1.A 06. The Prophets Established

The Prophets Established

Jewish traditional and legendary accounts lay it down very definitely that the books of Scripture were assembled and collected and even canonized in the days of Ezra and Nehemiah. It may well be that none of these legends and traditions is anything like accurate history, but it seems to us certain that they do preserve the memory of the fact that it was in the days of Ezra and Nehemiah that the Law became canonical and that the Prophets were assembled and collected. Throughout the exile men had fed their souls on the Prophets, In the deep disappointments and the heart-breaking problems of the return they had found their help and their support in the prophetic writings; and it was then that the prophetic writings were deliberately collected and preserved. It is to be noted that at this stage it is not a matter of declaring the prophets sacred Scripture, and not a matter of placing them in the canon beside the Law; it is still a matter of collecting well-loved books, and ensuring that they will never go lost. Canomzation was still to come. Have we any indication as to when it did come?

We may begin our investigation with one pointer which provides us with a date at which the Prophets were almost certainly regarded as canonical and as Holy Scripture. The Book of Daniel appeared abqut 165 B.C. Now Daniel is quite clearly a prophetic book and yet never at any time did it appear amongst the prophets, and always it was included among the Writings. That can only mean that by the time Daniel appeared the number of the prophets was closed; the prophetic literature was a fixed and settled body into which no other book, however well qualified, could find an entry. It is safe to say that that means that the Prophets were regarded as Holy Scripture at least by the time of Daniel in 165 B.C.

So, then, by the beginning of the second century B.C. a further stone has been added to the edifice of Scripture; a further section has been added to the divine library of the Old Testament, and now beside the Law there stand the Prophets. And now there arises a rather significant fact. At no time did there ever arise among the Jews any question or any dispute in regard to any part of the Law. It was unquestionably and unarguably divine from beginning to end. But among the prophets twoboofc^^ The first was Jiffiah, which wasTScribed as "a ^J^j^y itself", and which was questioned because it has to do exclusively with the heathen and does not mention Israel at all. To some of the Jewish scholars it seemed strange that a book which, as they saw it, had nothing to do with Israel had a place within the canon of Israel. They failed to see that in many ways Jonah is the greatest book in the Old Testament, because it lays down the missionary task of Israel as no other book does. The other book which was questioned was the book of EzekieL It was never suggested that Ezekiel should be ejected from the canon, but it was argued sometimes that Ezekiel should be "put away", that is, that it should be withdrawn from general circulation, and that it should not be read in the Synagogue. That was due to two things. It was due to the difficulty of the beginning and the end, especially the passage about the chariot of God.

It was not that anyone wished to eliminate either Jonah or Ezekiel from the canon of Scripture. It was simply felt that they raised difficulties and the difficulties were openly discussed; and it must be noted that, although that could happen with the Prophets, it could never happen with the Law, which was so divine that it was beyond question and beyond discussion.