Greetings Amadeus. I hope you're well.
You know, I too had to laugh when I read your post this morning: you’re actually right----- for once------I haven’t even begun to “show my teeth” on
this thread….. not yet, anyway.
"I haven't even begun to "show my teeth" on this thread...not yet anyway" ! Reminds me of that old axiom about the barking dog.
Frank Cross and the Harvard School knows very well that "Iesous" during the period BC 12- AD 36 had no universally fixed canon but just three sets
of writings e.g. "Moses, Prophets and David "
On the contrary. I think Jesus had a very wholesome ‘canon’, and the Hebrew one at that. That Jesus makes reference to the explicit Hebrew canon is
shown at several points in the Gospels.
For instance,
"That upon you may come all the righteous blood shed upon the earth, from the blood of righteous Abel unto the blood of Zacharias son of Barachias,
whom ye slew between the temple and the altar." (Matthew 23:35)
In this passage, Jesus records a concise history of the persecution of righteous men of God for speaking the Word of Truth through the entirety of the
Hebrew scriptures, with Abel being the first recorded (Genesis 4:8) to the last recorded, Zechariah the priest (II Chronicles 24:20-21). This apparent
order follows the traditional ordering of the Hebrew books, starting with Genesis and ending with II Chronicles. Jesus commonly spoke of, and thus
delineated, the Old Testament scriptures (the only ones present at the time of His earthly ministry) using the term "the Law and the Prophets",
which encompassed both the Pentateuch and all the other Jewish canonical books (see Matthew 7:12, 11:13, 22:40, etc.) Likewise, on occasion He would
fully delineate the Law, the Prophets, and the Psalms, making individual reference to the Pentateuch, the earlier prophets, and the other writings
(thus, the Tanak, see Luke 24:27-44). And at other times, such as Matthew 5:18, He used "the Law" as a term to encompass all of God's
Word.(Interestingly, the apocryphal books were never classed within any of these three categories, and hence fall outside the sphere of jesus's
reference.)
BTW, Jesus quoted from 24 different Old Testament books,the bulk of the OT. The New Testament as a whole quotes from 34 books of the Old Testament
Books. These 5 books are never quoted in the New Testament: Ezra, Nehemiah, Esther, Ecclesiastes, Song of Solomon.
It is not significant that they were never quoted in the New Testament, because they were part of "collections" of Old Testament books.In this sense
then, ALL of the modern day Masoretic ‘canon’ is indeed refrenced by Jesus explicitly, or mentioned in the NT. So we have the Maesoretic canon
implicitly.
Jesus, like all the Jews of the first century, divided the Old Testament into three "collections": the law, the prophets, the psalms. Jesus said:
"These are My words which I spoke to you while I was still with you, that all things which are written about Me in the Law of Moses and the Prophets
and the Psalms must be fulfilled." (Luke 24:44)
Sometimes the sum of the Old Testament was referred to as two collections: the law and the prophets. Intestingly, Jesus referred to Psalm 82:6 as
"Law": "Jesus answered them, "Has it not been written in your Law, ‘I said, you are gods’?" John 10:34. This may explain why most of the time
there were two collections referred to as a sum for the whole.
Frankly I’m getting bored….. Where are you going with all this? What’s the point? Where’s your thesis?
“And if we can believe what is placed in his mouth in the Greek “canonical” gospels ---he quoted from books which fell somewhat outside the later
Jewish “canon” as Holy Scripture---Here's a couple of small examples: 1. The Mangled Greek of John 4:22 “for [it is written] , Salvation [ ] is from
the Judaeans”
This verse is taken as a Zionist Proof Text from Pseudipigrapha [ “The Testament of the 12 Patriarchs]…
... etc.
Once again you’re making a mountain out of a mole hill. How does this prove Jesus used the Apocrypha? Many of the claims to apocryphal references in
the New Testament are rather vague and ill-defined, and could rightly be viewed as belonging to this category of "general truths". Further Jesus
didn’t exist in a vacuum. They were a part of the fabric of the social life and context of Palestinian Hebrew life in the early-to-mid 1st century.
This social context included a literary history which contained the apocryphal books, and which was based upon the combined, shared experiences of the
Jewish people. While these books were not recognised as canon, they still existed and were part of this combined socio-religious experience which the
1st century Jews had in their cultural repositories.
So, no, it should not be particularly surprising to us if the New Testament relates a challenge to the teachings of the Lord Jesus Christ which was
made by certain of His detractors, the Saduccees, and whose primary element was drawn from the apocryphal book of Tobit (this being the resurrection
of the woman with seven successive husbands through Levirate marriages - Matthew 22:23-32). It should not be surprising to us if certain passages even
seem to echo phraseology found in the Apocrypha, and which probably represented common theological understanding among the Jews at this time (such as
the Johannine reference to the Lord Jesus as "King of Kings" in Revelation 17:14, which follows the title used in 2 Maccabees 13:4, but which yet
again, finds its original basis in the use of "Lord of Kings" in Daniel 2:47. The highly-educated Paul, in NT scripture, quoted three times from
the works of Greek poets. In Acts 17:28, Paul said and Luke wrote, "For in him we live, and move, and have our being; as certain also of your own
poets have said, For we are also his offspring." This is a quotation of a passage from Aratus' Phaenomena .
In Titus 1:12-13, Paul quotes a saying from the 6th century BC Cretan poet Epeminides, found in his De Oraculis, and follows it by saying, "This
witness is true..."
In I Corinthians 15:33, Paul quotes from Menander's Thais.
So what? One more point. Many of these so-called quotations of the Apocrypha turn out simply to be quotations from canonical books, though the wording
in the apocryphal book may be similar.
Examples of this type would include the statement in Matthew 9:36 concerning "sheep having no shepherd" is attributed to Judith 11:19. However, this
phrase is a pointed reference to I Kings 22:17, and certainly echoes as well Numbers 27:17, Ezekiel 34:5-6, and Zechariah 10:2,
etc.
Iesous was able to quote from some of these "non canonical books" simply because in his lifetime [before the AD 70 Jewish War] that is during the
period BC 12 to AD 36 he had access to many more additional writings than post AD 70 “Rabbinic Judaeism” later had—
This is a red herring argument, as already shown above.
And durign the time when Iesous was alive…all we know was that there were certain scriptures (scrolls) that were considered to be “core” to the sacred
collection that eventually was decided to be what we would call "canonical" but which they would call that which “defiled the hands” i.e
Odds are the following books formed the core of the ‘sacred collection” when Jesus was alive:
1.)The Law (Torah) - Genesis, Exodus, Leviticus, Numbers, and Deuteronomy
2.)The Prophets (Neviim) - Joshua, Judges, 1 & 2 Samuel (one volume), 1 & 2 Kings (one volume), Isaiah, Jeremiah, Ezekiel, the 12 Minor Prophets (one
volume)
3.)The Writings (Kethubim) - Psalms, Proverbs, Job, Ruth, Song of Solomon, Ecclesiastes, Lamentations, Esther, Daniel, Ezra and Nehemiah (one volume),
1 & 2 Chronicles (one volume)
The Rabinnic Council meetings held at Jamnia (in the AD 90s but others also well into to AD 130) were still debating several issues including the
subject of whiach exact books "defiled the hands" by
As previously mentioned the Jamnia canon did not gather to determine the canon of the Old Testament, but rather limited their discussion to the books
of Ecclesiastes and the Song of Solomon.
So you could say "core and non-core" books, but you cannot say "fixed canon of scriptures" before AD 200
Well, even you can be right(albeit partially) once in a while. I could dare agree with this your statement , with proviso ofcourse with regard to
'before AD 200' and definition of 'core' and 'non-core'. .. All said and done, I guess we don't agree after all.
Logician, you do not seem to like the idea of fluidity of anything: you seem to like things neat and complete wrapped in pink ribbons.
A generalization.
That is not the way to approach the writings of the Jews (or any ancient people), since their writings (like the Christians community's writings)
change and grow over time to fit the needs of the communities as they morphed.
.The Jews might have ‘morphed’ over time, but their scriptures barely did. Consider the Isaiah scroll for instance . It remained virtually identical
after a thousand years.
the rest of the "canon" of the Hebrew OT was still not fixed but open (especially in the Writings Section) and books like the Assumption of Moses
and I Henoch could still be quoted as scripture (see Jude v. 9 and Jude v. 14 which are citations of these books as scripture)
I proved this to be an invalid argument.
But after AD 90, it clearly appeared as it Jews (now without their Temple) were “more agreed” on the exact number of sacred books and the names of
those books
‘More agreed’ ?, irrevalent even if true, since we know the Jamna council accomplished very little. Morely likely it was the Jewish people who
became ‘more agreeable’ because of their new role as the proverbial wanderers ( itinerants after AD 70), but the fabric of their ‘OT canon’
remained fairly stable through the centuries, essentially ‘as agreeable’ as it was before the time of Christ.
Amadeus, for over two thousand years many ‘wise’ and ‘learned’ men have tried unsuccessfully to prove ‘the Jesus movement’ a joke; in this regard
you’re hardly the brightest crayon in the pack. You see, long after you’re dead and forgotten, the name of Jesus will tarry .
Best Wishes,
[edit on 1-12-2004 by Logician]