1.B 02. The People of the Book

The People of the Book

History has a strange way of repeating itself. It was at Jamnia in A.D. 90 that the Old Testament canon was finally fixed. And Jamnia came only twenty years after the supreme disaster of Jewish history, the disaster from which the nation never recovered, the destruction of the Temple and the near-obliteration of Jerusalem in A.D. 70. Once again in the time of disaster it was to the word of God that the nation was driven. With every worldly hope shattered, faced with a future in which humanly speaking they had nothing to hope for, the Jews had to become the people of the book, and for that very reason it was then that the book had to be definitely and finally defined. With nothing else left to live for the Jews began to live for the study of God’s word. The Jews clung to the sacred Scriptures not because of any theological theory of inspiration, but because they found in them the comfort of God in their sorrow, the hope of God in their despair, the light of God in their darkness, and the strength of God in a world where for them the foundations were shaken.

It remains briefly to look at the individual books within the Writings and to see how they fared, and in particular to note which of them had questionings and opposition to face. To the Book of Psalms there was never any opposition, and doubtless it was the first of all the Writings to fix itself on the hearts of men. It was the hymn-book of the Temple, and the prayer-book of the community, as Cornill described it. The order of the Psalms in the daily worship of the Temple was as follows. On the first day of the week Psalms 24:1-10 was sung "The earth is the Lord’s and the fulness thereof" in commemoration of the first day of creation, when "God possessed the world and ruled in it". On the second day of the week Psalms 48:1-14 was sung "Great is the Lord and greatly to be praised" because on the second day of creation "God divided His works and reigned over them", On the third day of the week Psalms 82:1-8 was sung "God standeth in the creation of the mighty" "because on that day the earth appeared, on which are the Judge and the judged". On the fourth day of the week Psalms 94:1-23 was sung "O Lord God to whom vengeance belongeth" "because on the fourth day God made the sun, moon, and stars, and will be avenged on those that worship them". On the fifth day of the week Psalms 81:1-16 was sung "Sing aloud unto God our strength" "because of the variety of creatures created that day to praise His name". On the sixth day Psalms 93:1-5 was sung "The Lord reigncth" "because on that day God finished His works and made man, and die Lord ruled over all His works". Lastly, on the seventh day, the Sabbath day, Psalms 92:1-15 was sung "It is a good thing to give thanks unto die Lord" "because the Sabbath is symbolic of the millenial kingdom at the end of the six thousand years dispensation, when the Lord will reign over all, and His glory and service will fill the earth with thanksgiving. From the beginning the place of the Psalms was nev er questioned, for they had a unique place in the public services of the Temple and in the private devotions of the hearts of men.

Certain others of the Writings had their place in public Cervices. The High Priest read in public from Chronicles, Job, Ezra-Nehemiah, and Daniel on the evening before the Day of Atonement. The BvcMe^ilkth the word megilloth means rolls were read at the great Jewish festivals. The Song, which was allegorized ’to symbolize the deliverance from Egypt, was read on the eighth day of the Passover. Ruth, the harvest story, was read on the second day of Pentecost. Lamentations was read on pth Ab, which was the anniversary of the destruction of Solomon’s Temple. Ecclesiastes was read on the third day of the Feast of Tabernacles, to remind men to remember God in the midst of the enjoyment of material blessings. Esther was read at the Feast of Purim, for which it is the warrant. The five Megilloth were the only books of the Writings to be read in the Synagogue, and they were read only on their special occasions; and, as we shall see, certain of them were very far from being undisputed. As we have seen, the place of Psalms was never in doubt. Job, too, was never questioned. Job was attributed to Moses, in accordance with the belief that every prophet described his own period, for Job was taken to belong to the patriarchal age. Ruth and_ Lamentations were never questioned, because Ruth went with Judges and Lamentations with Jeremiah. Daniel was never questioned, because in spite of its late emergence its authorship was ascribed to the great Daniel of the exilic period. On some very few occasions Proverbs was questioned. It was questioned on two grounds. First, it was argued that Proverbs contains apparent contradictions. Proverbs 26:4-5 reads: "Answer not a fool according to his folly, lest thou also be like unto him. Answer a fool according to his folly, lest he be wise in his own conceit." Second, it was argued that a passage such as Proverbs 7:7; Proverbs 7:20 presented ethical problems which were difficult of solution. The argument about Proverbs was never at any time very serious, and it must be remembered that it was never suggested that Proverbs should be discarded, but only that it should be withheld from ordinary people who might be puzzled and even misled by the apparent difficulties and contradictions.

It was with difficulty that Esther gained a final place in the canon, and, even after it had gained its place, as late as the third century there were those who were not happy about it. The straits in which the supporters of Esther found themselves are illustrated by a Rabbinic tradition about the book. It was said that Rabbi Samuel had said that Esther did not defile the hands, that is, that it was not a sacred book. Rabbi Judah in speaking of this tradition said: "Did Samuel mean that Esther was not spoken by the Holy Spirit? Samuel undoubtedly taught that Esther was spoken by the Holy Spirit, but it was spoken to be recited and not to be written." Such a statement shows the difficulties which Esther encountered. The problem in regard to Esther was twofold. First, from beginning to end it neyer^jii^ntions the name of God, a truly extraordinary fact in a sacred book. Second, there was in some ways an even more difficult problem. Esther tells of thejbwidatiptt o,die,JFast of Purim, and it was at the Feast of Purim that Esther was read in the Synagogue. Now the trouble was that the Feast of Purim is a Feast which finds no warrant and no justification in the Mosaic Law, and the Mosaic Law was taken as a first principle to be absolutely complete (Leviticus 27:34). Here, indeed, was a difficulty. It was circumvented by the tradition that, although the instructions for the Feast of Purim are not written down in the Law, they were nevertheless given to Moses by God verbally during the forty days and forty nights on the mountain, but were not written down until the days of Mordecai. But the fact remained that for long Esther was in dispute, and there have always been those who doubted its right to a place in the canon of Holy Scripture.

Serious controversy in regard to the Writings also centred round two books Ecclesiastes and the Song. Not unnaturally die weary pessimism of Ecclesiases and me fact that the Song is one of the world’s great love poems, which has to be allegorized to become a religious book at all, presented problems.

It may be said that Esther, Ecclesiastcs and the Song were the books about which controversy was most real, for even after the Council of Jamnia there were those who were unwilling to accept them; and it is not without significance that these are three of the very few Old Testament books which are never quoted or referred to in the New Testament.