Early Judaism- A Comprehensive Overview

work believed to have God as its ultimate author, which the community

recognizes and accepts as determinative for its belief and practice; it is not

necessarily a fixed text but may be still developing and circulating in sev-

eral textual forms.A collection of authoritative Scriptures,as opposed to a

canon, is an open collection to which more books can be added. Certainly

such a collection was recognized as fundamental to the Jewish religion

from sometime in the first half of the Second Temple period; at that time it

was probably confined to the Law of Moses, as attested by the OG transla-

tion of the Pentateuch and the Samaritan canon. According to the distinc-

tion between “a collection of authoritative books” and “an authoritative

collection of books,” throughout the Second Temple period the collection

was growing and thus there was not yet a canon.

Acanon,as defined above, is a religious body’s official, definitively de-

bated and permanently decided, exclusive list of inspired, authoritative

books that constitute its recognized corpus of sacred Scripture. TheBible,

in the singular, denotes a textual form of the collection of canonical books.

In contrast to the canon, which is the normative list of the books, the Bible

is the text of that collection of books, conceived of as a single anthology,

and usually presented physically as such. Thus, the term is probably anach-

ronistic prior to the codex format of the collection. “The Scriptures” can be

an open collection, but the “Bible” connotes an already closed collection.

Thecanonical processis the journey of the many disparate works of liter-

ature within the ongoing community from their early stages when they be-

gan to be considered as somehow authoritative, through the sifting and en-

dorsement process, to the final judgment concerning their inspired

character as the unified and defined collection of Scripture — that is, until

the reflective judgment of recognition that officially constituted the canon.

Canonas such is a static concept, the result of a retrospective conclusion that

something has come to be. Until that final decision is reached,process toward

canonorcanonical processis preferable. Some speak of an “open canon” or of

“adaptability” as the primary characteristic of the canon; but the canon is by

definition closed, and so an “open collection” is preferable; and adaptability

is a function, not the essence, of the canon — how it is used, not what it is.

The Evidence from Qumran for the Process toward Canon

In the absence of clear early written discussion, surveying the Qumran evi-

dence can be somewhat illuminating, especially since it generally agrees

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The Jewish Scriptures: Texts, Versions, Canons

EERDMANS -- Early Judaism (Collins and Harlow) final text
Tuesday, October 09, 2012 12:03:58 PM