Canon of the Word of God and its determination

Koot van Wyk (DLitt et Phil; ThD)

Visiting Professor

Kyungpook National University

Sangju Campus

South Korea

Conjoint Lecturer of Avondale College

Australia

9 May 2011

Modern man wants to be free from any outside norm telling him or her what to eat, drink, walk, live by. Post-modern people wants to construct their life by one-liner impressive words of wisdom presented by movie-directors and movie-scriptwriters from Hollywood. It is a pull between Hollywood or Holy Word. They prefer their own eclectic pick and choose of what is doctrine for them. The Bible is considered a book for its own days and today we are living with things that the Bible did not anticipated. The post-modern man is willing to let his feelings and experience be the guide to what he likes and dislikes. Pluralism, inclusivism, integration, accommodation to the point of giving up principles of the Word of God are all part of their make-up. The trend before post-modernism, the current one, was the neo-orthodoxy tenets that relativism is the highest form of wisdom. The Bible was also locked away as not important. In fact, accepting the tenets of the Higher-Critical exponents of Rationalism of the Enlightenment era in the Victorian age, neo-orthodoxy tried to cling to a biblical understanding without rejecting the claims of Higher Criticism. Miracles do not exist, the supernatural is removed from the Bible. The Bible is not inspired but man is inspired who has to write about this Encounter of God with him. Encounter Theology, we say. Rudolph Bultmann became the key speaker for the desires of the neo-orthodoxy that spans the post-war period to deep into the eighties and many are still around. The Bible is not a norm but man's perception of it is since all Bible writers operated with the notion of perception writing, writing with agendas, propaganda, self-interests, nationalism, colonialism, imperialism, selfish gains, and the editors and redactors fo the Bible then adapted the message for each generation to fit their own times. This is the view of neo-orthodoxy that developed since the 1980's with Brevard Child's Canonical Theology. As beautiful as some of his words sounds that one should look at theology in the Bible from a holistic point of view, the reader is warned that it is a method of holism, starting and working from the canon, but still employing all the claims of Historical Criticism. Relecturing is a re-reading that took place, according to this trend, of books like Isaiah so that older sections were re-read in the exile and adapted to fit that particular time zone. It throws out Isaiah as author of the content since Isaiah cannot live in 745 BCE and in 586 BCE.

As true as it is, that a lot of re-reading took place by the authors of the Bible, the answer to modern Canonical Theologians and scholars is that it is the prophets themselves who did the re-reading, the adaptation to audiences they faced in doublets that seemingly shows differences in style, orthography, spelling etc. What we soon learn from scriptures and the text of it, is that core material served as sources and these sources were faithfully selected, extracted from, and presented as important material for their own times. But, there was no intention to minimize the adaptation to their own times, the way post-modernism is doing today, saying that test-tube babies and cloning means that the Bible has nothing to say any longer. Moses used the book of Adam (Genesis 5:1) and book of Noah (Genesis 6:1) with care and it is possible that the books were transmitted carefully as preserved through Noah after the Flood in 2521 BCE. The Flood must have destroyed large libraries in detail about men like Henoch and others. The Holy Spirit is the navigator of truth and He is the one who inspired our present authors of the Bible to write the Bible books and thus we can depend on Him to have made double sure that all that is necessary for our faith has been preserved and collected through the ages.

Then we have the papacy view of pope Ratzinger, as expressed very clearly on the vatican site www.vatican.va in homilies, decrees, letters, speeches, excursus, and in the archives and Catholic Laws and Cathecisms. The wide view of canon is promulgated. The Catholic church claims that the Bible is the product of the church. Thus the Word of God is dependent upon the church. Thus the church is primary and the Word of God is secondary. Therefore they can change the Sabbath to Sunday, Adult Baptism of John and Jesus and His disciples ot infant sprinkling, throw away footwashing ceremony before the Eucharist, grab the bread and wine of John 13 and claiming that it is the real body of Christ and His real blood and hand it exclusively to clerics of the church as a kind of salvation empowerment, to the point of vicarius filii dei = 666, substitute for the son of God. Canon is what the Bible said, the councils of the church, the decrees of the papacy and the tradition of the Church Fathers. All are Canon of Faith and all demand strict adherence to what the church [post-biblical period] claims and expects from people. Authority of the Word of God is more outside the Word of God than in the Word of God. They claim that God did not stop talking to Holy men when John died in 97 CE. God kept talking afterwards until now and the pope is the Vicar of Christ or Vicar of the son of God as synonym. Especially popular in Vatican hymns to the pope is the first title but popes in the middle ages did claim the second title by using fake documents like the Donation of Constantine to establish their authority on earth as Christ has authority in heaven. Canon by a catholic is different than what we have in mind here of what canon is.

Then there is the case of saying something but doing something else. Many Protestant churches say with their mouths they are following Sola Scriptura as we have in mind here, but they still cling to Sunday keeping, infant baptism, no footwashing ceremony at the Eucharist, transubstantiation (Lutherans) and many other extra-biblical practices. Theory and Practice differs. In theory they claim to be biblical but in practice they fall short of the literal, explicit very words of the text. Readers yes, but readers who prefer to be blind with tradition of their Reformers who started their churches.

But life is more complex than that, knowing that the Bible said they are wrong but just because a large quantity in their denomination are all doing it contra the Word of God, and just because a famous Reformer in their tradition did the same, they write it off as possibly not so important, because others are doing it. Then there is the complex case, of someone who belongs to the tradition which keeps the word of God exactly, literal, fundamental as it reads symbol for symbol, allegory for allegory, literal for literal, like the Seventh-day Adventists, but knowing the correct understanding, they refuse to do it, saying that they can work on Sabbath, contra the Bible, since they need the money to live. Therefore they keep their supermarket open on Sabbaths. This dishonesty between theory and practice, this mismatch between the two, is not only in Sunday keeping denominations, it is also in Seventh-day Adventism.

Canon

In Seventh-day Adventist perspective it seems that the Bible is indicating that the canon started with the Word of God to Adam and Eve in the Garden of Eden. Every time He spoke that what He said was added to the canon of what He said to others before. Reiteration of what He said, became Word of God in progress. It grew and from a large library of others who also wrote, the Holy Spirit, after careful consideration, selected only those books He is satisfied will be good as a rule of faith. The methodology with which Seventh-day Adventists approach the canon is not from outside in but inductively to the outside. The church stood outside the formation of the canon. Men and not angels wrote the scriptures book by book, but it was the Holy Spirit who selected the books and number of the books and who concluded the canon. So for SDA's the church and its role in selecting this book or that book to be in or out, is nullified. What the church may have done, and what we have fragmented data on, with bits here and there about the issues of inclusion and exclusion, is that they could but just recognized what was already canon for centuries. They merely conform to what was known already throughout the history of Israel. That makes the church's decisions, councils, decrees, results, secondary and not primary. Inductively, they play no role unless they support the inductive reading of the Word of God. That simply means that the Catholic church cannot dictate or prescribe or decree on what should be considered the Word of God and what not. Outside the black covers of the minimal Bibles of Protestants, the decisions of councils, decrees, church fathers, popes are null and void.

History of the canon

A number of scholars have said something about the problems with the history of the canon. That history, namely how our Bible books were selected in the past, is based firstly on vague authorities and the dates also are not clear (J. K. West, Introduction to the Old Testament page 2). Then there is the case of Ferdinand Deist, the textual critic of Unisa in Pretoria South Africa, who died in the Netherlands, who said: "Ons beeld van die Middeleeue is vir ons geselekteer en geinterpreteer oorgedra" (F. Deist, Historiese Heuristiek, Teologiese Hermeneutiek en Skrifgesag" [1976]: 48 and footnote 77 where he cited G. Barraclough saying: "The history we read, though based on facts, is strictly speaking not factual actually but a series of accepted judgments". G. Berkhouwer was concerned about this vagueness of data in history when he cited J. L. Koole who said: "According to Koole, no one can point to a single authority or any specific point in time by which and when this orientation took place". Koole is right in our view since the Holy Spirit worked with men immediately after the product was finished, so that Moses books Genesis and Job were canonized in 1460 BCE in Midian as soon as Moses finished them. We use Paul's statement to Timothy to superimpose it on Moses works and thus come up with this scenario following strictly the textual chronology. But, as Koole said, there is no separate dealing with this giving us that information as a single event in point of time. We make the conclusion by bringing data together and link them legitimately.

The focus or orientation of Protestants and Catholics differ and gave two separate results on the issue of canon. The Protestant Bible is following the Vulgate in the order of the books but the Masoretic text in the content. SDA's are doing the same as Protestants.

Automatic canonization and mechanical canonization

A number of theologians favored the view of automatic canonization: A. Kuyper; Bavinck; Lengsfeld; Archer; Rowley; Rene Bloch. The mechanical canonization view is especially that of G. Berkhouwer (G. Berkhouwer, Holy Scripture [1975]: 70). These two terms refer to the spontaneous selfauthorization of the Word of God [automatic canonization] as opposed to the [mechanical canonization] the controlled forcing of respect. SDA's will have a view that contained both ideas: the Holy Spirit is the guide who leads everyone into the full truth, thus, the Spirit will take sometimes bold steps to force blind leaders to see the proper aspects of truth. It will all be textually clear by inductive reading. On the other hand, there is a growing respect just the mere fact that it is God speaking and it is the Word of God. The books of the men were accepted with respect since the community knew the men and their books and both were accepted equally with respect. In the absence of the men of God, their books still spoke and the Holy Spirit will continue to refer all back to these books and that process is the canonization process. J. Danielou accepted also both processes (J. Danielou, The Theology of Jewish Christianity Vol. I, page 46).

Bartmans also talked about both processes and distinguished them by two Latin terms: quod se and quod nos. The first term refers to the essence of canonization based on Holy Inspiration and the second term refers to the canonization by the church.

Canon denier

J. West declared that "Scripture. . . were not, therefore, a precisely defined body of literature absolutely set apart from all other literature but a central body of material, the Torah, which from the time of Ezra had remained fixed . . . surrounded by other interpretative materials of varying degrees of importance and authority" (J. West, Introduction to the Old Testament, 433). Our comment is that there is absolutely no evidence for what West is saying here. It is a mere surmise on his part, an opinion. To say that the books of Moses, Genesis to Deuteronomy was not fixed around 1411 BCE, shortly before the entry to Canaan, is high speculation. This is the kind of speculation that one find with neo-orthodoxy which is a warm-up of Higher Criticism of the Enlightenment era based on Rationalism which started earlier and which almost killed Pietism.

F. Deist and E. Tov are two textual critics who laud the Qumran findings as demonstrating to us that there was no fixed canon at Qumran and that a fluidity of texts existed then. Our research of more than a decade going over their data, indicate so many problems with their results that it is not possible to hold that view of Deist and Tov any longer. In fact, as Tov admitted, despite his multiplicity of texts theory for the Second Temple period (1993), is that 60% of the texts follow the contours of the consonantal text of the Masoretic tradition. The fact that 40% shows in their variants and deviations correspondences with the later Byzantine LXX or Syriac, or Coptic, or Targumim or Latin Vulgate, is not proof that these versions had a much earlier history stretching into the Second Temple Era. No, just the opposite, degenerative texts full of slips of the tongue, ear, eye, hand, memory fell into later hands that served as Vorlages to the Vulgate, Syriac, Targumim, Coptic translations and Byzantine Greek texts. Bookburning decrees, library thefts, library building by the Romans and Greeks, all led to the problem of availability of good texts. So the modern paradygm of textual criticism concerning the Qumran corpus, the canon of the Second Temple period and condition of texts from Qumran cannot be valid. Therefore we suggest our alternative paradygm.

Confessionalism and canonization

Deist et al want to limit the role of textual criticism in allocating the Canon, but in our view, not necessarily the SDA view, since this researcher do not know what there viewpoint is here, is that textual criticism of a correct paradygm can be productive in demarcating the content barriers and sifting what is proper from what is improper. It can further assist in noticing how complete, how accurate, the originals were preserved at Qumran, and in doing so, can help to ground the conviction that automatic canonization played a large part in the past. Deist and Berkhouwer felt that the role of confessionalism should not be underestimated (G. Berkhouwer, Holy Scripture page 72 footnote 11). Berkhouwer wants to make a distinction between confessional theory and ecclesiastical practice. The confession of the researcher will determine for him in advance the baggage of axioms he will abide by and that will determine his methodology and finally his end-product or opinion.

Berkhouwer's comment on a neo-orthoxian attitude to the problem of the canon is well to cite in full:

"He who approaches the canon from a perspective which sharply differentiate between the divine and the human, will not even recognize the validity of speaking about a canonical problem for in such a view the divine rules out the possibility of a problem. The result is the apparent failure to appreciate the fact that human considerations did play a large role in the formation of the canon" (G. Berkhouwer, Holy Scripture, page 72).

In the SDA view, the role of confession cannot be canceled for the early period since Moses. Books of the canon became in those days since 1411 BCE, part of the growing developing canon when it was considered by the functionaries of the tabernacle and the faithful people as useful for faith and worship. There was an intrinsic worth of the books that help and assisted them to be accepted as canon.

Providence and canon

Abraham Kuyper wanted to see the origin of the canon as the "Providence of God as the key to the process of the canon" (G. Berkhouwer, Holy Scripture, page 74 footnote 20). Berkhouwer already accepted Kuyper's view when he mentioned supra that one's view of the divine role will shape one's view of the origin of the canon. Seventh-day Adventists from their inception believed in the providential role of God in bringing together and safeguarding His Word.

A. van Selms said: "Die Goddelike gesag en dus die kanonieke karakter, besit die boek van sy onstaan af, ten minste as ons aanvaar dat dit deur God geinspireer is" (Unisa Gids, Bybelkunde I [1973]: 8).

van wyk translates: "The divine authority and thus the canonical character, the book has since its inception, at least if we accept that it was inspired by God".

Dates for the canonical process

When I first worked on this problem for prof. dr. Hennie Dreyer of the Departement of Semitics at Unisa before the date he looked at my results on the 29th of August 1980, I had the view that no dates can be given for the canonization of the books. I no longer hold that view since we do know when the Pentateuch was completed and that was shortly before the entry into Canaan in 1410 BCE. If we thus say that the Pentateuch was completed and canonized before 1411 BCE, we would not be far off. Biblical chronology can supply us with information when it was canonized.

Order differences between the Septuagint [Greek] and

Masoretic text or Hebrew text

First of all we need to say that the Septuagint we have today is a rescued one that was actually based on the errors and degenerative texts at Qumran or similar texts and not the original Septuagint made in 287 BCE in Alexandria. The consensus reconstruction of the byzantine Greek text was given an LXX etiquet and this fact is very important when we deal with the concept of Septuagint or LXX for comparison. We do not have the original and as J. Wevers said in his introduction to Septuagint Genesis of the Gottingen edition, that he does not harbor the illusion that he has reconstructed the original LXX.

The Byzantine Septuagint divided the books according to subjects: Legal books, History books, Poetry and Wisdom literature, Prophetic books, Additions to history books (G. L. Archer, A Survey of the Old Testament, Introduction [1978]: 66-67).

The Masoretic text or the Hebrew text gives it as a tripartite division: Torah, Prophets and Writings.

Problems with G. Archer's view of Canon

Archer's first problem has to do with methodology. He tried to use apocrypha data to proof that the biblical text is canonically a tripartite division. It is indeed a tripartite division, but one cannot use the apocrypha, faulty and errorful sources, to proof the truth.

The second problem is the origin and development of the Torah. According to Archer the Torah as canon is a growing one. Seventh-day Adventists agree with this statement in itself but specify that it grew from Genesis in 1460 BCE until Deuteronomy in 1411 BCE. There is no theory of an exilic composition of Deuteronomy by SDA's. Artificial Hegelianism of a Wellhausenian kind do not find any place in SDA terminology. They are not neo-orthodoxian, the are fundamentalists of the kind that James Barr found offensive. The Torah was according to Archer, already canonized in 850 BCE. Way too late for Adventists. It helped then at that time to form the prophetic literature and the growth of the wisdom literature. Wisdom literature was growing, prophetic literature was growing and the Torah as well. The development is consequential but also contemporaneous.

Rene Bloch and the problems of his view of canon

Bloch is of the opinion that the form of the Old Testament was completed between the completion of the Temple and the Maccabean revolts. He saw the formation as a growing process. He came to his conclusion by comparing the Canon with Jewish Midrash. He wrote an article on this subject. He concluded: "The post-exilic writers were not content to reproduce and reune the texts by simply espousing the thought which they expressed. The reflection of hte new authors was a response to the text which they used; it developed enriched and transposed the original message" (Bloch in his article on Midrash).

Adventists do believe that Midrash can help us understand the growth of the content of the Bible, but although later authors used the earlier sources that were canon in themselves as prooftexts for their own preaching, it was never the intention of any of these authors to say something new, or to nullify what others said before. It was their intention to say nothing more than what was said, or to make explicit that was implicitly embedded in the original text of the Torah. Silly conclusions by neo-orthodox scholars are for example the notion that the Rebellion in Heaven Motif is a later invention from Persian Zoroastrainism. It is already present in Genesis 3 (1460 BCE) with the snake and its' attack on pure humanity. The theme is embedded throughout scripture and sometimes implicit and sometimes explicit and a citing of these aspects may look like new information but on closer scrutiny says no more than what was already said, unless God revealed to a later prophet more information of certain earlier aspects that was known before but not written down as such.

Fixation of the Old Testament Canon

There are differing theories as to the fixation of the Old Testament Canon. For a date of the conclusion of the canon there are limited data (G. Berkhouwer, Holy Scripture [1975]: 69 footnote 3). Koole said that no one can give a date. Kurt Aland complains that the external standards for discrimination is not good enough (Berkhouwer, 1975: 76 footnote 27). Some pointed to the council of Jamnia in 90 CE as the date for the fixation of the Canon but Archer called this council "hypothetical" (G. Archer, A Study of the Old Testament I [1978]: 79). Ferdinand Deist also declared with others that it is a mistake to look for a specific date for the fixation of the canon (F. Deist, Towards the Text of the Old Testament, 261 footnote 9). SDA's do not agree with these pessimists on the date for the canonization of the books of the Old Testament. With G. Berkhouwer, A. Kuyper, Lengsfeld, Archer, Bloch, West, one can say that the books received canonization the moment they were received. The intrinsic value of the books led systematically to the position that the books claimed respect until it developed into an authoritative model. When the Jamnia council later decided what to leave in or out of certain books, it was on the basis of feelings of both the faithful and the scholars. My view is that the council actually only revived a forgotten canon concept due to the creation of so many trash literature during the Hellenistic period in Alexandria at that Library, as we are informed completely M. Frazer in his 1970 book, Ptolemaic Alexandria, Notes.

Problem books or Antilegomena

Certain books like Ezechiel, Esther, Ecclessiastis, Qoheleth, Proverbs, gave problems for the council to decide. Later in the 2nd century CE we have information in the Mishnah of these problems. The Gemara talks about a problem with Ezechiel. These discussions were only between the disciples of Shammai and Hillel. This dispute have a tradition of their own that can be traced back between the Sadducees and Pharisees in Jesus' day (Unisa, Guide 2, Judaica 0001 by mr. C. Packter, pages 3-10).

The Apocrypha is problematic, starting with the textual history of each text. Stability in textual formation of these texts should first be established before the literature is analyzed. In 170 CE, long after John completed the Biblical Canon in 97 CE, a bishop Mileto of Sardis made a list and left out Lamentations, Esther and the Apocrypha. Origen in 254 CE had 22 books. Eusebius used the same list as Josephus (Ecclesiastical History 6.25). Tertullian in 160-250 CE, had 24 books. Archer explains about Augustine that he was once in an argument with someone and that person wanted to cite from 2 Maccabees to support his own argument but Augustine said:

"His cause must be weak if he had to resort to a book not in the same category as those received and accepted by the Jews" (G. Archer, A Study of the Old Testament I, 75).

The lists by these church fathers only serve to illustrate how problematic the canon situation was. But, as true as Adventists accept Augustine to be on this answer of his, A. D. R. Polman warned us about Augustine that not all scholars accepts the positions of Augustine since his data is not systematic, displays development and consists of a mixture of other truths (Polman, De Praedestinatieleer van Augustinus [1936]: 26-27). On page 202 says Polman: "De Augustiniaansche erfenis word noch door de kerk noch door de theologen ten volle aanvaard . . . in de theologisch reflectie en synodale beslissingen treedt afwijking of negatie met leidende krachte op". Thus, neither the church nor the scholars accepted Augustine fully.

In conclusion

In conclusion Seventh-day Adventists will say that Jamnia did not decide for us what is canon but only registered the canon that was already accepted as such through all the centuries. Canonizing of books is closely linked to the functional value that the faithful remnant enjoyed with the books through all the centuries. About the functional importance for canon, G. Berkhouwer also said something in Holy Scripture page 87.

There is no difference between a pope who declares himself the right to reject the Word of God given to us in the Sola Scriptura minimal canon and who wants to invent his own doctrines contra that canon and then go on to say that it is also part of the continued or extended canon - and a Seventh-day Adventist who accepted theoretically the Word of God in the form of Sola Scriptura as Protestants taught, but who in practice breaks the Sabbath by opening his/her Supermarket to do shopping on His Holy day. Both brush aside the Word of God. Both use themselves and their experience and existence as the key for evaluation, setting up doctrines. Both are equally blind.