There Must Be Something More

103 | Definitely Better

In bold, golden Times New Roman font, the capital letters 'THE CANON OF THE OLD TESTAMENT' flashed on the projected screen. Trey looked at the slide behind him and turned to face the crowd with a smile. He looked confident, but then I realized he was just acting when I noticed his hand shaking a little while he held the mic.

He cleared his throat, "The Jews had a clearly defined body of Scriptures that collectively could be summarized as the Torah, or Law. This was fixed early in the life of Israel, and there was no doubt as to which books belonged and which did not. They did not order them in the same way as our Old Testament, but the same books were there.

"The Law was the first five books, known as the Pentateuch, which means "five rolls"—referring to the parchment scrolls on which they were normally written.

"The Prophets consisted of the Former Prophets (unusually for us these included Joshua, Judges, Samuel, and Kings) and the Latter Prophets (Isaiah, Jeremiah which included Lamentations, and the 12 smaller prophetic books)."

I chuckled. "And just a few months before I thought they were politicians or just famous influential people. I even thought the verses with the chapter were the date they said the quote or something."

"Yeah, you really needed saving," Meredith giggled.

"The Writings gathered up the rest." Trey continued, "The total amounted generally to twenty-four books because many books, such as 1 and 2 Samuel and Ezra and Nehemiah, were counted as one."

"Fascinating," Alex said, her eyes fixed on Trey. She had her fingers to her chin, as if she was all just processing this new information.

I was happy for her.

Trey's voice was louder now. "When was the canon of the Old Testament settled? The simple response is that if we accept the reasonable position that each of the books was written at the time of its history—the first five at the time of Moses, the historical records close to the period they record, the psalms of David during his lifetime, and the prophets written at the time they were given—then the successive stages of acceptance into the canon of Scripture is not hard to fix. Certainly, the Jews generally held this view."

"It's like a lecture for History class," Meredith said. "But better."

"Definitely better," Alex grinned.

I noticed Trey needed to at least sit down for a while as he went on with the presentation. I grabbed a stool beside the stairs to the platform stage and went up to give it to him. He flashed me a grateful smile, sat down the stool, and went on with the lecture. 

As I boarded down the small steps, I caught Calum's eyes following me. When I turned to confirm, he looked away and pretended to actively listen to Trey.

What's his problem? I thought. I glanced around the crowd. I spotted Amanda at the far back. She had one arm around Joey Morris, the school's quarterback. 

Does she have a boyfriend now? I wondered. It wasn't like Amanda to date. She never was interested in any of the boys in school. If anything, I thought she was interested in Calum. But I guess this confirmed she wasn't.

I scratched my head. Lord, You've got a lot of fixing to do with my old friends. Then I shrugged. Heck, the Lord's got a lot of fixing to do with me, too. I shouldn't play all godly.

Trey explained, "There is a lot of internal evidence that the books of the Old Testament were written close to the time they record. For example, in 2 Chronicles 10:19, we have a record from the time of Rehoboam that "Israel has been in rebellion against the house of David to this day." Clearly, therefore, that must have been recorded prior to 721 B.C., when the Assyrians finally crushed Israel and the cream of the population was taken away into captivity—or at the very latest before 588 B.C., when Jerusalem suffered the same fate.

"We know also that the words of the prophets were written down in their own lifetime; Jeremiah had a secretary called Baruch for this very purpose (Jeremiah 36:4).

"Josephus, the Jewish historian writing around A.D. 90, clearly stated in his defense of Judaism that, unlike the Greeks, the Jews did not have many books, 

"'For we have not an innumerable multitude of books among us, disagreeing from and contradicting one another [as the Greeks have] but only twenty-two books, which contain the records of all the past times; which are justly believed to be divine.'"

Trey cleared his throat. "Y'all still keeping up?"

"Yeah," the crowd said.

"Okay, don't worry, you can save your questions for later." Trey informed. He gave a quick glance to Aubrey and signaled. The projected screen flashed into another slide, and the speaker began again.

The slide showed bold, red letters in Times New Roman font, 'THE COUNCIL OF JAMNIA'.

"The Council of Jamnia," Trey said, reading from the slide. When he turned back to the crowd from looking at the projected slide, the slide behind him switched to the next.

"Between A.D. 90 and 100, a group of Jewish scholars met at Jamnia in Israel to consider matters relating to the Hebrew Scriptures." He continued. Silence before him. "It has been suggested that the canon of the Jewish Scriptures was agreed here; the reality is that there is no contemporary record of the deliberations at Jamnia and our knowledge is therefore left to the comments of later rabbis."

"Then how will you prove it?" Mark demanded, standing up once again. When Principal Powell threw him a dirty look, he cursed and sat back down.

Trey smiled. "The idea that there was no clear canon of the Hebrew Scriptures before A.D. 100 is not only in conflict with the testimony of Josephus and others, but has also been seriously challenged more recently. It is now generally accepted that Jamnia was not a council nor did it pronounce on the Jewish canon; rather it was an assembly that examined and discussed the Hebrew Scriptures. The purpose of Jamnia was not to decide which books should be included among the sacred writings, but to examine those that were already accepted."

"I know we already discussed about the results of our researches the past few days," Alex said. "But listening to all this, it all seems like new information."

"Like new manna from heaven," Meredith noted.

"I know. Fresh new revelations from the Lord," I said.

"Moving on," Trey said. He moved to the podium to his right and propped his arms casually on it as if having a casual conversation with the crowd.

"Let's talk about the The Apocrypha and the Septuagint." He said.

"I can't believe he managed to say it correctly this time," Alex commented, chuckling. "Just a few days ago, he was struggling to pronounce Apocrypha and always ends up saying 'apocalypse'."

I laughed. "Remember when he asked if the Septuagint was a kind of lizard?"

The three of us stifled our laughter.

Disclaimer: This info was taken from the article by Brian H. Edwards entitled "Why 66?" In the answersingenesis.org website.