What was the process of deciding on the Old Testament canon?

That the Old Testament scriptures were collected into their present form a good while before the Lord was on earth, no one is interested in contesting; indeed, far from it, for Christ owns the divisions which now exist. Attributed to the great Sanhedrim, on (it is said) insufficient ground, or referred to Ezra, they were at any rate so collected; though Mr. Smith slurs it quickly over to refer to doubts as to Esther. Josephus is very express. There are not, he tells us, a multitude of books, but just twenty-two: that they had histories and writings after Artaxerxes, but these had not the same authority, they were not tested by prophets. That the books were collected, we can thank God for. Whether the history of Ruth be connected with Judges, or the Lamentations with Jeremiah, or relegated to the Ketubim, is of no sort of consequence. Their place in the history is plain upon the face of them. It is not to the believer a question who wrote Ruth. He receives them as the word of-- God. God is their author. It is, as Matthew expresses it, upo Kuriou dia tou prophetou — of the Lord by the prophet. It is also true that, in collecting the books, short notes may have been added, such as, There they are to this day, or other brief note of the kind. Such there are, interesting as divinely-given history, but in no way affecting the revelation. The book clearly shows that as a whole it is inspired and ordered in its structure by God; and when all this was done to make it a whole, this divine ordering of God's hand and wisdom may be in such notes as elsewhere. The question is, Is this book given to us of God as a revelation, given to us as it is? Is what is in it revealed of God, or man's thoughts?

322 N*. I am not speaking of infidel Jews, who are now scattered because they rejected Christ (though in this even they are more faithful than Rome and her doctors), but of those of whom Paul says that the oracles of God were committed to them. The Old Testament was committed to Israel as God's people, nor have they at any time failed in keeping it. Now they recognized the books we receive as canonical, and not those which the Council of Trem has wickedly added. This is a matter of undoubted history. Indeed the Apocryphal books are not extant in Hebrew at all. But further, Josephus also states it in a very formal manner, and adds that there were books written since Artaxerxes, but that they were not esteemed worthy of the same faith as the others, for there was no regular succession of prophets. He declares, "We have not a multitude of books, discordant and opposed to one another, but only two-and-twenty, embracing the history of all time, which are fully esteemed to be divine"; and thereon enlarges on their divine authority and the empire they obtain, from youth up, over the Jew's mind. He gives then their number and triple division, as held by the Jews. But there is yet more and incontrovertible authority, which quotes them according to this same division, as the law, the prophets, and the psalms. That is, the Lord Himself quotes them, these same books, as of divine authority, as a known set, to the exclusion of all others; and declares too, in another place, the absolute authority of the scriptures — "The scripture cannot be broken."

From this it follows that every canonical book must be recommended by some one, who carried the Divine authority along with him, — some one to whom Jehovah had actually appeared, and given the commission to execute his office. It is not, of course, needed that the writer should himself have received his mission from Jehovah; but some such an one must have seen and sanctioned the work. The books of the prophets in the Old Testament are all published, as containing the words which Jehovah spoke to the Prophets. And the other books received the sanction of such prophets, before they were accepted as containing the rule of faith, or as being canonical.

In the case of the books of the Old Testament our inquiry is really enclosed within narrower limits than might at first sight appear: for the very greatest authority we could possibly have is that of our Lord Jesus Christ, who was indeed Jehovah incarnate. He frequently refers to the Old Scriptures, as containing the word of life; and as being a certain collection of books, then accounted sacred by the Jews. If we can ascertain what the recognised Canon of Scripture among the Jews was in his time, we know at once what we are to receive as canonical. Now there is no doubt whatever upon this point. We, and all reformed churches, are quite in agreement with the Jews here. It is a matter undisputed by any one, that those books of the Old Testament which we venerate as canonical, were the only Scriptures known to the Jews, when our Saviour preached in Judea.

We cannot linger longer to hear Ezra, however much we should like to do so, for we have still a long way to travel before we come to the times of John Wycliffe. But one other thing it is interesting to notice before we pass on, and that is that Ezra is believed to have compiled and arranged all the books of our Old Testament as we have them to-day (including, we believe, even Malachi), so that those who came after him had a complete copy of "The Law," "The Psalms," and "The Prophets," according to the three great divisions of the Hebrew Scriptures.

Now there were in existence certain writings, known upon particular and specific evidence to have been written by men used of God to do so. By far the greater proportion of these writings are addressed to persons (often to assemblies of persons) with whom the writer was acquainted. No great number of books were ever promiscuously, and as having equal claims, submitted to the judgment of men, but certain particular writings possessed peculiar and notorious claims, from the time they were received — claims which were never detached from them. The evidence for their genuineness (I allude here to the outward evidence, which itself is logically decisive; but there is likewise an inward evidence of the divine origin of Holy Scripture, which is no less, nay, even more, decisive to those who, through the grace of God, are acquainted with it) was unofficial, but reliable human — i.e. personal — testimony, originated and maintained by divine Providence; and so clear and conclusive, that, with extremely few exceptions, to know that such writings existed was almost to know which they were, since the sacred writings created their own fame, as do all the works of God. (Psalm 145:10). As to the few exceptions, the same principle was involved of letting God's Word speak for itself, i.e., letting the claims of what really was God's Word be heard alone; whereas whatever difficulties there were, were produced by the folly and wickedness of men in regard to their own writings (the Apocrypha for instance — the apostolical constitutions, besides a swarm of evidently spurious gospels), which the Church encouraged and availed herself of, but which was permitted by God to a limited extent only, though quite far enough to manifest the unfaithfulness of the Church. The settling the Canon of Scripture was, on the part of the Church, simply an official and formal recognition of already established evidence, not the discovery, still less the creation, of evidence. The Holy Scriptures were written by inspiration, they were identified (so far as man had to do with it) by ordinary but adequate human testimony.

Most of the books of the Old Testament were committed to writing before the Babylonish captivity, when we have no contemporary literature: for profane history had not properly begun. The grounds for receiving them are, however, of the very strongest possible kind. For the original delivery of them was from men to whom Jehovah Himself had given their commission. They were delivered by prophets and seers, who spoke the Lord's message, and were regarded as those whose authority might not be questioned. Their books also, we doubt not, were held in scrupulous veneration, whenever there remained among the people a sense of the true religion.

Daniel 9:2 (cf. Amos 7:14) suffices for the belief that the schools of the Prophets had no such exclusive custody of prophetic documents as some writers upon this subject suppose: we may believe that prophetic writings equally were open to all, even if they did not command as much reverence as the rolls of the Pentateuch. It may be correct with some to say that 2 Kings 22:8 is the only passage in which a so-far complete collection of Scriptures is spoken of prior to the Captivity, but not from the same passage to infer that no such official collection of other parts of the Old Testament had been made: Westcott seems certainly right in believing some collections of the words of the Prophets had been made, from the manner in which Jeremiah appeals to the writings of his predecessors. To this Oehler also had called attention, 'The Psalms,' as Pusey says, 'being intended for devotional use in the Temple, must have been early collected.' The Proverbs, as we learn from Proverbs 25:1, were copied out by the 'men of Hezekiah.'

2 Maccabees 2:13, if it is to be trusted, as most seem to think, throws light upon the further history of Old Testament Scripture. It speaks of 'the writings and commentaries of Neemias; and how he, founding a library, gathered together the acts of the Kings, and the Prophets, and of David, and the Epistles of the Kings concerning the holy gifts.'

To the final stage in the history of the Canon before Christian times allusion is probably made in the Prologue of Ecclesiasticus, already referred to. It will of course remind the reader of Luke 24:44. It connects itself with Josephus' account of the canonical Books, which it is well to state here, although in historical order it belongs to a later section: it places us at the end of the first Christian century.

With the Synod of Laodicea (363), we meet with a better appreciation on the part of Greek-speaking Christians of the difference between the two classes of Books. Amongst the proceedings of this Synod is a specification of the 'Canonical Books of the New and of the Old Covenant.' This extends to all the Books that compose our present Bible, with slight difference of names, but takes in Baruch (Greek), which no Protestants accept, notwithstanding that Coverdale included this book in the first edition of his English Bible. If Oehler be right, Baruch was omitted in the old Latin translation of the Laodicean Canon. Westcott, however, supports the view of some German critics, that the list of Books given was a later addition. Although this assembly seems to have been composed of Arians, its decree was ratified by a council held at Constantinople in 692. Athanasius, who was living at the time of the Synod, held similar language; Cyril of Jerusalem, his contemporary, in offering advice to catechumens (cf. Greek of Luke 1:4), recommended the reading of Canonical Books alone. The language employed by Cyril is most precise.

Although the whole of the Canonical Books were by most Easterns undisputed, doubts were felt by some as to the Book of Esther, because of the hesitation of isolated Jews, as Rabbi Samuel in the second century, in allowing it a place in the Canon. But indeed, as a recent writer of a school-book says of the New Testament, 'The very fact that some of the Books were at first regarded with doubt in the early Church, only shows what great care and caution were exercised in the matter of admitting books into the Canon' — which of course is as true of Jews as of Christians, perhaps more so, in respect of the Old Testament — 'and thus affords an additional guarantee of the genuineness of the Canon as we now receive it.'

Thus we have the constant sense of the doctors of early ages; and, referring to the African church, Cardinal Cajetan, one greatly employed by the pope about Luther, says, "The words as well of councils as of doctors are to be reduced to the rule of St. Jerome, and, according to his judgment, those books are not canonical, that is, regular, to establish those things which are of the faith. They may be called, however, canonical, that is, regular, for the edification of the faithful, as received and authorized for this purpose in the canon of the Bible: with this distinction, thou mayest discern what is said by Augustine, and written in the provincial Council of Carthage." Thus he reconciles, as others have done, the statements of the African prelates with the universal judgment of Christendom.

Further, we have a list in the middle of the third century from Origen, the most diligent student of scripture, in his Commentary on Psalm 1 (De la Rue, vol. 2, 29), quoted by Eusebius, Hist. Ec. 6, 25), bearing exactly the same testimony as to what is canonical. We have a list of Melito's, about the close of the second century, given by Eusebius, 4, 26. He says he has given, in extracts written by him, "a catalogue of the books of the Old Testament received of all, which I have thought necessary to put down here"; and then he gives the same list as all do, but not the Apocrypha. Epiphanius (B. T. 7, vol. 1, 122), confirms this same list as being received by the Jews, though not speaking of his own judgment. But Christendom is not all we have to look to, nor indeed the principal thing; because the Old Testament was committed originally to God's people Israel, to the Jews.