Biblical Studies – Page 10

SBL Notes, part two

Continuing with my expanded notes from my time at SBL this year, I cover the rest of the morning session of the Function of Apocryphal and Pseudepigraphal Writings in Early Judaism and Early Christianity Consultation, held 9:00-11:30 am on Monday 19 November 2006, and also the lunch of the steering committee to this consultation, to which I was invited.

Lee Martin McDonald presented “What Do We Mean by ‘Canon’? An Ancient and Modern Question.” Here is the abstract for this paper, by co-chair of this consultation (Charlesworth being the other chair), and presider over the morning session:

The terms “canonical,” “non-canonical,” “apocryphal,” and “pseudepigraphal,” are often confusing when cited in contemporary investigations of ancient Jewish and Christian literature. They are all anachronistic terms that later Christian communities used to describe literature that did or did not eventually find acceptance in the Hebrew and Christian Bibles. Initially most of those writings, if not all of them, functioned as sacred literature in one or more Jewish or Christian religious communities. This paper will focus on the meaning and validity of such distinctions for investigative research of ancient religious literature and will include examples of writings that functioned authoritatively in early Judaism and/or early Christianity, but were not eventually included in the biblical canons of either religious community. This paper is foundational to the proposed consultation on the function of apocryphal and pseudepigraphal literature in early Judaism and early Christianity.

McDonald’s handout consists of a four page outline of this thirty-six page foundational paper. McDonald spoke more or less extemporaneously, not hewing precisely to the full text of the paper, obviously, due to time restraints. He began by discussing the variety of canons in existence now and in the past, and the variety of organizing those canons, noting in particular that the tripartite organization and order of books in the Hebrew Bible was never used by Christians, for which he cited an interesting article by James Sanders, “‘Spinning’ the Bible: How Judaism and Christianity Shape the Canon Differently” (Bible Review 14.3 [June 1998]: 23-29, 44-45). Likewise dealing with the variety of canons in the past, but with a particular focus on the Jewish canon, was an article he cited, quite compelling in its argument, that Jewish communities in the western Diaspora (i.e., west of Judea) were generally non-conversant with Hebrew and Aramaic and thus maintained and attachment to the Septuagint/Old Greek texts and its extra writings over the Masoretic canon for several centuries into the Rabbinic period: Arye Edrei and Doron Mendels, “A Split Jewish Diaspora: Its Dramatic Consequences,” Journal for the Study of the Pseudepigrapha 16.2 {january 2007]: 91-137. [This article called to mind the chapter in McDonald’s and Sanders’ The Canon Debate by Jack Lightstone, “The Rabbis’ Bible: The Canon of the Hebrew Bible and the Early Rabbinic Guild,” pp 163-184, in which Lightstone reasonably posits the existence of various later Christian regional canons to have originated with divergent canons among the various earlier pre-Rabbinic Jewish communities and the divergent canons of books that they held. The two articles are perfectly complementary.] From the variety of canons and their organization, McDonald moved into the lack of evidence for discussion of a canonizing process among Church writings. In the New Testament itself, the only usage of “canon” (κανονος) itself involves reference to the scope of Paul’s ministry (see 2Cor 10.13,15,16) and to the rule of faith (Gal 6.16). These references show the lack of connotation to “canon” of an exclusive set of books. Indeed, says McDonald, the original canon or measure of the Church was Jesus Christ. The Gospels were so immediately popular and accepted so widely as authoritative precisely because they reflected that original canon, Jesus Christ, in His words. [At this I would like to emphasize something I’ve posted on before, “Canon(s) or Canonical?,” regarding the preference for looking at books as canonical rather than as a canon–McDonald making precisely that point here with me. Books were recognized as canonical insofar as they adhered to or reflected the Canon of Faith. They were not initially considered a new rule in and of themselves, i.e., a canon. This is a crucial distinction.] McDonald continues that Irenaeus memorably commented on the, by then apparently longstanding, recognition of the four Gospels being the only Gospels (indeed, actually that they rather comprise a four-fold single and only Gospel; Ireneaus Adv. Haer. 3.11.8), but focuses on the rule/canon of faith, the regula fidei, as the result of the apostolic tradition (see esp. Adv. Haer. 1.10.1-3). So, seeing that even the word “canon” was used differently, McDonald shows that we also need to recognized that all our language relating to this subject is anachronistic: Bible, canon, canonical, non-canonical, apocrypha, pseudepigrapha, etc, all of it. These modern categories, traditional in scholarly circles, are now recognized not to map well to the processes and works under discussion. An important article on the subject related to these terminological problems is Bob Kraft’s Presidential Address to the SBL, delivered 18 November 2006 at the last annual meeting in Washington DC: “Para-mania: Beside, Before and Beyond Bible Studies” JBL 126.1 (Spring 2007): 5-27, particularly section I: The Tyranny of Canonical Assumptions: The Parascriptural Worlds (pp 10-18). McDonald proceeded to lay out briefly several past consensus positions on the formation of the canon, and as briefly described problems with them, including even the understanding of “canon” as a lit of books to which nothing may be added or taken away. There are numerous books that “fell out” of different canons, e.g., The Shepherd of Hermas and Epistle of Barnabas, both of which are found in Codex Sinaiticus. Should this be categorized as “decanonization”? McDonald says:

“Canon” continues to be a useful though confusing term, but if used for a complete and fixed collection of scriptures, then it is technically and chronologically inappropriate for any writings before the fourth century when the greater church defined the parameters of its sacred literature (“What Do We Mean…” p. 23).

He also notes that often too much is drawn from the citations of various books in patristic sources [see below on Ken Penner’s talk] as though every quote would indicate another book to the author’s canon. A related problem is seeing such a personal canon of a writer as anything more than that. Such should not be imposed on the wider church of the time.

In the end, whatever the precise process, it appears largely to find its completion in the fourth century, when precise lists of books to be considered canonical appear. [I would also add that a Biblical canon is then physically possible to be represented with the the technological innovation of the great codex, which could fit a large number of books in its pages.] The process of how these lists were concluded remains inferential.

What I have taken away from McDonald’s paper (and various of his other works) is the very clear impression that studies of the canonizing process have come to the point of the rejection of old canards, and have commenced asking the important questions of methodology, terminology, and epistemology related to this subject. It’s an exciting time for canon studies obviously.

Loren Johns was McDonald’s respondent. An issue that McDonald brought up in the paper but that I don’t recall hearing in the reading regarded governmental influence on the churches toward the formation of the canon, an influence that McDonald rejects. Johns thinks this avenue could stand some more attention. Johns didn’t have a chance to elaborate as there was so little time. I think his idea was that the government of Constantine’s time (and later) was concerned with peace and unity among the Christian factions and might have suggested a single set of books in order to attempt to accomplish that unity. I actually would think this is not the case, as the problem wasn’t that, say, Arius and Athanasius were reading different books, but that they were reading the same books differently. That is, each had his own particular exegetical stance based each in his own regula fidei. That the government-sponsored Council of Nicea was charged with producing a creed, a concise summary of the Rule of Faith that would be universally adhered to, rather than a particular list of books, shows that at this period the Rule of Faith was of primary importance. Books would be read according to this Rule, or recognized as reflecting that Rule, the inheritance from the Apostles themselves (with Irenaeus, et al.). Johns also noted the serious need, agreeing with McDonald, for new terminology for books like The Shepherd of Hermas. I would prefer “historically canonical” myself, but that’s still problematic, as it doesn’t transparently reflect the temporary status that it held as canonical. Perhaps something like “Erstwhile Canonical Books” would cover it, but that’s somewhat odd. I’m sure we’ll hear more on this subject soon enough.

Ken Penner was next with “Citation Formulae as Indices to Canonicity in Early Jewish and Early Christian Literature.” His four page handout consists of notes on the kinds of quotation formulae used in various corpora, and a chart of samples for each: “TNK”/”Old Testament,” “Deuterocanonicals”/”Apocrypha,” “Dead Sea Scrolls” (including CD), Philo, Josephus, “Mishnah,” “Pseudepigrapha,” “New Testament” and “Early Church Fathers.” His conclusion from the handout describes the talk perfectly (emphasis his):

The original qustion, and that of the title of this presentation, was how the formulae can indicate the “canonicity” of a quoted text. The evidence of these nine corpora is sufficient to approach an answer, namely that the formulae used to introduce the quoted text, phrases such as “it is written,” “as a prophet says,” “the scripture says” are in fact useful for indicating the divine origin or scriptural status of writings quoted by early Christian and Jewish authors. In contrast, the quotations from Epimenides in Titus, Aratus in Acts, and Plato and Homer in Philo and Justin Martyr are introduced with formulae that dissociate their origin from the Judeo-Christian God, usually by simply mentioning the human author. This difference in the usage of citation formulae constitutes evidence that they did consider some writings at least divine or scriptural and others not.

It seems then that the citation formulae for Yashar and the books of the wars of the Lord cannot distinguish them from other scriptures; the citation formula places Jubiless in the same category of other scriptures at Qumran, as does the formula used for Enoch among the other inspired writings known to Jude. Eldad and Modat was not distinguished by the Shepherd of Hermas from other recorded prophecies of the Hebrews. The presence of such typical formulae used for scripture may safely be taken to imply the special divine origin of the work being quoted. The patterns of usage of citation formulae indicate they belong in a distinct category that may be called either divine or scriptural.

Whether this category could or should be called canonical is a question I will leave for my respondent to address. But if by canon we mean a list of books to which none can be added, the citation formulae cannot indicate the canonicity of a quoted work. On the other hand if by canon we mean a special class of divinely authoritative writings, then yes, the citation formulae can function well as indices to canonicity in Early Jewish and Early Christian literature.

It’s this last paragraph that comes closest to explicating what I found most valuable in Penner’s discussion. Too often studies of citations miss the forest for the trees, so to speak. That is, studies of citations are usually focused only on the citation formulae themselves, while neglecting the larger context and the rhetorical/narratival point of using the citation. Indeed, the work in which the citation is made as a whole can be argued to be a kind of rhetorical entity in itself, an ordered presentation of an argument with an intended point, toward which those citations contribute. That’s always bothered me about citation studies in the past: too much micro, not enough macro. Penner breaks free of that, which is refreshing.

Despite Penner’s reference to his respondent, program changes left him without one. But he did have an interesting question/response from Bob Kraft during the question period. Kraft noted the importance of physicality in discussing canon, particularly in the context here of someone quoting a number of various writings. Kraft said he wished he’d brought along a hatbox (a larger one of which is roughly equivalent to the size and shape of ancient “book buckets” for scrolls) to show how little of any such canon a person was likely to be able to travel with. The storage for all the scrolls of the OT alone would be the size of an armoire or a very large chest, certainly furniture sized and non-portable. Most people outside of the very rich wouldn’t own very many scrolls at all, and would likely have relied on scrolls of excerpts, each of which was perhaps not well or quite properly labelled. He also noted that references like “Law and Prophets” aren’t transparent at all, as the constituent members of each aren’t enumerated. It’s a very important point, and one that deserves repetition. I was first made aware of the need for caution in assumptions of this kind in connection with Luke 24.44 (“…in the law of Moses, the prophets, and the psalms…”) in Andrew Steinmann’s short but helpful book The Oracles of God: The Old Testament Canon (Concordia Publishing House, 1999), particularly in his cautioning against seeing “the psalms” in Lk 24.44 as a label for anything other than a group of psalms, and certainly not as a kind of pars pro toto label for all the books now in the Ktuvim of the Hebrew Bible. As Kraft stated, the principle applies more widely, and such labels as “law” and “prophets” cannot be assumed to include any particular list at all when that list is not explicitly given.

Susan Schwartz was next with “Pseudepigrapha among the Pagans? : Exploring the Boundaries of Audience.” There was no handout, unfortunately, though one would’ve been particularly helpful. Essentially, Schwartz would like to have us recognize things like certain of the Greek Magical Papyri, apotropaic amulets and such items which bear Biblical names within their texts among the pseudepigrapha. Moses, Jesus, Solomon, and various angels and other Biblical characters all appear in various such contexts, as in PGM 4.3007, where we find mentioned both the “Seal of Solomon” and “Jesus, God of the Hebrews.” The point is then made by Schwartz that “perceived efficacy” rather than affiliation is what led to the use of these various Biblical names in such different contexts that their original Judeo-Christian ones. There is a certain amount of overlap in these magical texts and some of the pseudepigrapha, most notably in one of my favorites among the Old Testament Pseudepigrapha, Testament of Solomon, where Solomon has demons working on the construction of the temple in Jerusalem through his superior magical wisdom. Such similarities show that the inclusion of some of these magical texts among the pseudepigrapha would not be so far-fetched.

Jonathan Soyars responded to Schwartz with complete agreement, wanting only to re-emphasize that “pagan” doesn’t necessarily eqate to “polytheist.” In describing the “God-fearers”, people who were attracted strongly to the synagogue but not so as to be circucised and convert fully, as an example of this, Soyars shows the variation of beliefs, including proper Judaic monotheism, among these “pagans.” This is another case where I think an appropriate terminology is lacking. Pagan, polytheist, Greek, Gentile–all in various contexts are used to refer to non-Jews/non-Christians, though the latter two eventually loose that connotation, particularly as more Greek Gentile Christians came onto the scene.

The Steering Committe Lunch
The morning session was held in a fairly large meeting room (probably with the capacity for seating about 300, though it was only perhaps 1/3 full) in the positively beautiful Manchester Grand Hyatt hotel. The hotel’s lobby, restaurants, and bars were all quite splendidly furnished. Prior to the conference, Lee McDonald and James Charlesworth had invited me to join them at their steering committee lunch, which was held immediately after the morining meeting at the delightful Buster’s Beach House, in the Seaport Village right west of the Grand Hyatt, on the marina. The meal was Macadamia nut crusted chicken with ginger soy glaze and Hawaiian chutney, served with garlic mashed potatoes, steamed fresh vegetables, and fried battered onion strings. At the lunch were Lee McDonald, Bill Hupper, Ken Penner, Fr Veselin Miha, Andrei Orlov, Henry Rietz, Jonathan Soyars, James Charlesworth, myself, Loren Johns, David de Silva, George Zervos, Burke Gertstenschlager, and Craig Evans. A couple of other people were apparently invited but unable to join us, including Amy-Jill Levine. The food was good, the conversation better. My greeting from Charlesworth (we’ve done quite a bit of email correspondence) was “I’m so glad you’re here” with each word punctuated by a a punch to my right arm–a prefect greeting to put me at ease, actually, although I then wondered if one of my San Diego SBL souvenirs minght not turn out to be a healthy bruise. He also made a joke about pirates infiltrating the steering committee–I generally wear a bandana on my shaved head and have a small gold earring in each ear, which do lend quite a pirate-like appearance to yours truly. I should put up a picture here sometime. Anyhow, the food began arriving promptly. After a prayer by Lee McDonald (who also used to be Craig Evans’ youth pastor–now there’s a long friendship for you!), each of us introduced ourselves. Most of these folks didn’t need introductions, but then there were the rest of us, of course. I introduced myself with a short precis of my current work, training and interests, ending with, “I’m just a guy who reads alot.” Charlesworth prompted me to tell them what I’m working on, which is also the reason for our correspondence–a full index and concordance to his OTP volumes which he’ll see is published (with the both of us as co-authors), and which they all thought was a great idea. Lee McDonald was also very kind in noting how helpful I’d been in sending him a list of corrections for his book, The Biblical Canon. Since it was an actual meeting of the steering committee, there was no chit-chat at first. I didn’t take notes during lunch, of course, so I only recall a few items out of what was discussed. One topic was on potentially rearranging the sessions so that they alternate speaker and respondents, with questions in a half-hour lump at the end. Another topic was the possibility of devoting an entire session to the Protevangelium of James, one of the NT Apocrypha, which George Zervos has worked on for two decades. After the business was over and general topics were being bandied about, I asked if anyone had any ideas how to track down detailed manuscript information for manuscripts containing pseudepigrapha, since in many cases they are not alone in those manuscripts, and that physical context could be very telling. George Zervos recommended to me a particular bibliography/catalogue of manuscript catalogues, which will be a very useful starting place. I should mention that not only are all these people sharp as tacks, they’re personable and pleasant, too. That’s be a great environment to be in every day, of course, but no one has that. These SBL conventions are almost like religious pilgrimages–people are energized by the opportunity to interface in large groups with similar interests, away from the bureaucratic tedia waiting back in the desk’s inbox at the office. After lunch was over, people went there separate ways until next year’s lunch or the consultation’s afternoon session for some of us who were planning to attend. I walked down along the marina with George Zervos for a bit until he doubled back to head to some session. I finally found a quite monumental (and exhausting, as I was still suffering from a cold) staircase leading up to the Convention Center, but to a floor that was creepily quite empty. So, after wandering a bit in this positively enormous building (it must be 1/2 mile long, if not longer), and wondering why all the various sessions weren’t being held in the convention center itself (I suspect the hotels required meeting space rental in exchange for the offering of reduced rates), I got in a rather long line for an iced coffee. After the coffee, I wandered into the book fair. I finally met James Spinti in person at the Eisenbraun’s booth, where we chatted for a bit. Then I went over to the Oxford University Press booth, where I got Albert Pietersma and Ben Wright to autograph my copy of NETS, A New Translation of the Septuagint, just like some silly, sycophantic schoolgirl. Well, not just like. Then I wandered on over to spot out the meeting space for the 4:00 pm session of the Function of Apocryphal and Pseudepigraphal Writings in Early Judaism and Early Christianity Consultation over at the Marriott. It was in a place called the Chicago Room which seemed as distant from the lobby as its namesake. I toyed with the idea of going down to the pool for a fruity drink and a comfy spot in the shade to read some, but thought I might just fall asleep at that point. So I instead found a farly uncomfortable chair at a little table with someone else’s bag of finished take-out Chinese food sitting on it. Knowing that the garbage would be something of a deterrent to table-mates, I happily settled in and got more reading done in the midst of glad-handing, noisy, occasionally slightly tipsy AAR and SBL folks than I normally get done anywhere outside of home back in Berkeley. Fortunately only one person recognized what I was reading (NETS) and asked how was it–something I hadn’t experienced since the last Harry Potter book. Eventually, my intersessional break was over, and it was time to head to the afternoon session.

I will continue with the afternoon session in the next installment.

❧

McDonald’s The Biblical Canon: update

Good news! Lee Martin McDonald has received word that his latest book, The Biblical Canon: Its Origin, Transmission, and Authority (Hendrickson, 2007), is going to be issued in a corrected reprinting in January or February 2008. Hopefully they’ll recall and destroy all the old copies! We’ve discussed the problems with the current printing of this book here, here, and here before. I’ve posted a small selection of quotes that I thought were particularly striking here.

So, if any readers were waiting to buy a copy, it will only be a couple of months more to wait. So that’s good news!

❧

More on Loose Canons

Going back and reading my Loose Canons post, I see that it was somewhat prophetic, in the sense that several of the points that I discussed in the first part of the post were covered precisely during the discussions and papers I experienced in San Diego. That fortunately means that some very talented people are working on exactly the same issues that I described as needing attention, for which we can all be grateful. More on that in upcoming posts of my SBL notes.

I want to discuss further some issues with the second part of my Loose Canons post, which described a tripartite organization for a synchronic and diachronic Christian Biblical canon. I don’t think I sufficiently described some of my points very well, and want to ealaborate on them here.

Firstly, I’d like to suggest some alternate terminology for the three canons. For one thing, I think it’s actually better in more technical labels to move away from the word “canon” itself. As “canon” has come to bear a connotation of exclusivity for the list of books contained within it, in such a context as this tripartite scheme of mine which is inclusive at core, there is some cognitive dissonance involved in using this label. So, though My Canon, Our Canon, and Their Canon are fine labels colloquially, other labels would need to be used for more accurate, technical descriptions of these groupings.

Particularly tricky is the first category, of My Canon. With it I betray a great sympathy for community over individuality, in that what I intend by this category is that of one’s Christian community. This institutional component could also be missed in a reading of the label My Canon which is other than its intended reading, for instance, were someone to understand the label as an individual’s personal or heart canon of particular books which are especially dear (on which, see below). However, this is a label which describes a received canon for that individual. In that sense, a more technical label for this level of canonicity would be Canonically Received Books, or perhaps a Received Canon. At this level, the primary level of a reader’s interaction with this literature, the standard usage of “canon” is certainly appropriate, as it is an exclusive list of materials authorized by one’s Christian tradition. Thus Received Canon connotes the authority of that transmission of a tradition of canonicity with this particular set of books to the user. It is likely a set of books that the user will find still to be of more value than those appearing in other categories.

The second level, that which encompasses those books which are currently held canonical in other orthodox Christian traditions other than one’s own, Our Canon, could be labeled Contemporarily Canonical Books. The connotation of “comtemporarily” involves something going on at the same time, while separate from the primary point of view. In this sense, it’s appropriate for this usage, in that it is both limited to the contemporary age and usage, but external to the tradition described in the primary level above, the Received Canon.

The third level, that of Their Canon, would obviously bear the label Historically Canonical Books. This level comprises, of course, only those books which survive of those works which were considered canonical in the past by orthodox Christians. This is a perfect label for those works like The Shepherd of Hermas, which were once quite obviously judged canonical in various places at various times, whether through theoretical means (lists and quotations) or practical means (inclusion in Bibles) and yet are no longer considered canonical in any living tradition. Attached secondarily to this list could be a list of those of the works which were considered canonical historically which are entirely lost and known only by title, or which have only survived in fragments, like Eldad and Modad.

To these three levels I would like to add the potential for a fourth, touched on above briefly, a Zero Level Canon: the Canon of the Heart, or a Secret Canon. I think everyone who reads the books of the Bible has some subset which speaks to their heart better than others do. This is simply a fact of the beauty of free will and individuality interfacing with literature. And while we may never tell anyone else which in particular these books are, we will continue to go to them for the simple joy of it. These are the Personally Canonical or Secretly Canonical Books, or even, dare we say it, the Apocryphal Canon, understanding “apocryphal” in its original sense of “hidden away,” and “canon” with its connotation of exclusivity intact because this collection of books seldom changes for an individual once it has formed. Yet, even so, I think it’s better to keep this level a secret, and personal, a privelege of the reader and not a public thing at all, but a secret between reader and God. Just as lists never begin with zero, so we can understand this level as implied, but not publish it.

Secondly, I’d like to discuss shortly why I limit these levels of distinction or canon to orthodox books in particular. We have numerous unorthodox books preserved, particularly from the Nag Hammadi collection. And yet, these books can only be said to have been of import to the development of the wider Christian tradition through the ages in an adversarial role if at all. Most are not quoted, most do not appear in lists of historical churches as canonical, and yet they do often appear in such lists as non-canonical or heretical, a decdedly negative context. In many cases we have no idea who thought these various books were canonical, or even if anyone actually did. Yet, even so, as I described in the Loose Canons post above with the Acts of John, on occasion some of these outré works were excerpted in orthodox hagiographical and liturgical works, thereby bestowing canonicity on those excerpts, quite extraordinarily. So, even though there is a great deal of value in these books in a scholarly sense, particularly for investigation of the development of various heresies and controversies in the early centuries of Church history, for the personal edification of a modern orthodox Christian, it is necessary to eschew these books and exclude them from the various levels of canonicity that I have described above. If there were living traditions of Ophites or Sethians out there somewhere suggesting such lists as I’ve done above, I wouldn’t be at all surprised or offended if they were to exclude the (to them) heterodox works that we would actually include. There’s no bitterness or triumphalism in my exclusion of heterodox writings, simply practicality and a concern for consistency and appropriateness. These are lists for orthodox Chrisitians. Others may make their own.

Thirdly, I’d like to elaborate on what I described in the earlier post as the suggested three canons suggested above as “psychological safety barriers.” I touched briefly on the concept above that we are more comfortable in our own tradition’s Biblical canon. Other people’s canons may include books or subject matter that our own tradition may consider unacceptable. Thus we find the need for a certain amount of separation of the canonical works into those that are currently institutionally canonical in our home traditions as our home base for canonicity, with a secondary level of canonicity which we could all recognize as of lower value to us personally but still of value for an understanding of contemporary Christianity, and then with a third level, of even lower value, as our ancestors in the faith eventually decided against maintaining these works in the Biblical canons which they have passed down to us. Each of these levels may also ostensibly be seen as of decreasing authority in the life of a Christian. But as a whole, every work included in these categories should be held of more value than any other work written, in that they constitute a Bible of the ages.

And that we can reconstruct such a Bible of the ages is something to give thanks for!

❧

SBL Notes, part one

I’ve been going over my notes, expanding them, looking up titles and such, in order to make these notes a bit more useful for you folks who weren’t at these particular sessions that I attended. I hope they’ll be found useful.

The only two sessions I attended were the Function of Apocryphal and Pseudepigraphal Writings in Early Judaism and Early Christianity Consultation, at 9:00-11:30 am and 4:00-6:30 pm Monday 11/19. I took notes of all the talks. Between the two sessions, I was invited as a guest to the lunch of the steering committee, and I’ll describe some of that too. This consultation is particularly fascinating to me, blending as it does several interests of mine all into one: canon, apocrypha/pseudepigrapha, and their usage in early Christianity.

After a brief welcome by Lee Martin McDonald, the morning session began with Craig Evans, presenting “The Pseudepigrapha and the New Testament: The Case of the Acts of the Apostles,” taking the place of the scheduled paper by James Sanders, “Non-Masoretic Literature in Early Judaism and Its Function in the New Testament.” Sanders has recently undergone surgery and was unable to attend, but Evans read some notes from Sanders prior to beginning his paper. Evans’ handout consists of five pages of “Parallels between Acts and the literature of late antiquity” taken from his Ancient Texts for New Testament Studies (Hendrickson, 2005), pp 373-78.

Evans first discussed two particular cases of parallelomania (which term he didn’t use, but I do), positing exact parallels between Acts and the Iliad in Dennis R. MacDonald, Does the New Testament Imitate Homer? Four Cases from the Acts of the Apostles (Yale, 2003), and between Acts and the Aeneid by Marianne Palmer Bonz, The Past as Legacy: Luke-Acts and Ancient Epic (Fortress Press, 2000). [I also took down the name of Gregory Riley, who likewise writes on such mimesis, but neglected to note the import of the name. He’s probably as much in Evans’ sights as MacDonald and Palmer Bonz.] Evans mentioned that the reviews of both works are mixed, but generally negative. He mentioned a lengthy critique by Karl Olav Sandnes, “Imitatio Homeri? an appraisal of Dennis R. MacDonald’s ‘mimesis criticism'” (JBL 124.4 [Winter 2005]: 715-732) who provides helpful bibliographical background. Sandnes concludes, “MacDonald isolates subtle emulation from its advertising context. Subtle and concealed emulation without basis in a broadcast intertextuality cannot make up for slippery comparisons. His reading is fascinating and contributes to a reader-oriented exegesis. But he fails to demonstrate authorial intention while he, in fact, neglects the OT intertextuality that is broadcast in this literature” (p. 732), a point which Evans picks up later. Evans also referenced a review by Luke Timothy Johnson of MacDonald (Theological Studies 66.2 [June 2005]: 489-90), which concludes “M. can claim the Iliad as part of the Hellenistic intertexture for interpreting Luke-Acts, but he fails to show that there is anything uniquely in Acts and Homer that can be explained only by literary imitation. The book fails to convince on its central point, and fails to suggest what difference it might make for any reader of Acts if its central point were correct” (p. 490). Evans echoed the latter point, emphasizing that such potential parallels as suggested by scholars often serve no purpose exegetically, and would have had little impact on any reader unless they were more obvious and involved. This leads him directly to the fascinating counter-example to MacDonald and Palmer Bonz that both the narrative setting of Acts 2 and the text of the quotation there of Joel 3.1-5 (LXX/MT; English 2.28-32) are intertwined in such a way that Joel 3 is then presented as a prophecy of the time of the events depicted in Acts 2, which are likewise presented as the fulfillment of that prophecy, and the wording of the quotation and setting are both subtly adjusted toward making that connection. Thus the explicit or “broadcast intertextuality” (so Sandnes) in this case also indicates the “subtle emulation” (also Sandnes) in this passage. This is a direction that really needs following in Luke-Acts in particular, but also in every other location in the NT with explicit quotations from the OT–investigating the possibility of quite subtle effects on the texts surrounding such quotations, their context influencing and being influenced. A further question raised by Evans is: Do the suggested parallels actually help us understand the text better? If they don’t, knowing the above Joel-Acts example, then those parallels are very likely not there, as they would serve no purpose to either author or reader. (There was no respondent at this point to Evans because of the above-mentioned schedule change.)

Next was James Charlesworth, presenting “The Book of the People from the People of the Book.” His handout consists of a photocopy of photographs of columns VII and VIII of 1QpHab, the Qumran Pesher Habakkuk.

Drawing a point from Polybius’ Histories at the end of Book 12 (28a.8-10), he states, “Misinformed questions contribute to misinformed answers.” That is, in seeking to determine the structure of the “Book,” i.e. the canon, have we actually neglected the input of the people of the book? Charlesworth noted the number of copies of various books found at Qumran and discussed the importance of this more physical aspect of canonical treatment, with special emphasis given to the relatively well-preserved 1QpHab. When the Pesher Habakkuk was authored, the Hasmonean scriptio continua gave a certain latitude to the author of the Pesher to vary word divisions and alter letters in places due to their similarity (e.g., yod and waw). In the Pesher Habakkuk, things like the omission of a waw in order to connect two verses of Habakkuk more closely don’t show a lackadaisical textual criticism (an anachronism, in any case), but rather the value the author of the Pesher places on Habakkuk, in presenting the content in a new, slightly adjusted way which makes the point of his commentary clearer. The author shows by this that though Habakkuk didn’t understand the full import of the text he was writing, the Righteous Teacher does, because the meaning was in fact withheld from Habakkuk and everyone else until the end times. Likewise, the physical care taken in the production of 1QpHab shows the extremely high value of this text for the people who copied it: the raising and selection of the lamb for the skin, the involved preparation of the leather and ink, the careful sewing of the sheets of leather into a long scroll, the precise and careful ruling done so delicately with a very sharp blade, the careful writing with spaces, and especially the correction in different hands. This latter is seen in 1QpHab VII.1, where an אל which had been missed through haplography by the original scribe was inserted supralinearly by a later one in another hand, and in line 3, yet a third hand is seen in this column supralinearly adding ירוץ which had likewise been omitted. This shows they cared enough about this text to actually correct it. These physical characteristics are an important indicator of canonicity, as well, because, as Charlesworth said, “The canonical process is complex, and frequently opaque.” By this, I think, he means that our reconstructions of canonical theory have been repeatedly shown to be inadequate, and the physical realia can provide an anchor and some at least partly objective input into a re-evaluation of the canonical process. It’s an aspect that I’m very interested in, actually.

Andrei Orlov was Charlesworth’s respondent. He suggests the usage of the term “protocanon” to fill the gap between the complete absence of a canon and a fully developed, later, exclusive canon. He also noted that some of the same text-play that Charlesworth noted in Pesher Habakkuk is also present in later midrashim which were certainly written after the establishment of a canon including those texts being played with.

I’ll continue tomorrow.

❧

Loose Canons

Some may recognize the title of this post, a great pun coined by Philip Davies in the title of an article, “Loose Canons: Reflections on the Formation of the Hebrew Bible” (Journal of Hebrew Scriptures volume 1 [1996-97], article 5) which you may read here.

Through being immersed in various apocryphal and pseudepigraphal readings lately, my thoughts on canon have turned again toward the gulf between theory and practice in matters of Biblical canonicity. Recent deeper reading of Eastern Orthodox liturgical texts continue to reveal echoes of, if not allusions to, various “non-canonical” works. Yet there is nothing more canonical in the Eastern Church than the liturgies themselves! In fact, while the full texts of the books themselves may well be authoritatively pronounced non-canonical, or indeed condemned, sometimes the majorities of the stories in them (as in the Protevangelium of James, concerning the details of the life of Mary the mother of Jesus) or even actual excerpts of texts from the books themselves (as in the case of Acts of John) have otherwise come to be accepted into liturgical texts, and therefore are as canonical as they could possibly get. This situation requires a rethinking of the practical application of any concept of canonicity, frankly.

How can a book like the Manichaean Acts of John be condemned by the Seventh Ecumenical Council (“No one is to copy [it]: not only so, but we consider that it deserves to be consigned to the fire.” Acts of Session Five, quoted in Schneemelcher New Testament Apocrypha, 2.156), and yet have its only surviving (and extensive!) excerpts preserved in hagiographical texts for liturgical use, if the several meanings of “canonical” have been adhered to in practice in precisely the Church which condemned it? This exemplifies perfectly the gulf that exists between the theory of canonicity and its practice.

A further example of this gulf is also found in the New Testament by the inclusion of an explicit quotation from the First Book of Enoch in the Letter of Jude. Outside of the Ethiopian Orthodox Church, no other Christian community holds 1 Enoch canonical. Yet there it is in Jude, in the New Testament, while books like Esther and numerous others in the universally accepted core of the canon of the Old Testament/Hebrew Bible are not quoted at all. The theoretical mechanism of canonicity is seen here not to reflect the canonical practice of Jude the brother of James and of Jesus! That is, while Jude certainly found this prophecy to be authentic and authoritative, and would’ve thereby included it in a list of authoritative books were we to ask him which books were such, the book was not retained in the Old Testament by the majority of Christians, and would in fact have been almost entirely lost were it not for the Ethiopian Christians. So, even the theoretical rule of New Testament writers’ positive quotations of Biblical books indicating canonicity is not seen as authoritative enough to determine practice (save among the Ethiopians).

Take also into consideration the quite well-known Thirty-ninth Festal Letter of Athanasius of Alexandria. Here he divided the Old and New Testament books into “canonical” and “readable” with those in the latter category being Wisdom of Solomon, Wisdom of Jesus son of Sirach, Esther (!), Judith, Tobit, the Didache, and the Shepherd of Hermas. Yet his instruction had no discernible effect on the Church in Egypt. Both the Chalcedonian and Non-Chalcedonian churches in Egypt include Wisdom, Sirach, Esther, Judith, and Tobit in the Old Testament as fully canonical. Again, theory is trumped by practice.

It appears that it will be necessary to focus on practice in order to really ascertain the limits of what is or is not a canonical text in any given tradition. The Eastern churches, with their elaborate, lengthy liturgies and hymnology, demonstrate a much looser concept of canon in practice than they do even in theory, where their official canons are still the most inclusive among Christian churches, and their hymnography draws on even more works. Alternatively, we might recognize that the theoretical concept of an exclusive canon simply isn’t applicable in these cases, as practice shows that many more materials have been effectively canonical (especially in the sense of adhering to the Canon or Rule of Faith, as I have already described) in practice. The canons are loose! Look out! You might be hit by some stray apocrypha!

Relatedly, I’d like to discuss a way of categorizing writings for the individual Christian reader in recognition of these rather loose canons through the ages and the churches. This involves a triple collection: 1.) the current Biblical canon of the reader’s own tradition; 2.) those books which are not included in the canon of the tradition of the reader, but are included in the canon of other contemporary Christian traditions; and 3.) those orthodox books that are not included in the reader’s current canon or any others’, but which were at some point in history either in theory or practice (that is, appearing in canonical lists, in codices, or in authoritative quotation) included in the canons of various churches and which such books still survive. (It is simply necessary for the intended purpose of this categorization to exclude unorthodox/heretical books; they have their place in the history of Christianity, but not in the personal spiritual development of any continuous tradition.) In keeping with the different possibilities that these categories would include depending upon the reader, these options should simply be labeled My Canon, Our Canon, Their Canon. Such a way of organizing the books not only comfortably integrates the Christian reader into a greater perspective of understanding of the contemporary Christian canonical world, but also into that of ages past, where much more variety existed in Bibles, judging by practice, than effectively does today. A synchronic and diachronic experience of such a threefold widest possible Christian canon can only be a good thing for opening up a reader to the possibilities of internalizing a broader worldview, by reading the Bible of both the “Church Militant” and the “Church Triumphant,” so to speak. This, I think, through the volume of reading involved if nothing else, and the simple fascination with the readings, will impact the reader’s worldview, effectively, hopefully, guiding the reader more into a worldview of a Christian of the ages, something rare and wondrous in these days. Related to this idea of worldview, possibly my favorite article is one by Luke Timothy Johnson, “Imagining the World Scripture Imagines” (Modern Theology 14.2 [April 1988]: 165-180). In brief, he describes how the worldview of not just the authors of Scripture, but the initial hearers and readers of Scripture is something that we need to recover. How better to do this than by immersing ourselves in the Scriptures of those ancient Christians themselves, and in the writings that were produced and written in reflection on them which became so well-received as to themselves become Scriptures. And yet, the three levels which I describe may also serve as a series of psychological safety barriers as well, for none of us would be truly comfortable with associating all these disparate writings with one another as all completely equivalent in value of canonicity. Thus My Canon, the canon of your own hearth; Our Canon, the canon of friends and neighbors; and Their Canon, the canon of the departed, many of whom were people of great faith, and from whom we could learn much.

It’s a thought.

Some further thoughts of mine on the Biblical canon:
On the Biblical Canon
McDonald’s Biblical Canon
Codex Hierosolymitanus Canon List
It’s all canonical fun!
An Enochian memorial?
On the Confusion of “Canon”
Caveat scriptor!
On McDonald’s The Biblical Canon
Regula fidei scriptorumque
Canon(s) or Canonical?
Goodies from The Biblical Canon
(Various of those posts will also include links to other writers’ very interesting thoughts on the Biblical canon.)

❧

I’m rather in love

My copy of A New English Translation of the Septuagint arrived yesterday. For those of you unfamiliar with this particular translation, edited by Albert Pietersma and Benjamin G. Wright, you might want to browse through the website of the translation project, and read, in particular, “To the Reader of NETS”, the introduction to the translation as a whole. The introduction was updated this year, so it differs slightly from the older version from the website, and from the version of the introduction included in the Psalms volume published in 2000 by Albert Pietersma, which is apparently out of print. I’ve been following the project since the appearance of the website a number of years ago. With luck, the commentary series based upon this NETS translation, also described on the website, will proceed apace.

The book itself is very well-made. It’s hardcover, with a “library binding,” and slightly larger than the Psalms volume, yet only about one inch thick. This is due to the use of fine, yet reasonably opaque, “Bible paper.” The text is approximately 10pt, and double-column throughout the Biblical text, with the front matter and introductions to the individual books being single-column. The binding is such that the book lies open flat even very near the front and back covers, in addition to which the inner margins are sufficient that one needn’t hold down the pages to keep text from falling into the gutter. Unfortunately, the other margins are quite small, and will not facilitate annotation. Perhaps a less economical edition in the future will remedy this. I confess that it would be quite nice to have a NETS edition Bible of the same production quality as the leather-bound Oxford NRSV Bibles, which are always exceedingly well made.

Now to the truly extraordinary aspects of this new translation of the Septuagint. Students of the Septuagint will be aware that several of the Biblical books are known in two versions (in whole or in part) in Greek, with the divergent texts being published and annotated in both the Rahlfs handbook edition and in the G

❧

Bethsaida: town or village?

Expanded from my notes on Rami Arav, “Bethsaida,” pp 145–166 in Jesus and Archaeology, ed. James H. Charlesworth (Eerdmans, 2006).

From pp 148–149:

Four years after [Bethsaida’s] foundation, Philip, the founder of the city, died at Bethsaida and was buried in a costly burial; unfortunately, Josephus, our source of information, does not indicate where Philip was buried. Thirty-five years after this event, the city witnessed clashes between Jewish rebels led by Josephus and the Roman mercenaries of Agrippa II. As a result of this episode the city was partly deserted and ruined (Josephus, Vita 71, 72). It is important to mention in this context that Mk 8:23 preserves the tradition of Bethsaida as being a village (kōmē) and not a town (polis). Luke refers to Bethsaida as a polis (Lk 9:10), and it seems that he was not careful in his definition of the place. Bethsaida as a town named Julias did not exist for more than a few years.

Arav’s conclusion may also be seen as somewhat backwards. Both Gospels could be correct for the times in which they were written, if the kōmē and polis usage is indicative. That is, there is a more logical solution. Bethsaida was the polis Julias from either the late first century BC or some point early in the first century AD (see below) until a point during the Great Revolt of the Jews against Rome, between the years of 30 to 68 AD, according to Arav, taking his “thirty-five years” inclusively, as 69 AD is certainly too late (see below). It is thus most likely that the Gospel According to Luke was written during that time, when the place was known as such. Indeed, if the ending of the Book of the Acts of the Apostles, the volume following on the Gospel, is any indicator of its date, then it must have been written in 62 AD. This fits the usage. Likewise then, the Gospel of Mark must date to a period either before or after Bethsaida was known as the polis Julias, and was just a kōmē. To date Mark before 30 AD is patently absurd, as the Gospel itself includes events that are generally recognized as occurring later. Taking into account the above evidence regarding Luke, to date Mark after 68 AD supports the Griesbach or Two Gospel Hypothesis regarding the production of the Synoptic Gospels, which posits Mark as a later conflation of both Matthew and Luke. To claim otherwise complicates the issue, requiring us to believe that Mark is somehow more correct than Luke, as Arav seems to imply, though the former imposes the anachronistic label of kōmē on Bethsaida during the ministry of Jesus in preference for the status of the place in the author’s time, and the latter correctly depicts it as a polis during Jesus’ ministry. Issue appears be taken with this evidence in Luke, however, for not toeing the party line: not correctly indicating the status of Bethsaida in light of the typically much later date proposed for the writing of Luke in the Two Source Hypothesis (Mark first, Matthew and Luke later drawing on Mark, Q, and other traditions). And yet, Luke could easily have been written during the time when Bethsaida-Julias was a polis, while Mark could just as easily have been written when it was a kōmē, which is the most logical, least complicated, and patently clear explanation of this piece of evidence.

Of course, the above approach requires us to accept as given that each author can only have described Bethsaida using the proper term (kōmē or polis) that applied to the place during the author’s time, rather than the time indicated in the narrative, which is the period of Jesus’ ministry. This approach fails to take into account the evidence found in the Gospel According to John (1.44), where Bethsaida is called “the city (πολεως) of Andrew and Peter.” John is universally recognized to be the latest written among the canonical Gospels, dating to the last decade of the first century AD, when Bethsaida was most decidedly no longer a polis.

A further issue is in regards to the date used by Arav of 30 AD for the establishment of Julias as a polis, and of 68 AD for its demo(li)tion. These are far from certain. Josephus does not give a specific date for the founding of Julias at Bethsaida, but perhaps implies that it was soon after Tiberius became Emperor, in 14 AD (War 2.168), that Philip acted to honor Tiberius’ mother Livia (as some would correct Josephus; see Ant 18.27–28), known as Julia only from that point forward, when she received membership in the gens Iulia by bequest of Augustus. Arav sets the date in 30 AD, soon after the death of Julia, with the foundation of Julias and its temple being simultaneous and intended to reap the benefits of worship of the Imperial family. This is certainly possible, even plausible, though the equation of temple and city is nowhere stated in Josephus. It is necessary, too, to recall that Josephus states that Julias was named after “Caesar’s daughter” (Ant 18.28) this being Julia, daughter of Tiberius and mother of Gaius (Caligula), who fell from favor in 2 BC. Unless we unwisely wish to posit an error on the part of Josephus, this little bit of evidence indicates that Philip founded Julias almost immediately upon recieving his tetrarchy in 4 BC. This is the closest to a precise indicator that Josephus gives for the foundation of Julias, as the other mentions of the founding of the city appear in simplified lists of Philip’s accomplishments. The date for the demotion (nowhere explicitly stated, either) is likewise up in the air, with our only indication being that it is after the first year of the War, obviously, as Josephus is a general, and before the end of the War in 70 AD. The only indication of the timing of its capture by Placidus (War 4.438) is that it is described just prior to Vespasian hearing of the revolt of Vindex against Nero (War 4.440), which occurred in late 67 or early 68, and Nero’s death, which occurred 9 June 68, is related further on (War 4.491). Clearly, 68 AD is the most likely date for the capture of Bethsaida-Julias, and the de facto (de jure?) end of its existence as a polis.

Perhaps Arav’s ongoing excavations of Bethsaida-Julias will eventually clarify the date of its promotion by Philip. For now, all of the above is rather, I think, indicative of the murky and imprecise nature of the intersection of text and trowel. At least, it is not as exact as we would like it to be, with too much vagueness lying in the realms of both. But I want to thank Dr Arav for his fascinating work and his obviously thought-provoking article. I very much look forward to reading more on the work of the Bethsaida excavations, a site which previsously held no interest for me, but which Arav’s article has made much more interesting, particularly the discussion of the Iron Age findings.

❧

Goodies from The Biblical Canon

Below are some particularly striking excerpts from Lee Martin McDonald’s book, The Biblical Canon: Its Origin, Transmission, and Authority (Hendrickson, 2007). I thought others might find them stimulating, too.

Just because a text was cited by a well-known church father, one cannot assume that the writing was a part of either his or others’ biblical canon. This was often misunderstood even in antiquity. Every citation or quote must be evaluated on its own merit before being added to someone’s biblical canon.
(page 29)

Evidence that the Prophets had not yet moved into a fixed-canon category by the late third century B.C.E. is seen in the translation of the LXX (ca. 280-250 B.C.E.), when the Law alone was translated into Greek. Had other OT writings been accepted as inviolable Scripture at that time, it seems likely that they too would have been part of that translation project. Later (ca. 150-130 B.C.E.), the Prophets circulated in a somewhat loose collection of Scriptures, as the prologue to Sirach suggests; and the Writings were circulating in a looser form until someone later in the second or first century B.C.E., when they are other religious texts were translated into Greek and added to the LXX.
(page 35)

In an old but still important contribution to canonical studies, Reuss (1891) claims correctly that the question of the biblical canon depends on a theory of inspiration that simply was not present or even an issue for the apostles and their immediate disciples.
(page 110)

De Jonge is certainly correct when he claims that “because Christians were convinced of the continuity in God’s revelation through the great figures of the ‘Old Testament” and through Jesus Christ and his apostles, the distinction between ‘Jewish’ and ‘Christian’ was for them only of relative importance.”
(page 146)

The Apostolic Fathers, the closest Christian writings to the time of the NT, quote, refer, or allude to 2 Maccabees, Judith, Tobit, Sirach, Wisdom of Solomon, 2 Esdras, and 1 Enoch—but not to the canonical books of Ruth, Ezra, Nehemiah, Lamentations, Obadiah, Micah, or Haggai. This is important information for those who argue that Jesus’ canon could not have included the Apocrypha since he does not cite this literature. Does this argument also extend to the flip side and claim that Jesus did not accept Judges, Ezra, Nehemiah, Lamentation, Obadiah, Micah, or Haggai since he did not cite or quote them? Since the second-century churches were informed by more than the current Protestant OT canonical literature, this reaises the question whether today’s church should reconsider what literature informs its faith and witness.
(page 221)

Again, Irenaeus’s primary concern was to defend the Christian message, which was his “canon,” and he limited this message to the apostolic tradition resident in the church, which in turn was limited to (i.e., found in only) the primary literature of the second-century church (i.e., four NT Gospels and an imprecise collection of Paul’s Letters). . . . For Irenaeus, the apostolic witness was the primary determining principle for the recognition of the authority of the NT Scriptures (Haer. 3.2.2). He did not limit the succession of the apostolic witness, however, to the bishops at Rome alone (Haer. 3.3.2).
(page 297)

Failure to mention an ancient source does not necessarily mean this source was either unknown of not viewed as authoritative by Irenaeus.
(page 301)

This implies that the standard applied to pseudepigraphy was orthodoxy. If a particular writing fit theologically with what was acceptable to a particular Christian community, then the writing itself was acceptable, even though someone other than the author listed may have written it.
(page 347)

“While it is true that the Biblical authors were inspired by God, this does not mean that inspiration is a criterion of canonicity. A writing is not canonical because its author was inspired, but rather an author is considered to be inspired because what he has written is recognized as canonical, that is, is recognized as authoritative.” Inspiration was not a criterion by which a NT book was given the status of Scripture and later placed into a fixed biblical canon, but rather a corollary to its recognized status.
(page 420)

❧

Canon(s) or Canonical?

Terminology related to the canon of the Bible’s books is rife with confusion. The usage of “canon” itself to refer to a collection of books is only of eighteenth century vintage. The general usage anciently and to the present of canon or κανων was in reference to a rule, either literal or metaphorical, that is, either a measuring stick of some kind or a set of beliefs held as an authoritative code for one’s behavior. Yet these days, in discussing various books of the Bible, people will often speak of whether a book is canonical or non-canonical, by which they simply mean whether it is or is not considered a book of the Bible, or the “Biblical canon” by which they mean that list of books in the Bible. This usage is likely to only generate more confusion, because it is then assumed that there is some single official list of books that belong to the Bible, which there is not. Different faith traditions have different Bibles. Among Christians, Protestant, Roman Catholics and Orthodox each have an increasing number of different books included in their Bibles, with the latter having several different lists of such books (from the Eastern Orthodox, the Russian and Greek traditions differ by including one book each which the other doesn’t; among the Oriental Orthodox, the Coptic Church and Ethiopic Churches include even more books than the Eastern Orthodox, while some of the Syrian Orthodox have five fewer books in their New Testament through excluding the books of 2 Peter, 2-3 John, Jude, and the Apocalypse). As is also well known, the Jewish Bible includes the same books as the Protestant Old Testament, though traditionally arranging the books in a different order than they do. So, there is no “the” canon at all, but several canons, depending upon various traditions, which situation becomes even more complex if one looks at historical documentation concerning which books various ancient writers thought should be considered part of the Bible. Let us leave this confusion to the side for now.

There is a better way to discuss these books, by simply using “canonical” with the older connotation in mind. That is, these books are canonical to particular groups because they were considered to reflect their regula fidei or κανων πιστεως. By using this approach, we not only come to an immediate understanding of precisely why certain traditions include the various books in their Bibles, but also enter into a greater continuity with past reflection on and usage of the the word and concept of “canon,” thus returning to an understanding that these books didn’t just happen to be in a certain collection divorced from all interaction with people as though by an inevitable physical process which has yet to be discovered, but rather through a process in which they were recognized as reflective of the values and mores, the “canons,” of those groups which mindfully and prayerfully included them in their Bibles. Likewise, other books were prayerfully and mindfully excluded, as they were not considered to reflect the rule of faith or tradition.

Thus, rather than saying, “This is the Eastern Orthdox Biblical Canon,” it is better to say, “These are the canonical books of the Bible in the Eastern Orthodox Church.” The difference in usage is subtle, but important. “Canonical” connotes a relationship to a tradition’s rule of faith as canon, while “canon” would attempt to substitute a set of mute books for that living tradition. It is a kind of bibliolatry to place the books of the Bible in the position of the Rule of Faith. They are certainly a part of it, along with other elements, but they are not the Rule of Faith itself. Our language should reflect that reality.

It is important to remember that, as some wag put it, “The Church wrote the Bible; the Bible didn’t create the Church.”

❧

Regula fidei scriptorumque

The challenges of the second century, including local persecution of Christians and the growth of heresy (Gnosticism, Marcion, and the Montanists), were not responded to by the establishment of a biblical canon in the second century, but rather by setting forth a “canon of faith” (regula fidei), namely, a creed that stated what was generally believed to be the true teaching of the church at that time. There was no firmly fixed biblical canon at the end of the second century, but rather several books of the NT—primarily the Gospels and several of Paul’s Letters—were beginning to be called “Scripture.”

Lee Martin McDonald. The Biblical Canon: Its Origin, Transmission and Authority, p. xix.

McDonald raises an interesting point, one which bears elaboration and extension into the first century. Rather than characterizing the regula fidei as a “creed” particularly, which calls to mind a classic verbal summary formulation of beliefs, like the Apostle’s Creed or the Nicene-Constantinopolitan Creed, among others, it’s better to understand the regula fidei as a shared worldview, which includes not only particularized statements of beliefs, but is truly an entire complicated mindset involving behavior, action, belief, vocabulary, and writings, just as it still is today. The regula fidei that I know as an Eastern Christian is more than the Nicene-Constantinopolitan Creed we recite in the Divine Liturgy, much, much more. But I digress.

McDonald mentions a series of instances in which the Church was forced to clarify its beliefs in the face of disbelief or wrong belief. Eventually, these clarifications would take the form of Ecumenical Councils, which would respond to various heresies and administrative issues. But earlier, before such a universally organized and effective response was possible, what was the practice? McDonald mentions here the formation of the regula fidei in the second century in response to such stimuli. I would say that we quite literally need to date the establishment of this back into the first century itself, finding the writings of the apostles and their successors reflecting an earlier establishment of the regula fidei that was operative at that time, the original apostolic deposit of faith, not so well-articulated as in later years, once it had gained interest, so to speak, yet obviously present. In this sense, the actual writing of the Gospels and Epistles and other books fits also into that framework of stabilization later represented by the Ecumenical (and other) Councils, following as the writings do on the verbal, personal establishment of the faith communities, the local churches, by the apostles. Notice that in every one of the New Testament writings we find clarification on various topics in the form of correction or even polemic which is sometimes so mild as to be missable and other times sharply, almost viciously, explicit. In this sense, the writings themselves are an expression of clarification of that regula fidei established by the apostles in their missionary work, and preserved among the communities thus founded. This is particularly clear in the letters of Paul, where in several letters we find him misunderstood (I think primarily of the two letters to the Thessalonians) and so clarifying issues, or explicitly reacting against improper beliefs imposed by others (seemingly every other letter of his!). The Gospels too, contain more subtle evidence of such, as well, if only by their existence and acceptance among the apostolically founded groups that they were believed to represent Christ more truly, indeed, to reflect more clearly the regula fidei than other gospels did.

So, I would like to suggest that the writing of the individual New Testament books, their preservation, and subsequent canonization as part of the New Testament was all a part of the growth of the deposit of faith, part of the safeguarding of the original apostolic regula fidei. During the second and third centuries, the work of safeguarding the faith continued differently, by producing other, different writings, and also thereby extending defense of the faith more fully. Eventually, the first expressions of defense and establishment of the faith, those books we know as the 27 books of the New Testament, being related to the apostles themselves and the first generation of Christians, were recognized as authentic and particularly more foundational and special than subsequent orthodox writings, and were established as a canon. The recognition of these books in particular was also somewhat circular. As there was an original deposit of faith at the establishment of the various churches of the Great Church, as it was then known, and these works were shared among those apostolically founded communities, the worldview or the regula fidei in the communities and the writings meshed, and each reinforced the other. The esoteric expansive writings of the New Testament apocrypha didn’t stand a chance outside their own communities, as they literally made no sense in the context of a different regula fidei. On the other hand, various other writings, like the Shepherd of Hermas, the Letters of Ignatius of Antioch, etc, and popular expansive writings like the Acts of Paul, written also from within the same apostolically founded regula fidei, were very popular, but recognized as sub-apostolic, and not as valuable as those earliest documents.

In summary, the writing of the New Testament documents occurred for the reason of defense of the faith, as the further clarification of the very rule of faith (regula fidei) established by the apostles when the local church communities were founded in the first century.

(As a side note, I use two terms in the above: “esoteric expansive writings” and “popular expansive writings.” I am putting these terms through a trial run, to test them for applicability as replacements for “apocrypha” and “pseudepigrapha” in relation to both the Old and New Testaments. That is, all such materials tend to be expansive literature based on some element or other of the core canon of the OT or NT. The “esoteric expansive writings” show clear sectarian markers that indicate their use in only a particular group. The “popular expansive writings” were those works which were, of course, popular, more well-known, and thereby better preserved. Using “esoteric” and “popular” seemed good choices to avoid the arguments which would ensue by using “heretical” or “gnostic” versus “orthodox,” which would be anachronistic or incorrect. The popular works are occasionally of questionable orthodoxy, and “gnostic” wasn’t the only kind of non-orthodoxy around. In any case, new terminology to replace “apocrypha” and “pseudepigrapha” is necessary, and these are my suggestions.)

❧