Chapter 4: The Law of Moses, and in the Prophets, and in the Psalms

Defining Canon

Who decided what books go into the Bible? If we answer mere men, then we have a human, fallible book. If we believe that the Bible is from God, then ultimately He chose what books were included, namely, the books He wrote versus the books that people wrote. People did not choose what books to include in the Bible, but rather they recognized certain books as inspired. There was not always agreement what writings were considered canonical. It is not what is ancient or revered by men, but rather what speaks with God’s authority.

The word canon comes from the Greek word kanon, meaning a rule or a principle. The canon of Scripture is the standard for our salvation and our daily living. The word itself is used in the Bible in 2 Corinthians 10:13, 15-16; Galatians 6:16; and Philippians 3:16. Let us look at two of these.

In 2 Corinthians 10:13, we see that Paul and Titus were not comparing themselves with other people or with human standards (2 Corinthians 10:7), but rather “according to the measure of the rule (kanon) which God hath distributed to us, a measure to reach even unto you.” The standard of their ministry was not based on the approval of men, but by the power of God.

In Galatians 6:15-16, we read, “For in Christ Jesus neither circumcision availeth any thing, nor uncircumcision, but a new creature. And as many as walk according to this rule (kanon), peace be on them, and mercy, and upon the Israel of God.” The standard for salvation and the Christian life is not circumcision or other works of the Law, but rather being born again as a new creature.

The Bible, likewise, is the standard for all teaching concerning spirituality. We are reminded of our verse on inspiration: “All scripture is given by inspiration of God, and is profitable for doctrine, for reproof, for correction, for instruction in righteousness: That the man of God may be perfect, throughly furnished unto all good works.” (2 Timothy 3:16-17)

In this chapter, we will examine how the Old Testament canon was developed, and in the next chapter we will look at the New Testament.

The Mosaic Law

The Old Testament canon is divided into three parts: the Law (torah), the Prophets (neviim), and the Writings (kethuvim), sometimes abbreviated with the acronym, tanak. Let us first take a look at the first part, the Law.

The Law is also referred to as the Pentateuch, which consists of the first five books of the Bible: Genesis, Exodus, Leviticus, Numbers, and Deuteronomy. Samaritans and Jews agreed to the Law’s authority by the second century B.C. The Jewish sects of the Pharisees and the Sadducees also agree to its authority. Other parts of the Old Testament also confirm the canonicity of the Law:

And all the people gathered themselves together as one man into the street that was before the water gate; and they spake unto Ezra the scribe to bring the book of the law of Moses, which the LORD had commanded to Israel. And Ezra the priest brought the law before the congregation both of men and women, and all that could hear with understanding, upon the first day of the seventh month. And he read therein before the street that was before the water gate from the morning until midday, before the men and the women, and those that could understand; and the ears of all the people were attentive unto the book of the law. And Ezra the scribe stood upon a pulpit of wood, which they had made for the purpose; and beside him stood Mattithiah, and Shema, and Anaiah, and Urijah, and Hilkiah, and Maaseiah, on his right hand; and on his left hand, Pedaiah, and Mishael, and Malchiah, and Hashum, and Hashbadana, Zechariah, and Meshullam. And Ezra opened the book in the sight of all the people; (for he was above all the people;) and when he opened it, all the people stood up: And Ezra blessed the LORD, the great God. And all the people answered, Amen, Amen, with lifting up their hands: and they bowed their heads, and worshipped the LORD with their faces to the ground. Also Jeshua, and Bani, and Sherebiah, Jamin, Akkub, Shabbethai, Hodijah, Maaseiah, Kelita, Azariah, Jozabad, Hanan, Pelaiah, and the Levites, caused the people to understand the law: and the people stood in their place. So they read in the book in the law of God distinctly, and gave the sense, and caused them to understand the reading. And Nehemiah, which is the Tirshatha, and Ezra the priest the scribe, and the Levites that taught the people, said unto all the people, This day is holy unto the LORD your God; mourn not, nor weep. For all the people wept, when they heard the words of the law. (Nehemiah 8:1-9)

Let us observe some of what we see here:

All the people gathered to hear the Word together. The reading of the Law was important enough for everyone to gather together to listen (Nehemiah 8:1).
Both reading and understanding was important. The hearing of the Law was not sufficient without understanding, so Ezra made sure people understood what was being said (Nehemiah 8:2, 8).
The reading was public. Ezra read the law, not in a private building, but openly in the streets and on an elevated pulpit made especially for the occasion (Nehemiah 8:3-5).
The people all respected the Law. When Ezra opened the book, the entire congregation of people stood up (Nehemiah 8:5).
The Law elicited a response from the people. The Law has severe repercussions for those who reject it and sin, and the people wept at these pronouncements (Nehemiah 8:9).

Another passage from the 2 Kings shows us some other things:

And Hilkiah the high priest said unto Shaphan the scribe, I have found the book of the law in the house of the LORD. And Hilkiah gave the book to Shaphan, and he read it. And Shaphan the scribe came to the king, and brought the king word again, and said, Thy servants have gathered the money that was found in the house, and have delivered it into the hand of them that do the work, that have the oversight of the house of the LORD. And Shaphan the scribe shewed the king, saying, Hilkiah the priest hath delivered me a book. And Shaphan read it before the king. And it came to pass, when the king had heard the words of the book of the law, that he rent his clothes. (2 Kings 22:8-11)

King Josiah had a father and a grandfather who had rejected the LORD and His Law by serving false gods and murdering innocent people (2 Kings 21:3, 16). We see that nobody even knew much about the Law, having been hidden in the temple for generations. Notice Hilkiah did not even mention what the book was that they had found; he read the book to the king, and the king rent his clothes in mourning. Josiah recognized the Law’s divine authority, and immediately sought out a prophet to see if the LORD would appease His wrath against the nation.

Note that 2 Kings 22:8-11 and Nehemiah 8:1-9 show that both the Prophets and the Writings establish the authority of the Law.

Many other references to the Law in other parts of the Old Testament show that it was accepted as canonical:

Moses was an ancient prophet. Moses is mentioned 113 times in the Prophets and Writings, and many times as the human author of the Law.
The world was created by God. The recording of God creating the world was in the very first verses of the Pentateuch. “Thus saith God the LORD, he that created the heavens, and stretched them out; he that spread forth the earth, and that which cometh out of it; he that giveth breath unto the people upon it, and spirit to them that walk therein” (Isaiah 42:5).
Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob were the patriarchs of Israel. Israel’s foundation is found in these patriarchs, in which their lives were detailed in the Law (Genesis). “And the LORD was gracious unto them, and had compassion on them, and had respect unto them, because of his covenant with Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, and would not destroy them, neither cast he them from his presence as yet” (2 Kings 13:23).
The Exodus from Egypt was the key event in Israelite history. Many references occur describing God’s deliverance of His people from Egypt. “And by a prophet the LORD brought Israel out of Egypt, and by a prophet was he preserved.” (Hosea 12:13).
The commands of the Law were expected to be followed. Not following the Law had grave consequences throughout the history of Israel. “Therefore as the fire devoureth the stubble, and the flame consumeth the chaff, so their root shall be as rottenness, and their blossom shall go up as dust: because they have cast away the law of the LORD of hosts, and despised the word of the Holy One of Israel” (Isaiah 5:24)

The Order of the Old Testament Books

The Prophets, or Neviim, were originally ordered in this fashion: Joshua, Judges, Samuel, Kings, Isaiah, Jeremiah, Ezekiel, and the Twelve minor prophets.

The Writings, or Kethuvim, was ordered this way: Psalms, Job, Proverbs, Ruth (with Judges), Song of Songs, Ecclesiastes, Lamentations (with Jeremiah), Esther, Daniel, Ezra/Nehemiah, and the Chronicles. These primarily were wisdom books and later writings, with the Chronicles serving as a summary.

The Old Testament Canon in History

Throughout history, we can see that the canonicity of the Law, the Prophets, and the Writings was established early on. Let us look at some examples.

Daniel 9:2: “In the first year of his reign I Daniel understood by books the number of the years, whereof the word of the LORD came to Jeremiah the prophet, that he would accomplish seventy years in the desolations of Jerusalem.” Even in Daniel’s day, he had the idea that the writings of other prophets were authoritative, referencing Jeremiah’s seventy years prophecy (Jeremiah 25:11-12; 29:10).

2 Maccabees 2:13-14: “The same things also were reported in the writings and commentaries of Neemias; and how he founding a library gathered together the acts of the kings, and the prophets, and of David, and the epistles of the kings concerning the holy gifts. In like manner also Judas gathered together all those things that were lost by reason of the war we had, and they remain with us.” In the Apocrypha, we see that the writings of Nehemiah and other writings had canonical authority.

Prologue to Sirach: “My grandfather Jesus, when he had much given himself to the reading of the law, and the prophets, and other books of our fathers, and had gotten therein good judgment, was drawn on also himself to write something pertaining to learning and wisdom.” The Law and the Prophets, as well as other books, were esteemed by the writers of the Apocrypha.

1 Maccabees 9:27: “So was there a great affliction in Israel, the like whereof was not since the time that a prophet was not seen among them.” During the intertestamental period, when the Apocrypha was written, they recognized that there was not any prophet of the LORD in their days.

Number of Old Testament Books

Contra Apion 1. 8: “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, (8) which contain the records of all the past times; which are justly believed to be divine; and of them five belong to Moses, which contain his laws and the traditions of the origin of mankind till his death. This interval of time was little short of three thousand years; but as to the time from the death of Moses till the reign of Artaxerxes king of Persia, who reigned after Xerxes, the prophets, who were after Moses, wrote down what was done in their times in thirteen books. The remaining four books contain hymns to God, and precepts for the conduct of human life. It is true, our history hath been written since Artaxerxes very particularly, but hath not been esteemed of the like authority with the former by our forefathers, because there hath not been an exact succession of prophets since that time; and how firmly we have given credit to these books of our own nation is evident by what we do; for during so many ages as have already passed, no one has been so bold as either to add any thing to them, to take any thing from them, or to make any change in them; but it is become natural to all Jews immediately, and from their very birth, to esteem these books to contain Divine doctrines, and to persist in them, and, if occasion be willingly to die for them.” (See source: http://www.sacred-texts.com/jud/josephus/apion-1.htm) The Historian Josephus gives us this view of the Old Testament canon, where a certain 22 books were esteemed greater than other writings and were considered divine.

The number of books is not always clear, because sometimes books we think of as distinct are really one book. In many cases, the number of books in the Old Testament is 22 if Ruth and Lamentations were not distinct books, and 24 books otherwise.

The Old Testament as seen in the New Testament

Only inspired texts with a few rare exceptions are quoted as sources of authority.

Matthew 23:35: “That upon you may come all the righteous blood shed upon the earth, from the blood of righteous Abel unto the blood of Zacharias son of Barachias, whom ye slew between the temple and the altar.” Here, we see Jesus referring to personages of the Law and the Prophets.

Matthew 7:12: “Therefore all things whatsoever ye would that men should do to you, do ye even so to them: for this is the law and the prophets.” Jesus makes reference to the Law and the Prophets as authoritative.

Luke 24:44: “And he said unto them, These are the words which I spake unto you, while I was yet with you, that all things must be fulfilled, which were written in the law of Moses, and in the prophets, and in the psalms, concerning me.” Jesus mentioned the Law, the Prophets, and the Writings as authoritative.

Throughout the New Testament, most of the books of the Old Testament were quoted, and are done so because of their authority. One does not see quotations from the Apocrypha or other ancient primary sources (except for maybe one or two cases, cf. Jude 1:9, 14-15). By the time Jesus came to earth, it was well established that the books contained in the Law, the Prophets, and the Writings were the authoritative books that God had given His people.

After the New Testament writings of the first century A.D., Melito, the Bishop of Sardis in the second century A.D. lists the Old Testament canon, leaving off Esther and Nehemiah.

Old Testament Manuscripts

Let us now look at the Old Testament manuscripts. As canonicity discussed the authority of the Scriptures, we now turn to the physical writings of the Scriptures, including the various codices that have been discovered throughout history. We will consider the Old Testament here, and the New Testament in the next chapter.

The original language of the Old Testament manuscripts was Hebrew, with portions of Daniel and Ezra written in Aramaic. The oldest manuscripts discovered of the Hebrew Old Testament before 1947 is dated around A.D. 895. The Aleppo Codex, which contains the entire Old Testament, dates from the early tenth century. Another such codex, Codex Leningradensis, dates around A.D. 1008.

These medieval Old Testament manuscripts were maintained by scholars known as the Masoretes, and the medieval Old Testament is known as the Masoretic text. These scholars added accents and phonetic vowel points to emphasize the importance of proper public reading of the text. They were also known for their meticulous copying techniques, copying and double-checking every letter and word they copied. A deviation in the number of letters or the number of words, or any other failure in their stringent tests would result in the destruction of the document.

Because of the late date of these manuscripts, scholars often relied on non-Hebrew translations of the Old Testament, such as the Septuagint. In 1947, however, the Dead Sea Scrolls were discovered in the caves of Qumran, which included every Old Testament book except Esther. Additional apocryphal books and intertestamental histories were also discovered. These Dead Sea Scrolls date from the third to the first centuries B.C.

Upon examinations of these texts, what is truly remarkable is that there are rather few discrepancies between the Dead Sea Scrolls and the Masoretic Text, which are dated about 1,000 years apart. It is amazing that across so many centuries that we have any Old Testament at all, yet we see how God has preserved His Word in a miraculous way. Any discrepancies found between the two sets of manuscripts do not affect any Biblical doctrines.

Critical scholars have often regarded Biblical books as composites pasted together by an editor. For example, Isaiah was often regarded as being written by at least two different people, with Isaiah 40 starting a different author’s word (i.e., Deutero-Isaiah). The Dead Sea Scrolls show, however, that there is no disconnect between Isaiah 39 and 40. Other theories resulting from source criticism, such as with the Pentateuch, also seem far-fetched because of this great discovery.

The Septuagint (often abbreviated LXX) is a Greek translation of the Old Testament. Like the synagogues of the first century A.D. paved way to the evangelization of the world by introducing non-Jewish people to the God of the Bible, the Septuagint was a forerunner to the Gospel. As Greek was the lingua franca at the time of Christ, non-Jewish people across the world could read and understand the Bible for themselves. The Septuagint translation dates from about the third century B.C.

Next: Chapter 5: Ordained to Be a Witness With Us of His Resurrection

Previous: Chapter 3: All Scripture is Given by Inspiration of God

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