The Canon of Scripture

             HOW DID WE GET THE COLLECTION OF BOOKS NOW CALLED
                                     THE OLD TESTAMENT?

The ‘Canon’  

The word ‘canon’ is from the Greek ‘kanon’ meaning rule.   The Bible is seen as the text that rules the Christian life.   As a written text, it is an unchanging point of reference in all the centrifugal forces of culture and history in the millennia of Jewish and Christian belief.   Scripture is often called “The Rule of Faith”.

In the formative period of the People of God of the Old and New Testaments the process of selecting books to form the canon was underway.   The task of selecting and ordering the books written in the Hebrew language was probably begun in the early 4^th century BCE, and it was completed only about 70 CE.  It was then that the guiding list, the ‘canon’ of the Hebrew language scriptures of the Old Testament was fixed.

            Benedict Hegarty, The Bible – Literature and Sacred Text, (Veritas: Dublin) 2003, pp 29-30

                          Where did the chapters and verses system come from?

To make it easy to find one’s way around the Bible, Stephen Langton, Archbishop of Canterbury, had the idea of dividing each book into numbered chapters: this was done in 1226.   During a carriage journey from Lyons to Paris in 1551, the printer Robert Estienne numbered almost every phrase of these chapters: hence our modern division into verses.

           

            Etienne Charpentier, How to read the Old Testament, (SCM Press: London) 1982, p.7

                        How do you look up a passage in the Bible?

Let’s take an example:   You are reading an article or commentary and it says “as we can see in Gen 1:26.   The books of the Bible are referred to in an abbreviated form e.g. Gen for Genesis, Ex for Exodus, Lev for Leviticus, Num for Numbers and Deut for Deuteronomy etc.

The first figure indicates the chapter, and the second, which is separated by a colon (:) or sometimes a full stop, indicates the verse.

So the passage we want to read (Gen 1:26) is:

And God said: ‘Let us make man in our image, after our likeness; and let them have dominion over the fish of the sea and over the fowl of the air, and over the cattle, and over all the earth, and over every creeping thing that creeps upon the earth’.

Several passages in continuity over a number of chapters will be referred to in this way:   Num 4:11 – 5:16

Lev 2:13, 14 means read these two verses that follow from each other.

Deut 16: 12, 17, 21 is The Book of Deuteronomy, Chapter 16 and verses 12, 17, 21.

Ex 14:7f. means read Chapter 14 of the Book of Exodus and the following verse.

Gen 7:6ff means read Chapter 7 of The Book of Genesis, verses 6 and so on….

                    Is the Bible a Book?

It is often referred to as ‘the Good Book’ but it is in fact a library, consisting of seventy three books, written over a span of a thousand years.  But it is more than a fixed library.  It is a world we have to enter for ourselves, an adventure to which we are summoned; for a people seized with a passion for God.

     Who wrote the Book of Genesis?

There was no one author, but several.  The people of Israel were formed through time by the gathering of nomadic tribes which neither knew how to read or write.  They brought along with them the memories of their forebears and the signs God realized among them; these memories were orally transmitted.

When these tribes settled in Palestine, they gradually entered into a new culture of writing. Scribes surrounding the king wrote the laws and the beliefs of the nation. During King Solomon’s reign (10^th Century B.C.) and unknown writer called “the Yahwist” wrote a first history of God’s people.  In doing so he freely used Babylonian literature and its poetry about the first couple and the Flood.  The author used a part but deeply transformed them, so that these stories, as comparisons, would express God’s plans for his creation.

Later this old account was supplemented with others coming from different traditions. As a result we sometimes find repetitions.  Much later, when the Jews returned from exile in Babylon (5^th century before Christ), their priests added many paragraphs.  The priests were the authors of the poem about creation in seven days, where Genesis and the Bible begin.

            -Introduction to The Christian Community Bible. Catholic Pastoral Edition, (Claretian Publications: Phillipines) 1999 p.3

  
  Is there Myth in the Bible?

Let us first examine what we mean by ‘myth’.  The ancient myths appear as stories presenting gods, goddesses and ancient heroes.  They are concerned about the great questions that we ask ourselves. Where did this world come from?  Why do men and women exist?  Why is there suffering and death?   What relationship do human beings have to the Divine?

The Bible took up this powerful way of examining and expressing our efforts to deal with these profound questions, but the biblical authors took some myths and gave them a whole new meaning and context that centered on their faith in Yahweh/Elohim as the all-pervading presence in the world and in their lives.  All of these mythical stories are extremely important and not to be dismissed as ‘just myth’.  Inspired by these great myths, notably in the creation stories, the Bible rethinks them as a function of its faith in a sole God who intervenes in our history and wills for us to be free.

For your Own Reflection and Enrichment of Spirit

1.         Read Gen 7: 1 – 8:22

            What image of God do you find reflected in these two chapters?

2         Read Gen 11: 1-9

What do you think lies behind this passage?

What characteristics of Yahweh does it bring to the fore?

3.          Take some time out to reflect on some of the questions raised in your mind from

        this week’s session.  

       Write down the question which concerns you most.

For Consideration

The Jewish Antiquities – by Flavius Josephus  (c.37 - 100 AD)

“Now, there was about this time Jesus, a wise man, if it be lawful to call him a man, for he was a doer of wonderful works; a teacher of such men as receive the truth with pleasure.   He drew over to him, both many of the Jews, and many of the Gentiles.  He was the Christ; and when Pilate, at the suggestion of the principal men amongst us, had condemned him to the cross, those that loved him at the first did not forsake him; for he appeared to them alive again the third day, as the divine prophets had foretold, these and ten thousand other wonderful things concerning him; and the tribe of Christians, so named from him, are not extinct at this day.”