Notes on “The Story of the Bible” Class No. 3
Links to Other Classes
Previous Class: No. 2 — Next Class: No. 4 — Index
Preliminaries
Luke Timothy Johnson, Emory University, lecturer
Introductory Discussion: Differences in Bible versions
Lecture 5: Formation of Jewish and Christian Canons
Official outline from The Teaching Company
Canon [Greek] = “rule or measure”
Thus, both have (1) a strong sense of communal and (2) that they will provide a norm
“In Judaism and Christianity, canonization means, essentially, the writings that are to be read out loud to the assembly in worship and the writings that are to be regarded as authoritative guides to doctrine, that is, what people are to believe, and to practice, that is, how people in the community are to behave.”
- in Judaism, after the destruction of the temple in 70 CE, Jewish biblical canon is part of a larger sense of tradition
- including Pharisaic Oral Torah
- in Christianity, canon formation was connected to controversies over identity of the movement
Path in Jewish Tradition
- internal factors
- external factors
Internal factors: there already was a canon
- the Torah existed, but with much variation
- 67-70 CE war against Rome
- destruction of the Temple resulted in the loss of the sacrifice of animals
- that made Judaism more of a text-based religion
- the Essenes and the Zealots who fought against Rome were defeated
- the Sadducees no longer had a reason for existence because their whole identity was wrapped up in the Temple
- the Pharisees thus became the dominant force in shaping future Judaism
- they had a flexible understanding of Torah
- midrash = interpretation, that is, applying the Torah’s teachings to contemporary situations
- in 135 CE Jerusalem itself was destroyed
- “Judaism then became Diaspora religion without homeland and temple”
External: rise of Christianity
- encouraged Judaism to make a sharper boundary of what is and is not Jewish
- #1 led to a rejection of the Septuagint
- came up with three alternative Greek versions
- the first was very close to Hebrew
- the second was very loose
- the third “took out anthropomorphisms with regard to language about G-d”
- but none displaced the Hebrew text
- #2 Enoch literature was extremely popular among Christians
so between 70-135, the Jewish canon seems to have been made by Rabbinic Council of Jabneh around 90 CE
- in 1953, Torah scrolls were discovered at Wadi Murabba’at in Palestine
- shows standardization of Hebrew text
by middle of 2nd cent. CE, TaNaK was in place
- threefold divisions of TaNaK set (see Class No. 1 notes)
- = 24 or 22 books depending on how one counts or groups them
- 39 in previous presentation
Canonization within the Christian tradition
- communities exchanged and collected letters that formed the Gospels
- local collections developed
- Matthew and Mark used Luke’s Gospel
- this is the first and critical stage because something written to a particular person was generalizable to others
2nd cent. debate re Christian identity forced canonization
- one side moved to contract the number of letters used
- Tatian created the Diatessaron by weaving the 4 earlier Gospels into a single narrative
- this was very popular
- Marcian was anti-Semitic because he considered 2 G-ds to be at work in the world
- one creator was God of Abraham, who “created this world in a very nasty fashion indeed”
- the other was the God of Jesus “who called humans to escape from all that”
- “for Marcion, the whole point of Christianity was asceticism”
- to fast
- to abstain from sex
- to get out of the body as quickly as possible
- in Marcian’s view, only Paul really understood that
- therefore, his Gospel was only Paul’s 10 letters
- on the other side, Valentinus and Ptolomy sought to expand the writings
- they “had an antipathy toward the creator God of the Jews”
- they “saw Christianity as a highly individualistic, purely spiritual, non-institutional, and non-physical sort of religion
- Montanism was championed by Montanus and his female colleague Priscilla in Asia Minor
- they challenged the authoritative character of the Scriptures
Thus, they all debated ideology
- the selection of literature was therefore of fundamental importance to shaping of community
Tertullian in North Africa and Irenaeus of Lyons in Gaul
- three-fold strategy of Christian self-definition
- rule of faith = the creed
- canon of Scripture = a set of compositions to be read
- apostolic succession = authoritative tradition of teachers from the age of the apostles down to the time of Irenaeus in the late 2nd cent.
- in contrast to the Gnostic claim of a secret Gospel, this was a public confession of faith
- affirmation of the original Hebrew Bible (in its Greek form as the Septuagint)
- this rejected the interpretation of Hebrew G-d as bad
- it also provided continuity between Old and New Testament
Muratorian Canon
- from Rome or Syria
- toward end of 2nd cent. CE
- rejects Montanism and the Gnostic and Montanus writings
Eusebius, early 4th cent.
- wrote Ecclesiastical History
- points to a stable canon, but distinguishes the undisputed, the disputed, and the rejected writings
Paschal Letter of Athanasius, Alexandria, 4th cent. CE
- “definitive definition of the Christian Bible”
New Testament = 27 writings
- Matthew, Mark, Luke, John
- Acts of Apostles
- 14 letters of Paul
- letters of James, Jude, Peter (2), John (3) and the Apocalypse of John
- "equally important, the Old Testament [as found in the Septuagint] was affirmed as sacred Scripture”
- TaNaK
- Tobit, Judith, Wisdom of Solomon, Sirach, Baruch, Letter of Jeremiah, and 1 and 2 Maccabees
- in addition, Suzanne and the Elders, a longer version of Esther, and the Tale of Belle and the Dragon
In Judaism, the Torah continued to be read
- remember principal of oral Torah
- by 200 CE, Judah ha Nasi (Judah the Prince) had codified oral tradition into the Mishnah = laws organized by topic
- in the 2nd-4th centuries, further debate of Mishnah in light of Torah led to the Babylonian Talmud and the Talmud of the Land of Israel
- classical or “Rabbinic” Judaism and Talmudic tradition were both based on Scripture
- thus, the study of the laws was just as important as the keeping of the laws
- this philosophy led to the conclusion that the study of sacrifice was equivalent to actually carrying out sacrifice
In Christianity
- inclusion of Old Testament rejected anti-Semitism found in Gnosticism and Marcionism
- this also gave rise to internal debate on Christian law or ethics
- the Bible also served as a way to test truth
- in the East, debates centered on whether Jesus was human or divine or both
- in the West, arguments centered on how is a human righteous: is it a matter of faith or works or both?
Discussion
- "it’s so complicated”
- Toby quoted Karen Armstrong’s book, which she thinks is sometimes clearer than Johnson’s lectures
- wrote of the many controversies
- “a threat of hatred runs through the New Testament”
- 135-160 = creation of the Mishnah
- rabbis admitted that the Temple will never be rebuilt
- mishnah = “learning by repetition”
- it is interesting that this is the Moslem tradition for the Koran, which they learn by heart
- the Mishnah is a collection of legal rules
- not based on Scripture, rarely quotes from TaNaK
- not concerned with what Jews believed, but only with how they should behave
- Apocrypha (Toby quoted Wikipedia)
- class of documents rejected by some as pseudo
- Rabbi Telushkin
- apocrypha = now: legendary or mythical
- apocrypha = then: hidden because they were not included in the Bible
- all post Ezra
- most popular or best known books:
- Book of Maccabees, Chanukah story
- Ecclesiastes
- another participant questioned:
- how is the Chanukah story celebrated if it’s in the period of silence?
- Toby response: it is not part of Jewish services because it’s post-Biblical
- the Gideon Bible does not contain the Apocrypha
- the Catholic and Protestant Bibles are not identical
- there are, for example, differences in beliefs as to where in Jerusalem Jesus ascended
Pentateuch = 54 weekly readings
Books mentioned as providing further information
- Back to the Sources: Reading the Classic Jewish Texts edited by Barry W. Holtz
- The Bible: A Biography by Karen Armstrong
- Jewish Literacy by Rabbi Joseph Telushkin
Lecture 6: Writing and Copying Manuscripts
Official outline from The Teaching Company
Everything took a long time
- speaking of the Bible as a book is anachronistic before the 4th cent.
- there is no evidence of a single book before 4th cent.
- the canon was really just a list
- before printing was invented in 15th cent., everything was manuscripts, that is, written by hand
- the production of a manuscript = publication in ancient times
- the writing took a long time
There is no possession of the original Biblical books, they no longer exist
- we have copies of copies of copies of those original compositions
- therefore, we must appreciate the process that took place over 1500 years
- for most of the history of Judaism and Christianity, it was in manuscripts that Scripture was to be found
Writing became more democratized as time went on, but it never lost “authority”
- writing was originally the realm of royals due to its authoritative nature and expense
- any writing automatically bore an aura of authority
- the ancient code of Hamarabi and Egyptian hieroglyphs bore authority
- writing on stone remained constant in public and private throughout antiquity
- writing was used for public announcements
- royal and holy contexts accounted for most writing on stone
- the fact that the 10 commandments were written on stone gave them inherent authority
Scribal culture grew up that produced writing for kings and court
- writing was rare and expensive
- the writing of wisdom or prophecies enhanced its authority and permanence
- oral cultures are fabulous in the skill of memorization
- but writing gave consistency, that is, it fixed content and controlled tradition by resisting change
- papyrus and parchment allowed writing to spread further because they’re more portable than stone
- nonetheless, writing remained an arduous process, both slow and expensive
Papyrus was the least expensive writing medium
- papyrus has one smooth and one rough side, thus writing could only be done on one side
- papyrus reeds grew along the Nile in Egypt
- papyrus books were preserved best in the dry heat of Egypt
- reed is split open and laid against each other transversely
- the rectal side is smooth
- the transverse side is rough
Parchment was much more expensive
- made from the skin of cattle
- arduous in preparation: the skin must be cleaned and prepared and then stitched together
- vellum was made from the skin of unborn calves
- veal:beef :: vellum:parchment
- written on with a stylus
- applied ink to flat surface
- ink found in 2500 BCE in China
- formation of letters by means of stylus and ink was slow
- majuscles = capital letters = most ancient writing because it was easier
- minuscules = non-capital letters
Copying of Manuscripts
- a scribe must look at one page to copy to another
- note the gap: you can’t look at both simultaneously
- copying was made more complicated by the fact that there were no spaces between words
- there was also no punctuation
- many manuscripts were a flat block of letters
- such blocks were indecipherable w/o oral tradition
- for example, consider the letters in “gotobed”
- this could be interpreted as “go to bed” or “got obed”
- thus it is important to realize that errors commonly occurred
- the possibility of errors was multiplied due to the clumsy process
- you can’t look at both simultaneously
- no spaces between words
- no punctuation
- it was basically impossible to copy a full page without making alterations
- unintentional errors
- in letters that sound alike = itacism
- Greek yoda and epsilon were pronounced the same
- dittography = repetition
- haplography = visual error, losing one's place
- homoioteleuton = letters end the same way, yields skipping a line
- harmonizing = memory of a previous text influences current text
- glosses = add explanatory note in margin or phrase that is missing in the original text
- the next scribe doesn’t know what to do with it
- should he or she omit the note because it’s just a comment?
- or should he or she include it because two scribes back omitted it?
- intentional errors
- conviction that text should say something that it does not
- scribes also remembered previous text and sometimes got confused
- for example, a scribe might believe that Mark is wrong while Matthew is correct
Masoretes = Jewish scholars tried to standardize Hebrew texts
- standardized words and added vowels
- matres lectiones = vowels
- also added accents to indicate proper reading (cantillation?)
- developed in 500-700 CE
- Aleppo Codex 915 Rabbi Aharon ben Asher = masoretic text fully realized (MT)
- Hebrew Bible = MT = Masoretic Text
- this made the discovery of earlier texts such as the Dead Sea Scrolls very exciting
Early Christians didn’t have a tradition of scribes
- the early Christian writings developed much more quickly
- there was much more variance
- there were 44 verifiable Christian communities by the end of the 1st cent.
- there were 600 such communities by the end of the 2nd cent.
- Egypt, Cyrene, North Africa, Spain, Palestine, Syria, Asia, Crete, Greece, Italy, Northern Europe (Gaul and Great Britain)
- all needed their own Bible
The New Testament began to be translated into other versions
- it was copied and recopied leading to even more variation
- Byzantine or Koine finally became the standard for Greek manuscripts
- movement in Christianity is from diversity to progressive in Byzantine or Koine version
The importance of all of this is that the writing of books was a slow, difficult, human process
- also, these separate copies were Scripture
- the act of hearing does not lead to discovering discrepancies
- all communities heard slightly different versions of the Bible
Discussion
Thus, what people thing comes directly from G-d “ain’t necessarily so”
We then had a interesting of discussion of “The Lord’s Prayer” and its variations and additions
Rabbi Kushner wrote an entire book on the 23rd Psalm
Comment: the core of any religion is how to live
- the different interpretations and variations are myriad and interesting