Canon

Word and criterion. The Greek kanōn designated a straight stick and, by extension, a rule or norm. Applied to Scripture, the name indicates which books a community recognizes as religious authority. The Jewish Encyclopedia notes that the technical term spread among Christian authors, while the selection of sacred writings had an earlier Jewish history. Therefore, “canon” does not name an additional book or a physical quality of the manuscript. It names the boundary of a collection and the criteria used to recognize it. Traditions can share many books and disagree about some without the difference being resolved by the etymology of the word. [Jewish Encyclopedia, “Bible Canon”]

The Jewish Collection. The Hebrew Bible brings together Torah, Prophets and Writings. Its traditional count of twenty-four books groups together into a unit texts that many Christian Bibles number separately, such as Samuel, Kings and the Twelve Prophets. A numerical difference does not alone demonstrate a difference in content. The Jewish Encyclopedia presents the history of this collection as a process, with testimonies from different eras about authority, use, and limits. Saying that everything ended in a single day in the second century oversimplifies the evidence. It is necessary to ask which part of the collection, which community and which document is being described. [Jewish Encyclopedia, “Bible Canon”]

Earlier witnesses. The Greek prologue of Ecclesiasticus distinguishes the Law, the Prophets and other writings of the ancestors. The formula shows a multipart collection, but does not provide an exhaustive list of titles. Nehemiah 8 presents the public reading of the Law; its authority in that episode cannot establish the standing of every other book. In Second Temple Judaism, Ecclesiasticus, Tobias, Jubilees and writings attributed to Enoch also circulated. The use of a work, even when prestigious, does not always equate to inclusion in the collection that a later community called the canon. [Jewish Encyclopedia, “Bible Canon”; Pontifical Biblical Commission, “The Jewish People and Their Scriptures”]

Second Temple Diversity. The Greek translation of the Scriptures and Jewish religious literature show collections and readings that do not exactly coincide with a modern index. The Jewish Encyclopedia mentions books received in Alexandrian circles and others that were left out of the rabbinic list. The mere presence of a text in an ancient library does not demonstrate that all readers attributed the same authority to it. Nor should the later separation between “biblical” and “apocryphal” be projected backwards as if it were uniform everywhere. The classification depends on a community and a historical moment. [Jewish Encyclopedia, “Bible Canon”; Pontifical Biblical Commission, “The Jewish People and Their Scriptures”]

New Testament and Scriptures. Luke 24:44 mentions the Law of Moses, the Prophets and the Psalms; it is an indication of recognizable groupings, not a complete catalogue. In Jude 1:14-15 there appears a prophecy attributed to Enoch. Quoting a work or using its tradition does not in itself prove that the author presented all its parts as canonical Scripture. A biblical quotation formula also needs to be examined in context. Early Christians inherited Jewish scriptures in Hebrew and Greek and wrote new texts for their communities. The Christian canon arose from the reception of these writings, not from a table inserted in the New Testament. [Pontifical Biblical Commission, “The Jewish People and Their Scriptures”; Jewish Encyclopedia, “Bible Canon”]

Christian formation. The four gospels, Acts, and apostolic letters circulated before there was a universally fixed list of twenty-seven books. The Pontifical Biblical Commission points out that lists appear from the end of the second century and that some writings, including Hebrews and Revelation, raised doubts in certain circles. Marcião proposed a restricted collection; Christian responses are part of the history of recognition and delimitation. It is not enough to attribute the entire process to a council. Liturgical reading, apostolic attribution and reception by different churches were factors discussed over time. [Pontifical Biblical Commission, “The inspiration and truth of Sacred Scripture”]

A revealing manuscript. The Codex Sinaiticus, from the 4th century, contains the entire New Testament and also the Epistle of Barnabas and the Shepherd of Hermas. Its Greek part of the Old Testament includes books that several Protestant communities place among the apocrypha. The presence of these writings shows that they were copied together; alone, it does not fully explain how each reader rated his authority. The order of the books also differs from that of many modern Bibles. A codex provides material evidence of transmission and selection, but does not replace a community's explicit statements about its canon. [Codex Sinaiticus Project, “Content”]

Lists that remain. The Catechism of the Catholic Church lists forty-six books of the Old Testament and twenty-seven of the New, counting Lamentations separately. The Protestant collection of the Old Testament follows the titles of the Hebrew Bible, although it is customary to divide them in another way; the twenty-seven New Testament writings are shared. Orthodox and Ethiopian traditions have their own histories of reception and lists that do not fit into this Western comparison. The presence of Enoch and Jubilees in the Ethiopian biblical tradition illustrates that there is no identical Christian list in all churches. Saying “outside the canon” requires specifying which one. [Catechism of the Catholic Church, “The Canon of Scripture”; Pontifical Biblical Commission, “The Jewish People and Their Scriptures”; Goff, Forgotten Scripture]

Councils and debate. In the West, regional rulings of antiquity and later definitions expressed the reception of the books. The Council of Trent established a Catholic definition in the context of Reformation disputes; this does not mean that no one read these books before. Nor does it mean that a synod produced the writings it enumerated. The Pontifical Biblical Commission distinguishes the development of reception from the date on which a list gained official formulation. Scholars debate how to evaluate fragmentary evidence from earlier times and how much agreement there was between regions. An honest chronology needs to leave room for this uncertainty. [Pontifical Biblical Commission, “The inspiration and truth of Sacred Scripture”; Pontifical Biblical Commission, “The Jewish People and Their Scriptures”]

Precise use of the term. “Canonical” means recognized as part of a normative collection by a given tradition; it does not necessarily mean that a text external to it is false, late or devoid of historical value. Ecclesiasticus, Enoch, and Jubilees help us study ancient Judaism even though their status varies between communities. It is also necessary to distinguish the canon, which asks which books are included, from the text of each book, which involves copies, variants and translations. The existence of codices with different content shows why the two questions should not be confused. When comparing Bibles, identify the tradition, time, language and way of counting the books. [Jewish Encyclopedia, “Bible Canon”; Codex Sinaiticus Project, “Content”]