The Council of Jamnia and the Old Testament Canon -- By: Robert C. Newman

Journal: Westminster Theological Journal
Volume: WTJ 38:3 (Spring 1976)
Article: The Council of Jamnia and the Old Testament Canon
Author: Robert C. Newman


The Council of Jamnia and the Old Testament Canon

Robert C. Newman

[The abbreviations of the names of tractates in the Mishnah, Tosefta and Talmud follow Hermann L. Strack, Introduction to the Talmud and Midrash. Other special or unusual abbreviations are as follows:
BT—Babylonian Talmud
M—Mishnah
MR—Midrash Rabbah
SITM—Strack, Introduction to the Talmud and Midrash (New York: Atheneum, 1969, reprint of 1931 edn.)
Tos.—Tosefta
I thank Dr. Robert A. Kraft of the University of Pennsylvania for his helpful criticisms. Naturally, I assume full responslility for the final form of this article.]

Among those who believe the Old Testment to be a revelation from the Creator, it has traditionally been maintained that the books composing this collection were in themselves sacred writings from the moment of their completion, that they were quickly recognized as such, and that latest of these were written several centuries before the beginning of our era. The Jewish historian Flavius Josephus appears to be the earliest extant witness to this view. Answering the charges of an anti-semite Apion at the end of the first century of our era, he says:

We do not possess myriads of inconsistent books, conflicting with each other. Our books, those which are justly accredited, are but two and twenty, and contain the record of all time. Of these, five are the books of Moses, comprising the laws and the traditional history from the birth of man down to the death of the lawgiver. This period falls only a little short of three thousand years. From the death of Moses until Artaxerxes, who succeeded Xerxes as king of Persia, the prophets subsequent to Moses wrote the history of the events of their own times in thirteen books. The remaining four books contain hymns to God and precepts for the conduct of human life. From Artaxerxes to our own time the complete history has been written, but has not been deemed worthy of equal credit

with the earlier records, because of the failure of the exact succession of the prophets.1

On the basis of later Christian testimony, the twenty-two books mentioned here are usually thought to be the same as our thirty-nine,2 each double book (e.g., 1 and 2 Kings) being counted as one, the twelve Minor Prophets being considered a unit, and Judges-Ruth, Ezra-Nehemiah, and Jeremiah-Lamentations each being taken as one book. This agrees with the impression conveyed by the Gospel accounts, where Jesus, the Pharisees, and the Palestinian Jewish community in general seem to understand by the term “Scripture” some definite body of ...

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