Timeline data error
1. To the best of my research no canon was closed circa 400 B.C although I believe that an argument could be made based on 4 Ezra
2. The Masorectic text and the Septuagint text were closed after the death of Jesus ... you may pick your own date
3. I suspect the closed canon of which you are speaking is the one that Wikipedia refers to as the Calvinist canon.
4. If this is a deliberate attempt to promote a specific denominational family view rather than a broader view, the timeline will quickly lose credibility. I can vouch for the fact that a significant portion of our parish's converts come from this type of sloppiness - an effect of being a University parish.
5. If this is intended to reflect the end of the writing of Scripture written in Hebrew and included in the Masorectic canon, the label is misleading.
Note: I got here from a right hand click on "fourth century BC" in FSB - worked quite nicely.
Orthodox Bishop Alfeyev: "To be a theologian means to have experience of a personal encounter with God through prayer and worship."; Orthodox proverb: "We know where the Church is, we do not know where it is not."
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MJ. Smith said:
5. If this is intended to reflect the end of the writing of Scripture written in Hebrew and included in the Masorectic canon, the label is misleading.
It seems to me that's clearly the intention, even it it could be worded better. The editors have a tough job, and deserve the benefit of the doubt. I have just sat here for five minutes thinking of a way of expressing it in 40 characters or less, that would please everyone, but failed.
This should be accurate and please most people, but it's a little long for the timeline [A]: "The 39 books known variously as the Old Testament, the Hebrew Bible or the Jewish Scriptures have been completed (though some scholars suggest further editing subsequently took place)."
This is my personal Faithlife account. On 1 March 2022, I started working for Faithlife, and have a new 'official' user account. Posts on this account shouldn't be taken as official Faithlife views!
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Would simply saying "Old Testament canon is basically completed" be better than "Old Testament canon is closed"?
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Having to create thousands of labels for timeline events is a challenging job, and i'm sure we didn't get them all right. However, there is no specific perspective being promoted by Logos.
If you click on the event title, you'll see a list of links to the sources for this event. In this case, with my current resources, there are two, both from ISBE:
- "It is now clear from the Qumrân MSS that no part of the OT canonical literature was composed later than the 4th cent B.C. " (link)
- "The OT canon probably closed before 400 B.C., though some scholars
reject this position, postulating later dates for Joel, Jonah, and other
OT books. " (link)
So while the label could be more nuanced, i think it fairly represents the content of the resource.
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Graham Criddle said:
Would simply saying "Old Testament canon is basically completed" be better than "Old Testament canon is closed"?
To say that the writing was complete would be far more accurate. Logos cannot have it both ways. If they want to go after the Catholic and scholarly market they can't ignore the 85% of Christians who use a broader canon. They and the mainline Protestants will expect something similar to Wikipedia:
[quote]Evidence suggests that the process of canonization occurred between 200 BCE and 200 CE. A popular former theory is that the Torah was canonized c. 400 BCE, the Prophets c. 200 BCE, and the Writings c. 100 CE, perhaps at a hypothetical Council of Jamnia, but this position is increasingly rejected by modern scholars.
Closing a canon is not the same as finished writing - it implies a conscious decision that these books and only these books constitute the canon. While there is still a debate as to when Judaism closed its canon. I've never seen a canon history specialist offer a date in the BC's.
I don't own the ISBE and if this is typical of their "even handedness" I never will. I know that I seem to be MJ one-note on the issue of canon but Logos still has much to learn about attracting a broader base. The timeline doesn't allow for user correction and is presented as fact. "Facts" that represent minority opinion undermine the credibility of the tool - especially when wording can be found that separates the completion of the Hebrew canon and the LXX canon.
Orthodox Bishop Alfeyev: "To be a theologian means to have experience of a personal encounter with God through prayer and worship."; Orthodox proverb: "We know where the Church is, we do not know where it is not."
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Sean Boisen said:
So while the label could be more nuanced, i think it fairly represents the content of the resource.
I have no access to the listing of the source of the information.
The first item that you provide from the ISBE speaks of dates written not of closing of the (Hebrew) canon. Being able to see the source of the information, even though I don't own the resource would be helpful. The other thing that could help would be to label dates according to some reliability scheme such as:
- date confirmed externally i.e. from non-Biblical source
- date generally accepted by scholars in most major families of denominations
- date subject to considerable debate
Orthodox Bishop Alfeyev: "To be a theologian means to have experience of a personal encounter with God through prayer and worship."; Orthodox proverb: "We know where the Church is, we do not know where it is not."
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Mark Barnes said:
It seems to me that's clearly the intention,
Interesting to know. It may be another case of denominations using the same word to mean very different things.
Orthodox Bishop Alfeyev: "To be a theologian means to have experience of a personal encounter with God through prayer and worship."; Orthodox proverb: "We know where the Church is, we do not know where it is not."
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MJ. Smith said:Mark Barnes said:
It seems to me that's clearly the intention,
Interesting to know. It may be another case of denominations using the same word to mean very different things.
It's nothing to do with denominational heritage. As you said, "While there is still a debate as to when Judaism closed its canon. I've never seen a canon history specialist offer a date in the BC's". So how could it mean anything else?
This is my personal Faithlife account. On 1 March 2022, I started working for Faithlife, and have a new 'official' user account. Posts on this account shouldn't be taken as official Faithlife views!
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Mark Barnes said:
So how could it mean anything else?
If I knew that in propositional logic the proposition was undeniably true, I would look for a difference in the meaning of the terms.[:D] However, there was a simpler answer: that the proposition was false. Actually there is a strong element of denominational influence in the statement:
- not all LXX texts were written in 400 BC
- theories of inspiration/canon strongly influence whether end of writing period implies closing of the canon
- as Super Tramp and I proved some time ago, canon has different meanings to different people - to me it means "fit to be read in liturgy"
But as I have said elsewhere, something as simple as adding "early" as they have done on other entries would be sufficient to indicate that the date is not universality accepted. Note there are Evangelicals arguing for the use of the LXX <a target="_blank" href="logosres:firstbblchurch;ref=Page.p_3">Page 3</a>
Orthodox Bishop Alfeyev: "To be a theologian means to have experience of a personal encounter with God through prayer and worship."; Orthodox proverb: "We know where the Church is, we do not know where it is not."
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MJ. Smith said:
1. To the best of my research no canon was closed circa 400 B.C although I believe that an argument could be made based on 4 Ezra
2. The Masorectic text and the Septuagint text were closed after the death of Jesus ... you may pick your own date
3. I suspect the closed canon of which you are speaking is the one that Wikipedia refers to as the Calvinist canon.
4. If this is a deliberate attempt to promote a specific denominational family view rather than a broader view, the timeline will quickly lose credibility. I can vouch for the fact that a significant portion of our parish's converts come from this type of sloppiness - an effect of being a University parish.
5. If this is intended to reflect the end of the writing of Scripture written in Hebrew and included in the Masorectic canon, the label is misleading.
One of the great things about this timeline is that it includes a lot of information regardless of its fitting into a specific theory or not. This label, of course, does a poor job of showing that it is one instance of the 'canon being closed' throughout history. I have added the subtitle 'early' to this instance (I don't know when that change will be pushed to users) since one of the references it links to does specifically state "The OT canon probably closed before 400 b.c" (The International Standard Bible Encyclopedia, Revised, ed. Geoffrey W. Bromiley (Wm. B. Eerdmans, 1988). 874.)
The theory is included as is (and now has indication that it is one of many different dates for that given event [:)])
I think you should now be able to filter the events by any keyword; this helps users see if there are other dates for the same event.
So if you run a filter for the word "canon" you get the following:
I've just underlined a few examples to show that they are not consistent with each other (rather they are consistent with the passages they link to and the competing theories behind them).
The "Old Testament canon is closed" dates have been changed to have 'early' and 'late' to their appropriate instance. The markers 'early' and 'late' are only relative to each other and not relative to anything else, like a perceived correct date, as there was and is no prescriptive structure or theory behind the timeline.
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Excellent, Annie. The qualification makes all the difference in credibility,
Orthodox Bishop Alfeyev: "To be a theologian means to have experience of a personal encounter with God through prayer and worship."; Orthodox proverb: "We know where the Church is, we do not know where it is not."
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Hi Annie,
Sounds good. There's a typo — "setteled" — you might like to fix.
Mark
This is my personal Faithlife account. On 1 March 2022, I started working for Faithlife, and have a new 'official' user account. Posts on this account shouldn't be taken as official Faithlife views!
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Mark Barnes said:
Hi Annie,
Sounds good. There's a typo — "setteled" — you might like to fix.
Mark
Fear not. Typo fixes are also on their way.
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