Time to Study The Old Testament…Again – Part 2, The Books

In this part 2 of the Studying the Old Testament series, we will discuss the books of the Old Testament, how they were organized, different books contained in different bibles, and extra-biblical books.

The Books

You would think that for scriptures as old as the Old Testament is that everyone would agree on what books are included in the canon.  But that is certainly not the case. In the table shown below and mentioned in the last post, the Old Testament can be anywhere from 39 to 47 books.

In the Hebrew Bible, the TaNaKh, this anagram stands for the three divisions:

• Torah, the Law
• Nevi’im, the Prophets
• Ketuvim, The Writings

The Hebrew Bible contains 39 books and canonization occurred between 200 BCE and 200 CE. A popular position is that the Torah was canonized circa 400 BCE, the Prophets circa 200 BCE, and the Writings circa 100 CE.  (McDonald & Sanders, ed., The Canon Debate, page 4)

The order of the books are different than most Christian versions.  This table comes from Wikipedia, “Books of the Bible.”

1. ^ ^{a b c d e f} Names in brackets are the Septuagint names and are often used by the Orthodox Christians.
2. ^ ^{a b} Some Eastern Orthodox churches follow the Septuagint and the Hebrew bibles by considering the books of Ezra and Nehemiah as one book.
3. ^ ^{a b c} The Catholic and Orthodox Book of Esther includes 103 verses not in the Protestant Book of Esther.
4. ^ ^{a b c d} The Latin Vulgate, Douay-Rheims, and Revised Standard Version Catholic Edition place First and Second Maccabees after Malachi; other Catholic translations place them after Esther.
5. ^ ^{a b} Eastern Orthodox churches include Psalm 151, not present in all canons.
6. ^ The Book of Odes includes the Prayer of Manasseh. This book is not present in the Catholic or Protestant Old Testaments.
7. ^ ^{a b} New English Translation of the Septuagint
8. ^ ^{a b c} In Catholic Bibles, Baruch includes a sixth chapter called the Letter of Jeremiah. Baruch is not in the Protestant Bible or the Tanakh.
9. ^ Britannica 1911
10. ^ Eastern Orthodox Bibles have the books of Baruch and the Letter of Jeremiah separate.
11. ^ ^{a b c} In Catholic and Orthodox Bibles, Daniel includes three sections not included in Protestant Bibles. The Prayer of Azariah and Song of the Three Holy Children are included between Daniel 3:23-24. Susanna is included as Daniel 13. Bel and the Dragon is included as Daniel 14. These are not in the Protestant Old Testament.

The extra books found in the Roman Catholic, Greek Orthodox, and Slavonic Bibles are known as the “Apocrypha,” a greek term meaning “having been hidden away.” These are books which did not necessarily make the cut when the Old Testament canon of scripture was determined and are considered by some as useful, but not necessarily divinely inspired. The books have gotten a bad reputation as the term, apocrypha became synonymous with false or unreliable rather than hidden away.

Some apocryphal books were included in the Septuagint with little distinction made between them and the rest of the Old Testament. Origen, Clement and others cited some apocryphal books as “scripture,” “divine scripture,” “inspired,” and the like. On the other hand, teachers connected with Palestine and familiar with the Hebrew canon excluded from the canon all of the Old Testament not found there. This view is reflected in the canon of Melito of Sardis, and in the prefaces and letters of Jerome.^[4] A third view was that the books were not as valuable as the canonical scriptures of the Hebrew collection, but were of value for moral uses, as introductory texts for new converts from paganism, and to be read in congregations. They were referred to as “ecclesiastical” works by Rufinus. (1911 Encyclopædia Britannica)

These are not the only extra-biblical Old Testament books around. The list includes: the Dead Sea Scrolls and the Pseudepigrapha

The Dead Sea Scrolls

The Dead Sea scrolls consist of about 900 documents, including texts from the Hebrew Bible, discovered between 1947 and 1956 in eleven caves in and around the Qumran Wadi near the ruins of the ancient settlement of Khirbet Qumran, on the northwest shore of the Dead Sea.  The scrolls are thought to have been in the possession of the Essenes, a Jewish religious group who inhabited the west side of the Dead Sea area.

The Dead Sea Scrolls are traditionally divided into three groups: “Biblical” manuscripts (copies of texts from the Hebrew Bible), which comprise roughly 40% of the identified scrolls; “Apocryphal” or “Pseudepigraphical” manuscripts (known documents from the Second Temple Period like Enoch, Jubilees, Tobit, Sirach, non-canonical psalms, etc., that were not ultimately canonized in the Hebrew Bible), which comprise roughly 30% of the identified scrolls; and “Sectarian” manuscripts (previously unknown documents that speak to the rules and beliefs of a particular group or groups within greater Judaism) like the Community Rule, War Scroll, Pesher (Hebrew pesher פשר = “Commentary”) on Habakkuk, and the Rule of the Blessing, which comprise roughly 30% of the identified scrolls. (Abegg, Jr., Martin, Peter Flint, and Eugene Ulrich, The Dead Sea Scrolls Bible: The Oldest Known Bible Translated for the First Time into English, San Francisco: Harper, 2002)

The Pseudepigrapha

The term Pseudepigrapha refers to numerous works of Jewish religious literature written from about 200 BC to 200 AD  Not all of these works are actually pseudepigraphical but include the following:

• 3 Maccabees
• 4 Maccabees
• Assumption of Moses
• Ethiopic Book of Enoch (1 Enoch)
• Slavonic Book of Enoch (2 Enoch)
• Book of Jubilees
• Greek Apocalypse of Baruch (3 Baruch)
• Letter of Aristeas
• Life of Adam and Eve
• Martyrdom and Ascension of Isaiah
• Psalms of Solomon
• Sibylline Oracles
• Syriac Apocalypse of Baruch (2 Baruch)
• Testaments of the Twelve Patriarchs

LDS are not uncomfortable with the idea of extra-biblical texts as we have the Book of Mormon, Doctrine and Covenants and Pearl of Great Price as part of our canon of scriptures. And, the Book of Jasher, considered part of the pseudepigrapha, was popular amongst the LDS community for a long time.

Jewish Biblical scholars also have extra-biblical literature, The Talmud. While considered as commentary on the scriptures, it is studied by Jews as if it were scripture.  The Talmud, which reflects centuries of Rabbinic thought on the oral and written law, is extensive (hundreds of pages) and complex. There are even commentaries which help to explain the Rabbi’s thoughts reflected in the Talmud.  In other words, commentaries on the commentaries.  The fascinating thing about it is that is a running discussion and, in some cases, a running argument on  particular points of Jewish Law.  The Rabbi’s might agree with a comment by another Rabbi, or they might disagree. Or, they might agree, but expand on the answer given by another Rabbi.  This led to the famous joke that if there are two Jews having a discussion, you get three opinions.

Next time we’ll discuss the different translations, their relationship to the New Testament, and how they influenced the Old Testament quotes from the Savior in the Gospels.

Tags: Old Testament; Sunday School