Reformation question re:canon

The Hebrew scripture is organized in 3 sections: Torah, Nevi'im, and Ketuvim; the Greek translation (Septuagint) is organized in 4 sections - Pentateuch, History, Poetry, and Prophets. Does anyone have any reference to a discussion as to why the Reformation leaders who chose to define the Old Testament as the Hebrew scripture rather than the prevailing Septuagint scripture, kept the Septuagint 4-part structure rather than reverting to the Hebrew structure and order? I know this is a very minor point but I've gotten curious and can find nothing. Then, again, Reformation leaders are scarcely my strong point. Note my question is on the order and division of the canon not on the contents of the canon so don't go all theological on me.

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Graham Criddle

Hi MJ

I have found one perspective on this as below:

Christian or Jewish Order? The Christian Old Testament of the Septuagint and the Vulgate differs from the Hebrew Bible in terms of both the extent and the order of its books. The Bibles of the Reformation relegated all books not belonging to the Hebrew Bible to the Apocrypha, but they still adopted the later standard order found in the Septuagint and the Vulgate (the older codices display a certain degree of variation; cf. below, §17), which group the historical books together at the beginning of the Old Testament, the poetic books in the middle, and the prophetic books at the end. It is debated whether or not this arrangement, with the prophetic books at the end of the Septuagint canon, goes back to the Hellenistic Jewish tradition in Alexandria. In that case, the librarians would have instituted a rather genre-oriented structure to the biblical books. Or perhaps this order arose in Christian circles. It is documented in the large Christian codices (which contain differences with respect to details; cf. below, Part E), while the prologue of Sirach, which originated in Alexandria, is oriented toward the Torah, Prophets, and Writings order.¹⁷ Furthermore, placing the prophets in the final position appears most likely to serve Christian theological interests: then the Old Testament and the New Testament relate to one another as the prophecy of the Christ and the fulfillment of this prophecy in the emergence of Jesus of Nazareth.

¹⁷ It is possible that Sir 39:1 presupposes the progression Law—Wisdom—Prophets, but it is unclear whether this text is even considering the order of books.

Konrad Schmid, A Historical Theology of the Hebrew Bible (trans. Peter Altmann; Grand Rapids, MI: William B. Eerdmans Publishing Company, 2019), 83–84.

MJ. Smith

https://community.logos.com/discussion/comment/1265731#Comment_1265731

Thank you ... that is more than I have found and may help me find additional materials.

Ken McGuire

My first response is that even if it has the same books, a Christian Old Testament that ends with Malachi speaking of sending Elijah is a very different work than a Hebrew bible that ends with Cyrus proclaiming his support for rebuilding the temple. The reformers must surely have realized this and kept the Christian Old Testament that transitions easier to John the Baptist in the New...

As for specific reformers and what they said about it - that is something I have not adequately researched. I am sure among the extensive published literature on Luther's Bible that this has been investigated, but I just don't know it.

I do know that in Lutheranism the canon question was one of debate for a while - at least among the learned. Martin Chemnitz's Enchiridion - a work originally written in German for untrained pastors has a bit of discussion on it in the later Latin edition in questions 46-50 (Pages 43-45 of the English edition in Logos). It doesn't have any real discussion about the order of the books in the bible, but it does about which books are unquestionably canonical and what books are questioned - including some of the 27 NT books.

From what I have heard, this is not just a "Lutheran" peculiarity. It is rather Lutherans picking up the unresolved questions about what exactly was canonical from late medieval theology - admittedly after Trent had spoken on this. In Chemnitz's Examination of Trent, he references Eusebius and Jerome a lot, but also mentions Origen, Augustine, Cyprian, and Gerson for support for this older distinction between unquestioned books and questioned ones in the Bible.

MJ. Smith

https://community.logos.com/discussion/comment/1265747#Comment_1265747

From what I have heard, this is not just a "Lutheran" peculiarity. It is rather Lutherans picking up the unresolved questions about what exactly was canonical from late medieval theology - admittedly after Trent had spoken on this.

Yes, the Reformation pushed the Council of Trent into doing something I consider "silly" ... a definitive definition of what was canonical (with two definitions of the term floating around) ... something the Church had done without for 1500 years allowing ancient differences to persist without causing disputes. It was, as far as I have read, its the result of the printing press and "sola scriptura". Fortunately, despite Trent it is not an issue in ecumenical concerns among the Catholic, Eastern Orthodox, Oriental Orthodox talks. See The Many Faces of Christ: The Thousand-Year Story of the Survival and Influence of the Lost Gospels by Philip Jenkins | Logos if you are interested in the variability.

a Christian Old Testament that ends with Malachi speaking of sending Elijah is a very different work than a Hebrew bible that ends with Cyrus proclaiming his support for rebuilding the temple.

Agreed. And also from the Christian Old Testament that is adjacent the Apocrypha rather than the New Testament ... one of two observations that sent me down this rabbit hole.

Martin Chemnitz's Enchiridion

I'll check this out. If I don't have it, my daughter-in-law will.

Christian Alexander

https://community.logos.com/discussion/comment/1265763#Comment_1265763

According to the Dead Sea Scrolls, portions of the Hebrew Bible, specifically the Torah and some of the Nebhi'im, appear to have been standardised by around the year 300 BCE (Pelikan 46). For 200 years, the rest was still in flux. Possibly twenty years after the Romans destroyed Jerusalem during the Jewish-Roman War, a council of Jewish rabbis in exile met in Jamnia (Western Palestine) sometime around 95 CE. Rabbi Akiba served as the council's chairman (Pelikan 46). The Hebrew Bible canon was formally closed by the council, who did not want any new works to be added. The Song of Solomon and Ecclesiastes had previously been regarded as dubious sources. These, according to the Jamnia council, should be regarded as real.

Some groups in the Middle Ages argued for the inclusion of obscure texts or the omission of others, but these marginally heretical movements did not gain much traction in the face of the canon's inertia. By the Protestant Reformation, the Apocrypha had been completely rejected by many Christians. This explains why the First and Second Maccabees, found in Catholic Bibles, are absent from modern Protestant Bibles. It's interesting to note that Martin Luther also disapproved of James, calling it "a right strawy epistle." He believed that it did not place a strong enough emphasis on faith in Christ as the only ground for salvation and that its emphasis on works was suspiciously Jewish and Catholic because it went against his doctrine of "salvation by faith alone." Despite Luther's claims, the majority of Protestant churches did not agree to have this text removed from the canon.

There are also claims made for a "Alexandrian canon," which includes the Apocrypha, to have the same canonicity and authority as the 24 books that make up the purported Palestinian canon. The first defense of the apocryphal books' authority is that they were included in earlier versions. However, a closer look reveals that only the LXX and later translations derived from it include the apocryphal books. Since it is unclear whether all of the LXX's books were considered canonical, those who assert that the inclusion of the Apocrypha is proof that there was a "Alexandrian canon" are still speculating. In fact, Philo of Alexandria never used an apocryphal passage.

Some Reformers during the 16th-century Protestant Reformation rejected these Deuterocanonical books for historical and theological reasons. The Deuterocanonical books are typically excluded from the Protestant canon because they only accepted those Old Testament books that were also found in the Hebrew Bible. The Deuterocanonical books are still present in some Protestant traditions, such as those of the Anglican Church. The Deuterocanonical books are often referred to as the Apocrypha by Protestants, who adopted this terminology after Martin Luther. This developed strongly pejorative connotations in some circles, implying that something is "suspect" or "of questionable origin." Apocrypha was frequently just another name for the Deuterocanonical books, and the two terms were frequently used interchangeably. These "apocryphal" books came with the 1611 King James Authorized Version.

I did a paper relating to your topic. I will find and post my bibliography soon.

Pelikan, Jaroslav. Whose Bible Is It?: A History of the Scriptures Through the Ages. New York: Penguin Books, 2005.

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Bibliography

Carroll, Robert P. "The Hebrew Bible as literature‐a misprision?." Studia Theologica 47, no. 1 (1993): 77-90.

Gallagher, Edmon L., and John D. Meade. The biblical canon lists from early Christianity: Texts and analysis. Oxford University Press, 2017.

Greenspahn, Frederick E. "The Number and Distribution of hapax legomena in Biblical Hebrew." Vetus Testamentum 30, no. Fasc. 1 (1980): 8-19.

Kerber, Daniel. "The Canon in the Vulgate Translation of the Bible." The Bible Translator 67, no. 2 (2016): 168-183.

Koorevaar, Hendrik J. "The Exile and Return Model: A Proposal for the Original Macrostructure of the Hebrew Canon." Journal of the Evangelical Theological Society 57, no. 3 (2014).

Kruger, Michael J.. The Question of Canon: Challenging the Status Quo in the New Testament Debate. Downers Grove: InterVarsity Press, 2013.

Miller, John W. The origins of the Bible: rethinking canon history. Mahwah: Paulist Press, 1994.

Pelikan, Jaroslav, Valerie R. Hotchkiss, David Price, and Rare Book. The Reformation of the Bible: the Bible of the Reformation. New Haven: Yale University Press, 1996.

Tov, Emanuel. Exploring the Origins of the Bible: Canon Formation in Historical, Literary, and Theological Perspective. Grand Rapids: Baker, 2008.

Zeitlin, Solomon. "An Historical Study of the Canonization of the Hebrew Scriptures." In Proceedings of the American Academy for Jewish Research, vol. 3, pp. 121-158. American Academy for Jewish Research, 1931.

Graham Criddle

https://community.logos.com/discussion/comment/1265782#Comment_1265782

Hi Christian

MJ's question was not about which books were in the canon but the order in which they appear.