The Textual Tradition Even when we are talking about generally
accepted writings, we must choose among some variant textual traditions
for both Hebrew and Christian scriptures. No matter what date we assign
particular books, we rarely have complete manuscripts from that time
period, and scribal errors can create variant textual traditions. In
addition, Hebrew can be written with consonants alone, and signs to
indicate vowels (and thus reduce ambiguity) were a late development; the
standard arrived at by the Jewish "Masoretes" was not made final till the
sixth to ninth centuries. Modern editions and translations do not
necessarily follow the Masoretic text in all cases; the translators of the
NRSV, for example, include a passage at the end of 1 Samuel
10 which is not found in the Masoretic text or most ancient
manuscripts, but which is widely regarded as authentic by modern scholars.
Even with the Christian scriptures, there can be significant variations;
the earliest manuscripts we have of Mark, for example, end with the empty
tomb (Mark 16.8).
--Works passed along in rare manuscripts copied by hand are obviously
subject not only to scribal error but to editorial revision. The very
inconsistencies and unsavory anecdotes present in what has survived suggests
that the sacred character of the material preserved a great deal of material
relatively unaltered, but the treatment of material from the earlier
historical books by the author of 1 & 2 Chronicles shows that
ideological commitments could play a part.
Translations Most of us must read these scriptures in
translation, and all translations involve difficult choices. Even those
able to read the original languages cannot always be sure of the meaning
of a particular passage, since languages change over time, and the meaning
of words is never fixed. Books do not read themselves.
--Sometimes the meaning of a word has been lost completely. The
Hebrew
word transliterated as selah, for example, appears 71 times in
the Psalms and 3 times in Habbakkuk. It has been
suggested that it means something like "lift up," but that is speculative,
and its meaning in context has been lost. The best guess is that it is
some kind of liturgical direction for performance, perhaps indicating a
musical interlude.
--One fairly important example of the consequences of such
uncertainties
is the Hebrew word 'almah, used in Isaiah 7.14. In the
Greek version of Isaiah (the Septuagint) used by most early Christians,
this was translated by the word parthenos, which was taken to
mean "virgin." But it is not clear that the underlying Hebrew means more
than "young woman"--or even that parthenos necessarily implies
virginity in all contexts of the Septuagint.
Faith and Tradition It follows from what has been said so far that the opposition between reliance on scripture and reliance on tradition is not an absolute one. The more absolute we may be in our devotion to the Bible as inspired or even infallible, the more we are depending on the accuracy of the tradition which established which books are included, which textual traditions are authoritative, and which translations and interpretations lead us to the original intent. Some very conservative American Protestants, for example, treat the King James Version as a divinely inspired translation, at least in the sense that God is seen as having guided the hands of the translators in preserving the truth of the original text. One can think of this as parallel to the notion of papal infallibility, the notion in each case being that God will preserve his church from falling into serious error.
Who Chooses the Canon? Unless we choose to regard tradition as itself divinely guaranteed, we are left with the recognition that the choice of which books to preserve and in what form presumably reflects the religious views of those who did the selecting. We have recently beeen reminded of this for early Christianity by phenomena like The Da Vinci Code and the discovery of the second-century Gospel of Judas. From the beginning, there were multiple forms of early Christianity and writings associated with them, and early collections of Christian scriptures varied somewhat in their contents. Those who selected them believed that the writings eventually agreed upon represented the authentic teaching of those who had known Jesus and of Paul and characterized many of the rejected alternatives as heretical. We should also remember that Judaism in this period had many strands. The final canon of Hebrew scriptures reflects the choices made by the Pharisees, whose teaching dominated the Judaism of the synagogue before and after the destruction of the Second Temple in 70 A.D. The lead was taken by rabbis of Palestine and the eastern diaspora, and works that had long been used elsewhere were rejected. Both sets of canon-makers tended to reject certain kinds of strands. Although a number of apocalypses were widely circulated among early Christians, only Revelation made it into the canon, and that because a majority finally accepted the apostle John as its author. In the same way, the rabbis excluded a wide range of apocalyptic and eschatological literature, with Daniel surviving by its connection with a historical prophet.
The Law The first five books of the Bible--Genesis, Exodus, Leviticus, Numbers, and Deuteronymy--collectively known as the "Pentateuch," were recognized as binding by the Samaritans of central Palestine, whose split with the Judaism centered in Jerusalem goes back to about 300 B.C., and they were probably in very close to their final form a hundred years earlier than that. The word "Law" (Torah) usually refers to these five books, which do contain a great mass of cultic and social legislation. Some Jews and some Christians believe as a matter of faith that the Pentateuch was written by Moses, a traditional reading of Deuteronymy 31:1 as referring to the entire Pentateuch rather than just to the material which follows. Those who try to apply to the scriptures the kind of analytic tools used with other ancient writings generally believe that these books were put together over a period of time from various sources, oral and written. There is no scholarly agreement on the dates of composition, though at least part of Deuteronymy is often assumed to be the "book of the law" found in the Temple and presented to King Josiah (2 Kings 22.8). The lack of consensus on dating both reflects and fuels a continuing debate on the historical reliability of these, with relatively conservative scholars inclined to accept Biblical traditions if there is any way of reconciling them with external evidence and more radical scholars inclined to reject Biblical traditions unless fully corroborated by external evidence.
The Prophets The second main division of the Hebrew scriptures is known as "the prophets," though it also includes the historical books of Joshua, Judges, 1 and 2 Samuel, and 1 and 2 Kings. Their importance seems to have been generally agreed upon within Judaism by 200 B.C. The historical books appear to incorporate more than one source, including some rather hostile to the monarchy, which results in a very rounded picture of David especially. Among the prophetic books, the most complex may be Isaiah. Its first 39 chapters include material generally ascribed to the original prophet and his disciples, though there may be some later interpolations. Chapters 40-55 are widely regarded as products of a prophet in the tradition of Isaiah during the exile--one with great insight and poetic talent himself. The remaining chapters (56-66) are a miscellaneous collection, some of which may even be post-Exilic (see Isaiah 46). Like the Jewish scriptures as a whole, this book can be read as the product of a people's struggle to deepen their understanding of the nature and commandments of their God.
The Writings The last section of the Hebrew scriptures, the "Writings," was the last to be fixed, and the works in it generally seem to be later in date, which is probably why a prophetic book like Daniel (which may be as late as 160-167 B.C.) is placed in this section. Many of the books in this section continued to be controversial for one reason or another. Although ascribed to Solomon, probably wrongly, Proverbs and Ecclesiastes seemed too worldly and The Song of Solomon too sensual. Esther seemed too secular, especially if one leaves out the additions found only in the Greek Septuagint. The books from the Septuagint which did not find acceptance in the final canon were in this section.
The Gospels We have texts or at least fragments of quite a few alternative gospels. Most, like the recently unearthed Gospel of Judas, are relatively late in date, but the sayings collection called the Gospel of Thomas is thought by some to be relatively early. If the references to Thomas is the gospel of John are directed a group which claimed that their tradition descended from the apostle Thomas, an early date may be indicated. On the other hand, we have evidence of a vigorous debate in early centuries over the authenticity of various New Testament works, but the four canonical gospels seem to have commanded general acceptance early on. Much of the debate was set off by Marcion in the mid second century; he promulgated a canon which left out the Old Testament and included only a truncated form of Luke (which he thought written by Paul himself) and ten letters of Paul. The view which triumphed held that the four canonical gospels were composed in the order and represented a reliable tradition; Matthew and John were said to have been disciples, Mark a companion of Peter, and Luke a companion of Paul. The more usual modern view is that Mark was the first to be written, probably in Rome; that both Luke and Matthew drew upon Mark, adding sayings from a widely circulated collection (the Q source) and some material of their own; and that John represents a largely seperate tradition, which may or may not go back to the "beloved disciple" of that gospel. Some scholars defend all or some of the traditional account. Views on authorship affect the dating of the gospels as well. John, still usually regarded as the last of the four to be written, has been been dated anywhere between 50 and 100 A.D.; some believe that a relatively early gospel was later expanded to the one we have now.
Other New Testament Writings Not all of the books now found in the New Testament were admitted to the canon without controversy. There was controversy about which Pauline letters were written by Paul and which were written in his name by later writers, a dispute which has been revived in modern times. Almost all of the non-Pauline letters were rejected by one or another tradition; even in more modern times, Martin Luther called James "an epistle of straw," though he kept it in his Bible. The book of Revelation was also questioned by many. At the same time, second and third century writers of lists of canonical works sometimes included disputed writings that were eventually rejected like the apocalyptic work The Shepherd of Hermes.
[Last posted July 7, 2006--canary@uwp.edu]