1.B 03. The Emergence of Sacred Scripture

The Emergence of Sacred Scripture This then is the story of the building up over seven hundred years of the divine library of the Old Testament. From this story one tiling stands out with unmistakable clarity. It was in the dark days of the Exile that men discovered the Prophets as the word of God. It was in the agony of the time of Antiochus Epiphanes that the Writings began to emerge as sacred Scripture. It was when life had taken everything else away that the Jewish scholars at the Council of Jamnia defined the content of Scripture, accepted the fact that Israel was the People of the Book, and dedicated their lives to the study of the word of God. Here is no human work. The books of the Old Testament took their place as sacred Scripture, not because of tlicftat or decision of any council or committee of the Church, but because history and experience had manifestly and effectively demonstrated them to be the word of God. These were the books in which men had met God in the times which tried men’s souls, and in which they had discovered the strength and the comfort of the Almighty. When any council gave any decision in regard to any book or books of the Old Testament, it was simply repeating and affirming that which experience had already proved. Such councils did not make these books into sacred Scripture and into the word of God; they simply recorded the fact that men had already mightily found them so. And in these books men continued to find God. There have always been times from Marcion onwards when men wished to lay aside the Old Testament as outdated and outworn. One of the extraordinary features of the early Church is the number of men who were converted by reading the Old Testament. Tatian tells us how he was initiated into the Mysteries and how he had tried all that heathen religion and philosophy had to offer, and had come away empty. Then he goes on to say: ** I happened to meet with certain barbaric writings, too old to be compared with the opinions of the Greeks, and too divine to be compared with their errors; and I was led to put faith in these by the unpretending cast of the language, the inartificial character of the writers, the foreknowledge displayed of future events, the excellent quality of the precepts, and the declaration of the government of the universe as being centred in one Being" (Tatian, Address to the Greeks 29). These writings were the writings of the prophets and in them Tatian found the voice of God. Theophilus of Antioch tells us of his vain search for God. "At the same time/* he says, "I met with the sacred Scriptures of the holy prophets," and it was through them that he was led to God (Theophilus, To Autolycus i: 14). Justin Martyr writes: "There existed long before this time certain men more ancient than all those who are esteemed philosophers, both righteous and beloved by God, who spoke by the divine Spirit, and foretold events which would take place, and which are now taking place. They are called prophets. These alone both saw and announced the truth to men, neither reverencing nor fearing any man, not influenced by a desire for glory, but speaking those things alone which they saw and heard, being filled with the Holy Spirit" (Justin Martyr, Dialogue with Trypho 7). Athenagoras, presenting his plea for the Christians to the Emperor Marcus Aurelius and his colleague Lucius Aurelius Commodus, actually says to these Emperors: "I expect that you who are so learned and so eager for the truth are not without some introduction to Moses, Isaiah and Jeremiah, and the rest of the prophets" (Athenagoras, Embassy for the Christians 9). So well were the prophets known that Atlicnagoras does not think it ridiculous to assume that even the Roman Emperors were acquainted with them. And of this same Athenagoras Philip of Side tells us that he planned to write an attack on the Christians. In order to do so he read the Holy Scriptures, and at the end of the reading the wouldbe attacker had become the defender of the faith. The books of the Old Testament were accepted as Holy Scripture because in them men found God and God found men. Through all the centuries that continued to happen, and it can still happen to-day. Men can never afford to discard the books in which God speaks. FOR FURTHER GUIDANCE F. Buhl: The Canon and Text of the Old Testament, 1892. J. A. Bewer: The Literature of the Old Testament, 1947.

F. V. Filson: Which Books Belong in the Bible? A Study of the Canon, 1957.

R. H. Pfeiffer: Introduction to the Old Testament, 1941. H. Rowley: The Growth of the Old Testament, 1949, H. E. Ryle: The Canon of the Old Testament, 1892.

G. Wildeboer: The Origin of the Canon of the Old Testament, 1895. accepted as useful for life and for doctrine; it has to make its way into the public worship of the Church; it has to win acceptance not simply locally Hut throughout the whole Cliurch; and finally it has to be officially approve4 by tf the voice and decision of the Church.