THE CANON OF THE OLD TESTAMENT. INTRODUCTION. RECENT Biblical discussion has familiarised English INTRODUCT. readers with many of the chief problems raised by modern. phases of Old Testament Criticism. But the interest, which is naturally felt in the investigation of the structure of the Sacred Books, has tended to throw into the background that other group of problems, which concerns their admission into the Canon. To the Christian student the latter, though a less attractive, or, at least, a less promising field of investigation, must always be one of first-rate importance. For, after all, whether a book has had a simple or a complex history, whether or no the analysis of its structure reveals the existence of successive compilation, adaptation and revision, are only secondary questions, of great literary interest indeed, but yet of subordinate importance, if they do not affect the relation of Scripture to the Church. They are literary problems. They need not necessarily invite the interest of the Christian student. Whether they do so or not, will depend upon his habits of mind. A better knowledge of the structure of a book will not, as a rule, 33 B INTRODUCT. affect his view of its authority. His conviction, that a book is rightly regarded as Holy Scripture, will not be shaken, because it proves to consist of elements whose very existence had been scarcely imagined before the present century. The O. T. Canon: How formed? Other problems, however, arise before the Biblical student. He never ceases to wish to learn more accurately, nay, he is compelled, against his will, to reflect more seriously upon, the process, by which the books of Holy Scripture have obtained recognition as a sacred and authoritative Canon. The process, by which the various books of the Old Testament came to be recognized as sacred and authoritative, would, if we could discover it, supply us with the complete history of the formation of the Old Testament Canon. By that process, we know, books, believed to be divine, were separated from all other books. By that process, we know, writings, containing the Word of God, became recognised as the standard of life and doctrine. These are only the results which lie at our feet. We instinctively inquire for the causes whichl ed to them. How were these writings separated from all other Hebrew literature? When did the separation take place? What was the test of Canonicity, which determined, in one case, admission into, in another, exclusion from, the sacred collection? Questions such as these, cannot fail to suggest themselves to every thoughtful Christian mind. Indeed, the literature of the Old Testament is itself so varied in character, that an inquiry into the formation of a Canon, which includes writings so different as Genesis and the Song of Songs, Esther and Isaiah, Judges and the Psalter, needs no justification. It is demanded by the spirit of the age. It is even demanded, as just and necessary, by the requirements of reverent and devout INTRODUCT. study. evidence The inquiry, however, is no simple one. The subject External is involved in great obscurity. At the outset, we are wanting. confronted by the fact, that no historical account of the formation of the Canon has been preserved. Neither in Scripture, nor in Josephus, is any narrative given of the process of its formation. A couple of legendary allusions, to be found in the Second Book of Maccabees (ch. ii. 13-15) and in the so-called Fourth Book of Esdras (ch. xiv. 19-48), supply all the light which direct external evidence throws upon the subject'. The path is thus left open; and, in consequence, the investigation is beset by all the usual obstacles that can be thrown in the way, untrustworthy legend, popular assumption, clever, but baseless, speculations. Jewish and The necessity of offering some account of the origin of Legend: their Sacred Scriptures occasioned the rise of certain Christian. legends amongst the Jews, which, as is well known, associated, now with Ezra, now with the Men of the Great Synagogue, the task of collecting, transcribing, revising, and promulgating the Hebrew Canon. What may have been the origin of these legends, and what their relation to particular phases of Jewish history, we do not stop here to inquire2. They rest on no historical support, so far as they relate to the final formation of the Canon of the Old Testament. In unscientific times, plausible legend is readily accepted, in the absence of direct testimony, for trustworthy history. Having once been adopted and cir 1 N.B.-Talmudic legend (Baba bathra, 14 b) does not touch the subject of the formation of the Canon. See Excursus B. 2 See Excursus A. INTRODUCT. culated in the Jewish Church, such legends were only too naturally transferred to the soil of the Christian Church. Accordingly, we find the belief that Ezra was inspired to rewrite and reissue the Sacred Books, which had been burned by the Chaldeans at the destruction of Jerusalem, commonly accepted, and repeated by successive divines of the Christian Church until the era of the Reformation1. Thenceforward the authority of a learned Jew, Elias Levita, who published his Massoreth Hammasoreth in 1538, caused a more credible tale to be generally accepted, that the work of collecting and editing the Scriptures of the Old Testament was performed by the 'Men of the Great Synagogue.' Many varieties of the same story have since found favour in the Church-a circumstance which is certainly not due to the more trustworthy character of the evidence for the narrative, but, probably, merely to the greater inherent credibility of its statements 2. Recent investigation, which has given to these legends their proper weight at particular stages of the historical inquiry, has also brought convincingly to light their wholly untrustworthy character. It is recognized that, while Ezra's work was rightly connected, in the memory of his countrymen, with the preservation of the Scriptures, only legend has transformed that connexion into the work of officially promulgating the Books of the Old Testament. Again, the very existence of 'the Great Synagogue,' save as a name for a blank space in the annals of the Jewish people, has failed to stand the scrutiny of a close historical inquiry. The further we recede into the past, the more meagre grows the evidence 1 See Excursus A. I. 2 See Excursus A. II. for that tradition. Indeed, if such an institution ever INTRODUCT. existed, if it ever exerted an influence over the Jewish people and over Jewish literature, it is, to say the least, a surprising, an inexplicable fact, that it was reserved for mediaeval writers to supply the names of its members and to describe the details of their functions. It may be doubted whether, with the mass of modern English readers, ecclesiastical legend carries much weight. Those, to whom the work of Ezra and of 'the Great Synagogue' upon the Old Testament has been known simply as a pleasing tale, are not likely to feel distressed at learning its worthlessness as history. Few, we may be sure, have ever seriously regarded their Old Testament Scriptures in the light of a collection whose limits and character had been determined by Ezra and his colleagues. By the mass of readers, if any thought has ever been expended upon the origin and formation of the Old Testament Canon, ecclesiastical tradition has probably been generally set aside in favour of a vague popular assumption. sumption. Popular assumption is apt to follow the line of least Popular asresistance. It is impatient of the slow, dull, processes and small results of historical research. Popular assumption accounts a general belief in the great fact of Inspiration sufficient for all practical purposes. Armed with that weapon, a man can afford, it is thought, to dispense with the necessity of forming any careful opinion upon the origin of the Canon. Popular assumption has sometimes even thought it the part of true piety to stifle inquiry with the fallacious. maxim, that, where we are not told a thing, there we are not intended to know it. Popular assumption identifies the age of which a narrative treats with the age of its |