What did Jesus believe about Genesis?

[Assyrian]

None and all. None, since no authoritative canon existed yet; therefore all since no authoritative canon excluded them yet.

It was exactly this type of situation that made an authoritative canon necessary.

I think you have the situation the wrong way around. The books were considered authoritative before they were listed in a canon, if they hadn't been considered authoritative, no one would have bothered putting the canon together.

I think the point is that in the first cenury there was no canon of the Writings yet, in contrast to the Torah and the Prophets which had been settled earlier. Nevertheless, even those they had not been formally canonized yet, some writings were regarded as scripture on the same basis as the earlier sections. Jesus places the Psalms together with Torah and Prophets. He also refers to the book of Daniel as authoritative.

I think Josephus would disagree with you, he reckoned there were just 22 books in the Jewish scriptures, a number incidentally that Origen and Jerome agree with. According to Josephus:

http://www.gutenberg.org/dirs/etext01/agaap10.txt

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(i.e. Psalms, Proverbs, Song of Solomon, and Ecclesiastes). 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. For it is no new thing for our captives, many of them in number, and frequently in time, to be seen to endure racks and deaths of all kinds upon the theatres, that they may not be obliged to say one word against our laws and the records that contain them; whereas there are none at all among the Greeks who would undergo the least harm on that account, no, nor in case all the writings that are among them were to be destroyed; for they take them to be such discourses as are framed agreeably to the inclinations of those that write them; and they have justly the same opinion of the ancient writers, since they see some of the present generation bold enough to write about such affairs, wherein they were not present, nor had concern enough to inform themselves about them from those that knew them; examples of which may be had in this late war of ours, where some persons have written histories, and published them, without having been in the places concerned, or having been near them when the actions were done; but these men put a few things together by hearsay, and insolently abuse the world, and call these writings by the name of Histories.

The difference between Josephus's 22 books and the modern Tanach's 24 seems to be having Ruth and Esther as separate books.

Yes they did propose a canon. I am certain it did not include every work honoured as scripture in every synagogue. I expect that in Greek -speaking synogoues at least some of the deutercanonical books featured on their lists of books recognized as scripture.

I have heard there were intense arguments over both the Song of Solomon (due to its erotic nature) and over the Book of Esther (due to the lack of reference to God in it.)

Since we do have an idea if the sort of debate that went on, is there any evidence of Rabbis campaigning for the inclusion of the apocrypha?

Of course they knew what the considered to be scripture. But we cannot conclude that what the early church recognized as scripture was identical to the Jamnia canon. We can't even conclude that the Jamnia canon was universally welcomed in all Jewish synangogues.

Just that the books the NT writers kept quoting happened to be the ones Jamnia accepted.

Of course we cannot prove there wasn't a synagogue somewhere whose Rabbi believed the apocrypha were scripture, it's just that there simply isn't any evidence for it.

No, there would be multiple criteria. Christian use of the LXX might have been a relatively minor concern.

I agree there were multiple criteria for the exclusion of the apocrypha, a belief that inspired scripture ended in the time of Artaxerxes, none of the rabbis there thinking they were scripture...

Nor that they didn't. The Septuagint translations were a wholly Jewish work. In so far as Jewish writings in Greek were collected with them and used similarly, that is an indication they were considered scripture as well. Why would they be bound into codices at all, if they were not seen as being part of this collection of scripture?

It was the Christians who bound them together, not the Jews.

In regardto the NT you are arguing on the basis of absence of evidence, always a dangerous tactic. That leaves the Jamnia canon as the only evidence. We need to consider that there was more to the Jewish community that the gathering at Jamnia. You speak as if it received immediate whole-hearted endorsement among Jews. I doubt that was the case.

No you can't prove a negative, but against the combined testimony of Jamnia, the NT, Josephus, we need a bit more than a lack of evidence to support the apocrypha.

If the NT writers considered the apocrypha scripture it is extraordinary that they never quoted them even though they quote from books in the Jamnia canon 600 times.

I think you are arguing from silence again. I don't think silence tells us one way or the other.

You mean the way the lack of evidence for a global flood still doesn't exclude the possibility? If people want to claim that the Jews accepted the apocrypha as scripture, they need to provide evidence. The silence you talk about is the complete lack of evidence supporting the claim.

Well you are contradicting most of the authorities I have ever read on the subject of canonization of the Tanakh.

Actually the word 'law' by itself could refer to the whole OT and cover books like the Psalms John 10:34 Jesus answered them, Is it not written in your law, I said, Ye are gods? Paul talks of the righteousness of God has been manifested apart from the law, although the Law and the Prophets bear witness to it (Rom 3:21) and then discusses 2 examples of this witness, one from Genesis 15:6 the other from Psalm 32:1&2.

Well that is pretty obvious. But you seemed to be implying that one could refer to a text as authoritative scripture without a direct identification.

The fact that almost every quotation in the NT comes from the Tanach suggests that the NT writers considered these scriptures worth quoting directly in a way other literature wasn't.

I am not sure this conversation is getting us anywhere.

 

[gluadys]

If the NT writers considered the apocrypha scripture it is extraordinary that they never quoted them even though they quote from books in the Jamnia canon 600 times.

The fact that almost every quotation in the NT comes from the Tanach suggests that the NT writers considered these scriptures worth quoting directly in a way other literature wasn't.

I am not sure this conversation is getting us anywhere.

Yes we have about talked this out. As I see it the nub of disagreement is that you see lack of evidence as indicative of something. You insist we can draw a conclusion from silence that the deuterocanonical books never had the status of scripture until it was given them by the church.

I don't agree with this. To me lack of evidence does not lead to any conclusion at all. You may be right, but silence does not show that you are right.

I also reject your argument above because the NT canon was not constructed until the 4th century. Had different decisions been made about what to include, some of the citations you re looking for could have been part of the NT canon. And even with the one we have there are some very strong parallels between Christian writings and late Jewish writings included in the Septuagint.

If John drew heavily on deuterocanonical work, I think it likely that other Christians and Jews did likewise.

You seem to think the compilation of codices was the beginning of the Septuagint tradition. I tend to think it was the fruit of an earlier tradition.

But without positive evidence one way or the other there is no way to determine who is right. Silence, absence of evidence shows nothing.

 

[Assyrian]

Yes we have about talked this out. As I see it the nub of disagreement is that you see lack of evidence as indicative of something. You insist we can draw a conclusion from silence that the deuterocanonical books never had the status of scripture until it was given them by the church.

I don't agree with this. To me lack of evidence does not lead to any conclusion at all. You may be right, but silence does not show that you are right.

It is not just an argument from silence, the evidence from quotations in the NT fits the very strong testimony of Jamnia and Josephus. The silence you talk about is a complete lack of any indication that the NT writers did view the apocrypha as scripture.

I also reject your argument above because the NT canon was not constructed until the 4th century. Had different decisions been made about what to include, some of the citations you re looking for could have been part of the NT canon. And even with the one we have there are some very strong parallels between Christian writings and late Jewish writings included in the Septuagint.

If John drew heavily on deuterocanonical work, I think it likely that other Christians and Jews did likewise.

Instead of suggesting that if we had a different NT canon our view of the OT would be different, do you have any suggestions of which books might have been included in the NT and the apocryphal books they would support? Now I know there are plenty of spurious and even Gnostic gospels out there, but we need to look at books that were seriously considered for the NT canon.

You seem to think the compilation of codices was the beginning of the Septuagint tradition. I tend to think it was the fruit of an earlier tradition.

But without positive evidence one way or the other there is no way to determine who is right. Silence, absence of evidence shows nothing.

The Septuagint codices were the fruit of an earlier tradition, but it was a Christian one. We know the Jewish canon from the first century, the silence you talk about is the lack of evidence for a separate Jewish Septuagint tradition to contradict this.

But let's leave it glaudys. It is much more fun agreeing with you about evolution