The general idea is clear for modern Bibles. I don’t dispute that these manuscripts do provide important information regarding the canon (which I will discuss later), but the basic methodological issue I want to highlight here is that manuscripts are not canon lists. Scholars studying the biblical canon have routinely discussed biblical manuscripts as important sources-whether we’re talking about the Dead Sea Scrolls or the Greek biblical pandects from the fourth century CE ( Vaticanus, Sinaiticus). My contention is that we are on the safest ground in determining which books ancient people considered canonical when they explicitly tell us which books they considered canonical. But first I want to clarify why I think the canon lists are important by explaining why other possible (and frequently cited) sources of information for the biblical canon can be misleading in that regard. In this essay, I want to discuss some of the difficulties in interpreting the biblical canon lists that have been preserved for us from Late Antiquity. Nevertheless, despite the difficulties of interpreting biblical canon lists, they do provide our surest guide to what an ancient person considered canonical. That fact makes it a little difficult to interpret correctly the contents of someone’s biblical canon, certainly an ancient someone’s biblical canon, even when they list its contents for us. As I said, the biblical canon-the identity of the authoritative books-is really an idea in someone’s head. These differences are sometimes reflected in the physical Bibles they use, but, as we shall see, not always. But, of course, today there is not just one canon, but multiple different Christian groups sometimes have different biblical canons. When biblical scholars use the word “canon,” they refer to the collection of Scriptures that Jews or Christians consider have binding authority. The biblical canon is an idea, a concept that exists inside someone’s head. See Also: The Biblical Canon Lists from Early Christianity: Texts and Analysis (Oxford University Press, 2019).Īssociate Professor of Christian Scripture But lists of quoted books, even lists of books quoted as scripture, are not the same as canon lists. Ancient Jews and Christians quoted the Bible a lot, and these quotations provide extremely helpful information regarding the development of the biblical canon.
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