THE IDEA OF CANONIZATION

At some point during the early history of rabbinic Judaism there emerged a tripartite Hebrew Bible known by the Hebrew acronym TaNak, which stands for Torah, Neviim, Ketuvim, that is, Pentateuch, Prophets, Writings. This was similar to but different from the first testament of the double-testament Greek Bibles being used at the same time in Christian communities throughout the Graeco-Roman world. The exact date is difficult to determine; however, thanks to the recovery of the Judaean Desert Scrolls since the mid-twentieth century, the process that led to the stabilization of the tripartite Jewish canon into a certain number of books in a certain order is now clearer.

Before a study of the Scrolls began to have an effect on the understanding of the history of the formation of the TaNak, general agreement prevailed from the beginning of the twentieth century until its fourth quarter, stemming from work completed in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries showing that the Torah was “canonized” by approximately 400 bce and the Prophets by approximately 200 bce, and that the Writings were canonized by a council of rabbis meeting in the Palestinian coastal town of Yavneh (Jamnia) toward the end of the first century ce. This view emerged because of the perspectives demanded in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries by the developing critical methods of studying the history of the Bible’s formation in the West. That history, whether seen as beginning with ancient documents or with oral traditions, had to have an end; with “the Bible” in hand, it would help explain why this and not other literature was included in “the canon,” which only the final product could be called.