Subject: Re: Responses
From: Jim Rovira (jrovira@drew.edu)
Date: Sat Jul 20 2002 - 08:26:06 EDT
Robbie --
just to start out with, a short response. In my opinion, all this time, I've
been arguing For the existence of some kind of a canon in _Christ's day_ (maybe
even before that, back to around 2nd century BCE, but certainly in Christ's
day). That was the importance of the quotation from Josephus. I thought you
were taking
issue with the idea of a canon in _Christ's day_ by itself.
So when you say, "It appears that Josephus had a canon very fixed in form,
however it was for content. The way he talks makes it appear to me that it was
probably quite fixed in content, too," I'm thinking we've probably agreed about
some things all along.
Now, when you talk about the quotations from Sirach,
"It seems to me that "the other books of our fathers" and "the rest of the
books" might mean just that: the other books about Jews, all of them. It
demonstrates to me that the Jews who wrote these words and words like them
had books, and I know that they had far fewer than I do. They had books of
law, and books about prophets, and other books. Classification as such is
not surprising. But comments like these do not make it clear to me that
they had a Bible; even if they did have something like a Bible, comments
like these don't suggest to me that it was something like what is called a
Bible today."
What many see happening is that Sirach used the same verbal formula to refer to
Jewish literature that Josephus did, so infer that he meant something similar to
Josephus. It's interesting that Josephus would appropriate the same language to
refer to a fixed canon -- he had to be familiar with Sirach, and by doing so
could have been testifying to a tradition that well predated him.
And when I've been making reference to the texts held by the Qumran community
(this is probably the biggest problem here and entirely my fault), I've been
imagining a Qumran community that existed in Christ's day, not 1-2 centuries
beforehand.
I'm aware (somewhat) of the size and nature of some of the Qumran fragments and
know that some of them, indeed, are literally little scraps of scrolls, and
others are scrolls that exist only in a collection of little scraps. And others
are much larger and more coherent but still incomplete, as you said. What would
be important would be the size of the fragments upon which your assertions are
based, and I have no way of knowing that just from your comments until now
(which sound like you're referring to more substantial fragments).
I disagree with your requirement of _absolute_ fixity for a canon to exist. For
example, if parts of a community accept 65 books and other parts of a community
accept 67, I think it's a bit, oh, overconscientious to say there's _no_ idea of
a canon in that community, that the two communities hold to two entirely
different canons. The statement goes far beyond the evidence. I would say the
same of a community that accepts, for example, the same 66 books, but has some
variants of some of the 66 books floating around.
I think you have a bit too strict a definition of a canon. By your definition,
we don't have one even today. Every modern translation of the Christian Bible
proceeds from prepared manuscripts, and not every translation necessarily uses
the same prepared manuscripts. So we have translations of different Greek
texts, for example, of the NT. Does that mean we have no canon? The AV uses
Erasmus' prepared text, the NIV uses a collection of Greek texts. So what do
you say about a little Assemblies of God church that sometimes uses the AV
during their worship service and sometimes uses the NIV? Are they unwittingly
using two canons? If so, of what importance is this since the two seem to
support the same belief system?
But I'm not at all sure on what basis we could proceed with this.
Jim
"L. Manning Vines" wrote:
> Jim said:
> << I don't see a lack of an absolute "fixity" in either sense as
> necessary for the idea of a canon to exist. >>
>
> Then we are, as I suspected, talking about different things.
>
> It seems to me that "fixity" is required for a canon of the Biblical sort to
> exist. It seems to me that "fixity" is a defining characteristic of such a
> thing. When Luther, for instance, wants to remove a book or three, I think
> it more accurate to say that Luther has or believes in a different canon and
> is trying to convince others to have the same one than to say that the canon
> isn't fixed. He certainly has a fixed canon himself, but he does not
> recognize the authority of some part of the popular canon. Two canons that
> are identical but for one book and two canons.
>
> Also:
> << The agreement of the DSS with either the MT or the LXX, sometimes one at
> the expense of the other, or with neither, is certain testimony to the
> nature of the texts that the Qumran community had in their possession.
> I'm not all that sure it can be said to tell us about the texts current
> in larger Hebrew culture at that time. >>
>
> I am all that sure.
>
> We know that at least some of the Septuagint-agreeing Hebrew texts existed
> within the mainstream community because at least some of them were
> translated into Greek before the community existed, and we know that the
> Masoretic-agreeing texts existed within the mainstream community because
> they are the received texts that we have today: it is certain that neither
> of them originated in Qumran. It seems probable to me that at least some of
> the other variants similarly did not originate in Qumran.
>
> Because we know that they were not created in Qumran, it is certain that
> both the Septuagint-agreeing texts and the Masoretic-agreeing texts existed
> in Hebrew in mainstream Jewish culture at least as late as the first or
> second century B.C.E. when the Qumran community separated itself from
> Jerusalem. And because it seems probable that the other texts did not all
> originate in Qumran, it is likewise probable that they existed similarly.
>
> Like I have said before, it is impossible for the isolated sect to have been
> the origin of all the variants. We know that some of the texts at Qumran
> were accepted at some time in Jerusalem, but no manuscripts would have left
> Qumran to influence the community in Jerusalem -- if they didn't go TO
> Jerusalem, they came FROM Jerusalem.
>
> This is certain.
>
> The variants did not necessarily exist in Hebrew in Jesus' day. Why the
> variants disappeared is mysterious. But they did certainly exist, and in
> the mainstream community, when the Qumran community acquired them for
> archiving. It is not the case that the Qumran community had a long and
> isolated Jewish tradition behind it, which would account for the
> preservation of books the mainstream community had long-since left behind.
> The Qumran community was a short-lived Jewish sect that began in Jerusalem
> and set itself in opposition to it. The archive of books found in the caves
> at Qumran includes a veritable snapshot of the mainstream Hebrew library in
> the first or second century B.C.E. This is why their discovery was probably
> the most important discovery of manuscripts in the history of digging up old
> books. Before the discovery of the Qumran scrolls, we had no way to know
> that the Masoretic wasn't always the sole text or that the Septuagint
> doesn't merely represent shoddy and selective translating.
>
> After the discovery of the Qumran scrolls, we KNOW that variant Hebrew texts
> coëxisted within the mainstream community at least as late as the first or
> second century B.C.E.
>
> Also:
> << The fragments that deviate from
> both the MT and the LXX are just that...fragments...so we don't know why
> they deviate. They could be from [. . . .] They could be from [. . . .]
> They could be anything...that's the problem :). >>
>
> What is called, in the parlance, a fragment, is not necessarily so
> fragmentary as the word itself often implies to the uninitiated. If you
> don't have what seems to be a whole book, you have a fragment. Some
> fragments are only a word or less, but some are longer than some complete
> books.
>
> We do know with a great degree of certainty that variants agreeing with
> neither the Masoretic nor the Septuagint did exist within the Qumran
> community, and thus very probably in the mainstream Jewish community at the
> time that the Qumran community separated itself. Where they went after the
> Qumran community left Jerusalem for Qumran, nobody knows.
>
> Also:
> << From what I understand, the full texts that do exist in the
> DSS do agree pretty well with the MT. >>
>
> This must be the second or third time you've said that, or something like
> it, and I've qualified it every time. It seems that somebody at some time
> gave you part of the story and you're sticking to it.
>
> Some texts in Qumran DO agree pretty well with the Masoretic text; some of
> them, actually, agree with certain peculiarities and obscurities shockingly
> well. Some texts in Qumran DO NOT. The Qumran scrolls DO vouch to an
> extraordinary degree for the accuracy of transmission that the Masoretic
> text has had. The Qumran scrolls DO NOT suggest that the Masoretic text has
> always enjoyed the status of One True Text that it enjoys now. The Qumran
> scrolls DO demonstrate quite irrefutably that it has not.
>
> I either do not remember or never knew exactly what books are complete; but
> whether the evidence comes from complete books or nearly-complete fragments
> or not-at-all-complete fragments, these things are quite generally
> acknowledged by reputable people who ought to know and are confirmed by what
> direct experience I have, however unsatisfactory that quantity of experience
> may be to my desires.
>
> Then:
> << And I have to wonder what you do with this passage from Josephus,
> written about 90 AD. >>
>
> I do nothing with it, since it was written late in the first century C.E.,
> about two or three centuries after the time that I'm talking about. It
> appears that Josephus had a canon very fixed in form, however it was for
> content. The way he talks makes it appear to me that it was probably quite
> fixed in content, too. The first of the sentences you quoted, in which he
> says "only 22," makes him sound to me like someone with a Bible. I am
> supposing that to sound that way requires a Bible quite fixed in form and
> substance both. But nobody who can rival Josephus for antiquity that I've
> ever read has a sentence about Hebrew books that rings quite that way in my
> ear.
>
> And:
> << This division (and I think this may have been brought up before) seems
> to be referred to as early as 132 BC in the book of Sirach, in which
> reference is made to "the law and the prophets and the other books of
> our fathers" and "the law itself, the prophecies and the rest of the
> books." Given Josephus' comments, I think parallel statements in the NT
> about the Law, the Prophets, and the Psalms (which I know you said
> earlier could be generic references) are more likely to refer to
> specific groups of books than writing in a generic sense. >>
>
> It seems to me that "the other books of our fathers" and "the rest of the
> books" might mean just that: the other books about Jews, all of them. It
> demonstrates to me that the Jews who wrote these words and words like them
> had books, and I know that they had far fewer than I do. They had books of
> law, and books about prophets, and other books. Classification as such is
> not surprising. But comments like these do not make it clear to me that
> they had a Bible; even if they did have something like a Bible, comments
> like these don't suggest to me that it was something like what is called a
> Bible today.
>
> I don't remember how this conversation started, but it seems now like we're
> repeating ourselves with different and more numerous words. Maybe
> conversations between the two of us that relate in one way or another to
> religion will always end up this way. I think, anyway, that we're two for
> two, now (or zero for two, depending on how you look at it). I keep
> thinking that this one has just about run out of momentum, and then I find
> that it hasn't. We're not saying many new things now, so I cannot imagine
> that this can sustain itself long.
>
> The bottom line for me, and how I think this somehow started but can't
> really remember, is that in the last pre-Christian centuries the text of
> what I now call the Hebrew Bible was not standardized. It really, really
> wasn't. Really. It was many books and had several versions. On this
> basis, and this basis alone, I thought and I think that as late as the last
> pre-Christian centuries The Hebrew Bible qua Hebrew Bible did not exist, at
> least not like it came to exist shortly afterward. It seems to me that the
> standardization of the text, by which I simply and exclusively mean the
> elimination of varying versions, changed the books and the way they would be
> treated very fundamentally. To designate this, I perhaps mistakenly used
> the word "canonization."
>
> My assertion is not bold, it does not rest on controversial foundations. It
> is a simple, albeit usually unuttered, observation.
>
> Beyond it I think I was responding to your various comments, but never
> really changing this bottom line. I don't think there's very much more to
> it.
>
> -robbie
>
> P.S. I just remembered how this started. I asserted that the first word of
> Western Literature was "Rage" (or "Ménin"), by which I controversially
> meant, of course, that this was the first word of Homer. And this was a
> parenthetical comment in a thread concerned with the comparison between
> Catcher and the Glass Saga. Oh, the great circles.
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