissance, 1300-1400's: The scholars of the Renaissance rediscovered the writings of the ancient Greek and Roman worlds. Giovanni Boccaccio (1313-1375) became the first Italian in 700 years who could read classical Greek. It was a great rebirth of learning and discovery. This learning directed critical, scholarly attention to the canonization and it's process.

The Reformation, 1500's: The Reformation did not change what books we consider valid to the Bible. But it did change our thinking on the value of the Bible itself. For the first time the authority of the Bible was considered greater than the authority of the Church. This was used to justify breaking away from the Church. The two great reformers, Luther and Calvin, found the Bible's higher authority in two different truths. Luther believed the Bible's "analogy of faith," justifying Biblical authority by faith. Calvin accepted the Bible's authority by being "the testimony of the Holy Spirit."

The real effect of the Reformation on canon was to shift our understanding of what the books of the Bible are. Before the Reformation, the main concern about the Bible was whether it told the actual stories of Christ and the Apostles. After the Reformation, the main concern has been whether the texts are inspired.

The Deists and the Rationalists. In the 18th Century the Deist and Rationalist movements came to question the very idea of canon as an authoritative standard. They pursued a critical study that was begun by Semler (1771-1775) in which he pointed out the early variations of the texts to demonstrate the opportunity for error.

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A Note on Canonization

Not all sects of Judaism and Christianity agree on what is canonized and what is not. The fifteen books of the Apocrypha, which the Catholics include in their Bible but most Protestants do not, is an example. Even of the churches that accept the Apocrypha, not all the books are agreed on and some of these fifteen accounts are left out of some Bibles.

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Effects of Canonization

One effect of selecting the sacred texts of the Bible was to give cohesiveness to the religions.

Another effect was to discard much of our history. Of course, many of the books that were not canonized have come to us as part of our literary heritage. But power corrupts and one of the first acts of despots has always been to silence differing views and to destroy their writings. Who knows what stories, histories, and politics have been lost when texts that were not deemed authentic were destroyed for political reasons. The Dead Sea Scrolls (dating from 250 BC to 68 AD) have been instrumental in filling in some of these blanks. Even today some religious leaders are calling to have parts of the scrolls withheld from the public, saying they will undermine what has become accepted to be sacred.

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The Living Bible

Biblical canonization is not over.

Now translated into over a thousand languages and dialects, the Bible continues to share it's history, law, poetry and stories with different cultures. In English, these libraries come to us in an amazing array of different wordings since John Wycliffe first translated the Bible from Latin in 1382.

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NOTES

[footnote 1] The Yahwist and Elohist Authors (10th & 9th century before Christ) wrote early accounts of these stories. These are the Torah (the first five books of the OT).

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[footnote 2] A major revision to the Torah was done about 550 BC by the Priestly authors.

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[footnote 3]The dispute was between Arius, a priest of Alexandria, and Athanasius, leader of the bishops in the West. Arius maintained Christ was created by the Father and therefore not His equal. Athanasius held Christ to be distinct but equal. The council condemned Arius' view as heresy. By 787 six other ecumenical councils were held to decide the nature of Christ.

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[footnote 4] The four Gospels; Acts; the Episles of Paul, including Hebrews; 1 Peter; 1 John. Revelation appears here and on the Spurious list, causing doubt as to whether he considered it Acknowledged. One reason these texts were commonly agreed on was that during the last persecution, which many remembered, these texts had been actively sought out to be destroyed.

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[footnote 5] James; Jude; 2 Peter; 2 & 3 John.

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[footnote 6] Acts of Paul; Shepard of Hermas; Apocalypse of Peter; the Didache; and, according to some, Revelation.

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[footnote 7] Vellum is a superior parchment made from the hides of calves, kids or lambs.

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* © 1992 by Dean Worbois, Reproduction by any means, including photcopy, requires the expressed, written permssion of the author.

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