Channels, Spring 2019

Channels • 2019 • Volume 3 • Number 2 Page 3 understood “canon” is by using this term to describe any book that carries authority in a faith community. This does not discriminate between books that were in the closed list or those that were outside the list. This view sees canon in two parts: “canon 1” is a group of authoritative books that includes both those that made it into “canon 2” (the Hebrew Bible), and those that were not included in canon 2 or the closed collection (1 Enoch or Ben Sira for example). 12 “When the collection is considered to be merely ‘Scripture’ (canon 1), it means that books can be added and taken away from the collection, since the borders are porous; when they turn into a canon, it means that no books can be taken out of the collection or added to it.” 13 Another view that is expressed by Eugene Ulrich sees canon 1 as “the canonical process” and canon 2 as the final collection. 14 Ulrich argues for a dichotomy between the entire compositional process and the finalization of the Hebrew Bible. Both of these views understand that the composition and authorship of these books took place outside of the context of ‘canon 2’: the final collection of the Hebrew Bible. However, both views fail to recognize that the biblical authors did not write their own books within a vacuum. They wrote their books knowing that they were writing Scripture and were therefore adding to and interacting with a collection. The idea of intertextuality, the knowledge of previous Scripture, and especially the compositional seams that bind the books together, do not lend themselves to a dichotomy between the canonical process and the final form of the Hebrew Bible. 15 It follows then, that these views understand that arranging these books into a formalized collection had to have occurred after the final composition of each individual book. “In other words... the fixing or scope of the canon is late, possibly very late, so its limits could not be organically connected to the formation of the literature as a collection.” 16 Brevard Childs offers a better understanding of these textual features. 17 For Childs, the Hebrew Bible already had a conceptual collection of books at the same time that authors were writing Scripture. “The Hebrew canon looks like a grove of trees that have grown up together in a complex symbiotic relationship (canon 1) until they finally reach maturity (canon 2).” 18 As the books were individually written, they were understood as authoritative, and were at the same time “composed, redacted, and compiled” in terms of their relationship with each other as a collection. 19 In this way, authors of biblical books wrote in light of previous Scripture bound within the collection that was recognized by the faith community. These books were then composed to fit together to form a singular unit with a unified theological message. 20 12 Ibid. These books were considered authoritative, but the faith community did not include them in the closed list. In this way they did not see these as inspired texts, but they were helpful for understanding the inspired texts and were therefore considered to be important books for the community. 13 Ibid., 5. 14 Eugene Ulrich, “The Notion and Definition of Canon,” in The Canon Debate (ed. Lee M. McDonald and James A. Sanders; Peabody, MA: Hendrickson, 2002) 31. 15 Biblical authors built upon the theology of the canon by quoting and developing the theology of previous Scripture. The Prophets quoted and built upon the theology of the Law, and the Writings built upon what the Prophets had spoken. The New Testament goes on the describe the theology of the OT by describing how Jesus is the Messiah. 16 Steinberg and Stone, “The Historical Formation of the Writings in Antiquity”, 5. 17 Brevard Childs, Introduction to the Old Testament as Scripture (Minneapolis: Fortress, 1979) 50-58 18 Steinberg and Stone, “The Historical Formation of the Writings in Antiquity”, 5. 19 Ibid., 9. 20 These statements do concede that there were multiple editions of the final form of the Hebrew Bible for different communities of faith. What this paper seeks to demonstrate is that the explanation for